Distribution Day

Residents of Shakoora pick up blankets and other supplies from a Mercy Corps delivery truck. Photo: Jackie Lee/Mercy Corps

Yesterday, my first day in Pakistan, was spent at a UN coordination meeting in Islamabad. Today I'm helping our field teams deliver stoves and blankets and visiting villages where we're paying people to salvage whatever materials they can from earthquake-toppled homes.

I awoke at 4 a.m. to get ready for the three-hour drive to our office in Mansehra, one of the hardest-hit areas of the mountainous North West Frontier Province. The sky was still dark and the streets deserted when Mercy Corps' driver, Mr. Yousaf, picked me up at 5 a.m. On our way out of town, we passed trucks loaded with chicken — poultry is one of Mansehra's biggest industries — headed into the capital. I slept for about half the trip, and chatted with Mr. Yousaf, a well-mannered and very kind-hearted man who spoke some English. I learned that he only goes home to see his wife and four kids, who live near Islamabad, every two weeks.

Our idle chatting ended when Mr. Yousaf slowed down to show me a large apartment building that was destroyed by the earthquake. He recalled seeing many people crying and running around like ants on a hot pan, all shouting for help. Mr. Yousaf was lucky enough to be in the city during the quake, but it clearly had left a huge scar on many, both physically and emotionally.

Around 8 a.m. Mr. Yousaf and I arrived at Mercy Corps guesthouse No. 1, where I met Mercy Corps' Josh Kreger, who is responsible for the aid distributions and shelter programs, and Sean Collins, the distribution and cash-for-work program leader. (Later I learned they are both fellow Canadians — Josh is from Winnipeg and Sean is from my home province of Ontario.) We had a quick breakfast and headed out, driving to the office before piling into a jeep four-by-four for our trip into the mountains.

On our way there, Sean informed me that I wasn't the only visitor on this day's aid-delivery mission: we'd be picking up two ladies from one of our biggest donors, USAID, and four local journalists. Also joining us was Nadeem, Mercy Corps' community mobilizer.

Our target location was Shakoora, a village in the Konch Valley, one of two valleys where Mercy Corps is working. It's filled with terraced, snow-covered farms and scattered houses. Soon after we started down the bumpy road to Shakoora, our logistics manager radioed that the road to the village was blocked. That meant heading to a different distribution point, Malkan, 20 minutes from Shakoora. So, the residents of Shakoora walked to Malkan. There, each household representative received one stove and four blankets. USAID funded most of the blankets, while the Hong Kong Disaster Relief Fund paid for the stoves and some of the blankets. I felt relieved seeing the smiles of these villagers. At last, they have something to keep them warm! When I pulled out my digital camera to take some pictures, the kids were shy at first, but then started to laugh and open up — especially after I showed them some of my shots!

We finished up and took off around noon to distribution point number two, Sayd Abad Village. Here, local staff distributed the stoves and blankets while our delegation visited households participating in our cash-for-work shelter program.

Residents in Sayd Abad Village had built 68 earthquake-resistant shelters from sheets of corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) and wood and other materials salvaged from collapsed houses. Our material-aid program coincided nicely with the cash-for-work program. As the shelters were finished, they were furnished with a wood-burning stove and blankets.

It took 45 minutes on foot to reach the first shelter. Mr. Zeenad Khan, its builder and owner, received Rs150 each day as compensation for its construction. Mr. and Mrs. Khan have six kids, four girls and two boys, and belong to the Swati ethnic group, which follows the practice of arranged marriages that is common in this region. Mr. Khan told me he'd already arranged his oldest girl’s marriage — she will marry her cousin soon after finishing high school.

The Khans had received a stove, four blankets and also a latrine courtesy of Mercy Corps' busy water and sanitation teams, which had also repaired and installed water pipes and tanks in the village.

Next we paid a visit to Mr. Shafiq Rahman, one of the cash-for-work supervisors. He is responsible for looking after 21 other workers assembling their own shelters. Mr. Rahman explained that the snow and the road conditions were so bad that he wished he had a pair of good boots so he could travel easily from shelter to shelter in order to fulfill his supervisory duties. I sympathized. The roads were muddy and covered with snow; some icy and steep stretches were extremely slippery. Several members of our team had fallen on our walk here. Mr. Rahman showed us his shelter, in which his daughter was just cooking lunch for the family with the stove provided by Mercy Corps. In gratitude, Mr. Rahman insisted we stay for some chai and biscuits. (I found Pakistanis to be extremely hospitable, warm and friendly!)

These two shelters were among 107 constructed in Syad Abad village, and among 2,500 shelters in 42 villages province-wide. Another 1,500 are in construction. It was easy to see that these shelters are much warmer than the tents, and give families a much better sense of security from the cold, the snow and the aftershocks.

We left the village a little after 2 p.m., walked another 30 minutes to our vehicles, and had a bumpy, 2-hour ride back to the office. On our way, we passed a big crowd in front of an army building. Sean and Nadeem explained that these were earthquake survivors collecting government compensation, which was doled out according to how severely the earthquake affected you. There are three tiers:

1. Total damage of house and casualty of family members: 275,000 Rupees in installments
2. Partial damage of house with no casualties in the family: four installments of 25,000 Rupees
3. Affected by the quake in general: one or two installments of 25,000 Rupees

Our long but productive day ended after a big program meeting called by Faiza, Mercy Corps' country director, at 9 p.m.