Our beautiful oasis, our families home and livelihood, our friends and community's home away from home...
Katamah was heartbreakingly crushed and washed away by Hurricane Melissa on Tuesday October 28th as it tore through the Caribbean.
The beating heart of every small business is the family who creates it. We have cherished sharing our hearts and home with so many incredible, special people around the world. It has been our great honor to create a sanctuary space for peace, healing, togetherness, tranquility and reconnection with nature in what has become an increasingly stressful world. We have felt we have been doing what we were put here on earth to do when travelers from all walks of life have made Katamah their home too... whether for a week, a month, a season or year after year for over a decade.
Those who have been visiting and following our guest house for years will recall the other natural disasters and acts of God we have faced with bravery and determination. The first was the 2016 fire that blazed 50 feet in the air and burned us down overnight, then there was the global shut down of travel during the pandemic years and the wreck of Hurricane Beryl in 2024 that we only just finished rebuilding from. The devastation of Hurricane Melissa on October 28th has hit us harder than any other tragedy we have ever faced at Katamah, in Treasure Beach and in Jamaica.
Anyone who knows our family will tell you, we have always done everything ourselves. We are an owner-operated multi-generational family business. We work around the clock as a team, through family meals till late into the nights, and then again first thing when we greet each other every morning. We talk about what Katamah needs and every day of our lives is spent doing whatever is needed... we assist guests in person, by phone and by email around the clock. We carry extra beds, unlock doors at all hours when keys are misplaced, we repair windows and toilets and constantly upgrade bedding and furnishings to provide the highest quality and comfort to our guests.
We carefully dream, design and create every turn of the gardens, every building, every coffee set up, every patio, every bedroom layout and every peaceful terrace to enhance the natural beauty of the land and our guests connection to it. For 15 years we have been the sole creators, builders, investors, designers, plumbers, landscapers, architects, managers, coordinators and administrators of the Katamah sanctuary.
What we need now is to be able receive help. Financial support now allows us to get assistance as soon as its available to firstly clean up the debris and remove the parts of our home and business that are not salvageable. We will then begin the many other grueling layers of clean up. After Beryl, with little to no resources or aid we completed this process ourselves bit by bit. It took us 13 months. And then Melissa came and wiped out all our efforts. The level of the rubble and debris left by Melissa is so much higher and so heartbreaking that we cannot possibly undertake this on our own.
Below are some greatly helpful ways that you, your families and communities can support us in our greatest hour of need.
Please contribute and share as best you can.
With all our gratitude,
Moni, Simon, Maya & Family
