My house damage from Maria



The back of my house BEFORE the storm.

Living room

Bedroom with security camera ....

 I had been told about the damage earlier, but the good news this week is that I got pictures of my house in Dominica so I better understand and know the damage.  The bad news is that I got the pictures and saw the extent of the damage.  The good news is the house can be repaired.  The bad news is that….  Well, this could go on and on…

As mentioned before I knew that living on a Caribbean island included the risk of hurricanes.  I admit I didn’t understand it completely, and like of lot other people on the island I was rather relaxed about the expected category 1 or 2 storm.  But I’ve learned my lesson well.

Life is a learning experience and Peace Corps provides opportunities for more pop quizzes/lessons than I got in my old life.  Next time…

So as you can see – the roof to my house was almost completely ripped off.  I lost some things.  However, I was very blessed by that my landlady took it upon herself to recover as much as she could.  Without her work and the help of her family and friends I likely would have last almost everything.
So, most of the roof is now in the backyard...

Airing out the bedroom

One of the Maria suggested bedroom skylights ....

OK, well the designer that crashed my house is a bit overboard on living room skylighting

A hiking friend helping with the salvage and cleaning work in my former kitchen ... 

So, there is a lot of work to do for my house and others in Tete Morne and around the island.  So many things to do and things have to be prioritized and managed based on resources and manpower.  But, work is underway across the island...  

 I am are getting a lot of good news on the recovery efforts - directly and over the internet with a lot of people sharing news on Facebook.  Of course we also hear sad news, such as the funeral of an elderly man who lost his house....  Good news and bad...

Peace Corps Steps


 All of the evacuated Peace Corps volunteers are also getting updates twice a week from post about our administrative hold.  So far no guarantees of course, but the reports are encouraging...

I will be writing up a complete post of the administrative hold that I’m on right now.  For now I will summarize the next steps:
1.     Peace Corps is going around to each site to inventory and pack personal items that are not overly damaged.  They will not clean or salvage by my understanding.  Up to 100 pounds (a shipping limit) of the recovered items will be kept in the office on Dominica pending a decision on our state.
2.     Peace Corps will evaluate the island at a high level (next week I think) – telecommunications, logistics, transportation, health, etc. to determine if volunteers can function in the country.
3.     Peace Corps will go to each site to assess if the volunteer can continue as an education volunteer or in a different project.  They will evaluate the school, community, housing site, and such.
4.     At some point we might be given several options: return to site doing the same or different work, move to a new site somewhere else, or end service.  If we end service our personal items will be shipped home.
5.     The plan as I understand it is that “some point” will be around Nov 10th.

In my case the school is destroyed, my house heavily damaged, and my community likely without electricity for months and possibly without running water…

Sounds like the PERFECT Peace Corps opportunity for me.  Might even get to wash cloths in the river!  Send me back now!!!

 OK, the plan is for the school in Tete Morne to move to the community once it is no longer a shelter and my roof does need to get fixed.  But still I hope to be back to my site before the end of November.  People are living and working in Tete Morne - #PeaceCorpsStrong #DominicaStrong


Weekend plans –


Later in the week I plan on visiting my family in Arkansas.

Love always,

John

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