Yolanda

As many of you are aware, typhoon Yolanda (as it's referred to in the Philippines) touched down about 2 weeks ago. I was not directly hit by it, just a heavy wind and rain for about 5 minutes, but quite a few close volunteer friends of mine had been consolidated to Tacloban City (the city hit hardest) and other areas in the path of the typhoon. This happened Friday, November 8. On Saturday, all communication lines to the affected areas were down so there was no news about how bad the storm had really hit. Communication being down isn't a completely unusual occurrence since Philippine power lines and cell towers are kind of all over the place. So since there was no news, the country just went on with life like normal on Saturday.

On Sunday, we saw the first news stories, and it was devastating. Peace Corps had been sending us texts keeping us informed about our fellow volunteers as news came in. Sunday and Monday were the most emotional days for me. First not knowing if my friends had survived the horrors the news was showing us; then knowing that they were physically okay, but not knowing emotionally how they were handling everything; and then finally hearing what they had seen and experienced. I later heard their hotel had been flooded to the second floor by the storm surge and the wind had blown all the windows out. They had to search for food and water since supplies was low and had been soaking wet and without sleep for 2 days. They had no means of communicating with the outside world, and therefore no way of knowing if they would be rescued. Survival mode in its finest. Early Sunday morning, the 12 that were consolidated at the hotel trekked 3 hrs through the destroyed city, past dead bodies and rubble, to get to the airport where they were crammed on a military C-130 with other refugees and eventually flown to Manila.

I can't even imagine what they've gone through and what they will have to live with the rest of their lives, but even from a bystander's perspective, I have changed. In the past whenever there are natural disasters and victims shown on the news, I've been able to stay emotionally detached and not feel too burdened by the trauma shown. Now I will have something to relate it to and will always feel the desire to help in some way.

On Sunday, when the news was showing us the trauma of Tacloban, I wandered the market in Siaton, trying to find some way to help. I couldn't find anything and was very disheartened by the fact that no one in my community seemed to care that half their country was suffering. However, in the next couple days I began to hear of more and more relief efforts from Siaton and surrounding areas. It hadn't crossed my mind that it would actually take time to set up relief efforts. So many people were either helping make relief packages or donating money or food, the communities were really standing together. This past Monday I was able to help pack relief bags of rice, water, and other food with some of the other volunteers in my area. Together with some of the Philippines military and other Filipino volunteers, we put together more than 2,000 relief packages of food to send! And this was just one group in one city. I've heard of so many people helping and giving, it makes my heart warm.

The impression I've gotten from those in the States is that this typhoon was pretty widely publicized, and I'm so glad this happened. The world needs to understand all the natural disasters the Philippines puts up with on a regular basis. Since I've been in the Philippines I've experienced 2 flood-worthy typhoons, one super typhoon (Yolanda), and a 7.2 earthquake; and it's only been 4 and a half months! Also, take note that Yolanda starts with a “Y.” That means by this point there had already been 25 typhoons in the Philippines THIS YEAR!! I honestly don't know how Filipinos can handle the huge beating Mother Nature gives them. There's a reason why Filipinos are known as resilient. If anyone's looking for a good book to read, check out Plundering Paradise: The Struggle for the Environment in the Philippines. I just started it, but it's a really good eye-opener for everything that's affecting the environment here.

Also, if you haven't donated any money to help the recovery process here, please consider it!!! The American dollar goes so far in the Philippines!! I don't know any rates for how far donations can go, but just imagine this: I can go SCUBA diving for a little over $20 (which is 1,000 pesos). So really, if you just gave $10 you could probably feed a family for a week or two (I'm probably way off on that estimate, no idea whether it's high or low so don't quote me, but you get the idea). PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!! Okay, I'm done asking for money now :)

Filipino Transportation 101

I realize I'm beginning to gloss over the things that have become everyday to me. I'll try to do better with that, and start by explaining modes of transportation here. I can't say much about transportation island to island since I've only flown from Manila to here (and flying is a pretty universal experience), but I can explain transportation on my island.

First off, there are 7 modes of transportation that I've observed so far: personal car, motorcycle, bicycle, public bus, public jeepney, pedicab, pod-pod, or randoms. I'm going to try to explain each one, but since I'm not the most automotive-savvy person in the world, I'm not really down with the whole automotive lingo, so bear with me please.

