Last night, the parent’s of the girls who were staying with us called and said people were losing their houses in Santa Cruz, very sad. Most of the houses are built on the mountain, the foundations were being washed away, then the houses would just go. New rivers were forming down the mountain. I didn’t tell their girls, who were over for the night, what was happening around their home.
Our electricity last night lasted until 8pm. With the amount of rain coming down, we figured our supply was precarious. We ended up going to bed by 9 since it’s difficult to read by candlelight. By 1:30 a.m. I was wide awake. I could hear the river rushing, even though it’s 3-4 blocks from our house. I lay awake wondering what was happening. Around 6 am I ventured out.
I walked down the small pathway that leads to the pedestrian bridge over the river. People coming toward me said Jucanya is cut off, all the bridges are gone. At the river the entire row of houses along the river were all missing. Large houses. My friend was staying in an apartment well back from the river’s edge, half of the apartments were gone. One woman, who I have gotten to know said her entire apartment was swept away. She said anything material that proves who she is as person, pictures, passports, all gone. She was in shock. She also had her 12 year old son with her. They were dazed.
There was a hole made through the wall where my other friend’s apartment was, hers was still standing. There was a man coming out with a tv. I was hoping that was his and that the looting hadn’t started. I called my friend and said she should come to her apartment right away and see what she can salvage. She asked if I would wait there for her, she’d been upset all night. She showed up with a few other people who were hanging out with her the night before and couldn’t get home.
We were slowly getting a better idea of the damage. All the bridges were swept away, except for the one at the edge of town. The pedestrian bridge by our house, gone, the tuk tuk bridge, gone, the main bridge rebuilt by the South Koreans after hurricane Stan in 2005, was half washed away, the next two pedestrian bridges, gone. No one knew if the yellow bridge is a few miles away from us was in tact. No one had made it that far. I met my next door neighbor who was going to try to get through on his bike, but he thought we may be entirely cut off except for the lake.
I went home and told the girls I was going to see if the yellow bridge was passable. I took my bike. As I rode up the river, I couldn’t believe how many buildings were swept away. Many large houses, small houses, tiendas, half of a school. The store next to the girl’s school was on a 45 degree slant about to slide into the river. All the tiendas were closed on our side of the river, which surprised me. I’m sure people needed food, water, but the tiendas were closed tight. I met many people I knew out on the streets.
No one knew if the yellow bridge at the edge of town survived. The further I got toward the bridge, the more damage there was. Partially because the gap between the river and the mountain is much more narrow. So either houses were simply swept away into the river or the mud slides from the mountains went right through people’s houses. It was terrible, that early walk to try to get up to the yellow bridge. Many of the houses had 2-3 feet of mud in them. So much devastation. People were fishing belongings out of the mud, clothes, motorcycles. There was so much mud, debris, huge rocks, trees, belongings, cars. You could see how the street had turned into its own river.
There was a door over a small raging river that we were all using as a bridge. I barely got my bike and me over the makeshift bridge. At one point there was so much mud, past my ankles, I decided to turn back. So many people were walking around dazed. One woman was sitting on the curb with her dog and said she watched her house float down the river. She lost everything.
I rode my bike down to the lake. There was so much debris floating in the mouth of the river, well into the lake. The big thing going on down at the lake was people collecting firewood. All the docks were washed away, there was lot of wood, trees floating in the water. People were hauling that out, collecting it in wheelbarrows, pick-up trucks. since many people still cook with wood, and need to buy firewood regularly, that is a significant savings if they collect free wood.
When I got back, I saw the tienda was open and went and bought the last water available. I got a call from my neighbor saying that the yellow bridge is in tact. The father of the girls who had spent the night called and said I should put the girls on a boat to go home. The only way of getting them to the dock was to walk them to the yellow bridge, tuk them to the dock and put them on a boat. I wanted to get them home.
Then I went back with bags to help my friend move out of the apartment. They had most of her belongings out of the room, and out on the balcony in front of her house. The riverbed was in front of the balcony. At one point people who were also trying to get their belongings out started yelling that the main pillar holding up that end of the house was collapsing and that the house was shaking, to get out right away. Well, that did it for me. I didn’t go back in to help. I won’t risk my life for things, especially when I have 5 girls back at my house counting on me, among other reasons, like just wanting not to die under massive amounts of concrete. I told my friend I simply couldn’t take the chance if the building was unstable. She had about 5 helpers, so I headed back to my house, got all the girls ready for the trek out of Jucanya.
