Well, I can still see my breath in my house, but it is no longer painful! Spring looks like it may come early this year, but you never know what is around the corner. The BBC is still calling for snow. We shall see. In the meantime, over 1000 people have died as a result of the coldest winter on record in Afghanistan, and over 300,000 livestock have died, with as of yet unknown repercussions. Here are a couple of links to download video of this Afghan winter.
Last week, a friend, "F", who runs a kindergarten here called and asked me to see a couple of siblings of one of her students (ages 3 and 1.5). She said that their hands and feet were black and swollen from frostbite and one had a blister that was open. My heart froze, and the chill ran through my entire body as I thought of having to take small children to the hospital to have their fingers and toes cut off. I gathered all I thought I would need to try to thaw them out, along with some ibuprofen and codeine for the pain. As soon as I walked into the room, I could tell it was an extremely poor family. They had next to nothing. And there is a certain smell that a room picks up with the family is poor. I can't describe it. I call it the smell of poverty. It is the same smell that was in the orphanage I worked in in China. It is a smell that I am becoming more and more familiar with.
F brought them some cushions to sleep on and a blanket and some coal for heat. I brought a thermos of warm water to thaw out the children (it takes fuel to heat water and I was afraid that they wouldn't even have that.)
I looked at their little hands and feet. They were black, and they were icy, but they didn't seem as bad as they had been described. F said that they weren't as bad as when she had seen them earlier. So, I gave them both some medicine, and placed their hands and feet int he warm water. I also took out a bar of soap to wash them (some of the black was simply dirt). As we waited for them to thaw, I passed out gummy bears to all of the children (lost count when the whole family was in the room), and we sang children's songs to them in both English and Dari, and told stories. When the two that I was treating started to cry, I went to plan B and brought out the beanie babies I had brought them. They really enjoyed that too.
It takes a long time to thaw frozen body parts, so as we continued to wait, I went around the room to feel everyone else's toes and fingers...There were at least 6 children and 4 adults in the room (the size of an American bathroom!), and not a single one of them had a pair of socks...need i remind you that the average temperature during the day in the month of January did not get above the teens? It was too late to address that issue, but the next day, we sent them all socks and gloves. We also reinforced that once the children's fingers and toes were thawed, they had to keep them warm, or it would be even worse, and they would lose them.
In the Afghan culture you are not supposed to say anything bad may or will happen. They think it will cause it to happen, and if they do say it, they preface it with KhudA nakuna (God forbid!) But I have found that they simply will not follow my instructions unless I scare them into it. So, I told them that if their hands froze again, they could get infected and would lose them and if they weren't cut off in time, they could die. Harsh, but true. I can only hope they listened. When we left, the little fingers and toes were warm and pink. God was smiling on those children that night. I have no other explanation.
Today, as I was walking to the office, I GOT HOT! I couldn't believe it! The sun was shining and I got hot! There is hope.
Showing posts with label Winter woes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winter woes. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Winter part three-the never ending story
Yesterday, I was sitting on cushions, with two heaters on, and I could still see my breath. There was no electricity, and our water had finally frozen. I hit rock bottom. I can't imagine how it must be for the Afghans who can never get warm. Our guard came in with a blow torch and heated our pipes for about 30 minutes, seemingly to no avail, but a couple of hours later, we suddenly had water again! Today we had running water and electricity the whole day! A blessing without precedent!
How do you walk with the poor when you are not one of them? This is the question I have been asking myself the past week, as things have gone from bad to worse. The Afghan people have made great strides in trying to move forward after generations of wars and tribal conflict. But, they hang by a precarious thread. They have a little now for basic survival, but there is still nothing in reserve. Any disaster can take them down, and that is what we are seeing now.
What does poor mean in this society? My friend and I went looking for the poor the other day. We have a fund set up in America to use to buy food, medical care, blankets and heating fuel for the poorest of the poor. There are many poor here, but there are some who are simply desperate. We asked local Afghans to introduce us to the people that they think are poor.
My friend's house helper picked out two families. We went to the first and saw a weird scene. It was almost like it had been set up. (Yes, there are people here who would scam a foreigner to get whatever they can). It was a concrete house (you really want to live in a mud house here, warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer). There was no heat what-so-ever. It was absolutely frigid! It was a widow, with nine other people in her house, including two healthy working age sons. Now, at the moment, it is difficult to get a job, but if you are desperate to eat, there are some things you can do. We asked what they needed, and they said everything, and the quantities that they asked for were huge. We looked around though, and there were two chickens in the yard, two bicycles, and a small generator. That doesn't sound like much from a western standpoint, but there are people now who are tearing up every scrap of wood they can find to heat their house, and their children are starving. This family was not that desperate. If they were, they could sell the generator, the bicycles, and they could eat the chickens.
