Stories that need to be told...

Sunday, September 28th, 2009 8:15p.m.

“I was looking at the sky, glad the rain had finally stopped. My baby, only two years old, was playing in the dirt just inside the house. Then I heard it; what sounded like waters crashing on a shore, like huge bones breaking. Faster than a truck zooming past on the road, thousands of tons of water carrying mud and debris were rushing down the mountain towards us. I barely had time to think. I grabbed my baby and ran, shouting to the others, my neighbors, in the village. We all fled, but we weren’t fast enough. Soon the water was up to my chest, and my feet were stuck in the mud. I couldn’t move unless the water moved me. I held my baby above my head and screamed, calling for help from anyone, anywhere. All around me others were doing the same. No one could help me; they were all fighting the same battle – a battle for their lives.

We stood that way for hours, my baby and me, both crying, trying not to get sucked underneath the flow. I knew I was going to die. But at least I could try to save my baby’s life. Suddenly a rock struck my foot beneath the water. I cried out as the pain shot up my leg and I stumbled. Catching myself just before I plunged under, I managed to put all of my weight and my baby’s on my other leg. For what seemed like days water, mud, rocks, pieces from houses, and other people flowed by us.

I finally made it to a foundation above the mudflow, where many others had found protection. They took my baby and helped me up. I could no longer stand, so I sat on the edge and looked out over the land, silently watching the water level go down, leaving in its wake a path of devastation greater than anything I’d ever seen in my lifetime. When it was all over I was still alive, and so was my baby, but my house and many others were gone, destroyed….and four bodies were never found. I am so glad to be alive, but I will never forget this day.”

Today we went to the site near Carries where this mudslide occurred. We saw the piles of now dry dirt, rocks and debris, still probably concealing bodies of people lost in the disaster. There were relief workers everywhere, wearing white vests with red crosses. We even saw two other Americans. We talked with a lady who had been caught in the mudflow and had to hold her tiny two year old child above her head to keep it from drowning. They both survived, but many others did not. The above tale is fictionalized, but it is meant to be her story.

I have only seen movies of such things in science class or on the news, but this disaster is so small that it will never get out…unless someone tells it. That lady will probably never have that chance, but I do, and I am going to use it, with her story. It needs to be told. People need to know that these things are real. These people are real. They have hearts that beat just like ours, eyes that see just like ours, fears and worries just like ours, but they go through so much more than us…we will never fully understand, but once we realize this we have come one tiny step closer to comprehending the hardships they endure. And realizing that there is still hope: if we tell the stories, and do something about it.

Shaina Marie