Quetta

Photo: Mercy Corps

April 6, 2003 - Friday was my 7th anniversary with Mercy Corps and I celebrated it by going to "real" Pakistan. Quetta is located in the southwest part of the country in Baluchistan, the poorest province in Pakistan. The scenery reminds me a bit of Eritrea: stark, rugged beauty in the form of high deforested mountains all around.

I hadn't heard many nice things about Quetta before I arrived. It's described as the closest thing you can get to Afghanistan without actually being in Afghanistan (this is not a compliment). It's described as a little frontier town. It's the wild west.

In my opinion, it's a charming place that could be pretty enjoyable under the right circumstances. There are lots of little shops everywhere with carpets, books, fabric, silver, lapis lazuli - so many wonderful, colorful things.

On the surface, Quetta feels welcoming. We are careful not to be deceived by the seeming tranquility. It is a place where things can change quickly. This is a place that is closely connected to Afghanistan in ways that the people here find both comfortable and distressing. Without a doubt, there are extremists here.

My team and I are here to deal a number of things, including sussing out the security situation. Our expatriates have been evacuated for the better part of two months. It is time for them to return, unless the security situation advises against it. We've spent a couple of days doing a "rekky" as Martyn, our British Security Officer, calls it (a reconnaissance mission), getting a feel for the place, talking to people and have decided that there is no reason to stay away any longer.

Yesterday, in the midst of our "rekky", we visited one of Mercy Corps' projects funded by the Diana, Princess of Wales, Foundation. It is place that provides prosthetics, orthotic devices and physical therapy to people who are missing limbs or who have problems due to disease or congenital deformities. The staff make all of their prosthetics and orthotic devices right there and they showed us everything.

We were followed around by an old man in the process of getting his first prosthetic leg, 11 years after losing his to a landmine in Afghanistan. It was an inspirational experience - one of those moments that reminds a person why they do what they do.

We visited our warehouse where my colleague Dee shared one of her cherished discoveries in Quetta: over the wall of the compound is another world. A makeshift village of refugees from somewhere. At least 7,000 of them living quietly just beyond our compound in a village made from mud and straw. When it rains, this place surely melts. Baluchistan is suffering from drought yet again this year and maybe the one good thing about it is that these people didn't have to rebuild their village again. As we peek over the wall, we are spotted by curious children who giggle and wave to us. We wave back.

In another part of the compound, there is a door in the external wall that seems to lead to nowhere. We go through it and find a child tending to a small flock of goats in a little pasture nestled between the wall of our compound and a wall made from mud and straw. Off to the side, a little girl, probably about two years old, is crying crouched in an arched opening in the wallI.

I think she is the baby sister of the kid tending the goats. I think that her dress is stuck on something. I go to her and kneel down to disentangle her only to find a little wooden gate leading to the refugee village. On the other side of the gate are women and children who are just as pleasantly surprised to see me as I am them. A little girl looks at me and asks me in her language what I assume to be, "Do you speak Pashto?" (Pashtoons are one of the ethnic groups in Pakistan.)

Within seconds, about a dozen children pour through the gate, beginning a flurry of picture taking and a hand-out of soccer balls that we happened to have in our warehouse. As I take pictures with my digital camera, I hand it through the gate to the women so they can see them. I am squatting down and the little girls can't resist running their fingers through my hair.

These moments are always so precious. We can't communicate with words but there is so much communication going on. We show kindness by smiling at each other. We show respect by greeting each other. We express our trust for each other as they let me capture their children with my camera and as I hand them my digital camera, knowing they will give it back. We express our joy as we laugh together at the funny and beautiful images I snap. We share and cooperate as I take pictures that I want and as I agree to take specific pictures that they want.

After a while, it is time to go. The children are crazy and whipped up into a frenzy from all of the excitement. The littlest ones are starting to get bumped around and knocked down.

One little boy has wandered off a bit and is standing all alone crying. I go to him and, as I lean down for him, he puts his arms around my neck and snuggles in. I deliver him to the gate, say my farewells and disappear back through the door into my world.

Tomorrow, I return to Islamabad.