Tropical Cyclone Pam prompts Vanuatu's new mothers to call babies Pam and Pamela
Updated
Pam and Pamela have suddenly become popular names for new babies in Vanuatu since the country was hit by Cyclone Pam last Friday.
The local charity ambulance operation Promedical has been involved with two babies called Pam in the past few days and Australian volunteer paramedic Charlotte Gillon said there had been others too.
Charlotte delivered Trisha Ronald's little girl in the back of the ambulance immediately after another birth of a little Pamela.
"Just before we got a call to come see Trisha we picked up a baby... just outside of the city or the town and she'd already been named Pamela so we dropped her off at hospital and then we got this call."
Trisha decided to call her baby Charlotte Pam for the paramedic and to mark the cyclone.
Young paramedic Charlotte, who has been in Vanuatu for two years under the Australian Volunteers International program, said that was a great honour, and a bright spot in a challenging week.
"It's wonderful to do a job like this at a time like this when the nation's grappling with a national disaster and to have a joyful healthy baby girl born is wonderful work."
Promedical is a not-for-profit ambulance service that survives via donations and subscriptions. In the days after the storm, with communications down, manager Michael Benjamin and his staff simply drove around looking for people who needed help.
He said the community response to the storm had been inspiring.
"The people are just simply amazing. I can't believe the amount of work that these local people are putting in and how quickly they've got the roads clear and electricity on and water on. It's just pretty impressive."
Having been stretched by the demands after the storm, Promedical has set up a fundraising page so it can continue to provide an effective service.
Meanwhile, a week on from Cyclone Pam, communities in Vanuatu are on the brink of running out of food and water as aid agencies and local authorities grapple with meeting the immense need.
The Vanuatu government estimates that more than 100,000 people have been made homeless by the storm, and not all communities have yet been reached.
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The storm, which struck a week ago today, has left the people shocked, homeless and unsure of what to do next.
Cooper Henry, a school teacher from Northern Effate, said the people were catching and eating flying foxes and birds.
"Things are getting expensive, rice, the main food in town, is getting expensive. We are trying to find something else like flying bats, flying foxes...We also ate birds. It's so sad, they too want to live but somehow since they are under our management so we just have to kill."
Food in Vanuatu comes mostly from small gardens but they have been completely wiped out and will take months or years to re-establish.
It is also emerging that some communities near the coast are dealing with more than wind damage.
Takara village in Effate's North and the neighbouring island of Emao both experienced a storm surge that wiped out most of the houses.
Chief Robbie Peter, who heads Takara, a village of around 350 people, is grappling with their need for food, water and shelter, having lost everything himself.
He said the wave went over the top of his house.
The government is determined to co-ordinate the distribution of aid to avoid a fragmented approach due to the number of agencies on the ground.
It is hoped that negotiations between agencies and authorities will allow the movement of aid to be accelerated in coming days.
Topics: disasters-and-accidents, cyclones, charities, babies, vanuatu, australia
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