Today I woke, and the memories of the day before flooded back to me ruining my sleepy ignorant moment. The morning was a dreary, drizzly day fitting precisely with my feelings at the moment. Thanh and I heard from Salu that they were announcing on the radio that teachers should report to school, so we packed up and headed over to Leone. Upon arriving at school we were met with a solemn mood in the office and sidled up to the front desk to hear the news. Some of the worse tidbits include finding out that one of our teachers lot her house and everything she owned in the tsunami, and was caught so unawares that she had to run up the mountain in only her towel after emerging from the shower. She literally doesn't have the shirt on her back. Reports from the far west side is that everything near the coast is damaged, with the village of Amanave left without one building standing. In addition, we heard from our acting principal himself that three members of his family were still missing, including his aunt.
Our hearts were heavy as we left school, but we were determined to help. Thanh needed to return to home first because as the only Vietnamese person on the island she was going to be reporting and sending in video to the global Vietnamese news station (go Thanh!). I decided to head into Leone on my own to see if I could find anyway to help. When I arrived in town I was at a bit of a loss as to where to go to help, and after checking the churches and finding them empty I gravitated towards an area behind one of the Catholic churches. As I was walking I heard some commotion and walked over to see what was going on. Although I can't understand Samoan I could feel from how they were motioning to the police that there was something serious going on. Moments latter an ambulance arrived slowly driving in, and it dawned on me that there was only one reason an ambulance wasn't in a hurry. I turned and walked away as they began to load the vehicle.
Turning to look to my left I noticed that there was an elementary school at which many people were working at cleaning. I read the sign to learn that I was at St. Theresa's school, and walked over to see if I could help. I introduced myself to some of the people working and after explaining who exactly I was, I was briefed on what the basic plans were. We were sorting the debris and I was working on getting all the wood into piles around the school yard. After dumping detritus on to one pile out side of a classroom for a while, and noticing a distinctly pungent odor I realized that laying half out of the pile was a bloated dead dog. All I could think was thank God that the children had gotten out before the waves had come.
Before I was ready for a break I was told we had to stop. When I asked why, I was told so that people could take pictures. I was thinking that that was ridiculous until someone else explained to me that FEMA was here and that they needed to do their assessment of the damage, and that we had to halt clean up so that they could record what had actually happened. I spend the next ten minutes swapping stories and news with some of the women I had met, and was soon taken to meet others from the school. I mentioned that my acting principle was still missing family including his aunt, a baby, and the babysitter. One of the woman (obviously understanding the Samoan that had been spoken) told me that the old woman, my principal's aunt was the victim that I had just seen found. This was too close to home. Next thing I knew I was being kissed by the principle and thanked, and had my arms filled with frozen broccoli, a gallon of liquid eggs, lunch meat, and a pallet of chocolate milk as they were trying to not waste the food as it would go bad soon. Surprised and thoroughly bemused I was lead to my new friend Lucy's car, and she gave me a ride home as the rain picked up and we had to break for FEMA anyways. As I stumbled into the door at home, Thanh looked at me like I was crazy and commented, "Shouldn't that food be going the other way?" I explained to her that I guess it would go bad and that how could I refuse the food that they were shoving in my arms coupled with kisses. I don't want to offend.
Filling Thanh in with what I had been up to, then taking a break and grabbing some lunch I managed to regain my energy and Thanh and I headed to the bank was we needed to bulk up on cash. While at the bank Julia called me and let us know that she had hooked up with the Red Cross office, and Thanh and I joined her as it was conveniently across the street.
I met with the woman, Lani (who turned out to be our principal's wife), who is in charge of the west side for the Red Cross and within the hour she had hooked us up with a couple trucks that were going out to the extreme west coast of the island to deliver food and water to the road and utility workers and people hardest hit. Turns out that in American Samoa when the Red Cross delivers food they deliver McDonald's - I kid you not we handed out over 500 meals from McDonald's and hundreds of bottles of water in the next few hours.
WE rode in the back of one of the pickups through Leone and all the way to Poloa, all the while seeing first hand how severe the damage was. In addition we constantly ran into our students who would shout a greeting, and if we were stopped stay and chat. I cannot tell you how amazed I am at the attitude of my students and the people in general. While chatting with one of my kids as we passed out food and water I learned that all he had left to his name right now was the clothes he was wearing. Somehow he still had the good humor to jokingly ask if we had homework for tomorrow. It was the same with everyone we talked to, very surprisingly upbeat.
One of the harder moments came when we were driving and were in a bit of a traffic jam. A car coming in the opposite direction (headed to town) was frantically laying on their horn to get through, and as my worry spiked I saw into the back of the pick up to see a young man being held my family or friends - one holding a towel to the lower half of his face, another doing chest compressions. The blank look in the young man's eyes terrified me as the seemed too dull for life. We could only pray for the best for him, but we knew I was not looking good as they were still 40 minutes from the hospital. I am hoping like no other that it was not one of our students.
Seeing the utter destruction in some of the villages was completely devastating, but the attitudes of the people and seeing everyone cleaning and helping out made the sadness much lighter. After giving out the extra food we dropped off some that we had set aside for the newly homeless now residing at the Mormon church in the area.
Back in Tafuna we got some dinner, and then made plans with Lani to help out tomorrow if we didn't have school. The Red Cross was done for the day, but hearing Rosemary's experience as the check in person at the desk at the ER we headed to the hospital to see if they needed any help. We were glad to find that the hospital had calmed down and the nurse we talked to thanked us for the offer but said that they were finally seeing a slowing of people injured in the tsunami.
Thanh and I hitched home with a student's family, and now I find myself here typing this post. Despite all the chaos, tragedy, and destruction I experienced today I cannot help but be in a better place emotionally that have been for the last two days. Seeing the community spirit to help rebuild and clean up has really helped to raise spirits as it reminds me that while it will take many months, even years, there will eventually be a return to normality. However the people lost cannot be replaced, and images of the people recovering the woman's body and the boy in the back of the truck will not stop playing before my eyes.
Students will not return to school until Monday, but teachers are checking in tomorrow morning. Lani is going to pick us up on the way back out to the west side and we are going to continue to help with the food and water distribution, and help out in anyway that we can. It is the strangest feeling as a teacher to know that many of my students have lost family and all their possessions, and I am at a loss for how this will affect our community and school for the next few weeks. These next few days we are merely going to try to help out in someway, because this is our community now, and I cannot help but feel that I must help if only for the selfish reason that I need to feel as if I am doing something.
I tried to document as much of my day as possible, so as you follow this post check the pictures to see what I am talking about. I have some video that really puts the destruction of the far out villages of Amanave and Paloa in perspective, and as soon as the internet is running a little faster I will post them.
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| Tsunami Aftermath |
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