Pride in the Wake of Typhoon Yolanda

I remember vividly the night of August 23rd 2009, the first night I spent in the Philippines.  My cohort and I were staying at a resort in Manila, and while the scent of roasting coconut and the acrid musky aromas of my own sweat mixed with relentless tropical heat wafted through a room that had the constant backdrop of roosters crowing and the ching ching of pedicabs on the streets below, I was terrified of the 2 years that awaited me. 

Two days later, after lots of talking and anxiety, I stood in a group of 21 that had been chosen to work in the Visayas.  My wife and I, along with another couple, would be working on the island of Leyte, and I would finally discover, after some training on Leyte, that my home for 2 hard years would be The Municipality of Babatngon.

The people of Babatngon didn't come across as the easy going Filipinos everybody talked about.  They didn't automatically welcome us in to their homes, sharing coke and crackers in cool concrete parlors as we had come to expect, but rather they often shut their doors to Selena and I, and conspicuously wouldn't invite us to fiestas and parties, when we had taken for granted that they would.  Many times, I got into arguments with my coworker Grace who was headstrong and conniving, not feeble and pleasant, as I had assumed these people would be.  Although I was expecting open arms and welcoming smiles for the noble work I had set out to do, my presence was met with skepticism and reproach, and it troubled me for the first months of my Peace Corps service.

One day, when I had worked to get provincial leaders to come to the Village Center, the Barangay Hall, the men I had organized didn't show up, said they were sick, sent children to tell me they weren't coming.  I sat for hours waiting for someone to show, and nothing.  I was sweaty, tired, and hungry, and got on my bike to leave when I saw two 'officers' of my group staggering down the street, drunk, smiling at me, laughing at me.

Some of my first posts from my time in Babatngon mention projects that had been wasted, supplies and donations from foreign governments seemingly squandered, and my own efforts sometimes discarded and disrespected.    I didn't know what to do, where to turn, and how to help these people who I felt didn't want me there in the first place.  Day after day, month after month I worked to understand how to provide assistance, do the 'Peace Corps thing' and 'make' life better for these folks.

One day, I don't know what happened, but it dawned upon me like the first rain after scorching drought that it was pride.  These people of Babatngon, despite all odds, despite hunger, poverty, dehumanizing disregard, had pride.  They weren't about to let a cocky white couple come into their town and 'save' them.  They weren't going to grow seaweed just because I thought it would be good, nor were they going to start saving tomato seeds because somebody told them to, and they weren't going to welcome complete strangers in, give them the shirts off their backs, make themselves vulnerable, in order to appease the precious foreigners.  When I realized this, my distress and disdain turned to a certain respect, affection for the men and women with whom I was sent to work.

The rest of my service was not easy by any means, but I developed a bond with the Fishermen that I had been sent to serve.  I worked alongside them, tying bamboo and learning how they worked with their hands, and trusted them to do the work they needed to do.  I brought in the money, we'd buy supplies, and their sweat, tears, and pride brought projects together.  It took a lot, but they did it.  Often, when I talk to other volunteers, I can't help but think that my work was something more than theirs.  Not because I worked harder, or put in more hours, sang more songs with kids or drank more tuba with the old men, but because I had gotten past their firewall of pride.  Some of my friends wore their communities like a top hat, but I wore mine like a fire brand, burnt into tender skin. 

Typhoon Yolanda struck the Philippines with a fierceness seldom seen before on Earth.  In its path lay Samar, Guiuan, Leyte, and Biliran, but at its eye, the very heart of the storm, lay Babatngon.  The Babatngon District 1 Fisherfolks Association is comprised of 30 great friends, their wonderful spouses who cut my hair and painted my toenails, and their children who handed me their homework and smiled as they recited Newton's laws in Earth Science class.  Since communication is down, I have no way to know what sort of destruction is there, but the only report that I could find, an article about Barangay Uban, where a faithful priest and his congregation huddled from the storm, mentions 16 bodies that had already washed ashore in the wake of the storm.  These could be my friends, caught on the ocean, fishing to feed their families, just to eat.  My village, the people that taught me their way of life, lifted me up when I was down in those last months, their houses feebly sit over the water on 5-inch diameter poles, and I can only imagine the destruction that is there.  Houses made of bamboo, nipa, and cogon wouldn't have stood a chance against storm surge that Yolanda brought.  My friends, who carried pesos worth of rice home in coke bottles and relished the treat of skyflakes and sprite are sitting in the squalor of squalor tonight, eating who knows what, fearing the hunger that tomorrow will bring. Imagine just living to eat, having to work to merely survive.

If you would like to give money for relief efforts, here are some good suggestions. 

If you know me, you know that I disdain technology, but now, this is when we can put it to use, so, please, text friends, repost this blog to all of those useless social networking sites, or contact aid organizations to find out how you can help to get these people back on their feet.  That's all they need, is to get back on their feet, after that, the Babatngonanons will take care of themselves.