My experience of a natural disaster

Hurricane Agatha struck the Oaxacan coast of Mexico on Monday 30th of May. Eleven people were killed, dozens more went missing, and total, indiscriminate destruction was wrought upon the busy beach-towns that normally attract thousands of tourists with their natural beauty. It was the strongest hurricane to make landfall along the Pacific coast of Mexico in the month of May since records began in 1949, leaving swathes of people without roofs, power, and even phone service, so when I set off to start my new job in the coastal town of Zipolite, I had no way of knowing that the eye of the hurricane had passed right through the town and all but demolished the hotel where I was due to work. This was my first experience of any kind natural disaster, and what an experience it was.

I left my last volunteering placement on Friday the 27th June and headed for a remote lagoon called Chacahua, which I had been told was the perfect place to find the quiet solitude I had been craving after many weeks spent working in a busy hostel. I had planned to spend three nights there, resting in retreat, before making my way to my new job working on the reception of a boutique hotel in the beach-town of Zipolite, famous for its hippy vibe, LGBTQ scene, and for being the only legal public nude beach in Mexico. I was looking forward to utilising my five free days each week to explore the town and its surroundings, to enjoying some of the famous nights out I had heard about from friends, and to finally having a room to myself after months of sleeping in dorms.

As soon as I arrived at my intermediary stop in Chacahua, I noticed that a lot of people were leaving. They said that the weather had taken a turn and that the sleepy lagoon just wasn’t the same in the wind and rain. For me, it was perfect. I spent two days cosying up in a hammock, reading, dozing, listening to the crashing waves and watching the elements dance and fight and play. Over the weekend, the weather got worse; the wind was already tearing palm-roofs off the top of huts and the rainy ocean spray had dampened all of my belongings in a sandy mist. We were warned that a hurricane was heading in our direction and were advised to move away from the seafront. They set up a refuge and community kitchen at the local church and suspended all of the boats going to and from the lagoon, meaning there was no way for me to leave, as planned, on the Monday morning. In the end, despite the electricity cutting out and a fair few minor structural casualties, the effects of the hurricane weren’t really felt at the lagoon and I was able to leave on Tuesday morning, just one day late.

The WiFi and phone signal in the whole area had completely cut out so I had no way of letting my contact at the new hotel know I was on my way, so I just set off. I got public transport as far as I could, relying on strangers for directions, and as I drew closer to my destination it became more and more apparent that there had indeed been a hurricane. The landscape had been stripped bare. There was mud and water everywhere. Roads were blocked or broken by fallen trees and electricity cables, and all around me the faces were forlorn. It got harder and harder to progress on my journey, and I wasn’t sure of what I would find when I arrived, but by that point I had come so far and I didn’t know where else to go. Following several legs of walking and hitch-hiking, I arrived at the hotel. I felt completely ridiculous: a young, white backpacker turning up to a hurricane destruction site while everyone else was either fleeing in the opposite direction or scooping up the pieces of their lives that had been scattered and shattered by the storm.

Like everywhere else, the hotel where I was supposed to be working had been well and truly beaten up by Agatha (more like pinned to the floor and pummelled, mugged and pissed on), and all of the guests had left the day that I arrived. Windows of the cabins had been shattered, roofs had been torn off, and water had flooded several of the rooms. Thankfully there was a bed that was not *too* soggy for me to sleep in, though it was an uneasy nights sleep and I woke feeling damp to the bone. Everything, everywhere, was sodden, which made the humid heat feel all the more intense. The mosquitos were thriving in the muggy wasteland, and a new level of discomfort lodged itself amongst the itching and the sweating and the distress of the situation. There was no electricity, which meant no fans to control the temperature or the mosquitos, no fridges or freezers to keep any food or cold drinks, no lights at night, and no WiFi. There was also no phone service, so I hadn’t been able to get in touch with anyone back home to let them know I was OK, which actually proved to be one of the most stressful parts of the experience as I knew how much people would be worrying. I had also been warned that we were at particular risk of crime, being that there was no power at night time and no possibility to phone for help, so when I heard shouts and screams one night, I locked myself in my cabin, lying stock-still in the dark until I fell asleep. The next day I found out that the screams were from children playing nearby.

There was, of course, no job for me on reception. I helped out where I could, collecting all of the soaked linens from the rooms, sweeping up shattered glass and scooping the ankle-deep water out of the flooded basement with a large-size yoghurt pot. It was hard work in the heat, but it felt good to be a part of the team. It reminded me of the start of the pandemic, when it was all anybody could think or talk about, but there was a strong team spirit in the air - people helping one another through the mess, knowing that everyone was in it together. All of the food and drink and stories and laughter continued, which was a beautiful and powerful thing to witness as someone who had lost little more to the hurricane than her envisioned beach holiday. I did feel isolated, and I was fretting over what I would do now that this opportunity had fallen through, but when I watched the resilience of the people whose lives had been torn apart, I was filled with a deep gratitude that my situation was such a easy one by comparison.

On Thursday, four days after the hurricane struck and five days after I last had any contact with the outside world, we travelled an hour to the city to get supplies and make use of the phone service. I was able to change a flight to Mexico City I had booked for several weeks later, and so I am now safe (and dry) in the capital. I felt a little guilty to be leaving whilst the people I had spent the previous days with had no such option. By the time I left, the place was in much better shape than when I arrived and I have been told that the power is slowly returning to the area. Within a matter of weeks, tourism will resume and peoples lives will return to something more like normal. Natural disasters like this will undoubtedly become a more frequent occurrence as the global climate becomes increasingly destabilised and, unfortunately, it is normally the poorest people who bear the brunt of this. I am once again reminded of my privilege; the possibility I had to dip into an experience like that, and to dip straight back out again, and the privilege that Europeans enjoy having polluted the Earth to a climate-altering extent whilst dodging the worst of the consequences.

Whilst journaling at the lagoon in the calm before the storm (so to speak), I wrote:

Life is a rich and powerful thing, just like the ocean. Beautiful and sweet in places, like the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean, and belligerent and hostile in others, like the violent tides that sink ships and claim lives.

Humans have an incredible capacity for resilience - for creating calm waters inside of us whilst a hurricane is raging outside. We can also talk, think and feel ourselves into an inner-storm where there might objectively be no real danger to speak of. If we can learn to better regulate our response to challenges and our receptivity to hope, we can better navigate stormy waters and start to reclaim power over the tides of our lives. Here, I think it is the people who have lost the most who would perhaps have the most to teach us.