One Year after the Hurricanes in Cuba

Mariana Acosta Martinez huddled in her home on Cuba's Isla de la Juventude, listening to the winds howl as they punched through windows, blew open doors, ripped off roofs and shredded walls. It was August 2008 and Hurricane Gustav was moving furiously over the island, straight south of Havana, leaving a path of destruction in its wake.

The winds reached an astonishing 340 km/h. More than 200 mm of rain fell. When Mariana finally emerged from her home, she found utter devastation. As president of the Association of Agricultural and Forest Technicians of Cuba (ACTAF), she toured the island on a motorbike to assess the damage. What she saw brought tears.

The island's vibrant green was gone, replaced by bare branches, barren fields and the blue-grey of vegetation that looked as if it had been burned by the wind. Thousands of homes were damaged or utterly destroyed. Factories, schools, health facilities, offices and farms were severely damaged. Not a single light or telephone pole was left standing.

A year later, during a visit to Oxfam Canada's Ottawa office, Mariana said the island has made remarkable progress - but there is still plenty to do.

Gustav's destruction was so severe, Mariana compared it to a nuclear hit. Homes were stripped bare by the wind, the furious hurricane picking up clothing, tools and other household items and carrying them away. "For many people," she said "t was the first time they felt like they were living in complete poverty."

There was just nothing left.

Five days after the hurricane hit, Mariana met Beat Schmid, Oxfam Canada`s Cuba Program Coordinator, at a meeting. He asked how Oxfam could help. "What can I ask for if we have nothing?", she remembered telling him. Farm tools, farm clothes, even farm boots had been blown away by the wind. The crops - only weeks away from harvest - were decimated.

But Oxfam Canada donors responded with generosity. Within days, supplies were arriving. "As soon as they arrived, I got on a tractor with a cart behind it and off I went," she said, snapping her fingers to show the urgency of the deliveries. Rubber boots, gloves, work clothes, backpack fumigators, parts to fix an irrigation machines - all were distributed as fast as they arrived.

Within 21 days, farmers were reaping leafy greens. In urban gardens they'd planted rows and rows of cucumbers, carrots and green beans on raised beds - anything with a short growing season that could quickly feed the Cuban people.

Mariana even ordered some green T-shirts, green because there was nothing green left on the island. Those too were distributed to farmers. "The green for them represented their hope and their happiness," she said, tearing up.

In the year since Gustav -- then Hurricane Ike -- ripped through the Island of Youth, farmers have planted more than 2,300 trees. The electricity has been restored. School resumed only two weeks late. In the urban gardens, which supply food for hospitals, daycares, schools and families, farmers are harvesting cabbages, beets, onions and other vegetables. Oxfam Canada also supplied mesh netting to place on poles over the farmers' beds, not only to protect them from birds, but also to shade them from the intense tropical sun. Some farmers have been specially trained to collapse the mesh and their supporting poles when the island`s hurricane warning system sends out an alert.

A year later, there is still much to do. "We`re still struggling to get roofs on all the houses," she said. Two hurricanes followed Gustav and the roofing cooperative has been unable to keep up with demand.

Gustav literally destroyed everything but the will of the Cuban people. It has not been easy, Mariana said, but they are on the path to recovery.