Busy with Christmas

December 24, 2011

Everything appears normal

Still weird that basically the city appears normal, but that you know there have been so many people affected. My main worry was even a problem with our motorcycle and not 'Washi'. And also family trouble as of course with so many people in our house as the whole family of my partner is here tempers can go in a direction that does not feel nice.

Anyhow, my mechanic had recovered from illness yesterday so I decided to have the motorcycle repaired, which meant that I had to pick it up at the church where the evacuation center is.

On my way there I used a taxi and had a nice chat with the taxi driver. After a while I realized he might also have been affected by Washi, so I just asked if he had been affected and expected to hear something like 'no' as of course most people are not really affected. To my amazement he told me he had been affected and that his wife and children were with family in Agusan and that of course he had to earn money for rebuilding their home. I thought of getting his cellnumber or something as I still want to personalize any help, but I did not. And that brought me back to the question 'where to start' if I would be able to raise some money, although of course I will find ways, don't worry.

Hard to figure out the real story

While waiting for the motorcycle repair I ended up walking around in the city center, including the river end of Divisoria. While walking there I pondered that it is and was still very difficult to get the picture of what's really going on. Also that area must have been flooded, but you could not really see any real water marks or so. Most of the streets have been cleaned up. Indeed some homeless people at the far end of Divisoria, but if you wouldn't know better it could just be their usual 'home'.

That and some discussions with friends made and make me also think what 'help' really means in this type of situation. My main feeling is still that if I will be able to raise funds I will find some people who are in need of 'stuff' for rebuilding their home and also publish their story on this site. This is also why I just created the page rebuilding after washi.