How the flooding in Pakistan has affected every aspect of my life
16-year-old student Sohaila writes about wading through water, not being able to learn and contending with food shortages. (Courtesy of Amna Zuberi / Malala Fund)
16-year-old student Sohaila writes about wading through water, not being able to learn and contending with food shortages.
Assalam o Alaikum!
My name is Sohaila. I am 16 years old and a student in year 10. I lived in a village named Ibrahim Chandio in south Pakistan. It is a small village, but I was happy there.
My family and I had a wonderful life. Every day I offered the morning prayer, prepared tea for everyone and got ready for school. After returning from school, lunch would revitalize and energize me. I would then offer the afternoon prayer. Afterwards, I would go to the student center for afterschool classes and help with homework. Then I would return, prepare dinner and eventually go to sleep. My routine was the same every day.
But earlier this year, everything changed. It started raining more than usual in our village. it felt like a bad curse had taken over. The rains continued for almost two months. We then saw news on Facebook that a torrent of water was headed towards our village. It was terrifying; for three nights, I couldn’t sleep. I worried about what was going to happen and if the flood would carry us away.
“We had to decide what to do: save our furniture, take little children out, help our grandparents or shelter our animals.”
The flooding finally came to our village one day around 10 p.m. You can imagine our helplessness and pain. We could not think because our minds were not working. We had to decide what to do: save our furniture, take little children out, help our grandparents or shelter our animals. We decided to focus on rescuing our people; everything else was of secondary importance.
We brought our elders and children to higher ground, making trips back and forth through the water to bring whatever we could. By that time the level of the water had risen. We only had time to take our most important belongings. I picked up my books, including some Islamic ones. It was dark when we left our home, not knowing where we were going. We were wading through the water underneath us and rain from above us. We were drenched. It is difficult to share what we were going through. I wept for hours.
The night was still dark when we sat on a bridge, which was quite above the water level. All of us were hungry and thirsty. I sat there thinking that the dawn would bring horrible realities before us. In the morning, the sun was dazzling since it was the summertime. We had to build a makeshift house because my younger brother and my maternal grandmother could not walk much. But the sun was unforgiving; the heat would still pierce its way into our temporary abode.
“Sometimes I think about my school and school friends. It is painful to remember all that,” shares Sohaila. (Courtesy of Amna Zuberi / Malala Fund)
I would now like to tell you about my current life. Many from our village have set up camps at the water’s edge in a dusty field near Dadu. I wake up early and offer the morning prayer. After that, I prepare tea for everyone. I then perform the household chores. I help my mother with housework, do embroidery or make blankets. Once I am done with that, I study on my own and teach young children. There is no teacher here and there is no one who can help me with coursework. I don’t have any coursebooks here so I read Islamic books and stories.
The weather has become colder, and we cannot sleep at night. We use woods to light a fire and gather around it to pass the night. There are a lot of other difficulties at the camp. We are being provided with water but often we don’t have enough to eat and just go to sleep hungry. Bathing is a big challenge. There are toilets but no place for women to bathe. So we wait till it's dark and then bathe. We have to hold up sheets and bathe behind them.
There is also nothing to do. No way to earn any money. How can we buy food? We are burning in the sun. We are not used to living like this. When we came here, we got so ill, we couldn’t get up from the bed.
“It’s hard to believe this is real, that this happened and this is now our life. We saw our homes and crops get washed away in front of our eyes, saw our things floating away in the water but we couldn’t do anything.”
We get really stressed when it rains. We have nothing but these small tents over our heads. And the wind and rain comes in and the children get so upset, they start crying. It’s already so cold at night, we can’t sleep.
It’s hard to believe this is real, that this happened and this is now our life. We saw our homes and crops get washed away in front of our eyes, saw our things floating away in the water but we couldn’t do anything. Sometimes I think about my school and school friends. It is painful to remember all that. Whenever I think about our home, I cannot stop my tears. But what is done cannot be undone. Only God knows what is next.
This is my story.
Assalam o Alaikum.
Thank you.
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