The Role of Humans in "Natural" Disasters

I thought I would recommend a couple more articles about the El Salvador floods that I read in the past few days.

The first article is about how human factors contributed to the tragic effects of the floods in Central America. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2011/1025/Deadly-flooding-in-Central-America-how-people-contributed-to-the-tragedy
It's a safe assumption that these same factors worsen the horrible impact of most natural disasters that happen throughout the world, and not just here in Central America. And it's so sad that although there are many things that could be done to prevent a lot of the deaths and devastation (by governments, local communities, and us back home in the Western world), history continues to repeat itself over and over again.

The second article continues talking about the aftermath of the floods, and in particular, the devastating loss of crops throughout the country.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15457562

Besides the immediate needs of shelter, food and health care, the long term needs will be even greater. The rains happened just before crops were ready to be harvested, and so not only will this year's crops be lost, leading to a potential food shortage in the country, but there will also be a lack of seeds available for the next year's crops.
Although Mennonite Central Committee does not have any specific emergency relief for El Salvador or the rest of Central America, the needs of the country are great and widespread, not just with the immediate disaster relief. So I'm sure any money going to the country would help out a lot! If you would like to donate some money through MCC, there are 2 different options I found on the MCC website - you can donate to a program run by ANADES, the New Dawn Association of El Salvador (the partner organization that I'm working for) for people living with HIV and AIDS in El Salvador, or you can just donate to MCC's programming in El Salvador in general, and the money would be distributed to MCC's 3 partner organizations in the country (including ANADES).

Here's the link for more information:
https://donate.mcc.org/filter/bycountry/results/taxonomy%3A5.39

Rejoice in the little light we carry

The month of October has been a difficult one for me…I’ve experienced home sickness (for Canada, and more recently Guatemala), faced culture shock, and have felt overwhelmed, lost, confused and lonely in a new country and new home, and have felt anxious about the many uncertainties in my life. Although I'm trying to just take one day at a time, it's hard to do! But when I take the time to intentionally think about everything that’s been going on (and not just the bad things), I can find many things to be thankful of.

First of all, this past week I have been catching up on some of my fellow SALTers’ blogs, as well as the comments on the SALT/IVEP facebook page. It’s nice to have some of my feelings validated, and to be reminded that I am not the only one experiencing culture shock and loneliness. An IVEPer shared this quote on our facebook page last week, from Henri Nouwen’s book “Bread for the Journey”. It was exactly what I needed to read (and re-read!), to help me stop complaining and worrying about the future.

Enough Light for the Next Step by Henri Nouwen
Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

I know that there are many things I can learn from the shadows in my life (and that my SALT experience will be so much richer because of this) but I wanted this blog post to be about recognizing and rejoicing in the light and sunshine I experienced amidst the storms of my first 2 weeks here in El Salvador.

1)    My two kind co-workers/housemates, who happily took me in, despite the extremely busy and stressful weeks they’ve had working at ANADES and dealing with the effects of the storm. I am slowly getting to know them better, despite their continued busyness, and on Friday night we even went to the movies together (the first non-work related thing I’ve seen them do, since arriving here!)

2)    Salvadorans are extremely friendly and welcoming people, so despite having been here only 2 weeks, I have met a lot of new faces, both in my neighbourhood and at my work at ANADES. I have many acquaintances, but not too many friends yet, but I’m sure that will come with time!

3)   Staying in touch with friends and family from home, as well as the new friends I made in Guatemala, has been a huge support for me – it’s nice to know that I have many people thinking of me

4)   I finally started my job on Monday, which was great! I was greeted bright and early by 20 smiling, adorable little niños (ok, a few of them were crying and were a bit afraid of me at first) but by the end of the day, I felt that I was already building a relationship with many of these kids. And I am very grateful for my boss and all my co-workers at Centro Hogar who have really welcomed me as part of the team, have answered my numerous questions, and have been really patient with me when I don’t understand what’s going on (either due to language barriers or differences in culture, or both!)

