Wani Family and Construction Techniques

Sami has an extensive network of family and friends. He stays in touch with them by cell phone mostly, along with short visits and long cricket matches. He is with some of his cricket buddies here. Sami and his posse. Sami was considering a professional cricket career before he decided on physiotherapy, and he still loves and is very good at the game. But he doesn't get to play very often. Maybe once a month in the summer. Last year he started up a cricket tournament as a fundraiser, with Rob Buchanan's help. A cricket bat signed by the New Zealand cricket team is the trophy. Sami's team won. There is nothing that would make Sami happier than having a cricket jersey from the New Zealand cricket team. I have no idea how to do this for him. Cricket is an obsession with all Indians, and all Kashmiris. That is one thing they all have in common. As soon as any male over the age of 10 hears I am from New Zealand, they ask me: "Do you know such and so?" I have learned to answer "He's a cricket player, right?" Having grown up in the US, cricket was not a game I came to know until I moved to New Zealand. I am gradually learning it more, but spectator sports in general are really low on my priority list. I would rather read the Koran.


One of Sami's brothers is Tariq. He is not involved in the Hope Centre as Tahir is, and Sami's sister Shabnum. So I haven't mentioned him in my blog. He has the cutest daughter - they call her Tabu. She was quite shy around me at first, but gradually warmed up once she had seen me a few times, and we played peek-a-boo one night. That broke the ice.


























The new Wani House Sami's father is a construction contractor, and he has been gradually working on a new house for the family. In late June the concrete roof was being poured, and it was a big event. The Wani family hired a wazwan chef to cook up a selection of special dishes - and neighbours and family were invited to come and celebrate the pouring of the concrete roof. The wazwan chef worked in what appears to be a former kitchen in the Wani house. With help from relatives.


















I went over to check out the roof progress, and saw that the workers were the Biharis again. It amazes me how they do this heavy labour all day long in the heat. But knowing from experience how a person's body can accomplish tremendous feats with training and experience, it should really not surprise me at all. It takes two people to get a basket of gravel or wet concrete up on a labourer's head.






































































And then they had to climb up makeshift stairs carrying those loads. One of the boys seemed too young for this work - to my inexperienced eyes, anyway.
















































Once on top of the roof, other workers spread and leveled and smoothed the concrete over the wire mesh.


















In this photo, notice the house in the background with the attic open to the air. Most of the houses are built this way - this is where dried oats and other animal feed is stored for the winter.
















Shop Shelves
Progress on the Hope Shop continues. Funding has come in to pay for the carpenters to build the shelving for the shop, and they have arrived to do their work. These two guys built a whole wall of shelves in one day, out of a couple sheets of plywood and using nothing but hand tools. That's pretty good, in my opinion. But then, I am not a carpenter. They came back the next day and built more shelves and a desk.






















The Indian military guy doesn't have much to do, so he hung around and charged up his cell phone. The military are everywhere at this time of year. Protecting the Hindu tourists and pilgrims, I have been told. No one protects the Kashmiris from them, though. Under martial law, the military can do anything it wants. Since 1990 the state of Kashmir has been under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives the military special powers. These include the right to use deadly force and raid any premises without a warrant. Plus, army officers have legal immunity for their actions. There can be no prosecution, suit or any other legal proceeding against anyone acting under that law. Think of the implications of that, just for a moment.
This has been going on for 19 years now!!!

And then there is the draconian Public Safety Act, which authorizes police to detain people for up to two years without trial, with no contact with family or lawyers.

Imagine just for a moment what it would be like if Mexican military were on every corner in the US, or Chinese military on every corner in New Zealand, with these kinds of repressive laws in place. What would you do?