Ongoing Yolanda Relief Work

While I have left the Philippines, I was struck by a news story that flashed before me at the ferry terminal in Ormoc: "Corpses are still being recovered in Tacloban." It was four months after Super Typhoon Yolanda blasted through Tacloban City and bodies were still being found and people were still lining up for rice and food rations.

Feet dangling from the top of a jeepney on the way home from work.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Tacloban, the area hardest hit by Yolanda, is All Hands' next area of concentration. When I left, there was a small group of six to eight people setting up a new base there and getting started on a major neighborhood rebuild project. With a number of projects to be completed between Ormoc and Kananga, All Hands was following through on their commitments to the area I served in before moving everyone to Tacloban.

While parts of the Island Leyte are getting electricity, each home and business has to pay to reconnect to the lines - and with little business income after the storm, this can be impossible for many. Depending on the size of the home, it could be P400 (~$10USD), but too much for many on the Island.

Despite rainy season's end at the beginning of February, mid-March tropical storms and a small typhoon have dampened a week's worth of work. When people are living in temporary cardboard, plywood, tarpaulin, and tin huts, the extra and unseasonable rain and wind makes for difficult circumstances. One of All Hands' teams in the mountains was virtually rained out of a weeks worth of work in their wind torn tents with battered equipment.

This is the reality of working in the Philippines and serves as a reminder to stay aware of people who need help: Please do not forget the Philippines.

A sign I spotted in Ormoc: "Ormoc is now HOPEFUL and We are THANKFUL
to YOU generous PEOPLE."
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Yolanda was a wicked and destructive storm and the work is far from over. There is so much work to be done yet - so many homes (temporary and permanent) to be built, unsafe structures to be taken down, people who need food, and families who need their livelihood back. My All Hands donation site is closed now, but here are several ways you can still donate if you are able:

• www.world renew.net
• www.hands.org
• www.doctorswithoutborder.org
• or your favorite international aid organization (Red Cross, World Health Organization, UNICEF, Save the Children, World Vision, etc).

A recent update (with a video) from All Hands puts some numbers to the Project:
"We established Project Leyte in late November, and since then we have assisted 2,998 families, and 22,571 people total, in the recovery...we have relied on 6,550 days of donated labor by 286 volunteers from 32 countries around the world."

One of the women who joined Project Leyte, Chloe "Crutches" Lyttle, with her 19 Toes Productions, put together a beautiful video that summarizes what our Project looked like: Hard work, cute kids, and occasionally a little play.

Riding back from work on the back of a jeepney.
Photo Credit: René Serrano

I returned grateful for the work I was able to contribute in the Philippines; amazed at the hard working, peculiar, and beautiful people who were part of this experience; simply incredulous at the amount of resilience and number of smiles I saw from the Filipino people; relieved that I returned without major injury; and without words to describe the thankfulness I have for all those of you who supported my trip with their money, positive thoughts, and their prayers.

Amen!

Swimming with Whale Sharks

Up well before the sun thought about rising, I witnessed it's beauty from my
bus window on my way to Oslob on the Island of Cebu.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

The soonest flight from Cebu that I could board was three days after my volunteer work completed on Leyte. With a three night stay booked in Cebu City, I planned to enjoy my clean hotel room, get some much needed quiet sleep and rest, catch up on the news, repack my luggage, and make use of the free WiFi in my hotel room.

It wasn't until I checked into my room that I realized how much I needed some quiet time and some space. It was pure luxury to spend time in my pristine room at the Mandarin Plaza Hotel (that was still in its "soft opening" phase) by myself.

An underwater selfie with a whale shark.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

I couldn't squander the little bit of time I had left in the Philippines, and put some time into researching some activities that I could do in my final three days. I settled on swimming with the whale sharks and determined that as much as I wanted to sleep in the next morning, Monday was going to be the day I trekked down to Oslob, a small barangay (municipality) on the southern end of the Island of Cebu.

Whale shark eating krill. They are very friendly to humans, but a person
could definitely fit in that mouth!
© 2014 Andrea Rip

I woke up at 3:30am to gather my belongings and catch my prearranged taxi to the bus station. The taxi driver helped me find my 4:something a.m. bus and I prepared to pay the P120 fee (~$2.75USD) for the two to four hour air conditioned, WiFi enabled bus ride. The bus departed promptly and the early bus meant we made a magnificent coastal trip in two hours. I slept here and there, but was quite keen on watching the sunrise. Watching the colors creep over the beaches and blue ocean felt idyllic - like Leyte's devastation was on the other side of the world.

After hopping off the bus with a couple other intrepid early morning tourists, we located a hotel that allowed guests to pay a small fee (like $1.50USD) to use their facilities. They would also accompany us to the whale shark watching company and bring us out to the underwater oddity. Afterward, they provided showers and comfort rooms (toilets), and a little cafe.

