SHE is one brave lady who held her family together on the dark night in which thousands of homes were destroyed.
Sixty-year-old Veniana Melania was under a tree for five hours with her four young grandchildren and an adult son to survive. Veniana fought the wrath of Severe TC Winston on February 20, 2016 to save her family.
A few days before February 20, Veniana was in Suva for a relative’s wedding. On the morning of February 20, she was strictly told by her relatives not to travel but she returned to Narau because of her grandchildren.
“Everyone told me not to travel but I was worried for my grandchildren. Only my 20-year-old son was home and no one else to look after the younger ones,” said the grandmother of 16, 10, eight and two-year-olds.
She reached home not knowing what would happen next. Veniana described the cyclone as the devil that came to take their lives.
“I had never seen anything like that in my life. The wind was so strong and everything in the house and the house itself was shaking,” she said.
Not long after, the roof and the walls of her house were blown away.
“We just remained standing in a circle with nothing around us and with no roof over our head. My grandchildren were screaming and crying and my only concern was to save them somehow,” she said.
The houses at Narau are far apart. There was no house to which Veniana and her family could run for shelter.
“We just held each other’s hands and decided to walk to the next big tree nearby. There was no other option,” she said. The tree is about 150m away from where her house was.
“I told the kids to be very fast when moving and we were holding each other’s hands tightly. While moving towards the tree, I fell and my son quickly picked me up and we started crawling more than walking.
“I remember my 10-year-old granddaughter saying she would fly in the wind if she didn’t hold me tightly.
“I was praying that nothing bad to happen to us when we were crawling towards the tree. The wind was so strong that I couldn’t even hear my own voice when I wanted to talk to my children,” she said.
“We were sitting under the tree from 6 to 11pm. It was a long hard wait but I thank the Lord because we are still alive,” said a tearful Veniana.
Apart from the wind and rain, there were other problems.
“Although we were at a high spot, the floodwaters still reached us. It was windy and raining so we were soaked wet. To make things worse, our legs were dipped in floodwaters as we waited under the tree.”
Another close call was when a piece of roofing iron nearly hit them.
“When we were waiting under the tree, one big tin came from somewhere and hit the other side of the tree with a loud bang. We were sitting on the other side, lucky it didn’t hit us,” she said.
She now only has the will to rebuild. Veniana is a widow and does vegetable farming for a living. She wants to move on with a positive attitude and forget the terrifying night.
“What we went through was a horrible experience and I don’t want to think about it.
“I just hope and pray that good things will happen now and I’m glad I was here for my children and that we are alive today,” she said with a smile.
With a big hug and a kiss, Veniana received the emergency shelter kits recently distributed by Habitat for Humanity Fiji. HFH Fiji, with the support of its donors, has distributed over 1400 emergency shelter kits in close to 60 communities throughout Fiji. The nonprofit NGO aims to distribute 5000 emergency shelter kits to families adversely affected by Severe TC Winston.
* Dorine Narayan is with HFH Fiji.