Caring Chefs Develop a New Model for Delivering Emergency Meals to Survivors of Catastrophes

Illustration by Edward W. Tyszkiewicz

A terrorist event, an active shooter, a serious accident, a natural disaster, or other high-stakes crisis can affect anyone, any time. The good news is that you don’t need to have super-human strength and abilities to help yourself and your community in a high-stakes crisis. If you want to help and are ready to improvise in small groups with other people on the scene, you can act heroically with others to save lives. 

Through studying case studies of rapid rescues and instant innovations in accidents, disasters and emergencies, I uncovered the improvisational abilities that people in small groups can use to address high-stakes crises with other people on the scene. in what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle©. In this article, I present “ripped from the headlines” case studies of ordinary people following what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle© to save lives and what you can do, if you are in a similar situation.

For more information on how the Heroic Improv Cycle© works and the Heroic Improv Program© training: check out www.heroic-improv.com.

“Who else can take raw ingredients that are seemingly unassociated and make them into delicious food and do it under extreme pressure?” Chef José Andrés, quoted in New York Times, Oct. 30, 2017

When Hurricane Maria blasted Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, it destroyed buildings, knocked out the island’s power grid, decimated crops, and left many of the island’s 3.4 million people struggling to survive. Five days later, DC-based Chef José Andrés arrived in Puerto Rico and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen (founded after the 2011 earthquake in Haiti) arrived to help cook hot emergency meals for survivors.

Chef Andrés expected that he and World Central Kitchen volunteers would do what they had after Hurricane Harvey in Houston—help prepare a few thousand emergency meals, donate some money, and head back home after a few weeks. He never imagined how the scale and accomplishments of the undertaking in Puerto Rico would evolve. Within just a few weeks, Chef Andrés and other World Central Kitchen volunteers had developed an island-wide network of kitchens, supply services, and food delivery services and created a whole new model for preparing and delivering food to survivors after a devastating natural disaster.

When he first arrived in San Juan, Chef Andrés connected with his friend and fellow chef Jose Enrique. Mr. Enrique’s small restaurant in San Juan had rain coming through the roof and no power. Nevertheless, the two chefs and their helpers pulled out food in the freezer, located a gas generator, bought up aluminum pans, and with the help of volunteers started preparing large batches of a hearty Puerto Rican stew on the street in front of the restaurant. “We decided we would just start cooking,” said Mr. Enrique. They recruited the owners of a few food trucks to help in deliver food to the neighborhoods that needed them most. Every day, the number of people they were feeding doubled, and more cooks arrived to help.

As the number of survivors in need of food aid became apparent, Chef Andrés and World Central Kitchen formed partnerships with other aid groups and large food companies. In a short time, they had taken over the biggest indoor arena in the country (the Coliseo de Puerto Rico) in San Juan to build out a central kitchen to feed more people. They got a chain of vocational schools to open their kitchens to become 18 satellite feeding kitchens and coordinated meals for survivors in far-flung places outside of San Juan with satellite phones, Whatsapp, and paper maps. Chef Andrés’ Twitter feed became a source of news and commentary about what was going on in Puerto Rico.

At the height of their food operations, volunteer crews catalyzed by World Central Kitchen were preparing and delivering more than 120,000 hot meals and sandwiches every day to survivors in all 78 of Puerto Rico’s municipalities. The cost of $300,000 to $400,000 per day (including transportation and hotel costs for chefs and staff members, as well as payments to food truck owners who took meals into isolated neighborhoods) was covered through donations to World Central Kitchen and Federal Emergency Management Agency contracts.

At the end of October 2017, World Central Kitchen began scaling back their feeding operations in Puerto Rico. They closed down the main cooking operation in the coliseum in San Juan and several other kitchens. “At this point in Puerto Rico’s recovery, cooking and distributing too much free food could swamp the emerging economy,” said Andrés. For the foreseeable future, the organization will use a more strategic approach aimed at feeding the elderly, the sick, and people in remote communities of the island.