It took us a couple of hours to walk to Pana, mostly because the one little girl had a blister on her foot, I didn’t have any bandaids, she refused to wear her socks because they were wet. So we were barely moving. We walked by their school and they looked across the river to where half the soccer field at the stadium has washing away. They all spontaneously errupted into screaming, “Hooray, no more Phys ed!!” See, there is always a bright side. Eventually we got close to the yellow bridge. Only the night before we were in the RiverHouse doing the play, which was right next to the bridge. Now the parking lot was gone, most of the walll around the complex was gone, it was a mess.
People had gone in to the playhouse to rescue the music equipment. All of the costumes were in rooms that filled with 3 feet of mud. The kids were digging through the mud with shovels to see if they could fish out more costumes. Moms were rinsing the thick mud out of the costumes in the river because it made them too heavy to carry. It was all so sad. We spent the afternoon trying to rinse out some of the costumes.
After we made it into town, we dropped the two girls off at the dock. Their dad had decided to come over on a boat to get more groceries, so we ended up meeting him and walking into town. We decided to get something to eat. Only a couple of restaurants were open and not many stores. Our pants and jackets were spattered with mud, our shoes totally caked. Next time I come here, I will bring boots.
We slept over at my friend’s house. Only had the clothes on our backs, didn’t want to try to get back over to Jucanya since the road is impassable except on foot. Our clothes are a bit full of mud, a bit yucky.
The streets are all full of mud, with very few exceptions. We went to the market to buy some boots, but there weren’t many left. We found some red ones for Kier, so we bought those. Not only did we pay the gringo price, we also paid the one-day-after-tropicalstorm-Agatha price.
The roads to and from Pana are all blocked. There is no way to get in and out, the road are filled with mud, boulders, trees. Don’t know how long it will take to clear them. Even if the airports open because the volcanic ask isn’t an issue, people will not be able to get to and from the airport from here. Impossible.
The organizers decided to have church, even if most people would be unable to attend. It ended up being six of us sitting in a circle. We were all exhausted for different reasons. It was comforting somehow, I’m glad we were together.
After church we were all invited to a fiesta de quince. That is the special birthday party for a girl when she turns 15. It’s a huge deal here. The woman was afraid that no one would show up at her daughter’s party, so she said we were all invited. Other people went home to change clothes because these are very fancy, formal events, but we only had our muddy clothes on. They said we should come anyway. I cleaned up our clothes the best I could and we went to the party. It is still pouring pouring rain outside, the streets are rivers. Right before we get to the hotel where the party is being held, I decide to step on this rock by the side of the street to get out of the rain and mud. But no, that’s no rock, it’s a huge ginormous pile of mud disguised to look like a rock just to fool me. So I’m up to my friggin knee in mud. In order not to totally lose my balance and fall backwards into the mud, I had to sink my other foot into the huge pile just to regain my balance. Oh yeah, one of my finer moments. I couldn’t stop laughing. My friends couldn’t stop laughing, and we’ve all had a bunch of babies so we are all trying not to have a bladder leak, and kept yelling at each other to stop laughing or we were all going to pee.
We get to the fancy fancy event. My friend’s are looking beautiful, I am looking like I’ve just been dragged through a muddy field. When I get into the room, where guys dressed in suits are escorting you to tables, women are in formal gowns. I look down at my pants, turn around and go out to the courtyard. I try to rinse my legs off in the pool, while this guard it telling me to quit, but I figure he’ll have to come and make me, which will give me a few minutes of rinsing time. I simply stepped into the pool and tried to get the huge amount of mud off my shoes and legs. Then I rolled up my pants to the knees and wished I’d shaved my lower legs sometime in the last month. I stuck my legs under the table, had a great time with my friends.
Some people had lost their houses that day, some people their belongings, others a little bit of sanity, but everyone was there, smiling, having a great time, enjoying each other. It was great. Well, it was great until people were dragging my on to the dance floor and they would see my pants. I finally gave in, left my muddy shoes under the table, ended up dancing in my barefeet on the dance floor. I’m sure I didn’t give gringos a very good name that evening. But the important people knew I had walked out of Jucanya that morning and hadn’t been back since.
People greet each other with, do you have a house, a roof? Any mud, everyone is ok? Good. It was a very emotionally draining day in so many ways. A reminder how quickly possessions can be taken away.
Cali fell asleep after the meal. One of the guys carried my mud covered little one to the van. They drove us back to their house and I put her to bed. But then I couldn’t sleep, I was so keyed up. A small group of us stayed up and listened to the rain, talked about the day, tried to unwind. I really appreciate this group of people I’ve come to know here.