Shaky video and more shocks

I wouldn't give a letter of recommendation to film school for whoever took this video but it gets the idea across. I have 38 other videos just as shaky or shakier on my computer detailing other aspects of the flood. This one was obviously taken soon after because the water was still pretty fast and high. Now it's pretty much down to a small stream.

In a little while I will be able to post the video of Bahajj's house. Currently, the file is way too large to put on blogspot. Tarik is going to edit it down. He's trying to find some time to work on it in his 15 hour a day 7 days a week current work schedule.

As for the update, we have not heard anything more about whatever kind of relief assistance the government is planning to give. Tarik says that if it does happen, it will take a long time. Officials have been out to assess the damage and this is about as far as we've gotten.

Also, Bahajj had a heart attack last week. He's doing fine now and is in stable condition. I suppose it's no wonder why. I very much hope that he hangs on tight. This generation of Berbers holds so much of the tradtions. They have seen Morocco go through so many changes.

Relief is coming - We hope.

It is, of course, unfortunate that this has been such a bad season for floods. There have been several floods since ours, displacing thousands. The positive side is that support is being mobilized according to the newspapers. I have heard that some of the authorities were out our way to assess the damage caused by our flood. They are reportedly awarding compensation to those who lost their homes and livestock in addition to repairing the damaged infrastructure. It would be absolutely wonderful if they would follow through on this, because then we could focus all our efforts on minimizing future floods by planting trees, lots and lots and lots of them. However, the pessimist in me is still close by. If in over 50 years, they never finished the bridge that was built before independence, are they really going to mobilize well enough to rebuild a relatively small bridge out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains? Tarik is hopeful. We'll see what happens. I know that Tarik's mom will be a great advocate for her village and if nothing else they should get the compensation for Bahajj's house and for the other villagers livestock. Let's all hope.

Finally, we received the promised video of the village and Bahajjs house after the flood, shot by Tariks brother. Once I get the green light, I will post it, but it's rather long and very homemade so I don't expect a lot of people to watch it. I will do my best to describe it here.

There is no mistaking the devestation this flood has had on Tariks family, exemplified by the pile of rubble that used to be Bahajjs house and his sobbing family as they sort through the remains. Many of the walls have been completely washed away. Household objects are tossed around as though the place had been looted. It is hard to recognize the magical place that holds many of my fondest memories of Morocco.

Along the banks, we can see the carved out path that the rushing water made extending several meters above the current water level. Now, there is nothing but a pacified stream hardly representative of the the destruction it caused.The video also shows what's left of the washed out bridge. As I mentioned before, the bridge was built in the colonial period but Morocco achieved independence before it was finished. What existed before was barely wide enough for one car, with only one side protected by a guard rail. It makes me wonder, if the investment in infrastructure hasn't been present in the 50 years since independence, will the bridge ever be replaced? The residents have made this their priority and plan to set up a rope bridge that would allow passage on foot. I don't know how they will do this but I wouldn't be surprised if the plan consisted of buying a bunch of rope and then looking up on the internet how to turn it into a bridge. It sounds almost comical to us, but people are amazingly resourceful in the absence of qualified assistance.

I think Americans take for granted the amount of security within which we live. When Katrina happened, we had a long list of expectations that had or had not been met. In most parts of the world, there is not even the pretense of institutional protection in hard times. The bigger catastrophes get attention from the Red Cross and other international reflief groups, rightfully so. But this particular flood has gone relatively unnoticed even by Moroccans. It makes me think, as we sit in our luxury, on any given day, how many people worldwide have watched their entire livelihoods slip away for one reason or another without any acknowledgement from the outside world? This is not to say that Americans should take on the cause of every one of the 1.2 billion people in the world living under a dollar a day. The picture is way more complex than this. But I wish that at the very least, we would somehow sensitize ourselves to the issues that the rest of the world is facing. Perhaps our new leadership will make this a more pressing task on our agenda.