Death by Deluge, Fidelity to the Covenant

Honduras, a very poor country in Central America, is about the size of Tennessee. On October 30, 1998, this little country was visited by Hurricane Mitch. For five days and nights the hurricane stood still over Honduras dropping torrential rains. Some of the people said it was like a Monster hanging over them. As they watched their homes disappear some actually believed the end of the world had come. Others said, "No, God promised Noah the world would not again be destroyed by floods." Many people fled their homes in the night and returned days later to find them filled with three to four feet of mud, and all their possessions, clothing, everything gone. The first reaction was shock and sorrow, but the people quickly realized crying would not help. They accordingly began to push the mud from what was left of their homes into the unpaved muddy streets. The shortage of water made it impossible for them to clean their homes or to keep themselves clean. My previous ministry in Latin and Central America as well as my work with the migrants in Florida and Michigan, made me sensitive to the plight of the Hondurans. My decision to go to Honduras was spontaneous and plans were made within a week. Friends, family, physicians and children, donated over $1000 worth of antibiotics and other medicines as well as a ticket on Continental Airlines. I arrived in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras, on December 1, 1998. The airport had been closed due to water and mud on the runway and inside the terminal. It opened just four days before my arrival. I was waved through Customs after someone asked, "Are you coming to help us?" The Maryknoll priest who met me, and with whom I would be working, Father Dave LaBuda, threw my suitcases in the back of his four-wheel truck, and said, "Here, try on these boots." The unspoken words were that I would definitely need boots. Father David took me out to a colonia called Chamelecon. I met the family with whom I would be staying: Suyapi, Boni, and their six children. They had moved the children together so I would have a bed.

Within a couple of hours of my arrival I was part of a team on its way to set up a clinic in one of the colonias. That was the beginning of a regular program of finding an empty space -- a chapel, a school, a home -- setting up a clinic, and serving the people. There was so much to be done. Everyone helped from the youngest four year old to the very elderly. Father Dave had an amazing ability to organize. A veteran missionary with 13 years of experience in Honduras alone, he set up several brigades. One group of men left every morning to clean out mud, another to fumigate houses, and another group built beds. The health brigade cared for up to 600 people a day. In four weeks Father Dave reported that 8,500 people were served out of this clinic alone, and $25,000 worth of medicines were purchased from Honduran pharmacies.

The day before we set up a clinic, two men went from house to house asking who were the most ill. They gave out "tickets" to those who were to be treated. When we arrived the next day, the people were standing in line waiting to be attended. Often, hundreds of people were waiting. After determining what each person needed, another line was formed to receive the appropriate medication. Five or six hours of waiting in the sun or in the rain was the price paid to receive the medicines.

Every baby, child and many adults were treated for worm infestation. Respiratory illness and fungal infections were also among the most common problems. Maryknoll funds were used to buy needed medicines but we had no shortage. Capsules and pills were counted out and packaged. Liquid medicine was poured into sandwich bags which were then tied. The team developed its own special medication -- a unique salve which we called "Mitch." It consisted of vegetable shortening (solid) into which was mixed five different antibiotics and betadine. We mixed it in a large kettle and then scooped it into plastic bags. It was a miracle drug for the skin infections which were so common.

One of the clinics was set up in a soccer stadium in downtown San Pedro. That area was less destroyed and the stadium was usable. Several hundred people were sheltered on the first floor. Over 4,000 lived in plastic tents around the stadium and waited to know their future. Their homes had been swept away in the raging river. Sister Therese, a Sister of the Sick Poor from New York, set up clinic in the ticket office of the stadium. Her work in the slums of New York City gave her expertise in improvising. When she and her team ran out of plastic bags they used rubber gloves and filled the fingers with either cough syrup, worm or diarrhea medicine, and handed it out. Nothing daunted this veteran.

The shelters, such as the soccer stadium, were desperately crowded and unsanitary. I walked through one school where eight families lived in one classroom. The air was polluted from a one-burner kerosene stove. Desks were pushed together to provide sleeping space. A baby was born, new life came into the little room, on a piece of cardboard on the floor. There was water from one spigot, but even that was cut off for three days. The people went out towards the mountains for elimination.

In one shelter, 18 families lived in cement floor cubicles. Upon visiting them, the people expressed concern over a young mother and her two month old baby who were sleeping on a piece of cardboard. Through the bed-building brigade, we were able to bring a bed to her. I held her as she cried and said, "I have never received anything like this."

