If you watch the local news on Philippine TV these days, all you will get, even in the breaking news are the disaster that recent typhoons(Winnie and Yoyong)brought to our kababayans up north in Nueva Ecija to down south in Real, Quezon. I know my heart should symphatize to all the typhoon victims but honestly, I don’t feel a thing. I don’t know why: maybe because I’ve been there so many times before? I didn’t lost a family member or a relative to any typhoon but I do have my typhoon story to tell:
> lost count on how many times a typhoon blew away our house roof
> our family album(containing memoirs of my childhood)and some precious books were gone with the rain (and wind)
> spent stormy nights in wet clothes.
> experienced 6 months without electricity after a super typhoon
> dead bodies, identities both known and unknown (that died of drowning or some other-typhoon related accident)rolled in “banig” in front of the church waiting for the priest’s blessing prior to a mass burial.)
> 6 months to 1 year after a typhoon: we can’t eat any produce from the sea. (marami kasing nalunod…yung iba hindi pa lumulutang o hindi na lumutang, so mga isda ang kakain sa kanila kung hindi man, mag-dedecay na sila sa dagat. meanwhile magsasawa kami sa ginataang ubod na sinahugan ng sardinas)
> pumila sa nagbibigay ng relief goods (sardinas at bigas lang ang usually binibigay noon. mahirap o mayaman man ay entititled sa relief goods basta’t didaster stricken ang area nyo. at least samin noon ganun, ewan ko lang sa iba.)
> on the other hand, we have to gorge ourselves with fruits in season like avocado and banana. (nilaglag na ng bagyo sa puno so hinog sa pilit ang labas ng prutas. dahil brownout, di mo ma-preserve, walang ref so kelangan kainin na lahat: breakfast, merienda, lunch, merienda, dinner: you have to eat avocado. 3 sacks of avocado kelangan ubusin eh. di mo mapamigay sa kapit-bahay kasi sila meron din. di mo mabenta sa palengke dahil mabubulok din. that was year 1986 (o 1987 yata)…since then, until now…di pa ako ulit kumakain ng avocado, promise!)
My parents decided to come home to Bicol (after more than 10 years of working/settling in Manila) in 1983. I was in fifth grade when we moved back there. I left again in 1989 to study in Los Baños. 7 years in Gubat, 15 years in Los Baños. 7 years that I witnessed my family weather countless storms, both literal and figurative…not to mention the 3 or 4 times we found our home in the middle of NPA and military encounters.
From someone who came from a place where the climate is wet and wetter, where super typhoons come and go like sunrise and sunset, where there’s only 2 months of continous dry spells (March, April)…it is odd that I get depressed when it’s raining continously, that I cant’ sleep at night when the rain is pouring hard on our roofs and the wind is howling outside, that I can’t distinguish the sound of a gunshot from a firecraker.
Now, our lives may not be a total bliss but having a good steady roof over our heads and enough food on the table will be sufficient for the super typhoons that mother nature may be brewing up next.