Monday, July 5, 2010

The Good the Bad and well… the Flooded

It has been a very exciting and trying past couple of week. Recently we had a lovely family from Maine staying with us. Steve, the father, is a pediatrician and is planning on working in the new local health clinic run by the Ministry of Health and owned by a group of firefighters in Canada. Lisa, the mother, is has put together a program with the Rieche School in Portland, Maine making comic books. The idea is to have an exchange of second graders ideas! The children, Nick, Tom, Elsa, Ashley, and Alex, will be assisting with the comic books and participating with the after school program at Rancho Esperanza.

Working with this family has been quite a thrill. The kids added a new energy into the hostel life as well as all projects which they participated in. Lisa brought down amazing comic books from two second grade classes which were received with awe by the second and third grade class in Jiquilillo. This was the first time most of the students in the Camilo Zapata School had ever seen comic books before. Once the project was explained the students jumped right into working on their personal comic books. As they had never seen examples before it was challenging to begin, however, many of the students had ideas which really began to take shape.

The next day Steve headed out to the clinic to begin a short term working relationship with the local health workers. He had spent time in Portland, Maine, fundraising for vitamins to bring with him to be distributed in the clinic. It’s a wonderful thing to do here, especially in the community, where antibiotics are handed out for everything including the common cold. Perhaps Steve will start a new trend here in the community!

The sad news in this story is just five days after the arrival of this wonderful family, who were planning on staying at Rancho Esperanza and working in the community for two weeks, they left. They did not necessarily leave because they wanted to. They left more because they had too. This year rainy season has begun early in Nicaragua. Over a month ago Hurricane Agatha passed through Guatamala just to our north and saturated the area with rain. We have been receiving almost daily rain storms since, which have left us at Rancho Esperanza and approximately 15 other family just in Jiquilillo flooded. Steve, Lisa, and all five kids packed up and headed out to explore the cities of Nicaragua. It was just not healthy to have them stay longer in what we now refer to as the laguna. Rancho Esperanza, where I live, has since been closed since June 25. We are completely inundated with water with levels rising to above knee deep in several spots and ankle deep inside many buildings.

It has been a sad scary and frustrating time. We have not been able to do anything. Since the hostel has been closed all community projects have also been shut down. Nate, Marissa, and I have actually had to move out completely. We are currently renting a house in Jiquilillo but are hoping to get back home soon. Currently we have been digging trenches attempting to alleviate some of the puddles. It has been helping; however, it’s just not enough. This is the worst flooding we have seen in over 6 years. No one in the community remembers this amount of water coming this early during rainy season. We still have several more months to go before we hit September and October when the real rains begin. Currently we have been only two of several people who have been working to help with the problem. The current community leader has been making phone calls and has been able to get several governmental officials out to this area to see what has been happening. The sad this is they have done nothing since. Just today Nate, while in town stopped by the governmental office and was able to arrange a meeting with the Mayor which will take place on Thursday at 9:00 am. We are hoping to be able to provide transport for all affected families to make a huge point at this meeting.

It has been discussed over and over again here in this community and a conclusion has finally been made. The reason the water seems to be more this year is because of the new road. Recently the local government of El Viejo partnered with US Aid has been working on bettering the road in this community to promote tourism. The problem here is that in bettering the road, they raised the level of it and did not take into consideration that proper drainage may need to be added as well. So essentially what they have done is put a huge plug in the middle of the natural drainage of the community, in turn leading to stagnant water.

Photos and updates to come soon.

1 comment:

Alex Perkins said...

Stephany! Hey! This is Alex, Steve's step-son. (the one in the picture at the school). It would be really awesome to get into contact with you very soon! I am doing a project for school involving literacy rates in Nicaragua and could use a contact from down there! please E-mail me back ASAP at aperkinscbhs@gmail.com! I'm so glad I found you! I hope to be in touch soon! thanks!