Although there are still some uncertainties when it comes to my job and what my role is, I am constantly trying to remind myself to rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away. For now I just need to get more of a feel for ANADES and Centro Hogar, before I start taking initiative in the other parts of my job. For now I am just happy getting to know these precious little kids and helping out wherever needed.

And in regards to my living situation – it turns out that they don’t actually have a host family ready for me yet, so I will continue living with my co-workers. It could be for another week, or it could be for another month or two, I have no idea!! Although the not knowing kind of stresses me out a bit, I am trying to stay positive. First of all, I am just happy to have a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in. When I remind myself that thousands of Salvadorans have been left homeless due to this month's floods and mudslides, it’s hard to complain about my own living situation! And although it isn’t a typical “host family” experience, I really enjoy the neighbourhood we are living in, and I have now figured out how to take the bus to and from work on my own, as well as to Metro Centro, which is the largest shopping mall in Central America (and I thought the ones in Guate were big….). These were huge accomplishments for me, since I was pretty terrified of taking the city busses here at first! So, these are the little bits of light that I’ve been clinging onto these past few days.

Anyways, sorry that this blog post has been a little bit all over the place – but that’s kind of how I’ve been feeling, so hopefully you can understand or get something out of it at least!

Keep your emails coming – I could use some encouragement, and would love to hear about what’s going on in everyone’s lives back home J

El Salvador Flooding Aftermath

Since the intense rain, floods and landslides in Central America have not shown up in Canadian newspapers, I thought I would update my blog to let people back home know what’s been on everyone’s minds here, since my arrival in El Salvador last week. And although I was lucky and wasn’t severely affected by the rains (other than not being able to dry my clothes, explore the city, or start my job), it was a crazy time to arrive in the country, to say the least.  

I will continue on from my previous blog post from Tuesday! Even though on Tuesday it looked like the rain was stopping, Wednesday it began again and poured all day, and was probably one of the worst days yet. Thankfully the rain has now finally stopped for good, and since Thursday we have had beautiful sunny weather. But the country has been left with a lot of devastation. After 10 days of rain, 34 people have died, (mostly buried by mudslides in their own homes) and over 50,000 people have been evacuated from their communities. In total, more than 150,000 Salvadorans have been affected by the floods, in practically every department ( or state/province) in the country, hence why it has been a national emergency. And keep in mind that the total population of El Salvador is only 6.1 million people to begin with.

In all of Central America, there have been over 100 deaths, and over one million people have been affected by the storms. The United Nations World Food Program is very concerned about the immediate as well as long-term impact on food security that this disaster will have on Central America’s poorest people, who have already been affected by rising food prices, before the storm hit. The region is very vulnerable to these types of disasters, and the United Nations has classified Central America as one of the regions in the world most affected by climate change.

Unfortunately, El Salvador was the country hit the hardest. On Wednesday, President Mauricio Funes appealed for international aid on national television, saying “I want to tell the world that El Salvador is going through one of the most dramatic disasters in its history”. International media has compared the disaster to the 1998 Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands of people. Although the 1998 disaster resulted in more deaths, the media here is saying that in reality, the current disaster is much worse than in 1998, because the damage has been more widespread and the flooding has been more severe. "We think of hurricanes as the thing that causes the most damage, but you can have rains that are just as damaging without the hurricane," Herman Rosa Chavez, El Salvador's minister of the environment and natural resources, told CNN.  President Funes noted that it has resulted into a major national emergency due to "the intensity of the rainfall, the duration of the phenomenon and the extent of the affected territory". The heavy rains left approximately 10% of the country under water. Four major bridges have been destroyed, roads, including major highways, have been washed out, and the Grande and Lempa rivers have flooded farmland and houses, causing millions of dollars in economic losses. Some places in the country accumulated over 150 cm of rainfall, much greater than the previous record set during Hurricane Mitch of 86 cm. A difference as to why there were more deaths during Hurricane Mitch, then with the current storms, is that in 1998 the rainfall came in a matter of a few days, whereas this past week the rain was spread out over 10 days. As well, the Salvadoran president claimed that this time the government was more prepared for a disaster like this, and evacuated people earlier, hence preventing many more deaths. On Thursday President Funes said that "the loss will be great, more than ever before from a natural phenomenon of this type." Hurricane Mitch cost $262 million in damages when it hit in 1998. And as I noted before, there is a fear of possible virus outbreaks and food shortages. The effects of this natural disaster will linger for many more months. People who were evacuated, and who have been living in one of the 600 + shelters in the country, are returning to their homes now. Some will have much work to do to repair their houses, while others don’t even have homes to return to anymore. The worst is that these people were already very poor to begin with. Some of the worst hit areas of the country are only receiving aid now, because many roads were impassable so help was not able to reach them until now.  