World Central Kitchen’s ability to scale up an emergency feeding operation for the survivors of a catastrophic hurricane in Puerto Rico follows the Heroic Improv Cycle© . When Chef Andrés arrived on the island five days after the hurricane, he immediately recognized that the scope of the need in Puerto Rico was vastly greater than he had anticipated. There was no power on the island, and the government’s response was slow. Many hurricane survivors lacked clean water and food. (Step 1: Alert: Sharpen perception and awareness of problem at hand.). Chef Andrés reached out to local San Juan chef Jose Enrique and scoured the area for resources like volunteer cooks, pans, and generators (Step 2: Ready: Find resources and overcome communication barriers to address the problem.). The two chefs gathered volunteers to help cook hot meals for survivors on the street in front of Enrique’s restaurant in San Juan and met with the owners of food trucks about possible deliveries (Step 3: Connect: Form a team quickly.). The volunteers in initially focused on providing freshly cooked meals to hurricane survivors in San Juan or nearby (Step 4: Focus: Aim attention to solve the problem.). The team of volunteers provided hot meals to hurricane survivors who showed up at the restaurant or to whom they could easily deliver food (Step 5: Move: Shift into action together.). As the huge number of Puerto Ricans going hungry after the devastating hurricane became apparent, Chef Andrés and other World Central Kitchen volunteers continued to rapidly prototype solutions until they were able to scale up operations to provide hot meals to hundreds of thousands of hurricane survivors, including survivors in remote areas of the island.

Chef Jose Andrés expressed the spirit of Heroic Improv with this quote in the New York Times article of October 30, 2017, “At the end, I could not forgive myself if I didn’t try to do what I what I though was right. We need to think less and dream less and just make it happen.”

More about Chef José Andrés and the World Central Kitchen’s activities in Puerto Rico and elsewhere here:

• Chefs step up relief efforts in Puerto Rico as food supplies run low, Eater, October 11, 2017.
• José Andrés fed Puerto Rico, and may change how aid is given, New York Times, Oct. 30, 2017: www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/dining/jose-andres-puerto-rico.html
• Following Puerto Rico, José Andrés says his nonprofit may focus more on relief work, Washington Post, Oct. 27, 2017: www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/10/27/following-puerto-rico-jose-andres-says-his-nonprofit-may-focus-more-on-relief-work/?utm_term=.b1fd617c56fe
• A chef will wind down his crusade to feed Puerto Rico, New York Times, Oct. 25, 2017: www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/dining/jose-andres-puerto-rico.html
• World Central Kitchen: www.worldcentralkitchen.org/
• More information on Heroic Improv Program© training at www.heroic-improv.com or dr.mary@heroic-improv.com

Rapid Rescue by a School Bus Driver and Bystanders to Help Victims of a Terrorist Attack

Illustration by Edward W. Tyszkiewicz 

A terrorist event, an active shooter, a serious accident, a natural disaster, or other high-stakes crisis can affect anyone, any time. The good news is that you don’t need to have super-human strength and abilities to help yourself and your community in a high-stakes crisis. If you want to help and are ready to improvise in small groups with other people on the scene, you can act heroically with others to save lives. 

Through studying case studies of rapid rescues and instant innovations in accidents, disasters and emergencies, I uncovered the improvisational abilities that people in small groups can use to address high-stakes crises with other people on the scene in what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle©. In my blog, I present “ripped from the headlines” case studies of ordinary people following what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle© to save lives. 

For more information on how the Heroic Improv Cycle© works: Check out www.heroic-improv.com/blog

On October 31, 2017, in what New York Mayor Bill de Blasio later termed “an act of terrorism . . . aimed at innocent civilians,” a 29-year-old, Uzbek-born man named Sayfullo Saipov went on murderous rampage with a rented Home Depot flatbed pickup truck in lower Manhattan. Saipov later told authorities that he had been inspired to carry out the truck attack by Islamic State videos, which urge supporters to inflict as much carnage on “the enemies of Allah” as possible.

