They were obvious cleaning up bit by bit as I saw two mean roll the front half of a car onto a flat bed wheel barrow/cart. There are children everywhere dirty and selling goods or begging. We stopped to get ice for our drinks cooler, which was a marquee which seemed to have some kind of grain only, but underneath the grain were huge blocks of ice.
Which where washed off and then chipped into smaller pieces to keep the cooler cool. Beside the ice tent there was a little boy selling sugar cane we made him a balloon hat and one of the guys bought all of his cane (they only took a couple as we couldn’t eat them and that way he sell them.) We took a little detour to another project so that they could show us another project where there had installed a reverse osmosis water pump for the surrounding area. This means that the area around the project can come and get clean water for their families to drink. We also had a look into some of the classrooms…
We then headed to the next project. On the way out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman sitting on the ground outside her house making mud cookies. These are made by mixing clay or mud with a little salt and drying in the sun to help with the hunger pains.
We eventually arrived at the project, due to its location it was devastated by the hurricanes. It is right beside the river and it is one that Compassion believes needs to relocate in order to survive As usual we where greeted by speeches, singing and dancing. They also presented us with some gifts to thank us for our support of compassion and how much it meant to them. We were told how Compassion supplied some families with vouchers for materials to rebuild their houses, gave out food parcels and as soon as they could get in brought a medical team down to treat the kids. Some of the families lived on roofs and lived without food for days and developed all types of illnesses. Some of the parents told us all their stories about how it had affected them. One man told us how he had to take his kids to the roof and us the water rose keep climbing until there was no where to go. He described how he knew how to swim a little but none of his family knew how so he put his kids in a fridge which was being washed down the street and tried to swim with his wife under his arm. He then described the sheer terror as the fridge tipped over and his kids fell into the water. One of his neighbour daughters tried to help his family but unfortunately his 13 year old daughter and the neighbours daughter where killed. My words can not describe the sheer pain and sorrow felt throughout the room, as we cried and other families recalled the pain that their family where put through.
They took us to see a man’s garden which Compassion had helped him restart after it was lost in the flood. They (Compassion) tried to identify the families who had businesses but lost them in the flood and tried to help them get back on their feet again in order to prove what little they can for the family.
We made some balloons and put on some tattoos but there where so many kids and they had never seen anything like it that it became impossible to do it. So throughout some balloons over the kids and just played with them.
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