Kananga National High School

Seated for the Kananga National High School Program.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Though I never worked on the Kananga National High School projects, I was invited, along with the rest of our group, to be a part of an appreciation ceremony that the school put on in honor of All Hands Volunteers. We all raced home from our work sites at the end of the day, cleaned up the best we could, put on our finest wrinkled clothes, clamored up onto our jeepneys again, and rushed off to the festivities.

Brett signing autographs for his screaming fan base of girls at Kananga
High School.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

The high school is located up a hill in Kananga and is a large high school campus. Many of their classrooms right now are temporary rooms donated by a Buddhist organization and set up on a playing field below their main buildings. Among other things, All Hands had teams at the high school to tarp some roofs, demolish some classrooms, and separate materials for reuse.

The students stayed late on this particular day so that they could put on a program after we finished our work day and could manage to arrive for the dinner. The program was fantastic - an hour or more of student and teacher performances put on for our Team's enjoyment. They started the evening with the Philippines' national anthem and followed that with a violin solo, dancing, and even a skit about Yolanda blowing through the Philippines and how the people (including All Hands) have come along behind her to restore the Island of Leyte.

Full pig roast at Kananga National High School.
© Andrea Rip

For the people who did work on the high school projects, there was a ceremony where they received a certificate for their work and a Philippines key chain. It was clear from the beginning of the evening that the KNHS community was grateful for the work that All Hands did for them. The generosity and gratitude that we received from the school seemed like a huge extravagance next to the work that our teams happily did for them.

After the performances, dinner was served including a full pig with all the Filipino fixings including fruit, potatoes, a salad, and a stir fry. Many of the students and nearly all the teachers stayed to socialize and enjoy the meal. Many of the girls treated Brett like a pop star and he started signing shirts after dinner. It did not take too long before everyone in our group was autographing tshirts and hats. An impromptu dance party started and some of those who had performed led everyone in the Philippines version of line dancing to songs like Gangnam...

Due to most of the students being under 18, the party broke up pretty early for our group of volunteers. We left the school looking for our jeepneys and quickly realized that the drivers had headed home for the night. At least the 5km walk back to base was mostly downhill. And, it was a beautiful night for star gazing and grabbing a little mango smoothie in town.

Our Local Staff and Transportation

Hiring local people to help run Project Leyte is one of the elements of the All Hands organization that sets it apart from other relief agencies. Several of the Project's administrative staff were hired from the Philippines with knowledge of the language and skills in organizing work projects, finances, and people.  Our base also had two lovely laundry ladies, two fantastic cooks in the kitchen, and four jeepneys and drivers who all came from Ormoc every day to take care of us with their special skills.

While I was painting in the hospital, I met Jr, the four year old son of one of he laundry ladies. He didn't speak much English, but was certainly fun to play peek-a-boo with and share a smile with. I painted a dot on my nose which he thought was hilarious, followed by one on my forehead. However, when I tried to give him a painted nose, he always ran away!

Our drivers were hired to make sure we had transportation from work and back each day. Sometimes they also stayed a little late to bring us to a special event, or to take a whole group of us to Ormoc on the weekend.

The jeepneys were originally born of US Jeeps that were sold or given to the Filipino people after World War II. They were retrofitted, decorated, and flared out to be used generally a public utility vehicles. Since then, several other vehicle models have been adapted into the family of jeepneys. What remains the same is the outrageous colors, decorations and the route of service painted on the sides. Each jeepney drives a specified return trip or circuit and will make as many stops as there are people on board - which can be quite a few when the top is loaded up as well!

The best part of the day for me was riding home on the top of a jeepney. The temperature was just a little cooler, the sun would sink, the children would call out and wave to us, and I could see the rice paddies, mountains, palm trees, and people perfectly from the higher vantage point. It was also a great time catch up with a team mate or to reflect and process the day's work.

The Filipino Faces We See

Children at Lonoy Elementary School watch while we hung a new
plywood roof in their Kindy classroom.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

When I began thinking about volunteering in the Philippines after the Super Typhoon, I imagined arriving in a depressed and demolished island and helping raise the spirits of the people along with raising their houses back.

I was pretty wrong. While the damage on the Island was evident as soon as I arrived to Ormoc on the SuperCat Ferry, the people who I crossed paths with showed gratefulness for what they did have left, a resilience to rebuild and help restore their communities, and generosity towards those of us who came to help them with their clean up and rebuilding efforts.

