Cyclone Pam: After the storm in Vanuatu

Kylie Steel with her two boys.

Kiwi Kylie Steel was in Port Vila to help facilitate Vanuatu's first Dental Health Conference when the cyclone struck. Mrs Steel runs non for profit Fruit of the Pacific - a charity that educates and mentors short term Pacific migrants who come and work in NZ for 3-6 months each year, predominately in the horticulture industry. The migrant Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) workers are taught life skills, education and health courses while they are in NZ so that they don't just return home with money. After the cyclone passed she went in search of friends. Here's her story:

Yesterday our team went out in the afternoon in search of our RSE friends. After the scale of the winds & the rain & the pressure changes (like mild altitude sickness?) we feared the worst, & reports from the outside world were very mixed. Some said a total wipe up, some said it seemed ok....

Know any Kiwis in the Pacific Islands affected by Cyclone Pam? Email us.

So once we had some male company (2 Australian delegates from the Storian) we stood on the road & waited for a bus. We agreed a price for two hours for him to take us wherever we needed to make contact & find our friends.

As we headed into the suburbs the devastation hit us, the biggest thing was the size of the trees that were down, the tops of every trees razored to the ground.

We drove round trees, took detours round flooding, waved at relieved looking ni vans, & scanned every face for someone we knew. Finally in a group of people walking down the road, I spotted Terry - he was far off & confused by a bus stopping with a bunch of white people staring at him & one young lady pointing, waving, trying to identify him to our driver & in the excitement calling him by the wrong name (Timothy). As he came closer he recognised Mary and I and we were so happy to connect. He'd jumped in the bus with us to take us to find others we knew.

First we found Peter Yauko, who has been coming to NZ to work in the kiwi fruit industry since 2008. He & his family had sheltered in the house they bought with money earnt in NZ. It's made of corrugated iron, and I was amazed it was still standing. He spoke of being in there until midnight when Port Vila was hit the hardest. The roof peeled off so they had to run for cover in a nearby shop. Lisa his wife, spoke of putting her foot out the door and just freezing in panic at the scale of the wind & the rain. Peter's son Gibson (early 20's) wrapped up Bonnie (1yr old daughter of Peter & Lisa), took Lisa by the hand & said "we just must run"!! They ran through the dark night to a small concrete shop where they first tried to sleep on the floor, until rain started flooding so they slept in the shelves.no one slept through the hours of intensity. In the morning the men worked to put roofing back on their houses, finding bits of corrugated iron from around the place & holding them down with bricks & anything heavy they could. We couldn't see Gibson because he was in an exhausted sleep after a night of terror and a morning of hard work. They are all just thankful for their lives & that no one was killed in their community. We checked on names of other people we knew, swapped stories, hugged & said goodbye - promising to make their situation known to the world.

Marcel Nalau, left, is a close friend of the Steel family.

We then headed out to find Marcel, who we had spent the week with preparing for the storian. Marcel has been leading and coordinating the Vanuatu Oral Health Awareness team (voha) for the last year. They have travelled to four different provinces teaching over 7,000 children & adults the importance of cleaning their teeth. He is a passionate teacher who loves serving his country. As we came round the corner we gasped in shock. Only two days before Marcel had taken us here & proudly shown us his new house & property that he had brought with RSE money. In front of us an area that had big trees & a corrugated iron village lay smashed into pieces.

Marcel Nalau standing in ruins after cyclone Pam flattened his village.

We pulled up at the first house, which lay under a tree, iron everywhere & spotted another of the VOHA team, Thompson (Marcelo's cousin). I jumped from the vehicle, desperate to know how everyone in the family was! A big hug and we were reassured all were alive and well. We followed Thompson through a maze of tangled iron, trees, branches, clothes & household stuff to find Marcel. His old house was still standing, but the one right beside it had a banyan tree right through it. He told us how the chief had told them all at 4 o'clock they must evacuate to a large church across the way, so the village followed his instructions & packed bags of their possessions & sheltered in a multi room concrete building. Over 200 people stayed there over night, bodies filling every available space. They sung, they prayed, they cried, they children were scared & looked to their parents to comfort them. In the morning they went out to find their village pretty much flattened.

Marcel took us on a tour of his village & the evacuation centre. His new house had the roof off & debris littered everywhere . We saw a water tank that had been swept across the road. There was a story of a young man in another village being killed by a flying water tank. I met the chief and was able to thank him for his foresight in moving everyone out - not a be life was lost because of his leadership. All we could say was "sorry, sorry, sorry" to the people around. Some were sitting, some cutting branches off their homes, some cooking bananas from the fallen trees on open fires.

Kylie Steel with the attendees of the Oral Health conference (Storain blo Helti tut).

The evacuation centre was very tidy, people had left neat piles of their bags in cornered, but the hallway smelt of urine & sweaty stressed bodies. Hygiene will be a real problem in the coming weeks & months. They had been given biscuits in the morning & it has a water tank where they are getting their water from at the moment. They plan to stay their again tonight & until their homes are fit to move back in to.

Again, a village relieved to be alive, shell shocked & uncomprehending of what the heck just happened & how to rebuild, but so resilient . These are people that are strong, capable and their community is their strongest asset. As we left I was confident that these guys have the fortitude to begin the slow process of clearing their properties, making safe places for their children again to shelter & lean on each other, offering emotional & physical support. They haven't lost everything because they have each other & this is what they could smile about as they took us around. The gratitude and appreciation of life was tangible as we said our goodbyes.

Today I hope to go out again looking for others, but petrol is a precious commodity with no petrol stations working as power still out, so we might be lucky to find a driver willing to take us on tiki tours with nothing more than a list of names & general areas. But we do feel way more confident in their safety after yesterday's trip.