• Personal car: These are usually manually operated SUVs. I've seen a few automatic ones, but this is rare and usually limited to the wealthier of the wealthy (it's very rare for a family to have its own car).
  
  
• Motorcycle: The city here, Dumaguete (about an hour away from me), was named as the city with the most motorcycles in the world a few years ago. They are everywhere!! And they fit as many people as possible on them. There's a saying here in the Philippines: “There's always room for one.” I've seen motorcycles with as many as 5 people on them, including babies that can't be more than a year old, it's quite scary. They get pretty creative also; I've seen a motorcycle with the man driving it, and a woman sitting behind him somehow holding 2 medium-sized dogs, 1 in front of her and 1 behind. And I have yet to determine the motorcycle driving age here since I've seen kids as young as 13 or 14 driving them.
  
  
• Bicycle: Pretty self-explanatory. Although, I've seen quite a few one-speed bikes here that are really old and rusty, and I cringe every time I think of having to peddle them uphill.
  
  
• Public bus: The main public bus here is the Ceres Liner and it goes all the way along the coast on the 2-lane highway, through all the municipalities. It takes a little over 2 hrs to go from Dumaguete on the east coast to Bayawan on the west coast and there's only one designated stop the whole trip which happens to be in Siaton :) But that doesn't mean that people can only get on and off in Siaton. All you have to do is stand on the side of the road and wave the bus down when you see it come and it'll stop, let you board, and continue on its way. It's the same with getting off; you just tell the conductor when you get to your stop and he'll have the bus stop to let you off. The tricky thing is, if you don't know where you need to get off, you'll miss your stop. To keep this running smoothly there are 2 workers per bus. One is the driver and the other is the conductor. The conductor deals with the tickets and making sure the driver stops when people need to get off. The system works really well. And the best part is that it only costs 50 pesos (~$1.14) to go to the city, although on my living allowance this isn't as cheap as it would seem. Anyway, back to the bus, I've seen some interesting things on that bus, including 2 live chicken being transported in a plastic bag with their heads poking out; a mom changing a baby's diaper; and one time, an old woman tried to spit a huge wad of spit out the door, and it dangled from her mouth before dropping on the step...she looked at it and then returned to her seat. Welcome to the Philippines.
  
  
• Public jeepney: These run the same way as the buses but aren't as consistent (a bus goes by every 10-20 minutes), they only go a couple municipalities over, not the whole coastline, and are usually cheaper than the bus. They can also get way more squished. I've seen jeepneys with about 25 people in them (this density would mean people are sitting with one butt cheek on a seat and then other on their neighbor's lap) with an additional 4 hanging outside on the step and bumper and about 7 or 8 sitting on the roof. It's really quite a site to see.
  
  
• Pedicab: These are trikes (motorcycles with a side seating area attached with an additional wheel) except with a bicycle instead of a motorcycle. These only go short distances (only around the main part of Siaton or other municipalities), which is understandable since the bike is a one-speed. These cost about 9 pesos on average (~$0.20) for any distance. And Filipinos take full advantage of this since they are unwilling to walk more than 2 blocks to anything. They always give me strange looks when I tell them I'm fine with walking.
  
  
• Pod-pod: Exact same thing as a trike, with a different name. These are mostly in the city and also cost 9 pesos for any distance. They work the same as a taxi in the states where you wave it down and get door-to-door service. The only difference is that here you pay 9 pesos per person. So sometimes it's difficult to find a driver willing to take just you across town since he'll be going all that way for only 9 pesos. But if you have more people with you, he's more willing since he'll get more money. One of the things they do is actually wait for more people who need to go to the same place you want to go. So at the bus terminal in the city when I get off the Ceres Liner, I go to the pod-pod pick up spot, tell the driver where I want to go, get in the cab, and then wait for him to find more people that need to go to the same area. It's an interesting difference sharing a ride with complete strangers, but hey, that's how it's done here!
  
  
• Randoms: I really don't have a technical name for this, but it's basically just random vehicles that people crowd into to get a ride somewhere. This can be anything from a truck that's used to carry livestock to the roofs of other vehicles. Filipinos are really inventive with how to get from one place to another.

That's all for now! I hope I was able to educate you on the common modes of transportation in the Philippines!