The highlight, of course, was donning my favorite snorkel and entering the water with enormous fish. The sharks are very docile toward humans though their mouths are massive. When one such creature crept toward me with its mouth open, my thoughts were twofold: that I didn't really want to be in its path and that I was probably also eating some of the krill he was after.

Tumalog Falls in Oslob are gorgeous with cool water.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Philippines law dictates that tourists can only be in the water for 30 minutes, but I swam with about 10 sharks for that time. Sometimes they would sneak up and swim right under me. Other times, they would bob like me in the water waiting to be fed a bit more. Some dove deep down to where the scuba divers anchored themselves on the bottom. The entire experience is rather "canned" and touristy, but I couldn't escape how surreal it felt to see such beautiful whale sharks so close.

After I dried off at the hotel and had a bite to eat along with a mango shake made by Mark, my "tour guide," he took me on his motorcycle up to Tumalog Falls. The beautiful waterfall cascaded down a mossy cliff to create a gorgeous aqua-colored cool pool. The waterfall is fed by a spring and is always flowing.

I was content with my swim with the whale sharks and didn't venture in this pool, but Mark made the short hike with me and I learned some things about the falls, the Philippines, and his life while we walked. Afterword, he timed out the bus and hailed it for me to ride back into Cebu City. The ride back was a bit longer - more than three hours, but I was back in the quiet hotel room by 3:30pm and discovered the Ayala Center Mall a couple blocks from the hotel where I did not eat rice, but found a number of options for meals outside the hotel.

The next day I wandered around that part of the City, repacked my luggage, rested, and prepared to fly out on my third morning. The return trip was quite uneventful and included a much shorter layover in Hong Kong, and a three day layover in Los Angeles where I stayed with my generous and wonderful friends, Seth and Amanda, while saturating myself into American LA culture including Whole Foods, Starbucks, fancy indulgent SUV's, and no rice.

Last Working Day on Leyte

A bus stop on the road between Kananga and Ormoc.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

My last day on the job, I worked in Ormoc and decided to stand on the back ladder on the 45 minute ride back to base. I soaked it all in, watched the distressed palm trees one last time, smiled at the beautiful sky and hills, mourned the still-broken houses and roofless schoolrooms, while feeling enormously grateful and downright blessed that I had the time and opportunity to serve in the Philippines after such a major disaster.

If not me, then who will go...

This is what many temporary (and for many, permanent) homes looks like

in the Philippines. Made from salvaged materials and not so storm proof.

© 2014 Andrea Rip

That was the phrase that passed through my head while I packed and prepared for the trip. And, it found me again on this last ride. When I leave, who will follow? Most certainly Project Leyte will find volunteers - a demographic of mostly 20-something backpackers with some younger professionals taking a break in life, freckled with other do-gooders who have time and space in life to accommodate some work. There was a 1500 - 2000 person wait list while I worked on the project. But with so much damage, I hope there are more people and more organizations who can keep the momentum for rebuilding and recovery going throughout the year.

John with his "hard yakka" shorts riding on the back
of a jeepney.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Part of me considered that all this hard work ("hard yakka" as the Australians put it - also an Aussie clothing brand) could be wiped away with another typhoon. Part of me hopes that the work we are doing is a little bit better than what was there before - and when another disaster hits this island in the Philippines, the next relief effort can build it a little more resilient than how we left it. And, part of me prays that it never happens again - though this country is perfectly positioned for tropical storms, flooding, volcanoes, and earthquakes.

The women at the Gawad Kalinga Tambulilid neighborhood in Ormoc took

a photo with me on my last working day.

The last day of work, I went out to Ormoc and worked with the Gawad Kalinga project one last day. The familiar Filipino faces were so warm and friendly. They were sad to see me go and gave me hugs and gratitude for my work. The girls and women all posed for nice photos with me in my bright pink tank top. I worked, tried fresh coconut juice that was about the best drink I had in the Philippines from a woman who sold it for 10 pesos in a plastic bag with a straw. She thanked me with such a lump in her throat it nearly made me cry. She said she wished she had more to thank me with than words. I told her that I was only giving to her what other people had given to me throughout life and for this trip. There are really so many people behind my effort. Her story, like so many others is of heartbreaking loss, but strength from God to move forward, come together with her neighbors, and reestablish their homes. It is pure inspiration.

All That is Lost...and Found

A man came by to look through the debri for his personal

documents that had been buried by the storm and tree.

© 2014 Andrea Rip

Perhaps the time that I was most moved to understand how deep Yolanda's devastation permeated through a place was while I worked at the Valencia Elementary School to clear a classroom of a large tree. Initially, Yolanda uprooted and massive tree onto the classroom. It destroyed the roof and compromised the entire structure of the classroom.

