American Samoa Tsunami Relief Fund

On September 29, 2009 an 8.3-magntude earthquake, followed by 15 smaller quakes, rocked the South Pacific. The earthquakes originated approximately 120 miles southwest of American Samoa and sparked a tsunami. Around 6:50 AM, a series of 4 waves crashed into the island and sent seawater surging hundreds of yards inland. The second and third waves caused the most damage and were recorded at heights as high as twenty feet. The tsunami has affected the entire island, but has caused severe damage in several villages including Pago Pago, the territory’s capitol, Aua, Leone, Fagasa, and Amanave. The physical damage is indescribable as many houses and family stores were washed away. But the real tragedy comes with the number of lives that were taken, as the tsunami struck when people were heading to work or walking to school. Though clean up has been speedy due to the work ethic of the Samoan people, the island will take a very long time to fully recover from the disaster. 

I am living in American Samoa as a volunteer teacher, working with the WorldTeach non-profit organization based out of Harvard University's Center for International Development. During my stay in American Samoa, I have observed the challenges the students and their families face. I am sure that the affects of the tsunami will only add to the students’ struggles. At Samoana High School, where I teach, four teachers have completely lost their homes and all their possessions. The status for all the students is still unknown but many have also lost their homes and family businesses. We know of at least eleven students that have been orphaned due to this tragedy. 

In an effort to ease the burdens of the September 29^th tsunami, I have organized a disaster relief fund to directly benefit the people of American Samoa. All funds donated to this American Samoa Tsunami Relief Fund will go directly to the students and teachers affected at Samoana High School. All funds received will be used to provide clothing, food, building supplies, and other life essentials to the tsunami victims. 

I have worked with both Firstgivings and WorldTeach to establish a secure and easy way to give. If you would like to make a contribution via credit card, please visit http://www.firstgiving.com/astsunamirelief. At a time like this, each dollar will make a difference. 

Also, this blog has been set up to share the personal stories of the tsunami survivors. Pictures and stories will be continually added in the coming weeks. Here you can read the stories of the WorldTeach volunteers and American Samoans you will be helping. 

Tsunami Story: Jessie Weber

Tsunami Story

Jessie Weber: World Teach Volunteer & Samoana High School Teacher

Tuesday September 29th started off like any other morning. I woke up early, took the 35 minute bus ride from Faleniu to Utulei, and was stopping to pick up a bottle of water. At 6:40 I had just entered Young Mart, a local convenient store, when the first major earthquake hit. Things were falling from the shelves, the building began rattling, and the store clerk screamed for everyone to get out. There was definitely panic in the air, but once the trebling stopped- maybe a full minute or two later- everyone switched gears and acted like the quake was no big deal. So I shrugged off the incident like everyone else. I went back inside and made my purchase like normal. Excited about the events, though, I tried to call back home but the phone lines were already down. About 5 minutes after leaving the store, I was sitting at my Samoana High School classroom desk when the rattling started again.  All of a sudden the school bells started ringing and a small group of students who hang out behind my classroom began running and screaming. Still unsure of what was going on, I walked to the front door of my room and peaked outside. Students were running and a pickup truck full of boys raced by. I’ll never forget them yelling “Quick, Ms. Jessie! Jump in or run fast!” I ran back in my room and threw my laptop into my backpack before sprinting out the door. (Yes, in hindsight I know this was a poor decision!) Just as I shut my classroom door, the last few students and a teacher, Femi, ran around the corner of the building. Femi yelled for us to run towards the tramway as fast as possible. My school is less than 50 yards from the ocean and is wedged between the coast and the base of a mountain.  Right behind campus is the old tramway trail up the mountain, so the trail was packed full of students, teachers, local workers, and Utulei residents scrambling to high ground. School wasn’t scheduled to start for another hour and half, so only about 150 students and 4 teachers were on campus and headed for safety.

