Long time nothing

April 21, 2012

It has been a long time since I did anything as I was hooked up in some very important private matters. I felt a bit guilty, but in the end of course it is also something like 'how can I help other people or be there for other people if I'm not ok myself'. Many people may oppose to this, but I am starting more and more to believe that is true.

What basically triggered my renewed interest in my cause was that some German friends gave me some money for the disaster victims a few weeks ago. Apparently they believed in my cause, so this made me make up my mind again, although I did not really know where to start or what to do. How would I find individuals to help? What connection can I make or how would I choose?

So I started thinking again about what to do and how to find people to give the (limited) funds I received until now. And I started checking around with my friends to make some 'personal connection' with flood victims.

This did not give any real result as one of my friend suggested to give it for rebuilding a chapel, but that is not really my cause. So I did not and still don't know fully what to do yet.

Anyhow, today I finally found some time to visit the disaster area again. Actually that was very good and made me also feel like I'm certainly not too late:

I visited the 'upper Balulang' area, below Pryce Hotel, where I had not been before, at least not like 'visiting the disaster area'. This area gave me a similar feeling I had a lot after the first few days after the disaster: you cannot really figure out what has happened and what is really going on. Apparently many people are in trouble and I saw a lot of rebuilding, but I could not really relate it to 'the disaster'. Scary and confusing.
So certainly not too late, especially I could see the 'lower Balulang' on the other side of the river clearly. This was the area I visited before and that made me feel like 'a real disaster has happened and I need to do something'. From a distance it was very clear that many people there are still in big trouble: a lot of plastic tent type houses or houses in construction. So certainly not too late.
I got a feeling of helplessness as the whole thing is so big and so difficult to grasp. The few hundred Euro I was able to collect mean like nothing. Much more is needed, so maybe I need to promote this website more than I thought and make my project bigger.

So I'll stop with that now: an awful lot has to be done still in Cagayan de Oro City, even though in most places things look very normal. And the last is still kind of the weirdest.