Deployment diary day 31: Thursday 18th February

Today started badly. Actually it started badly during the night - heavy rain fell. The swimming pool at the hotel, which had been bone dry the day before, had about 6 inches of water in it by breakfast. Having a few inches of water in your dry pool is one thing - but having that amount of rain fall upon your family when you have no waterproof shelter is quite another.

Damaris, our camp manager, told me she woke in the night and ran outside to look up at the sky and said - 'why couldn't you wait another day'? You see today we had scheduled to deliver 3,300 tarps - each measuring 20 feet by 10 feet. It might only be one per family but we knew it would give a little protection and waterproofing. We wanted to get them out before the rains came, but the weather beat us to it!

The distribution itself didn't go particularly well, either. A struggle to get the full number of tarps in place meant that a 2-hour process took about 5 hours. The heavily armoured soldiers of the 82nd providing security for were visibly wilting under the weight of their kit as the sun beat down and the day grew long. But despite all the challenges, by the end of the afternoon every family had a tarp. In the bigger scheme of things perhaps a $25 piece of strengthened plastic sheeting seems insignificant, but for each of those families it will be a godsend as the rains start to fall.

The other downside of the weather was that the camp was like a quagmire this afternoon. If it is like this after one downpour what on earth will things be like when the rainy season really gets going? My successors arrived this morning so as part of thier orientation I walked them around the camp. One of them started out worrying about his clean boots getting dirty. After a couple of minutes he confessed to me that realised this was the least of the problems and an insignificant concern when set against the needs of those who must live there.

We sometimes feel we take one step forwards and two back, but the sight of tarps appearing all around the camp this afternoon makes it all worthwhile. Lord, let it be dry tonight - please!!