If you've been on Facebook or seen the news you've seen photos of Vanuatu post Pam. Peace Corps made the right call putting us on the plane, no matter how mad I was about it! The eye of the storm did not go over Port Vila BUT it sat directly beside it and ripped through the town. The eye passed over the southern islands and Pam left thousands homeless and gardens destroyed all over the country. This is important to know because that means food and water are now in a shortage and medical buildings are destroyed. Many villages had homes down, and the beautiful green country I had fallen in love with is now BROWN. The winds ripped the leaves up, and tossed trees around like confetti. In 2 days, years of work was destroyed. Our hearts ached for our nation. Let me give a comparison from my generation. I was in high school when 9-11 happened. I watched the plane hit the second tower. I wasn't in DC but that feeling is one I'll NEVER forget. If you were around I bet you haven't either. We were taken out of a nation we call home and we were watching them being beaten, battered, and bruised by the mercilessness of Cyclone Pam. Things were very intense for days. Communications were down. No word was coming as to if our staff survived. Still 13 days later we have many questions. How are our families? Did our house stand? What resources are getting to our villages? How bad is it? But there was one question that out-weighed every other question and NO ONE knew the answer to it. The question was simple and yet so complicated: CAN WE RETURN TO VANUATU?!?
Our staff and country director were doing everything they could. They left their homes in disarray and were at the office covering up the roof, mopping up water, drying out what they could, and starting what will be months of work in finding sites, new jobs, and answers. It would take many trips across Vanuatu to evaluate DC's questions.
Here we sat in Sydney waiting for the answer to one question and DC had one that had to be answered before we could get our answer. Theirs was, "Can we insure the safety and security of the 69 volunteers & trainees. That safety includes clean water and access to food, shelter, and medical support."
The Vanuatu Peace Corps staff, including our director, worked endlessly to get DC their answers so we could get ours. The roads were impassable, airports were closed, relief workers couldn't land yet, and here was our amazing staff out walking around doing assessments. Chartering flights to fly over where they could to see how bad things were. The media was painting horrible pictures, which we were seeing, but our staff were continuously working to answered questions for DC, take photos, walk hours to see villages...all to get us back.
Some hope came with a purpose, which I'll write a separate blog post about, but I know that hope was an answer to so many people.
DC sent a psychologist out to Sydney to be with us as things were, well, raw and emotional. With 69 people trying to cope, things also got intense. The next day a familiar face from DC arrived so we could have direct news as it came in. DC also needed to know if we could handle going back to a post-disaster country. But her arrival still didn't come with answers. It had almost been a week and the thought that USA was going to be our next destination had us all on edge. Vanuatu is so much a part of us already. We would talk to each other in Bislama just as a form of comfort. Finally some news came. BUT the news was covered in uncertainty.
We were told that DC was planning on sending us back to Vanuatu IF our director could prove we would have what we needed for safety & security. This was, however, the first ray of hope in a week. We all clung to it for life. 2 days later word spread that the regional director would be arriving to meet with us in person in 3 days. Later that night we found out the country director received orders from DC to come to Sydney the night before the regional director would arrive. Our hearts started to sink and our heads started to spin. Surely this couldn't be good news. We tried our best to stay calm but NONE of us wanted to end our service. 31 of us weren't even done with training yet, but life in the USA seemed so long ago, and Vanuatu needed us now more then ever. We tried our best to stay busy over the next 2 days. I kept myself busy learning as much as I could on disaster management and preparation, (Thank you UF faculty for all the information you sent. It was my sanity). The director arrived but he said no decision had been made yet and hopefully the regional director would come with news. But he brought all the photos and many of the reports he had sent, which was the most news we'd had in 10 days. The photos were hard to look at. Pam did a number on Vanuatu!! That night was full of emotions. the regional director would be in at 8am and we would meet at 11am. You could see the look of exhaustion on our director's face, I have so much respect for this man. He has worked endlessly to bring us back. He believes that much in us and I know if the answer is NO that, well, it won't be because our post didn't try.
11am came and you could feel the weight of emotions in the room. We all knew the answer could be "NO", "we don't know yet", "we need to send you back to the states while we finish the assessment", "we have to close the post", OR "we are going to send you back in groups, volunteers but not trainees. We have to send trainees to the states and slowly bring you back". The options were endless but what was said I don't think any of us were expecting at this point. As we heard the words, it took a while for it to sink in. We spent minutes before talking about how much devastation had taken place, how schools were destroyed, hospitals flattened. We were all embracing for the worst BUT we got the BEST!!! ALL of us would return on the same flight out before the weekend! 15 people will be moved, the rest will return to their assigned posts, and we will figure out the logistics as we go. But we were ALL going BACK!!!! & We were going together!!
We as trainees will be resuming training, but we will be going to Lugenville, Santo Island for 3 weeks and our swear-in has been pushed back until the 16th. By that time, new sites and jobs should be arranged. Volunteers who can return to their villages will go immediately and will do community assessments. The ones who can't will stay in Port Vila and work with NGO's & the government helping organize relief efforts.
This was amazing news for us all BUT the rest of the talk got deep quickly and was followed with 2 days of one-on-one meetings about what we are heading back into. Our regional director has worked in disaster areas and he spent a lot of time talking about what emotionally is gonna happen when we start this next adventure. He was clear when he said once the excitement wears off and we see the devastation, our emotions will be intense. So I'm sure I'll post more on this topic at a later time. My hope is that it will help someone some time in the future.
Until next time
JumpInTheJungle
