January 11, 2006	Wednesday	Zilhaj 10, 1426

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MAIDAN SHERPAL, Jan 10: With no road, no school, no basic health unit and no medicines, this high altitude village in Kohistan district with about 2,000 inhabitants symbolizes the poverty in rural Pakistan. It seems to be too deeply rooted to be removed in a century.

“You are from Islamabad! Where is it? Is it a city or a village?” asked Ajmal Khan when I introduced myself to the 65- year-old elder of the village.

Though elders like him control and decide the affairs of the village, he is not alone in his ignorance.

No one in the village is aware of the existence of “Islamabad the beautiful”, except three brothers who are studying in Chatar Plain, Batagram district, thanks to some relatives.

Even after the massive October 8 earthquake, the village did not figure in the government’s relief efforts. No official has visited the village to assess the human and material losses it suffered.

They were on the verge of starvation and freezing under two feet of snow, when a few days back the World Food Programme (WFP) dropped two tons of wheat, peas and ghee, using a UN helicopter.

Since no road connects the village, taking the relief to them was a logistic nightmare. A single helicopter flight to this village — and other similarly isolated villages — cost the UN $3,000, said a WFP official.

That means delivering a 20-kg flour sack there costs Rs5,000 to Rs7,000, he said wondering how people in such large numbers be left without roads in a country which claims to be the fastest growing economy in Asia after China.

Majority of the 200 houses in this village were damaged in the earthquake, most of them beyond repair. What to say of the government paying the Rs25,000 aid it announced for rebuilding partially the damaged houses, it has not sent even a Patwari to assess the villagers’ losses.

They continue to live in their damaged mud or wooden houses as aftershocks threaten to bring them down.

“Except the rations delivered a few days back, we have received nothing — no sheets (corrugated galvanized metal sheets), no tents, no clothes or blankets,” said Akmal Khan, an elder.

The village boasts two unoccupied government buildings in this village. One is supposed to be a primary school and the other a dispensary. However, they have not seen any teacher or doctor, what to say of furniture or medicines.

“Last year in summer, a doctor came here for 10 days. Since then we have not seen any other. In the whole village no one can claim to have even aspirin in his house,” Akmal Khan said. One in need has to walk for seven hours to a nearby village where a dispenser, who possessed some medicine, lives.

Pneumonia, scabbies, flue, cough, cold, muscular pain and anaemia has hit this area soon after the earthquake that also severely damaged the standing corn crop in the fields.

“My son has pneumonia for the past three days. Last night, his condition worsened. I wanted to take him to the dispenser but my wife disagreed. She said pneumonia might spare our son but the bone-chilling cold during the seven-hour journey would kill him before we reach the dispenser,” said Sher Mohammad narrating the ordeal of his only child.

Most of the women, children and old in this village are suffering from various diseases but the best healer they have is the dispenser seven hours away.

“Sahib Jee, why doesn’t our lot change? My father died on the way to a dispenser who lived at a distance of 10 hours walk. When will road come to this village? Have I to see my grandchildren die the same way?” asked Zarghon Shah, an old man.

FOOD AND CLOTHES: The quake-hit villagers have not yet gotten any warm cloths, blankets and quilts from those supplies poured in by the international community, rotting at Chaklala Airbase and a number of government buildings in Islamabad. Thanks to the polythene bags that prevent the snow and water from entering into the broken shoes and torn away socks of these poor villagers. Majority of the men could be seen wearing plastic shoes with damaged soles but plastered around with a polythene bag.

“I have changed only four pairs of plastic shoes since my childhood”, Sayed Akbar, 60, said. He could not buy a new cloth for himself and for his wife for the last many years. The couple have been wearing their wedding suits made 35 years back.

The food the villagers consume is malnutrition and with very limited choices. Corn flour bread with a few vegetables are the staple food. Meet is something unthinkable for them. There are some special occasions in a year when they have the opportunity to eat chickens — when a guest comes to the village, or a woman gives birth to a child or some disease strike the chickens.

ELECTRICITY: It was only a few months before the October-8 earthquake that a non-government organization (NGO) provided an electricity generator to the village. Only last month, a tape recorder reached the village sent by a labourer working in Saudi Arabia. Life in this village is nothing but abject poverty and a constant struggle to survive.