Another response team sent a group with chainsaws who cut up the tree in manageable pieces. However, when All Hands took on the project, the room was a pile of branches, sawdust, leaves, glass, concrete, and a dilapidated metal/tin ceiling structure that was between six to 12 feet (2 - 3m) high.

The "Philosophy of Education in the New Society" sign was

a casualty of Yolanda.

© 2014 Andrea Rip

Every day, between two to six people worked on cleaning this room. Some used a metal grinder to safely remove the roof structure as others shoveled sawdust and pulled the branches from the room. After we cleared the rooms, we sledge hammered the walls and pulled them down to clear the concrete foundation slab so that a new classroom could be built.

The interior of the classroom next-door to the classroom that was destroyed
by a massive tree at Valencia Elementary School. In much better condition
than the kindergarten room that shared a wall, this room was waiting for an
engineering assessment to determine if the walls were structurally sound.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

As we cleared the tree out, we began to uncover what remained of the classroom after the storm. Most of our job sites were cleared out of the substantial and salvageable material before we arrived. I wish I had taken a photo of the alphabet blocks that I discovered mixed in with sawdust, but it simply remains a sad memory in my head of the kindergarten classroom that had probably been filled with children just a day or few before the storm. I wanted to keep one of the blocks as my reminder of the storm, but brought them to the principal's office instead - hoping that even though the blocks were quite battered, some children might still be able to use them.

As we found items that were in the classroom, much of which was still wet from ongoing rains or broken, we tossed it in a pile of mixed debris. One of the afternoons when we were working, a man came by to assess the work we had done. He asked if we found any items in the room and I pointed him in the direction of our pile. A little later, I walked by and saw him still sorting through some of the papers. In one of the envelopes he pulled out some important documents and showed me the one on top that read, "Marriage Contract." He had many of his personal effects in that classroom. As sad as I was for what had been lost, I was relieved that he had found some important pieces of what he was looking for.

Even being on the ground where Yolanda hit the hardest, it was hard to comprehend how much had been lost. This work site provided me a small picture of how much it will take to rebuild people's lives - even after the structures are back in place, there is so much that will need to be acquired to fill up those new empty places.

Watermelon on the Outside, Bubble Gum on the Inside

A glimpse of the "big pink watermelon" from across the sugarcane fields.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

For the first week that I was on Project Leyte, I spent my days painting the hospital's interior. At first it seemed like a good way to ease into the work with All Hands - and by Wednesday, I just wanted to see the rooms painted in the entire building.

Feeling quite accomplished for finishing off a large green room. We worked
around boxes filled with donated medical supplies from around the world.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

With so much bright pink paint, the exterior of the hospital looked like what Katie called the "big pink watermelon." The green roof enveloped the pink fruit while the black window sills gave the building it's seeds. All that color on the outside did not prevent the interior from becoming quite colorful itself. We painted every room in a shade of green, blue, or pink - just like a selection of Bubblicious Bubble Gum.

Before we could think about painting, we had to clean. We cleaned up gecko poop, small animal carcasses, various "fluids" on the walls (it's a hospital so your guess is as good as mine), debri left from all the construction projects going on, and in the kitchen - a whole lot of grease and grime. Cleaning involved washing, scrubbing, sanding and sweeping. Only then could we start with the rollers and paint brushes and put two coats of paint on each wall. I even was able to teach Jessica, from China, the English phrase, "coat of paint" which she thought was quite clever - or just odd.

Keeping track of wet and clean paint brushes for
each of our colors was a bit challenging when
painters changed out nearly every day.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Did I mention that we all lived in the hospital while this work was going on? We even had bunk beds set up in the morgue. During the work, any given group of people would have to move out of their room so that it could be fixed up as an administrative office, operating room, recovery room, birthing room, or nurses station - and then some other group would move into that room when work was completed. This happened until the entire place was fixed up and we eventually all moved out into tents out front of the hospital building.

Tim, with his enviable hair managed much of the hospital work including the
meticulous painting of each room, doors, windows, and trim.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

I quickly found that I had a good hand for painting a straight edge for the eight-ish centimeters of "trim" (a darker color of the wall paint) around the bottom of all the walls. So, after the rooms walls were coated, I went around and did a lot of the trim twice over for a little visual variety.

There were a number of team members who participated on any given day. One person who I really enjoyed working with was Kamila from Poland. She reminded me so much of another Polish friend who I have and we painted quietly and occasionally talked and joked about life and the project work. I was sad to see her go after a week but she was participating in a project at the Tarsier Sanctuary on Bohol that I had visited.

