Tony, Cheri, Claudia and I have just now returned to Playa after a long and tiring day. In addition to the 4 of us, there were 6 or 7 other volunteers, and a total of 5 vehicles convoying down south to
Majahual to bring the donated supplies we’d collected in the last day to give to those hit hardest by Hurricane Dean. This was not an official Red Cross visit; while Claudia volunteers for them, this was a mission from her heart arranged to immediately get supplies to those who most needed them. She will report her findings and photographs of the damage to the Red Cross tonight, who will hopefully be assisting with relief efforts very soon.
Since Majahual is such a long drive from us (I think it took us around 3 or so hours, maybe more), we didn’t see any hurricane damage for a long time, so I don’t think any of us were truly prepared for what we saw when we arrived. They could not have been hit harder. None of us had ever seen Majahual before, sadly, so we had nothing to compare to, but it wasn’t difficult to see that this town looks RADICALLY different from the way it looked just 3 days ago. The people there have lost everything. Their homes, their clothes, furniture, their businesses…
everything.
Still, the town was a hive of activity. The Army was busy cleaning up trees and clearing the streets and all the locals buzzed around cleaning up debris and clearing the land. We set up “camp” in a couple of locations and started dividing up the donations we had, non-perishable food items, drinking water, clothing, candles, and more. Our plan was to get what we had to the people immediately, assess what else was needed, and return to Majahual this Saturday to bring more supplies.
Despite all of this incredible destruction, no one was sitting and weeping. No one was bitter or complaining. When the people of the town gathered around us to receive the donations, they were not grasping or taking more than they needed for a day or two. They carefully chose items of clothing and suggested to others around them items that would suit their needs. One man came to ask Cheri if he could please have one t-shirt, as he had been wearing the same one for 4 days. If I say any more about this right now, I’m going to cry and I have to get this finished tonight.
So much more is needed. We saw people filling up bottles of water from a stagnant swamp. We didn’t have enough supplies for everyone. Tomorrow, Tony and Cheri will use the money that has been donated to buy as many needed items as they can. Beans, rice, tortillas, water, etc.
Please, if you can give even one dollar to help, your generosity will be put to such good purpose. Every single penny of your donations will go
DIRECTLY into the lives of the people of Majuhual and the surrounding villages. We are paying for ALL of our own expenses, including gasoline and our own food and water. There is absolutely NO overhead.
To donate money via paypal, go to www.paypal.com and click on the "send money" tab.
The paypal email account to use is:
helpthechicas@google.com (We are using the same paypal account we used for Alex & Mayte's accident, since it's already set up).
We are going back to Majahual on Saturday with as many supplies and volunteers as we can get.
If you have any donations, monetary or otherwise, please bring them to Luna Blue tomorrow, Friday, August 24 (Calle 26 between 5th and 10th avenues).
Needed items include:
- Roofing material, cardboard, triple, construction material
- Water, juice
- Non perishable food
- Medicines
- Clothes and shoes in good shape
- Blankets, mattresses and pillows
- Diapers and baby products
- Powdered milk
- Utensils, shovels, machetes…etc.
We were so lucky here in Playa del Carmen and the Riviera Maya that we received no damage from this devastating storm, but my joy and relief is certainly tempered by the compassion I feel for the unfortunate areas that did.
I don’t think that I will ever be able to convey to you what I saw today or how it has moved me. I will leave the photographs to tell Majahual’s sad story (and these are just a handful of the photographs, we will post more tomorrow).