 At this point chaos was in the air, and the threat of a tsunami was real. After literally running up the mountain, we came to a look out point and stopped to get a glimpse of the land below. The road and village were deserted. We could tell a wave had hit because the road and the ground below were wet, the dips in the road were flooded, and rocks and debris lay strewn about. The damage, however, wasn’t enormous. As we looked out into the bay waves were traveling in the wrong direction. The bay was quickly emptying and all the water was traveling out into the depths of the harbor. After a few minutes the entire bay was just exposed coral and rock. Just as soon as the bay emptied, though, it filled back up and reached the brim of the coastline. We watched this happen a total of 4 times. After the first wave, the water never spilled over the seawall. (Little did we know that this wasn’t the case everywhere.) Everyone stood at the mountain top speechless. Realizing that we probably weren’t the hardest hit area, students began to cry. In Samoa family is the core of society and plays an unbelievable important role in one’s entire life. Students couldn’t help think about their parents and younger siblings closer to the harbor. With nothing else to do and unsure about what was going to happen next the students organized themselves into 2 concentric circles. Quickly all the kids linked hands and there we stood connected. Our surroundings were idyllic: the sky was bright blue, a cool breeze blew, and lush green trees and plants filled the mountain top. In unison, everyone began to sing. Samoans naturally have the most beautiful voices, so magnificent sounds filled the air. After the first song, one person led the group in prayer before the circle chimed in with one final melody. As we stood connected, tears streamed down many of the kids’ faces, and it was hard for me to stay dry-eyed. Those five minutes of togetherness  formed one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. In the midst of such tragedy and crisis, the students were united by their faith and knew nothing else to do except sing and pray to their heavenly father. 

Once everyone collected themselves, we sat down to wait. We didn’t know what was next or if another tsunami would come. For the first hour or so we felt several other tremors, and each time we would watch the water for signs of another wave. The phone lines were down for the most part, and I could never call out, but I was able to receive 3 calls over the course of the morning. Brandi, our WorldTeach field director, called me twice. The first was to make sure I was okay and well, and the next was to see if I had been able to contact any of the other volunteers to make sure they were safe- unfortunately I was by myself and unable to reach anyone else. The other call was from Kate, a good friend and fellow volunteer. I was relieved to hear her voice, as she let me know that the Leone group of volunteers had escaped the disaster. She did provide new info about the tsunami. Apparently waves in Leone had reached 15 feet and waves in Pago had reached 20 feet and wiped out 2 story buildings. After her call we heard many more rumors about damage and deaths. We hoped none of it was true.

After 4 hours of waiting and the students growing restless, we heading back down the mountain. As there were not many teachers in the crowd, Femi and I trailed the pack to make sure all the students made it down. We headed to a church at the half way point to see if there was anyone we knew. We didn’t find any friends, but a whole village was camped out around the exterior of the building. Once we reached the base we ran into a student covered in mud. Serene had been in Pago when the earthquakes and tsunami hit, and she managed to salvage her camera and take pictures of the destruction. After things were safe she had run over to the school to show people what had happened. Her pictures showed massive devastation and destruction - nothing I had expected to see. The Utulei bay is very shallow and that is what saved the village and school. Pago, however, is at the end of the deep harbor and didn’t fare nearly as well. Her camera showed images of cars in the second stories of buildings, bare slab foundations where buildings had been torn away, and debris everywhere. Pago is just a few minutes walk and two villages away from my school in Utulei. I couldn’t believe the difference in impact and destruction. I could already tell that other parts of the island had endured massive devastation. With nothing else to do, Femi and I caught a ride back to my house. As we drove along the coast road, we had to swerve around piles of debris. Damage was done, but I had yet to see total destruction. In Nu’uuli the coast road curves and moves inland. Here there was a back up of several hundred cars. Once the first quake hit cars came to a halt and the police barricaded the road so no one could travel next to the coast. Femi lives next to the water so she stayed at my house for a few hours. I live in the most inland part of the island and on fairly high ground. If anything else was coming, we would be safe. Sitting at my house I felt useless. I knew there was so much damage, but there was nothing I could do. The next morning I found out all teachers were supposed to check in at their schools, but Julia (my housemate) and I wanted to find somewhere we could help. We walked around town, and found nowhere that really needed us...If only we had walked 5 minutes further  we would have uncovered a different story. 

