Mariyamma

The recent floods in the district of Kurnool were a nightmare to the people living in the city of Kurnool and surrounding villages.

            The recent floods in the district of Kurnool were a nightmare to the people living in the city of Kurnool and surrounding villages. The water from the Tungabhadra and Krishna overflowed and engulfed may villages in its reach. One such village is Panchalingala. This village 10 km from Kurnool town was drowned in water for two whole days. The people ran to nearby high lands to save themselves, they had nothing with them except the clothes that were on them. When the water receded, slowly the villagers started to come back and there was silence all over the village, as they saw complete devastation of their homes and the entire village. This village is still in darkness as electricity has not been restored yet. Some of the NGOs came forward to help the people with water, food grains, emergency relief kits etc.

             Mariyamma is one such victim of this flood. She is 65 years old and is a widow who earns her living by working as a daily wage laborer. Like many others in Panchalingala, she too lost everything she had. Mariyamma has to start all over again and with her meager income it was almost impossible for her to restart everything at this age. She had no other option but to work as she is all alone. Her son is married and stays in another village, working as a farm laborer. He had given her some rice and dal which was sufficient for a week. He also is not in a position to help her in buying the house hold items because of his limited income. Mariyamma was fortunate enough to receive some cooking utensils and some food grains through some NGOs who came forward to help the villagers. Two weeks passed by and the food grains were nearly getting over. She had to purchase everything by herself as the relief also stopped by then. The daily wages of Rs.80 which she received was just sufficient to purchase the food grains and a vegetable as the price of the commodities went up due to the heavy loss of crop through the flood.

For the past five days, Mariyamma was unable to work as she was used to, because she had a back ache and was feeling very giddy. The work also became difficult because of her age but she has to work to live. At the same time she did not want to visit a doctor, as it would cost her more than half of her earnings which she was not in position to spend.

            Operation Blessing India, through the survey done by a local contact found that there was a need for medical attention in this village and conducted a free medical camp in Panchalingala. Hearing about this medical camp, many villagers turned up and received free medicines for their respective illness. Mariyamma too heard about this medical camp and came to the camp site, registered herself, told the doctor her problems of back ache and giddiness. The doctor on hearing her problems, prescribed the necessary medicines which would give her some relief from the aches. Mariyamma received the prescribed medicines, she was very thankful that she was able to receive the medical treatment and the medicines free of cost. On receiving the medicines, Mariyamma said, “This was a timely help for all of us and for me too, as I cannot imagine losing a day’s wage. I need money now because the prices of all the commodities have gone up and if there’s no money I would not have anything to eat. I really thank you for helping us in this time of need.” Like Mariyamma, around 450 people received free medical treatment.

Another problem in this village was with mosquitoes. After the flood, some places are still filled with stagnant water which is an ideal place for the mosquitoes to breed. The villagers were prone to malaria because of this. OBI went a step ahead to help the villagers by fogging the anti malarial pesticide in the entire village. Close to 400 families were benefited through this fogging. This was first time fogging was done in this village after the flood.

The people of Panchalingala were very thankful for the OBI’s medical services provided during the day and for the fogging which was done in the evening; this was an effort to prevent malaria in this village.