Quick update on life

One month and one week after Tomas, things continue to improve here at a "two steps forward, one step back" sort of pace. What does this look like on the ground, and oh yea... how has all this hurricane business impacted that dissertation research I'm supposed to be doing?

Schools reopened the last week of November on a limited teaching "rotating schedule" which means that students have 3-4 hours of school per day and they are only teaching reading/writing and math for the rest of the term. This is because a large majority of text books have been destroyed, and efforts to get schools clean enough to accommodate the students were combined, so in many areas only a single school is open. So the secondary students use it in the early morning, pre-school/kindergartners mid-day and primary students in the late afternoon. Even the schools in areas relatively unaffected are following this plan, to keep the students in the same place within the curriculum nationally, so when they take national exams in the spring, students will be on the same testing levels.

Water comes and goes for many areas, but generally is improving. In what I hope is just an overly cautious public health move, the government has issued a national cholera alert. Presently there are no reported cases and hopefully this will remain true! There are also still farmers living in areas of the country that cannot be reached by vehicle, though this continues to improve weekly.

My research: So far I've spent a lot less time talking about my research than I expected to in my time here on the island. It is probably not hard to decipher that hurricane Tomas will have a lasting impact on my fieldwork. For the short-run (aka the remaining 2 months of my current grant) I will be taking a pilot study approach to things, since my research objectives, methodology and general sense of things have all been turned on their head.

For now I'm trying to spend as much time in the farming communities that I am studying as possible. I'm also creating visual maps of the destruction on Fairtrade farmer's farms by taking gps points of their properties, the major fluvial and geomorphic disruptions (mainly impacts of flooding and landslides) and documenting everything with lots and lots of photos. This process is very interesting, basically, I am taken on a tour of the farm by the farmer, who narrates his/her "hurricane story" about where they were and what they were thinking during the storm and the immediate days following Tomas. As we walk their property, they describe were buildings used to be, how much further into the river their property used to extend and so on. My respect for the power of water as well as the resilience and attitudes of the people I'm talking with grows daily as I hear stories and see things with my own eyes. Later I hope to connect these gis maps, time elapsed photos (taken now, in 6 months and again before i leave), personal accounts of the hurricane and more formal interviews to broader conversations on land management, conservation, vulnerability and resilience and Fairtrade. That is much later though!

Here are some photos of things I see everyday:

Water line in banana shed 3'3", meaning that the river flooded over 25 feet above its normal level...

Banana farm that collapsed into river. The river bank is appx 18' high, and this river is a contributor to the flooding, b/c it is a govt. re-channeled this river with a straight cut stream-bed that increased velocity and turbulence and erosion

The rushing floods distributed huge piles of debris

3-6" of mud caked, shrinking and cracked on the packing table and floor of the banana shed...

This hand is pointing to the trash and debris deposited in the top of this coconut tree by the flood waters from the river below- waters had to be between 12-15' high here...

Measuring across the area washed out by the river 27' wide and 14' deep

This is a large (appx 50' wide) pile of uprooted banana plant debris carried into a pile be the flood waters. The young green shoots are growing out of the pile. Farmers tell me the only way to deal with this b/c it is in the middle of the farm will be to burn everything...

Banana and coconut debris

Parts of a pack-shed destroyed

The only thing left standing from this shed is the cinder block foundation, the washing tables (with a lone rotting banana on the end if you look closely) and

More parts of the same shed...

The sedimentation levels are extreme in some cases- I'm standing about 20 meters away from and about 10 feet above a stream- my feet are on the normal ground level. The sediment deposited next to me measured 3'8" deep and goes on for 100 yards or more....

What do you think? Is it giant acorn or a baby coconut? ;)

That's all for now- I'm off to a farmers meeting!