Accustomed to the barter system, prone to disputes over property and easy prey to con-men from the cities, Kalash families often find themselves in financial trouble. Some solve this by marrying a daughter to a Muslim husband. However, when a Kalash woman converts to Islam and marries, her new in-laws may require that her family converts too.

When Lines fell in love with the valleys in the early 1980s she encountered appalling infant mortality and many easily cured diseases. She qualified as an emergency medical technician in the US and came back to live in Pakistan as a kind of barefoot doctor. She introduced latrines to the valleys and began to teach basic hygiene. Then, seeing that many Kalash women suffered from eye and lung diseases from cooking over open fires inside, she brought in the first stoves. She also opened dispensaries providing aspirin and antibiotics that have saved children who would otherwise have died of fever. Over 20 years she has raised money for inoculations, water pipes and even bridges. She has driven sick people to the military hospital in Chitral or the larger one in distant Peshawar.

Lines, now a Pakistani citizen, lives in the valleys half the year and in Peshawar the rest of the time. It's from the provincial capital that she lobbies Pakistani officials and foreign diplomats on behalf of the Kalash. Most recently she has used her contacts in local media and government to fight for the removal of officials who take bribes to allow illegal logging. She has also battled moonshine distillers, procurers, bigoted mullahs and corrupt contractors (her NGOs have never paid a bribe). Unsurprisingly, she has faced lawsuits and death threats.