I held a baby goat today
He was the size of a kitten and he was super mellow. I loved him! Then I gave him back and continued assessing.
One man said that he needed a house, pointed to a blank spot of land, said it was completely washed away. Then I pointed out to him that there was a tree growing in the middle of the plot. A tree that was obviously older than 2 months. He laughed and stopped asking.
Mud was a big hit. Volunteers formed a fire chain to pull mud up out of the riverbank, pass it up to the pathway, and then carry it over to the foundation we were packing. Super dirty, super slippy, super fun. We finished the job in one day.
Visited the people along the riverbank again this afternoon; they're poor, really heavily affected by the cyclone, living in a complete shantytown - but we're unable to help them at this point. The problem is that they don't own the land they live on. If we wanted to build them a house, the government or private property owner on whose land they're on could take the property back at any time. We can't cut the trees or clean up the area either, because the trees belong to the land owners, not the people living there. All that can be done for them is handouts of relief.
Two months after the storm, the continued distribution of relief is causing a big dependency/squatter problem along the riverbank. Families that didn't live in the area before have set up shack houses to benefit from some of the relief handouts and people are also desensitized to asking for relief; they have no qualms approaching and asking you piteously for anything. It's the part of Rayenda that is absolutely the poorest and most needy, yet we can't do anything for them, because they are landless. The only type of assistance we could do is a livelihood program, but that's difficult to pull together and run in only 3 months. Hmm.
One man said that he needed a house, pointed to a blank spot of land, said it was completely washed away. Then I pointed out to him that there was a tree growing in the middle of the plot. A tree that was obviously older than 2 months. He laughed and stopped asking.
Mud was a big hit. Volunteers formed a fire chain to pull mud up out of the riverbank, pass it up to the pathway, and then carry it over to the foundation we were packing. Super dirty, super slippy, super fun. We finished the job in one day.
Visited the people along the riverbank again this afternoon; they're poor, really heavily affected by the cyclone, living in a complete shantytown - but we're unable to help them at this point. The problem is that they don't own the land they live on. If we wanted to build them a house, the government or private property owner on whose land they're on could take the property back at any time. We can't cut the trees or clean up the area either, because the trees belong to the land owners, not the people living there. All that can be done for them is handouts of relief.
Two months after the storm, the continued distribution of relief is causing a big dependency/squatter problem along the riverbank. Families that didn't live in the area before have set up shack houses to benefit from some of the relief handouts and people are also desensitized to asking for relief; they have no qualms approaching and asking you piteously for anything. It's the part of Rayenda that is absolutely the poorest and most needy, yet we can't do anything for them, because they are landless. The only type of assistance we could do is a livelihood program, but that's difficult to pull together and run in only 3 months. Hmm.
posted by Stefanie at 8:04 AM
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