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Divanee’s Fatima Yamin reports from the Charsadda District in Pakistan, in Part Two, of the Flood Series: Five Minutes to Save the World.While still at the Medical Relief Camp at Tangi, the SAYA team got a call from a nearby village. Sahib Gari was connected to the district of Charsadda by a bridge, which had been in the direct path of the floodwaters, and washed away. The inhabitants had no easy way of getting access to doctors, and so far none of the medical teams had been able to get to them. There were several pregnant women and toddlers in dire need of medical assistance. Without Army helicopters, this seemed impossible for a homebrewed unit like ours.

The contact at Sahib Gari assured us there was an alternate route, but it would be faster for us to get there on our van than for all of the medically-in-need to walk to Tangi. They sent us a local guide, who assured us Sahib Gari was no more then 5 minutes away. Those were possibly the longest five minutes I’ve experienced in my lifetime, and I am not just satirizing the Pakistani tendency to stretch time and space; the journey was harrowing.

We bumped and bruised our way across what can only be described as a narrow path of dried mud amidst land previously cultivated with sugar cane. What our guide kept assuring us was no more then a two-kilometer journey took us well over an hour to accomplish. The crops had been destroyed by tides of floodwater that initially buried it under tons of loam and garbage. When the last of the floods swept away the wreckage, the crop and trees remained flattened, bent completely out of shape, incapable of bearing fruit.

The Flood's Aftermath

It was a bizarre scene; fields and fields of mighty cane lay flat on the ground, and trees now diagonal and leafless as if fall had come in August. Even more disconcerting were all the weeds and vegetation stuck on top of trees which had no business being there, except that the waters carried them up there, and they had no way of coming down. It was as if we were in some alternate ‘Spiderman’ dimension, crawling up walls, the world upside-down, except we were not.

This time of year, it is too late in the season to plant a new crop; now, these farmers will be without a means of income for the next year as well. That’s two years without income, in an already cash-strapped agro-economy.

Pakistan has experienced $9.5 billion in losses in terms of damaged crops, infrastructure, public and private property according to a preliminary ‘Damage Need Assessment Report’ prepared by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Officials say that about 6.5 million acres, which amounts to a quarter of the country’s crops, have been washed away.

About one-fifth of the country is, or was underwater, and an estimated 21 million people (8% of the population) are affected. $30 billion is needed for reconstruction.

Acute child malnutrition, already an alarming 13% according to The National Nutrition Survey 2001-2002, has exponentially exacerbated due to this disaster, termed by the UN as the greatest humanitarian crisis in its 65-year history.

Lining up for Shoes

Food prices had already been inflated around the world since 2008, but the current crisis in Pakistan has made it impossible to estimate the actual percentage as they are in constant flux. Just to give you an example, tomatoes went from selling at pre-flood rates of 30 Rupees (Rs.) to 100 Rupees per kilo within a few weeks. If things continue in this vein, according to the World Food Program, over 70,000 children could die from acute malnutrition in the next few weeks alone.

The only silver lining is the rich alluvium that currently covers the length and breadth of arable land in Pakistan. They say it will be a bumper crop next year. But will anyone be able to afford it? One is reminded of pre-world war Germany, where people dealt in millions for a loaf of bread, and would still often go short.

Pakistan though, does have a knack of surviving. I felt it for a twinge of a moment as we were leaving Sahib Gari late that afternoon. The SAYA volunteers were organizing and packing the remainder of the medications so that we could  hand them over at one of the army medicine depots around the country. Ali, one of our volunteer coordinators, exhausted from the day decided to take a minute and rest up. I watched him make his way to a tree, which amid a barren broken wasteland, stood proud, heavily laden with fruit, its branches drooping under the weight. I had to take a picture. This to me was Pakistan!

An amlok tree bears fruit

Perhaps the lessons lie in post-war Germany and Japan.

A nation can overcome anything even this, if its people are willing to step up to the challenge. Who amongst us is willing …

to step into the shoes left vacuous since the death of the Quaid (the founder of Pakistan)? Who amongst us is willing to bear fruit, when nature defies the odds? Who amongst us is willing to lead a nation ailing under decades of dynastic mobsters? I know it’s in me, but I need your help. Any takers?

UNICEF has nothing to do with water provisions, but its become a recognizable symbol here, thus often poached by charlatan businesses

Fatima Yamin is part of SAYA – you can find out more about them here: SAYA

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Missed Part 1 of the Flood Series? Click here.

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