Supporter: Jackie Lee

I arrived in Uzbekistan knowing very little about her. I knew only that she was one of the former Soviet republics that became independent in the early 1990s. Unlike developing countries such as Indonesia and Ethiopia, which had gained prominence because of disasters such as tsunamis and famines, Uzbekistan doesn't get a lot of attention from the rest of the world.

Over dinner in the capital city of Tashkent, Mark Goldenbaum, our country director, gave me a little background.

During the Soviet era, the country benefited from government investments in education, natural-gas pipes and water lines. Most of these services began to disintegrate after the country gained independence and lost its main benefactor in the USSR. And the people of Uzbekistan, especially in the Ferghana Valley, one of the poorest and densely populated regions, were so used to relying on government to fill their needs that they didn't know what to do when that government fell apart.

Exacerbating the situation was that the Soviets, to strengthen their grip on power and prevent a sense of nationalism taking hold in these formerly independent republics, had created pockets of ethnic groups throughout the region. The Ferghana Valley is a jumbled patchwork of borders and ethnicities: it spans the boundaries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and there are ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajiks and Uzbeks in every country.

This led to problems when the countries claimed independence and drew new borders. Many communities, because of their ethnic majorities, were cut off from water, gas, electricity or health facilities only a few kilometers away.

Aspiring to New Heights in the Ferghana Valley

The drive into the Ferghana Valley from Tashkent took about three hours. We didn't pass much vegetation in the mountainous terrain, except for mulberry trees — and for good reason. I was traveling along the ancient Silk Road, and the leaves of these unique-looking trees were essential to nourishing the silk worms. I also saw orchards of apricot and peach trees, and farmers starting to plow their lands in preparation for spring.

On my first full day, I visited the village of Pahtabuston. Most of its residents were ethnic Krygyz, even though we were still in Uzbekistan and only a few miles from the Tajik border. Three years ago, the village had only one kindergarten and one shop, and no natural gas supply. Their school was crumbling. Villagers felt the government ignored them because they were Kyrgyz. They were bitter.

Pahtabuston's sense of marginalization contributed to its admission into Mercy Corps' Peaceful Communities Initiative program. The PCI program is a way to improve living conditions and reduce the potential for conflict in the Ferghana Valley by building trust within and among multiethnic communities, establishing safe and open mechanisms for ongoing dialogue and providing training and resources for implementing real solutions to everyday problems.

Villagers identified the lack of natural gas as their number-one problem. The whole community came together to discuss what to do about it, and decided that all households would donate some money to build the necessary infrastructure. Those fees covered more than three-quarters of the cost; Mercy Corps paid the rest. In the process, the villagers met with government representatives and realized they hadn't intentionally ignored the village, but simply didn't have money to pay for natural gas service.

A new dialogue started, and as a result, the government promised to replace the village's crumbling school. Residents pitched in with donations and volunteer labor, and today a new school serves 500 students.

I took a tour of the building — a very humble structure, nonetheless full of villagers’ love and sweat — with Mr. Absattor, one of the schoolteachers. We walked down a corridor and arrived at a roomful of young pupils dressed in costume. One teacher explained that the costumes were part of a celebration of the great Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi's birthday. He's the country's equivalent of William Shakespeare, and his works are just as impenetrable, especially for young students. But the class showed me that they’ve been well taught, reciting some of Navoi's poems without looking at their books. It was a scene that simply could not have happened before this school was built.

Spreading, Seeding Cooperation and Development

Pahtabuston didn't limit what they had learned — the importance of civil society, problem solving and conflict management — to their own borders. They also helped their neighbors in Janobod, populated mostly by ethnic Uzbeks, install new water pipes to irrigate their fields of cotton, wheat, apricots and peaches.

Later, I visited a predominantly Tajik village, Vorukh, whose residents also felt neglected by government and mistreated by an adjacent village that controlled the irrigation-water supply. With Mercy Corps' help, they were able to work out an irrigation schedule that satisfied both communities — another example of peaceful development that is this project's hallmark.

Wherever I went in Uzbekistan, I received warm welcomes by friendly people who'd insist on inviting me into their home for meals — even if I was just there for a brief visit. Their first questions were usually about age and marital status. When I told a mother I wasn't married, she inevitably wanted me to meet her son.

Auspicious Signs for Peace

I had another reason for coming to Uzbekistan: to receive two health volunteers for the Community Health and Sanitation (CHS) program funded by ICDF Taiwan. Through this program, more than 25,000 residents in Ferghana Valley are being educated and equipped with the knowledge and skills to better maintain their health. Like PCI, it's a program aimed at empowering people and giving them the tools they need to improve their lives and communities.

It's programs like these - and the spirited response to them - that provide a ray of hope for an impoverished region. Uzbekistan, like many of its Central Asian neighbors, is at a crossroads: Will it seek greater openness in its government and its economy, and follow a Turkish path to European Union membership? Or will it turn inward and become more isolated from the community of nations?

