Sare Aladji Village Fire
Donation protected
This post was written by my daughter, Lindsay Swisher.
Last Friday, there was a fire in my village. Unfortunately, during dry season, village fires are not uncommon. People cook with wood in small enclosed cooking huts or out in the open, and if every single ember doesn’t get extinguished, the wind can come along out of nowhere and ignite the fire again.
This is precisely what happened in my village. Somewhere, a fire didn’t get put out completely, and Friday night there was a big windstorm in my village that reignited a flame. Out of the 35 compounds (a household, but made up of a series of huts in a circle with communal space in the middle), two completely burned and 4 other compounds lost about half of their huts. One of those 4 households belongs to my counterpart, Sadio Ba, the man I worked with for the past 2 years at our health hut.
I happened to be traveling for work this week when I got the call. We were due to spend Sunday night in Tamba before continuing on our trip, so early Monday morning I got up and went to my village. I only had 1.5 hours to spend there, but I got the chance to see everyone and make sure no one was hurt.
And in true Senegalese fashion, I was talking to one of the men from the households that burned completely, and he said, “Thanks to God that only our stuff burned and that no one was hurt. Things can be replaced but people can’t.”
So that’s exactly what I’d like to do – help people replace what was lost. Since I am not based there any longer, I’ve solicited the help of my two best friends in village that I trust. I will be sending them the money and asking them to take a survey among the impacted households of what they need, and then these guys will go to the market and buy the beds, mattresses, clothes, etc to help replace what is gone.
Help is coming from wherever it can. The day immediately following the fire, men in the village were cutting down sticks and gathering dried grass to start remaking the hut roofs. An NGO that works in our village came and took a census of all the people impacted so that they could try to provide support. The school is providing new notebooks and backpacks to all of the children who lost theirs in the fire. People from the village who live abroad are sending donations.
I never imagined how close I could get to the people in my village after only two years, but they are my family now. And when your family is hurting, you do whatever you can to help. Thanks to all of you for your support, and even if you can’t donate, please keep my village in your thoughts & prayers as they rebuild what was lost.
Last Friday, there was a fire in my village. Unfortunately, during dry season, village fires are not uncommon. People cook with wood in small enclosed cooking huts or out in the open, and if every single ember doesn’t get extinguished, the wind can come along out of nowhere and ignite the fire again.
This is precisely what happened in my village. Somewhere, a fire didn’t get put out completely, and Friday night there was a big windstorm in my village that reignited a flame. Out of the 35 compounds (a household, but made up of a series of huts in a circle with communal space in the middle), two completely burned and 4 other compounds lost about half of their huts. One of those 4 households belongs to my counterpart, Sadio Ba, the man I worked with for the past 2 years at our health hut.
I happened to be traveling for work this week when I got the call. We were due to spend Sunday night in Tamba before continuing on our trip, so early Monday morning I got up and went to my village. I only had 1.5 hours to spend there, but I got the chance to see everyone and make sure no one was hurt.
And in true Senegalese fashion, I was talking to one of the men from the households that burned completely, and he said, “Thanks to God that only our stuff burned and that no one was hurt. Things can be replaced but people can’t.”
So that’s exactly what I’d like to do – help people replace what was lost. Since I am not based there any longer, I’ve solicited the help of my two best friends in village that I trust. I will be sending them the money and asking them to take a survey among the impacted households of what they need, and then these guys will go to the market and buy the beds, mattresses, clothes, etc to help replace what is gone.
Help is coming from wherever it can. The day immediately following the fire, men in the village were cutting down sticks and gathering dried grass to start remaking the hut roofs. An NGO that works in our village came and took a census of all the people impacted so that they could try to provide support. The school is providing new notebooks and backpacks to all of the children who lost theirs in the fire. People from the village who live abroad are sending donations.
I never imagined how close I could get to the people in my village after only two years, but they are my family now. And when your family is hurting, you do whatever you can to help. Thanks to all of you for your support, and even if you can’t donate, please keep my village in your thoughts & prayers as they rebuild what was lost.
Organizer
Ken Swisher
Organizer
Battle Creek, MI
