Begging on the streets may be the only future left for many of the people who have lost everything in the recent Pakistan floods, a Belfast charity worker in the troubled country has heard.
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By David O'Hare in Pakistan
"I have nothing left - maybe I will have to become a beggar," 28-year-old Mehboob Ali told me in Jamshoro, southern Pakistan.
The father-of-four lost his house in the floods four weeks ago. He and his wife Ferozan had to sell the livestock they were able to rescue from the floodwaters to fund their flight to safety on a truck.
"Every place we stopped there were warnings about more flooding, so we had to travel 600km before we felt we were safe from the water," he said.
"We ended up here in this primary school with our four children."
They are sharing the one small classroom with five other families and food is scarce. Trócaire is providing the families here, and in other schools across the region, with food rations.
Mehboob lost an arm through illness six years ago and his youngest son Wajid Ali, who is aged just two-and-a-half, has suffered from severe epilepsy since birth and requires regular medical treatment. Any money left over after they hired the truck has been used to pay for this treatment.
"I don't know what I will do when the waters go down," Mehboob said.
"I was able to tend my animals even though I only have one arm. But I have no animals now.
"The only things I think I could do are to open a small shop or become a beggar. But you need money to open a shop and I don't think the government will be compensating us for all we have lost."
A bleak outlook indeed, but an all too common one in the stories I have heard in southern Pakistan. It flags up the importance of the recovery phase when it eventually comes.
This is not just about feeding people in the short-term. Millions of people will need help to start over - to rebuild their homes and provide food for their families.
Hope
But there is hope amid the devastation.
Maqadas Ghulam Mustafa doesn't look like she is eleven. She is small and slight but she has an air of confidence and determination beyond her years.
"The first thing I saved when we ran from the floodwaters were my school books," she told me.
I met Maqadas at the Sindhi Main School in Kotri, southern Pakistan. She and her family have been living there since the floods destroyed their home at the end of August.
Sixty-five other families are taking refuge there. They are living in cramped conditions with poor toilet facilities and not enough food.
Maqadas walked up to me, introduced herself and asked me my name. This is unusual for a woman to do in Pakistan and very unusual for a girl of her age.
She took me to meet her family, her widowed mother and her six sisters.
Her mother said that when the floodwaters rose they had to leave the house in a hurry. They gathered some pots and pans and some clothes and ran away.
"The reason why the first thing I thought of saving from the flood was my school books is that when I grow up I'm going to be a doctor and help people who are sick," said Maqadas.
"You have to work hard at school to become a doctor. I work hard and I am top of my class," she told me, without the slightest hint of self-importance.
Hearing this little girl talk with such conviction about the future amidst the devastation of southern Pakistan is extraordinary.
David O'Hare works for Trócaire in Belfast. His updates from Pakistan are being serialised for UTV's website. More information on the relief effort in Pakistan, including how to donate, can be found on Trócaire's website.
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