We went to the next house. This family was different. There were two families living in two rooms of a house. In one room, there was a woman, her husband, who was disabled from kidney problems, and two children. The other room housed a widow, her daughter and several children. This is the room in which we sat. Two of the children sat in the coldest corner. One slept while the other looked at us with big haunted eyes. As we spoke with the woman, she said that she peels chickpeas for 20 afghanis a bag (40 cents). This will buy bread for her family, but not much else. Suddenly, a metallic cough rang out from the little girl, which went right through my bones, then the tell tale whoop during the intake of air, which indicates whooping cough. Yes, this family was hard up. We made a list of things to bring them, including antibiotics for the children.
The third family we visited was recommended to us by my house helper. There was an older woman, her son, his wife and their 1 1/2 year old daughter. The man was out, presumably looking for work. They lived in the basement of their landlord. It was about 14 feet by 7 feet. They owned nothing but a teapot and the clothes on their back. Their neighbors had loaned them a little gas bottle to cook on, and a carpet to keep the cold from seeping in through the dirt floor. They had just moved here from Bamian (the city with the ancient Buddha statues that the Taliban destroyed in 2001). We asked why they moved away from their qaom (relatives...all Afghans live in a neighborhood surrounded by family). They said they heard that it would be better in the city. I don't know what drove them to think this, but it was so strong, that they hitched a ride on a potato truck and sat on bags of frozen potatoes for probably two days of driving. They were desperately poor. We also made a list of things to bring them, including cushions for the floor, so they are not sleeping on the bare cold floor, one more blanket (two had already been donated), and some basic food necessities to get them through a few weeks. (Usually this includes flour, rice, kidney beans, and oil). We also ask neighbors to pitch in with what they can, a cooked meal, a bag of potatoes, an extra floor cushion... We cannot save Afghanistan, but if we work with the Afghans and show them that they can help their own country, it is a step forward. Hopefully in the process, we are alleviating some of the suffering.
How do you walk with the poor when you are not one of them? This is the question I have been asking myself the past week, as things have gone from bad to worse. The Afghan people have made great strides in trying to move forward after generations of wars and tribal conflict. But, they hang by a precarious thread. They have a little now for basic survival, but there is still nothing in reserve. Any disaster can take them down, and that is what we are seeing now.
What does poor mean in this society? My friend and I went looking for the poor the other day. We have a fund set up in America to use to buy food, medical care, blankets and heating fuel for the poorest of the poor. There are many poor here, but there are some who are simply desperate. We asked local Afghans to introduce us to the people that they think are poor.
My friend's house helper picked out two families. We went to the first and saw a weird scene. It was almost like it had been set up. (Yes, there are people here who would scam a foreigner to get whatever they can). It was a concrete house (you really want to live in a mud house here, warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer). There was no heat what-so-ever. It was absolutely frigid! It was a widow, with nine other people in her house, including two healthy working age sons. Now, at the moment, it is difficult to get a job, but if you are desperate to eat, there are some things you can do. We asked what they needed, and they said everything, and the quantities that they asked for were huge. We looked around though, and there were two chickens in the yard, two bicycles, and a small generator. That doesn't sound like much from a western standpoint, but there are people now who are tearing up every scrap of wood they can find to heat their house, and their children are starving. This family was not that desperate. If they were, they could sell the generator, the bicycles, and they could eat the chickens.
We went to the next house. This family was different. There were two families living in two rooms of a house. In one room, there was a woman, her husband, who was disabled from kidney problems, and two children. The other room housed a widow, her daughter and several children. This is the room in which we sat. Two of the children sat in the coldest corner. One slept while the other looked at us with big haunted eyes. As we spoke with the woman, she said that she peels chickpeas for 20 afghanis a bag (40 cents). This will buy bread for her family, but not much else. Suddenly, a metallic cough rang out from the little girl, which went right through my bones, then the tell tale whoop during the intake of air, which indicates whooping cough. Yes, this family was hard up. We made a list of things to bring them, including antibiotics for the children.
