Disaster Relief

Once again I have had an eventful and exciting weekend. Friday afternoon I got together with some other exchange students and Argentine tutors to help out in Mendiolaza, an area about 25 minutes from where I live.

For those who haven't heard, Cordoba and the surrounding region received an abnormal amount of rain this month. There was so much rain within a short period of time that some areas were placed under a "state of emergency" and troops were deployed to assist with relief. There was tons of flooding, at least 1,500 houses were effected and around 10 people died (the number hasn't been finalized yet).

People in my area had told me that the rain had been pretty bad but didn't prepare me for what I saw when I got there. With two bridges completely taken out, roads and homes flooded, and many places completely destroyed, there was a desperate need that hasn't been met.

This woman's house was right next to the river, flooding her house and leaving about one foot of mud on top of her front and back yards.

Every house we visited did not have working electricity, they were working to get the water back and running, and everything in the houses had been completely submerged under water. 

Every house had removed everything from inside and placed anything salvageable out in the yards to dry. The rest went into huge trash mounds in front of the houses. 

The families told stories of water reaching chest high, trying to salvage anything, damage to cars, lack of beds, having no clothes, or their children being without basic necessities, and no toys left. 

We found a teddy bear near the river that had been destroyed by the flooding.

One of the saddest parts was that there were very few people around to help. Our large group was able to help but there was still so much to do and some of the only other people were police. At least they were nice and working hard to help. 

The following pictures are from the time we spent in Mendiolaza. We are hoping to go back again this week. There is so much need and so much to be done. 

We worked hard but managed to have fun doing it! 

One of the saddest things I saw. Two young girls carrying donated clothes home. One was shoeless. 

Carrying donated goods 

This woman lost pretty much everything except her dogs, her family, a few plates and some chairs but had a wonderful attitude. She was extremely thankful for the help and when we asked her if there was anything she needed her only response was "We are doing really good. The only thing we could use is shoes but other than that, I think we are fine!" She said that as she was standing in torn clothing in front of her empty, water damaged house that still had standing water in the destroyed kitchen. 

This 2 1/2 year old wanted to be held but would not smile and was not interested in playing. She was scared to be away from me or her mother for any amount of time. 

As typical as Argentina gets, every house had Mate (similar to tea) to offer, even though they didn't have anything else. Everyone that helped was offered Mate. Mate was originally used by the indigenous people in Argentina as a way to help get through a long day of work. The tradition still stands today 

This was the owner of one of the houses she worked on. She was extremely thankful for all the help. She told us that a 4 year old and an 8 month old baby normally live in her house and that they were there when the flooding occurred.