Nature snatched everything away, but Salma persists

Life was not easy for Salma Solangi after the death of her husband Shafi Muhammad Solangi, a patient of tuberculosis. She went through trying times in her life.
Salma, a young widow and a mother of a child, is a resident of Aamri, an archaeological site that dates back to Moenjodaro, in the Jamshoro District, located just on the edges of the Indus River.
Salma started doing different odd jobs since her husband died. “Life was so difficult. After working all day as a maidservant and doing other odd labour, I was hardly earning around Rs 4,000 a month, which was not enough for the everyday expenditures of my small family,” she said.
Despite going through all these difficulties, she was satisfied with her life. But nature had something else in store for her.
Located near the Indus River, the village is always experiencing ups and downs. In case of brief rainfalls and declining streams of river, the locals are faced with droughts. But if the river brings flood, it causes destruction and displacement.
It was the monsoon season of 2010 when Salma and other residents of her village thought that they were experiencing a routine rainy weather, but it proved to be a massive disaster, which is now known as Pakistan’s Super Flood 2010.
Salma was among the hundreds of residents who were displaced because of the flood. And when she returned home, there was nothing left.
Then stood another challenge in front of her, which was to restore her routine life when almost every house in the village and the entire infrastructure had been washed away by the flood.
“I stayed at the flood relief camp in a tent, which was donated by some non-governmental organisations (NGOs), with other displaced families. It was a horrible experience for me,” she said, recalling the 2010 flood.
While thinking about emerging from the tragedy and restoring routine life, Salma was not getting any ideas, as she had lost her job as well, because everyone in the village was going through the same situation.
But all of a sudden, she heard of a group of people in her village. It was the team of the Hamdam Development & Welfare Organisation (HDWO), a Hyderabad-based NGO working on flood rehabilitation with the help of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
“Earlier, I had thought that nobody from the outside world would come to our rescue. But it was unimaginable when a team of HDWO with the support of IOM came to our aid. During their identification procedure, they found me as deserving of their help,” said Salma.
She said, “The HDWO team told me that they would donate some bricks to me and provide me with the technical help to build a one-room shelter where I could live safely.”
Salma said that they were generous people and paid her Rs 25,500 with the promised technical support and guided her in building a shelter.
It was inspiring for her to receive this help and begin a new life after facing destruction. “I personally took active part in building a safer shelter to avoid any loss in future,” she said.
The major problem the villagers are facing right now is unavailability of drinking water. Women have to travel 3 kilometres once or twice a day to fetch water for domestic use from the ponds of the Indus River. Since underground water has turned brackish, the locals depend on river ponds.
Long ago, they had old wells in their courtyards and then they installed hand pumps, but all these sources have been depleted.
Despite these problems, Salma seems confident in facing everything. She said, “Now I live a safer life under my shelter. I am happy because I myself took part in its construction.”