The third family we visited was recommended to us by my house helper. There was an older woman, her son, his wife and their 1 1/2 year old daughter. The man was out, presumably looking for work. They lived in the basement of their landlord. It was about 14 feet by 7 feet. They owned nothing but a teapot and the clothes on their back. Their neighbors had loaned them a little gas bottle to cook on, and a carpet to keep the cold from seeping in through the dirt floor. They had just moved here from Bamian (the city with the ancient Buddha statues that the Taliban destroyed in 2001). We asked why they moved away from their qaom (relatives...all Afghans live in a neighborhood surrounded by family). They said they heard that it would be better in the city. I don't know what drove them to think this, but it was so strong, that they hitched a ride on a potato truck and sat on bags of frozen potatoes for probably two days of driving. They were desperately poor. We also made a list of things to bring them, including cushions for the floor, so they are not sleeping on the bare cold floor, one more blanket (two had already been donated), and some basic food necessities to get them through a few weeks. (Usually this includes flour, rice, kidney beans, and oil). We also ask neighbors to pitch in with what they can, a cooked meal, a bag of potatoes, an extra floor cushion... We cannot save Afghanistan, but if we work with the Afghans and show them that they can help their own country, it is a step forward. Hopefully in the process, we are alleviating some of the suffering.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Winter part two
I cannot describe the pain that winter has caused here. Last week, a building in our bazaar caught fire, it spread, consuming two of the biggest retail buildings in our city, and damaging 7 others. ISAF (the international security assistance force) came to help put out the blaze, but it was too far gone to save the two buildings. As a result, 500 people were directly put out of business, and tons of others were affected (for example the people who make the clothing that is sold in those stores, and the people who sell the fabric to make the clothing, etc...on down the line). If you would like to see pictures and hear news of this fire, paste this link into your browser: http://the-rumi.blogspot.com/2008/01/balkh-city-on-fire.html It has really devastated the city. When you drive or walk past, it looks like two burned skeletons and the shattered dreams of people who are just trying to make life better here.
There are all sorts of rumors that go around here when something like this happens. Some say it is the wrath and judgment of God against materialism. Others say it is certainly Al Qaeda or the Taliban. I think someone just got careless with their open flame gas heaters and poof the building went up in flames. There are no building or fire codes here, so of course there were no sprinklers or fire hydrants.
It sounds terrible that the laws haven't caught up here yet, but less than 100 years ago, The US was in the same boat. It took tragedies of children dying in factories to get child labor laws passed. Many people died in clothing factories and tenement fires before building and fire codes were passed into laws. These are Afghanistan's growing pains. Hopefully this suffering will not be in vain.
In the meantime, the cold seems to be unrelenting. We have managed to get a bit of a handle on it. Last night we hung parachute fabric on the inside of our door. You can still see your breath in our hall, but now, there isn't such and arctic blast coming in.
The cold managed to get me first though, and I am down with bronchitis and a sinus infection. So, since I can't smell, I didn't notice the gas leak in my room until my guard came in to change the gas bottle. He said, dear, I am very worried about you. The smell is bad. So, I called my two friends in and sure enough, it was bad. So I had to open up my room to the arctic and air it out. We didn't have electricity, but a dear friend had given me a battery operated fan for the summer, and it happened to be charged up and working! So, my room is now filled with fresh air, albeit cold.
They say that 14,000 sheep have died in the mountains. Simply froze. Also 200 people have died. In the States the sheep wouldn't be that big of a problem, because the government would come in and subsidize. But here, that means the shepherds are out of business, and thousands of people will not have meat to eat in the spring.
As you go through your day, let me encourage you to count your blessings. Toilets that flush. Water that comes out of the faucet, furnaces that come on with the touch of a button, buildings with fire codes and sprinkler systems, and smoke detectors. Fire hydrants that actually have water and firemen who show up and sacrifice themselves to save others. Electricity that is powerful enough to run your refrigerator, hot water heater, electric blankets, computers, stoves, ovens and microwaves. Police who are upright and enforce the laws, instead of breaking them, the freedom of women to get into a car and drive anywhere at will. Grocery stores that are full of food, and jobs that provide enough to eat with. We truly are blessed.
There are all sorts of rumors that go around here when something like this happens. Some say it is the wrath and judgment of God against materialism. Others say it is certainly Al Qaeda or the Taliban. I think someone just got careless with their open flame gas heaters and poof the building went up in flames. There are no building or fire codes here, so of course there were no sprinklers or fire hydrants.
It sounds terrible that the laws haven't caught up here yet, but less than 100 years ago, The US was in the same boat. It took tragedies of children dying in factories to get child labor laws passed. Many people died in clothing factories and tenement fires before building and fire codes were passed into laws. These are Afghanistan's growing pains. Hopefully this suffering will not be in vain.
In the meantime, the cold seems to be unrelenting. We have managed to get a bit of a handle on it. Last night we hung parachute fabric on the inside of our door. You can still see your breath in our hall, but now, there isn't such and arctic blast coming in.
The cold managed to get me first though, and I am down with bronchitis and a sinus infection. So, since I can't smell, I didn't notice the gas leak in my room until my guard came in to change the gas bottle. He said, dear, I am very worried about you. The smell is bad. So, I called my two friends in and sure enough, it was bad. So I had to open up my room to the arctic and air it out. We didn't have electricity, but a dear friend had given me a battery operated fan for the summer, and it happened to be charged up and working! So, my room is now filled with fresh air, albeit cold.
They say that 14,000 sheep have died in the mountains. Simply froze. Also 200 people have died. In the States the sheep wouldn't be that big of a problem, because the government would come in and subsidize. But here, that means the shepherds are out of business, and thousands of people will not have meat to eat in the spring.
