Heather Parr was in Guatemala as Hurricane Stan struck in October 2005. Here she shares her account of how the local community she has got to know in Sololá has undertaken the task of rebuilding their lives and their future.
It’s Sunday 2nd October 2005 and I arrive in Santiago de Atitlán, Sololá Guatemala intending to spend three months working as a volunteer.
It starts to rain at about 2pm and doesn’t stop for five days. In this time over 600 people in my new community are killed, and between 3,000 and 4,500 people are made homeless as a result of a devastating landslide in Canton Panabaj. I arrived with Hurricane Stan.
Stan cuts us off for the best part of a week. The phone lines are down, the power is off, the roads are closed, the market is shut and nobody anywhere else knows what is happening to the town. Everyone from every walk of society does what they can to help, whether that’s carrying water, washing dishes, sourcing food, chopping vegetables, or taking bleach to the shelters. I see a polio stricken beggar woman crawl to the town hall and donate 15 quetzales (approx. £1.50). Everyone gives what they have to help the people of their town.
After 3 days the power returns and we try and get word out about what has happened. I write to the BBC on their website, but by the time they arrive – eight days on- and interview me we are old news. The Kashmir earthquake has happened and in comparison, the Stan tragedy doesn’t count as news. I ask friends and family for help knowing that if we don’t even make the news, we can’t expect to receive much aid.
Food starts to get through as the press arrive. The next ten days are spent distributing food, but it is clear that the people are not going to receive much long term. We need to help the people affected by Stan, or the ‘damnificados’ as they are emotively being called, back to work. As we give out one of the last donations of food, we interview the people as to what equipment they need to work. My wonderful friends, family and colleagues come through at the same time and we use the initial donations to buy tools for the men so they can go back to their jobs in the fields.
I give them three tools and offer the fourth on micro credit so that they have what they need to go to work. We maintain the contact in case we manage to get more aid. At the same time an Irish volunteer arrives, also with funds from home and we set to work together to collect information as to who needs what, and as far as possible to monitor who has received what from whom, although this proves difficult. This information means we are able to tell passing tourists what is needed and helps us access funding from German association Probigua and from a generous private British donor.
For information you can visit Heather’s blog
Or for further information about reconstruction work in Atitlan since Stan
