A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan (Sep 06)

Pateka, Earth Quake Relief progress

I could understand why it took days, even weeks to reach some of these remote mountain villages after the earthquake. One year on, despite all the aid activities, much of the roads remained unchanged. The bumpy rodeo ride in the open jeep on rough (and I mean rough!) mountain paths turned our breakfast into milkshake. But the sharp fresh mountain air and breathtaking views distracted any motion sickness. As we clambered from mountain to mountain ascending through earthquake upheaved terrain, holding on to our dear lives as the rickety old jeep swung through hair pin bends and mule tracks, we began to understand the meaning of the term ‘inaccessible’.

We arrived in Pateka, a little mountain village (which comprised of a few rustic habitations dotted around the mountain. as far as we could see) that the diocese of Peshawar had adopted. The projects had captured our imaginations and started to dispel some of last nights despair. We clambered from scheme to scheme, from static basic health units, timber workshops, newly built drinking-water units, to taupe covered temporary schools. The stories here were hopeful despite the obvious devastation. The series of interviews I did (for the CMS report I had to write) took my breath away, and etched in my memory the lessons from the core of humanity. Despair, seemed too tame a word to describe the grief, disorientation and loss. If great pain strips us to the core of humanity as many a philosopher boasts, here was a community, broken to its very primal foundations. Here were entire communities who lost on average at least more than 2 immediate family members, and hundreds of friends and relatives, had their homes, industries, schools, places of worship swallowed up whole by the treacherous mountains. In places like this, cut away from the rest of the world, these small communities were their entire universe.

The breath taking vistas of scarred mountains

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The stock questions I asked most volunteers was what the hardest thing they had to was, in the wake of the disaster. One hollow eyed man shook his head at my naïve frivolity; ‘everything!’ he said. ‘And I would do it over and over again, if it could save more lives, give more children back their fathers. more infants back to their mothers! Nothing about this was EASY!’. Sara, a young trainee nurse elaborated ‘When, you are faced with such devastation you don’t stop to think whether it is hard or easy, you just do all you can to help, and hope and pray something works.’ I realised the post-modern luxuries of cost and self-reflection were afforded to only some parameters of the world. The young Muslim nurse continued gently, perhaps realising the tinges of my shame, guilt, and discomfort. ‘When one has a heart to do such work, to prevent suffering, no one task is harder than the other.’

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/emergencies/country/asian_quake/index.htm

http://www.redcross.org.uk//standard.asp?id=56676&cachefixer

http://www.ifrc.org/what/disasters/response/pakistan/index.asp

Releif projects in Pateka

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