This very social boy at the Gawad Kalinda Rebuild project site loved to pose.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Most notable were the children, who with a remarkable curiosity and gratitude, found our project teams working at their schools, churches, nearby homes, and neighborhoods. They watched; the giggled with each other; they picked their crushes from among us; they waited for an opportunity to pick up a shovel, or wheelbarrow, or sledge hammer and work with us; and they loved to ask our names and find out where we are from.

Two children cleaning up in the morning and watch the workers start
heading off to shovel and lay bricks at Gawad Kalinga in Ormoc.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

In most cases, they are safe and stay out of the way, but eventually several kids will start creeping in toward our work and we have to tell them to leave, close the door, or stand behind an invisible line or yellow caution tape. They are so curious, but in lieu of a wall falling down on them, we could get a little hard nosed with our demands to "hawa hawa" (get away or back off).

Children at Valencia Central School watching us depart the work
site for the day.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

The most fantastic encounter with a little girl was on my very last work day in Ormoc. The day before, I learned from Sheila that children show respect to adults by taking the adult's hand and raising it to touch their forehead. The entire time I was in the Philippines, I had only seen children approach her in this way and never any of the volunteers who I worked with for a month. On this day, I forgot my work gloves at our project site and had to run back to where our belongings were stored in order to retrieve them. On my short walk a small girl - maybe three or four years old - passed me on the way. Only two of us were on the pathway and I stopped and said 'hello.' She smiled, took my hand, and raised the back of it to her forehead. I couldn't sort out what to say in response, but was immediately impressed by the depth of appreciation even the children had for the work I contributed to in their country.

Hard not to love every one of them for the henna in their hair, a crooked smile full of missing teeth, shy pokes on the arm, or their exuberance to to wave and beg our names, we all inevitably have photos of the smiles - and memories of signing their tshirts, playing games, and holding them on our laps.

Meeting Shella

The concrete building foundation in the background is where
Shella's house stood before Yolanda.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

I met Shella at the end of my time in the Philippines. Our All Hands Base moved from the Tugbong Municipal Hospital to a large private home a little closer to the town of Kananga. Shella was living across the street. She observed as we prepared the house the first day; tearing down water damaged ceiling panels and putting up new plywood ceilings, cleaning the floors, and moving furniture around. She and her father came over to help us interpret with the previous tenants and her father offered a piece of his land for some tents.

With Shella at the new All Hands Volunteers base in Kananga.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Shella pulled me over to the window in the living room of the new house and pointed through the window toward a slab of concrete with a small number of cement blocks placed on it and some new rebar sticking out of the corners. "That was my house." She began to tell me her Typhoon Yolanda story.

Shella and her two children huddled in the comfort room (bathroom) in her house when the winds picked up and while it howled and screamed around them. Never so scared in her life, she heard the entire house eventually crash around her. Her parents who live across the way, looked toward her home when the winds started subsiding and thought that she and her kids had died in the house. All they could see was a collapsed home that appeared unsurvivable.

When the wind totally let up, she was able to get up out of the bathroom with her children and walk outside towards her parents home. As you can imagine their family praised God and expressed enormous relief that they walked out alive.

Shella now lives with her parents until there is resources available to rebuild her house. Her two children are with her as well as a cousin's family. Her husband was able to break away from his job on another island for just one day to make sure she was okay right after Yolanda blew through.

Next door to Shella's family home was another house that blew apart. The people who lived there were renting the home and they talked to the owners of the home about rebuilding. However, the government will not allow a home to built in that location again. So, Shella's father gave them part of his land to put up a house. Their house right now is plywood with a tin roof. Everyone knows of people who were not so fortunate to have their lives spared or to find shelter so easily with family or friends. In light of this, it impresses me that Shella's family including her father is showing impressive grace and mercy to those whose homes were not spared - when it would be so easy to victimize his family and his community. He is even willing to give up some of his property to a wily group of All Hands Volunteer's tents while they contribute to the relief work in Kananga. He epitomizing what community should be!

I did not spend a lot of time with Shella, but I had a wonderful connection with her. We shared glassy eyes when she told her difficult story and a common faith in God and His goodness to her despite the loss of her home. I did not know what to say while she was telling me what happened, there were a lot of silence while she formed her sentences and reiterated what happened, and at the end all I could really do was put my hand on her shoulder and say "I'm glad that you are alive today to tell your story to me. God has taken care of you."

Shella's story is now part of my Philippines story and I am so happy that she entrusted me with her typhoon experience. She was one Filipino person who I was sorry to leave behind with a hug and a photo when I departed Kananga.

