catastrophe after another, waves of grief wash over the world. nature's hand, they call it, but that is a secondary cause.
the US offers "a hundred thousand dollars of aid". which is offensive, insulting.
schools collapse, and hundreds of children inside are killed. bodies laid out in stadiums, food supplies running short, whole villages flattened. thousands of people, their lives, gone in the space of moments. the margalla towers overlook a park we would spend afternoons in, years ago, and now are a scene of sorrow.
and on the other side of the world, hurricanes whip into guatemala.
and then our exile
Sunday, October 09, 2005 at 8:25 a.m.
sammerai said...
" My wife and two children are dead. My brother is dead, my two nieces are dead.**sobs** I've only found my brother and one niece. I buried them today. I'm still looking for the bodies of the others.*sobs* " - Muhammad Aziz
Sometimes when numbers are all we hear, we don't feel any pain. Inna lillahe wa inna elayhi rajeoon. May Allah have mercy on their souls, ameen.
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yasmine said...
Apparently the U.S. aid is much higher now ($50 million?). About time. I think my jaw dropped when I read about the $100,000; you're right, it's insulting.
Basit, I hope your family and friends in Pakistan are safe and well inshaAllah. Nature is having a crazy year. The news from Guatemala is heartbreaking as well - entire villages being abandoned and declared cemeteries:
"Panabaj will no longer exist," said Mayor Diego Esquina, referring to the Mayan hamlet on the shores of Lake Atitlan covered by a half-mile-wide mudflow as much as 15 to 20 feet thick. "We are asking that it be declared a cemetery. We are tired; we no longer know where to dig."
InshaAllah khayr. And ameen to Sammerai's dua.
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basit said...
sammerai - ameen!
yasmine - own-family is fine, but friends lost relatives. canada said it was sending 300,000$...but so did MCC (mennonite central committee). a huge country and an NGO.
we would drive through mansehra on our way north.
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