One Down Two to Go! Email sent January 8th

Dear All,

It was a beautiful sunny day here in Muzaffarabad today. The mountains looked delightful and the air was clear and the Neelum river was blue again after the recent landslides and rain had turned it a muddy chocolate colour! Perfect day for flying, and so we lost our Steve! He went back to Islamabad today to make it back to the cricket test in time and then to India to meet his girl. Susan and I will miss his farting renditions of All things Bright and Beautiful, his tea making and cookie grabbing skills and his cuddles. Nothing like a hug from a lovely English lad in a freaky Rangers jacket to ward off the cold, beaurocratic frustrations and morning grumpiness! The transition back to all girl time will be hard, and I have already had to tell Susan she shouldn't fart in the office (although as far as Fart Cricket goes, she got a 6!)

Susan and I are well entrenched in our projects here in unicef Muzaffarabad. Tomorrow Susan will attempt to tell 80 people what the term 'psychosocial' means, and I will give a presentation to the Education cluster on tent schools. Not bad for two girls who are hanging for a gin and tonic and who can't get a job in Australia!

Life here is luxury in a tent! We have a great tent that is number 9 and it has stood up to three aftershocks, snow, heavy rain and burnt socks since we began calling it home. Our roomies love us and despite my exploding backpack we are all good. Yes, we had another aftershock on Friday morning and yet again neither of us realized what it was! We have begun a sweets ration for unicef staff (subjecting each staff member to a ration card and finger print identification before receiving their sweets) and a movie night (although the TV blew up due to unusual power supply here in Muzza so that won't be repeated!). We have also shown the women of the camp how to hold the heating ducts to your head and dry your hair in record time! So we will leave next week having left our mark!

Meanwhile.... 'In the field' we are getting along slowly but brilliantly! There is a whole new subsection of Kashmir who call each other darling, say the view is divine and who feel much happier in the hell of a relief camp in Himalayan winter by wearing beads! My schools were shut for a few days due to the rain and snow, in fact they collapsed! and in one school a family and their motorbike moved into a classroom! But all vehicles have been removed and children made it back to school for a whole two days before going on holidays for Eid!

Eid is going to be a rather tuff festival to be here for. It involves befriending a goat, cow or camel, giving it love and then slaughtering it and eating it. One very generous Islamic NGO has supplied animals to some of the camps so that they can celebrate Eid. From a vegetarian western perspective this is a somewhat odd decision. Mostly because tents are very close together, the area doesn't have great drainage other than that it is build on the side of a mountain and the whole set up isn't really conducive to a mass slaughter of beasts.

Eid starts Tuesday evening so we have a few days left of work, the will be working on a somewhat depleted staff quota until Friday when everyone comes back, I hand over my project to my Pakistani counterpart and get myself a heli out!

Love to all (and especially Our Boy who is safe and warm in the 'Bad tonight!)

Dion

xxxx