Follow up—October

Adamson University was hard hit by the typhoon, but not so hard hit as other areas. Classes were cancelled and students and staff came in to mop up the campus and organize relief efforts in other communities. Here's a link to more photos: www.adamson.edu.ph/news/2009/10/news01.shtml
Want to help? DePaul has started a fund to aid its sister university's recovery. Contact me or Charles for more information.

Dianne

Students and staff organize

Adamson students help this Balacan community dig out

Aftermath of the typhoon

Jet-lagged, concerned for our friends, and grateful to be home—we've been fortunate beyond all belief. Until today, we had no idea how really bad the flooding in parts of Manila has been. The neighborhood we were staying in managed the torrential rains fairly well and the streets were passable by Sunday morning when we headed to the airport. What a scene. It had been totally down the day before and was stiflingly hot, packed with weary stranded passengers who were oddly calm and patient. Despite only partial emergency power and no computers, Japan Air Lines' posse of impeccably dressed young women, clicking through the dim airport in high heels, shifted us to a flight that would make our Tokyo connection and didn't even lose our baggage.

Unfortunately, our Adamson friends have not had it that easy. Charles has managed to contact President Banaga. Here's an excerpt from his e-mail response:

"I was on my way to a meeting and did not reach the venue. My new car was totally submerged
in water and swept away by the flood. We were able to leave it just intime and went up to the third floor of a building with 50 other people. We slept there that night and walked home the following day. Very frightening experience! But we are safe. Fr. Kiko [VP for Academic Affairs] got stuck on the road too and he slept in his car that night. Good the flood waters did not enter his car. The next day he came home.

Adamson suffered much. The gym floor was the worst hit. It is made of imported wood and it got submerged in water. If I am not mistaken that cost us something like 3 million pesos around 7 years ago. Many servers and computers on the ground floor too. The art gallery was half way deep in water as well as all the computer labs and offices under the theater. All the buildings had water except the building where my office is.

The creek [that runs through campus] overflowed. In the morning they found a driver dead along the street in front of my office. He suffered a heart attack as he was stuck in his car in the flood waters. They found him in the morning.

400 students and professors were inside the campus on Saturday and stayed there during the night. They were lucky. If they went home they would have been swept away. They discovered that some of their houses were under water when they returned. We have no news about many of our students and faculty yet as many phones do not work and people are still stranded and unreachable. . . . They said that the rain that fell in 6 hours is equivalent to one month! Until now there is no electricity in many areas and some streets are still under water. There is another storm on the way I heard! . . . . Fr. Nonong and the VCSR staff have started relief operations in coordination with Caritas Manila. Adamson has become a relief center. Classes have been canceled for a week but we told the students and employees to come and clean up the university and volunteer at the relief center. . . . We are still lucky despite the damage suffered by Adamson."

As soon as bank accounts can get set up, dePaul people will be mounting a relief effort for our partners. We'll keep you posted.

Saturday update

Here's a view from the steps of our building. A typhoon's moving through. Now I understand why the standard casual dress code is calf-length pants and flip flops. I had to roll up my pants and wade in driving rain to the cafe to send some emails. It's unsure whether we'll be able to fly out tomorrow, but everyone here seems to be taking it in stride.

This week has been a little crazy wrapping everything up, so I'm way behind in my posts. Soon to come: Playing tourist on a picture-perfect island, a day at a convent in the countryside, hope for children in an even poorer neighborhood, more museums of course, and now a serious rain.

Lost in Translation #3

After a lovely dinner to thank the two Adamson administrators we worked most with, they dragged us across town to a wildly colorful KTV place--you get a private room and drinks and microphones and a TV with song lyrics and sing your tensions away!!! Guess what the K stands for?

By popular request—more on food

Buffet on the beach, with fellow tourists

We dined well in Palawan, with the settings as lovely as the food. The islands seemed to have arrangements with the tour groups—a row of thatched gazebos along the beach for resting and dining, plus a number of people living there to provide basic facilities. Both lunches were barbecue buffets of what was becoming our standard fare: pork, chicken and fish in savory sauces with the occasional stewed vegetable. And rice. Lots of rice.

Our evening restaurant in town was an upscale variation of that. A lush, partially open-air construct of local materials with a water garden and handicrafted art. Fish again. And panakbet, a popular veggie mix of squash, string beans, eggplant, tomato, okra, onion, garlic, ginger and shrip paste. It was pouring rain on the second night so we stayed at our hotel (a set of cabana-type cottages). Its restaurant was a set of gazebos also, and the servers delivered the signature chicken barbecue in pairs, one holding an umbrella over the other as they ran from kitchen to table.

A couple of things we forgot to mention earlier: Rice is an essentiall part of every meal. Plain rice, garlic rice, all different kinds of rice. The words for dining in Tagalog mean "with rice." . . .There are commonly five meals here. Morning and afternoon snacks are called merienda. Some restaurants offer neat little small plates in the afternoon only. During meetings, Adamson often served a twinkie-like cake in the morning and a bowl of pasta in the afternoon, with juice boxes. . . .Desserts tend to be Asian style, lots of sweet sticky rice. Green and red Jello cubes are often mixed in with coconut milk concoctions. . . . There's one major beer here, San Miguel. It comes in various brews and, according to our connoisseur, isn't bad.

Travelling the Pacific

Countryside, with rice fields and (waay back) the Sulu sea

Shuttling to the underground river site

Entrance to the river, with Di in the much welcomed shade

The "Crocodile Farm"

Charles on the beach

Our hosts arranged for us to play tourist on a three-day holiday weekend. The islands of Palawan are the southwestern part of the country—a relatively untouched paradise where development vs. conservation is a big issue. The island claims the most diverse ecosystem in the country, much of it threatened.

I'm not sure where our modest excursion fits into that spectrum, but it was a delight to get out of the city and into the green. And what green! Dense rain forest, mangrove swamps, palm-fringed beaches, and ripening rice fields. Guides escorted us around by van and outrigger boat with an affable group of yuppies from Manila to see the sights.

First day: the town of Puerto Princessa and the countryside around it. By area it's the largest Philippine municipality and includes islands, ocean and rural areas. We passed small rice farms with traditional thatched houses, cows, and working water buffalo. First stop was the wildlife conservation center devoted to preserving an endangered crocodile species. Then off to a weaving workshop, tourist shops, and (Lost in Translation #4) a model prison farm.

Day two: West across the island to Sabang and the subterranean river. It flows through a vast limestone cave filled with birds, bats, and dramatic rock formations. We were shuttled there by motorized outrigger, waded onto a beach, got to see forest and monkeys up close, then donned helmets and life vests and headed upriver in a small boat with large flashlights. Even the guide's corny spiel couldn't undermine the drama and wierdness of the place.

Day three: Island hopping around Honda Bay. By outrigger again, this time out to a raft for snorkeling in your live vest above a coral reef (Was the guide's "don't touch" enough to protect it?). Charles had a great time and so did I, once this water-resistant gal convinced the guide that "vegging out" was a legitimate way to have fun. Then on to another island for swimming and lunch, then to another for more swimming as fishermen waded in with nets and pulled out gallons of tiny silvery fish. (Museum alert: these beaches are exact replicas of those in Travelling the Pacific.)