Marie Iodile and I loaded all possessions into my rafters, grabbed valuables and animals, stuffing them in traveling baskets, and braved the flooded road to get to a higher village, wading at points in strong current where the water reached our thighs. We joined a scattered herd of people migrating south to higher ground, close to the ocean and away from the Voloina river flood plains.

I packed an overnight bag, rice, duck eggs, a tomato, and my chicken and ducks. The way here was a nightmare, straight out of a book or movie. I started with 2 dogs, 2 ducks, and my chicken. (The neighbor’s little chicken escaped and has likely drowned by now). By the time we reached our sanctuary, I was left with Puppy and chicken and no way of knowing what will become of Doggie, who almost was swept away and drowned trying to make one of the flooded river crossings. I tried to go back for him when I saw him struggling wildly to fight the current that was sweeping him out into a flooded rice paddy, but Marie Iodile shot me an angry look, insisting that I continue and making it clear that she would not wait for me if I tried to save Doggie. To my relief, I saw that he had managed to drag his little body up onto a hummock of vegetation and make his way back to the Voloina side of the water. I hope he made it someplace high! [Thankfully, Doggie managed to get to higher ground and was fine in May, anyway. t]

I carried Puppy the rest of the way, unwilling to risk losing him. My ducks escaped from their basket when I put it down to rearrange my load, and swam away toward the house, savoring their freedom but much to my dismay. After everything last night, they disappeared in our journey to safety. Marie Iodile says they will die. I hope she’s wrong.

As we left the hut compound, I saw Zoland from next door, crouching in the high water, his chin resting at water level as he searched for little chickens that had sought shelter under Dady ny Ganny’s house. The water was just an inch from flooding the house, so they were all submerged and all Zoland was managing to retrieve were drenched, lifeless little bodies. How sad.

I really need to contact Peace Corps to tell them I’m okay, but with the storm there’s no reception on the beach. I’ll keep trying but it seems pretty hopeless. Wonderful as the people are who have taken me in, I want to curl up into a little ball and cry. All I need is to hear a familiar voice from home and be comforted and told that it’s not my fault that the chicken drowned, the ducks are gone, and Doggie got left behind to an uncertain fate.

It was really something–watching the water level rise to waist high in the courtyard, huddling under the kitchen table as my roof shuddered and banged above me, and watching people resignedly pack a basket of bare necessities and abandon their flooded and tattered houses for higher ground. My first cyclone… I guess it’s a good experience to have, just hard going through it alone.

The next evening:
I need to cry but am too physically and emotionally exhausted to do so. I’m back at home now. The town crier just made the rounds, announcing that all families with destroyed houses should visit the village “president� to find a place to stay for the night. There is a river about 10 feet wide with a raging current flowing about 15 feet from my house, behind my (kabone) outhouse where the wetland/rice paddy used to be. We had over 5 ft of water in our hut compound, rising above the level of my house’s stilts and flooding my home with a foot and a half of standing water. The water line stopped just inches from the mattress of my bed on which I had piled most of my belongings. This, I am grateful for.

My ladoucy (shower house), fence, and garden are in tatters from the cyclone’s wind and rains and Mama ni Mesido and Zoland’s rice storage huts were partially flooded. If we don’t get a dry, sunny day soon their food supplies will be in jeopardy. During preparations to evacuate yesterday I offered to store their rice in my house, but it was loose in the grain huts and there was no time and too few gunny sacks to transport it for safekeeping. As it turns out, my house didn’t fare much better.

The earth around the bridges between here and Maroantsetra has, I’m told, collapsed. I witnessed it firsthand this morning when returning home to V from A where we (Marie Iodile and I) spent the night. The river bridge is now connected to the road by a thin path of earth less than a food wide. On either side are gaping drops where the ground has caved into the river below. Not even bicycles can pass. I had to jump across the divide.

It seems I have no way to get to M to contact PC or call home and let anyone know that I’m okay. (Perhaps you don’t even know that a cyclone hit my area.) My 2-way radio to the WCS office is still not working, but I spent 20 minutes sending messages in Malagasy to any listener just in case. No call reception. The rain just stopped for the first time in three days. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll have more luck—Dammit, I wrote too soon. There it is again.

As I write this, the lights of my oil lamp and candle are illuminating one of my kitchen walls, still bearing a water mark 15 inches or so from the floor. When I entered the house this morning, I found a slick layer of deposited mud coating everything in the house that touched the floor. Completely overwhelmed, I slid along the kitchen floor to my bedroom, Puppy leaving paw print trails behind me, and took in the extent of the mud. My wooden storage container (too heavy to raise, and besides, I thought putting stuff up high would really just be a precautionary measure) was flooded. I had forgotten I stored my electronics and valuables in there before making my last trip to Tana. I found them swimming in their ziplock bags like fish straight from a carnival. My solar-powered, really valuable short-wave radio was the worst casualty. Very glad I have insurance, but still will have to do without it.

My emergency money supply was laid out to dry and, at one of the children’s suggestion, covered with rice. The rice absorbed much of the moisture and by evening, the bills were dry enough to pack away again.

Since I was overwhelmed by how on earth I’d get the mud off everything, Valentine and Mama ny Noro intervened and immediately rallied the children to fetch water from the well. 17 buckets’ worth. Fight fire with fire—or in Madagascar, water with water. Valentine contributed her bucket to the cause and the children grabbed every other receptacle they could get their hands on. I called out in alarm and rushed toward Franko just as he was about to toss the contents of his receptacle onto my bedroom floor. Not the chamberpot, Franko! The kids were rewarded for their help with peanuts (literally!)

I don’t know how I’ll ever repay Valentine and Mama ny Noro for their kindness. And the family who fed me and gave me shelter last night and sacrificed a bed for Marie Iodile and me to sleep on, and even allowed Puppy inside. And Chicken in her basket! People are so altruistic here. I’ll take a lesson from their openness and remarkable generosity. The less the Betsimisaraka have, the more they give. Like the Malagasy proverb, “This is only half a pot of honey, but my heart is full.â€?

Geez, how am I going to get myself and my Tana teaching attire and materials and my gear for two weeks in the Marojejy rainforest to Maroantsetra in time for my flight next week? At least the cyclone was this week and not next! I have to at least contact the outside world. How the hell am I going to get out of Voloina? Will research the options and stop worrying about it, tonight.

My entire house is damp, including my bedsheets from ceiling leaks. I’m cold…