Life in a Nutshell

Staff ferried relief supplies via helicopter to this high-altitude village. Photo: Jackie Lee/Mercy Corps

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.