Saipov began his rampage at about 3 p.m., driving the rented truck nearly a mile on a popular biking and walking path near the Hudson River and killing at least eight people and wounding many others. Saipov then slammed the truck directly into the side of a school bus carrying children with special needs and got out of the truck and shouted “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic phrase that means “God is Great.” In a hail of gunfire that subsequently erupted, Saipov was shot in the stomach and taken into custody by the New York police.

Thinking quickly, the driver of the school bus, whose name has not been released, quickly guided the bus to a safer side street and began yelling for help in rescuing the children still inside the mangled school bus. Sebastian Sobczak, who happened to be walking by and who had begun filming the incident when gunfire erupted, alerted nearby police, asked someone to call 911, and yelled for an ambulance. Very quickly, police and firefighters arrived on the scene to help. A 14-year-old girl on the bus suffered a fractured hip, internal bleeding, and a laceration to the liver. A 17-year-old boy was injured less seriously. Sobczak called the bus driver, who selflessly remained in the line of fire consoling one of the trapped children despite being injured himself, a hero.

Sobczak’s real-time video of the aftermath of the crash of the school bus shows how different people helped rescue the trapped children using the five steps of the Heroic Improv Cycle©. When the truck slammed into the school bus, the bus driver immediately recognized that this was not an ordinary traffic accident (Step 1: Alert: Sharpen perception and awareness of problem at hand.). The driver of the school bus, though injured himself, moved the bus to a side street, and got out of the bus to look for help in removing the trapped children still in the bus (Step 2: Ready: Find resources and overcome communication barriers to address the problem.). The driver screamed for help from a bystander who immediately alerted first responders to the situation (Step 3: Connect: Form a team quickly.). The team focused on helping the child stuck in the tangled wheelwell of the bus (Step 4: Focus: Aim attention to solve the problem.). Very quickly, police and firefighters used equipment to remove the trapped children and get the bus driver and other victims of the crash to safety (Step 5: Move: Shift into action together.).

• For more about the school bus incident, check out: http://abcnews.go.com/US/nyc-terror-attack-dramatic-video-shows-mangled-school/story?id=50890946
• For more about Heroic Improv and how you can develop a survivor mindset with the Heroic Improv Program© training, check out:  www.heroic-improv.com or contact dr.mary@heroic-improv.com

Heroic Improv by the Passengers and Crew on Flight #93 to Thwart a Terrorist Plot

This case study illustrates how the passengers and crew on Flight #93 quickly banded together to thwart a terrorist attack in Washington, D.C., September 11, 2011.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, al Qaeda terrorists on a suicide mission hijacked four passenger airplanes to carry out a coordinated attack on the United States. The hijackers of the first two planes deliberately crashed the planes into the World Trade Center complex in New York City, causing a massive conflagration that killed thousands of people. The hijackers of the third plane crashed the plane into the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia. 

Used with permission.  www.danaverkourten.com

This illustration is an artist's rendition of what happened on Flight 93, when this group of strangers became a team to thwart the terrorists.

The takeoff of Flight #93 was delayed, so by the time the al Qaeda hijackers were able to overtake the cockpit, the other three planes had already hit their targets. A radio transmission from Flight #93 at 9:28 a.m. captured the sound of a struggle in the cockpit and the hijackers incapacitated the pilot and co-pilot. They said they had a bomb on board and told the passengers and remaining crew to remain seated and be quiet. Then they reprogrammed the plane’s autopilot system to fly the plane to Washington, D.C., probably intent on destroying the U.S. Capitol or the White House.


