The impossible choice: water or education?

This willowy ten-year-old girl is used to walking the narrow mountain path, with thorny shrubs tearing at her worn out shalwar kameez (the traditional Pakistani outfit), balancing the heavy water container on her head.

“When I return home from fetching water, I am already so tired. It takes one hour each way,” says Asma with simplicity.

Her day starts long before the break of dawn, when she hurries to complete the morning housework with her sister Saima, 13. By the time she fetches the drinking water from the stream and finishes all her household chores, Asma must go to school.

When I return home from fetching water, I am already so tired. It takes one hour each way.

Asma likes to study, but misses on average half of a week’s school days.

Still, Asma and her younger brother Reyast are two of the only four children, out of 150 living in her remote community of Jhangi, who attend school.

The closest primary school is World Vision’s primary school in Dhabar Khatta village, two hours away from her home village, down steep mountain slopes.

“In winter, or when heavy rains come, it is impossible to reach school. Then, we must stay home,” adds Asma.

She is keen on learning new things from the teacher, and her favorite subjects are Urdu and English. Asma also enjoys the friendships of the other girls attending fourth grade.

“I like cats and apples,” says Asma, taking a minute to remember some of her English classes.

But not all her memories about school are so cheerful.

Asma was in school on October 8, 2005, when the earthquake shattered so many lives in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.

She witnessed the whole building collapse. Fortunately, there were no casualties among children.

“Oh yes, I was so afraid! My father came to take me home after three days, as soon as he returned from work,” Asma remembers.

The earthquake and the subsequent series of massive landslides changed the landscape of the village. It also destroyed the village’s water system

Her father, Noor Mohammad, used to work as an unskilled laborer in the prosperous port of Karachi, some 1,800 km south from his native village of Jhangi in the Siran Valley.

“I came home to find my house collapsed, and my wife and eight-year-old boy trapped under heavy rubble, where they died,” recounts the father.

After the hurried burial of his loved ones, Noor Mohammad had to find a way to support the rest of his family.

“I was grateful that my other six children were alive, and kept praying ‘God, please help me, how am I going to support them? What about their futures?’”

After their mother’s death, Asma and Saima had to manage the household by themselves, cooking, cleaning, and caring for their father and siblings.

The October 2005 earthquake took an unbearable toll not only on Asma’s family, but also on the whole Jhangi community. Every one the 45 houses in the village collapsed, reduced to piles of debris in just a few seconds. Seventeen of the villagers, including six children, lost their lives.

The earthquake and the subsequent series of massive landslides changed the landscape of the village. It also destroyed the village’s water system, built by the government in 1988.

“We cannot afford to replace the system,” Noor Mohammad explains, “and our repairs did not last long.”

World Vision was the only organisation that reached the village of Jhangi after the earthquake. It takes determination to hike the rugged 60-degree mountain slope for three hours, to reach the Jhangi’s 400 inhabitants.

Noor Mohammad was happy to participate in World Vision’s food-for-work project that created a new, large walking track to Jhangi village. He received flour, pulses and oil that improved the family’s meager resources.

It is not easy for Noor Mohammad, and for other parents in Jhangi, to see their children’s lives revolving around water

Later on, World Vision distributed agro-packs in the village, and Noor Mohammad was able to cultivate the land and get a good harvest to feed his family.

It took a while for Asma’s family to rebuild their home. Now, a two-room house replaces the old family dwelling destroyed by the earthquake. Father and six children share one room, and they use the second room as shelter for their livestock.

“We will soon receive a new animal shelter from World Vision,” Noor Mohammad announces with pride, “and we’ll be able to clean the second room and use it for ourselves.”

It is not easy for Noor Mohammad, and for other parents in Jhangi, to see their children’s lives revolving around water.

“Water is good at the mountain spring, but children have to go fetch it every day, sometimes even twice a day.”

In winter, the road to the mountain water spring is blocked by an average of seven feet of snow. From November to March, villagers face even more serious water shortages.

“We melt the snow and use that water because the mountain spring cannot be reached,” explains Noor Mohammad.

Even in summer, fetching the water is a difficult and dangerous task, as the steep, rocky path zigzags up and down the mountain slopes.

“We are afraid of dangerous wildlife like snakes, but still we have to go fetch the water, “ says Asma.

We all know that without education our children will have no future. Water and education, this is what is most needed in Jhangi.

“We can only pray we’ll be back safe to the village.”

In Jhangi, only one man is literate, so the village’s thirst for education is acute.

“We all know that without education our children will have no future,” says Asma’s father.

“Water and education, this is what is most needed in Jhangi.”

Noor Mohammad encourages two of his children not to give up on their education.

“If a school were open in our village, all children would go, and they may have better chances in life.”

Asma believes that her determination to go to school will pay off one day.

“I could become a teacher, and come back to Jhangi to help boys and girls go on with their studies,” she says.