Return to Chincha

Judging by the aching in my every muscle and the sheer exhaustion that turned me into a zombie at the office on Monday, my body has atrophied after six years of sitting in front of a computer for ten hours a day. I was back in Chincha on Saturday and Sunday to assist the good citizens of that destroyed town. The trip was organised by the same lot with whom I went three weeks ago. On the one month anniversary of the earthquake there were far fewer volunteers heading south from Lima; 70 vs 650. A good deal was achieved nonetheless. Saturday was a similar exercise to the last trip, conducting a census. We, my two female charges and I, were entrusted with a map covering a square mile or so which marked the locations of the known communal kitchens in the area. Communal kitchens are being set up either by NGOs or by groups of locals. Anywhere between 5 and 40 families might congregate around one of these kitchens to get their food. It's vitally important for the local authorities to know where these kitchens are located so that when food aid does arrive, they aren't wandering around aimlessly trying to find them, or worse, overlooking the kitchens because they don't know they even exist.

This is where we came in. Armed with the map we went in search of all the kitchens already marked on the map, to ensure they were where the map indicated (which in three out of four cases they weren't so good thing we checked), and to find any new ones which had sprung up in the week or two since the last party conducted this exercise. We found seven more on top of the original four so all in all, a good afternoon's work. In addition we brought the kitchens' organisers important information on registering with the authorities and making sure they continually check in with them. In an ideal world, this wouldn't be necessary, but when resources are scarce, you have to make sure that those in charge of distribution aren't forgetting about you. The harsh realities on the ground.

My several visits down south, as well as conversations with interested parties back in Lima, have demonstrated beyond a doubt how crucial it is to have people in charge of aid and rescue efforts who know what they're doing. Who have experience. Who understand the minutiae which can disrupt the best-laid plans. Who are people managers. And perhaps most important of all, who display a grasp of common sense and good judgement. I'm reminded of the man at the helm of the US agency FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) when Hurricane Katrina hit the south coast of the US in 2005. Michael Brown, lawyer. He was relieved of his duties nine days into the response effort for extreme incompetence. Prior experience: Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, 1989 to 2001. Chairman of the Board of the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority, 1982 to 1988. Clearly the man for the job.

Our task on the Sunday was of a different order. Helping some families clear rubble from their houses and into the street so that it could be taken away by the roaming loaders sent by the government. Our team of twelve was a model of productivity. Getting in and out of our chosen house with a wheelbarrow was impossible, so we formed a human chain to pass the adobe bricks out of the house, over the wall which we partly demolised to accomplish this. The volume of debris we removed in just a few hours was both impressive in terms of mass and saddening in terms of drop-in-the-ocean insignificance of outcome. We cleared half of one house. It showed both how much can be achieved through coordinated teamwork (the same process had been used several times over the weekend to load and unload trucks back at base camp with similar military efficiency) and what an immense effort lies ahead to rebuild Chincha, Pisco and Ica. That thought however hasn't prevented the pain and fatigue brought on by this sudden laborious shock to my system feeling very satisfying indeed.

More pictures at Picasa.

An introduction to microfinance

Whilst Comunion Peru's excellent work to help earthquake victims continues, I unfortunately don't have any major successes to report. At last count we had opened eight communal kitchens in the areas around Chincha, Pisco and Ica. I'll be heading back down to Chincha this weekend with Movimiento de Vida Cristiana to pack boxes of food, clothes and so on and to distribute them. This organisation has also been doing sterling work, including organising a concert on Saturday by a major international classical pianist (who I'd never heard of; more a comment on my knowledge of classical music than his level of fame I suspect) all receipts from which will go to their earthquake fund.

I'd like to say thank you to those who have either donated money to Comunion Peru's efforts or are engaging in efforts to fundraise on our behalf. It is truly appreciated and I can assure you every penny goes to relieve suffering and help people who need it.

I'm posting a video produced by Five Talents and starring the UK Director Tom Sanderson (oddly flirting with a South African accent during the radio interview) and Charles Eve, a Five Talents Trustee and Co-head of EMEA Compliance at Goldman Sachs. It was the latter of these two gentlemen who started the ball rolling towards my eventual employment with Five Talents and secondment to ECLOF Peru.

This blog is supposed to be geared towards explaining the ins and outs of microfinance, but for good reason has been diverted to discussion of the earthquake. In anticipation of my first post on microfinance, provisionally entitled Microfinance 101, this video is a good introduction to the topic and although filmed in Uganda the realities, views and ideas observable and expressed therein give a good feel for the issues I will raise later.

