Yesterday we took you to Chan Chen Village where 90 people, 34 families were still stuck in shelters after their homes were destroyed by Hurricane Dean. As we told you, it’s Belize’s northern-most village 0 and it is now also one of the most desperate. But when we visited today, help was on the way, not the food and water the asked for, but something along that line.
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
Today Chan Chen Villagers still stuck in this shelter got some relief. A health brigade including a doctor and a community nurse from Orange Walk visited to make sure all is well.
Martha Melendez,
“What we are doing here is that we are coming to the different sites. What we came here to do is house to house visits to check all the water, drinking condition of the waters, we are checking the bathrooms, and to reach them how to take care of themselves. That is our major concern, preventative health. What we have in the shelter is that they were not drinking, they didn’t have enough water so what we are trying to do is to teach them to chlorinate the water so that they will have enough water using the same resource that they have. So if they have the rain water right now, we are going to chlorinate it for them and show them how to do it so they won’t go without water for long.”
Jules Vasquez,
How about food and nutrition?
Martha Melendez,
“Food and nutrition, they say they don’t have any food but a lady told them if they could go to their house and cook it, she is willing to give them the house. So we are showing them to help themselves more.”
The doctor passed out re-hydration salts and explained their use. Jose Tzul was trying to pick up the pieces of his fallen home while his wife and five children were at the shelter receiving instruction.
Jose Tzul,
“Everything gone, all the zinc gone in that, everything dropped and
all my clothes, books for my son, everything. I don’t know what to do right now because the government is only giving water and we don’t have much to eat right now. I am waiting right now for some help but no one wants to help me.”
Jules Vasquez,
Where is your family?
Jose Tzul,
“Right now my family is living at the shelter.”
Jules Vasquez,
I see you are trying to work up but do you have zinc, what are you going to do?
Jose Tzul,
“I am trying to fix this because I don’t know how much longer they will be able to stay at the shelter so I am trying to fix this again, maybe in one week or two weeks. I am just trying to fix it.”
Jules Vasquez,
Is your family short of food, your family needs food?
Jose Tzul,
“Yes, we need milk, pampers, and water to drink. We don’t have water.”
And while the needs are great, one volunteer whose not sitting around and waiting for instructions is Jason Andrews. He’s with a group called Operation
Belize Mercy.
Jason Andrews,
“We are just trying to reach out to help. We don’t have any main reason but just to come up here to be able to give a hand and help and now we have three different groups spread out in Libertad, in San Andres, and in one here in this village.”
Jules Vasquez,
So what have you all been encountering?
Jason Andrews,
“Well as you can see around here, we’ve seen a lot of houses that have been just really destroyed, a lot of trees falling on houses and so
we have a crew that comes through first and just trying to cut up the trees from off the houses and then we have a construction crew that comes and try and help whatever we could. But there is a lot of disaster up here.”
Jules Vasquez,
What is the spirit of the people like, those in the communities, they’ve lost, many of them, everything?
Jason Andrews,
“Well I’ve been involved in disaster relief out in Caye Caulker and then in Mango Creek and the spirit up here seems to be much more, people seem to be trying to do what they can. People are trying to put together things but I haven’t noticed as much help as I’ve noticed out in Caye Caulker or in Mango Creek as we’ve been here. We’ve been here since Tuesday and to be honest with you, I haven’t seen no other group as much as I’ve seen out Caye Caulker and down in Mango Creek.”
Jules Vasquez,
If I were at home sitting down looking at this on TV and I wanted to do something, what would you recommend?
Jason Andrews,
“Well depends. If you have time to come, you can definitely come. We’ve come with chainsaw machines, we came and worked alongside people but a lot of people lost their roof up here. You will notice a lot of people’s roofs are gone and so we are trying to get zinc in, we are trying to get different tarps, we are trying to get nails, different things like that and so if people can’t come in by themselves and do physical help, somehow they could probably you know come up with something to assist them because they definitely need assistance.”
Opposition Leader Dean Barrow visited Chan Chen this afternoon with a package of relief supplies.