The 40 passengers and crewmembers on Flight #93 quickly realized the gravity of their situation and within just 30 minutes had developed and implemented a plan to thwart the plans of the al Qaeda hijackers. My analysis of their actions indicates that the passengers and crew on Flight #93 followed the five steps of the Heroic Improv Cycle© to save lives. They realized that their plane had been hijacked (Step 1: Alert: Sharpen perception and awareness of problem at hand.). Many passengers then began using phones on the plane’s seatbacks to call their families, friends, and authorities to report the hijacking (Step 2: Ready: Find resources and overcome communication barriers to address the problem.). From these phone calls, they learned the shocking news that three other hijacked planes had already hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Realizing that the gravity of their situation, the passengers and crew banded together spontaneously to come up with a plan of action (Step 3: Connect: Form a team quickly.). They decided that they needed to try to storm the cockpit to regain control of the plane (Step 4: Focus: Aim attention to solve the problem.). Todd Beamer, who had used an onboard phone to call the Federal Bureau of Investigation, gave the signal for the counterattack with the now famous words, “Let’s roll.” At 9:57 a.m., the passengers charged the cockpit door to try regain control of the plane from the hijackers (Step 5: Move: Shift into action together.).

As the unarmed passengers charged the cockpit door, the hijackers tried to disrupt the assault by rocking the plane back and forth and tipping the nose up and down. The passengers continued their assault, forcing the hijackers to crash the plane in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The 40 passengers and crew of Flight #93 did not act as a "soft target.” Through their quick and determined actions, they reversed the predator/prey dynamic and saved many lives. For more information about the Flight #93 story and a montage of the passengers and crew, see the Flight 93 National Memorial website: https://www.nps.gov/flni/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm.

Ripped from the headlines: Case studies of Heroic Improv

A terrorist event, an active shooter, a serious accident, a natural disaster, or other high-stakes crisis can affect anyone, any time. The good news is that you don’t need to have super-human strength and abilities to help yourself and your community in a high-stakes crisis. If you want to help and are ready to improvise in small groups with other people on the scene, you can act heroically with others to save lives.

Through studying case studies of rapid rescues and instant innovations in accidents, disasters and emergencies, I uncovered the spontaneous team abilities that people in small groups use to address high-stakes crises with other people on the scene in what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle©.

Heroic Improv Cycle©

Used with permission.  www.lloyddangle.com

The Heroic Improv Cycle© has five steps:
· Step #1: Alert­­­—Sharpen awareness of awareness of the crisis situation using your five senses.
· Step #2: Ready—Identify and communicate with people who might help you and locate material resources in your immediate surroundings that might be used in responding to the situation.
· Step #3: Connect—Quickly form a small group with 16 or fewer people and commit to collaboratively solving the problem at hand.
· Step #4: Focus—Think about what must be done by the group to address the problem until someone­—whoever comes up with an idea first—signals the next step the group should take. The focus of the action is driven by the problem and is determined using the principle of fluid, collaborative leadership.
· Step #5: Move—Shift into action, responding to what one member of the group has signaled the focus should be and assess the results. Early attempts to find a solution may not be entirely successful, so the entire cycle may have to be repeated until success is achieved. People desire to help, commit to the action, and work through the cycle. Each cycle generates discovery, experimentation, and exploration that informs the next cycle. At some point, an effective approach to the problem at hand emerges.

In this section of my blog, I present “ripped from the headlines” case studies of ordinary people following the Heroic Improv Cycle© to save lives.

Heroic Improv: Having fun while preparing for disaster in Philippines (Interview Transcript!)

Transcript: Mornings @ ANC

February 26, 2014

Heroic Improv: Having fun while preparing for disaster in Philippines

The concept of fun is hardly imaginable when calamity strikes. But some believe that it is just the key to make communities more resilient.  Following the recent disasters that hit the country, a collaboration was born to apply theater improvisation games to generate action for innovative disaster response. 

Now here to tell us more about their shared cause and their chosen medium are Gabe Mercado  - founder and artistic director of Silly People's Improv Theater company or SPIT  - and he is also a trainer with a decade of experience in human and organizational development.  And Dr. Mary Tyszkiewicz  - a disaster research professional from Washington DC and founder of the Heroic Improv Process.