Rice, Rice, Rice

Dinner served at the All Hands Base in Kananga.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Part of All Hands' commitment to volunteers is that the organization will provide a place to stay, transportation to and from the job sites, and meals. Food was prepared for vegetarians along with meat eaters. I opted for the meat eating diet, but sometimes the veggies looked pretty amazing!
Breakfast was provided, but each volunteer has to prepare their own meal. I usually opted for oatmeal with some brown sugar and dry milk powder along with a cup of coffee (I invested in my own Kopachino packages from the Richardson's Supermarket that came with a special pack of coffee sprinkles for the frothy top). Sometimes, if I had been to Kananga Town the day before, I had a mango as well. One egg and two pieces of bread were also allowed - though I could never be bothered to make eggs or toast my bread!
Lunch was served at 12:00pm. Most of us within a ~20 minute ride of base would come back for lunch during the day. We had a couple of projects that were far enough away that we would stay on site and purchase our own meal for the group. Dinner was out by 4:30-5pm. On base, we would have rice for lunch and dinner along with either chicken, pork, or occasionally some beef (or caribou | water buffalo).
After eating truly 'free range' chicken in the Philippines, I am convinced that chickens in North America are either genetically modified to be large, on a weightlifting regimen, or are simply obese. The American chicken's drumsticks are about three times the size of a Filipino chicken's leg. Then again, Americans are quite a bit taller and larger than the average Filipino person as well.
Regardless of chicken sizes, I will be happy to trade in rice for nearly any other food for awhile.

On Parade

Jenny and Jasmine collected beautiful bouquets of flowers from the
children at Lonoy Elementary School on Valentines Day.
© 2014 Andrea Rip 

For those who have dreamed of being famous, nothing will make you feel more like a movie star than walking down the road in a small Filipino town as a stranger | Westerner | volunteer. The children scream, run to the road to watch us pass by, pull on our hands, ask "what is your name?" and smile. Their smiles are beyond brilliant. Mothers hold their babies up and force their small hands to wave in our direction while older couples smile and nod acknowledging our work in the community. Many stare with smiles on their faces, assumed to be wondering why people come from around the world to help their small village that rarely sees a tourist or western visitor.
On Valentine's Day, we had a team working at the Lonoy Elementary School where the students wrote a load of Valentine's to the group there. "Princess" Jasmine and Jenny came home with many of those cards professing love and warm friendship from the elementary crew. They each had a massive bouquet of wildflowers from around the school (which I am certain looked quite bare after February 14 passed).

Juli signs  her autograph to a tshirt of a woman at the
Gawad Kalinga Rebuild site in Ormoc.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Riding the jeepneys to our work sites every day was another spectacle altogether. Most of us opted to ride on the top of the jeepney where it is cooler and we can enjoy the views of mountains and palm trees in rice fields. Kids can see our white skin on the top of the jeepneys from a long way off and start their waving and "hellos" as soon as we come into view. We wave like we are on a parade float and try to reciprocate their gleaming smiles. All Hands has been embraced by the community where we are working and those instances of pseudo fame are a way that they show gratitude for our work and we can feel appreciation for our small contribution to Yolanda clean up.
Several times while I was on the Project, our group was asked to sign our autograph to tshirts, hats, and towels for the people who we were helping. Juli thoughtfully took her All Hands tshirt and had everyone reciprocate by adding their signature to her shirt.
After a long and hard day of work, we were spoiled with gratitude and praise from the children. Those smiles and shouts never got old and made every swing of a sledge hammer worth our effort!

Let the Walls Fall Down

Yesterday I assisted with a deconstruction project.

Structurally compromised chapel in Lonoy, Philippines.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Our task was to safely take down the walls of a small chapel in Lonoy. All of the walls were compromised so that it was unusable and dangerous to use. The little church had four very proud cornerstones that did not want to be felled. We spent most of our morning removing most of the iron gates to be salvaged for the reconstruction. Then we further compromised the building by sledge hammering the support columns, clipping rebar inside those columns and throwing a rope around the wall so that we could have a jeepney pull the entire structure down at one time.

After more than an hour of tugging, we finally toppled the chapel.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

We tried about five different ways and continued to sledge out the walls we could access safely - all the time mindful that the entire structure could come down at once. Sean sledged, Matt used a hack saw to cut more rebar. Finally, some of the Filipino men in our massive audience came over and gave our ropes a good tug that collapsed the entire structure at once.
In the afternoon we returned to tidy up the debris and cut up the metal ceiling beams. We finished about ½ of the task and will need to return on Monday to finish the clean up.

After a week of sledge hammering and shoveling concrete my muscles are ready for this wonderful Sunday off.
Watch the video HERE.