The Other Side Sunday, August 18th it began to rain in and around Bacoor Cavite. Within 24 hours the roads began to flood, schools were canceled. Homes along the river and in lower areas were affected by the rising water. By Tuesday water covered the highways making them impassable. Houses in many parts of Bacoor experienced flood waters in their homes. Wednesday the rains began to subside slowly, schools remained closed and people living without power began to run low on food. Thursday, the water was returning to the streams and ponds, the roads were again passable in more areas, schools remained closed but food markets were open. By Friday things began to dry out and the cleanup had begun. You just read the facts of this story; let me share a little more about the people. In a corner of Bacoor, in a place called San Nicholas, is a village along a very small river. On the other side of this river is a city called Las Pinas, part of Metro Manila. The flood waters affected both sides of the river but not equally. San Nicholas is home to informal settlers a.k.a. squatters. Poor people, who farm the land, others have small stores, they all work to raise families and enjoy a simple life. When a flood inundates the home of one of these they have much less to lose then those better off across the river. If you lose everything, a change of clothes for most of the family, your food supply, children’s school supplies, everything lost. Suddenly it doesn’t matter how much you had, everything is gone. The river at this point is only about 75 feet across but seems much wider. On the other side of the river many groups, seeing the distress in San Nicholas, begin to respond. One of these groups is the Bacoor Rotary club along with Rotary District 3810. Combining the resources of 11 Rotary Clubs of the District, relief supplies are gathered. The same relief supplies you would gather in a disaster in your area. Food, clothes and water are the most needed things for survival. Shelter had already been provided for those who lost their homes by other family or friends in San Nicholas. Saturday, August 24th the participating Rotary clubs joined together with supplies for 500 people and headed to San Nicholas. Crossing the river on small boats, supplies and personnel moved into position and distributed much needed supplies. The community was most grateful to receive rice, canned goods, noodles, fresh bread and of course sweet treats for all the children. If you have read this far one more thing you may find interesting. San Nicholas has a deep well for their water supply. What they don’t have is a deep well submersible pump and holding tank to secure the water. They do have access to electricity for a pump and have already agreed to share the cost of electric to run the pump. Anyone interested in helping them with this project, let me know!
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 22:50:13 +0000
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