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BY RHICK LARS VLADIMER ALBAY
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Growing up after Yolanda (Part 1)
IN November 2013, NeAnn was woken up at 1’oclock in the morning by sirens and the blaring sound of someone shouting through a megaphone – they were being instructed to evacuate. She shot up from her make-shift bed to see her family scrambling to gather their few belongings.
Their tight-knit community was located just a few feet away from the Aklan River, many strong typhoons have managed to flood its banks and spill unto the neighborhood of Purok Dos.
NeAnn helps her sister pack clothes and carry their luggage outside, before leaving for the evacuation center she looks back at their small house, with its tattered roof and thin bamboo walls, unsure if it will still be there when they come back.
Last week, I joined a BMI (Basic Masses Integration) activity in Aklan. The experience gave participants a first-hand perspective on the current situation of Yolanda-hit communities, three years after the national calamity, by giving us the opportunity to live with a foster family in these underprivileged areas.
It was both eye-opening and saddening for me to hear and listen to the stories of the people I got to talk and interact with – they’re the “marginalized”, the “urban poor”, the “nasa laylayan”, some of them my age, who’ve been deprived of the privileges and comforts we often take for granted.
I admit that it remains difficult for me to fully grasp the hardships these people continue to endure, and I have no right to say “I know what they’ve been through” because I was with them for only a few days – but here I’d like to retell a few snippets from the personal accounts they’ve shared.
I asked some of the youth from the community: how has it been growing up after Yolanda?
“I felt disheartened and weak,” shares NeAnn in Aklanon. “I saw that nothing was left of our house and thought: Where would we sleep? Where would we find the money to build a new house?”
NeAnn, warm and cheerful as always, notices the sadness in her voice. To lift the mood she jokes: “We did the construction ourselves. We couldn’t really ask the carpenters to help us because they were trying to rebuild their houses too.”
She shares that the flood brought about by the super typhoon had reached nearly two storeys, uprooting everything it passed through with its strong current.
NeAnn was 18 while Mia was 21, when Yolanda leveled their community and left nothing of their houses. The two best friends share that their families have yet to get back on their feet after that tragic November storm. NeAnn is now 20-years-old and Mia 24.
“Daw wala pagid kami kabangon ah,” sighs Mia. “Kabudlay man gyapon.”
For a few weeks their families lived in make-shift tents on the land where their houses once stood, just tarpaulins over their heads for a roof.
Mia shares that it took them almost a year to fully rebuild their house after Yolanda, her family starting from scratch after the typhoon washed out all their property.
“Dayun wala pa gane kami kabangon sa Yolanda, sunog naman nag-abot,” interrupts one of the older passersby, eavesdropping on our conversation. (To be continued on Saturday, Nov. 19/PN)
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