Project Cagayan De Oro: Volunteering in Typhoon Disaster Relief in Philippines 2012

For 2 and a half weeks, end of February to early March in 2012, I volunteered with All Hands Volunteers in Cagayan de Oro, The Phillipines to help with disaster relief efforts after Typhoon Sendong (Washi):

(Me awkwardly giving the thumbs up to the camera! Don't I look sweaty?)

After a 33 hour flight, (traveling from Philadelphia to Cagayan de Oro with 4 layovers), I pretty much went right to work when I arrived... How I managed this is a mystery, but I was excited to be in the Philippines and help as much as I could!

When I arrived in Cagayan de Oro, on a tiny tiny plane (plane #4), I hopped into a Taxi, which was driven by a man who said he lost his sister in the flooding from the Typhoon. He was almost like a tour guide at first, pointing out different things in the area on my drive to the All Hands base. He said he was "really thankful for people coming from so far away to help their tiny island and it's people."

That made me smile.

 

(The right is our base! It looks nice on the outside, doesn't it? and the left is our meeting around.)

Our base, when I first got there, it was incredibly hot (well that didn't change!), we had to flush our own toilets because we were conserving water. Literally we had to pour a bucket of water down the toilet to flush it... AND we had half a bucket bucket showers. Yes, after a sweaty hot muddy dirty day, we only got half a bucket of water to wash ourselves with... awesome.

I felt like a true volunteer!

(Very hard having long hair as a volunteer, I must say!)

  

(surrounding area and meeting place, we were giving each other massages in this picture!)

(View from our balcony!)

Our base was located next in Cala'anan, Tent City, which is where all the evacuees were placed and given tents to live in. Every Saturday we would go to Tent City to play with the kids, had games and arts and crafts, it was really lovely.

 

 

(Surrounding area and Tent City)

One of the amazing things I found about the Philippines is that EVERYONE spoke English! I was shocked at how many people could understand what I was saying! Even the little kids we played with had an amazing comprehension of English and they were only 10 years old and younger! I was very impressed at their skills in language.

We worked 3 main job types: Building concrete houses with Habitat for Humanity, mudding and cleaning people's houses, and building bunkhouses with IOM: International Organization of Migration. !

(This was our transportation: The Jeepney. This is the best transportation ever created! I actually bought an "I love Jeepney" shirt! They are used for public buses, but open air and you can ride on top or hang on from behind! It's GREAT and a great way to see the Philippine scenery!)

(Picture of me on top of a Jeepney! Every chance I got I rode on the top haha!)

(Riding on the back of the Jeepney!!)

I will say again, the Philippines was soooo hot, I thought I was going to die from excessive sweating! I love cold weather, plus I left Jersey from cold winter to warm hot heat in the Phillippines. That's temperature shock for you!

Building concrete houses with Habitat for Humanity:

(passing concrete buckets)

(We were working on spreading concrete and laying bricks. I was doing a lot of passing the concrete that people were mixing and filling in cement! I have action shots which are always fun!)

(Dirty messy fun as a volunteer!)

(Me carrying toilets LIKE A BOSS! No seriously, those are toilets. Habitat for Humanity got 2 huge truck loads of toilets donated for use in their houses and we got to unload them into our common area space. It was certainly a hilarious 2 hour experience!)

Mudding and Cleaning Peope's Houses:

    

(The left is a house taken over by mud after the Typhoon hit and the right is a picture of the street leading up to the house)

My first de-mudding and cleaning job I had was at a house that had seen the whole first floor taken over by the flooding waters. No one in the family was injured and they were actually living next door along with 5 other families in a house that wasn't as badly damaged. This house had so much mud in it and there wasn't anywhere to put it! Our problem we had was to get all of the mud out of the backrooms into the front room (pictured above) and then moving all the personal items we could find. Much of it was clothes.

It was hard to walk in the mud, I ended up falling on numerous occassions. A joy to the other volunteers as I squirmed stuck in the mud..

