island cassie

Yes Daen - here in the north of the island, Olga was worse than Noel. Thousands of people have lost everything and most of the deaths occurred when they had to open the Tavera dam floodgates to stop it from bursting. They warned people but they wouldn't leave. Those of us who are fortunate have been bringing clothes, food and drinking water to the areas nearest to us. Luckily the villages near to James' finca (pics in my gallery) get free clean drinking water from his streams, but other flooded areas have dead animals floating etc - horrible and very dangerous.

Sadly these two storms will set the country back a couple of years - just when it was starting to recover from the Baninter Bank collapse. There has been great damage to the rice, plantain and banana crops - well to all the food crops really and at the moment prices are almost double which makes life hard for the ordinary Dominican. But people are helping each other and employers have given out the Christmas bonuses ahead of time. Soon it will stop raining and when the sun shines things will look better for everyone!