Agatha

On the last weekend in May, Tropical Storm Agatha passed through Guatemala, leaving a wake of devastation worse than both Tropical Storms Mitch and Stan. Here in Pachalum, Agatha did not affect most of the 30-odd communities, however the two that were affected suffered immensely. Tropical Storm Agatha was essentially non-stop 72 hours of rain, at times weaker and at times recio (hard!) starting on Friday and going on through Sunday morning here in Pachalum (in other places it rained longer). All Peace Corps Volunteers were sent text messages on Saturday telling us that the first phase of our Emergency Action Plan was going into effect – we were all on Standby (meaning, stay put, listen to the news, be prepared to possibly consolidate in regional meeting points). While I stayed in my house trying to stay dry, the river that marks the border between Pachalum and the municipality of San Martin Jilotepeque in Chimaltenango, Río Montagua, got bigger and bigger, threatening houses in the communities of Tamarindo and San Vicente on the Pachalum side of the river, and the community La Vega de Godinez on the other side. While I was sitting tight in my house, tons of people from Pachalum were down by the river, some helping people evacuate their houses and many others just watching as the river grew higher and higher until it reached up to the level of the bridge. Around 8pm on Saturday night, the river washed out the bridge entirely and houses in Tamarindo were flooded. San Vicente and La Vega de Godinez were hit even worse, with houses literally full of mud and other houses completely washed away.

On Sunday I was still not aware of what had occurred in the houses, I had just heard that the bridge was washed out, so I went down with all the other tourists to see the remains. When I got down there I saw and heard about the destruction that had taken place. Starting on Monday, I began going down to the river every day to help in the clean-up efforts. What follows are some photos that I took over the past week to convey what happened in Pachalum. While the destruction in San Vicente is pretty terrible, there are many other parts of the country where there was even worse damage (the Fuentes Georginas, for example, where I went with Devon were destroyed entirely, and many towns around Lake Atitlan suffered a lot of damage and many dead due to mud slides). As of the last time I checked the news, Agatha has left 156 dead in her wake. Here in Pachalum, 8 homes were completely destroyed/washed away, leaving 8 women, 5 men, and 12 children homeless.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/world/americas/02guatemala.html?ref=americas

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/americas/31guatemala.html?ref=americas

Sunday

The highway in Tamarindo right before one gets to the bridge was covered in trees and rocks and dirt left by the river.

Looking at where the bridge used to be

On Sunday the river level had already fallen a lot from its peak on Saturday night, but it was still unbelievably violent and very high compared to when I waded in just two months before.

On Sunday afternoon, the first lady of Guatemala came to Pachalum and promised that our bridge would be rebuilt quickly and that the 8 families that lost their homes would have new homes built for them on higher ground.

Monday

On Monday I headed down to San Vicente along with a majority of Pachalum’s teachers and other muni employees. Some cleaning had occurred on Sunday, but not too much, so the remains from the storm were evident all around.

The Catholic Church of San Vicente

When I got to the church the Saint – San Vicente – had already been removed, but I was told that when it was found it was still on its pedestal – despite all the water and mud that entered the church the saint remained untouched.

Hanging Bridge

Work began by the hanging bridge that used to connect San Vicente to La Vega de Godinez. A cable that used to connect the bridge was salvaged and strung across the river to create a canopy-like contraption (on the first day people were tied to a rope and pulled across, by day two a cable-car type contraption was put together so two people could cross at the same time).

Dolls on furniture that was later taken up to the school to be salvaged

On Monday we helped take off the lamina (corrugated tin) roof and the wood rafters, stripping the house for its useful parts for when the family attempts to rebuild a new house.

The river rose so quickly that one man did not have a chance to drive his car up to higher ground (the river was already crossing the highway). In order to save the car, he shut it up in the garage, where it was covered completely in mud. The back of the garage had to be broken down and then we helped dig out the mud around the car so that a tractor could come and pull it out. The car has now been moved to higher ground but figuring out if it still runs is going to have to wait until water comes back to San Vicente so that they can finish cleaning it.

House and store that got completely covered in mud and trees

This house was the last house in San Vicente and it was not fully built – a woman in the United States was sending money back to have it built.

