On Jan 3rd and Jan 10th, both these Sundays were an eye opening event for me. There were roughly 2,000 and 400 of us respectively who went to Termeloh, Kuantan.
As I have always seen on the news about those disaster area, personally being in the area was totally different. Because without going there, I would not be able to imagine the smell and environment of the victims. Soggy rotten smells from all the furniture, dirty mud which was flooded by polluted water which had mixed with anything you can imagine earlier (toilet, factory waste, river, kitchen, graveyard, etc).
Looking at the state of the house was sad. I do not want to imagine that happen to my own neighborhood. Seeing them cleaning the house and streets, we quickly join in as well.
We I personally did not help them to clean the house like other volunteers, but we help to moved out the damaged furniture to the street. What I did mainly was just to coordinate their working area and mostly throw the waste onto the small truck and arrange waste on the truck before the truck went to the land fill area designated by the government.
The situation at Termeloh was bad. I heard they were surveying the town on a boat, and no petrol in town. Roads were washed away and so many citizens were effected.
3 weeks after the flood, I could not imagine the situation was as bad as I went a week ago in a Malay kampung. I thought the government would have helped them to clear up the area but seems like the effected area is too wide for the government to handle. Very thankful to many social body which come to assist not just the relief but also the cleaning process, which I think they urgently need that more than recourse or monetary assistance. Because without helping them to clean their house, they cannot sleep or cook in the house. They cannot even keep the items people donated.
What make the situation bad was the limitation of water supply. With limited water, cleaning process was very challenging. And all the mud became dust as the weather gets hotter.
We must wear a mask to protect our self from the dust and wearing it for a long time made us uneasy and sweaty.
I saw many of our volunteers really did a good job, especially the ladies and grandma and a a few rich men's kids. They show no sign of resting and afraid of the dirtiness but helped as much as they could.
Cash for work turned out to be a little messy due to some misunderstanding, some cheating etc. But all were sorted very well by the volunteers.
In the end of the day, we were just there to do our very best to ease the hardship of the victims. We hope them the very best and my tan definitely worth it.
Many passersby on the street appreciated our effort by honking us and giving us thumbs up sign. Of course master has always teach us to give without asking anything in return. All the little act from them are just an bonus for us.
So many touching stories were shared from the volunteers and all the love giving. Hopefully races and religion tension will be loosen after our work together effort.