Paulo:  Good morning

Gabe:  Good morning, thanks for having us.

Paulo:  The introduction I think really hit the nail on the head for me.  I mean -- disasters,  being funny, improv  -- but they do meet somewhere, don’t they.  How do they meet?

Mary:  Um the way they meet is.... Disasters often are unimaginable.  So how do you get people to be ready for something unimaginable? So we use theater to help citizens, emergency managers and elected officials to practice.

Paulo: Right

Gabe:  The key here is really is -- I have had lots of experience doing improvisation.  Which is basically, you mount the stage with nothing prepared in advance. Mary  - on the other hand - has had decades of experience too working in US government in the US Capital, Homeland Security Institute and FEMA - Federal Emergency Management Agency.   And our two lines of experience basically met.  And she said, ”In a lot of ways, improvisation and disaster are alike because things that you do not prepare for that you cannot imagine happen right there.”  And it is the process by which we adjust to unexpected and unimaginable that we take citizens through.

Paulo:  Right, OK.  When you explain it that way, it certainly makes a lot of sense.  How did you come upon this...how did you figure that out, Mary?

Mary: Inspired by Hurricane Katrina and the poor response, I was inspired to find a better way to get  Americans to practice for disaster.  And ..um...we did actually did a test with virtual reality and elected officials, and it turned out the secret sauce was getting them together and play for real.

And at the same time, my mother was doing community theater in the US.  And community theater is something that starts with hardly any professionals.  And two months later, they have a production and it’s beautiful.  And so I said: “Wow!  Can’t we harness that imagination to get people to prepare for disaster?”  And so, I found theater improvisation as a solution to a problem that I was seeking.

Paulo:  OK.  I mean - your first thought was  - yeah  - that this may be the way to get people a little more prepared. What --  did you experiment?  Who did you experiment on, with?  What was their reaction when you said -  you know what this is probably one of the best ways to prepare for disaster...  let’s makes some jokes about it.  Or not necessarily jokes but let’s use improv techniques to prepare.

Mary:  As the social scientist of the duo, I was actually surprised about the fun.  I actually went to improvisation because I know in the beginning of an improv scene, people don’t know where they are, they don’t know who they are with and they don’t know what is next.  And for a non-performer, that feels like a disaster.  And as an analyst who is not a performer, I took improv classes for a year to really explore the process.  So then when we developed the exercise, the surprise to me is that the participants said it was fun.  And it appears that the fun fuels the learning and gets it to stick.

Gabe: Yeah. One example -- actually Paulo -- yesterday we were at the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.  And the SBMA Emergency Response Team last year -- 2013 -- won the award the best emergency response team in the country.  

And we ran them through scenarios which were a little bit off.

Paulo:  Unusual?

Gabe:  Unusual.  Because these are members of the fire department and law enforcement.  And we start cold with a scenario.  And because we knew they were highly drilled and the best in the country, the scenario we started them with was we gave them five minutes to secure the room for a Zombie invasion.  

Paulo:  It could happen.  Laughter

Gabe: And our point was.  It they really threw themselves at it and really prepared.  It was eerie.  There was silence and they were in defense position.

After we processed it out to, how many of our disaster locally were unimaginable to people who were there.  Let’s take Haiyan, for example.  There was information that there were 10-15 meter high storm surge. 

Paulo:  But we never experienced that.

Gabe:  People couldn’t imagine it.  So, perhaps their response was not as adequate, because it was unimaginable.

Paulo:  Right, OK.  So in terms of actual..... I mean.... you have been in the improv game for a very long time.  In terms of the actual exercises that sort of go into this,  and how are the learnings distilled and how to make those learnings concrete. What is the process?  How does a session like this work?

Gabe:  Well, first, we don’t label it as improv.  We take out all the jargon as much as possible.  And we go through a five-step process.

