Saved by the Trees

The most poignant interview during our visit to Desfontaines was with a mother of five children. All day rains resulted in the nearby river overflowing its banks around six o'clock in the evening. As the water began to flow through the yard and into the home, the mother put her children on the bed, thinking that the waters would abate. Instead they rose so quickly that it was impossible to get to higher ground.

Soon the water burst through the adobe walls. Two children were clinging to their mother: the river swept the other three into the night. Then the house collapsed on top of them. "I have no idea how we came out of the house. We were all submerged in the floodwater and when we surfaced the house moving away without us."

The two children were still clinging to the mother when they were swept into a tree. They struggled out of the current and into the tree, which not long after bowed to the force of the water and left them struggling darkness. They were swept into a second tree and climbed to safety, but with the sudden awareness that only one child was clinging to her neck.

They stayed in the tree till about 5:OO AM the next morning. Later in the day, the child who had disappeared at the second tree was found alive on a heap of flotsam down river. The other three children are presumed dead.

I translated this story for a video team from the U.S. All three of us were taken back by the matter-of-fact demeanor of this mother as she told her story. She was not dazed, or seemingly depressed. Just told the story, as though it was someone else's experience.

We visited her "home". The outline of the foundation was barely discernible in the mud-turned-to-dust that has taken the place of the water.