Taking Flight

by Matt George (United States of America)

Making a local connection Pakistan

Taking Flight The meaning of High altitude aid work in Kashmiri Pakistan By Matt George DAY ONE You are sitting alone above a small tarped camp on the side of a mountain in the small Kashmiri village of Chogali. It could be any camping trip. Except that this one is deadly. The steep ground you sit on is undependable. Like a snare ready to whip. Landslides are rife after the big quake that has devastated the region. Your nerves are dulled. You are tired, thirsty and a little sick. The potato stews of the rough mountain villages playing hell with your stomach. Bold before you is the majestic upper Neelum Valley. A vista of phantasm and legend. But here you sit. Bone cold. Even your eyelids are dirty. All you want is some kind of hot liquid to hold onto. The roaring Neelum river below you carves its way through the steep valley like a white scrawl from a giant’s hand. You stand, pat the snow off the seat of your pants and climb down to the hillside camp. It is 1530hrs. You look skyward. Too late for the chopper. Another night on the mountain. You make the woman comfortable as you can in the lean-to you built for her. Her house is gone. She waits. For anything. Shivering with fear. You check her wounds again. Then nod to her husband at her side, signaling that everything is going to be alright. But you’re not so sure about that. Earlier, you used a broken saw to cut off the legs of her bed. The only way to get her out of the wreckage. It is now her stretcher. You, the husband and her brothers hoisted the thing onto your backs and carried her back up to the camp where you had cleared a chopper pad with the village kids. Now night falls. The chopper will arrive tomorrow with more supplies and the woman will be evacuated to the hospital in Islamabad. The weather is not good. You hope it will be Goldtooth Tony behind the stick of the Mi8 chopper. He could probably handle it. You decide you will go with her as far as Muzaffarabad . DAY TWO You can hear the chopper’s beating blades thundering against the valley walls. Goldtooth Tony, surely. No one else would have come in this weather. He lands. Snow whirls. You help carry the bed into the cargo space of the chopper. The woman is terrified. Eyes like a horse in a barn fire. Mercifully, she faints. The chopper howls and lifts off. The husband squeezes his eyes and prays. You are with her on the cargo deck, your two hands on the roof holding you steady. The bone rattling convulsions of the helicopter make your teeth chatter. That’s when her eyes flutter open. Confused. Then terrified again. Her eyes dart from her husband to you. You lock eyes with her. You look her in the eye as calmly as you can and softly place your right hand on the blankets over her bandaged leg. You shape your face into the most reassuring expression you can manage. The world seems to quiet. Deep, brown, feminine eyes, creased at the edges. About the age of your sister, perhaps. You realize that you are looking into the eyes of unalloyed fear. Then, impossibly, the woman’s coffee corded hand slips from underneath the filthy blankets and grips your hand like a vice. It is silent now. There is nothing but her eyes. Pleading eyes. Locked on yours. You can feel her heart beating through your palm. With each lurch of the chopper, she squeezes your hand, forcing your knuckles to creak. You dare not take your eyes from hers. Each squeeze of her hand softer and more trustful with each shudder of turbulence as you climb from the valley. She chances it and glances around the cabin. Then back to you. Unblinking. Fifty five minutes to Muzaffarabad. The world has gone insane outside this flying machine. And you hold in your hand the country of Pakistan. -end-