This link from the BBC has some good pictures of the damage done during the storm. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15332068

As well, here is a video clip from Al Jazeera's website.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/10/2011102241527998644.html

A few notes to say about the video clip – first, the aid given to the government by the UN and other countries goes to the municipal governments to give out to the communities. During past disasters, past governments have been known to sell this foreign aid to make money, instead of giving it to the communities who need it the most. On Friday afternoon, I accompanied a few of my co-workers from ANADES to solicit donations from the government-sponsored agency warehouse which has been in charge of giving out the aid. Unfortunately, we were denied help – we were told for transparency reasons, that the aid only goes to the hands of municipal governments to distribute the aid, and not to NGOs. . Supposedly this current government, who has been in power for the past 2 years, is less corrupt – so hopefully that is the case, and the aid will go to where it is supposed to. Although one would think that NGOs such as ANADES, which has experience in disaster relief, would be more efficient and effective in handling aid distribution than municipal governments. Some of my co-workers have been visiting the Bajo Lempa area this past week, which the video said has been one of the hardest hit areas, as they work in some communities there. Since I work in the education area of ANADES, I have not been going out to the communities to hand out aid, but I have been hearing very sad stories from my co-workers.

ANADES is divided into 3 main programs: Education, Community Development, and Health. Besides working in San Salvador, where the ANADES Headquarters are located, the ANADES community development program works in 36 other communities in the country, and sends “community social promoters” to work with the people living in marginalized areas. There are about 11 of these community social promoters working for ANADES, including two other MCC volunteers from Canada – Elizabeth and Lynden. Normally the community development program focuses on issues such as community organization, preventative health and nutrition, support for people living with HIV/AIDS, and sustainable agriculture. But since ANADES also attends to emergencies, they have had a very busy past week, working long hours trying to get to the communities most affected by the storms, travelling with some doctors who also work or are volunteering with ANADES, to deliver food and medical aid. These are some selfless and amazing people that I have been getting to know, and they could use your prayers as they will continue to have lots of work to do in the coming weeks. A couple afternoons I helped out with sorting/organizing the medicines. I have never seen so much gauze, aspirin, cold medication etc. in my whole entire life! They also use a lot of natural remedies, which is really cool! Anyways, it’s hard to know what all to write about this disaster – there’s so much more that could be said! The effects of the storm are complicated, and won’t go away anytime soon. But I am very happy that I am working with this amazing organization, the more I learn about ANADES, the more impressed I am with the work they do, and the holistic approach they take in everything they do, which has been very evident in their response to this disaster.

On another note, schools (which were closed due to the risks of floodings and mudslides) will finally open again on Monday, so I am very excited to finally meet my 22 new pre-schoolers, early Monday morning! Wish me luck! I will blog again in a few days, and hopefully my next blog will be more upbeat/positive than this one! Lastly, I just want to thank everyone for all the emails and facebook messages I received these past couple weeks – I had a rough past couple weeks, which included (among many other things) the death of my Grandma Lichti, as well as moving to a new country, and your emails, thoughts and prayers meant a lot!! So thank you so much!!!!! And keep them coming :) 

Greetings from rainy El Salvador!

