I'm writing this as I finish, I hope, my last few days of over a year spent in Pakistan. I've been meaning to put a blog together and a good friend finally inspired me to do it. I can't think of a better forum for me and I may go back and post some old stuff I have written in teh past few years, out of date though it may be.
I hope to put up a post everyday, so let's see how I can keep up.
Pakistan has been a great adventure. A friend asked what I will miss most about this place after I leave, and, once I got past the people I have known and friends I have made here, I didn't have much else to say. Sensing my uncertainty, he asked what I would remember most or what made the biggest impression. Of course, this was me, so it took a while for me to figure it out.
I first said I would miss having so much to do, always feeling like the job was getting away from me. Then I thought that what was really so memorable was all there was to do for EVERYBODY. This place is just so far behind on the development curve, it is pitiable. Arguably the greatest natural disaster of our lifetimes occurred here in Pakistan on 8 October, 2005. 75,000 people died; not as big as the Christmas 2004 tsunami, but 2.8 million people were left homeless. In October. In the Himalayas!! The fact that there wasn't a second wave of deaths, from exposure, from malnutrition, from disease, is nothing short of miraculous. But before all this, on 7 October, 2005, every infrastructure system in the region was stretched to the breaking point or beyond: electric, water, sewage, transport, education, health care and on and on. Not one was adequate to the demands placed on it. And the eathquake destroyed what little capacity they had. And yet, these people survived and continue on, making the most out of the bad hand that life and Allah have dealt them. And never, not once, did anyone beg me for anything, or demand that I MUST give them a job or relief supplies. Not once. The people of Pakistan have an admirable pride and self-reliance that you don't see just everywhere. In fact, this was the first for me in my career.
But they are poor. The biggest impression I leave Pakistan with is, by far, the poverty. I know, I know, this is South Asia, where the poverty is of a breed and character unique in the world, but good lord this place has some desperately poor people. I've seen people eating out of SEWERS, fer cryin' out loud, and, not to make a Monty Python skit about it, they were the ones lucky enough to have sewers to eat out of.
And for wrenching, grinding, dehumanizing poverty? On the list of places and occupations that qualify you to claim you live in "Hell on Earth", the bonded laborers in Pakistani brick kilns move pretty much to the head of the line as far as I am concerned. These people are, for all intents and purposes, slaves, with no rights of any kind. And as bad as it is for them, imagine being a kid there. Field laborers in the agricultural provinces are routinely brutalized by their overlords. Women and girls are raped, men beaten,jailed, even murdered if they complain. It's horrible, and nothing is done to end it. As if you could. With no skills, no land, no means of support, and of course no social, economic, political or legal rights, building the social infrastructure of all of the above will cost billions and take years. Just the time to build the schools and train the teachers for all the kids is a half decade process. And who's going to buy the books and uniforms and keep the lights on and all the rest? And the schools only take them for a couple hours a day for a few months of the year. What would they all do? Who's gonna watch out for them? Teach them about money and managing it and applying for a job and giving them job training and buying and maintaining property and all the rest. Not to say these people are stupid or incapable of dealing with all these things, far from it. But good lord, you can't take a person out of chains, pat them on the back and say, "you're free" and expect them to be able to cope with the myriad challenges of life, challenges that frankly, many people I know with a lot more money, education and privileges have a hard time dealing with, too.
OK, It's late. I'll try to get back to this tomorrow. Here's hoping I can keep this up!!
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