125 Rupees a Day and a 20-Kilometre Climb: How Two Women’s Worn-Out Shoes Carry the Future of Children in the Mountains of Kashmir

Have you ever thought about this… “two drops” of vaccine that take less than three seconds to place on a child’s tongue. How much sweat and dedication does it take for those drops to reach the most remote village at the top of a mountain?

Today’s story takes us to the valleys of Pulwama district in Kashmir, India. It is the story of two ordinary women heroes with no red capes and no superpowers, only worn-soled shoes and a heavy cool box that they carry up the mountain to protect the lives of children in a land that roads and power lines have not yet reached.

Early in the morning… before the sun has even risen, Shameema, 45, slips on her worn-out rubber sandals. She carefully checks the cool box to make sure the ice packs inside are holding the temperature precisely between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, then swings the strap onto her shoulder and steps out into the dark.

Close behind her is Tanzeela, 28, who has just bent down to tighten the laces of her trusty canvas shoes. Together they set out from the valley, where summer temperatures soar to 37 degrees Celsius, and climb toward Namblan, a high mountain meadow surrounded by pine forest.

Up there, there are no paved roads… only narrow dirt paths, barely marked by footprints, winding over the pine forest floor and rocks. There are no power lines, and no car can make it up. Their destination is nearly 50 mud-and-stone huts known as “dhokas”, belonging to nomadic Gujjar and Bakarwal families who bring their animals up to the high pastures for the summer.

To reach the children up there, Shameema and Tanzeela have to climb more than 12 miles, about 20 kilometers, on foot, carrying the polio vaccine box and a thick register book the whole way.

Tanzeela says the canvas shoes she is wearing are the same pair she wears to work in the fields at home. Even though the soles are worn almost through, she says with a smile that they still grip the steep rocky paths better than some of her colleagues’ sandals. (Some fellow volunteers even have to take their shoes off and walk barefoot on parts of the route.)

And do you know how much they are paid for walking 20 kilometers up a mountain in the blazing heat?

The local government pays them just 125 rupees a day… less than two US dollars!

So why are these women willing to take on so much hardship for so little pay? Their answer brings tears to the eyes…

Shameema, who has been giving children polio drops for more than ten years (protecting more than 3,000 children!), explains while resting beside a stream that every time she starts up the mountain, one memory always comes to her.

It is the image of a boy in her village decades ago, back when India had not yet eliminated polio. He was infected, and his legs withered so that he walked with a limp…

“I saw that boy struggle to walk to school,” Shameema says, her eyes full of determination. “His mother had to carry him on her back every day, until he grew too big and heavy for her to carry… The people in these mountains need protection too. The children here deserve to be healthy, just like children in the big cities.”

Tanzeela, who has been doing this work for three years and has vaccinated about 800 children, says:

“The pay is small and the path is steep… but whenever I climb, I think of my own nephew. These two drops take only a few seconds, but they change a child’s life forever.”

India has been certified polio-free since 2014 (after its last case in 2011). But to keep this shield in place, India relies on an army of 2.5 million frontline workers who fan out across the country to give drops to more than 27 million children under the age of five!

However large the national supply system may be, at the very last stop high in the mountains of Kashmir… the children’s lives depend entirely on “the legs of these women”.

Up on the mountain, the huts stand kilometers apart, separated by ravines and rushing streams of meltwater. In some families, young mothers tie their babies to their backs and walk downhill for two hours to meet Shameema and Tanzeela halfway.

Each time they reach the first hut in the morning, after the villagers have finished their prayers, the mountain families welcome them gratefully with hot tea and bread, because the elders up there still vividly remember the days when children in neighboring villages fell ill and were disabled by this disease.

By the time Shameema and Tanzeela have given drops to the last child at the last hut, it is late afternoon. The little one opens their mouth for two drops on the tongue, and the final name is written in the register…

Now the cool boxes on their shoulders are lighter, and the two of them must begin the same steep 20 kilometers back down. By the time they get home, the sky will be completely dark.

Perhaps… the greatest achievements in the world aren’t measured by numbers in fancy meeting rooms. They are hidden in the worn soles of an old pair of canvas shoes, in the sweat on a face, and in the great hearts of ordinary women willing to cross a whole mountain just so that small children they have never met can run and play with a full future ahead of them.

You see… this world is still a beautiful place to be.