Flooding in Huanta

The following blog was written last week. I have been trying to post ever since.

I should update you about what is going on in Huanta. I too have been out of contact. We had no internet yesterday and no electricity for most of today. We have been without water all day as well. There was a big land slide about 5 blocks up or so. It really involved large rocks falling and blocking the gutters. Then the river and mud filled most of the houses up to at least half way of the 1st floor and a lot of time more. Most of the houses are as i said before are adobe and so when the floods came walls collapsed. Many have lost houses and all of there things. The city and other non profits have set up tents and given out raw food stuff but without places to cook and no clean water people are still hungry. Some families are sharing what they can. This has affected at least one complete city block, various other houses, and tons of houses in the mountains. Lots of crops have been killed along with animals. So far their are some dead and some missing people, but mostly in el campo. I havent heard any updates on numbers but i think yesterday it was 4 dead and 4 missing.

Today I went with the church to deliver breakfast and lunch. I am not officially there with the radio, but Samuel doesnt mind(he and Orlando were there too for most of it) and so I will continue to do what I can until Samuel asks me to do something else. I figure reading the history of Ayacucho can wait. Anyways, We took lunch at 2. We figured that people would have already eaten but that they could save it for dinner if they had. When we got to the tents, most had not eaten. We filled what pots and pans people had. Some cried and talked to the pastor about what they had lost. I almost cried when a mom and two kids had nothing to put their soup in because they literally had lost everything. A little girl their getting soup for herself heard them say they had no bowls and said that her family did. She went into her tent and got 2 Styrofoam bowls and gave them to this family. It was literally her sharing all her family had. By giving away those bowls she possibly gave away the only way for her family to have clean dishes.

Other than that flooding continues to be a concern. It hasnt rained for 2 days but this is just the very beginning of rainy season. I went with Samuel and World vision to check the levels of two of 5 lakes that are about an hour up the mountain. They are pretty full and they are looking for a way to keep them from over flowing and flooding more houses.

Radio Amauta has some damage but not much. We dont have water right now but hopefully that is temporary. It usually doesn't last more than a day. There are lots of roof leaks and I think they have someone looking to fix at least some of that. When it rains really hard we all go out to keep rooms from flooding by blocking off doors and keeping the water flowing to the back of the radio. That has only happened once so far. I feel that I am safe and more useful than I have been. I only hope that we can continue to do little things that help. One sad thing is that when I am out with the church a lot of people assume i am in charge cause i am the gringa. Or they use my coming as a definite sign that we are there to help. I guess we are there to help but it is not because of me. I wish I could do more.

I luv yall and I only ask that you keep Huanta in your prayers. Surprisingly there are a lot of people in good spirits and praising good for the little help they are receiving. I dont know about you but while i see the beauty of God and people in the helping hands and good spirits I think it would be hard for me not to question why God allowed my house to flood in the first place. It is easy for me to see God in the good when i am not personally experiencing the bad but I dont know how i would feel if I was. I have found myself many times humming the prayers of the people song. I feel like the people of Huanta are living that song. They really are pulling together and being one in this crisis. All of the construction workers from all the sites in the city went to help yesterday and today. I just hope people dont forget and stop helping in a couple days. There is going to be more to come and there are still people living in tents.

Since what I wrote above things have dried out some but there have also been more houses destroyed. The rains will continue to come. Please keep Huanta in your prayers. God Bless.

This is not suppose to be a river. It is a street. The rocks are also not suppose to be there. They were brought by the water.