It was raining, it was raining a lot. That Tuesday, October 29, I was in Turís, my town, the town where the most water fell in all of Spain. Fortunately we are all fine, but while I was watching the rain I never thought about the consequences of that storm that we now all know by its acronym, DANA, an isolated depression at high levels.
I remember that I did think, of course, about the people I had just met in Liberia just a couple of weeks before. I thought about Promise and his tin house in a small town, Garpue, which took us an hour and a half to reach over a journey of a few kilometers because the rainy season had left the muddy road impassable. What would happen if those rains fell like that for so long there? If leaks had appeared in my house, what would have happened in yours?
I have been writing about catastrophes caused by climate change in Africa for years and it always sounded distant. I have read and written about the cyclone that buried the city of Beira in Mozambique underwater, about floods in northern Tanzania and about extreme droughts not seen in a century in southern Africa, but that are happening right now.
No matter how much I saw it raining that day, I never thought about the misfortune that my eyes later saw in neighboring towns. I just thought how lucky I was to have a house in good condition that would give me good shelter. What would become of Promise if instead of Turís it had flooded in Garpue? I was thinking about that map that showed the climate vulnerability index and that turned Africa red.
While in Valencia they talk about aid for people who have lost everything due to DANA, I think of those African officials who work from Baku (Azerbaijan) at COP29 to scratch a few euros that will determine the piggy bank that will be available for repairs for future cyclones , like what happened with Freddy in Malawi, or floods like Derna in Libya.
A few days later, when the Internet connection was restored in my town and my friends and colleagues’ cell phones were beeping asking if I was okay, I was still unaware of the tragedy. Soon I looked at the images of other places and my eyes couldn’t believe what they saw before them. Paiporta was Derna.
In that avalanche of news I was able to see something that gladdened my heart and connected my home with the continent to which I dedicate myself. Thanks to Sara Alonso and the radio, that great ally in the darkness of disconnection, I learned the story of Kunle, a man who arrived with the Aquarius, the ship that we welcomed in Valencia at the moment of maximum solidarity with irregular immigration in Spain . It was 2018, but it seems like another world. Kunle lived in Catarroja when the tongue of water arrived. “I have been saved for the second time,” he said despite having lost the car and part of his life.
Shortly after, some Senegalese singing while cleaning the mud in Alfafar went viral. It was learned that they lived in Salou and that they had taken a few days off to help. Also in Torrent some Senegalese began to help under the orders of the parish priest of Our Lady of Mount Sion, who asked them to go to Picanya. These are the ones who have become known, but there are surely many more anonymous ones who help without having to appear in the media.
In all, I am left with that tremendous solidarity that we have seen. I hope that when deciding where our taxes go, we also think that the rain that fell in Turís and affected Paiporta also does so in many municipalities in Africa that are much less prepared. For them I hope that we have the same solidarity that we have received.
Photography: Albert Llop / Getty
