A homeless Christmas for Yolanda survivors

ILOILO, Philippines – At a time when most of us are worrying about what decorations to adorn our front lawns or which curtains go best with our silver Christmas tree and dancing Santa Claus, thousands of survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) are still facing the arduous task of picking up the pieces of their shattered lives, and may not even have a roof over their heads at all.

At the sitio (hamlet) of Punta in Carles town, children wonder whether they will be spending Christmas in the barangay hall and classrooms that serve as evacuation centers.

Nine-year-old Roseann (not her real name) recalled the day when Yolanda spread terror in their village last November 8: “The wind made a creepy noise. Like a whistling giant.”

Roseann and her family evacuated from their house, which was along the shore, finding only shattered pieces and broken parts of it the following day.

Like most survivors, they are mostly counting on relief goods for their daily needs as several fishermen lost their livelihood to the sea when the ropes they were using to tie their boats to the docks broke.

Nothing left

“Yolanda took everything from us,” said Jocelyn Rayo, treasurer of the hamlet of Butlog Gamay in the island-barangay (village) of Tambaliza, Concepcion town here where Yolanda made its fifth devastating landfall.

Jocelyn recalled how she watched as the strong winds of Yolanda barged into their village like a madwoman, breaking down glass windows and tearing apart roofing materials. The storm surge that came with it carried away houses, sparing nothing – be it nipa huts common to the islands or sturdier concrete bungalows.

Fearful of their safety, Jocelyn carried her 2-month-old baby up to the nearby hill while around them, trees were falling and sharp roofing materials were flying dangerously close to them.

They stayed in the mountains from noon until dawn of the following morning, weathering the storm, spending the night drenched and subsisting only on bananas from fallen trees.

“We had to pee in our pants,” said Jocelyn. “My baby was only wearing an already-soaked diaper. In our panic, I wasn’t even able to bring a feeding bottle with me.”

All throughout their ordeal, she was afraid that trees or rocks will fall on them, or that there might be a landslide.

Storm surges

Merlyn Delcampo, a vegetable vendor in Piliwan Luca in the nearby town of Ajuy, shares a similar experience as the nearby Tawili Dam overflowed, almost drowning her grandchildren.

“It was as if our home was instantly swallowed by water. In just a matter of hours, the farm turned into a lake,” Merlyn said.

Merlyn and her family hid in their neighbor’s house, thinking that it was a safe place to stay in. However, Yolanda proved to be so destructive that the walls of the concrete house started to crumble, injuring their neighbors.

“We had to swim out of the house,” said Merlyn, shivering at the thought of the horrific moments during the height of the storm surge.

By morning, when the water had finally subsided, Merlyn and her family found themselves with no home to go back to. What welcomed them instead was the sight of strewn wood, uprooted trees lying on the damp earth, and remnants of concrete walls.

They are now staying in a small makeshift shelter, bound only by the ropes that have been washed ashore.

Concepcion, Ajuy, and Carles are but just three of the 11 municipalities of the 5th district of Iloilo severely battered by Yolanda. Most of these municipalities are along the coast, with residents relying on fisheries and agriculture as their means of living.

For people like Jocelyn, Merlyn, and Roseann, survival is on a daily basis.

Unless massive housing projects will be undertaken by the government in the next couple of weeks, thousands of Yolanda survivors may not have any place to call home this Christmas. – Rappler.com

(The writers and photographers are volunteers for the Typhoon Yolanda Story Hub Visayas, a citizen journalism portal created on Nov 13, 2013, by veteran journalists, student writers, mobile journalists, and photographers based in Iloilo City. The Hub delivers reports from across the Panay Island, especially the severely damaged and minimally covered northern Iloilo and the provinces of Antique, Capiz, and Aklan.)