Muzaffarabad – Farewell Party
A lavish farewell party in a ‘hotel’ (aka restaurant) in Muzaffarabad
March 1, 2006
The NGO work is almost to an end. It has started since the disaster, and now everybody in the relief team was going to go back to their life. Most of the team members were temporary members, working for 1 month or so, but some like the Gillanis, were here since October last year. As today was a new day of a new month, the members were reducing again. The guys planned to have a farewell party in Muzaffarabad to say good bye to some of leaving members.
The transport to go back to the province capital was not easy, and after waiting almost about an hour, we successfully ‘hijacked’ a Suzuki bus. The lunch was in Muzaffarabad Cantonment area, with splendid fried rice, roti, mutton curry, and the pink coloured Kashmiri tea. I really regretted to come very late, that the work is almost to an end. The NGO would be still in the area up till the third week of this month, and there would be still some work to do to make documentation of the shelter homes in Patikha. But for these some days I would still stay in Muzaffarabad doing something and anything. Some of the guys went directly to Islamabad, some went back again to Noraseri. I stayed in the NGO office in Muzaffarabad. I had heard that the day after tomorrow (Friday) there would be another ‘hartal‘ to protest the Danish cartoon, and I noticed that the NGO stickers which contain the word ‘Denmark’ were removed from the wall. Hmm … Hartal again, just can’t understand why unrest should happen nationwide due to the cartoon that published in a country thousands kilometers away. My opinion is that the protest should be done in other more effective methods, isn’t it? But maybe the mullahs don’t agree about this.
After some weeks living in earthquake area, lunch like this is indeed luxurious
The team
The (ex-)hotel next to which we have our party
just can’t understand why unrest should happen nationwide due to the cartoon that published in a country thousands kilometers away.
Because it’s not ‘really’ about cartoons. Depictions of Muhammad have occured for centuries (even by Muslims themselves on occasions) and there has been no protests. Furthermore, the Arab and press in other countries has been drawing offense cartoons about Jews and Christians ever since press existed. So there is a huge amount of hypocrisy. No, all were are seeing is anti-western sentiment being whipped up by extremist Mullahs, under the guise of being offended by some cartons, of which only one or two could be seen as making a political stab.