Flood Part 2

Thursday night a member of the community came to the house after we had dinner. He discussed with Silivia and Emmanuel in Luo for a long time. Emmanuel finally turned to me, explaining that they were discussing homes that needed to be rebuilt in the community. This week people were mostly focusing on food - the Red Cross and government had delivered maize and beans, and Abba was running a lunch time feeding program. Emmanuel explained that unless people started working on their homes soon, they would probably not be receiving help from the community the longer they waited. There are at least 7 homes that need to be completely rebuilt.

Thursday it rained all night. I woke up multiple times, listening for the sounds of Silivia yelling or the roar of a false ocean. None were there, and I slept until about 7 the next morning. We woke up, taking tea and sweet potatoes and discussing the need for additional soil inside Abba's muddy classrooms. It was muddy out - but nothing out of the ordinary.

A few more hours passed, and Happ returned to the house, telling us that the water had come again. I pulled on my gumboots and walked to the road, my stomach heavy with dread. I stood in the same spot as last time, listening to the same roar of water as last time - wondering if I was dreaming as I looked down again at water rushing past my gumboots. We tried to stop some of it from flowing into Abba, and others in the community dug trenches and mud walls to try and save their homes.

Again the river has swelled over its banks, pooling in one area because there are not enough culverts in the new, raised road to allow it to flow to the lake. I greeted a lady I knew, asking her if the water was entering into her home, and she told me to follow her. The rerouted water was flowing directly next to her house, as she informed me that as long as that water didn't increase, her house would be okay.

I am speechless for a second time. The water has returned - showing more gusto than the last time and flooding a larger area, with more homes. Not even a week's time has past - leaving the still damp marks on peoples' homes with a fresh coat of water. Peoples' homes are in serious need of rebuilding - so again, if you can, please email me rachelmclark2@gmail.com if you are willing to help build a new home.

Flood

Thursday morning around 3:00, I was woken up by shrieking and noise coming from outside. Eileen, Silivia and Emmanuel's oldest daughter, was sleeping above me, and told me we should go outside. We climbed through the door, to hear people yelling and small points of light coming from the road. There was a dull roar - sounding like the ocean - coming from up the road. 'People are being swept by water,' Silivia was yelling in Luo, which Eileen translated for me. All we could do was sit on the stoop, small flash light pointed at the yard, not being able to see or know exactly what was happening.

Silivia returned, explaining that water was sweeping everything on the road, that she had been called by the driver of the van at Abba, whose home was under water. She told us to sleep until there was light. We crawled back into our beds around 430, shivering and falling into a half sleep until 615.

I climbed out of bed, pulling my rain jacket and gum boots on, and strapping my camera around my chest. I found Silivia, and we began to walk towards the bridge that I run to in the morning. People filled the road, the only high point that was not under water. I stood over water that was rushing as fast as a river, sounding so similar to the Pacific Ocean - I momentarily forgot where I was. Cattle were being herded through knee deep water as we pushed our way on, passing people shivering and carrying shoes.

 The further we walked, the more water there seemed to be. Groups of people were clustered all over this road - looking like the entire village was present. We walked all the way to the bridge, at times water so deep it entered into my gumboots. You could not tell where the river began and where it ended. Everything was surrounded by water. 

 


Peoples' homes were covered. At first, people just watched the water, then realizing it was not receding, waded to their homes to pull things out. The mud and stick frames were not going to last for long. Tables, couches, clothes were floated towards the dry ground from homes. Animals that were stuck shrieked, with owners unable to reach them. Snakes passed us. Everything was water. 


We started walking back home, coming to a woman's house that I had interviewed at the beginning of this year. She just stood, staring at her home in horror, until finally someone broke the back side of her house. I crawled into waist deep water to join the line of people passing her belongings to dry land. We continued when most of her things were out, only to come to another home that had the same fate.

