Agatha takes her toll

In the time since my last post, things have been steady at work. Throughout the coffee harvest we've been working to continue to boost membership in the cooperative as always, and the stove project has been officially launched. We were approved for a sizable grant to be able to construct 19 stoves, which combined with all the generous donations we received, will be enough to provide stoves for 26 families. After receiving the grant, we've begun construction on 8 stoves and were making wonderful progress up until last Saturday, when we were hit rather hard by hurricane Agatha - perhaps you'd heard of it?

Maybe this will pique your interest? One of the many footprints that Agatha left; a sinkhole in Guatemala city that dragged with it an abandoned(thankfully) three story building.

Well, I definitely had no idea it was coming. No one had mentioned it other than in passing - and it never occurred to me that it could do real damage. And even if it could, i assumed that it would happen on the beach or somewhere obviously more tropical. Needless to say, i got schooled - yet again - on the ins and outs of the small, developing - world town.

To give you a bit of an idea of what happened (because even if you're astute enough to read into the very general articles that surface in the states, i can tell you first hand from a distinct point of view) the rains started steadily on Wednesday night. Laying in bed under my metal roof, i remember clearly when it started to pound - i've gotten used to the sound (luckily, because it often pounds - sometimes i have to go under the covers to talk on the phone in bed). The heavy rain continued through Thursday and Friday, lightening up every now and then only to get stronger upon resuming; it never stopped. Now, we are currently in rainy season, which means it rains heavily and often from May to October in my town, but it always breaks for small peeks of sun throughout the streaks of precipitation and this was different. The rain didn't stop - and apparently three days was all it needed to do severe damage.

Friday afternoon i got a notice from Peace Corps to return to site as soon as possible and prepare for a few days of 'stand-fast' - meaning staying put wherever i may be. On Saturday things really started to escalate due to the water levels in town. The stretch of rural highway between my town and the next began to succumb to various mudslides, which even being paved as it is made passing impossible while the one town operated tractor slowly made its way to the spot - taking hours at times. Eventually bridges were swept away and houses at low points in town were inundated by runoff and mud. Many were stranded outside of town forced to wait out the storm or the clearance of the road. Saturday night, the power went out - with no promise of coming back soon. Sunday morning we realized the water source had also been compromised. So after only three days of heavy rain, the town was left with no power, no running water and no way out. I'm going to be honest with you, i freaked out a little bit.

News quickly spread around town of more dire circumstances, specifically one that affected some very close friends of mine in town. Word had it that a sturdy concrete house at the base of a hill on the edge of a soccer field in one of the surrounding villages had collapsed under the weight of an enormous mudslide - taking with it the lives of 4 young girls in their sleep and their 4 months pregnant mother while sparing the lives of the two youngest boys. The father, having received the horrible news while at work in a hotel in Guatemala City, had to not only sleep on the news to wait for a bus, but arrive on foot from the closest spot the bus would drop him - about 10 kilometers away. And there were similar stories to this in many of the villages.

Here's what the house looked like today, one week later when we were finally able to get there in a car.




Sunday passed with no power and no water, as did Monday. All classes were cancelled 'until further notice.'Tuesday, still with no water or power, the president showed up on our soccer field in borrowed helicopters from the United States and COlumbia promising to right the situation and giving away several 'solidarity bags' filled with black beans, rice, oil and other items of daily consumption to a few afflicted families. It seemed like a painfully small gesture to someone who had lost their house, almost their entire family or both.

The power finally flickered back on Wednesday morning, only four days after it had gone out - but only to better highlight the damage that the storm had incurred on the town. The road out was not cleared for passage until Thursday.

Now that you have an idea of the chronology of events in my town, consider this only the average occurrence. While 20 people died in total in our small town, 150 more died in others. Not to mention dozens of major bridges swept away (some needing months to be rebuilt), hundreds of people missing and the hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans that were left homeless.

Outside the home, the effects of Agatha are far reaching as well. Seeing as many of our associates farm formerly wooded areas that have been cleared for coffee plants, the terrain lacks the deep roots that hold the soil in place (especially if it is on a steep incline, which Guatemalans farm like no body else) many coffee plantations were literally dragged away with the mud and water. One cuerda (40m x 40m) of coffee yields Q4000 of coffee sales per year for the farmer who cares for it. The coffee will take 4 years to be replanted and be nurtured to maturity to be able to fully produce again - which means Q16,000 of loss on that one small plot - and thats only if it will one day be farmable again and was not ruined completely. Each associate has between 2 and 5 of those plots. And that's just coffee. This town depends almost entirely on agriculture, imagine the immense loss.

Here's a 3 cuerda plot that will definitely not be farmable this year:


What's worse is, it could all easily happen again, possibly wreaking twice as much havoc in another blow.

I think it is the instability of this situation that has truly scared me in all this - that one day it could be sunny like it was all this week, and the next could be the beginning of the next big hurricane with just a few days of heavy rains. People in town are very seriously afraid of the rain - because of its insecurity and inevitably the consequences that follow.

As for now, the town and the lesser affected people have been doing what they can - distributing water via tank trucks, gathering what little help is offered and distributing it in the areas of need etc. Just today we went to see the family who suffered the loss of 4 daughters and a mother, along with other families who had lost their houses to distribute a small collection of clothing and food but knowing that while the rain is errant the damage is long lasting is extremely disheartening.




I hope to have more positive news to share in my next post.
Until next time..