Far from Home

December 19, 2005

The massive earthquake that struck Pakistan on October 8 killed 75,000 people. Another 3.5 million were left homeless, with winter bearing down in this rugged and mountainous region. And while the aftermaths of such disasters are filled with powerful stories by survivors, I sometimes find the most poignant stories are those told by people far removed from the disaster zone itself, burdened by worry and uncertainty over relatives in harms way.

Such it was on the last of day of my recent trip to Pakistan, as I was working from a small hotel room in the capital Islamabad. Though I had spent nearly two weeks traveling throughout the quake affected areas, I was at that moment far away mentally from the reality of the disaster – lost in photo captions and trip summaries as I prepared for an early flight the next day.

With a knock on the door, a young hotel steward entered to deliver some laundry. His name was Raja. Seeing me working, he asked if I had been to the earthquake-affected areas of Kashmir. When I told him I had, Raja leaned heavily against the wall and began pouring out his story.

He had lost his mother to the quake, he told me. His young brother and sister were staying with relatives. His father was too old to travel. He wanted to bring them all to Islamabad, Raja said, but he had no money to pay for their transport, and no place for them to stay in any case. He was afraid that they would not receive shelter for the winter, because they lived high up in the mountains, far from the nearest road. He could not sleep or eat, Raja said, and there was no one here that he could talk to.

The work on my desk forgotten, I listened as Raja vented his worry, drawn deeper with each sentence into his life – a young man, far from home, earning $50 a month in a distant city to support a family he rarely saw. It was one of those moments – and I have had them often in such places – when you stop and count your own blessings, when you realize how much you take for granted, and how small your own problems are. I could offer only my sympathy, weak and diluted against the weight of his grief.

“Maybe God will help me with my problems,” Raja said finally, staring at a space beyond the white-painted wall. “But my mother will not come back.”

Then, he let out a long ragged breath, crossed the room without a word, and gently closed the door behind him.