Silivia and I climbed onto a piki piki to see the rest of the area. We headed towards Nyangweso - the large market that people go to on Thursdays. Before reaching, we saw three of the people that work at Abba, their homes destroyed with their belongings outside. People owning shops sifted through flour coated with water, swollen rice and beans - their shops and stores destroyed. The water had passed first through Nyangsweso - leaving marks above my head on shops where it had reached, knocking most restaurants and shops to the ground. People placed their goods out to dry - powdery white flour and packets of bread littering the ground.


We returned to Abba, where thankfully water had begun to drain - although it was knee deep in some classrooms. Silivia's clinic was covered in water, making the floor a muddy mess, while she drew up lidocaine to inject a patient with a toothache who had come.


 

The initial explanation was that it had rained heavily in the hills, swelling a river so much that it spilled over everything. That in combination with the construction of a new road that lacks proper drainage systems caused flooding that hasn't been experienced since 2005. People cried against the companies that had made this road. I read in today's paper that the group that was working on an irrigation scheme was to blame - that their major goal in West Kochia was to stop flooding, which it seems to have increased.


The biggest problem now is that most peoples' homes are destroyed. The water drained quickly - although soggy lakes still remain, unable to soak into the black cotton soil. Fields of crops have been destroyed - especially devastating after an extra long season of drought. People don't know where to rebuild - afraid that this will just occur again, and struggling for the large resources it takes to construct new homes. 

I have not asked for much in this blog - besides the occasional supportive email, but this one is different. I have watched the community that has been my home for 9 months be washed over with water - no helicopters or aid coming to help. If you are willing to donate to help people rebuild their homes, please send me an email rachelmclark2@gmail.com. Anything and everything is appreciated.

  

I live in the future. I got a tattoo when I was 19, after spending an entire year of my life living 5 years down the road, hoping that it would remind me to stay present, to enjoy the now. There are times in my life, even after sitting through 15 minutes of hellish pain inflicted by a large, bald, sweating tattoo artist, I forget. I become so obsessed with a known place I want to be, that I cannot – will not be swayed by the events that are happening now.

My brother sent a book with me when I left, that I have easily read 4 times – now on my 5^th. It is mostly about writing, about how an author deals with the day to day process of putting pen to paper, but it’s also about life – because of course, that is what writing is describing after all. In a time where I find myself firmly rooted a year down the line, I have begun reading this book again, coming across pages I had previously dog-eared, passages that I had underlined severely in black ink. ‘to be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind.’

Recently, I had a bit of a panic attack. There had been a bit of drama, and I found myself feeling like I was left with nothing to do, nothing to learn or see. That I was failing miserably at collecting the stories I had so confidently told the grant committee I would get. So I did what I usually do – call my mom. She listened, and as word after word fell out of my mouth, wisely reminded me to just be. To enjoy the company of the people here, to spend time with the children. I later had this same conversation with Silivia, telling her I just wanted to spend time with her. She agreed, replying that I could write books about the people I had experienced here, holding her hands apart from each other, demonstrating how thick the book about her would be.

So I did just that this week - was engrossed by something outside myself, which calmed my incessant chatter about the future, mostly. Che and three of her best friends followed us home after school had finished, eating bananas that were stashed in the corner of the room and laughing, laughing, laughing. I held a 2 year old who I had never met before, mumbling to me that she was fii when asking her how she was, her mom surprised she wasn't crying in my arms. I watched Silivia do extraction after extraction, laughing when an old man told us stories about his lost love. I sat inside while Silivia made us dinner, hurricane lamp glowing lightly, as Che crawled into my lap and fell asleep. I did not think about the things I would do when I came home, or how I would sum up this year to anyone.

I often wonder where I picked up this trait. This obsession with the future. I remember back to my elementary school days, that fateful question – what do you want to be when you grow up? I often wonder why this question isn’t – what do you want to do now? I think if we were more accustomed to asking that question, more determined to be proud and confident about the now, we would be turning out very different children, adults. I can remember loving to write when I was small, but possessing a knack for math and science. I wonder if I had been framed the last question instead of the first, if my path would have been different. Not geared towards biomedical engineering or biochemistry, leaving my love of writing to be forgotten and covered with equations, only to be remembered when spending a year in solitude, away from the clutter of well-intentioned careers.