IN PESHAWAR (Pakistan)
"JUST how do you do it?" I had to ask Mr Abdul Jaffar, 51, the Mercy Relief team leader as we made our way back from Charsadda district to Peshawar city, where we were based.
We had spent much of the day waiting at the airport for Singapore-made water filtration units to clear customs, for lorries to arrive, and for local NGO officials to turn up.
And we were almost at a camp for refugees — or more accurately, "internally displaced persons", as Jaffar reminds me — to deliver the water filtration units when a blocked road ended the plan.
All the waiting, last-minute changes and bureaucratic hold-ups should have been most frustrating to aid workers like Jaffar and his colleague Tahar Jumaat, 42, as they made their way round Peshawar to distribute relief supplies for the victims of Pakistan's floods, but they appeared to take it in their stride.
At the camp in Charsadda district, some 3,000 villagers whose homes were washed away stay in tents provided by local and foreign NGOs, relying on donated food and water. Behind them is a ridge where many had taken refuge when swollen rivers inundated their home. and swept entire villages away.
ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh
"You get used to it," said Jaffar with a grin, as he stretched out in the back of the van. "After a disaster, it's naturally messy."
A veteran aid worker of many years, he himself had been assigned to fly off to Pakistan just after returning from China on another humanitarian project; he hardly had time to pack properly.
The ever-jovial Tahar too seemed to be able to keep his sense of humour throughout the trip. "Got to be flexible," he said. "Anything can happen and everything can change. We're used to it."
It's not an easy thing to do, I discover, when you're trying your best to get relief aid supplies through to people who need it quickly.
Local officials struggle to keep order as villagers in Chowki Town rush for food packages supplied by Singapore relief organisation Mercy Relief. Mercy Relief's Mr Abdul Jaffar (top picture, extreme left, in black vest) looks on. ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh
I had expected to be kept busy rushing around on the trip, but found myself spending most of the time waiting.
Waiting for the supplies to be delivered. Waiting for lorries to turn up. Waiting to meet local NGO contacts. Waiting for block roads to clear.
It must have been even more difficult for the flood victims, who had been waiting for many days for food, water and shelter to arrive.
With homes and entire villages destroyed by the floods, many have lost everything, having managed to escape the raging waters with only their families and the clothes they were wearing.
Hundreds of families wait with an uncertain future at this makeshift camp at the Government College of Technology in Nowsheera district, one of the worst hit. They get food, water and medical supplies, but are waiting to return to their still-inundated villages to rebuild their homes. ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh
Yet the relief supplies were taking ages to come.
It must also have been hard for flood victims to stomach the contrast I saw within Peshawar itself.
In the centre of the capital of the former North West Frontier Province, life appeared to go on as normal.
The local bazaar was buzzing, new Japanese cars were being sold, and restaurants appeared to be doing a good business.
It was hard to imagine that just an hour's drive away, thousands of villagers were living in tents on the barest minimum.
The contrast was also stark in the distribution of relief aid and manpower.
At a hospital, a doctor on an NGO's medical team said he had trouble recruiting doctors to form more medical teams for flood relief.
When I asked another doctor working at the hospital about this, he shook his head.
"No, there is actually no shortage of doctors," he replied, and told me that there were 5,000 doctors in Peshawar alone.
"At least 5,000, maybe as many as 10,000," he said wryly. "But no one wants to go to the rural areas to work."
Adding to all this is the inevitable corruption within the system as well as mercenary individuals cashing in on the disaster.
Donated funds have been pocketed along the way, NGOs have been duped or fleeced, and flood victims have even had their meagre possessions stolen.
The authorities and rescue efforts have also been hampered by traditions that are still prevalent in this conservative part of Pakistan.
Local newspapers had reported one tribe refusing to be evacuated from their village which was going under water, because they "didn't want their women to be exposed to other tribes".
It was depressing: It was bad enough that such a disaster had taken place, but even worse that so many elements were making it harder for those who needed help to get it.
Mr Momtaz Ali, 41 (foreground, right) managed to escape with his wife and six children when his village of Kandar in Nowsheera district was destroyed. Now waiting to return to rebuild his home, he is staying in a refugee camp located in a college along with hundreds of others. ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh
But there was also a spark of hope, and it lay in the laughter and bright grins of young children who surrounded us at villagers and giggled whenever we took their photos and showed them the results.
"We are still able to smile," says one villager, reflecting a strong determination to survive, built up by past tragedies that have befallen this part of Pakistan, including a recent war between government forces and the Taleban. ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh
Despite their predicament, ever-hospitable villagers also gave a ready smile whenever we greeted them.
"Look at me, I'm smiling," one said to me. "We can still smile."