“Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary.”

Hi, I'm Emma, and I'm late with my blog, again. Pleased to meet you. Well most, if not all of you, already know me, so this should come as no surprise to you, so apologies again. Also if I have promised to email or call you, I probably won't do that in a timely fashion either. But if you are a future employer, I am very punctual with my work. Right.

I was just having a little clean of my room, which means that in fact I had a sandal in one hand and was trying to kill the monster ants that have nested in my wardrobe. While I was killing these ants I was struck with the thought that, well firstly, this feels a little like a massacre, with little ant bodies lying all over my floor, do you think that ants can recognize death of a species member, and then I wondered if they did, would they have a sense of self protection and panic, and I felt quite bad. And then I didn't. It's me or them, I am not sharing my room. So that was the end of that. In any case the reason that I mentioned this story was because I wondered if other people had these stupid thoughts, or was it just me, and that reminded me that I had to write my blog. So here it is.

Most of you will have heard about the devastating floods that have just torn through our beloved state of Pernambuco. The news reports are not lying, and the effect has been horrible, there are so many people missing and displaced, tens of towns have been totally swept away, people are left with nothing, quite literally (and no, I do not mean figuratively). The thing is...we don't really know anything about it. We live in a little bubble of unintentional self-centredness that we hadn't really had a clue. I mean, in Recife, we noticed that it had rained 6 days straight, like a tantruming child, only stopping to catch it's breath before starting anew. And people, unless you have been to South America, you have NEVER seen rain like it! Heavy, we noticed that it took us longer to get places on the bus, and when in the car, it sounded and felt like being on a boat, because of the lack of drainage on the street. But we really didn't know anything about what was happening instate. In fact, most of what I know about the floods here is what I read from the international newspapers online. I also felt a little silly to find out last week that there had been an oil spill that was quite a big deal in April. The only way that we hear of any news is in emails home, and for some reason you people forgot to mention the great disaster of an oil spill! Pull your socks up people! The only way I really knew about the severity of the floods was when people kept on writing to ask if I was ok, and was I affected by the floods, and my reply was, well yeah, it's raining, but we live on a hill and stuff, I mean it makes it a little inconvenient yeah, but nothing to worry about. But it turns out it's a lot worse than that here for the people a little further into the state, and even the city. I went to visit our sister project at Cha da Cruz, and I was shown into the area a little off the main road, where the houses are made from branches and mud. and built on hills, on hills of soil that turn into mud in the rain, and there were collapsed houses everywhere I looked. People's homes destroyed. People who have very little to begin with, now left with nothing.

My mother said that on the news they had claimed that the government was working to help these people. Well, I am not sure what is happening, but the government guys had been buy to see the area, but there has been no help as of yet. There are 10 families living in a wing of a local school, on mattresses on the floor, they have a couple of school chairs, but other than that, they have nothing else. There was a little boy there, a 10 year old boy Flavinho, the sight of whom would shock most people. It appears that he has cerebral palsy, and is very malnourished, there is a tube going from his head to his stomach/bladder that drains excess liquids, and he is in dire need of help, he has no energy and is, as his father says 'like a wet rag' just limp. His father is his full time carer, he also has 2 other older boys, who are apart of the project. This family, should be in their own home, Flavinho should not be sleeping on a mattress on the floor, in a room where there are holes in the wall, to the outside, which can get cold at night in the rainy season. But that's where he is. And he's not alone. Heartbreaking. Unfair. And I didn't have a clue about it because news does not travel as fast here.

In any case, I think that that is enough for today. Lot's has been going on, and I will try to keep you updated on the situations here. July is almost upon us. Camps begin in a week, but due to the waters some of the children who would have come, now have no funds to be able to participate, and this is heartbreaking, and we have a project filled with water, and ruined furniture. Hard Times but we are still very excited. And Mark is coming, on Monday, and he better have chocolate ;)

God Bless

Yours Always

Emma

Title quotation: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow