Noraseri – Tent Life

The rain which was started the day before yesterday and lasted for more than 30 hours had just stopped at midnight. The sky was still dark in the morning, and I had problem with my camera lens. I don’t know how to clean the lens, and because of overusing under the rain, the lens had vapors on it, and the pictures taken were not sharp. Any input from other photographers is expected.

The morning life is always hilarious in our camp. Everybody started the day by shaving the moustache (the Pakistanis prefer to use the plural form of the noun – moustaches, possibly mean the upper and lower part of the moustache, as it indeed means ‘two different parts’ – the men tend to preserver the upper and clean shave the lower), washing faces with the warm water, and brushing teeth with a stick of a certain tree. I prefer not to do anything to clean myself in this cold weather (learnt this bad habit from China), and pimples appeared in every single millimeter of my face.

The rain has brought some landslides. Yes, we are living in landslide area, where the great sound of the moving and flowing land is not anything strange. The sound of the flowing massive land accompanied our dream, as well as the chorus of the jackals from the mountains brought us to our dream land. You can imagine when the huge earthquake of October 8, 2005 came, when suddenly people in the villages were buried by flowing mountains. And the mountains were all huge. The landslides blocked the road as well. Mr Mahmood Gillani, the brother of the leader of the NGO had not come back from Islamabad yet, probably due to the road blocks.

Breakfast, the most awaited moment in the cold lazy weather, is usually started by paratta (fried roti – Pakistani bread) and fried eggs. The Pakistanis usually eat with hand; use the paratta to grab the egg. But Mr Aslam, still preserving some of his Yugoslavian habits, break the paratta into small pieces and then use the spoon the same way as he was eating rice. I learnt this method from this, and quite happy with this new habit.

Writing daily report is another ritual

Then came Muhammad Hussain, a guy of late twenties. He was introduced to me as Saval Shahab, or Mr Question (Saval in Urdu and soal in Indonesian both came from Arabic vocabulary, means question and problem) due to his hobby to ask questions. The topic today was about Buddhism. Hmm… quite heavy topic for morning discussion, heh?

Thought that the weather could be nicer later on that day, we decided to move on to the project fields. But just a few seconds after our departure, the rain started again and we were forced to go back to our tent. Most people were working anyway, so not many people in the tents, just Rashid and Sohail, and me. Three of us were not long time inhabitants of the camp, and we were lack of umbrellas. The rain didnt last long anyway, and the sky started to be clearer.

When everybody was coming back from work, it was the time to relax. And as everybody suggested, it was cricket time. Cricket is the most popular game in Pakistan and India, as it was also the tool to emphasize the national pride. And even here, in the mountainous hills in earthquake areas, the game must go on. The guys in our camp played cricket in the ground nearby. The ground itself just next to the ruble of a school, and the other side is a little cliff. Cricket is a game that the ball may fly everywhere, and as it’s expected, the part of picking the ball when it fell to the cliff is more exhausting than the work of balling, batting, running and catching itself. Some boys from the neighborhood also came to join. The people from the surrounding areas like to visit the camp, and it was indeed their hospitality.

When the sun went down we gathered in a tent. I raised a question about Ashura celebration of the Shiah sect which includes self-torturing (maatam). Rashid explained to me what the history of Hussain, of which some details arouse debates from other guys. The debates itself sound like a quarrel, in out-of-my-limit Punjabi vocabulary, so I chose to escape. But if I may summarize here, that the death of Hussain in Qarbala when he fought against Yaszid – the symbol of demoralization, sin, and evil deeds, was an example of how people in the God’s way has to fight against the evils. The troop of Hussain was merely 72 preachers, and Yaszid was much better equipped. And Hussain died, suffering from the arrows and pains in the war in the middle of dessert. The story itself includes several much deeper thinking, like the democracy and freedom that Hussain offered, the love to the God that he chose to delay the day of the war so that he could do a midnight prayers, the loyalty of the 72 people who chose to do the prayer without leaving Hussain and Allah, and what the world would be if Hussain never fought against Yaszid. This is the common understanding of both Sunni and shiah. But the maatam, self-torturing, is unique of Shiah, and the discussion of whether it was right and wrong, aroused a quarrel among the guys, that I prefer not to join.

Cricket is a fun ritual

The electricity has never come here yet. With the assistance of candles we had our dinner in the dining-room tent (also multi-purposed as mosque tent). Mr Manzoor still read some Urdu poetry books under the dim light in his tent. An Islamabadi himself, he had been here for about a month. Very intellegent and had very deep understanding about the current issues of the world and Islam, we discussed about the Dannish cartoon, about the women position in Islam, about the future of Islam, etc. Accidentally I just remembered that Indonesia was going to be the second country in Asia (and the first Muslim majority country) to publish its own Playboy magazine (the Indonesian edition would be in Indonesian language and featuring Indonesian girls), and in the same time, the House of Representatives is preparing law of anti-pornography1 and anti-pornoaction (both are the most popular words in the country recently) that would forbid women even to show the belly and people to do kissing in public places. Mr Manzoor knew about Playboy magazine (not available in Pakistan) and just were surprised to hear about the Indonesian edition. I said that the magazine would be very expensive and restricted to subscribers. He said that it was not difficult, people could get in second-hand market cheaply. Hmmm…. Indonesia doesnt have such a big second hand market like in Pakistan though, where even the second hand clothes are very popular (I am wearing second hand shalwar qamiz from a second hand market anyway).

The tent complex of Danish Muslim Aid