Many of you have offered to collect donations or put together relief supplies to send to the people of American Samoa. I was at a shelter yesterday and from the conversations I had, there is a need for the following:
- Hand santizer
-Facemasks
- Towels & wash cloths
- Games - cards, coloring books, crayons, basketballs, footballs, marbles
- Baby-safe stuffed animals
- Baby food and formula
- Diapers, baby oil and lotion
- Reading glasses
- pillows
- Baby blankets
- Shampoo, conditioner, deordorant, lotion
- Milk & juice
- Laundry soap
- Toilet paper
- Basic med - Tylenol, Advil, etc.
You can send these to me at:
Steve Atwell
WorldTeach
P.O. Box 5411
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799
- - American Samoa has a small population and one that is built around people pulling together to support one another. In addition to the earthquake and tsunamis here, this week has seen some truly devastating natural disasters tear through the Pacific. If you want to help, please consider making a donation to either the American or International Red Cross http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_subsrc=RCO_RedTab&s_src=DRF
In addition to communicating the needs of the people here, I’ve put together an account of my experience in the days since the tsunami:
The last few days have been a blur of exhaustion and personal fulfillment. The day after the Tsunami, I returned to my village to begin cleaning our house, mopping the floor and taking things outside to dry. The damage to our house was minimal - my sixth grade science text book was one of the few things damaged. Taking a break on our front porch, a number of our students came over to check on us. When they found out we hadn’t eaten - with the power out, we had no way to cook a hot meal – they brought us a huge plate of barbequed chicken, hot dogs and rice. Alex and I sat on the front porch gorging ourselves on meat and drinking the last of the quickly spoiling orange juice.
As the sun began to set, it dawned on us that we were unprepared for the impending blackout that nightfall would bring. We fetched our blue lagoon scented candle from the coffee table, brought it outside and listened to music on my battery powered speakers. One of the students from a local high school made a fire in our front yard using a piece of driftwood and a bountiful supply of coconut shells. We spent the evening listening to Indie rock, rap and Bob Dylan as the moon came up and bathed the darkened village in a silvery light.
When we woke up Thursday morning, we still were without power or potable drinking water and decided to pack our things for a long weekend in town. We hitched a ride and were finally were able to pick a cell signal as we crested the mountain and began our decent into Pago Pago.
We called our friend in town and found out that the Red Cross staging area had been set up within walking distance from their house. Alex and I convinced the driver of the truck to let us stop at a hardware store to pick up hammers, gloves and facemasks. We dropped our things at the house and quickly made our way to the Red Cross.
When we got there, it was late in the day and we were soon frustrated by the lack of action and limited direction we received. Instead, we caught a ride to Leone, one of the towns on the West side severely hit by the tsunami. We met up with some other volunteers and walked the rest of the way into the village. When we got there we checked on an elementary school teacher whose house had been destroyed. As we approached, she appeared on a second story balcony, but reassured us that she was fine and didn’t need help.
We entered her living room through the doorway where double doors had once hung, found the refrigerator on its side and the kitchen stove lying in the backyard. Not needing our help seemed questionable, but she told us that she had to wait for FEMA to evaluate the damage before the clean-up effort could begin. On the morning of the tsunami, she was running late for work and at home when it hit. She ran to the back bedroom to check on her mother as the water tore through the door, shattered the windows and began to gush toward the bedrooms. We talked to her for a while and promised to offer her what limited support we could provide. Despite our best effort to help, we weren’t able to truly make ourselves feel useful. Finally, we decided to call it quits and give it another shot at the Red Cross the next day.
Friday, feeling confident, we caught a ride with one of the teachers back to the Red Cross. We got there just in time to catch the end of the morning briefing and be broken into teams to be sent out to shelters. We were assigned to assess the Leone shelter and get information from the people staying there. We were told to collect contact information, the number of people displaced, check the water and food supplies, and assess the health and hygiene of those who were staying there.
The shelter was well maintained and, while we there, staff from the department of public health were giving each of the shelter residents a check-up. I spoke with the head of the shelter and some of the people who were staying there to put together a list of things that the residents said that they needed. The list I’ve put together at the top of the e-mail is based on what I was told by shelter residents. They told me that most of the people staying there were infants, that the children could use games to play, and that many of the people staying there were sleeping on the floor.
After leaving the shelter, we drove back to the Red Cross to check on the available supplies in the warehouse and see what we could offer. We loaded up a puttering diesel truck with 100 floor mats for the shelter and 50 cots to set up at a new housing sight for the Red Cross volunteers that were due to arrive from the mainland.
With the truck loaded, I jumped in the driver seat as a Samoan named Sam ambled into the cab next to me. Sam had lived in various parts of the U.S., but had recently relocated back to the American Samoa. Several other Samoans piled into the back of the truck to help secure our cargo and for the short ride to drop it off. We left the mats at the shelter and then spent the next two hours setting up cots in a Catholic school’s outdoor gymnasium.
One of the most poignant moments from my day came at the very end. I was driving back from setting up the last cots at the high school gymnasium when one of the Samoans asked me to stop so that he could get out. A guy I’d been working with all day and whose name I never caught was from the village of Poloa.
Poloa is the village on the westernmost tip of the island. It’s a remote village and, even on good days, there are only two buses a day that run that far west. The village is split with half of it on low flat land and the other half built into the side of the mountain chain that stretches across American Samoa. The people who live on the mountain were fine, but nearly the entire low lying area was washed away – including an elementary school where one of the WorldTeach volunteers was placed. Luckily, the casualty rate in was relatively low because most people made it to higher ground, but there was still tremendous destruction.
This guy had left his village and trekked it for nearly two hours to get to the Red Cross shelter to see how he could help other people who may have been in even greater need than the people of his village. What caught me was, that despite all of this and his long road home, he said, “I’ll see you again tomorrow.”
I’m inspired by the way that people, like this guy, are able to think beyond themselves and offer what little they can to help others. Over the last few days, I’ve experienced frustrations with finding a productive means to volunteer, confusing organizational structures, jurisdiction disputes between the Red Cross and the local government, and reports in the paper of homes and businesses being looted and yet, I still find hope.
Many of you have offered to collect donations or send relief supplies. I hope that you will and sincerely thank you for your support.
Have a great weekend and know that I miss you all,
Steve
