No Range Day

We were supposed to go to the shooting range with the local guards today, but we were discouraged by the rain that was still continuing in the morning. The road to the range as well as the area itself would more than likely been too soft for our vehicles. The rain continued, and I went to my quarters to read A Brief History of Time - the illustrated edition, by Stephen Hawking. Interesting, but not very entertaining. After lunch a man appeared at our gate with a letter. He said that his house had been destroyed by the rain last night. His daughter had been injured and was taken to hospital, and that his family of seven now had nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat and nothing to drink. He himself worked as a cart man (i.e. he transports goods from place to place with a cart) and he is so poor that he can not provide for his family. He also said that he had been to the governors office and asked for help there, but they had given him no help. Instead they had offered to translate his letter to them from Dari to English, and directed him to ask for help from us. He said that two other houses had also been destroyed.

We don't do humanitarian aid, but we decided to go have a look. Three destroyed houses might be worth reporting, and going there would also send a signal to the governor's office. The risk is always that if we help one, the rumour will spread and there will be a thousand poor men at our gate. Still, we packed a bag with blankets, shoes, raincoats, flashlights and some drinking water. Not that it would do any help, but it's a kind gesture.

The place was a little difficult to find and we had to ask around. Finally, the man from the gate came running and showed us to his house. The yard had been covered in a mud slide and the roof of his two-room mud hut had been punctured by water. The floor was so soft that my boots were in mud to the ankle. About thirty people gathered in the yard, all speaking loudly. The donkey and the dog that were on tight leaches in the yard looked as miserable as the people. The air was stinking of mud, urine and dung. We climbed up to the two other houses, but they had only minor damages. However, they were built in a location in which a number of huge rocks, which would probably be loosened by the next heavy rain or earthquake, would certainly crush the houses to the ground. The people said that they would not have built there had they had the money to build elsewhere. In one of the houses there was a cave, built into the clay mountain, with a room about 1,5 by 3 metres, and barely high enough for me to stand in. The entrance to the cave had no door and was no narrow that I had to go in sideways. There was, funnily enough, electricity and a lamp in there, but the floor was muddy. In that cave lived 25 people, they said. I asked the IP to repeat the number, and he repeated "25".