Many of the mothers were losing breast milk because of the terrible conditions. Their babies needed a milk supplement. Jodi, a two month old was severely dehydrated and had hardly any movement in his little body. He desperately needed the fluids we were able to give him. Everyone suffered but the women suffered in a special way. They were overcome with concern for their families and weakened by lack of nutrition.

The suffering caused by Hurricane Mitch affected this entire small country. Only one tiny Department (equivalent to one of our states) in the entire country was not affected. The capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, was severely damaged. Entire villages and colonias just disappeared. Government Departments, such as the Department of Education and Transportation were destroyed and the country's entire infrastructure came to a halt. There were hundreds and hundreds of tragedies, some directly related to the disaster, others more indirectly related. Let me tell you about two of them.

The mayor of the city of Tegucigalpa was viewing the ruins from a helicopter when it crashed, taking his life along with that of four other persons. His widow, ignoring her own grief, took his place and continued to work to aid the people. At another place, two men were clinging to the roof of their home when it began to give way, plunging them into the rushing water. They grasped the branches of a mango tree and clung to it, only to encounter a poisonous snake harbored in the branches. It bit both of the men, and, later, their bodies were found draped in the crook of the tree.

The people often asked themselves if the hurricane was a punishment from God, a "castigo," as they say in Spanish. Their strong faith told them that was not true. But they said they needed to care about one another more, and to be more faithful to God. Their faithfulness to God despite these dire straits was totally inspiring. We had the celebration of the Eucharist once in the two weeks that I was there. The church's cement floor had been scrubbed but mud and water marks remained three to four feet up the walls. The people brought benches and stools on which to sit. I looked at their faces as they sang and prayed. The smallest children had their eyes closed and held their hands open. There was no doubt about their earnestness in prayer as they sang from the heart and from memory, verse after verse. In the evenings, after the clinic, and after the medicines were prepared for the following day, we would gather around one or two people with guitars, and we sang and we laughed. It is truly wonderful how the human spirit can survive and even flourish in the darkest hours of life.

The permanent clinic in Chamelecon is a Maryknoll sponsored work. My hostess, Suyapa, a mother of six, with her family and friends, cares for the people of her colonia 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. She was one of 400 women whom Father Dave gathered for training some 13 years ago. He recognized her gifts of leadership and helped her cultivate them. Suyapa has developed into a very capable, self-confident person who can suture wounds, start intravenous injections, take beans out of children's noses, or a cockroach out of someone's ear. She is untiring and never refuses someone who comes for help. Her husband is a Catechist and leads the community in the celebration of the Word when they cannot have Eucharist, due to the shortage of priests.

In addition to being the nurse for the clinic, Suyapa took over the preparation of 14 children for their First Holy Communion. The hurricane had disrupted their classes and they were making up time so they could receive their First Communion on December 23. Suyapa asked me to give them their written examination as she was attending to a patient. She said to me, "Separate them so they don't copy from each other." These 14 little boys and girls knelt on the cement with their paper on a rough bench and wrote answers to about 20 questions. Suyapa told them, "Write what you understand - what your heart tells you. You do not need to write exactly what the Catechism says." And they wrote and I was amazed. Despite everything that had happened, the events of life were continuing for these wonderful, loving people.

Suyapa was a marvel. Before I left Honduras, she began a nutrition clinic for undernourished children two years of age and younger. We bought a scale so she can keep and record weights, and give out milk, cereal and vitamins monthly. When I tried to determine dosage of medicines for children according to weight, I found that none of the children had been weighed since birth.

There is help coming to Honduras, slow in distribution, but, hopefully, reaching the people. A Capuchin priest from Santa Rosa, a small village in Honduras near the El Salvadoran border, persuaded his parishioners, already so poor themselves, to donate bags of rice and corn which they sent to Chamelecon. Father Beto said he knows for a fact that elderly women in his parish gave their last penny when a collection was taken for the victims of Mitch. When the priest asked for volunteers to go with him to help in Chamelecon, everyone raised their hand in response. Fifty youth went with him to help clean out houses.

As I flew in and out of San Pedro Sula, I could see the banana plantations brown and dead. A banana tree takes five to six years before it produces again. The food shortage will continue to be acute as the people will not be able to plant their crops. Rice, beans and corn are the staples for survival. Honduras will recoup only if international aid continues, and if distribution is controlled and effective, meeting the needs of those who cannot survive without help. An entire country has been destroyed by Hurricane Mitch.