During my time there, I saw ethnic harmony, the growing desire for community-government dialogue from both sides and the fervor for self-improvement. These are all signs that an open, participatory system of government may lead Uzbeks to a more peaceful, prosperous future.

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At the beginning of January, Mercy Corps program officer Jackie Lee traveled from her Hong Kong home to Pakistan to get a firsthand look at our efforts to help earthquake survivors recover from the devastation.

Here, in a series of four journal entries filed on consecutive days, she shares her experiences and thoughts from her experience in the mountains of the North West Frontier Province.

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On my last day in Mansehra, Jill, our community revitalization program officer, took me to do something fun.

We took off to visit a school out in the Trawra Village in Ughi Township of Mansehra District, a district even more neglected than others. It's essentially a lawless tribal area populated by ethnic Pashtuns from Afghanistan. I was told this was a haven for the criminals, with many reports of looting, stealing and violence. Most NGOs try to avoid working in this area, but Mercy Corps was reaching out to these people thought of as “outcasts."

Waiting for a delivery of school supplies before leaving the office, we counted several hundreds of school bags, boxes of papers and other kids' items. We pulled out some of the school bags to be distributed at Al Hamid Public School, a co-ed school where there were 148 boys and 41 girls in grades one through six. Each kid would receive a school bag as a present for Eid Day, a big Muslim holiday.

We left around 10:30 a.m., and as usual, I slept through most of the one-hour ride to the village because of motion sickness. As I opened my eyes, we had already arrived at Al Hamid Public School, and were welcomed by the Principal and the "honor," or land owner, of the school. Jill made a brief introduction of my visit, and they started talking about the needs in this community.

The land owner estimated that rebuilding their community Mosque would cost approximately 61,000 Rupees (about 8,600 HKD), and Jill promised to get an engineer to inspect the site and verify the estimate. HK$8,600, about $1,100 U.S., doesn't seem like much to restore a focal point for the community. After the short meeting, we quickly moved inside the school to see the damage done by the quake. Most of the walls in the complex collapsed, and many others had big cracks. This complex clearly was not suitable or safe for the kids. The children and teachers spent most of their time in the open before they received the two school tents from Mercy Corps.

Kids should be happy, laugh and learn through playing. The misfortune was that these kids have to face the fear of a collapsing school because of the quake; every time there is an aftershock, they scream and started running. That's why providing tents for classes is a priority for Mercy Corps.

As soon as Jill and I stepped into one of the tents, the children chirped happily with their adorable voices, “Good morning Madam.” My heart just melted seeing these angelic and innocent faces. Jill introduced me to the kids and asked if anyone knew where Hong Kong was. A boy stood up and answered with confidence, “China!” Several kids came forward to read passages from their Urdu textbook, English textbook, and even sang some sections of the Holy Koran. It was such an inspirational moment to have spent with these children. They are our future and we really need to cherish them, to get them back to their normal lives and unleash their potential.

When our distribution was over, the principal made his final announcement and the kids started off for their homes. Jill and I left shortly after, rushing back to the Mansehra office to arrange for a vehicle for me to get back to Islamabad and to Hong Kong.

Time to say goodbye to this welcoming city, the affectionate people and my amazing colleagues. Sha-gria (Thank you) to what this magnificent country had given me. Ku-da-vis (Goodbye)! I really loved to visit this country again, In-sha-la (Hopefully, by God’s will)!

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I learned that I would be on a helicopter for today’s distribution shortly after I arrived at the Mansehra guesthouse. Josh arranged all the heli distributions with the UN Humanitarian Air Service, and he got me a seat on this one.

So, this morning at around 9:30 a.m., Ammar (another colleague of mine) and I got to the military airfield, where our workers and supply trucks awaited the heli’s arrival. We joined the second sorte of distribution to Paloi Bagnu, more than 5,000 feet above sea level. Our mission for the day was to deliver 1,370 metal roofs, 137 stoves and 584 blankets to the villagers there.

This was to be my time on a heli! Exciting!

Around 10 a.m., Mr. Uri, the heli's Ukranian pilot, whipped up a massive sandstorm as he set down on the airstrip. Captain Uri stopped the engine and let our workers load the relief items. While Ammar supervised, Josh gave me a short safety briefing — with an emphasis of avoiding the back rotor (it's practically invisible when the engine is on). The front, he stressed, is always the safest place to go, and if in doubt, squat down, walk slowly and keep a fair distance. As soon as the loading was done, Josh, Ammar and I hopped onto the heli; we'd be back at the end of the sorte to pick up more supplies.

Driving and walking might have taken us four hours to get to where the heli reached in 20 minutes. About 100 men, women and kids were already in place waiting for their roofing material, stoves and blankets. With the assistance of the Pakistani army, we managed to get the villagers to form lines to register for this distribution. Meanwhile, our co-pilot complained that the landing spot was not exactly secure because of two trees standing along the hillside. So two of our workers took turns felling the tree with an axe.

