I know, it's taken me a long time to get around to this, but Friday is really hard to put into words. By the time we woke up on Friday morning, the water had receded enough in many areas to get out and start the clean up, so we asked Orvon's parents to watch the kids so we could both get out and help. I just couldn't send him off to do it, I HAD to get out and do something.
We went to a Housing commission estate where a woman in the ward next to us lived. The water was well over her roof at it's peak. All around you could see signs of the flood. There were bins in trees, tables on roofs and the mud all the way up the trees.
The smell was just terrible and the house was hot and small. We began shoveling all of this woman's possessions into a wheelbarrow and carrying them out to the circle in the middle of her street where all of her neighbors were doing the same thing. A mini excavator was working it's way down the street carrying all the rubbish to the dumpster. But it wasn't rubbish. It was absolutely everything in this woman's house! We managed to save a few vases and things that would have to be cleaned, and any photos we found were kept to try be sorted through. I picked up a photo of an obviously premature new-born baby and brought it to the woman's sister (I didn't get to meet her because she's disabled, she wasn't there) who told me it was of one of her 7 children she had that died in infancy. He lived 11 days. She had had a frame with all the pictures in it that the flood destroyed. I felt like all my work that day was worth it if all I did was find that picture for her.
By the time we left, we had pretty much shoveled the whole house out. A man was coming around with a fire house, spraying the road down (which was covered with the thick, slippery sludge that covered everything) and people were walking around offering everyone a drink or food. We talked to the woman's brother-in-law who told us how he'd gotten her out. He had called her and said she needed to leave, she said she would when she'd had a shower and a cuppa. He told her there was no time for that and by the time he got her out of the house and was driving out of her street the water was several inches up the tires of his truck. As we were leaving he thanked us for our help, I told him it was such a small thing we had done and a privilege to help those who were suffering so much.
I was amazed at the outpouring of volunteers we saw and have seen since. There was no where to park in these low-lying streets because everyone from surrounding areas had just converged on the affected areas. Over 200 houses in that estate were cleared in one day. Everyone just came and helped. And it happened all over the city and the state. The news showed video of armies of volunteers pouring in to these destroyed communities, not because they had friends or family that needed their help (of course there was that too), but because they knew people needed help and they just showed up. Tens of thousands of them. Just showed up and got stuck in.
It's been amazing. The following week we watched other's children so they could volunteer, collected donations, baked and delivered food to the volunteers and generally tried to do any thing that we could do to help. And everyone around us seems to be doing the same. The needs in our area have died down now, but there are still evidences of the flood, of course. McDonald's is still closed, a friend works at a local juice factory, they have laid off 80% of their staff and hope to get one production line up in a few weeks. There is a boat sitting in someone's yard Orvon passes on his way to work, and so on.
Now, with cyclone Yasi ripping through the north of the state, I think Queenslanders are feeling battered, but united. They don't tend to make a big production of things, they just get on with the work that has to be done. There will be budget cuts to pay for the rebuilding, everyone understands. Our school will have to wait for expected repairs and upgrades while affected schools are restored, we're happy to wait.
My heart breaks for those who have lost their homes and possessions, even loved ones or their own lives, but I feel privileged to have witnessed portraits of true humanity. I am also grateful for the perspective this has given me. What's really important is brought more clearly into focus at these times.
2. Paint her nails
3. A butterfly cake. Specially decorated by Alaina and Harmonie!