The next day, Thursday, we got more news at our Samoana staff meeting. Four teachers and their families were homeless. At least eleven students were orphaned- their parents killed by the waves... This is when everything began hitting hard emotionally. Until now I had been scared, I had felt extreme sadness, I had felt the helplessness that usually accompanies tragedy, but now things became very personal.

Once our meeting was over, I travelled with Max into Pago. I couldn’t believe the destruction. There were many places where foundations stood with no buildings attached. Boats were hundreds of feet inland and crashed into buildings. Cars were wrecked every hundred feet or so, and  building parts and debris covered everything. Max had been here the day before and said that the amount of clean up had already been enormous. (I can’t imagine what it looked like before). Everyone walked around with face masks to protect themselves from the debris and stench filled air. A layer of smoke also filled the village as many fires were set up to burn the rubble. I imagine Pago resembling something like a war zone. As we walked Max told me stories he had heard and things he had seen the day before. He pointed out the areas where many bodies were found and the former homes of our students and fellow teachers. As we walked I ran into a few students. One was sitting outside his family store. It barely stood, and looters had come through and taken anything that was left. Each time we met a student, Max and I were amazed at their spirits. I’m convinced that Samoa has some of the strongest children. Houses wiped away, family members gone, but still the kids smile, joke, and carry on with life. 

The past few days have, thus, been filled by much emotion. Feeling helpless here in many ways led me to organize an effort for people back home to help. Hopefully the American Samoa Tsunami Relief Fund makes a difference, however small, by helping people rebuild there lives. School resumes for the first time tomorrow, and I’m sure I will be faced with a new set of emotions. I have been dreading the stories my students will bring me and my thoughts have been with them since I began the trek up the mountain for safety on Tuesday morning. 

(pictures taken by Max Dunne)

Tsunami Story: Maxwell Dunne

Tsunami Story:

Maxwell Dunne: World Teach Volunteer & Samoana High School Teacher

Tuesday morning 9/29/09 at 6:48 am I was walking to the bus stop from my house at Coconut Point in Nu’uuli. I am a teacher at Samoana High School in the village of Utulei and was on my way to work. As I was walking down the road I thought I was having a muscle spasm or something in my legs since I felt a tremendous shaking. I noticed everyone was coming out of their houses and one of my friends, Jeremy, was among them. At that moment I realized I was experiencing my first earthquake. Coming from Chicago, I had never felt the earth move like that before and I was a bit anxious. We talked a minute and as I was walking away I jokingly said, “hey, isn’t this when the big tidal wave usual comes like in the movies?” 

Just before 7:00 am I was lucky enough to get picked up by Asu, a member of the staff at Samoana High School, who saw me standing on the roadside waiting for the bus. I never had a chance to meet her before so we had a pleasant ride towards school getting caught up. As we rounded Faga’alu bay we noticed the ocean was receding at an incredible rate. A small boat that is usually placidly anchored in the bay was hanging on for dear life as the water was being suctioned out towards sea. The seabed was becoming more and more exposed as the water rushed out. Children at the waterside Matafao Elementary School were running and screaming inland up the nearest hill. Asu and I both knew this could only mean a tidal wave was approaching.

We pulled a U-turn and out the windows we tried to warn the other drivers about the impending danger. The first inland road was the road that leads towards the Lyndon Baines Johnson Tropical Medical Center. We, and most of the other motorists and pedestrians, made our way as far inland as possible past the hospital before the wave hit. 

After a short time we went back down to the waterfront. The road was flooded, debris was strewn everywhere, and thank God there were no people caught in the destruction. For the most part the power of the wave wasn’t apparent at this particular location. Since it seemed a trivial event we planned on continuing onto school once we got the all clear from the police.

It wasn’t more than thirty minutes before the first bodies started to come in. Pickup trucks came one after another full of workers and one or two pairs of feet hanging out of the open tailgate. So many of the people that were brought in were badly cut up, bruised, and in shock. While the doctors examined the bodies we tried to get the disoriented survivors to sit and put themselves together. The wind would blow around the tattered old tarps used to cover the victims and show us just how terribly powerful this tsunami was. The first twenty bodies brought in were only from the Pago harbor area since the roads were cut off to other parts of the island by the earthquake and subsequent landslides.

