The following is a letter from one of our volunteers, Ms Priti Patil, a native of Gujarat. She made a trip to Gujarat a few weeks after the earthquake. In the letter she describes all that she saw and experienced during her visit to various towns and villages in Gujarat.

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Dear Friends, Hello.

Introduction
Well before the disastrous earthquake occurred on 26th Jan, I had made plans to visit the Kutchh area because of many family ties to the area.  The occurrence of the disaster was not going to deter me or force me into canceling my trip to Kutchh.  For many happy memories of my previous visits, I owed this visit to Kutchh... The impact of the disaster was impressed upon me as soon as I started my trip, on 23rd Feb, as we were traveling by train with some people from Vagad area.   Two people from Bhachaau taluka and two people from Rapar taluka, with a family member from the same area, but living in Bombay, and having a shop in Mulund. They told of how their villages turned into ruins in couple of minutes and how they survived... One person was having a 'bath' in "vada" - open place and saw all houses around him falling down with a loud noise followed by people shouting for help and running around with fear frozen on their faces... In the light of next day early morning, we saw Bhachaau and Rapar stations, with surrounding area... Instead of the sweet smell of "Bajar ji maani", it seemed like there was just smell of dust everywhere...  Even after almost 4 weeks, there were heavy machines working on demolishing partially standing, un-habitable structures... Even though each of those structures belonged to somebody who lived there before, one could not call them homes or houses because some of them had huge cracks, some falling apart and some half-broken. The stations were followed by large ground with tents on it.  It was still cool and people were wearing sweaters or wrapped in shawls... I longed to get down and talk to them, listen to what each one of them had to say but realized that I had lost my voice by merely seeing what had happened during the earthquake, just two minutes. The stations were almost in ruins and platforms had huge cracks in them.  We continued on to reach Gandhidham approximately 45 minutes late.  We had to finish some personal work at Gandhidham.  Kutchhi Bhavan run by Kutchhi Samaj was closed because its ground floor needed some work.  Lohana Bhavan was also closed.  Lots of homes were still standing but had tents pitched in front of them.  People were still afraid to sleep in their habitable homes.  We visited a real estate agent whose wife was so afraid of what she went through that she was saying she does not want to stay in Kutchh anymore.  We travelled around in Gandhidham to meet one of our relatives, in their shop and on the way saw 4 storied buildings tilted because of uneven collapse of ground floor; some brand new, still to be painted previously 5 storied buildings now looked like it was 4 storied because of complete collapse of ground floor.  Across from our relatives' furniture shop, we observed demolition of a two-storied building because it was not habitable.  There were two police standing nearby so that people do not steal anything from the rubble.  There were 4 lorries standing in a queue to carry the rubble out of there. From then on, the smell and feel of dust and rubble was everywhere. I visited Aadipur, Shri. Bidada Sarvoday Trust's hospital, Mandvi, Bhuj, Undoth, Kotdi Mahadevpuri, Karodia, Kotaya, Nagrecha, Ramania, Gundala, Ratnal, Sapera, Anjaar...

People
As we were getting out of the station, I experienced the independence(?) of Kutchi people...  There was an old lady of age around 60 with a plastered leg carrying baggage in her both hands crossing the tracks.  I asked her if I can help to carry her baggage and she replied in kutchhi "In my life, I have never let others carry any of my load and now also I would do it myself till I'm able to do it." "Even if the government does not do anything by the monsoon, we need to have a shelter above us by then... somehow we will do it" - heard from one of the earthquake victims...  People are still not able to sleep well, but they are coming out of the initial shock and starting to stand up for themselves and other more unfortunate ones. I stood in one survey queue in Bhuj where my Mother had some property where she had spent the first 24 years of her life.  Since my parents were with us, I went ahead in the queue to ask the government surveyors if they needed any help.  Their first question was, "where are you coming from?" - useless to say that I was from Richmond, VA... So I replied "Bombay".  And I was told to help gather the appropriate information from people and fill out the form for them.  That day we were near "Salaat Fariya" in Bhuj, which is now listed in the "was" catagory.  I helped in filling up approximately 10-15 forms and heard people's stories... their loss, their pain and their hopes. At that time, People had some hope to get organized help from well-known NGOs in the area.  We also heard in one of the village: "Oh... VRTI (Vivekanand Research and Training Institute, an NGO) has done survey of our village and since they came, they will definitely help us with our problems" As already expressed by many before, rehabilitation is a huge task and VRTI or Sewa Bharti or Nilpar's Gram Swaraj Sangh may not be able to do it all unless they get together and solve the problem of long-term rehab WITH the help from government.  Each element of the society has to pitch in - victims, residents, NGOs, government and even non-residents.

