Flood!

September 27, 2008

Hi!

Well, now we are unfortunately at an Internet cafe, because of the
flood that has hit our city of Longzhou, and especially our college!
(for the first time since the 80's!)

It has rained for a few days non-stop because of the typhoon that was
in the area, and yesterday all of a sudden Tomas saw a lot of activity
in town. Turns out the market in town was totally flooded. Then we
went to the river area, and we saw that the river has risen 8 meters,
suddenly! (The river flows from Vietnam, and apparently the water was
coming from there especially). Then late in the evening the school's
soccer field flooded, and then this morning (we were supposed to have
had class) we woke up and looked out, to a lake growing right in front
of us! The water was apparently rising 40 cm/hour. So, within a few
hours, half the campus was totally flooded. Our building is still
okay, because it is up on a high plateau of cement.

We were supposed to have class, as I said, but before we knew the
whole situation, Tomas called our dean to ask if we would have class
or not. He said, "No, you know, the students are trapped in their
dorms..." Then we went out and watched as firemen came to rescue
students. First, they had to cut away the bars in front of the
windows, and then they had to help them down with tall ladders,
because the flood waters had filled the stairways. I was just hoping
nothing would catch fire as they slowly worked to free the students...
Also, flooding in China is especially dangerous, because most people
here are afraid of the water and do not swim. This afternoon we
watched a girl walking in deep water from her dorm, and we watched as
she lost her footing and fell backwards, in panic. Tomas almost
jumped in the water to help her, but she righted herself. Now at
night, they have put up tape around the worst areas so people do not
unwittingly walk into them at night and drown.

We have been without electricity now for about 24 hours, so it is
getting hot in our apartment and it REEKS from the sewage that is
probably backing up in the city. But, we have a third-floor apartment
so we are lucky. People on the first floor are not so lucky, as their
places are now flooded. Also, some students told us that they are
frightened, especially since most people cannot sleep in their dorms,
so they will sleep in their classrooms. One student asked Tomas, "Do
you believe in ghosts?" Chinese people are often quite superstitious,
so not only are the students afraid of the flood itself, they are
afraid to sleep in the dark in the classrooms due to other, unseen,
dangers!

People have been hauling things around on homemade boats (two tires
and a bamboo ladder has needed to suffice in most cases), men (in
thigh-deep water) have been carrying their wives through their water,
and others haven't been quite so lucky--like the dead roosters we have
seen and the piles of cockroaches floating by in the water. This
evening we watched people paddle a boat across the lake that was the
soccer field.

This coming week is China's national day, and so we have a week with
no classes. We had planned to go to Vietnam, but people are very
nervous about the condition of the roads here, so we have decided to
go north within our own province instead. We will make it to Nanning
first, hopefully, and then take it from there!

Although people's apartments and property are under water, and people
on our campus are tired from running around saving material things, at
least they are safe. Once again, that is always the most important
thing!

We just wanted to report on the situation...no need to worry about us!
Except for starting to long for a shower and a cool fan, we are fine.

Take care!
love
Rachel & Tomas