Mary:   Yeah - so the five step process....  um ...the first step is Alert.  And basically, that is to recognize there is a crisis.  Because many citizens...they freak out, freeze up, they are in denial.  So we get them to warm up their bodies and their intuition.  And to forget about the past.  Forget about the future.  Be here right now.

And then the second step is Ready.  So we try to get people to practice their awareness.  So, what is around them?  What could be useful?  And I know Filipinos are really good at finding other uses for things.  

So that is one of the things, instead of people being freaked out, we want them to be open.  And just like, wow I can use this flat screen TV to carry something or you know -- whatever.

And then the third step, is to connect up as a group.  That is one of the things we do in the simulation is we have people....  You need to keep the group safe together.  Because many times in a disaster people take just care of themselves.

And we know  -- I know -- because I seen it in Superstorm Sandy -- that innovative disaster response is done in a group.  It is only successfully done as a group.

So the third step is to connect up in a group.  And then once those things happen,  - Alert, Ready, Connect,  - then people will naturally know what the next right step is together, even though they never experienced this before.

Gabe:  We also take them through the fourth step -  which is giving and taking focus.  Because a key component of this is fluid leadership.  We have situations here where we do not move because the barangay captain did not tell us anything or the mayor did not tell us anything.  

And we take citizens through the experience of taking and giving leadership in a fluid manner.  And that you do not have to wait for another person to order you around, to take the moment.

And then the last  step of the five steps is moving quickly towards a solution.  And the whole thing  -- in our experience in our simulations --  can sometimes take less than two minutes.  All those steps and it just goes over and over again.  It is a spiral.

Mary:  Yes.  It is a spiral.

Paulo:  How to do you measure how the effective the technique has been or will be when it comes to preparing people to be a little more  - you know - Bruce Lee in their reaction to disaster?

Mary:  Bruce Lee together!

Gabe:  Sholin monks!

Gabe:  The way we design it is there are two simulations.  We have a whole database of disasters from the unlikeliest to the likeliest.  And we make sure....

Paulo:  Zombies apocalypse .... somewhere in the middle.

Gabe:  Yes.  And the other situation we ran yesterday to end the session was a vintage US nuclear warhead was found in Subic and it was leaking.  And that is a little likely.  We have a whole database of disasters. And we sandwich the program between them.  

So the first disaster simulation we get a base of how did they react?  Were they catatonic?  Did they just talk?

And with the last one.  After they go through the module and five-step process, we time them again with a totally different scenario.   And often we see the response is much, much faster.

Paulo:  Is quicker

Gabe:  Yeah....

Mary:  And in harmony as a group.

Paulo:  I mean....can you translate the way you ....I don’t know... problem solve........or tackle a particular problem in a light and sort of stress-free environment that you do when you do go through these simulations?  Is that supposed to be a model for how you are supposed to handle a situation for when things get real?

Gabe:  Well, just to put context about the whole thing we are doing....  We see what we are doing as part of an entire program of disaster preparedness programs that a community must go through.  And most training program move on the areas of increasing people’s knowledge.  Let’s say: What is an earthquake, what is a storm surge. etc.  Or increasing their skills:  How to do First Aid.  How to do CPR.  How to put out a fire.

We see this piece as concentrating completely on attitude.  What attitude should the civilian take?  And it is really directed towards civilians and citizens.  What attitude should we take when disaster hits unexpectedly?   And we feel it is a great foundational piece to learn knowledge and skills.  And it has been really effective for us that is it done in a spirit of fun.  Disasters are depressing enough.  

Paulo:  Right.  Like we said at the start, the last thing you connect to disasters is having fun.  But really being loose and being fluid and being able to roll with the punches seems be what being effective in a situation like this is all about.  What do from here? Now that we know that an approach like this can work,  how to we trickle this down to groups, to barangay, to communities?  How do we organize ourselves?

Gabe:  We have spent the past.... Has it just been two weeks? 