Bhuj: It is hard to provide an objective report about what I saw there. I've been there atleast three times after 1978 and have visited major tourist places there when all was ok.  I have taken a stroll in central Bhuj previously and what I saw this time was disheartening. Some central Bhuj roads near Jain Mandir were being cleared. Started from Vokla Fariya near Meharali Chawk, went through the internal roads and came back to the Meharali chawk from other side. There were some roads still not accessible...  but we saw old homes/buildings completely collapsed, new additions were still standing but with huge cracks and not habitable.  The market road that usually has so many people around, there was just dust and rubble and empty buildings everywhere.  Oh yes, it was a survey day and we saw at least three or four government survey tables during our stroll, with people surrounding them. We also saw three or four shopkeepers cleaning their shops and stock in the shops.  We saw a tailor's shop open with a person busy giving finishing touches to a dress.  We could see pigeons flying and flaps of their wings echoing from those empty structures. After that, we visited the makeshift Bhuj Civil hospital on Jubilee ground and spoke with some nurses and volunteers.  Bus stop and main road were busy with people, shops open and surrounding new Bhuj reviving from the aftershock.  Indirabai Girls high school ground was clean of the rubble.  We heard that "Sureshdada Jain" from Jalgaon (Owner of Jain Pipes and Jain Thibak) has adopted it for rebuilding and on that day they also had "Bhoomi Poojan" for new school building.

Undoth: People of Undoth village have asked for permanent water supply, a school building for children up to 12 years of age (up to 7th grade), a repair and deepen a small pond, which they use for non-drinking water, a primary health center, etc.  They have not had any drinking water source in the village, and get their drinking water in a tanker from village "Mau" which is 15-20 km away and fill up the water tank with it.  A doctor used to visit them three times a week and the nearest availability of doctor is 5 km away in Bhojay, where as medical facility is approx 30 km away in Mandvi. They have approx 425 homes, but only 175 families live there. Approx. 172 families have lived out of Kutch for some time now and probably are not going to live there in near future... Still when the question of adopting the village comes, they expect to have all 350 homes rebuilt.

Nani Undoth: Very close to the village Undoth, but smaller than that is the village of Nani Undoth.  Approx. 132 families live there and it only has a primary school in the village.  Access to water and medical facilities situation is similar or worse than Undoth.

Kotdi Mahadevpuri: 100% damaged... 18 deaths. The housing situation is similar to Undoth, i.e. approx. 40% of the homes were only occasionally occupied during the last decade.

Karodia / Kotaya: Visited just the outskirts and could not gather statistical data... but both of them looked in pretty bad shape...

General: In all the small villages, there were some old homes, which were being lived in, not well maintained and these were gone...  There were approx. 20 - 30% homes of well to do families, who have settled out side of Kutchh, which had not been lived in and not well maintained, and they are gone.  And, then there were some newly built homes of well to do families, like on the outskirts of the village Gundala; which were only occasionally lived in and are not habitable now.  The questions remain about what would be done by people who adopt such villages.

NGOs: I'd like to quote our friend, Michel Mazgaonker (Maku) words here: "NGOs have done an excellent task of responding to the calamity. Unprecedented response from small and large NGOs more than made up for the lack of quick response from the government. Within a few days of the calamity, sensitive NGOs were reaching all the scattered and neglected (due to class, caste or religion) communities as well. Probably one thing lacking at that time amongst the NGOs was co-ordination."

"Kutchh Navnirman Abhiyan" is trying to achieve it with help of VRTI and other 21 various NGOs.
I visited VRTI at Mandavi, Shri Bidada Sarvoday Trust hospital near Mandavi and spoke with some RSS people, who do the service to society under NGO named "Sewa Bharti".  Also got to hear good things about Nilpar ashram and people associated with it in Vagad.
VRTI (www.vrti.org; VRTI_mandvi@yahoo.com ): What I liked most about them is their dedication.  They helped in distributing some of the help received from abroad and from the other states within India.  Common people trusted what VRTI was doing and depended on what VRTI does more than what Govt. does.

Their work is not just restricted to earthquake but is generally humanitarian.  If needed, I have English literature with detailed information about their activities.  In general, their activities can be listed as follows:
* Improvement of the local breed of cattle.
* Water Harvesting - rainwater harvesting, help with bore wells etc.
* Research and development in agriculture - providing better seeds,   increasing organic fertilizer awareness and combination of it   with chemical fertilizers and bacterial fertilizers
* Employment generation program
* Watershed development program
* Training programs for teachers, handicraft artisans etc
* Health and hygiene
* Youth development
* Energy Conservation
* Collaborating with other organizations to share experiences and   providing the services of experienced workers in order to build-up   the local volunteers' knowledge and capabilities.