(Doing the 'Dougie' with some children... yes THE DOUGIE! They all knew it! It was awesome!)

Me and another volunteer danced with the little kids; They were adorable and we're really good dancers! I was pretty impressed! The family also cooked us some awesome chocolate rice thing that their family specializes in and usually sells it to make money, but after the Typhoon hit they were having a hard time with their business.

(D-O-U-G-I-E)

I'm a hip hop dancer, so it was pretty embarrassing when the kids were better than me!

Building Bunkhouses with IOM: International Organization of Migration:

(Me drinking some coconut juice! Hydration time!)

(Where we helped build bunkhouses with IOM)

Bunkhouses were the project with IOM, in an area about 15 minutes or so away from tent city. The plan was to build a bunch of bunkhouses that had 3 seperate rooms in each to hold families and move them out of the tents and into a more structured sturdy living environment.

I liked the way IOM was building their houses much better than Habitat for Humanity for several different reasons. One, it was made of wood and a tin roof, so if there was say an earthquake it would be less harmful to be inside (not having the concrete collapse). Also, structurally the houses were much more cultural appropriate, allowing for space for communal activities and areas, etc. They were also much easier to built than the concrete houses AND took less time, which means families can move into them quicker. To me personally, it made much more sense to be working with IOM than Habitat. As Habitat means well, I don't think they hit the mark on cultural aspects. 

(Me digging trenches along side the bunk houses for the water to flow down the hill. My backs the camera, but you can totally tell it's me by my Japanese shirt I'm wearing... oops wrong country!)

(Picture of our trench finished! That trench was fucking hard to dig in the heat!)

The first day I was at bunkhouse was the day IOM gave us the 'okay' to build our own bunkhouse, since before we were just helping them. Naturally they'd be watching over us, but it was pretty exciting!

 

(The beginnings of our trenches, laying bricks, filling in cement, etc.)

 

(Pictures of surrounding area and other bunkhouses being built)

The Filipino workers, might I add, were absolute BEASTS at everything they did! It was pretty amazing! Us foreign whities were like DYING in the heat and having to take breaks ever 30 minutes from dehydration and those workers just never took a break, out there in long hours. Man, it was incredibly to watch, they were awesome! They were always so smiley and friendly too! Sometimes they would watch us do our work, I think for one because women were working which was unheard.

(Little tent area to hide from the sun!)

On my last day at All Hands I went to bunkhouses and the progress we had made in such a small time was amazing! We were almost finished our bunkhouse, we were laying cement down and fixing the side panels!

 

 

(As you can see in these pictures coming along pretty nicely!)

I did a lot of sawing and hammering nails in, along with watching the experts to see if I was doing everything correctly! It was a cool learning experiencing, since I never did any type of building houses in Japan.

(ROOSTER!)

The last day I was at bunkhouses, quite randomly actually, the IOM manager on the site was like, "Hey, do you want to see a cock fight?" to all of us and naturally we're like SURE, (except for the animal lover who was like OMG! NO! That's horrible!... we ignored her)! So they lead us around the back and pretty much pick up two nearby roosters.

Random Fact about Roosters: They are very territorial... didn't know that until I saw this fight!

The guys hold the roosters at first and let them pretty much nip at each other with their beaks, to get them angry, and then set them down and they just go at it! Holy shit roosters are vicious! They puff out their feathers and try to destroy each other without much provoking! This, however, was the nice version they were showing us!

(In arena fights, they tie blades to their claws and have them in a small glass cage, this is to block blood splatter from hitting the audition, and which ever rooster is not dead at the end wins.)

I personally found it interesting, especially because you actually don't have to do anything to piss off the rooster to make them fight! They will try to kill another rooster just for being in the same close proximity as them! Bunkhouse especially had a bizillion roosters that were ties to chains all around the area.

No wonder they can't be next to each other!

(All the cement layed!)

 

(On top the jeepney looking out at the bunkhouses)

As our bunkhouse didn't take too much time to build, the Filipino workers had theirs built in a couple days and then watched us, probably with amusement, as we tried to build ours! They always laughed at me because every time I heard music I would dance... which I was listening to my ipod all day long, so... yeah I must have been entertaining!