As you go through your day, let me encourage you to count your blessings. Toilets that flush. Water that comes out of the faucet, furnaces that come on with the touch of a button, buildings with fire codes and sprinkler systems, and smoke detectors. Fire hydrants that actually have water and firemen who show up and sacrifice themselves to save others. Electricity that is powerful enough to run your refrigerator, hot water heater, electric blankets, computers, stoves, ovens and microwaves. Police who are upright and enforce the laws, instead of breaking them, the freedom of women to get into a car and drive anywhere at will. Grocery stores that are full of food, and jobs that provide enough to eat with. We truly are blessed.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Winter
This is the coldest winter in Afghanistan in at least 10 years. It has even snowed in Herat and Kandahar, where there is usually no snow at all int he winter. They say that 60 people have died in Herat due to their roofs falling in from the heavy snow.
There is no such thing as central heat in Afghanistan. Most Afghans use something called a 'sandalee" to keep warm.
There are various forms of the sandalee. Traditionally, there is a small hole dug into the middle of the floor (easy to do when your floor is dirt). Hot coals are placed into the hole, then a table is placed over the hole and thick heavy blankets are placed over the table and overlap the cushions the people sit on. You sit on the cushions and put your body under the heavy blankets. It is a very quick way to get warm, but you can imagine the dangers. Almost every family has a story of a child rolling down into the coals and burning to death. Other children have suffocated under the heavy blankets, others have been the victim of CO poisoning.
Nowadays in the city, there are more sophisticated forms of the sandalee. The heat source may be put into a big metal bowl, so that children don't roll into the hole. Others use electric heat sources (though electricity is often scarce here). The problem is, that you cook and clean in an unheated room. Imagine washing dishes in water that is straight snow runoff and the temperature in the room is 25 F.
There are other forms of heat. There are old-timey type wood burning stoves like your great grandmother used, but for the most part, there is no wood in Afghanistan. There are diesel drip heaters. Basically diesel is in a can on the side, with a spigot. You turn the spigot on, diesel drips down a tube into a small barrel type container and you drop a match into it, and it slowly burns. I know many people who have had fires in their houses due to this type of heater. And, diesel in expensive. In the two weeks since I arrived, my roommate and I have spent over $60 in diesel. I have a German made diesel heater. It is basically the same principle, but a bit safer and more controlled. I also have a gas heater in my room. I have had fun dancing with the two heaters trying to make my room bearable. I get it to where I can function as long as I am wearing a lot of layers.
A few people have sawdust heaters. They tend to keep the room comfortable as long as they are burning properly.
All this to say. Winter is hard on the Afghans. Their hands and feet are always bright red and swollen with the cold. They spend most of their time being cold and only get warm when they have time to get under the sandalee.
I wonder if there is ever a time when Afghans are not suffering...
There is no such thing as central heat in Afghanistan. Most Afghans use something called a 'sandalee" to keep warm.
There are various forms of the sandalee. Traditionally, there is a small hole dug into the middle of the floor (easy to do when your floor is dirt). Hot coals are placed into the hole, then a table is placed over the hole and thick heavy blankets are placed over the table and overlap the cushions the people sit on. You sit on the cushions and put your body under the heavy blankets. It is a very quick way to get warm, but you can imagine the dangers. Almost every family has a story of a child rolling down into the coals and burning to death. Other children have suffocated under the heavy blankets, others have been the victim of CO poisoning.
Nowadays in the city, there are more sophisticated forms of the sandalee. The heat source may be put into a big metal bowl, so that children don't roll into the hole. Others use electric heat sources (though electricity is often scarce here). The problem is, that you cook and clean in an unheated room. Imagine washing dishes in water that is straight snow runoff and the temperature in the room is 25 F.
There are other forms of heat. There are old-timey type wood burning stoves like your great grandmother used, but for the most part, there is no wood in Afghanistan. There are diesel drip heaters. Basically diesel is in a can on the side, with a spigot. You turn the spigot on, diesel drips down a tube into a small barrel type container and you drop a match into it, and it slowly burns. I know many people who have had fires in their houses due to this type of heater. And, diesel in expensive. In the two weeks since I arrived, my roommate and I have spent over $60 in diesel. I have a German made diesel heater. It is basically the same principle, but a bit safer and more controlled. I also have a gas heater in my room. I have had fun dancing with the two heaters trying to make my room bearable. I get it to where I can function as long as I am wearing a lot of layers.
A few people have sawdust heaters. They tend to keep the room comfortable as long as they are burning properly.
All this to say. Winter is hard on the Afghans. Their hands and feet are always bright red and swollen with the cold. They spend most of their time being cold and only get warm when they have time to get under the sandalee.
I wonder if there is ever a time when Afghans are not suffering...
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