Mary:  Since Valentine’s Day.

Gabe:  We have been rolling the program out to as many communities as we can. We have gone to Laguna.  

Paulo:  Right .  OK, we have some clips of sessions that you had.

Gabe:  Yes.  From Laguna.  We are heading to Leyte this Friday.  And we are putting together all...Mary is an expert on research and writing grants and really taking the data and taking a look at it.  When she returns to Washington, we’re gonna take a look at all the data we have generated, fine tune it.  And we’re seeing a national-wide roll-out by April or May.  How exactly we are going to do this logistically, we are not their yet.

Mary:  We are going to improvise, though.

Paulo:  We are gonna see what happens.  We are going to see how what comes our way.  And we will react to that.  Right?

Gabe:  We see this really....we have volunteer facilitators who are willing and able to run this.  If we can get a partner.  JCI is already helping us -- the Junior Chamber International.  And with their help we want to roll this out - particularly the JCI Makati Princess Urduja Chapter.

Paulo:  All right.  Well good stuff.  All right.  We certainly applaud your efforts.  It is very interesting actually what we learned from you guys.  Well, thanks you very much Gabe and Doctor Mary for joining us this morning.  Best of luck and how the program goes farther, faster and quicker.  

Gabe:  To as many communities as we can manage.

Mary:  Thank you.

Paulo:  Thank you for joining us this morning. Next up is a sneak-peek at the Gonzilla re-make.

Gabe:  That is a great segue.

Paulo:  Yes.  How would you react to that?  Laughter.

Final Workshop for Disaster Survivors: A 10 year old Student Council President Blows the Roof Off Our Last Workshop in Tacloban

On Saturday afternoon, our final workshop was for 16 members of the JCI Tacloban Chapter.  We held the workshop at their former headquarters that was not too far from the sea.  The headquarters building was now a roofless shell of a building.  We were told that the place was looted after the storm. There was no electricity, so we needed to make sure we got the workshop done before the 6PM sundown.  You could see where walls were and some interior rooms.  There was a rickety series of 2 by 4 boards that were holding up an interior ceiling.  One good shove or wind would bring the whole thing down.  We stayed away from that space for the workshop.  Luckily, there was still a working toilet.  JCI Chapter members brought in a cooler for cold drinks and plastic chairs for the workshop.

I felt it was the perfect place to do the workshop.  It was like the workshop would reclaim the destroyed place for the 20-40 year old business entrepreneurs -- symbolizing a better future beyond Typhoon Haiyan.

It was a Saturday and some of the JCI members who had children brought them along to the workshop.  Kids were going to school on Saturday in the area to make up for the time they missed because of the typhoon.  We had two 10 year old girls who jumped right into our workshop next to their parents.  

One girl was really notable.  Gabi introduced herself to the group in perfect English as the third-grade class president.  She played each exercise to the hilt.

So when we came to the final exercise of workshop she jumped right in.  She improvised a scene with Gabe about a shared memory of traveling to Disneyland together.  All in English! The story started with all the fun they had, a scared Mickey Mouse and then Gabi using a taser to keep the knights who were scaring Mickey Mouse and chasing her and Gabe away.  Gabi brought the house down!

Unfortunately for the workshop, Gabi set the performance bar so high that it frightened the adults to try.  Luckily, Gabe, Dingdong and I tried our persuasive best to encourage the adults to improvise.  One brave woman improvised with me in English, which was is a feat for these people who speak three languages:  Wahri, Tagalong and English.

Gabe tried one more time to get others to improvise.  Gabe told our participants that the number one fear in America is public speaking.  The second is death.  Then Gabe asked Gabi about her public speaking abilities.  She said, “I have been speaking in public my whole life, especially as class president.”  And then Gabe said, “What about the rest of you adults?”.   He got a laugh and no more volunteers.  And we made our point:  You can feel the fear and move into action anyway or not.  At least after the workshop, you know you can have a choice.

