Outside Islamabad

This summer I met some fascinating ladies in Karachi. They belonged to an NGO called ‘Connect‘ which had come together in reaction to the 2010 floods that hit Sindh. Dr Talat Pasha, the brains behind the operation, had enlisted a few friends to help her set up mobile medical camps in the affected areas in July of 2010. After a few months of running between Karachi and interior Sindh, they soon realized they needed to cement their efforts. Some of the villages they visited were completely cut off, they had no paved roads and electricity before the floods. The devastation from the raging waters had swept their homes away too, they were clearly going to be set back even further.

So the ladies, most of whom are working women–executives, doctors, and entrepreneurs–between the ages of 40 and 60 decided to pool their efforts and resources to adopt 6 villages around Sujawal, to rebuild their homes, invest in a school, set up water pumps and light their lives for the first time with solar energy. Below is a video I made of their visit to Mohammad Urs, one of the villages they adopted in District Thatta for Hosh media and dawn.com

On a side note, I had never been so deep into Sindh, the furthest I had been was Hyderabad. So the journey itself, was a treat. The ladies were gracious hosts, inspiring and truly entertaining. I met Dr Talat Pasha a day before they planned to take their bi-monthly trip to their adopted villages. They were leaving the following day, a Monday at 5 am, so I had little time to get together video and audio equipment. I tried, but unfortunately it being a Sunday and Karachi’s ‘halaat’ being atrocious at that time, I couldn’t even manage to swing by and borrow a friend’s equipment. (So I shot the whole piece without a tripod or external audio equipment on a flip camera and a camcorder. Both are hi-def, so the quality wasn’t bad.) Coming back to the ‘halaat’ just three days before I had done a piece on Karachi violence for the NYT.
So I knew how bad things were, but nothing stopped these ladies from their mission. Dr Pasha said they had to make this trip, because Ramzan was coming up and it would be difficult to frequent the area then. So the Connect team arrived promptly to pick me up at 5 am in their coaster. Their punctuality, was the first thing that impressed me. The next was their high spirits that early in the morning. I entered a coaster full of laughing women. Through out the journey, they were chatting about politics, cracking jokes, making fun of each other, and just having a plain good time. As a precaution, as I often do when I travel to far-flung areas, I had taken my wedding rings and earrings off. I was surprised to see most of the ladies had their jewellery on. They weren’t even traveling with a gunman, but they said they had in the past, when the floods first hit and they were transporting large amounts of relief goods. This time they took the longer, but safer route leaving the city, but no one seemed to be worried about getting caught up in the bitter bloodshed taking place in Karachi. In fact, as soon as the last few were picked up–Mr Haider, a gentlemen who was helping them set up the solar energy units and a photographer–one of the ladies pulled out packed snacks for everyone.

After another hour so, another lady pulled out breakfast boxes. Steaming hot cups of tea followed. The Connect ladies had their logistics down. Once we got to the village, it was all business though. Mr Haider, the solar energy guy, went straight to check on the solar units, and some of the other ladies started distributing lunch to the students in the school. Dr Talat started pouring over accounts and paperwork from the school, while Shahida, the general-secretary set up a make-shift medical stall, to screen patients for Dr Talat. I was pretty much on my own hoping from one jhompri (hut) to the next, relying on the few men who speak Urdu in the village to fill in as interpreter when I spoke to the men and women in the village. I met a lot of pregnant women on their 4th or 5th child. Often times I was told that they were between 25-28 years old. When I told one family that I was 29, they didn’t believe me, honestly because I did look a lot younger than the women who had been popping out babies since their teens and living under the beating sun of Sindh. When I told one family, that I had been married for four years but have chosen to wait to start a family until my husband and I could afford to have a good life with children, the reply was “be patient, God will bless you soon, we will pray for you.” But after a few households of seeing those malnourished pregnant women, with toddlers and babies swarming around, I started to get preachy again. One soosur (father-in-law), who was staying back from the fields to watch over his three pregnant daughter-in-laws said, I was completely right, and that they were in this state because none of his daughter-in-laws had gone to school. But he said his female granddaughters were going to the school that Connect had rebuilt, so their was hope for his future generations. I didn’t like him putting the whole blame on his daughter-in-laws and I don’t know if he said, what he said, because he thought that was what I wanted to hear. But every time I do go into rural areas of Pakistan, it is stark reminder of what I believe to be Pakistan’s ‘biggest” problem, over-population. Yup, I said it, not terrorism, but over-population.
Other pictures I took at the village below.