Bohol, Philippines

Wednesday, November 28

 

Week 1 in the Philippines is coming near its close. Unfortunately, a little piece of India came with me…my last supper seriously disagreed with my intestines and I’m still enjoying the effects. I guess “Delhi Belly” catches up sooner or later. As we got closer and closer to our arrival at the Manila airport – and longer and longer into our overnight stay there - we kept hearing how difficult it is to get in to the island of Leyte and provide relief work there. We had a contact on the island of Bohol and decided to look into that first while we feel out how we can best provide relief for people struggling from disaster on disaster. We are now working with IDEA, International Deaf Education Association, Philippines in putting up houses for people who lost theirs. Dennis, Brian, and Rhonda, the founder and managers of IDEA, realized that after the aid organizations pull out in a month or two, people will be left as they were after the Haiti earthquake, in tents. So they are building core houses which they can also expand and extend as families get back on their feet in the coming months and years.

Yesterday we were in a small village called Loon (pronounced La’ohn). The October earthquake did some serious damage to this ocean-side barangay (community) including damaging or destroying most of the classrooms in the 2 local schools, and collapsing nearly all the limestone-brick houses. The wooden houses, which are mostly up on small platforms, fared better as there was less resistance to the moving ground than concrete slabs. But a good portion of the population of Loon lost their homes. We first visited on Sunday to meet with a school teacher and start scouting out families in need of new homes. In the four homes we visited, the only situation that was the same were the small plastic tarps families were living under. The plan is to bring pre-fabricated houses to people who lost their homes and can’t afford a new one and it would be great if they could just be dropped off and assembled in an hour or two. Realistically, though, every situation, piece of land, and family is different. We returned on Tuesday to Loon to assess the situation again and figure out logistics for transporting and storing the house pieces, as well as erect temporary classrooms for the deaf children with whom the government hadn’t concerned themselves when setting up temporary tarp classrooms for the rest of the school.  I was interacting with one young boy and was trying to ask where he lived through wild gestures. He pointed to the field next to the school where a number of “shelter boxes” or big tents were set up by relief organizations just after the devastating earthquake. So we pieced together that his house had collapsed during the earthquake and they had been living in the tent ever since. The gestures went something like this: “you,” “house,” “ground shake,” “fall down.” To which he responded: “me,” “house,” “ground shake,” “fall down.” It about broke my heart.

IDEA already has 25 pre-fab houses assembled and today the process began of delivering them to local areas. There is a lot to figure out like who needs them most, how they will fit on the existing lots, how much demolition we need to do, if we can re-use any existing concrete slab for a foundation, how to deliver them efficiently to different areas, realistically how much (or how little) man-power it takes to assemble them, how many can go up in a day, and how many more they can afford to make. Two houses were installed last week which was the initial trial run. You might have seen the picture of smiling Filipino children in front of a plywood house on facebook, which was one extended family who received a house. One thing to mention is that the construction crew making and installing these houses is deaf and have been trained by the IDEA organization. After working with them yesterday, I can say that they are some of the nicest, friendliest, and happiest construction workers I’ve ever met. It will be a pleasure to work alongside them while we are here.