La Granja

In La Vega de Godinez, Pollo Campero has a huge granja, a farm where chickens lay eggs that are then sent to other farms to grow and then be killed to make the Guatemalan equivalent of KFC. A lot of people in Pacahlum are employed at the granja, including my counterpart’s husband, and a few lost their houses when the river rose. Along with loss of houses, I was told that up to 13,000 chickens were lost to the river.

Helicopter landing

A helicopter arrived on Monday afternoon bringing víveres – or food essentials – for the affected populations of San Vicente and Tamarindo.

Helicopter Leaving

Handing out Viveres

Along with goods left by the helicopter, tons of community members donated basic goods and clothing.

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning I headed back down to San Vicente but found that there were tons of people waiting around to help and pretty much no shovels. Rather than sit around and watch other people work, I got onto the muni truck and went around giving out water to all the families in San Vicente. Along with the bridge and some houses, Tropical Storm Agatha took away all the tubing, leaving San Vicente without water. As a result, every day both the muni truck and the firefighters have gone around handing out water.

Giving out water

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning I started out in Tamarindo helping clean out the thin mud sheeting covering the floor of a woman’s adobe house. On the way from Tamarindo to San Vicente, I stopped by the remains of the bridge again and got a better shot.

Remains of the bridge

On Wednesday I helped participate in the church clean-up. Along with the teachers from Pachalum (who were obligated to come down and help every day – they took role call), teachers arrived from Joyabaj (a neighboring municipality) after hearing about what Pachalum had gone through on the news. I would say that the mud was at about thigh level, but with lots of people collaborating and three wheelbarrows we were able to clean it out by midday. In the background of the photo you can see how high the mud and water got during the storm.

Cleaning out the church

By Wednesday the garrucha/canopy had been fixed up with a ski lift chair. In order to cross the river two people would be seated in the chair and then men on the other side of the river would pull on the ropes to drag them across. On Wednesday afternoon the ski lift chair was replaced with a cage that could fix four people at a time.

La Garrucha

When I went across the garrucha on Wednesday, there was a humongous line since one of buses from Guatemala City had just arrived on the other side of the river. The bus situation in Pachalum right now is that buses come in and out from Joyabaj, but rather than continuing on to Guatemala City, they turn around and head right around. In Pachalum a few men have made good business driving people down to San Vicente for Q5 in the backs of their trucks. Once people get to San Vicente, they wait in line to cross the river, and then get onto the bus that is waiting there to go to Guatemala City.

Thursday

On Thursday most of the teachers headed to the garrucha to cross over to La Vega de Godinez to help clean out the houses there. Since I had my women’s group in the afternoon to visit, I did not want to get stuck on the other side, so I went to the last house left in San Vicente to clean out, and this house was a doozy. The two story house with tons of trees pushed against it that I took a photo of on Monday had been cleared of all the tree debris, but the inside of the house was still covered in mud. This house was beautiful, being built by a woman who lives in the U.S. and has been sending money back, so it was still not complete, and maybe because it did not have doors yet it had the highest level of mud I had seen. Given that five days had passed since it flooded, it also smelled rank, but luckily there were a good amount of us working together to clean it out and we made really good progress.

With one of the teachers who helped clean out the house. We had a really good system with four of us shoveling dirt into two carts and then two teachers taking the dirt out to dump it. When we got tired I went for the phtoo op just to show how high up the dirt was. In my 3.5 hours working in the house we cleaned out the main entryway and were halfway finished with the room that I am standing in.

More teachers from Joyabaj and students arrived a little later in the day and made some progress on the bathroom.

By Friday the clean-up efforts were complete and the work that was left to do was to get started on building the new bridge and figuring out how to get water and electricity back to San Vicente. The repartition of water and basic goods continues, however my shoveling days had to come to an end. While this past week was a very difficult one for all of Guatemala and tragic for the families that lost their houses and worldly possessions, I must admit that it was probably one of my best weeks since I started Peace Corps. Instead of sitting behind a desk in an office, I was able to make a tangible difference cleaning up houses, and I also got to observe the strength of community as all of Pachalum came together to help out their neighbors in need.