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09/07/2010

The United States military transport helicopters arrive at daybreak, booming down from a sky where there is not a cloud in sight, now that the monsoon rains have ended. They land in the city of Kalam, on a knoll above the turquoise-blue river, rippling harmlessly into the valley as if nothing had happened.

Soldiers jump from the helicopters, which now make several flights a day to Kalam, bringing scaffolding needed to rebuild roads and bridges and carrying plastic bags of flour, rice, drinking water and medication. The soldiers are US Marines who have come from Afghanistan in their Chinooks and other transport aircraft. Until the middle of last year, their Pakistani allies were still waging war against the Taliban here in the Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan.

The enemy of the Taliban has arrived in the valley, but this time there are no bombs on board. The Americans have come to save lives.

The people of Kalam, bearded Pashtun men wearing woolen caps and women dressed in brown burqas, come to the helicopters to collect provisions. They know they would be lost without these foreign soldiers, without the food and donations from around the world.

The True Scope of the Disaster

The city was cut off from the outside world for 10 days. Some villages in the Swat Valley are still inaccessible today, five weeks after the flood. According to Red Cross volunteers on the hastily constructed airfield, four women and six children died in Gabral, a few kilometers away, only 10 days ago. They starved to death because the access roads to the village had been destroyed. Helicopters couldn't land in the village.

Kalam, in the northern Swat Valley, was one of the first places devastated by the flood in Pakistan. Only as the water subsides is the true scope of the disaster apparent. Some 70,000 people were left homeless, hotels and restaurants were immersed in the floodwaters and the harvest, the peaches and apples for which the Swat Valley is famous, will rot in the fields. The flood transformed this area into a gigantic riverbed, a wasteland of mud and debris.

A group of survivors has gathered around one of the few working TV sets in the city, watching videos of the floodwaters as they moved through Pakistan, from north to south, images of submerged parts of the Punjab, evacuations in Sindh Province, and refugee camps around the country. They know that a fifth of their nation was under water, more than 1,700 Pakistanis died and at least 18 million are now homeless or became victims of the flooding.

They feel let down by their president, Asif Ali Zardari, who traveled to Europe when the floods began and has now presented his solution to diplomats representing the donor nations. His proposal is to rebuild dams and floodgates in such a way that the water can simply be diverted into the desert the next time a major flood hits the country.

Pakistan, devastated and overwhelmed by the floods, is a country on edge.

A Grieving Mother

The survivors seem relieved as they shake hands with the foreign soldiers on the runway at Kalam and hoist sacks of food onto their shoulders.

Parvin Nissar, 26, squats on the sidelines. She has been rocking her baby for hours, almost in a trance-like state, unable to forget what happened on that morning four weeks ago. It was July 29, the day the deluge burst into the Swat Valley. The monsoon had been beating down for days, and Nissar walked to the river with neighbors, overjoyed by the blessing of rain, hoping for a good harvest and looking forward to a sumptuous Eid festival marking the end of Ramadan. But at about 11 a.m., as water levels continued to rise, transforming the Swat River into a deadly torrent, she took her two children and ran up the hill to higher ground.

Seven-year-old Fausia, Nissar's first-born, tore away from her mother, calling out that she wanted to fetch some food. From her perch on the hill, Nissar watched as her daughter waded through the mud in the courtyard of their house until the water rose to her chest. Then the first wave crashed over the house, knocking down stone walls like biscuits dipped in tea.

Then the second wave rolled in and Fausia was dragged away in the raging muddy brown waters. Fausia, like most people in Kalam, couldn't swim.

Her body was found on the riverbank 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Kalam a few days later. When Nissar went to the site to identify her child, she collapsed on the spot. When she spoke with her husband, a guest worker in Dubai, two days ago, she felt so guilty that she couldn't bring herself to tell him about their dead daughter.

Nissar wonders what will become of her in this valley, a place afflicted by one tragedy after another -- first the effects of the 2005 earthquake in nearby Kashmir, then the Taliban's reign of terror and the Pakistani military offensive against the Taliban, and now the flood.

Skiing, Trout Fishing and Headscarves

The Swat Valley was once known as the Switzerland of Pakistan. The first backpackers came to the region in the 1970s, traveling to China along the Karakorum Highway. They went skiing on the snow-covered peaks, fished for trout in the Swat River and smoked joints on terraces above the river while enjoying the panoramic views.

Later, Pakistani's affluent middle class discovered the area, with its cool temperatures, as a summer getaway. They came from the big cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, picnicked next to cool waterfalls and honeymooned in hotels with names like Heaven and the River Inn. Women didn't wear burqas in those days but simply covered their hair with headscarves.

Modern young Pakistanis wished the whole country could be more like Kalam, a village surrounded by a breathtaking landscape, full of life and more cosmopolitan than the rest of the conservative Swat Valley. But it was a vision that would eventually be destroyed by earthquakes, the Taliban and the war against terrorism.

When the first extremists came to the Swat Valley in 2007, they quickly established a state within a state, introduced Sharia as an exclusive legal system and infiltrated the entire country. They banned CD shops and girls' schools, and men who dared to shave their beards were publicly flogged. In Mingora, the largest city in the valley, beheaded people were left on the streets as a warning to the rest of the population. Life also ground to a standstill in Kalam. The tourists stopped coming.

Under pressure from the United States, the Pakistani army launched a military offensive in May 2009 to recapture the valley from the Taliban. Tanks were brought in, the houses were bombarded with heavy artillery and 2 million residents fled to refugee camps. Kalam became a ghost town, and only at the beginning of this year did residents feel safe enough to return.

In July, they held a Peace Festival at the spot where the US soldiers are now landing and Nissar is mourning her daughter. They grilled lamb kebabs and relished in their ability to enjoy the things that were forbidden under the Taliban -- dance performances, bands playing music, table tennis contests for women. The hotel owners expected to see their best season in years, with every hotel room in the town sold out, ready to host some 6,000 tourists from throughout the country.

But the flood came instead.

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• Part 1: 'We Are Grateful for Any Help'
• Part 2: The Will of Allah