Helping in the Emergency

The week before last Costa Rica was brutally hit by hurricane Thomas. It was raining heavily almost all day long, which lead to flooding, and landslides buried many houses. At least 27 people died. At the beginning about 2 000 had to live in hostels and now still more than 700 people are homeless. It was one of the worst natural catastrophes for years.

Sent to Costa Rica by the Red Cross we agreed before to help in cases of emergency. This is why last week we did not work as usually in our organizations but in the Headquarter of the Red Cross of Costa Rica. Toward the Headquarter there is a hall for cases of emergency where donations of groceries, toiletries, clothes and mattresses are stored.

In the morning(s) we unloaded trucks, many times in chain. After arranging the groceries we packed them in certain proportion into bags. They contained rice, beans (one of the basic foods for Costa Ricans), coffee, sugar, pasta and a lot more. Clothes were sorted in men, women, male/female children and babies. Everything was picked up again by a truck of the Red Cross to ship it to the affected areas.

“Retorno a la alegria” is the name the program which is besides the Red Cross also sponsored by Unicef. To support the homeless children psychologically we visited provisionally hostels established for example in schools. Many people have to live together, some have to stay for a couple of months. The children were very happy to be visited by a group of young people. First we sang and played games all together and then the Costa Rican voluntaries performed a play. (Beforehand they had participated in a seminar preparing for such situations.) While drawing a picture, which we would collect afterwards, we talked to the children to find out how they were doing. Finally they let their faces be painted or blew up balloons with us. I think we made them have a good time, at least for a few hours.