I left the Philippines before I could see our Bunkhouse completely finished however...

(Some nearby huts)

In the Philippines, you'll see markets and store fronts pretty much on the families door front of their houses or huts. Once these families lost their houses, they lost their business and way of living along with it.

Tent City:

(Some Tent City pictures)

Every Saturday, All Hands set up a morning play time with all the kids from Tent City. We did arts and crafts, held games, danced, colored, pretty much anything we could think of to get these kids to smile and forget about their troubles for a couple hours.

 

(Me with a bunch of adorable children!)

(Children's Day)

These kids were adorable and as young as they were, they had an amazing comprehension of English! It was pretty amazing! I actually had one kid blatantly say to me: "I will not speak English", though he clearly understood me. He later began talking to me once I busted out my hip hop moves! The kids loved my hip hop dancing. Filipinos are very big on singing as well, so we had karaoke time and dance time.

I was their foreign entertainment.

One story I heard from one of the girls in Tent City: The second Saturday I was there, she said that 6am that day a 3 year old boy was kidnapped from Tent City (mind you we arrived at 8am to play with the kids). He was taken away by a man apparently, right behind where we usually play with the kids!

It broke my heart to hear a story like that, coming from these people who not only lost so much in the typhoon, but now one family has lost a son as well? It's unbelievable! It also shocked me that so many of the parents seems so calm leaving their kids with us that day...

Nevertheless, playing with the kids was just simply an amazing experience and even in such a dire circumstance, they still drew such happy pictures, smiling and laughing...

It was truly wonderful to see!

 

(Jump roping with children!)

The little girls LOVED jump rope and made me play with them for a good 2 hours haha! They made me jump rope as well... I was a bit tall but I tried!

(Mom and child watching the ball game going on)

(Road from the bunkhouses, a lot of trees and huts)

(dirty and being stupid)

(Again... I love Jeepney)

There were a few people from All Hands that were at Project Tohoku from Japan that also made it to the Philippines. Most people, however, were actually from the project before Japan, which was in Haiti.

I also seemed to have a rough time with distinguishing which language I was supposed to speak to who (as usual)! The first day I got there I met a Japanese boy and that screwed me up for the rest of the trip! Anyone was victim to my Japanese speaking and it would just come out! I kept telling my brain, Stop! You're in the Philippines! haha... I also met random Japanese tourists and others who spoke Japanese so it just confused my brain more. I gave up after a while and just spoke Japanese first and followed it with English!

(For some reason I laugh every time I see this picture, my face is like "That confuses me...(Are you speaking English?)"

I met so many wonderful people, not only volunteers, but Filipinos as well. They were so nice and thankful for our help, it truly is a good feeling to help people in need. It was sweaty hard work, most of us were so exhausted by the dinner/meeting time that all we could do was sit outside and drink or just sit around and chat it up!

We had a welcome party one night with some local Filipinos and I spent hours with them dancing and singing!

I love bonding with people from all around the world. It goes to show, you can find common ground in the least unsuspecting places!

 

 

(Some pictures from around Cagayan de Oro)

(Blind Massages...)

One night, me and some volunteer friends went out to Devosaria, which is a night market/night life area in Cagayan de Oro and we got massages from blind people. It's an every night thing that goes on apparently and most of these people are blind and pretty much feel your body and massage you. It was actually pretty amazing, felt good too, especially as a volunteer!

The ladies that did us were so cute, since they couldn't see us, their fellow workers were telling them that we weren't Filipino and they got all excited and said "Ah- no speak English!" They proceeded through the massage while practicing their English on us! So friendly!

(Left is some massages and Right is another part of that area)

(Some town pictures)

There was one area that we drove by multiple times on the way to work or the market areas that was a construction of a building. I asked one of my friends what that used to be and he said it was a hotel that they were rebuilding to be something else. He said the waters made it 3 stories high... He also said that he wouldn't dare go back to that building after he heard that for a couple weeks their were bodies stuff between the walls. That was really sad to hear.

