Building and Buying Houses In Vanuatu

It’s a strange thing to arrive, for the first time, in a country that is destined to become your home. It all gets even weirder when that country is largely a disaster zone.

People and postcards inform me that Vanuatu from the air is usually green. Not at the moment. When I flew in on Wednesday what I saw was mostly brown—a field of bare branches, stripped of leaves. Many of the large trees have been uprooted and toppled, or split in half. Tree limbs lie tangled everywhere. From the window of a plane they look like handfuls of matchsticks that have been scattered. On the ground, though, their broken and splintered ends, the tilt to the trees that remained standing, the gaps where tin roofs peeled off houses—that’s what really tells you how powerful this cyclone was.

Port Vila from the air

Tanna, one of the hardest hit islands, from the air

Port Vila airport

Road our of PV airport

Around Port Vila post Cyclone Pam

So, what’s going on here?

For starters, you guys have overwhelmed me with your generosity! I launched the campaign to rebuild Cynthia’s house less than 48 hours ago. I asked for $3500, and there is already more than $4700 in that fund. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has given to this, and shared the link with their friends and family! My primary problem now is to figure out how to appropriately disburse that much money. It is a truly excellent problem to have, and I will keep you updated as things progress. (By the way, if you want to help and you haven’t already donated to help Cynthia, wait for now. I suspect I will launch another campaign to help fund the rebuilding and repairing the houses of World Vision national staff here. Many of them lost their houses, too.)

I pulled Cynthia and Harry aside just after lunchtime here and told them that they will all have the money they need to rebuild their house. They looked… overwhelmed, too. Overwhelmed, a bit teary, and very, very grateful. Cynthia later told me, in her calm and measured way, that she was “just so happy.”

So, while you all have been virtually building Cynthia’s house, I’ve been trying to buy one.

Yes. As if the situation wasn’t complicated enough, Mike and I have decided to follow through on buying a house here—a house that one of us had not seen before we offered on it. A house in a foreign country that is currently a disaster zone. I feel like this story should come with that classic voice-over warning of, “do not try this at home.”

We had a house in mind before the cyclone. That house seems to have come through the cyclone well. We put in the offer last week. I did get to see the house on Thursday afternoon and think it should suit us just fine, so I spent much of yesterday at banks and lawyers and more banks, trying to figure out how this whole thing works. We should sign the contract before I get on the plane tomorrow.

While I’ve been walking all over town trying to open bank accounts and figure out home loans, I’ve had a good chance to look around. There are still fallen trees all over the place—one giant tree I saw yesterday pulled up several slabs of concrete sidewalk with it as it toppled. The lawyer’s office had lost part of its roof–they were banging and sawing overhead while we were talking. The ANZ bank had been damaged, too. It was their first day back in their own offices since the cyclone.

Many stores are now open for business—even if they’re still damaged—but the huge general market where the town usually buys local fruit and vegetables is still completely shut down—the open-air plaza that usually houses hundreds of wooden tables of produce is empty. The government has bought up all the local food available in Vila and is using it to help feed the people out in the hardest-hit provinces right now.

A friend based on Santo island, Michael Smith described the relief process so far this way…

“Just after the storm it was very frustrating to hear reports of the aid work. Aid arrived while the runway in Port Vila was still flooded but the government held back from immediate distribution. We were outraged at first. It has turned out that there was method to the madness, though. Only Port Vila was accessible to relief agencies at that time and most people there at least had food and water. The windfall from the destroyed gardens lasted a week. While people subsisted on that, the various relief agencies had time to organize and assess damage to the outer islands. Food is now going out not just to those who are most visible but to those who are most in need. For this we rejoice.

People are already planting quick-growing crops, like beans, sweet potatoes, and vegetables. The fastest take three months to mature. Food relief will therefore need to continue into June. Rebuilding will continue long past the time when food aid is no longer necessary. A lot of infrastructure was destroyed across several large islands; homes, schools, water tanks, cell phone towers, boats. We are in for a marathon, not a sprint…”

I must run. My next post will be all about what Mike and the team has been doing while I’ve been trying to get a handle on the details of our life here so that Mike can continue to focus on working. Mike’s facebook status this morning read: “Two weeks post Pam. Unread gmail-204; FB notifications-98; Unread work email-243; Unfiled-879; 4am to ~midnight-14; Coordination meetings with government, UN, other NGOs-countless; Families received emergency food and shelter-hundreds. Families who will receive assistance in upcoming weeks-thousands.”

More about what that actually means, with photos, coming soon.