7. Commodore Shigri

Air Commodore Shahid Hamid Shigri is a fighter plane pilot and he drives his car as if it was a Mirage 2000 jet aircraft.

When the earthquake happened, he had just taken leave from the Pakistan Air Force. The quake made the Islamabad’s Margala Towers collapse. Two of his friends were living there so he immediately went there to help. He found a confused and chaotic situation and the soldiers were stopping people from approaching who had come to help search for survivors because many had friends or relatives living in the towers.

So Shigri phoned a friend of his, a general in the army, asking permission to organize the civilians into a rescue team. He put together a band of young courageous students that were there and they started crawling into the holes among the rubbles at the risk of their life, in order to pull out the trapped and the wounded.

In this way, they saved many people from the debris of the Margala towers.

Then he said to the youngsters of his team: “Do you want to continue to help? I can arrange some helicopters to take us to the mountains of Kashmir”. And the response was very positive and all of them were willing.
So he called again his General friend and all of them flew to Bagh where they saved many other lives. Bagh is one of the districts worst hit by the earthquake in Kashmir.

Immediately after the rescue of the people, which lasted a few days, it became necessary to bring tents in order to provide shelter to the people from the rain and the cold, food for eating, blankets, clothes and medicines for the wounded.

Shigri, thanks to the backing and help of his many friends started to organize things on his own by buying, transporting, and distributing of all these relief goods that were needed in the mountains.

After a month, as winter and snow were to hit the area, he understood that soon shelters stronger than tents which should have strong roofs for the snow, would be needed, and he stopped distributing tents, convincing the people to build stronger shelters, with walls and Iron sheet roofs, for which he would provide the materials.

He then designed two types of strong wooden huts, which he builds in his camp to show the people, so he taught them how to build them and he distributed the materials for their construction

The house designed by Commodore Shigri is made of a wooden structure over which strong cloth is fitted so as to make a double wall, it is warm and one feels very much at home rather than feeling like camping.
This tent shaped hut looks small and primitive, but when one enters it is surprisingly wide and comfortable.

It is warm but under the sun it remains nicely fresh because the floor has been dug and lowered in order to widen the space, and one feels so good in this shelter that one feels like offering prayer, just as our friend Masood has just done.

Unfortunately, not all the relief organizations had the Commodore’s farsightedness, and not even the ministers of the government, so all kept on bringing and distributing tents even after their need had expired. Now, all around you see mounts of unused packed tents covered with plastic sheets.

Fortunately the angels of the clouds and of the seasons have protected the people and the first snow of December was very small, the second one of January did not come and today at half February, the third snow also has not yet arrived. The trees have started to blossom in the mountains and the perfume of Narcissus is floating all over them.

When one decides to act in order to improve a situation without first understanding it, one becomes part of the problem instead of being part of the solution. So, I want to follow Commodore Shigri step by step, he takes me everywhere with him to see everything.
He treats me as an honoured guest and lets me assist and participate in all that he does without closing any door to me.