After the drought in the first part of the rainy season, now too
much rain is falling on Nicaragua. On
the Island of Ometepe, a 5-year-old girl was washed away in flooding. Around 6,000 people have been displaced due
to flooding.*
Farmers are concerned about their crops and this comes after
hardly any crops surviving the drought.
Food prices are high and likely to go higher. COPROEXNIC, the organic agriculture
cooperative, has been working with farmers on Ometepe, one of the hardest hit
by the flooding, to see how they and we can help.
People are worried about all the environmental events. Not enough rain. Too much rain. Then
add to that: last spring, we had tremors
for weeks and Monday night Nicaragua experienced another tremor and the country is on yellow alert.
Food prices are high.
Mosquitoes carrying dengue and malaria are thriving in all the
standing water. Mold is everywhere. Clothes are not getting fully dried. People are cold at nights. Asthma is more of a problem. And now the earth is shaking again.
For people like me, who do not live on the
edge, these are all a nuisance and a concern.
For people who are poor and the least little thing can knock them over…well, all the rain and tremors are knocking people over.
The government is addressing these problems…building houses for flood victims; importing food to lower prices; feeding children in
schools; closing schools to prevent disasters away from home with tremors…but
there is only so much that a government with limited resources can do.
The poor have leaky roofs and all this rain turns their dirt
floors into mud. Their lean-to homes are
easy to wash away in floods. And the homes of the poor have no foundation and their walls are not sturdy which means a tremor is
terrifying if not potentially disastrous.
Stress is high. We in
the States tend to talk about stress as running your kids from one place to another…or high powered jobs…or having little free time, but real
stress...the kind that eats at your soul... comes from knowing that one rain too many, one
disease, one more hike in food prices, or one more shake can bring your life
tumbling down. This is the reality of
the poor and why the human race needs to lift the impoverished up... literally... out
of the mud.
-Kathleen
* The day after we published this blog, 9 people were killed in Managua when the retaining wall of a gated community collapsed on the poor barrio beside it, bringing the total dead from rains up to 19. Miraculously, two babies were pulled from under mud and concrete alive.
* The day after we published this blog, 9 people were killed in Managua when the retaining wall of a gated community collapsed on the poor barrio beside it, bringing the total dead from rains up to 19. Miraculously, two babies were pulled from under mud and concrete alive.
