Off to see the Wizard

It was six months ago this past weekend that the floods of February did so much damage here in Madeira. The casual visitor to Funchal would probably not be aware of the immensity of the tragedy; the fact that many businesses never reopened is not apparent at first sight. A trip to the mountains, however, reveals that much remains the same. Our church received around €7000 to help victims. Our thought was to help those who lost their furniture and appliances to replace them, but we discovered many of these people have not been able to repair their houses. Until they receive aid to rebuild, they have no place or need for appliances and furniture. We are following the developments in the case of a couple of families. (In our church, Sis. Fernanda benefited from €400 to do the repairs to her floor that she felt were necessary. We would have done more, but she insisted she didn't need further repairs.)

The storm was a severe blow to tourism, which was already suffering from the economic crisis. Many millions of euros been lost so far this year.

First the flood, then the fire...

The week of the 12th of August, the mountains of Madeira caught fire. Looking to the mountaintops now, above timberline what was green is black all around the skyline above Funchal. Lower down on the slopes, the trees still stand but there is a definite line where the green leaves become brown. It's too easy to see exactly how far down the fires came.

The local newspaper, the Diário de Notícias published a photo taken by NASA, showing the fires on August 13. To say things are looking black for Madeira this year is not just figurative.

Yesterday, over on the neighboring island of Porto Santo, during a political rally, a large palm tree fell, crushing some of those in the crowd. One lady died at the scene, several others were badly injured. The rally was canceled, of course. The island president, in his comments, said the following:

"2010 is a year in which we must see a witch. With everything that has happened to our archipelago in 2010, pray that this year is over soon."

While his reference to resorting to a witch can be taken as a common expression used in Portuguese when things go wrong, the truth is that witchcraft is not uncommon here. When we were remodeling our house, word got back to us that our neighbor had gone to a witch to have a spell put on our house "so that workers would get hurt and the work would never get finished". The workers were never injured, but I nearly broke my leg. By the grace of God, what could have been a major injury only hobbled me for a couple of months. And the house project did get finished. So much for witchcraft used against God's work.

...to see a witch... I know many people here would, many people do, and I'm confident many have.