The hospital tore into action and began preparing an emergency medical center and evacuating patients up the nearby hill into the residential area. I was able to find a few of my students and help move supplies and people up the hill to the emergency locations. People’s garages, front yards, and even houses became improvised treatment centers for patients already admitted. The most surreal situation was a woman going into labor in an accommodating resident’s home during the chaos.

By 11:10 am I had a chance to sit down and gather myself. There were still trucks coming in with lifeless feet dangling out of the back. Lots of people were staring off into space, others were retelling their stories, and some were mourning. It was a sight I will not forget.

Eventually the buses started to run and I made my way to school. The high school was not hit by the wave and the damage near it was relatively minimal with the exception of the Pago Pago Yacht Club. I went home and passed out. 

9/30/2009

The next morning the Samoana High School staff held a meeting at the powerless main campus. We simply took stock of which teachers made it and who needed what. I made my way to the Pago harbor area afterwards to see the brunt of the damage. The landscape of the harbor area is similar to a bottleneck with all of the deep harbor water being channeled and focused right towards the village. Needless to say Pago Pago was completely devastated. The wave accumulated so much focused energy that it reached several hundred yards inland. All that remained of some homes and businesses was the foundation and concrete front steps. Several ships and boats were washed over a quarter of a mile inland and were scattered throughout the town in front yards and in the streets. Vehicles were crushed and tossed about effortlessly. One car in particular was hanging out of the second story of a local business.

Most people had to wear masks to help them breathe. There was a pungent smell in some areas of sewage, rubbish, and dead fish. Chain-linked fences acted like nets for the litter caught in the wave and became murals of random pieces of refuse. Boats and SUV’s acted as house-destroying projectiles. Drainage ditches were jam packed with cars and debris from homes. Many people who never made it out of their cars ended up there. 

I met a few of my students there since Samoana is the local high school for this area. They gave me the tour of where their houses used to be and told me stories of who they were able to save and who they couldn’t save. They were still finding victims scattered throughout the town. I was so impressed with their maturity, toughness, and spirit. I hold so much respect for those kids. I spent the rest of the day in town visiting with as many people and students as I knew which was actually much more than I originally estimated. 

I did the same thing the following day as we began to reach the end of the major clean up effort. I snapped a hundred pictures along the way on those clean up days. The pictures I took will testify more to what happened that day than I could ever put into words.

In the days after I visited other villages like Leone, Amanavae, and Tula. I saw the destruction was equally terrible in these places as well. By word of mouth I heard of other villages that were also hit hard, but I cannot testify to that. 

I hope I remained objective enough in my description of the events as I experienced them. It was not easy to do. Classes at Samoana High School are set to resume on Monday, 10/5/2009. I will learn much more about what happened at that time. 

Tsunami Story: Steve

Steve Atwell: World Teach Volunteer, Elementary School Teacher, Village of Vatia

 

It’s been an interesting two days here in American Samoa. I spent a good portion of the day remarking how strange it is to be in such a small portion of the world that is suddenly rocketed to international recognition, especially given the circumstance.

 

For the past two weeks, I’ve been working on a unit on plate tectonics with my science classes. For my fifth graders, we have been talking about volcanoes, but for seventh and eighth, we have been discussing earthquakes and tsunamis.

 

Yesterday morning, I was sitting in my living room, eating a bowl of LIFE cereal on our surfboard, turned make-shift table, and looking over the answers to an earthquake crossword puzzle that I had given to my students the previous day. I started for feel low vibrations shake the house. The bus driver lives behind our house and usually leaves for work about this time and I assumed that he had the bass turned up unusually loud this morning.

 

As the vibrations continued and intensified, I looked down at my worksheet, over at my textbook and realized that this was too forceful to coming from the bus’ subwoofer. I went to the front door and opened it to look out into the yard. I watched some high school kids stop in the street and look around the village. My roommate, Alex, came out of the bathroom and stood in the doorway as we watched our neighbors dog stammer around the front yard both confused and scared.

