Our fifth day of relief. Our staff told me this morning that the noodles in town are gone. Bottled water is difficult to find. But the good news is that we are ready to move on to secondary relief. Getting beyond the triage relief to beginning the road to recovery. Here is yesterdays report from Tam our program director

“The relief trip to Dai Son today is the most recent  we did to give out food and water supplies out for the poor families in this commune. We also gave notebooks for children in Dai Dong commune. Helping them to get back on track with school.

To date, we have spent $10,000 providing relief for 1,102 families! 4500 notebooks for 450 children We have worked in 2 communes in Quang Ngai and 6 communes in Quang Nam, but most of these gifts were given to the poor people in Dai Loc district which suffered from heavy losses.

 Dai Son is the poorest commune of Da Loc district and also the mountainous area. All people there do for living by growing pineapple, collecting wood to sell which leads to very low annual income every year, so they receive social relief constantly from NGO’s and the local authority.

Even before the flood there wasn’t any electricity, phone. No hospital, no market and no purified water there. There is only one school for children from grade 1 to grade 5 and only one teacher to teach these 5 grades. I didn’t see any motorbike, or bike; the only mean of transportation is boat. Most houses that all these families live are not houses, but shacks where I didn’t see any valuable things inside. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine how life has been there.

 According to the report of the local authority, I found that there are about 200 families living in Dai Son mountainous commune, but there were 14 families whose houses were swept away, 3 collapsed houses and 53 tottering houses. The people here lost corn, chickens, pigs, fish and all other stuffs in the house.

I want to thank the local authority for assisting us in doing relief for the poor people. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and dedication of those who are doing humanitarian work to help the poor people in Dai Loc district.

It took us half hour to move by van and 1 hour to travel by boat to reach to this commune. When we got cross an alluvial ground in the middle of the river, I was told that the flood in 1998 swept away a village located in this alluvial ground. It was unbelievable.

Moving among vast current of water, I thought of the fate of people living in this area as the flood comes. When the boat made a landfall, there were many people waiting for us to get the relief in the heat of the sun.

The image of these needy people urges me much in doing more and more to help those like them. After giving supplies to those who gathered at the landing stage, GIBTKs’ team walked 1 km along a path in the hill to get to the families whose house was swept away by the flood. At first sight, I didn’t recognize where the house was built because there was no difference between land and the floor because nothing was remained.

The man said in scare: “Our children were very lucky when they were moved by the local authority to the higher hill before the flood hit our home. I and my wife were frightened a lot when the flood was risen up to 3 meters in comparison with the floor. We tried to shout for help, but no one could come to rescue us because the water run very fast. After a while of thinking, one neighboring man tried to save our life by a ladder and a life jacket. We thought we would die at that time because we had no way to reach to the higher place. We were scared of leaving our children alone without being cared while they are so young. When we just got out of the house, the historic flood swept it away in a while. This was the first flood hitting this village since I built this house over 30 years ago. We lost every thing but we are still alive to work to bring up our 6 children.”

 After 5 days of doing relief in 8 communes of Quang Ngai and Quang Nam, what has made me think a lot about is hardship and poverty of people in the rural areas, especially those in the mountainous area. 

 After a night of rest I spoke to our team in VN. Only the night before they were saying they would take tomorrow off to rest. But this evening when I called them (morning to them) the first question I was asked is there any more funds. We have to help more!!!