25. Farewell to the family of Fayaz

The house is now ready, the cement will dry up within a few days and the family will move in.

12 days have already passed since we started the cement platform. We have been working continuously often during the night as well, and I have been in Pakistan for 2 and a half months already.

Everyone here speaks about the reconstruction of Kashmir because there are 400 000 houses to rebuild after the earthquake and 2 million people living in tents. The money promised to the people has not arrived yet and neither have engineers nor masons.

The house that we have built is the first of our friend Shigri’s “Prefabricated home” project and his project is the first to have started reconstruction, by building a house for a family without a roof over their head.
All the other projects around are still waiting for instructions from the government before starting, but Shigri is not one who waits for authorizations, and the home of Fayaz is indeed the first house of the Kashmir reconstruction.

This makes me most happy because my small daughters will be even more proud of their daddy, and I hope that when they will grow up, they will help the people in need just as my own father showed me to do when I was small.

Today I said my farewells to Fayaz’s family, I am going back to Islamabad and then I shall fly back to Italy. The whole country is feasting because today is the anniversary of Prophet Muhammad’s birth, and this is for us as a sign that destiny is accomplished.

There have been very strong rains and we have verified that not a drop of water enters the house. I can go away with a peaceful heart as Mr. Agha has done a good job.

For the first house of the reconstruction, I have fixed a plate with the number one, hoping that soon there will be many of Shigri’s houses on the mountains of Kashmir.

We all were happy and sad at the same time because the house is completed but I have to go away. I have slept under the Fayaz’s family tent with them and they have shared their food with me.
I have told them that the house was offered by the mosque of Rimini because I did not want them to feel in debt to me but even so they showed their gratitude to me in such a simple way that it was not embarrassing.
Aline presented me with some gifts for Mariam e Fatima.

We took some pictures with all the family members who will live in the new house.

There is no happiness in keeping everything for oneself. Happiness is making others happy.

Fayaz’s father told us how he realized after the earthquake that rebuilding his house was going to take an amount of money larger than he could afford. So, he prayed to Allah with all his heart for a solution, and Allah brought him Shigri and brought me to Shigri.

I have met in people in Kashmir who came from all over the world only to help. They arrived well before me and they have seen the worst; children dead or wounded, the pain of the parents and of the orphans. They have not been able to eat or sleep for days, they cried alone in the night thinking of what they had seen.
They stayed here out of love for these mountain people who have suffered so much and they work every day to help them.
We have become like brothers here, it is as though we knew each other before we met.

Life in the mountains of Kashmir after the earthquake has a perfume unlike any other.