Photo: Mazen's host family's home surrounded by flood waters after the storm

By: Mazen Tej (YES 2016 – 2017, Tunisia, hosted by AIFS/AYA in Florence, SC)

Coming from Tunisia, I've never been in a hurricane before. That started to change one Tuesday at my host school, when people spent the whole day talking about Hurricane Matthew.

At first, I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. People in my host community must be used to this kind of weather. But later, when I was waiting for my bus to go home, a student told me that we won’t be having school for the rest of the week. That's when I started worrying a bit and realizing it was serious.

I was expecting weather to get bad on Wednesday but it did not, I actually went to the mall with my friends and even got to go to my soccer practice. Thursday wasn't bad either, the weather was fine all day. However, on Friday morning, I was awakened by my host mom telling me to hurry up and get dressed because they needed my help.

We were flooding. I was pretty confused at first because I was sleeping but as soon as I got downstairs, I was surprised by the scene. Our entire front yard was covered with water. I had to get outside to help transport my host dad’s landscaping equipment out of the water. It was still raining, and it kept raining all day so I had to stay inside. We were lucky enough that no water got inside and even though the power went out, we had a generator.

The next day, my host dad and I went for a ride on his truck to see the damages caused. I had never seen anything like that before. Water was everywhere. Trees fell down on all around, including on houses, and in the middle of the street, often taking down power poles with them. It was really sad.

The next day, we went and helped my host mom's dad because he had a tree leaning on his house. We saw even more damage around his neighborhood. Traffic lights were off, so traffic was crazy. There were people everywhere trying to get supplies from the grocery stores. Restaurant lines went all the way to the front door. Gas stations were running out of gas. It was bad.

The day after, I volunteered with my host dad and some of his landscaping team to remove fallen trees from the streets. We worked together for about five hours. It was nice helping with what I can after what happened.

I also joined my group of exchange students and their host parents at the Ebenezer Baptist Church Youth to help pack bag lunches for the lineman who are working to restore power. That was great. We spent the whole morning packing lunches and carrying supplies like water and food.

Overall, Hurricane Matthew was an experience I'll never forget and I'm so proud of myself for helping with what I can to get things back to normal.

Photo, right: Mazen (second from right) volunteers to help make lunches for flood relief workers.