 

As the earthquake continued to shake the house, we watched as the papers on our table began to slide to the floor, water in our dish basic sloshed from side to side and a plastic vase fell off the shelf and onto the floor. The earthquake lasted for what felt like a minute, and then things settled back to normal. Not sure what to make of things, Alex headed to school and I continued to ready myself for the day.

 

I had just put on my uniform when Alex returned triumphantly to the house to inform me that school had been cancelled. He had been informed by one of the student teachers that school was cancelled due to the earthquake. Not sure what to do and failing to recognize the full magnitude of the situation, we watched from the front door as students streamed down the street and back into their houses.

 

About five minutes later, the town elders began to ring the bells and the call was echoed throughout the village. Alex and I walked to the front yard and began to sense a degree of panic in the air. The pre-kindergarten teacher yelled from her front yard that we were in danger and needed to get to higher ground. At this point, we began to hear an audible slurping sound and watched as the water level in the bay in front of our house began to go down. We scuttled to pack our belongings not sure of what to expect – lap top, iPod, camera, electric toothbrush. Alex ran out the door toward a pick-up truck about 200 feet down the street and I grabbed a fistful of T-shirts.

 

I stepped from the front porch – the slurping sound had become nearly deafening – and people screamed from the back of the truck to run as fast as I could. I slammed the front door and ran full speed for the truck – still clutching the t-shirts in one hand. I got to the truck and hoisted myself headfirst into its bed.

 

The driver accelerated out of town as a wave began to rush against the sea wall and cover the road behind us. As we raced up the mountain, we looked over our shoulders to see the road fully submerged and the water beginning to spill into our front yard.

 

We got to the top of the mountain and found half the village perched on top and looking down over the bay. Together, we spent the morning watching the bay drain and swell and wondering what was left of our village.  With limited access to news information, misinformation on the mountain ran rampant with conflicting stories and a wide range of reports regarding the degree of the destruction in our village. There were reports of widespread damage, that the earthquake had destroyed Hawaii, and that there might be impending food shortages. However, despite the news, we felt comforted seeing the smiling faces of our students and hoping that the ones we didn’t see had made it to higher ground elsewhere.

 

By lunchtime, Alex and I were parched and needed food. We hiked to the next village up the mountain and watched as 25 cases of SPAM, 100 loaves of bread, bag after bag of chips, and countless bottles of water were being loaded into pick-up trucks. We were informed that the Tsunami had hit both sides of the island – our side had received less of the damage – and that there were approximately 1000 people taking refuge in the mountains.

 

This was the first time we were able to recognize the scope of the disaster. We were informed that 10 people had been killed in Pago Pago and that nearly all of the territories capital had been flattened. Worst yet, there were reports that a larger wave had yet to arrive.

 

Upon hearing the news, we decided to return to the mountain top with the rest of village and await word that it was safe to return home. During this time, I borrowed Alex’s cell phone – I had left mine on the table – and finally got a signal to call my sister in Hawaii and my mom back in Virginia.

 

We spent the afternoon, eating Oreo’s and playing with the kids of our village, before returning home to survey the damage. In the end, we were very lucky and damage was limited to a muddy living room and standing water in our kitchen. Pago Pago had is much worse.

 

Without power or potable drinking water, we sat on the front steps of our neighbor’s house and caught our breath after a long day and were sitting there when the pulled up. I spoke with one of the volunteers who lived further inland and found out that she still had electricity and running water. We caught a ride with our neighbors and headed in that direction. Having heard of total destruction in Pago Pago, we braced ourselves for the worst.

 

We drove through town and saw mangled cars, overturned buses, torn apart buildings, stone walls reduced to rubble, fences shredded and mangled soccer goals. Numerous small ships had been pushed hundreds of feet inland. Whole stores were gutted, cars pushed horizontally up against buildings, and one drainage ditch was filled with the scraps of dismantled cars. We watched people load bags and bags of buns from the local McDonalds- it had been boarded up – and we stared in awe a forklift slowly made its way down the street.

 

Alex and I spent the night in relative comfort last night and will shortly begin the trek back through Pago Pago to help repair our village, comfort our students and find ways we can help the clean-up effort in the coming weeks. It was quite a humbling day.

