A possible water project?

Today, I met with the locals of a neighbouring village, Thore, who had heard about my planned work over the next few weeks. They have a 29-year old, poorly-maintained water supply system from the local Government and were asking me to consider updating it. The system provides such little water now because it is linked to other remote villages that Thorens (people of Thore, I guess) are still needing to either walk at least 1km to a shallow well in the summer or use snow in the winter. Of course, this is completely unacceptable. As the water system is provided by the government, it makes sense to go back to the government and highlight the problem, but I'm assured that this would be fruitless and that KYDS support would be quicker and more beneficial. I'm not sure about the legalities of essentially renovating a public facility, but I will find out. Anyway, the Thorens were keen for me to visit their village and, as they were offering pakoras and samosas, I simply couldn't say 'no' (so easy, I know!)

Thore is about 1hr by car from where I'm staying in Dhanni Mie Sahiba (DMS), but they don't always have access to a car so they have offered horse, taking approximately 4 hours! Now, if I wasn't fasting and it wasn't so hot, this would be a great idea. I'd be well up for that, but alas… The plan is to leave DMS at 8am for Thore, see the current system and check out the spot that a KYDS tank could go up in the mountains (mental note to self: wear walking boots and maybe take harness/belay!) and have iftar. Any plan that ends with food can't be a bad one!

Oh, and so you know the lift that provides the only access from DMS to the city. Well, it was installed and run by a private company that charges 5r (approx. 3p) for a single ride. Now, this sounds very minimal to us back home, but actually for people in a poor village where unemployment is 60%, this is a heck of a lot of money when you think about it costing 10r per person for a return journey for yourself and all your average 5 children (assuming you have a job and can afford to send your kids to school). Given that the average yearly salary in the country is about ₤4oo, this is highly unlikely. Anyway, the point of this story is to say that the lift is essential for access to work, education, health and provisions, but the private company that owns it have upped the travel costs to 7r meaning that it's now 14r for a return crossing and 40% greater than the original price, which, incidentally, is so NOT in line with the rate of inflation, which the company claim. I spoke to my host, who was absolutely seething, about this and she feels the only way to manage this problem is to talk to the local government officials. Not, given what I've recently heard about local government, I'm not hopeful and in airing my concerns, she feels there is no choice. Local papers would not print a paper because they wouldn't want to be seen as trouble-making and refusing to use the lift affects their lifestyle too much. She is currently rounding up support to see the Dep Commissioner at local government. She's really quite hard!

In Pakistan, choices are virtually zero and people are barely keeping their heads above water. As such, anything that affects the status quo means that people go under. Everyone knows this, rendering the people powerless. In many ways, at its core, existence here is very sad.

Enjoy your freedom and security x