For long-term rehab, they are going to help with - rebuilding of villages, providing training and employment opportunities, maintaining the newly built schools with regular monitoring (and surprise visits) and providing additional training to teachers.

There are two gromodyog societies associated with them, where they train people... We visited the VGS at Mandvi (other is in Bhavnagar, Gujarat).  VRTI is also associated with an organization "Shrujan", where lot of Kutchh handicraft is being produced for modern society by keeping current market needs in mind. They had couple of models for earthquake resistant housing ready and I was a little disappointed seeing them, because they did not look like any of the existing housing in Kutchh.  Not sure if people would want to live in something looking completely different than what they used to live in...

Shri Bidada Sarvoday Trust Hospital (BSTS): Active in the Kutchh area for approx 25 years...  The way they handled patients during this disaster period was amazing... It was one of only two or three medical facilities operational in Kutchh round the clock during the month after 26th Jan.  Even when we visited it on 27th Feb, Dr. Ali Irani and his team of orthopedic surgeons from Bombay was operating there not stop from morning till evening - and some times they had to do minor operations without help of anesthetists.

BSTS provided free lodging and boarding for all the helpers, visitors, patients and volunteers.  While we were there, they received some medical supplies packets sent from Bombay and they were handled such professionally that minimal time was wasted.

Their estimate is that approximately 2500 to 3000 people were amputated during this time and all those medically handicapped people would need the rehab help.  BSTS is an organization devoted to the medical cause, and they want to take up the rehab of such medically handicapped people by:
* Locally manufacturing Jaipur limbs for such people
* Training them in some other skills, which they can use for their living
* Building homes for them
* Providing psychological support to them with help of TISS (Tata   Institute of Social Services)

I visited many of the villages listed above with BSTS volunteers.

Sewa Bharti (http://www.sewabhartiguj.org ): This is the NGO organization associated with RSS and is doing a great job helping the affected people (in general, not only Hindus).  They were there to help when not many other volunteers were there to help, with rescuing people or removing dead bodies from under the rubble and help with the disposal of dead bodies in Bhuj.  I saw a small film produced by them about their earthquake rescue efforts, targeted towards funds collection from corporations and am trying to get a copy of it.  They have a sister organization for schools, called Vidya Bharti and we also visited one school associated with Vidya Bharati in Mandvi.

Sewa Bharti has already distributed different specialty kits at 15 days interval to the affected people.  They had the most efficient and concise survey spread sheet I had seen, and I am trying to get their information about the inner villages.

Their overall aim is to reach out to people in the following ways:
* Specialty kit for kitchen and home (some vessels, plates, cups,   glasses etc... and some set of basic provisions in first kit,   "Santvana kit" and 2nd kit containing additional provisions for   sustaining for 15 more days, "Annpurna kit" - I have lost the page   with count of how many families used such sets and how many were   helped more than once)
* Providing appropriate toolkits to the artisans so that they can   get back to work * Providing psychological support by keeping constant touch and   helping affected people out of depression
* They have decided to adopt 33 villages and aim to build homes,   community center, school, and small primary health care facility - I   think helping those villages to solve their water problem was also   on Sevabharati's charter but not sure.

Government: I agree with a statement made by our friend, Maku - "Even though the affected people seem to be overcoming the shock of earthquake, the government seems to have not. After participating in the relief work, only two things seem to have come from the government. One, they have given some cash doles to people after the quake and two, they are doing surveys!"

Only contact I had was when I spoke with those surveyors in Bhuj... Many of them were wearing disposable nose and mouth covering masks, drinking purified water from plastic bags and looked as if they did not belong there...  Only one consolation, that they were speaking Gujarati language.

For fact validation, they had brought a decade old government books (I saw one book of the year 1987 and another book of the year 1990) and did not have information about some new tenants and owners. After filling up the form, an engineer went with the applicant to survey the actual damage and appraise the loss...

I had heard that some Latur claims were not yet paid, so asked directly to one of the officer, if there was any use of this surveying process... He chose not to answer and looked away beyond the heap of rubble.

In the End
When coming back from Kutchh, a structural engineer from Maharashtra govt. was traveling with us.  He was in Kutchh area for three weeks, doing structural inspection of affected g+2 or more storied structures and shared his experiences with us.  Told us about the malpractice applied in building those collapsed buildings.  How they find out about it and how sad it is that people think an architect is sufficient for building, there is no need to have a structural engineer to validate architect's designs.

I have so many stories from the victims and volunteers.  Some of them inspiring, some sad, painful and some disgusting…; which I can share later if needed.

This experience has helped me to develop a deeper perspective to the life.  Seeing the way people in general have responded to this disaster, gives me the faith in “goodness” of human nature and the hope for the “humanity.”

Thanks
Priti