AFTER surviving the most harrowing weeks of her life, Pathani Bibi is finally back to her Meera Bakhsh Goth, a village in the flood-hit Bandmanik area of Jaffarabad.

Before leaving the village, she recalls, “the constant rain scared us, it just would not stop. I was worried about the safety of our three-room home as the constant beating of the rain threatened our roof. We could not sleep in the fear it would fall on us, or the walls would cave in on us.” Finally, when the rain seeped dangerously through the mud ceiling, she quickly packed up what she could and ran towards Jaffarabad town with her eight children. Many of her belongings didn’t make it with her as she saw her mud home crumble in front of her eyes.

Bandmanik is still surrounded by water at many places, with only a few pockets where villagers attempt to rebuild their lives, as physical infrastructure is around 90 per cent destroyed with social infrastructure practically nonexistent.

Still traumatised, Pathani Bibi recalls that while fleeing the village she managed to save the lives of her children and three of her goats that day, but none of them was able to get a single glass of water to drink for days afterwards. Without blankets, they had to spend several nights under open skies. As the livestock form a critical food supply for families living hand to mouth, she moaned about the lack of fodder to feed the goats, which meant little milk supply for her children. No one from the livestock department in Jaffarabad had come to assist her.

After staying 20 days in a camp set up by an unidentified nongovernmental organization, she recalls that they started receiving one day’s ration with some clean drinking water. Not sure which other NGO arranged clean drinking water, but a USAID water tanker was seen going neighborhood to neighborhood in Jaffarabad providing this “precious resource”.

The remaining days they drank and cooked using the dirty water all around them. She has no recollection of any government agency or department checking on them or providing any assistance. One of her boys would go into town and seek manual labour work, sometimes he would return with food, sometimes he did not. For such days, finding no other way to get assistance, she had to sit on a roadside to beg from vehicles passing by.

Today in her village, she thanks this writer for the meagre package of clothes and dignity kit supplies, explaining, “We will change into these clothes after nearly a month in the ones we ran in.”

Asked about how she had managed during her menstrual cycle, she says one of her daughters had stopped menstruating, perhaps out of stress, while the others, including herself used torn bits of cloth.

A doctor near their camp later told them some of the reasons for her skin infections and rashes were due to unhygienic living. The lack of hygiene had compounded the illnesses and skin infections. The impact of personal hygiene and dignity of young girls and women is rarely discussed or factored into relief work. There is one organisation in Quetta by the name of DOCH PVT, trained by BRSP which makes ‘reusable’ sanitary pads, a key for healthier dignified lives for less privileged women and girls.

Pathani Bibi, in a matter-of-fact tone, recounts, “My children have suffered a lot. One of my sons has malaria, all of us have diarrhea, and two of my girls have skin infections.”

“Since I have returned, I see so many more snakes and other dangerous insects have multiplied after the rains,” she adds.

Safety conditions of the flooded areas, lack of health services, and other basic amenities have not been factored in by the local authorities, which must consider red-zoning dangerous areas and replan where and how human settlements should be allowed.

“From this rubble I will rebuild my home; I lived in a mud house, and with my boys, I will rebuild one room at a time,” she says, but she still has no sense of expecting any help from the government even in her darkest moment.

This appalling lack of responsibility on part of the authorities is in fact “celebrated as the innate resilience of the Pakistani poor”. The most vulnerable citizens’ ability to barely survive is nothing to celebrate. It is shameful.

“If we are going to get any help it will be from you, I have no faith in any government officials, they didn’t come when my family was dying, why would they come and help build my life back now?” she says.

I want to tell her she is wrong, but how.

Story of Kazbano

In another village of Bandmanik, Goth Shehbaz Khan Kator, Kazbano lives with her five children, two daughters and three sons. She still recalls the rains with fear, as the family remained in their mud home for days until the rains brought it all down on their heads! She was rescued by the armed forces acting in aid of civil power.

Eighty per cent of all homes in her village were destroyed by rains in August. “We spent almost one month on the roads, we had nowhere else to go after we were rescued.” Once the army rescued them, from impending death there were no organised shelter arrangements.

Kazbano says she is one of those who was completely abandoned by aid groups or government departments after being rescued. “While I camped with my family by the roadside, I managed to get Rs5,000 cash from Sulthan Sae, a spiritual leader of her community. He provided some of us cooked food twice a day for a month.”

Since her family had been boat rescued, there was no way to bring any of her belongings. Her most pressing concern was shelter though they had no blankets to cover themselves or shoes to wear.

All her five goats perished in water. Most of the livestock in her village had died. Some that managed to survive the floods are around the village wading in the waterlogged areas. They may die of hunger or from snake bite.

Kazbano who has now returned to her village showed the primary school’s building that looked dilapidated but people say it will resume its work as a ‘school’. She says the school may begin its work but there is no money for uniforms or supplies.

There are no health facilities either in this village. Asked about pregnant women, she says they would give birth in the traditional way, with local experienced women assisting; only if there is a complication, would they rush the pregnant woman to the DHQ in Jaffarabad.

The general health of the villagers mirrored her family’s; a lot of them, especially the children continued to suffer from diarrhea, malaria, skin infection, and many had high temperatures, and chest pain, etc. The signs of malaria are everywhere. Waterborne diseases everywhere. Eating away this tiny village like so many others in southern Balochistan.

When provided with traditional Balochi clothes, besides 50 post-delivery kits donated by BabyMama foundation and sanitary reusable Kits bought from SRSO Sukkur, she said: “I have nothing to reside in. My family has sought shelter in a hut which has a makeshift roof with no walls, we have no means to construct the walls or the purchasing power to buy wood or materials to rebuild. If we received a tent, we could live in it until we rebuild our home. The weather is getting colder day by day, and my little child is only four months old.”

The expectation continues that some individuals or NGOs, not government nor political representatives, nor their landlord would come and help them in this endeavor. Resilient until then.

This narration was only possible with the assistance of SPO’s Marzai Younus. The writer tweets at @ninoqazi.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2022