Experiences
Hurricane Stan Relief[Note: Marcia Towers shares news from the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Guatemala (IENPG). Marcia is based in Quetzaltenango (Xela). IEPNG is made up of all the Presbyterian churches and presbyteries in Guatemala, including Maya Quiche Presbytery. This report describes emergency relief work in some of the more southern parts of Guatemala.]
Communication and electricity are starting to get back to normal. Movement of vehicles, however, still has far to go. It is possible now to take a car from Guatemala City all along the south coast to the Mexican border, but it’s not easy because of the up to 6 hour line to cross the Nahualate bridge, east of San Antonio. The pass from Guatemala City to Xela [Quetzaltenango] through the mountains is still cut off, but sparse traffic comes along the coastal route and through other difficult mountain routes. Gasoline and food are arriving little by little to at least the major cities in the south and west, but things still seem to be selling out the minute they arrive. Propane is still unavailable in Xela. We received word this morning that the Nahualate bridge will be closed again for work starting this evening, for 36 hours. This will certainly cause continued shortages.
It was odd sometimes working on getting the food out to the communities because life in some cities is returning to a seeming normality, and the radio and television are starting to put regular programming back on. So it starts even here to become possible to forget that literally millions of people in this country are still without food and clean water, that their crops are ruined for the year, that sitting water in affected areas is creating mosquitos and so dengue, and that funguses are sprouting up on many people’s feet from walking in the contaminated mud and water.
But we saw plenty in the communities to remind us how much long-term work will be left to be done:
Wednesday night, the first truckload of food finally made it through the long line to get across the Nahualate bridge, which has been one of the main points blocking passage of food and gasoline to the western part of the country. The truck brought about 900 rations to last a family about 5 days. Thursday morning we started bagging. And bagging. And bagging. The volunteers were a great help to the IENPG (Evangelical National Presbyterian Church of Guatemala) leaders, as were many families from the church in Santo Domingo.
That day we got four pick-ups packed, and headed off to three communities in the Pacifico Presbytery: Santa Fe, Campo Libre/Caballo Blanco, and El Chico. Each community received 100 rations. We dropped the food off with the church leaders in each of those communities for them to distribute since they know well the situation in each community. Food continues to be very scarce in these communities, and money is also scarce for families since landowners aren’t offering work because of the disaster. In El Chico, an island community, they also have the problem that since no gasoline has yet been available near them they can’t go out to fish for that food source either. In Campo Libre/Caballo Blanco, the situation continued to be particularly tense and desperate; they have about 80 adults and many children living in the church and another nearby house, and almost no food or clean water.
Friday morning early the volunteers and I headed out to Tiquisate where Victor Batz had brought the second truckload of food. There we also worked with the local church members and sorted 300 rations, and headed off to Santa Ana Mixtan to leave 300 rations for Santa Ana Mixtan and La Sabana, which were extremely affected. The water rose there as never before. In the "colonia" where groups had worked through Diaconia (the social service and development program of the IENPG) to build houses after Hurricane Mitch, the water reached waist level. In the center of town, the roads were washed away and only stone and rocks were left. Many cement block houses were collapsed from the strong current of water that passed through. Now the water is still flowing through some main roads in town, but it has gone down and left mud in its place. Most people haven’t gone back to their houses in Santa Ana Mixtan yet, except to clean.
The same day, other IENPG leaders worked from Santo Domingo to take food to a fourth community in Pacifico, Nueva Candelarias, where apparently the access road is almost impassable and they had to be pulled out by a tractor at some point. But they managed to get 100 rations there, too.
The volunteers and I came back up to Xela Sunday afternoon. We’ll have a day to debrief, and we’re planning on having them head out to their communities on Tuesday. None of their communities had dramatic flooding or landslides, but most were affected by the scarcity and by small landslides blocking roads, etc. Now they seem to be past crisis mode and anxious for the volunteers to come.
Meanwhile, Victor continues to coordinate the food distribution. Monday and Tuesday, more rations will go to the Maya Quiche Boca Costa Presbytery for the few communities there that suffered landslides and food shortages, and more rations will go to SurOccidente Presbytery, which has about 6 communities dramatically affected. The rest of the food will come up to Xela to help in the surrounding areas here.
We thank you again for your support. We’ll likely be wrapping up most of this first phase of emergency relief in the next few days. This is only the beginning – the reconstruction of the country, including helping people find new sources of income, is the biggest part of the effort.
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