As much as I joked about cyclones and how my house would fall over if a cyclone ever hit Tsarasambo, I never thought that would actually happen. But it did. And although I only have half a door to remind me of my old house…I have a new house, a pretty good story and the claim to fame as the only PCV to lose their house in a cyclone.
I ended up spending about a week in Tana after the cyclone actually hit. And while it was nice to have electricity and wifi and hot water, you can only spend so much time in Tana without going crazy and/or spending all your money. Giovanna hit on Tuesday morning (I think?) and in Tana we just had a ton of rain and lots of wind. But it wasn’t too bad, and the meva had a generator so we had wifi the entire time. But after the cyclone hit no one heard anything. All the cell phone towers on the East coast were down, so no one could reach anyone from their sites to hear how things were. After about a week, news started trickling in from the East coast, and we started seeing pictures and stories in the newspaper. “Brickeville, Moramanga, Vatomandry…DESTROYED.” And I live right outside Vatomandry, so that didn’t bode well. I finally got in touch with my friend from site, and she sent me a text saying, “simba tanteraka tranonao” which translates to…”your house is completely broken.” And she wasn’t kidding.
PC, not wanting to send me back to site without knowing anything what I would find, decided to drive me and three volunteers back to our houses, since they were right in the path of the storm. The first few sites had some damage, but nothing too major. Missing part of a roof. Cracks in the foundation. Fence destroyed…Leaking and flooding….But as we got closer and closer to the coast, things started looking way worse. Houses completely collapsed, electricity poles down, mud slides blocking parts of the road…and so many dead leaves and trees, it reminded me of Fall in the midwest. On our way to drop off a volunteer, we saw a car that was 98% underwater which had been carried away in the river, and then we saw a family living in a chicken house because their house had collapsed. As another volunteer put it, Moramanga looked like a war zone. There was no logic in which buildings had been destroyed….a huge cement church had lost an entire roof, and a thatch hut next door was still standing. Just like many other things here…it just didn’t make sense.
And after a few more days we got to Tsarasambo. We pulled up to where my old house had been, and all that was left was half a door. I guess that’s what ‘completely broken’ means. As I got out of the car, my neighbor across the street started laughing as he saw my reaction. And just like in the Wizard of Oz when the munchkins appear, all the kids started to emerge from the houses and trees and from who knows where. They just kept telling me how broken my house was…which was pretty obvious since I was sitting on the pile of sticks. Within about 4 minutes, the kids had brought me my favorite baby in town to hold, because how can you be sad when you’re holding a really cute baby. And it worked.
It was really depressing to see how much damage had been done to my town though. Almost half the houses in my town were just a pile of sticks. And the weirdest part was that no one seemed that concerned. People would say, “yeah, my house is completely destroyed!” And then just go about their business. I think I was the most upset out of everyone in my town. But aside from destroyed houses, the middle school was completely destroyed, as well as the teachers’ houses. Not to mention all the rice fields and fruit that constitues the main source of income for 90% of the people in my town. Not so good.
Since my old house consisted of half a door, workers were trying really hard to finish my new house. But as quickly as they seemed to be working…nothing really got done. I ended up staying at a hotel in Vatomandry for few days, and stocked up on supplies to help with repairs. But just like everything else in this country, things I thought would take a few hours ended up taking days. First we had to find wood, then a machine to cut the wood, and then soewhere with electricity to run the machine. It was like a scavenger hut, but no candy at the end. When we finally got to my house to bring the supplies to the workers, we had to go find the workers. I feel like a whole day went by with 5 workers, and all that was done was half a window. I don’t get it. Not that I could do it any faster…but still. Everyone seemed to take their time, until it started getting dark and the workers decided we needed to prioritize. So they poured cement for a step outside my door? And then by candlelight I tried to move my bed and other stuff into a construction zone so I could stay in my house and PC could finally leave. It was an eventful few days.
I had been in my new house for about a week when the next tropical storm came my way. It rained for 5 straight days and nights. And surprisingly (or not) my new house leaked way more than my old house. With the high winds, the horizontal rain found its way through my doors and windows, and right over my bed. It rained so hard that I couldn’t even really leave my house. The kids would come over and ask what I needed from the market and run all my errands for me….they even built me a rain catching system. I managed to fill two 15 liter buckets in about 10 minutes. That’s a lot of water. And what made me especially nervous was that my latrine (roofless because of the cyclone) started filling up really fast with rainwater. I tried to ignore it because I didn’t want to think about what would happen if it overflowed… That would be an awkward conversation to have with the mayor. So I crossed my fingers and pretended it wasn’t happening….(so far so good).
One day I ventured out with some kids because I thought if I stayed inside any longer I would go insane. We went to go look at the flooding at the market and we got stuck in a torrential downpour. The whole town was laughing at the vazaha in the rain….they used to think that I would melt if I got wet….so at least I proved them wrong. (Side note-I also need to find a way to explain to my counterpart that standing barefoot on cement won’t make me sick…but I don’t have the vocab for that yet). But the flooding was insane. The rice fields have turned to lakes, complete with people canoeing through them. The soccer field, completely under water. The river has probably risen 10 feet. But with all the destruction, life still seems to go on. The next few weeks are going to be interesting though. All the crops are destroyed so people won’t have any money. People also don’t have houses because those were destroyed by the cyclone. And another cyclone is coming this way….So I’m not really sure whats going to happen, but I’ll keep you posted. If you want to hep with cyclone relief you can donate to UNICEF, MEDAIR or the Red Cross who are all working in my area.
Hope all is well in the States! (Ehale I finally got your Halloween card! Brooke-I got your Xmas card! And Mary I got your letter….responses are on the way!)
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