Tsunami Story: Raj

Raj Borsellino: World Teach Volunteer, Leone High School Teacher, Village of Leone

The Day I'll Never Forget: Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

I’ve heard from a lot of people today who want to make sure that I’m okay following the earthquake and tsunami in American Samoa today. So I figured I’d tell my story. This was pretty hastily written, so cut me some slack.

A little bit of background: I graduated from college in May and decided to hold off on going straight to law school. After the tragedies that I’ve had to deal with during the last few years, I decided that I needed to get away from the hustle and bustle of my normal life. So me and Kelly, my girlfriend of four years, found a program called WorldTeach that would allow us to work as abroad volunteer full-time teachers. We decided to put our lives on hold, pack up our belongings, and move to American Samoa, a tiny island in the South Pacific, where we would teach public school for a year.

I’ve been in American Samoa for a little more than two months and I love it. I teach High School English in a small, tightly-knit village called Leone. It’s a deeply-religious community with an incredibly strong work ethic. Six days a week, everyone works tirelessly. They attend work or school, come home and clean the house do their other chores, and prepare for the next day. On Sundays, the entire village shuts down and everyone attends church, which is followed by a big feast called an umu. Everyone knows your name and waves at you when you walk by. I have a hundred and fifty students who come through my classroom every single day, but as an American living in a small Samoan village, it’s impossible to remain anonymous around here.

Flash forward to this morning, September 29th, the thirty-sixth day of the school year. I woke up at 6:47. Kelly came into the bedroom and jumped on me until I finally got out of bed. I wasn’t particularly excited about yet another school day, but I knew that I didn’t have much of a choice. As soon as I stood up and put on my glasses, I began to hear a loud noise and feel the ground shake. It’s the type of feeling that you might get when there’s an extremely powerful windstorm that rattles your house. But it kept getting worse. I had never been in an earthquake before, but it wasn’t difficult to tell that this was one. To be honest, I really had no clue what to do when I realized that I was in the middle of an earthquake. Neither did Kelly or Tanne, our other housemate. First we sat in the living room and ducked down, covering our heads. But then we got worried that the house would collapse, so we decided to go outside. As soon as we got out, we heard someone yelling something in Samoan at us, and since we couldn’t understand it, we assumed that they were telling us to go back inside. So we did. We spent the rest of the earthquake standing in doorways and hoping that nothing fell on us. About two minutes after it started, the earthquake was over. We looked around the house and surveyed the damage: a large mirror was broken in our bedroom, but other than that, everything was fine.

Since I had never been in an earthquake before, I had no idea that this was an abnormally large one. I assumed that we would go through the rest of the day as normal and maybe I’d have an interesting story to tell to my friends back home. Tanne caught a bus to school while Kelly and I finished up getting ready and then headed out for another day. When we walked out, there was a mass exodus of kids walking in the opposite direction. They told us that school was cancelled because of the earthquake. I called my family to let them know that I was okay, assuming there might be some minor blip on the news about a small earthquake in the South Pacific. I was mostly just excited that I had the day off from school. I had no idea that the earthquake was powerful enough to trigger a tsunami, nor did I even begin to consider that lives may be at risk.

Kelly and I stayed in the house for a while, even though our electricity and water had gone out. After a few minutes we looked outside and saw droves of schoolchildren and cars going inland. We thought that we would be okay where we were, so we stayed back. But then we found out from some kids walking by that a tidal wave had struck a few blocks from us and there was possibly another one on the way. A friend of a friend decided that we weren’t safe where we were, so he got in his truck and drove halfway across the island to pick us up. We packed up our belongings and headed to the top of one of the large mountains on the island. The further we got up the mountain, the more people we began to see. There were thousands of people on the side of the road, many of whom had thrown whatever they could grab into their suitcases and headed as far inland as possible. I noticed a lot of my students along the way, although they didn’t seem as happy and cheerful as usual.

Eventually, the warning for the second tsunami was called off and we were allowed to go back home. It was the middle of the day at that point and I still didn’t realize how bad of a disaster this had been. I went back home and decided to call my family back home to let them know that I was safe.

