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Monday, December 13, 2010

Distribution of the Kitchen Recovery Kits


On the morning of Dec.8, fellow Ipswich Rotarian Christyne Vachon and I distributed 50 of Kitchen Recovery Kits in the yard of DOSTI’s Tangi School. Also with us for the event was members of our partner club the Rotary Club of Unitown Peshawar, Zamarud Shah (brown suit jacket and sunglasses) and Mansoor Kahn(short beard and hat) Villagers of the Charsadda region of North West Frontier Province (now known as Kyber-Pakhtunwa or KPK) were picked out according to who was in the direst need.




Helping with the giving were also teachers and students of the local government school. The teachers worked as volunteers to run the DOSTI Tangi School for the poorest children.




I had looked forward to a happy experience of giving but felt immensely inadequate in the face of the massive loss suffered by the people at the gathering. One of the great moments I felt at the end of the event was when the last of my small speech was translated to Pashtu. I had said at the end that we Rotarians in American know that we are all alike. To see all those bearded men with their turbans and robes nod their heads in agreement brought tears to my eyes!








Purchase of the kits suffered from incredible and unprecedented inflation as prices were quoted 4 months ago. The size of all items shrunk by about 30%. The Federal Bureau of statistics reported in an article in today’s paper that from Oct. 2009 to Oct. 2010, prices win went up on the following items in the kits by : 80% for sugar, 160% for lentils, 10% for cooking oil, 14% for compressed natural gas, plastic products 13.7%, 6.5% for rice, 3.2% for flour. This inflation is due to lack of government infrastructure, massive flooding which damaged 30% of the nations crops, inflated transport costs, as well as a shortage due to the smuggling of essential items to Afghanistan where even greater prices can be obtained.

1 comment:

fas said...

The guy in the pictures with sunglasses is a thug. Someone who steels from the poor people to build a big house and then use these type of opportunities to earn credibility with people only to turn around and prey upon these innocent people again. You kind-heart people need to do some homework as to who you are teaming up with so that you are not helping the corrupt to become more brave.