Tim, and Australian American, was much more committed to the hospital painting and repair work than anyone. He had an aversion to both hospitals and the color pink due to his wife's recent breast cancer. But, I think in the end, the experience was rather therapeutic for him and he left our team with quite an accomplishment under his belt - the hospital was completed. He had one of the bigger farewells from volunteers who respected him and missed him after he took off toward Australia.

The Ceiling at Lonoy Elementary School

Carlo and John screwing support beams to the ceiling.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

One of the first projects that I did outside of the hospital was working on the Lonoy Elementary School Kindergarten classroom ceiling. When the team originally arrived to the structure, classes were still being held in this room despite a bowed and broken ceiling. The rafters and support beams were distressed and falling. First, the team led by Carlo and John removed the damaged ceiling structure and salvaged as much reusable wood as possible. Then they commenced restructuring the beams and supports.

John and Joe hammering in additional support for the plywood ceiling.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

This is where I joined the project. Just finishing the beams and supports, John's friends back in Australia donated some money to the project. John used this money to purchase plywood that was not originally funded in the project scope through All Hands.

Over the course of the day, we had to add extra wood beams so that we could secure all the plywood to the roof structure. Then we started nailing in the plywood sheets as evenly and securely as possible. The first day we only managed to tack in three plywood panels. The next day we added the rest that we had on hand and still required six more to complete the work. The volunteers back on base pitched in enough money to purchase the remaining panels and complete the ceiling in the classroom.

Kids, including Neil, always found a way to sneak in the room.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

While we worked, school kids would constantly wander into the room to see how the project was coming along. Sometimes they brought us flowers - that poor school grounds must have been picked bare by the time our work was done there. Many times we would receive notes of thanks from different classrooms, individual students, teachers, and staff. I received several from nine year old Neil who professed his love to me several times over!

Maybe the best part of working at Lonoy Elementary School was snack time. Clearly, if the kids are getting breaks and snacks, so should the volunteers who are helping out. On one day we were the grateful recipients of a stir fried meal with an entire loaf of white bread for the four of us workers. We ate our fill of it all and then some that day - along with a traditional bottle of Coke.

Lonoy Elementary School always provided good snacks while we worked.
This 'snack' nearly constituted an entire meal.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Working at schools was rewarding because the students are always there. We could always see the kids we were benefiting and they always expressed their gratitude, asked us our names, tried to provide help, and pummeled us with questions about why we were there and our personal statuses. The teachers and staff were always full of smiles as well and treated us with a great deal of respect for the work we were doing so that they could move out of their tent classrooms and back into their normal rooms. It was not hard to feel really good about finishing a days work at a school!

Nearly finished with the project, the school presented us with a 'thank you'
banner in gratitude of all the work we performed. We also snapped a photo
to remember the day.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Riding Caribou | Water Buffalo

Kitty mountain the caribou for her very short ride.
Photo by Mikel Iriarte

As soon as I discovered the water buffalo (locally known as caribou) in the small river near our base at the hospital, I wanted to try riding one. I witnessed men casually riding them down the road from fields to watering holes so I knew it was possible. Knowing that it was probably not going to happen, I made a joke out of it and encouraged Carlo, one of the Filipino volunteers on the project, to find a friendly water buffalo to ride. He never did find one.

Petting the water buffalo was the closest I came to riding it.
Photo by Mikel Iriarte

Diana, from Portugal, had the most beautiful way of pronouncing buffalo as BUFE-a-low. She had already given it a try - getting poked in the posterior by one of its horns before managing to secure a seat on the animal. This had the potential to be my 'running of the bulls' moment.

So, on our moving day, Kitty, decided she was going to find the owner of the buffalo in the river and give it a ride and I tagged along to have my turn, too.

Myself with Kitty and the caribou's caretaker in Kananga.
Photo by Mikel Iriarte

The woman, who was only the caretaker of the water buffalo was reluctant to let us try since she didn't want the owner to find out that she was allowing us to play with the buffalo. We convinced her to let us do a photo op only on the buffalo - just Kitty and I.

She came along the river bank and dragged the beast out of his pleasant spot in the water and pulled him along side a large felled tree trunk so that we would have a step. Kitty mounted up and, like a rodeo, began bouncing along on his back. I think Kitty was a little surprised that he started waltzing around the tree stump and it didn't take long before she fell off his back on the ground. Watching the water buffalo's wiliness, I determined that my travel insurance may not view a water buffalo incident very kindly, but settled up next to him to pet his prickly and sparse hair on his back.

We laughed so hard. The caretaker laughed right along with us. It was some salve on the overworked soul that afternoon. I think everyone really enjoyed their time and the hysteria of it all. We posed for a few photos and we gave the lovely caretaker a gift in pesos for her time and the risk she incurred for allowing us to ride without the owner's permission.