The thing about this flood that took so many lives was that it was very late at night, pit black, and flash flooding. I heard from one lady, who's house we cleaned, she told me that "it was very scary that we couldn't see anything. We had no way of leaving our house safely so all we could do was pray that the water did not reach us on the second floor." Thankfully, she said all of her family was safe. She said she loved her house because it has saved her family 3 times from typhoon flooding! That is amazing! This time, she said, was the highest the water ever reached and took off her first story roof. She said she was unsure whether or not to move to a different area since her house has saved her so many times, but if the waters come higher next time it might be gone. I know she's not the only one in that area that has difficult decisions awaiting them in the near future.

The above two pictures show a bank area that had saw much of the monstrous flooding. You cannot see very well and I didn't get pictures of it, probably because I was on the jeepney and I was in a bit of shock every time we drove by. You could still see mud caked over areas that definitely had either homes or huts. Some huts where there, thought I'm not sure if they were put up after the typhoon or not. There was debris is areas as well, entwined in the palm trees on the banks. It's such a contrast to the gorgeous sky above, was the first thought that popped into my head.

(Me stretching my legs on the balcony haha)

(Here are some bicycle taxi things all lined up. I took one once but they are overpriced and you could probably walk faster haha)

On our day off I also went ziplining on apparently the longest zipline in Asia! I will admit, it felt like I was flying! There were 3 we went on, the first 2 you did the sitting position and then the last one was the long one where you lay flat and fly! Pretty fun adventure!

I definitely tried to experience all of the Philippines that I could while I was there!

(ziplining!)

The trip up there to the Zipline place, it was about an hour away and we got to ride through the countryside to the mountain area. We passed some areas where many kids were on the street tapping on windows trying to sell things. Many times they looked in the back seat, noticed I was a foreigner, and stood there staring for a good couple minutes... pretty funny but slightly awkward, yes?

(Picture of the SM Mall in Cagayan de Oro: With a movie theater, plenty of shopping, two levels, it had it all! )

One time when I was at the mall, they had a photographer (I guess it was a contest) section where they had several boards up with pictures depicting the disaster areas and it's people. It was pretty sad to see these images, and recognizing some of the streets was an eye opener to what had happened back in the December time.

(Me trying to fit into a child size taxi car... I failed haha)

Me and my friends decided to take these pictures because of how many damn times we take a taxi to and from the mall.

(A food stand restaurant)

Near the mall there was an area with several different food stands a places to eat, so we chose this one! It had small tables set up, you picked your food, got some rice and drank your beer while watching TV. Jumanji was playing... it was awesome.

(Pictures from the night market in Devosaria)

Walking around was the markets were fun. It was a nice lively atmosphere to be around. Naturally a bunch of loud foreign people were going to be causing trouble and many just stared for a good while at us as we laughed and walked around aimlessly.

The store front owners were always so funny trying to get business. I remember one stand the lady, literally every time I picked up a dress, would say "Oh yes, that so pretty! You so seeeexxxyyy!" Haha, I couldn't help it though, she was so adorable and I eventually bought a dress from her! (Her tactics worked!)

I tend to attract attention to myself whenever I hear music, especially hip hop, I started to dance while walking through the market; this gets comments thrown at me. I remember one guy saying "Hip hop queen! Hip hop queen... buy my shooooooooes!" haha!

(Sunset was also so colorful and pretty! Plus the toilets we unloaded)

Hanging out at base was fun as well. There were a couple stores around the corners from our base. These types of stores, however, you cannot go inside them. Most convenient stores are like this in most areas of the Philippines. They're afraid of being robbed, so they keep crates in front of their store and all you can do is peek in to see what you want, or you have to ask. I've had to ask for things like beer and others random snack things.

All in all, Project Cagayan de Oro was a successful time in my eyes. I experienced so much and met so many amazing people that I'll never forget!

Help those in need with All Hands or in your local area!