Dear OMers,
I've thought about whether I should write this e-mail or not for a long
time.
This list has always been a warm relief for me, especially for the last
week. I tried to be busy with the things I like to do - this one of
course. After sort of having the first shocks over, I started to realize
that the things are worse than I could imagine in the earthquake region
in Turkey.
The first shock for me was: my own parents live in Eskisehir. Fortunately
they were able to contact me to say that they are fine. The worse one
was, my fiance was living in the center of Izmit-Kocaeli, if not in their
seaside house in Yalova. These names can be quite familiar to you by now.
I could not contact them for a day and a half. Later on, I learned about
them by some other means. They survived. Their house *somehow* resisted a
total collapse. As they learn from the news, their other house in Yalova
is 30cm thick now. They are now out of the houses, I do not know what and
how they will do...
Nevertheless, having them live is a joy beyond explanation. But now, all the
survivors and rescue people are having a lot of difficulty due to the
rain. And this difficulty is really *nothing* as compared to what all
these guys will face in the future.
I am sure many of you already made some donations to some relief
organizations. What I want to say is that, there is no time limit for
the relief of this very event. This list has been like a family to all of
us, and I decided that there is no reason I should hesitate to ask for
some help from my parents. Please go to a relief organization that you
know, anytime, anytime that you feel like. It is hard to comprehend how
hard the situation is over there.
I also have a lot of concerns about the mismanagement of the government
there. You have no reason to trust them. Nor do I. Therefore, I believe
that the best way of being really helpful is via your countries very own
international relief organizations. They usually pass like 500f the
donations to the indicated places, however 50 0s greater than 0%. Of
course, if you know of any reliable sources, please, I mean, *please* go
there sometime. This is very critical. This is very important.
Amounts do matter in this case, but the more important thing is to show
in some way the humaine face of this group. If nothing, even the sympathy
and the prayers are gladly accepted, and appreciated.
I apologize once again for this unnecessarily long and far off topic
message. This was the first and the last one about this concern.
OMer
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