MAGGIE Tookey was on a relaxing holiday in Greece when she got the phone call. It was 8 October 2005, and a massive earthquake had just hit Pakistan and north India, causing mass devastation and leaving thousands dead. Could she get on the next flight to Islamabad? "I said yes," she says quietly. "What else could I say?"
As an aid worker with local charity Edinburgh Direct Aid, Tookey, who originally hails from Skipton in West Yorkshire, has worked in many crisis-hit regions around the world. But, after spending time delivering aid in Kashmir's Neelum valley, an area particularly badly hit, she's still struggling to come to terms with the scale of the disaster.
"I was far more shocked by what I've seen in Kashmir than anything I witnessed in the tsunami [last Boxing Day]," she says, back in Edinburgh for a brief respite over the festive period.
"It's the sheer scale of the destruction. Major towns have just gone, disappeared off the face of the Earth. But, because there were relatively very few tourists involved, and Pakistan is fairly far away, it's already been forgotten. Yet the situation is still terrible."
Tookey spent six weeks in the area taking emergency supplies, in particular wood stoves and shelter materials, to the highest villages in the remote Kashmiri village. In partnership with the World Wide Fund for nature and UN-Habitat, EDA is working to build blizzard and earthquake-proof hard shelters in the high valleys.
Locals who leave their towns and villages to go down to the tented camps in the lower valleys often become penniless refugees in their own country. EDA's scheme helps them survive the winter on their own land, where they can watch over their fields and animals, ready to earn a living when spring comes.
The stoves, which can help warm an average family of seven or eight people, are, says Tookey, a lifeline. "They give out a lot of heat, they can be used for cooking, and, most importantly, they are fuel-efficient, so stocks of wood will last the winter," she says.
Unlike some of the larger NGOs in the area, EDA is a small organisation working, Tookey says, "at the sharp end". She often turns up in a city like Islamabad on her own, building contacts, assessing practicalities and working out where she can be of most help.
"When money is being donated to EDA, within 24 hours every penny has been transferred to someone in the field, who can immediately go and buy stoves and shelters with it. Within just a couple of days they're with the people who need them most."
Tookey will be heading back to the region in the new year to continue her work. "It's cold, it's filthy and there's no sanitation," she says.
"I'd be lying if I said things were comfortable for me. But then I look at what's happening around me and think, well, if I can make a difference here, then it's worth it."
MAGGIE'S DIARY: THREE DAYS OF SHOCK AFTER SHOCK
29 November, 2005 I WOKE up last night about midnight in a state of complete panic - it sounded like the whole of the mountainside above us was coming down. Given the frequency of the aftershocks we're getting, it seemed completely feasible to me, in my half sleepy state, that this could be what was happening. It seemed to go on for ages - crashing, collapsing noises - my heart was jumping out of my chest. Being a complete coward I huddled in my bag and hoped it wouldn't hit our base camp. Perhaps I should have leapt up and woken our deep-sleeping local team, to warn them.
When it stopped I got out the tent. It was freezing and icy but I couldn't hear screaming or people running about. After staggering round in the dark with a failing torch I got back into my sleeping bag and hoped it was all OK.
This morning we learned that two shops in the upper bazaar had finally given up clinging to the slope in their weakened state and slid down the hillside. In the next ruined shop along, a family of five are living in the rubble for want of better shelter. We must get them out of there. But with what? We've no materials left to build more shelters - when is this bloody delivery going to come?
30 November A MAN came to me today from a village on the other side of the valley - close but not in our district. Another much larger NGO is supposed to be supplying tarpaulins over there. He'd lost his wife and three daughters in the earthquake and was desperate for shelter and food for his two young sons. He didn't plead. It was a simple statement - a polite request. I directed him to a representative of that NGO, who'd flown in on their own helicopter.
If I'd given him a blanket and stove I would have been inundated by many, many more. What can I do? Perhaps I could have sworn him to secrecy. But I can't even supply my own area.
1 DecemberIT'S BEEN another long day today - every day is long because it's dark so early and the cold sets in around 2pm. I set off with our team of mules and porters this morning as soon as the long stove-loading process was done.They're getting quicker at it, but the stoves, though not heavy, are an awkward shape and have lots of bits which need securing. The poor old mules have to endure this constant loud metallic rattle in their ears all the way up the mountain tracks. The lead mule has been called Maggie! Not sure if that's an insult or compliment. Best not to question too closely...
We had a three-hour trek up today to the village of Ghalikata. It was cloudy all the way up and raining by the time we arrived. 72 people died in this part of the village where around 300 live. Every house has gone. It's all just piles of rubble. It seems that in these high villages almost no houses survived, even though many were substantial buildings.
So many of these villages are built on very steep terraced slopes and maybe these slopes shook more violently - I don't know - I just know that somehow the tragedy up here seems even greater because no help comes. If they need help they have to go down the mountain and for the vulnerable, the injured, the old and the widowed, this isn't easy.
The trouble is they all seem so vulnerable up there and there just aren't enough stoves and blankets to go round. I keep seeing the faces of the hopeful and they haunt me - waiting to see if they'll get a blanket or a wood-burning stove - a simple, fuel-efficient device that will act like a radiator through the night. The temperature is bitter in the many "open shelters" thrown together by desperate people.
My interpreter "got lost" on the way up and never turned up, so my lesson on stove use to the villagers had to be mimed. This caused a lot of laughter, but I got my own back by getting one of them to demonstrate what they'd learned and this was even funnier. A bit of light relief!
Today it wasn't just material help I seemed to bring. As a huge blizzard closed in, I got taken into one of the shelters - a crude wooden frame made with planks and covered by a rusty piece of tin sheeting full of large holes.
As the snow drove in on us I really thought I might die of hypothermia - the pathetic open fire just filled the space with choking smoke and no heat, and everyone coughs, and spits almost non stop. I had to endure a plate of the spiciest dhal imaginable, but I was so cold I think it kept me alive...
I also slurped down the hot sweet milky tea that I usually find so sickly. It's amazing what tastes good when the going gets tough. These people make me feel so weak, so pathetic. I feel like moaning all the time about my frozen hands, my flea bites, my frozen toes, my numb nose, my dirty, smelly condition. Wait till I get out to Islamabad, then I'll do some serious moaning.
They really didn't want me to leave today, just like all the other days. I guess they pin their hopes on me for more help. Some teenage girls were trying out their English and were desperate for me to answer questions on all sorts of things.
I finally left after about two hours.
The snow had stopped but the light was going and the paths were slippery. I hope the mules and porters got down OK. They sent a guide down to see me safely to the upper valley path. I hope I get more torch batteries soon.
This was just one village. There are so many more that need help that I haven't even visited yet, just in this valley alone.
I've got enough stoves and blankets for the hardest hit in one more village tomorrow - our fifth one.
How can EDA help them all? I just don't know, but I guess we have to keep on trying.
How you can help TO MAKE a donation, volunteer or for further information, write to Edinburgh Direct Aid, 29 Starbank Rd, Edinburgh EH5 3BY - making cheques out to EDA (Earthquake) - telephone 0131 552 1545 or go to www.e
dinburghdirectaid.org
EDA hopes to deliver another 1,000 stoves by year's end to keep 1,000 families alive through the winter. At £15 a stove, and with your help, it can be done.