This past month has been pretty busy, but I have finally had a chance to update my blog! Last Tuesday (wow, was that really a week ago??) was my last day of Spanish classes at CASAS. I am very grateful for the connections and friendships I made there, and the improvements in my Spanish skills. Wednesday morning at 7:15 am I was all packed and ready to head to El Salvador to start the next part of my journey! Arriving on Guatemalan time, Antony (the MCC rep/my boss) picked me up at my host family’s house around 8, but we couldn’t leave quite yet because his wife Irma was dropping their daughter off at school! Finally at 9:30 am (yes, one and a half hours later…) we left the city, but…to make a long story short…it has been raining pretty much non-stop in most of Central America since last Monday, which has created floods as well as some mudslides, making many roads impassable. Although some roads were still ok, we had to drive slower due to the rain/mud. We drove past a few accidents, as well as many flooded rivers and houses, which was very sad to see. It’s always the poorest and most vulnerable families who have their homes built in flood-prone areas. We were within 30 minutes from the border to El Salvador when we came across a line of traffic. A bridge up ahead had collapsed, and since all other routes to the border were closed due to the tropical storm, we had to return back to the city. So at 4pm, 7 hours after saying goodbye to Guatemala City and my host family, we were back in the city once again. To make things worse, since we were driving a pick-up truck, my suitcases had to go in the back – we wrapped them in garbage bags and tarps, but that wasn’t enough for this Guatemalan rain! Half my clothes got soaking wet, so I had to hang them up around the MCC apartment where I stayed the night, since they don’t have a dryer.

The next morning, I packed up my wet clothes back into my suitcases and we attempted the trek to El Salvador again. This time, we made it! Thursday the rain had stopped, and most of the roads had improved, so our journey went much quicker, and we finally arrived in the afternoon, to the ANADES headquarters, just on the outskirts of San Salvador. I had a bit of an orientation with the director of ANADES, the director of the 5 pre-school programs in the country, and the woman in charge of the pre-school I will be working at, called Centro Hogar. I found out that my work will be as a “collaborator” with the other teachers/educators in the “Materno 1” class – with kids ages 18 months to 3 years. Not exactly sure what the job of a collaborator entails – but I guess I’ll find out soon!

Friday morning I started my first day of work at ANADES. School was closed due to the storm, but I met all the teachers/educators in the pre-school system, and we had a First Aid workshop. It was a little bit boring, since I knew most of the stuff already, but it was good to practice my Spanish – the El Salvador accent is a lot more difficult to understand, than the Guatemalan accent! The rain started back up again in the morning, and it poured all morning and afternoon. At 2:00 we were sent home early, because of the rain and the risk of more mudslides. Since Friday afternoon, El Salvador has been in a state of emergency.

Since I haven’t had internet access since arriving in El Salvador, I will continue my blogpost!

Today is Saturday, and the rain continues…

This week I am staying in San Salvador with two older women who work at ANADES. One is a woman from El Salvador, who is one of the co-founders of ANADES. The other is a woman from Spain, who has been living and working with different NGOs in El Salvador for the past 25 years. Next week I will move in with my permanent host family.

Sunday – More rain…

Monday – The rain has seemed to slow down a bit today…but this also happened on Thursday, and then things got worse again…so who knows!

Tuesday – The rain has stopped (in the city, at least!) The sun was out all afternoon, and my wet clothes from a week ago are finally dry!! And I finally have internet access to post this blog! J

Unfortunately, schools are still closed, so I haven’t been doing much this past week. I’m hoping that by Thursday or Friday I will be able to start my work at the pre-school, but who knows!

I don’t think the tropical storms in Central America have made it into Canadian newspapers, so here’s an article from the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15331290

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their communities, and many homes and crops have been destroyed. Many rural communities where ANADES works have been greatly affected, so once the road conditions improve and bridges are fixed, the ANADES community development workers will have lots to do! Please send your thoughts and prayers to the people of El Salvador and Central America. Hopefully the rain has stopped for good, so that the situation doesn’t continue to get worse, and so that roads can improve so that help can arrive to the most desperate communities.