On education and cricket, with ten-year-old Mohammad Wajid

Any boy his age would wake up in the morning and get ready for a day at school. He would think about homework, lessons, and playing with friends. He would live his life in present tense only, and let the grown-ups worry about the rest.

“I wake up before sunrise, as soon as the cows pass by my bed on their way to the pastures. Their shed is attached to our house,” says Wajid candidly.

But Wajid does not mind the early start of the day.

He cleans up the one-room shelter he shares with father Shah Noor, 60 years-old, and siblings - six brothers and four sisters. He helps prepare breakfast - mostly maize bread, cooked on the traditional fireplace built on the side of the room.

Then, in the dim morning light, Wajid finishes up his homework before getting ready for school. He does not want to go to school unprepared, because he knows how much this would sadden his teacher.

“I don’t always have time to study the day before,” he explains.

“I spend my evenings fetching firewood and water, and taking care of the cows. By the time I finish my house chores I am very tired, and it’s too dark to read or write.”

Wajid’s home, like all the other 350 households in the village, has no electricity. Most people rely on the light from the open fire. Some use gas cylinders to light the house at night, but Wajid’s family cannot afford to pay 70 rupees (little more than US$ 1) for a cylinder that would last only four nights.

For Wajid, the time spent in school is the best of the day.

He attends the white tent school installed by World Vision in the village, right behind the ruins of the old school collapsed during the October 2005 earthquake.

I was so happy to go to school again, and so were my friends. It was a great day when the teacher came from house to house to announce the reopening of school,” recalls Wajid.

“I was so happy to go to school again, and so were my friends. It was a great day when the teacher came from house to house to announce the reopening of school.”
Yet the joy of starting classes again could not erase painful memories from his mind.

Wajid bursts into tears each time he remembers the day when the “big quake” shattered his young life.

I ran home back from school, but our house was collapsed. Then I saw father and our neighbors pulling somebody out from the rubble.”

“I ran home back from school, but our house was collapsed. Then I saw father and our neighbors pulling somebody out from the rubble.”
It was Wajid’s mother.

The heavy walls crumbled down on her, as she was trying to save the family’s youngest, a two-year-old girl. When they freed her from the ruins, she was still holding the child’s dead body. The deep wounds to her head were bleeding heavily.

The closest health facility is in Manda Goucha, a town two hours away from Siryala. The only way to transport the injured to the clinic was on their shoulders, down the 60-degree, rough mountain trail.

Wajid’s father realized that his wife would not survive the rough journey.

“It was the toughest decision of my life,” remembers Shah Noor. “The children and I watched her over night, as life was quietly leaving her.”

Wajid continues to struggle with the distress of losing his mother. His teacher, Ghulam Jilliani, offers precious moral support. He talks to Wajid, trying to cheer him up and involve him in games and recreational activities.

“Wajid is a serious and hard-working student,” says Jilliani. “He was a happy child before his mother’s death, now he’s sad and more fearful.”

Jilliani admires Wajid’s strong determination to pursue his education, especially knowing that nobody at home can fully support the boy’s efforts.

“I am fortunate to come and study here,” says Wajid. “None of my sisters goes to school. My older brother Sajid dropped out because he has to help father with house work.”

The father, Shah Noor, is illiterate. After his wife’s death, he had to give up the unskilled daily jobs he used to do in town. He built a one-room mud shelter for the family, to replace the four-room house destroyed by the earthquake.

Right after the earthquake, help from World Vision brought some sense of normality to Wajid’s family. His family received precious food items such as wheat flour, oil and salt.

Shortly after, World Vision distributed relief household items that replaced some of the belongings destroyed by the quake – tents and tarps, kitchen and family sets, quilts, blankets, jackets, and water containers.

Shah Noor works tirelessly from morning to night, cultivating a small plot and attending to the livestock. Still, what they have is never enough.

“My children live with the burden of poverty,” he says sadly.

Wajid’s family lost almost everything to the quake. But despite the hard hit, their dreams are more alive than ever.

Wajid wants to study at least up to the 12th grade. To do that, he would have to walk every day to the middle school in Manda Goucha, a town two hours away from Siryala village.

Later on, he would have to attend the closest high school in the town of Nawazabad, three hours away.

“I am ready to do it. Education is the only way for me to have a better life. I will make more money to support my family,” adds Wajid.

“I am ready to do it. Education is the only way for me to have a better life. I will make more money to support my family."

He wants to become a teacher, inspired by Ghulam Jilliani’s example.

“Look at Mr. Jilliani, everybody respects him because he’s educated.”

Wajid is determined to be the next good teacher in his village.

“I will stay and teach in Siryala, because it’s my home. Children here will always need a good teacher.”

Wajid’s father believes his son would be a caring and helpful teacher.

“I pray that his dreams come true, but only God knows if this is possible. Life is so hard for us.”

In the village of Siryala, Wajid is not the only child for whom life is a continuous challenge.

Seven hundred other children live in impoverished households scattered on the jagged mountains. However, their dreams are big and audacious.

For these children, World Vision did much more than install a tent school, provide school supplies, or encourage local teachers in their mission.

“We brought hope to this village cut off from the rest of the province,” says World Vision’s Education Coordinator Faisal Shahzad.

“But our work here is not over. We can help this resilient, active community to build a different tomorrow for its children.”

If you ask Siryala’s adults, their first priority is a better road. They believe that their lives would be transformed by making the dangerous footpath into a road capable of handling vehicles. That would allow for easier access to health facilities, neighboring villages, and markets.

Wajid has different priorities for his village.

“What we need here in Siryala is a cricket field,” he states with conviction. “I’d love to play with my friends but there is no place for us.”

“And yes it would be good to have water, too,” Wajid adds after some consideration, “so we don’t have to walk every day for an hour to the mountain spring.”

In March 2006, World Vision Pakistan opened the tent primary school in Siryala village in the Siran Valley (Devli Jabar Union Council) of the North West Frontier Province, about 300 km away from the capital of Islamabad.

This project is part of the post-earthquake emergency education intervention, funded by the Korean Government through World Vision Korea. The project is implemented in partnership with local organisation BEFARe (Basic Education for Awareness, Reform and Empowerment).