Fire!
Tragedy strikes everywhere I know but sometimes when people have so little it really seems heavy. Recently there have been two bad fires here. I know this post is probably appearing about one month after the fires occurred but I still wanted to share about it.
The first fire which is the one we have photos of took place in our village. It burned down 10 houses in a very short time. While some houses are made out of concrete like ours is, many houses in smaller areas are still made of wood or even have walls made of woven branches which of course would burn incredibly fast.
There is very little time to take anything of value and thankfully this time only one person was injured that we know of. She was injured because she ran inside to save some money she had just withdrawn. Part of what makes this so heavy is that many of these people now have nothing. And when we think of nothing we think oh how horrible and think of all the irreplaceable things in our homes. And I'm not putting down what people lose in fires back home because it's tragic. But somehow knowing that these people most likely lost everything and will be at the mercy of others' generosity really sits heavy on my heart.
But yet the people smile and laugh and joke and carry on. People help people here. It's more of a communal society and people are obligated to help and so they do, joyfully many times.
The second fire that we don't have pictures of occurred on the other side of the river which is still quite close but not in our same village. The thing that made this second fire so much worse was that while the houses were much the same this one had only a footpath to it instead of a road which means . . . no firetrucks to help put the fire out. We heard so many numbers about how many homes were destroyed but while Marcela insists this fire burned up 80 homes I'm praying that the 50 homes we heard initially is more accurate.
During spirit week at school people brought in old clothes and canned food. They weren't sure where they were going to give this bounty out to at first but then this fire occurred. And while it certainly doesn't seem to be a blessing, it was a blessing that during such a time as this, the school had something to give. So Reggie took these photos while the middle school student council dropped off the items we had collected.
Thankfully there are some churches here that are set up to help people during such times of disaster.
A friend of ours here has a blog and they live very close this area, she has a great post with some amazing photos and amazing insight taken right after the fire, if you'd like to see more follow the link!
The first fire which is the one we have photos of took place in our village. It burned down 10 houses in a very short time. While some houses are made out of concrete like ours is, many houses in smaller areas are still made of wood or even have walls made of woven branches which of course would burn incredibly fast.
There is very little time to take anything of value and thankfully this time only one person was injured that we know of. She was injured because she ran inside to save some money she had just withdrawn. Part of what makes this so heavy is that many of these people now have nothing. And when we think of nothing we think oh how horrible and think of all the irreplaceable things in our homes. And I'm not putting down what people lose in fires back home because it's tragic. But somehow knowing that these people most likely lost everything and will be at the mercy of others' generosity really sits heavy on my heart. 
But yet the people smile and laugh and joke and carry on. People help people here. It's more of a communal society and people are obligated to help and so they do, joyfully many times. 
The second fire that we don't have pictures of occurred on the other side of the river which is still quite close but not in our same village. The thing that made this second fire so much worse was that while the houses were much the same this one had only a footpath to it instead of a road which means . . . no firetrucks to help put the fire out. We heard so many numbers about how many homes were destroyed but while Marcela insists this fire burned up 80 homes I'm praying that the 50 homes we heard initially is more accurate. 
During spirit week at school people brought in old clothes and canned food. They weren't sure where they were going to give this bounty out to at first but then this fire occurred. And while it certainly doesn't seem to be a blessing, it was a blessing that during such a time as this, the school had something to give. So Reggie took these photos while the middle school student council dropped off the items we had collected. 
Thankfully there are some churches here that are set up to help people during such times of disaster. 
A friend of ours here has a blog and they live very close this area, she has a great post with some amazing photos and amazing insight taken right after the fire, if you'd like to see more follow the link!
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