In the afternoon I was feeling restless and curious, so I decided to go into the center of my village, which was a short walk towards the beach. I’ll never forget the scene that I saw there. It was an absolute disaster area. There were completely empty spaces where houses used to be. Heaps of concrete and brick and tin piled all over the area. Trophies and family photos and children’s toys were strewn all about. 

While I was walking I ran into Miracle, one of my sophomore students who always a smile on his face. Miracle is the type of student every teacher loves to have: he comes to class on time, always does his homework, participates in discussions, and always tells a good joke when the class needs one. He’s also a popular kid and one of the stars on the JV football team. But when I saw him today, his smile was gone. So were his house and all of his belongings. He had been home when the tsunami struck, and the wave smashed him through the window and out of his house. He only survived because he was able to hold onto his older sister the entire time the wave came crashing in. Considering what could have happened, he was actually quite lucky: he emerged with some bad cuts on his legs, a bloody lip, and scratches all over his chest. But everything in his house was gone. He lost an uncle. His sister had both of her legs crushed. And even though it was ten hours after the tsunami struck, his best friend (another one of my students) was still missing. He feared the worst.

As I walked around, I kept hearing more stories of lives that had been lost. There was the little girl who was swept out to sea, the boy who was crushed against the concrete wall, the old woman who didn’t even survive the earthquake. There were already six confirmed deaths in my village, but there are at least ten others who are missing and more than likely didn’t survive. Most of the deceased haven’t been named yet, but I can guarantee that some of them go to the schools where Kelly and I teach.

The schedule from here is unclear. For my friend Sarah, whose entire school was destroyed, it’ll be months before things can be cleared out and rebuilt. Kelly and I made it out relatively lucky: there was no damage to our house from the earthquake, and we were far enough inland that the tsunami didn’t reach us. There was no structural damage at

our schools.

We’re supposed to report to school at 8:00 tomorrow morning, where we’ll have an assembly and then be dismissed for the day. But I can’t even imagine walking to school tomorrow morning and finding out which of my students didn’t make it. The young kids who woke up this morning hopeful and excited for another school day and were killed by a

natural disaster that none of us can even begin to fathom.

I woke up this morning wondering how I was going to keep my hundred and fifty kids entertained and excited for the day. But I go to bed wondering how I, as an English teacher, can convince these children not to give up hope when they’ve lost their homes, their family members, and their fellow classmates. Even now, sixteen hours after that earthquake struck, I can still feel the tremors in my head and throughout my body. And I have a feeling that they’ll never leave me.

Tsunami: The Aftermath: Sunday, October 4th, 2009

It’s amazing how the last six days play out in my head. The earthquake and tsunami of Tuesday morning are still as crisp and clear as ever: the shock, the terror, and the destruction. But everything after that remains an amorphous blur. It’s all running together. I’ll try to put the events of the last few days in chronological order, although it’s not easy.

When I walked into town on Tuesday afternoon, the day the tsunami struck, I took some pictures of the damage to post on Facebook so everyone back home could see what had happened. Before I went to bed that night, I sent in a few pictures of the destruction to Reuters and the Associated Press since they both needed photos. Wednesday morning was a shocker. I woke up and checked Google news and the New York Times, as I do every morning. But on Wednesday, all of the news stories centered on my island, particularly my village. And even more stunning, the pictures that I had taken and sent in were on the front pages of all of these websites. They were in countless different languages in hundreds of different newspapers and websites around the world.

Twenty-four hours can be a lifetime. On Tuesday I was getting ready for another school day in my small town in my tiny-dot-on-the-map island, and the next morning my devastated village was the center of the entire world. It was wonderful to get kind letters from so many people that I haven’t talked to in a long time, but of course it was under such tragic circumstances.

The recovery efforts here have been getting stronger by the day, although they’re incredibly frustrating. On Tuesday, everyone was still in shock. On Wednesday and Thursday, rescue teams were still looking for bodies so there wasn’t much work for anyone else to do. But now, six days after the tsunami struck, I still can’t believe how little work there has been for us to do here. Some of the other American teachers here have spent countless hours sitting in the waiting room at the local Red Cross chapter trying to find something that they can help with. Most of them ended up going home hopeless and dejected. Kelly and I walked through the village again and again to see if there was anything we could do, mostly coming up empty-handed. A lot of the folks who had lost their homes weren’t allowed to begin tearing anything down until FEMA came in and took pictures of the wreckage.

