Ranwadi Churches of Christ College

Ranwadi Churches of Christ College

Interview with Andrew Gray

Andrew has been teaching at Ranwadi for several years after coming for a gap year nearly 20 years ago. The school behind him was revamped in 2006 by Oz-Aid and was one of the best secondary rural schools in Vanuatu. According to Andrew, this cyclone has been the worst to hit Ranwadi in its 100 year history- the earthquake in 1999 pales in comparison with Cyclone Harold. In comparison with other schools, Ranwadi is lucky as they have at least some houses and classrooms still standing, compared to other places which look like they have been bombed. The newer buildings built by Oz-Aid have survived better than older buildings and seem to be mostly ok. This is the same with the staff houses. Andrew lives in a newer staff house so his house survived well in the cyclone, especially as it was somewhat protected by the terrain. During the cyclone, Andrew’s little boy was eating baked beans and watching cartoons on Andrew’s phone whilst the strongest winds were blowing outside-seemingly oblivious whilst his parents watched terrified. 

Andrew’s partner after venturing outside after the cyclone remarked that she thought Cyclone Harold was far worse than Cyclone Pam. During Cyclone Pam, the leaves were ripped from the branches; however, during cyclone Harold, the branches themselves had gone. Apart from one Banyan tree, there were many stumps. Stepping outside afterwards was like emerging into a weird dream where everything was different, including the light. The wall of trees that used to surround their house was gone and now they can see from their balcony the village below. Andrew had never seen anything like it before. After the cyclone, everything was brown due to the devastation. It was like a winter in the tropics. Now, as it is 3 weeks later, there are new signs of green again. Despite horrific stories of houses being blown away around people sheltering in them, there were no fatalities in Ranwadi. There was one fatal injury as Melsisi but no deaths here and no serious injuries. In every village the water has been cut off. In Ranwadi it took a week to come back but they were able to use rain water tanks and they can do some laundry in the river. When the boys tried to clear the water source, they couldn’t access it due to the amount of trees that had fallen. Electricity came back on Friday last week. This tops up the power system. The small house that contained the generator was blown apart. Everyone at Ranwadi has worked together to rebuild Ranwadi. Luckily there were no students at the school because of the school closures a few days before due to Corona virus. There has been a lot of cleaning, washing and scrubbing by everyone in the village. Every day has been work in order to mend and clean up the village.

As you can see, the clean up means that the school right now is pretty clean; however, this is probably the best that can be done without some external help. Andrew hopes that they should be able to get back up and running quickly to provide not just education, but food and shelter. It’s hard to say exactly when things will get back to normal as most people have lost everything including houses and means of income. Getting back to a semblance of normality might take a matter of months/ years; however, he thinks it could take as long as a generation to get back to life as it truly was before the cyclone. There’s no thatch for people to repair their houses. Kava, which takes five years to grow, has been completely destroyed- this is the main cash crop of the village. Some people have lost the will to build. Andrew’s nextdoor neighbour had spent years, as is common, gradually saving up to build a house. He had been working on a house which had taken him years to build. He told Andrew, if it had been destroyed, he was willing to go back to living in a thatch house as it could be rebuilt faster. Luckily his house was ok but it reflects lots of people who felt the same way. This was similar to people’s feelings after the earthquake. Interestingly enough, though, concrete houses survive cyclones a lot better than thatch houses, even if thatch houses survive better in earthquakes. Clearly the disaster has provoked a discussion about whether it is worth the time and the money to build a nice house when a natural disaster could come along and destroy it at any moment. Needless to say, psychologically it is going to take a long time to recover from the disaster. 

Everyone is very grateful for the messages of good will and the aid that has been sent: food, tarpaulin etc. However, the real need is going to be for longer term recovery and encouragement to get people back to where they were before the disaster hit.