After the Flood in Pakistan 38 Berlin Geographical Papers - Freie ...

Box 18: Fatmah and Rashid – An example for an indebted household
Source: photograph ©�Narges Lankarani, February
24, 2011
Fatmah and her son
The household of Rashid and Fatma consists of
the parents and their four small children who
live in the remains of their collapsed mud house.
All of them are illiterate. The example is
somewhat typical for the situation in Mehrab
Qambrani because of their hopeless indebtedness
to landowners that has even worsened after the
flood. Rashid is working as sharecropper on the
fields of the landlord Bir Meman Burber and tills
a mere four acres. Before the flood, they gave
50% of the harvest to the landlord, plus expenses
for farming inputs. However, the lost harvest is
on them, forcing them to contribute the entire
upcoming spring harvest to the landowner and
literally working for free. The subsequent
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autumn harvest will likely result in a 25% share
at Rashid’s disposal, leaving them with too little
to survive without taking on further debts.
Fatmah estimated that at least four to five years
of good harvest will be needed in order for them
to compensate the losses endured in the flood.
A feeling of hopelessness lingers, as there
appears no reasonable chance to escape the
situation. The house is damaged; they have lost
one buffaloe and three goats in the flood; the
sanitation situation is very bad as well and there
is no regular access to drinkable water. The only
glimmer of hope is the one remaining buffaloe,
whose fodder requirements however presents a
major financial problem. Rashid started to work
in the casual work sector after the flood and
occasionally loads trucks four days a week and
earns 200 Rs per day (3,200 Rs per month). That
money helps but is neither enough to feed the
family nor to pay for urgently needed health
treatments that occurred due to growing health
problems in the households. The 10-years old
son suffers from tuberculosis and needs at least
one year of professional treatment, but doctor’s
fee and medicine are too expensive. Also, they
did not receive a watan card about 20,000 Rs as
government emergency aid and had to borrow
even more money from the landlord. As Fatmah
summarises this grave example: “We have
absolutely no idea how to manage our situation”.
5.3.4 Zafarabad - slow return of inhabitants and continuing internal displacement
Zafarabad presents a somewhat special case in that a majority of inhabitants apparently
have not yet returned to their village as the availability of shelter is not sufficient. At the
time of fieldwork, more than half of the population continues to stay within the wider
framework of family relations in urban locations or other less affected villages. Also, many
households merged their assets with other relatives after the flood to better cope with the
adverse situation through pooling of available resources. All these adaptations and coping
mechanisms are directly related to the adverse shelter situation in Zafarabad, where only
a very few solid houses remained after the flood; e.g. the school building that up to today