Watching and Waiting

The Man that Knows Everything knocked on my roof this morning at 7am demanding coffee. He’s a happy bunny because he had just heard from his new love in The Philippines that she and her family are safe.  She’d queued for four hours to make a three minute telephone call.  She said there was no sign of any food being distributed within the city and was surprised that throughout the world money was being donated to help them.  Four days must seem an eternity to be without food or fresh water and to live amongst the death and destruction of this typhoon. It is easy to criticise the government and aid agencies for doing too little too slowly but the logistics of moving help to disaster zone must be incredibly difficult.

I am doing what he has spent the last few days doing. Watching video after video to see if there is a face I can recognise:  looking at the scenes of devastation to see if I can identify places of safety that friends could have gone to: the office I worked from is no longer standing:  the area of Sagakahan where my friend and god-daughter live is flattened and under water.

Going to school

 

As my son said we often see images of disasters of displaced and grieving people but when you know the place and many of the inhabitants those images are so much more emotive. 

Barugo Church

I keep wondering if the lovely children in the schools I visited have survived, what about the chatty man who sold me roast chicken and the miserable old cow at the supermarket check-out.  What about MacMac who strapped half coconut husks on his feet to polish my floor. I can’t get any information about what has happened in Barugo where the biscuit makers co-operative I worked with live or in Barangay Bukid where the chicken rearing project was started.  All we can do at the moment is to watch and wait and give money to the aid agencies.  When the communications are up and running then I can send money directly.  I think Western Union will get the money transfer system working as soon as possible, after all they aren’t going to miss a business opportunity like this, then I can send money directly to the people to help them try and rebuild their lives. It is all I can do.

 

The eye of the storm

Here on The Nene we battened down the hatches for a storm that never arrived.  It seems trivial that we even worried about it when you compare it to the truly devastating storm that has hit The Philippines.

Tacloban Harbour in calmer times

I’m finding the news from there particularly poignant because the centre of the storm was in Tacloban a city I lived in for two years.  I can look at the pictures of the devastation and recognise the places that have been damaged.  I know how vulnerable are the shanty towns that have grown up around the edge of the Tacloban Bay.  Many of the people that I worked with lived in bamboo dwellings roofed with grass which offer little protection from falling coconut and banana trees or telegraph poles.

 

Tacloban Shanty Town

I lived through one typhoon that’s epicentre passed through the city.  It was nowhere near as strong as this typhoon and I lived in a concrete house above the areas liable to flooding yet it was still frightening.  I can only imagine how terrifying it was to have the wind howling around a house amongst trees, with roofs that are about to take off and watching torrential rain fall and see the water rising or to live on a hillside where the drenching could trigger landslips.

 The people of The Philippines are resilient.  They have to because disasters strike regularly. They will pick themselves up, clear up the mess and get on with their lives.  They will do it with humour and humanity. One thing my two years in Tacloban did teach me was to love and respect the Filipinos, especially the very poor. At the moment I can’t reach any of the people I know out there but my thoughts are with them and I hope they have come through the storm unscathed.



Bohol hit by the typhoon and a recent earthquake