'As we wind and shudder up towards the village of Surul it strikes me just how much we've been through this year... Aid work is like the theatre: somehow the show goes on.'
In his blog, Ryan Schmidt, a logistics manager working with Tearfund in Bagh, Pakistani Kashmir, reflects on what has changed in the year since the earthquake struck. Here's an excerpt:
I'm driving up into the Bagh hills with my colleague Sardar again. It's nearly nine months since we came here, and 12 months since the earthquake that killed more than 75,000 people and left 3 million homeless.
In January, we were surveying the earthquake damage and planning a water and sanitation project. This time we're going to see what we've built!
Tearfund’s Ryan Schmidt with translator Sardar.
As we drive, I gaze out the window and think about what is different here after a year. For one thing the bazaar is much busier. When we drove through these crooked streets in January most of the shops were shuttered down. Only a few storekeepers were sweeping the road in front of their stalls - bravely opening for business with half-empty shelves. Even three months after the disaster there was still a feeling of loss and shock. Now you can't hear for cars honking and the chatter of streets filled with people.
Rebuilding has begun
We drive out of town. The road lifts up to the crest of a ridge, so that the houses down the slope are visible. There are still signs of the earthquake: two-storey buildings tilting like crooked teeth, great slabs of cement cracked in half, twisted fingers of steel protruding out of the weeds. Temporary shelters are everywhere.
But as we cross the river and drive higher up the valley I can see the flashy wink of new tin sheets, hinting that rebuilding has begun.
We turn off the paved road onto a twisting hairpin affair made of broken stones. As we wind and shudder up towards the village of Surul it strikes me just how much we've been through this year.
Tearfund’s work will bring water from across the mountain ridge to Surul and two neighbouring villages.
Refusing to give in
The savage snows that everyone was dreading in January did not appear. The winter was mercifully mild and spring passed almost unnoticed as we carried on with our water-scheme planning; and health educators tramped all over these hills, teaching kids to brush their teeth and wash their hands so they wouldn't get sick.
Then came the heat of summer and 30 of us sweated in the converted metal shipping containers that were our homes, our offices, our world. The electricity stopped, the generator broke, we ran out of water.
After the heat came the rains, pouring down like some dam in heaven had broken and washing the roads and hillsides away, turning roads into rivers and stopping transportation dead. Still we braved going out most days, our drivers with some incalculable combination of genius and luck piloting sliding vehicles around hairpin turns and tiny switchbacks. Aid work is like the theatre: somehow the show goes on.
Life goes on
I break out of my reverie when the truck stops. Last month a monsoon washed out a huge section of the road, so Sardar and I climb towards the village on foot. There is a lot that hasn't changed: Bagh is still beautiful. The air still smells of pine and the pungent scent of cattle and earth; surprisingly bright wildflowers are popping out of the grass.
We pass withered men carrying impossible loads for re-building walls, stone by stone. School girls giggle before and after we pass while the boys shove themselves around and dare each other to run up and shake the foreigner's hand. The sound of hammers resounds as we approach the village and see the frames of new houses rising beside the piles of rubble that were homes before the earthquake struck.
Our path goes past the Surul Girls Middle School and we stop to chat with Saddiq, the school caretaker.
Memories linger
Two women come and join us. Mehbooba is 45 and one of the teachers at the school. The younger woman is called Zehbunisa, she says she is 30. She is quieter but obviously very intelligent; later I find out she is the school's headmistress.
They all say things are going very well. Saddiq's three children survived the earthquake. The women tell me that two children in their school died when the building collapsed and many others were injured.
'Are the children still afraid?' I ask. Mehbooba says that even the wind scares them now. 'We are all scared, still,' she says, 'It's not just the children.'
All of them lost homes in the earthquake, and I ask about rebuilding. It turns out they live in a red zone. Sardar explains to me that red zones have been deemed unsafe to build on again by the government. They will have to rebuild elsewhere.
Saddiq starts talking animatedly and I catch a few words but not enough to understand.
'He says that the money from the government for rebuilding has not yet come completely. Maybe in one year,' Sardar translates.
'So,' I say, 'according to you, everything is well now. But the children are scared, you're still living in temporary shelters and the government hasn't given you any money yet?'
Loving your neighbour
Sardar translates and there is a burst of excited talk, punctuated with the word 'Tearfund'. Mehbooba wins the floor first. 'We mean we are well because we are happy with Tearfund.'
Saddiq jumps in, 'Without Tearfund no other agency has come. They not only gave complete shelter kits but tools as well. This was very useful because at that time we had no tools.' Mehbooba goes on to list all of Tearfund's accomplishments, highlighting the health training, claiming that children are healthier now. 'They brush their teeth,' she says triumphantly.
I'm never sure about all this praise. Sometimes it seems that it is the cultural norm when foreigners visit. Have we really been that perfect? I have to admit there have been many times when it didn't feel like that to me.
As if she knows what I'm thinking, Zehbunisa starts shooting off piercing questions to Sardar about when the water scheme will be finished and where it will go. When he's finished his explanations she seems satisfied.
'Are you hopeful for the future?' I ask in the pause after her questions.
'We are hopeful especially because of the water,' she says. 'Water is the basic thing of life. If we can get it, life will go on.'
'The earthquake has been very interesting for us,' Saddiq adds. 'Before this, we could only dream of having water, but now, if it comes, it will not be a dream only, but true.'
We exchange a few more pleasantries and even though it's Ramadan they offer me tea, but I say we have to move on.
Re-birth
Sardar and I carry on up the steep path above the village. We reach the storage tank that is our destination. Below us the hillside spreads out and tumbles into the river valley far below where the water winds away, a ribbon in the sun.
It's hard to believe anything ever happened here.
I sit on the nearly-finished water tank and try to think how it feels to be here a year after the earthquake. All that comes are worn clichés about life restored and the resilience of people. The wind picks up gently, carrying hints of winter from the mountains. Down below a woman in a red scarf carries water across the pasture. I feel happy, I decide. Happy to have been here, to have walked up and down these mountains, to have chuckled at Sardar's antics, to have sat and had tea with strangers under the shade of these trees. Happy to go home in a few months having been witness to the re-creation of this place.
I jump down from the tank wall. 'Time to move?' Sardar asks. I nod, and follow him down the hill.
Word and photos: Ryan Schmidt