Grace Anne stood on a colorful tiled foundation, the only
indication that a house once stood were a few broken cinderblocks with jagged
rebar emanating, and my memories of standing within these walls, sleeping,
eating with this wonderful family as they hosted me just a few years ago.
"Ha!, we are rico na!" Grace Anne's mother, Tita
Grace had said to me one day, as she proudly showed me her newly tiled floor,
designed off of pictures she had seen in a re-gifted Good Housekeeping
magazine. She stood with a large smile,
pointing at the fragments of tile and drying grout in between. Without funds to buy proper tile, she had
found a pallet of broken shards in town, so the floor was a colorful mix of
blues, reds, greens, and all mixes in between.
In many ways, it looked better than if she had just gotten a standard
set of tile, all alike, with similar patterns and shapes.
When we first drove through the little village of Cabuynan,
Tanauan, Leyte, on January 22, I
recognized only the big Copra Mill where sweating bodies had milled coconut
oil, all of the huge containers overturned and leaking sludge. Everything else was a burned, spoiled palette
of the town and houses that had once been.
We drove by the house the first time, since I was looking for the sturdy
little home that I had known, but then we lurched the creaking jeepney to a
stop and turned around, slowly creeping along the National Highway, and
finally, we saw a bright tiled floor out in the open, and chain-link remnants
of the fence that once guarded the hacienda.
Roy and I exited the jeep and walked across the road carrying a few new
folding chairs and provisional clothes as Grace Anne stood in a light drizzle
in front of her makeshift home of donated plywood, paper-thin roofing, and a soiled
Unicef tent.
Her smile was huge, and as she talked, Grace Anne's pride
shone through a strong composure. Only
when asked of her experience during those minutes and hours of Typhoon Haiyan's
fierce winds and surge did the corners of her beautiful big eyes puddle with
anguish.
Grace Anne, her cousin Roussini, her mother and father, and
her grandmother were all at her house when they began to hear the first rains
from Yolanda hit the metal roof of their home during the evening of November 8,
2013.
Within an hour, winds were
deafening, and their coastal community knew that this storm was unlike the
others they had known. The first salty
pacific wave shattered through a thin wall of cinderblocks and mortar, and tore
away the thin metal roof, and, at about 5 o'clock PM, Grace Anne held onto
Roussini as they were carried on a wave, white and ferocious, some 50-feet high
over to the steep mountain that flanks their little town. The other family members were unable to stay
with them, and were forced in other directions. Grace Anne pointed to the places where she
and Roussini clung for about 3 hours as wave after wave of storm surge wiped
away homes and lives and futures of so many.
A boulder outcrop jutting out from the mountain where they found shelter
at last stands as memorial to their horrible experience.
As they told their story, we stood under a tarp in the small
cooking area listening intently, incredulously, to their memories of that
night. Finally I asked about her mother,
the woman I had known as Tita Grace.
Before Grace Anne could answer, we heard a motor slow outside, and
Terry, Grace Anne’s father came around the corner, much leaner than I remember,
with a large smile on his face, outstretched arms.
Rain subsided and we walked on the colorful tile floor in
hot Philippine sun as Terry recounted his experience during the storm. Despite some new scars on his upper arms, and
a tighter gait to protect some broken ribs, he was the same Terry as
always. His voice was tired though, and
one can only imagine the pain that he had experienced in the past couple months
since the storm. That morning, as waves
had swept them towards the same steep slope where Grace Anne and Roussini were
clinging for their lives, Terry and Grace held onto each other, grasping for tree
tops as the torrent tossed them around.
Finally, Terry said they lost their grasp on each other and he clung to
a tall coconut tree as floating debris battered his arms and back. A giant white swell carried Tita Grace away
into the early morning
 |
| Students in Tanauan jump rope and live next to the shallow graves of many friends and family |
darkness.
 |
| Friends meeting to help decide where to put local funds in Babatngon |
The day after the Typhoon, light drizzle fell as Grace Anne,
Roussini and Terry were reunited. Their
home was gone, and all that remained were some pieces of rubble and bright
tile, washed by ferocious winds and rain.
They would find Tita Grace’s torn body a half mile away amongst fallen
Mahogany branches and a bramble of Balukawi vines, and eventually discover Tita
Grace’s mother, a cousin, Terry’s mother and father, and many friends who had
been lost to the Typhoon as well.
 |
| All the Soggy Books that remain for the nearby Tanauan National High School that services 1600 students, where 52 of 58 school buildings were completely obliterated |
For one family to feel this kind of pain is devastating, but
unfortunately, it is similar to tens of thousands of stories of families in
this jovial, welcoming corner of the world called Leyte, Philippines.
Grace Anne told me of her struggle to stay afloat, and her
reliance on leaves and wood in those 3 hours.
Neither she nor Roussini could swim, adding to their panic. She stretched her arms wide to show me the
size of the snakes and lizards that floated in the white froth with her, and,
when I asked her how, despite the waters and odds against them, she had managed
to remain alive, Roussini and her clutched one another again, as I imagine they
had that evening, and Grace Anne shook her head, motioning to the sky. 