With Mercy Corps Distribution Officer Wasim Afzal handling the registration, Josh suggested we go for a walk to see some of the shelters under construction. We walked the incredibly dangerous trails that the villagers walked with their CGIs, stoves and blankets. Being a city gal, I’m not much of a hiker. Slipping on trails that were littered with small pebbles, I almost fell to my death on one of the slopes that dropped off almost perpendicularly to the ground. Fortunately, I was able to hold on to a broken tree trunk and Ammar grabbed my back just in time, or the gravitational pull would have started me rolling down the slope like a misshapen ball. No injuries other than bruises were detected, and although it’s really no big deal, I thought I would rather avoid telling my mom. Shhh….

When we got down to a relatively flat land, we finally saw a shelter under construction. On that very spot, I was told, five people died during the earthquake. The safest way to construct one of these shelters is to build a four-foot high foundation using stone and mud, erect wood walls and roof it with a sheet of CGI. Because this village lacked water, however, they could not make mud, so they were only able to lay the foundation with stones. Still, it's better than trying to fend off snow and rain at 5,000 feet in a tent.

At this moment, I really felt for these villagers. “How tough a life they are living!” I thought to myself. It made me feel greedy to think about wanting a glass of fruit juice when they didn’t even have water. It brought home the need to cherish everything that we have, because many things do not come to us as easily as we think. Thousands are living in these dire situations. Consider not buying an iPod — the same amount of money can pay for 128 days of labor to build winterized shelters or reconstruct one-third of an entire community mosque.

Hiking back up to the heli pad posed another challenge. (I should really get back to jogging or some other cardio exercise…. ) I sweated like a pig on the way back up and collapsed on a traditional Pakistani bed — ropes thread through a wood frame — that lay beside the distribution desk. I just did not have the energy to do more, so I decided to go back to the airfield with Ammar to facilitate the next sorte. On our way back to the airfield, I saw how scattered these families were living, and how it required a good amount of time to travel up the hilltop to collect their relief items.

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As I came into the dining room for breakfast, Josh asked if I felt last night's aftershock. I must have been really, really tired, because I slept through the whole thing! My colleague, Jill, who is very sensitive to noise, told me there was a crack in her room and she heard her wardrobe trembling and rattling against the wall. She said these tremors have been taking place many nights, usually around 4 a.m. I wonder if there would be another one tonight!

Today, I followed Charles Juhn, director of our Mansehra office, Dr. Umer and Dr. Khurram to see our health programs at two sites in the Siran Valley, Jabori and Nawazabad.

We arrived at the Jabori Base Health Unit around 9 a.m. Here, our doctors provide 24-hour consultation, treatment and medicine to approximately 250-300 patients each day. One of our water-and-sanitation (wat/san) units is also there helping families fix the village’s plumbing. I met with Qazi Rizwan Rashid, our wat/san engineer from Abbottabad, a local village in Mansehra. Qazi described that they were installing a water tank and pipes that would supply water to this health unit as well as the surrounding households. At the same time, a cash-for-work group was digging furiously in order to lay the foundation for the seven pre-fabricated structures that would replace the tents that house our basic health units. Soon, our doctors and patients will have a warmer place to provide and receive treatments as well as better storage space for medicines.

As I stepped into the health tent, there was a little boy being treated by our doctor on duty. Many rural citizens of the North West Frontier Province did not have basic healthcare available to them even before the earthquake. In Hong Kong, there are doctors on seemingly every corner, but these villagers do not have the same convenience and privileges as we do. Many must hike several hours just to have a chance to get treated by our doctors.

After seeing the progress of the shelters in this village, we moved onto Jabori, home to Mercy Corps' assistant logistics manager, Khurram. He invited us to his totally shattered house for chai. Khurram being his positive-minded self said to us, “What has happened, happened, there are nothing much we can do about that, but I will rebuild this house as soon as the government finishes assessing the damage, and get everything back to normal!” I believe as long as we keep the positive vibe going, everything can be conquered.

Our next task was to scout for a site for a new Rural Health Unit tent in Nawazabad. This one would be a full-size, heavy-duty, winterized tent with a heating system, where villagers could sleep when the weather got too cold in the mountains but would mainly be for treatment and care for the villagers.

We visited the site where the original health structure still stood but was badly damaged by the earthquake and have to be torn down once we got our tent up and running. But where? The space was incredibly limited. Some of the spots were full of rocks, others were just too close to the soon-to-be-leveled structure, so we had to move up the hill. Eventually we found the perfect site for our tent, which was also a Pakistani Military security point. Charles and Dr. Umer talked to the soldiers, who were very pleasant and kind-hearted. Not only were they all very welcoming of our arrival, they were also extremely accommodating to our idea, offering to relocate several of their own tents to make room for the health tent. Hidden beneath the tough appearances are beautiful, gentle and kind spirits. I see the magnificence of trust and understanding in such harsh times, which for me confirms the Confucian saying, “Kindness is the basic nature of men."

Our mission fulfilled, we headed back to town, stopping on the way at the Mercy Corps warehouse to verify that our material aids were organized and securely stored.

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