That’s not to say that we haven’t been blessed with loads of help from the rest of the world. The US has sent in folks from AmeriCorps, the Red Cross, the military, and FEMA, along with countless other organizations. They all seem to know what they’re doing, but they don’t seem to rely very much on volunteers from within the community. As bad as things were on Tuesday, the frustration of living and working here and not being able to help out as much as possible has made things here even more difficult during the last few days.

On Friday, after deciding that we were tired of waiting for instructions, Kelly and I put on our gloves and ventured out into the shallow part of the ocean to start picking up the hundreds of pieces of debris that was there. There was everything from washing machines to microwaves to children’s toys to clothing to shoes to pots and pans. There were huge pieces of sheet metal that used to be the roofs of people’s homes. Within an hour, there were more than a dozen of us racing against the incoming tide and sorting through the trash to put it in a giant pile to burn. It was so painful to watch those tattered clothes and broken appliances go up in flames. People had spent years and years saving up for some of these things, but it was all washed way while folks were struggling mercilessly to hang onto their lives.

Amazingly, it appears as though all of the kids at my high school survived. Scores of them are now homeless and some even lost siblings and parents, but somehow the students all made it. Unfortunately, Kelly’s school (the elementary school) was not so lucky. One of her fellow teachers died, as did several students. Perhaps most tragic was the first grader who got to school early on Tuesday and was told to go back home after the earthquake hit. The tsunami struck during his walk home and his body still hasn’t been recovered.

One of the stories that hit closest to home was about Tita, the young teacher who shares a fourth-grade classroom with Kelly. When Kelly first arrived at school in early August, Tita was the one person who made sure everything was okay. She brought us movies and food and gave us rides to and from school. A few days before the tsunami hit, she stopped by our house to give us a brand new printer so we could make worksheets for our students. Tita’s house was directly in the tsunami’s line of fire, and although she survived, she lost absolutely everything. Her live-in babysitter was killed. Her house was in tatters. She couldn’t even begin cleaning up the wreckage two days later because FEMA needed pictures of her destroyed house and her camera was lost in the tsunami.

We have our first day back at school tomorrow, and I’m still not completely sure how to approach the tragedy with my students. We can’t just go back to learning about theme and characterization as if nothing happened. I thought about spending the first few days just talking as a class about what everyone had to go through. But aside from the notes they write to me in their journals, many of the students here are uncomfortable talking about anything related to their personal lives. It’s not easy to get anyone to open up about something so tragic and so personal, much less teenagers who are already struggling to come into their own. I also considered having my students write grant letters to corporations and foundations in the United States to ask for donations. But it may come across as somewhat demeaning to make these kids pour their hearts out to anonymous, nameless donors whose mercy they’re being forced to depend on. Maybe I’ll just give the kids word searches and let them talk amongst themselves for a day or two so the transition will be easier. I really don’t know what to do. If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

This theme of uncertainty has been ringing in my head over and over during the last few days. Through the first seven weeks of school, everything here seemed so routine. I was finally starting to get a sense of the island and the culture. I felt like an outsider who was starting to be let in. Leone was becoming my village. And now, without warning, we’re all thrown into a much more intense situation, one that none of us knows how to deal with. Unlike the struggle of adapting to a new village and a new culture, this is a struggle the entire island is facing. Our students see us teachers as leaders and we’re supposed to provide certainty and confidence in times like this. It’s not a simple task.

One last thing: a lot of kind folks back in the states have been writing to ask if there’s anything they can do to help. To be honest, I’m not completely sure yet. I know that we'll need school supplies (backpacks, pencils and pens, notebooks), but I’ll get a much better sense of where my students’ lives stand when we return to school tomorrow. But I can assure you that absolutely anything will help, whether it’s clothing, cookware, electronics, etc. There are so many people who are left with absolutely nothing. It’s not going to be an easy recovery.