Give me the map

Since Peru does not yet appear on Google maps and since I'm sure most people's knowledge of Peruvian cities and towns doesn't extend much beyond Lima, Cuzco, Arequipa and Iquitos at best (mine didn't extend at all past knowing that Lima was the capital until March this year), I'm attaching a map of the region I've been talking about to give some geographical context. Pueblo Nuevo (near Chincha Alta) and San Juan Bautista (near Ica) are the two areas I've been working in, both circled.

This map was drawn up by the Instituto Geofisico del Peru and interestingly shows where the epicentre of the original earthquake and subsequent tremors were located. It's clear from the map why Pisco and surrounds were the towns worst affected by the earthquake, suffering the lion's share of the fatalities and structural damage. It was in Pisco that the church collapsed during mass, killing 148 people, more than a quarter of the total number of deaths reported so far for all of Peru following the earthquake.

Please click on the map for a larger view.

The suffering doesn't let up

Last week I was working with a third NGO called Comunion Peru (in case you missed the first two, please see blog entry of 10th August), started by the Anglican Bishop of Peru, William Godfrey. Comunion Peru has set up eight kitchens (so far) in the regions of Chincha, Pisco and Ica where the earthquake had its most devastating effect. My main goal has been to raise funds to keep these kitchens, and the additional ones we plan to open, supplied with food to keep them running and to keep the citizens of the surrounding communities fed.

The situation the people of San Juan Bautista, where I was on Friday night delivering storage sheds to three of our kitchens, and Pueblo Nuevo, where I was last weekend, find themselves in is desperate. When your house collapses, you don't just lose a place to live, a safe place to sleep, a place to congregate, a place to cook, a place to wash, a place to be. You lose most of your possessions. They get buried, crushed, smashed or just lost. The money you make which in normal times goes primarily to feed and clothe the family, to pay the lighting and water bills and in miniscule amounts, if there's any left over, to a little home improvement, suddenly is required to pay for new everythings. Plates, glasses, forks, knives, spoons, cups, beds, blankets, clothes, lights. There's no insurance policy. Even if you could afford it, who's going to provide contents insurance against an earthquake for houses built of mud brick lying near a major fault line, or if you could find that person, how could you afford the necessarily stratospheric premiums?

The kitchens which Comunion Peru (and others) have set up and are setting up provide a small amount of relief to people from the overwhelming challenges they now face, one less thing they need to worry about. All are looking to their government for help. And millions of dollars have already been earmarked for reconstruction by President Alan Garcia. When this will begin however is anyone's guess and in the interim, life must go on. The only visible contribution the government is making to this end thus far is to demolish the structurally unsafe houses and cart away the remains. In San Juan Bautista that duty falls to one man with a loader for what must be heading for 200 houses to be cleared (related article from El Comercio).

In the mean time, people are sleeping in tents or temporary straw shelters, visible in at least one of the photographs I took. On Friday night I passed the night in a tent in San Juan Bautista's main square, fully clothed all the way to my jacket in a sleeping bag and I barely slept from the intense cold. I'll admit that I couldn't wait to get home to a warm shower and my bed. One of the ladies we spoke to last week, when we were conducting the census in Pueblo Nuevo, told us that the worst part about the nights was not the dark from lack of electricity, nor the cold, nor the uncomfortable sleeping conditions, but the screaming of children. Screaming out of fear of further tremors. Screaming out of suffering from the cold.

A minor miracle

Miraculous.

This weekend I was down in the province of Chincha, three hours by road south of Lima. I was asked by a group unaffiliated with my organisation to help out with a census the government has been conducting in the last week in the three provinces of Chincha, Pisco and Ica. Several of my new Peruvian friends are members of the Movimiento de Vida Cristiana which at the government's behest mobilised 650 volunteers in the space of a few days to spend the whole weekend, from very early on Saturday to late on Sunday, in Chincha and go house to house, filling out one questionnaire per household on the status of the occupants and their dwellings.

