The past month has been exceptionally wet. We have had around 60 inches of rain and it just keeps coming down. Cap Haitien is a mess and just keeps getting worse. Last night it rained hard. Nick kept going out to check the rain gauge. 5 inch. 20 mins later 7 inches. About that time we started hearing screams coming from the group of houses right next to us. Nick and Tet ran out to see what was going on. I stood on the patio listening to the commotion knowing it wasn’t good. A few minutes later Nick comes back and said “Nikki I got babies. I’m bringing in babies and more are coming.”
This river right across the street was bone dry a few weeks ago. Now it keeps flooding over it’s banks and is raging.
In walks a mom with her two young children. The youngest, maybe 18 months was only wearing underwear, was soaking wet and shivering. I got them dried and dressed in some of the boys clothes. And then five more people came in. And then three more, and before I knew it there was probably close to 55 women and children crammed into our 600 sq ft house. Two people had cut their feet pretty bad in the commotion. I was able to do first aid on both of them to stop the bleeding. Several of the moms were crying, the children clearly terrified. We had enough eggs to give each child a hard boiled egg. It wasn’t much but it was all we had. They stayed for several hours, got warm and dry, and watched finding Nemo. Around midnight the raining had stopped and the water gone down, so they all went home.
Nick says that when he got out there he found our road had completely turned into a river and was flowing hard. There was knee deep water in most peoples homes. He found people just sitting in their homes putting the few belongings they owned on the bed to keep them safe. That wasn’t too promising as the water was just an inch below their mattresses. Nick encouraged them to leave and seek refuge in our home where it was safer. He and Tet went from home to home with our flash lights helping people secure their belongings. The had no light to see what they were doing on their own.
The “river” flowing outside our neighbors home.
This morning Nick, Tet, and Piyoup went and surveyed a lot of houses. They expected them to be destroyed, but were encouraged to see that they had faired better than expected. Essentially all the homes in Chiron have dirt floors, which means now they are covered in mud. Their belongings are wet. Its still raining today, so nothing will be drying out any time soon. Homes in this area are typically made of sticks woven together and mud caked on the sides. A lot of homes will see this mud crumbling over the next few days, meaning that when it rains even more water will get into their homes.
The mud walls on this home are beginning to fall apart and soon even more rain and such will be able to enter their home.
As for us, over all we are doing good. Our generator was sitting in an inch of rain last night, but Nick thankfully was able to move that before it was damaged. He moved our car to higher ground right before water entered into it. Our house stayed dry. But as far as the farm goes, we didn’t fair too well. Our brooder house is built up several feet, but the water rose so much that there was several inches of water in it. Of our 600 chickens, only 15 survived. Thankfully all 6 of the pigs are just fine. For a start up mission/business, this is a large hit for us.
Now What?
We thought yesterday was going to be our last day of food distribution. We assumed the worse was behind us. But now with these extra 8 inches we are realizing we need to keep that going. Our village was hit hard last night, but we are at a much higher elevation than many villages just below us. We finally got ahold of one of our friends whose community has been experiencing the worst of the rains. He reports that his family had to flee their home last night and stay at a friends house because so much water was inside their home. They have not yet been able to return. We are still waiting to hear from another friend who we know will be even worse off. All the rivers dump right into their communities. They’ve already had several feet of standing water outside their homes. All we know right now is that it WILL be bad there.
Nick just left for town to buy more supplies to distribute. HE just called to say one area just down the road was hit much harder than we were. I’m sure the more he drives the worse it’ll get. He will be purchasing some basic medicine (childrens tylenol, antibacterial cream, etc) and I will go around the village to pass it out to those in need. Every one has been standing in mud and wearing wet and dirty shoes for weeks. As a result people have all sorts of rashes and infections on their feet. Last night so many people in our home kept coughing. We want to relieve a little bit of this burden if we can.
We are coordinating with the people at FERHA who will be bringing us 5000 lbs of rice tomorrow for us to distribute. We will be purchasing beans and oil to distribute along side of that.
Please pray that the rains stop and sun comes out. We need things to start drying up and for the land and peoples belongings/houses to dry. Pray for peoples health right now. That we don’t see a rise in Cholera or mosquito borne illnesses. Also pray for the farmers in our village who have lost all their crops and therefor all their income.
In addition the Presidential Elections are this Sunday. Prayers that it remains peaceful and that whoever is elected is able to have a positive impact for this country that we love.
This man is a rice farmer, but his yield was destroyed last night.