Cyclone assistance in 90% humidity!

We travelled 6 hours from our base in White River to Tshedza and Vuvha villages in the north of Limpopo to assist the persons effected by Cyclone Eloise which caused damage to these villages leaving people in distress and in need of assistance.

With roads dry enough to travel on, the road between Tshedza and Vuvha villages was a challenge for our vehicle to transverse in places due to the 1.65 tons of food we were carrying to the people worst affected by the Cyclone. Entering Tshedza the damage to infrastructure, roads and some houses was evident quickly with one lady standing in a gaping hole in her wall, with a piece of her roof hanging down precariously. Amazingly she greeted me with a smile, and was very grateful to receive a food parcel, maize meal and eggs from me. As she only speaks Venda, I couldn’t ask her about what happened and how she was planning to fix her house again.

Our aim was to seek out persons to assist with food that have damage to their houses are infirm or elderly.

Many persons told stories of how their vegetable gardens are fully or partially destroyed and houses flooded with damage to their furniture and one “Granny” told me in perfect Afrikaans, that all her food for the month got wet as it was standing on the ground in her kitchen.

Eloise reportedly uprooted trees, blocked roads, and destroyed buildings in affected areas, with at least two deaths reported.

The combination of very high humidity and extreme heat made delivering and offloading 50 food parcels of 20kg each and 50 bags of maize meal 12.5kg each sweaty work as we needed to leave due to a fast building thunderstorm and we didn’t want to get rained in, as the already soaked ground will not take much to make traveling impossible.

These two villages are precariously situated between mountains making it very vulnerable to flooding and mud slides.

Due to the generosity of our donors we were able to assist 50 families worst effected by this severe tropical storm called Eloise.

We thank you on behalf of all the old and effected people living in Tshedza and Vuvha in Limpopo that don’t have to worry about food for a little while at least.