High risk? Perhaps; worth it? Totally!

We eventually got to Thore after a morning/afternoon of organizing local widows to receive 20kg of roti (chapatti) flour, donated by some religious organization that were clearly in it for the publicity, too. The head and deputy of this organisation insisted that their banner was held up behind them as they handed over each bag of flour to each widow while having their photo taken with each widow … and their were a lot of widows and it was the hottest day so far, easily in the 30s.

While waiting, I discovered that Thore was actually visible from DMS. It's actually a few hundred meters further up from sea level and, from DMS, seemed like sparkling hundreds and thousands on a cone of grass ice cream. It looked much greener and so I was hoping much cooler. I'm so glad we decided against horse option! Well, that was before I went on the car journey: Eventually, our car came and it took about 1 hour along what can only be described as a road of rubble. It wasn't even the underlay of a new road! The poor 4x4 struggled, as did we. But, that wasn't the worst bit: the road became steeper, higher, narrower and the rubble turned into boulders at times. The scenery was breath-taking, but I found myself quite tense given that the journey was the equivalent of driving through, say, North Wales, on a poorly-made, single-track 'road' with no barriers and a muther-massive drop below. Needless to say, this road is a post-earthquake facility and um, just thank goodness nothing came in the opposite direction!! Especially as we made the return journey in the thick of the night…

Thore itself is a tiny village of approx. 75 families which means the total population is about 600 people strong because each family has about 8 kids each! The whole village exists on a mountainside, overlooking Muzaffarabad city (amazing views), but was badly destroyed by the quake so people are living in the familiar temporary shelters. Their school is an old UNICEF tent and their water supply really is crap. The picture is somewhat different to what I had previously understood: The current source of water is linked to by lots of people and is set at a lower altitude meaning water does not reach Thore. The new source is far from this lower current source and the Thorens would like a new tank at the new source which is linked to the pipes of the old source, thus by-passing the current tank. KYDS would provide any additional material and labour costs. So, it seems like a cheap project. The villagers explained that there was no water for the school children, for wudu (prayer ablutions), cooking or growing crops. They have a strong case for KYDS support.

Iftar was fantastic: pakora and samosa galore over a back drop of the sun setting over the mountain tops. As the sun disappeared, Muzaffarabad city below came to life with its sparce street lighting.

I spoke to my host about gaining government approval and she just laughed at me and said that the work will not be done if the government is aware of this work because they would try to control the project ie gain funds for themselves.

I went to bed quite angry with the state at which this village had been reduced to, but full of mineral water x