That's how life feels at the moment.
So many places are not open, or closing early, or you have to drive halfway across town in congested traffic on broken roads just to get to a Warehouse that is open.
Hamish has no kohanga and I have no idea when it will be open. Most of the kaiako's homes are not safe to live in so they are busy dealing with that before anything else.
There are piles of belongings and furniture on the roadside with 'FREE' signs - they are everywhere in our community - families gone to live elsewhere where they can flush the toilet and drink the water from out of the tap.
Zoe's school started last week - they have an hour and a half of school each day until the temporary sewerage system is working. There are 7 kids in Zoe's class, the school's roll is at about 40% of it's pre-earthquake numbers. Many parent's hang around for the whole time that their child is there - partly because it's not long enough to bother going home but also because it's too hard to leave them at school again just yet- what if it happens again?
The teachers at Zoe's school are awesome. They are heroes in my eyes for getting the kids all out safely and looking after them until parents could get there. On the day of the earthquake I stayed there on the school field for as long as I could. It took Iain 5 hours to drive across town (usually 20 mins) and I didn't want to be at home by myself with the kids.
Too much broken glass on the floor and too many aftershocks.
A couple of the teachers pulled out their guitars and got the kids singing - sometimes a large aftershock would hit in the middle of a song and the singing would pause for a second or two while everyone looked nervously around hoping the shaking wouldn't get any worse. Then the shaking would stop and the song would keep going.
Now, just like the power and water supply, everyone is disjointed, displaced, disconnected.
We dig around looking for the broken bits so that we can fix them and, little by little, pull everyone together again.
So that when people are ready, and when the shaking finally stops, the song can keep going.
So many places are not open, or closing early, or you have to drive halfway across town in congested traffic on broken roads just to get to a Warehouse that is open.
Hamish has no kohanga and I have no idea when it will be open. Most of the kaiako's homes are not safe to live in so they are busy dealing with that before anything else.
There are piles of belongings and furniture on the roadside with 'FREE' signs - they are everywhere in our community - families gone to live elsewhere where they can flush the toilet and drink the water from out of the tap.
Zoe's school started last week - they have an hour and a half of school each day until the temporary sewerage system is working. There are 7 kids in Zoe's class, the school's roll is at about 40% of it's pre-earthquake numbers. Many parent's hang around for the whole time that their child is there - partly because it's not long enough to bother going home but also because it's too hard to leave them at school again just yet- what if it happens again?
The teachers at Zoe's school are awesome. They are heroes in my eyes for getting the kids all out safely and looking after them until parents could get there. On the day of the earthquake I stayed there on the school field for as long as I could. It took Iain 5 hours to drive across town (usually 20 mins) and I didn't want to be at home by myself with the kids.
Too much broken glass on the floor and too many aftershocks.
A couple of the teachers pulled out their guitars and got the kids singing - sometimes a large aftershock would hit in the middle of a song and the singing would pause for a second or two while everyone looked nervously around hoping the shaking wouldn't get any worse. Then the shaking would stop and the song would keep going.
Now, just like the power and water supply, everyone is disjointed, displaced, disconnected.
We dig around looking for the broken bits so that we can fix them and, little by little, pull everyone together again.
So that when people are ready, and when the shaking finally stops, the song can keep going.
2 comments:
Great to see you & the kids yesterday. How long did it take you to get over to the less affected side of town? Are you all warm enough in this cold wet weather? What about others you know? How can we help?
Thanks for sharing, M. I feel a world away. Miss you lots and am thinking of you often. Big big hugs and please keep writing.
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