Zeeshan picked me up at 8.30 am. We travelled to the Serena hotel in Islamabad to attend a World Health Organisation (WHO) cluster meeting. Clusters are essentially groups such as 'health, hygiene, food, clean water, education' etc that allow for better coordination of relief work. Every Tuesday representatives from Non Governmental Organisations (NGO's) working in the 'health' cluster, come together to provide feedback on their progress. As mentioned this allows better coordination of relief efforts, e.g. in our case to identify a location in the south of the country where flood related relief is needed the most but where there is also a shortage of aid agencies.
The hotel was the biggest & best I have seen on my travels abroad. I phoned Ripon to tell him about it & he was keen for us to spend a night there. The cheapest rooms are about $600 per night. The business complex plays host to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is part of the United Nations (UN). We visited OCHA to collect up to date maps of the current flood situation. By the way we couldn't justify spending so much money on ourselves given the context of our visit. Maybe next time?
The cement delivery to Mardan has been delayed until tomorrow. Instead I have come to my home village some 3 hours from Islamabad to meet up with my mum. Village life is just something else! Back to Mardan tomorrow.
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