Children and teachers struggling with grief in a devastated mountain village have started an open-air school, finding some comfort and hope two weeks after a killer earthquake.
Perched on a ridge nearly 2,000 meters high in the Himalayan foothills, the village of Maloot is like so many across northern mountains - a scene of utter destruction.
"My aim (to help the children) is greater than my grief," said Sayyad Ahmad, the principal of one of four schools in the region, all destroyed in the October 8 quake, which killed at least 53,000 people.
The quake inflicted a particularly cruel toll on children. It hit on a Saturday morning and classes had just started.
There is no tally yet of the number of schools destroyed and children killed, but across the region, hardly a school or college is left standing. Perhaps half of the dead were children, some aid workers say.
Ahmad, 34, said 150 children were at his school when the quake struck. About 100 made it to safety and villagers dug out another 40 or so, he said.
Among the nine dead were his 29-year-old wife, who was also a teacher, and their baby daughter, Alisha, killed on her first birthday.
"She was very pretty. She was a very pretty girl. I'll show you a photograph," Ahmad tells a visiting reporter.
"This earthquake brought people hopelessness. It destroyed everything, there was no beacon of hope," he said.
Rather than just do nothing, Ahmad and several other teachers opened the makeshift school with the help of soldiers, who have strung up canopies amidst the ruins and help out with some teaching.
"The main reason we decided to start the school again so quickly was that it was painful for us to see the children begging on the road," he said.
"We want to open a ray of hope to everyone."
About eight classes were being held at the makeshift school on Sunday, including English, Urdu and algebra.
Children said they were happy to be back in class.
Among them was Sima Khaleeq, 16, a timid girl, perhaps traumatised, who wore a black shawl she used to cover most of her face.
Sima was in school when the quake struck but her two brothers were at home. One was killed and the other had to have a leg and arm amputated, she said.
"My father has lost his mind. I'm all right at school but I can't go home. I can't see my father like that, or look into my brother's eyes," she said.
Another girl, Balqees, from nearby Bungran village, said she was also in school when the quake struck. Eight of her classmates were killed but her family survived.
"I feel better now that I'm with other children but I miss my friends," she said.
The medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has set up a clinic in Maloot and it was thronged by scores of people on Sunday, all with horror stories to tell of villages further afield destroyed or swept away by landslides.
Some villagers were living in simple tents but many people complained they had no shelter, with winter snow only a few weeks away.
Chaudhry Ramzan, 36, said he was in Islamabad, working as a cook, when the quake hit.
He rushed back to his village to find his home destroyed and his five children dead. He said his wife had lost her mind with grief.
"I can't think. I can't think about what to do next. I'm helpless," he said.
Comments
Comments are closed.