The number of people who died in the whole province of Chincha, as reported by the government as of late Sunday (26th Aug), was 99 out of a total population in that province of 182,000. The miracle I refer to should be evident from the photos I took (please see Picasa link top right to view whole album). I wasn't able to be fully adventurous in taking shots for fear of being relieved of my camera so the angles are limited. However from the shot at right, you get some idea. It's difficult to describe how this view should look without having been there, but take my word for it that you're looking straight through three houses, at least. The lower of the two walls at middle left of the shot is almost all of what's left of the house on the corner of the street, which if it were still standing would take up most of the picture. Just above that wall an old lady in dark blue is visible, reduced to washing her family's clothes in the street, outside of the temporary straw and bamboo hut which for the forseeable future counts as home.

Not one of the households which my partner and I censused, approaching 50 in number with perhaps an average of 6 inhabitants each, had suffered much more than a few scrapes. Despite the fact that in my estimation fully a third of the houses were razed to the ground and heading towards four fifths would have experienced flying debris of the very heavy variety during the quake or subsequent tremors. An aerial shot of the surrounds, though impossible due to lack of a helicopter, would have shown that despite the mercifully low number of deaths, the scale of the tragedy is yet mammoth and urgent. How more people were not seriously injured or worse I don't know.

Total destruction

Thank you to all those who sent me emails and texts or who called (at three in the morning!) to check up on me, following the earthquake last week. Lima escaped largely unscathed from the disaster with minor damage to buildings. As nothing compared to the total destruction of the towns in and around Chicha Alta and Pisco to the south. The mayor of Pisco started to cry during a press conference in the days following the earthquake whilst describing to the media the full extent of the damage and the aid they required. The town has been utterly overwhelmed by the scale of the rebuilding effort required, both physical and mental. Here at ECLOF Peru we're looking at sourcing funds to purchase more aid for those still suffering. Almost a week later and of course the press has moved on (almost immediately to Hurricane Dean which just hit the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico where I spent a month studying Spanish in July), but the emergency needs of the population are as pressing as they were five days ago.

Are the walls moving?

It was my first earthquake. In the first seconds it seemed a large vehicle was driving past our office building, but the more the office shook, the more the realisation dawned that the earth was moving under our feet and the walls and ceiling around our heads. There was nothing man-made about it. My colleagues and I walked out into the street, to find that our neighbours in this residential district had done the same. Some were very affected by the tremors, wailing uncontrollably. Night had already fallen (the earthquake hit at twenty to seven in the evening) and suddenly many lights went out and lightning struck. The fear in people’s hearts amplified as many devoutly Catholic Peruvians instinctively attached great significance to the events.

Mobile and landline networks were quickly overwhelmed. Twenty minutes went by before colleagues were able to get in touch with loved ones. Older colleagues were saying it was the strongest and most protracted tremor they had ever felt in Lima, guessing that it must be greater than Richter magnitude 6. In 1970 an earthquake killed an estimated 50,000 people in Yungay, to the north of Lima. Getting home proved difficult. Traffic was backed up and taxis willing to tackle it hard to find. Queues were forming at public payphones as people struggled to contact family around the country. Initial panic had evolved into controlled tension. Back at my apartment building, few wanted to return to their abodes for fear of aftershocks.

The first tremor is always the worst, I told myself, and strode up the stairs, outwardly confident, to my eleventh floor home. Various objects had fallen from shelves, the kitchen floor was inexplicably drenched in a pool of water and a patch of shoddy plastering outside the rear door had crumbled to the floor. Not more than two hours after the first shock wave BBC World was already broadcasting video footage of the quake in Lima. Magnitude 7.9 was being reported by the US Geological Survey. (Since upgraded to 8.)

I left the back door open as I dried the kitchen only to see my neighbours on their way out, packed bag in hand, to spend the night with family, uncomfortable at the thought of being so high up. My initial fortitude in the face of Mother Nature was starting to slip. The first significant aftershock struck at around eleven twenty, causing me to bolt from my bed, grab my shoes and head for the door. Either previous Peruvian experience would have forced them to design earthquake-resistant buildings, or the cost-conscious contractor might have cut corners in construction. Ignorant of which might be the more accurate, I was taking no chances. But the swaying quickly subsided.

Very sadly the relatively low casualty rate being reported late that night had been revised upwards significantly by the early hours of the morning and still further in the early afternoon. As I write, a day and a half later, estimates are that more than 500 are dead. Many thousands have lost their homes, mainly in the areas surrounding Pisco to the south of Lima where mud brick is commonly used in construction. A significant amount of help is needed with hospitals operating without power, bodies lining the streets and aid struggling to travel down the ruptured Panamerican Highway. Speed of response is critical in these situations. Let us hope it arrives in time for those in need.