There's a huge difference between hearing about the damages of Typhoon Haiyan, and actually being in the midst of it. The airport that planes couldn't land in due to flooding, that's where we flew in today. There's literally half an airport left. There's tarps trying to cover as many holes in the wall as possible; and when I say holes, I mean entire chunks of wall that are just gone. The airport is working at its bare minimum, and the entire city looks just as destroyed.
As we were driving through to meet the mayor of Tanauan, I was so stricken. To say that the damages of the storm were devastating doesn't even cover it. You can feel the environment, and how hurt the land and the people are. There's green everywhere, from flooding and fallen trees, and mixed with that are the makeshift homes everyone lives in. There's tarps and metal sheets and so much trash everywhere. There's structures half-standing, without roofs or entire sections of wall. Everything felt like it was in a fixed state of reconstruction or hopelessness. At least, this is how I felt when we initially arrived.
I noticed a ton of signs saying, "No build zone." Upon meeting the Mayor of Tanauan, and even going to the Bayani Challenge later on, I realized that they are learning from the mistake of building homes so close to the coastline. The airport was right next to the ocean, right at sea level. As they are rebuilding, hopefully to make stronger and more durable homes, they know to relocate far from the coastline, to prevent such damages from being so great. The mayor of Tanauan, I think his name was Pat, was working hard to restore his city. He focused on livelihood, funding, infrastructure, and other big picture-type aspects to make his city stronger.
At the Bayani Challenge, there were guest speakers, talking about how they were taking the challenge, and how grateful they are to see such hard work and progress. There were a lot of house structures erected, they just need rooftops and some reinforcing. We were helping mix cement with "two shovels of sand, and one shovel of gravel," according to Marty Lorenzo, who is someone I've been able to get closer to on this trip. He has really amazing insight, and though his life is so busy, he is still able to come out here and reconnect, and help tremendously.
Something I noticed during the event was that while the speakers were talking, everyone, and I mean, EVERYONE was listening and giving their total focus and respect to the person speaking. That was incredible. I'm so used to crowds of Filipinos not being able to stop talking, in college or in other groups. The focus and respect in this process is amazing, and the spirit is inspiring as well. Everyone was helping out, from teenagers to lolo's and lola's. All these people are putting in "sweat equity." Since they don't have the money to pay for the houses in the village, they need to donate at least 2000 hours helping build, I believe. The houses they build individually may not even be their own, but in the end everyone still comes together to benefit the community, and houses are distributed fairly.
It felt good to finally do some work, digging and lifting bags of dirt. I got to use old leg muscles I hadn't exerted in a while, and I felt accomplished. There's so much work to be done in Tacloban, in this whole region. Although people have shelter, it's not anywhere near strong or sturdy enough. The lives of the people here are revolved around survival and rebuilding. Hopefully, the houses in the GK village will be finished by next year, and hopefully more schools will be rebuilt by the time the kids have to go back in June.
After lunch, we went to a place called Tent City. It's literally a village of tents. We were greeted by a huge mob of kids. We got to talking to them, and set off to find residents to interview. Willy Santos and Dean, Rob Banta's Chief of Staff, were handing out food to the kids, and they were completely ravenous for it. Soon, we were surrounded by kids with chocolate candy, cookies, and chips. Rob Banta's daughter, Reina, had her first experience in a village, interacting with kids. We had a lot of fun, singing and playing with the kids. They spoke a lot better English here, which made me feel a little bit better. I inferred that they still went to school.
After a while, a group of girls broke off from the crowd to play games together. There were lots of Tagalog rhymes and dances, but OH MY GOD THEY KNEW "RIDE THAT PONY." They started playing it, the way we learned it at Filipino Culture Night practices, and Savannah and I immediately started playing with them. Many, many rhymes and games later, we were able to teach them slide, before having to leave. Playing with the kids is always a very rewarding part of the village visits, because these kids can still have fun and be curious and be themselves, even in the midst of all the chaos.
We have 3 more days here, I think. There's so much to be done. People to meet, builds to partake in, and a lot of information to absorb. The resilience of Filipinos is 100% genuine and real, as is the resourcefulness in reconstruction. Tacloban is going in the right direction, it's just taking a while to process.
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