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Stacey William's Holiday , October 11th 2009. |
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All the houses collapsed. | The challenge. | ||
When I first planned my 5 weeks in the Philippines I had planned to volunteer in schools, I had no idea what the Philippines had in store for me though. I was lucky enough to receive information through Springboard Foundation (a great Foundation that has done so much to help the victims of this and other disasters as well as providing structural help when the Philippines has no disaster) that The Hope Foundation Day Care Centre in Baseco, Manila needed help with a Drop in Program. I was excited to discover that everyday I would be working with the kids in games! No lesson plan, just friendly afterschool fun. One week into my Volunteering and a Typhoon hit Manila. Baseco was very lucky and managed to stay above water so my work continued. I was a little torn now however between staying with Hope or finding relief work for the Typhoon. Thursday night Springboard called me and asked if I was available to help out at The Mango Tree House. ‘They just need someone to write receipts and take photos, Stacey. It’ll be easy work.’ So by midday Friday I was in a truck bustling through traffic on my way with over 500 bags of relief goods. |
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| Digging for... | ISM faculty plus others. | Muddy Hell | |
The Mango Tree house (www.asct.org.uk) is a newly built building and it is flooded. Not with water but with helping hands. The staff and children are splendid to work and play with and I’ve been welcomed so quickly into their family I’m sorry I’m not staying longer. Little did I know that Craig, the Manager of Mango Tree was waiting for me to arrive and had plenty more in store for me than just receipts and photos! The Mango Tree House has been very impressive, warming and busy! In the three days that I’ve been here I’ve seen over 3000 bags of good be delivered directly into the hands of the Typhoon victims. We drove to Wawa and I was told that along the bank of the river there used to be about 100 meters more of land and along with that, peoples houses! As we handed out goods to a long line of waiting families people held out their yellow ticket stubs that had been given out earlier in the day by the Barangay council. The delivering of the goods was very well organised and the officials had a well structured system which saw that the line was gone within minutes and people were all walking away with a plastic bag, food for the week and a smile... actually they never seem to stop smiling. The following morning we returned to Wawa to visit the other side where people’s path to their home was washed away. We gave goods again and also got to see the massive destruction this river has had on this little town. We passed areas where land had fallen away, where houses were missing and also where new rocks and land had appeared from land slides above. The river was still raging as we walked and we began to wonder, this is not a matter of how many survived, but how? The girls in school uniforms that were walking past us on a non existent path back home were having to stop to allow men with big bundles of bamboo over their shoulders heading to the town to start rebuild their homes. Where did all these people go when the Typhoon swallowed up their home? Where do you go when the water is rising up and the land slides are tumbling down? |
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| Not mucking around | The bucket brigade | The refuse of our lives |
One thing was for sure, I had a lot more to do than plan games for the next after school activity. That world had suddenly slipped away and the reality of what we were dealing with had sunk in.I’m glad to be staying here at Mango Tree House and have a few distractions. By this time its Friday night and the kids are having a games night, So the Karaoke machine was finally switched off and the children all sat around waiting for the instructions for their first game. The elders of the children prepared the games so not only was I the only white person, I was the only adult. I watched as they played, laughed and screamed when they didn’t get the answer right. All of a sudden I was seated in the centre of the room and they all introduced themselves one by one then shot 100 questions my way. ‘Are you married?’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Have you studied?’ ‘Who is your family?’ The intensities of the day were beginning to fall away as the children’s smiles were proving to be contagious, as they always are.
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Today was the day.
So far we had heard about these affected areas. We had seen photos but we had failed to put foot to mud, as it were. The day started well with over eager volunteers from International School of Manila who were well prepared with Welly boots and smiles! We arrived at Dela Costa to discover houses and streets that had been over 10 foot submerged in water. Some of the power lines from house to house still had twigs and mud stuck on them from the water almost 2 weeks ago. The worst of the streets were not hard to find, we simply followed the cars and people covered toes to waist with mud! We spread out into two of the worst streets which both backed onto two more streets which were just as bad. People were outside their homes throwing their positions out into the streets amongst the piles of mud. Front verandas and even inside some houses were 2 to 3 feet deep in mud and people were trying to attack it with the little supplies they had. One lady was picking up piles of mud and placing it into a toy truck and pulling it on a string out to the street! We were all quick to finally start shovelling mud and to help. It only occurred to me when at the days end and we had shovelled away peoples personal belongings into the street, how incredibly happy the streets were. Everyone was smiling and lending a hand. Life goes on for these people. They seem to know that they still have the most important thing, their family. And here in the Philippines that means more than just your own. It includes your neighbour who you’ve lived next to for 10 years, the jeepney driver you see every day, the store owner who feeds your children. These people still have their community and to see how well they all worked together to help each other today was overwhelming.
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| Together we can............. | Who cares wins. | |
Our helping hands managed to clear two main side streets and also with the donations from Springboard Foundation we were able to clear it all from the main road with a Bob Cat. There were many other volunteers who arrived during the day and we were able to put many hands into good work by having a train line of buckets and shovelers. We’d been digging for about two hours and I was fed I up! I finally announced to my fellow diggers that, ‘PLASTIC BAGS ARE THE ENEMY!’ You have no idea how hard it is to shovel mud when there’s a big garbage bag or even just a small plastic bag in amongst it all! Cripes! Unfortunately they were not the only things we had trouble digging up. We shovelled up shoes, toys, clothes, books, but digging up 3 photo albums was the hardest thing for me. I asked a man whose house we were next to and he said he didn’t know the people. It’s very possible the photos were from a family in another street. Although the streets we cleared both back onto others that are just as bad, today was a great success. We were able to clear a lot of mud and we were also able to donate some of the tools to help the people clear more of the mud from their houses in the days to come. The friendly crew from International School of Manila have all had so much fun today that they decided they will return each weekend to help until Dela Costa is cleaned up. The day finished with some new friends made and sad farewells but not to worry, we all had so much fun, I’m sure the streets of Dela Costa will see us back soon to help some more. |
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Tomorrow morning it all starts again with three dispatches of goods, one dedicated to mothers and babies, a medical aid program and as usual, a whole lot of fun! My day will start at about 6am and I will have volunteers here ready to pack. Which is a good thing because right now I’ve got a room full of unorganised clothes, over 2000 bags of food being delivered tomorrow, babies dippers being delivered tomorrow, a medical aid program that’s running at 1pm and you know what? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. STACEY WILLIAMS |