After sundown, we were taken to a local home for a home-cooked meal.  Our visiting group of 12 were fed, along with JCI Chapter members.  It was a crowd fed by one of the members who was a caterer.

They did not have electricity, so electric lamps powered by solar cells illuminated the home.  Also, there was no electric fans.  The matriarch instead walked around the house and fanned us with her hand fan.  How hospitable!

I had my first sticky coconut dessert, wrapped in coconut leaves and served with coconut jam.  Yum!  Gabe and Celene loved it so much, they commissioned more to be made for us to take back to Manila.

After the meal, Gabi found me again.  She very formally asked me -- as the third grade president -- if I would come back to the Philippines and visit her school.  The whole dinner party was enchanted by her speech to me, and of course I said yes.  I guess I will be back to the Philippines, at minimum to visit Gabi’s school in Tacloban.

During our Heroic Improvisation workshop, we ask participants to pick one word to summarize what they learned. I took on that challenge myself to describe what I learned in the Super-Typhoon Haiyan locations of Tacloban and Tanauan. On that Saturday night, I failed...I was so overwhelmed with feelings that I couldn't put it into one word. 

Now, I have found the word. And it is a word from the local Warhi language: Tingdog! It means Rise Up! Although the destruction is epic -- even after 112 days after the typhoon -- the people's spirit is strong and resilient. So inspiring to see people moving on in the wake of tragedy with high spirits!

Second Workshop for Disaster Survivors: Local Barangay Citizens Survive Heroically During The Storm Surge

We had an early start Saturday morning, our plan was to get back to Tanauan II Central School by 8A.  Our van driver picked us up at the hotel.  Sander jumped out of the van to get us fresh baked rolls for breakfast at the closest bake shop, and then we were off for 10 km ride to the school.

We were met at the school by JCI Chapter Tanauan Former President Lanilo A. Macalla (known as “Macky”).  He organized some more breakfast for us (fried beef and rolls), and brought hot water for coffee.  He also set up a water cooler for breaks.  Drinkable water was still scarce in Tanauan and we were grateful for the largess of a water cooler.

Today, we were leading a smaller group of 16 citizens through the workshop.  This group size is ideal.  With a group size of 16 or less, we can guarantee a deeper experience as a small group.  With a group size of 16 or more, the small group experience is lessened for participants, yet we can still get the basic concepts across.

Gabe started this group with pair and share questions:

• What are you excited about?
• What are you afraid of?
• On scale from 1 - 10, how prepared are you for the next unimaginable event?

Gabe smartly de-briefed these questions and how they relate to disaster response.  It turns out the physiological effects of fear are just like excitement:

• Sweaty palms
• Quick breathing
• Rapid heartbeat

Through the workshop, we want to give people choice to use excitement to move into action and not be frozen in fear.  It seemed like his message hit home to these disaster survivors.

This group of 16 was very diverse.  The local barangay captain, her neighbors, and three teenage singers from the area called “The Singing Survivors” made up our group.  The barangay is the smallest of the elected administrative divisions of the Philippines. The local barangay captain told stories of how citizens came to her for guidance during the typhoon and storm surge and how she kept them focused on actions to survive.

One of the “Singing Survivors” told his survivor story very dramatically.  At the moment the typhoon was destroying him home, he described it as “Yolanda -- Right here in 3D!” with a lot of humor.

So Gabe challenged him to improvise a scene with me -- the American.   This expressive entertainer was terrified to go off of his script and improvise with the American.  He actually said in Tagalong that he would prefer to go through Typhoon Yolanda again than improvise with me.

This was another “ah ha” moment for me.  The fear of improvising in front of a group can at least equal the fear of confronting an unknown disaster.  I wanted to find a way to help people experience the fear of a disaster without anyone getting hurt and I found it!

After the workshop, we were taken by pedicab (my first trip!) to downtown Tanauan for a lovely lunch in a home front cafe.  The food was good and the vibe relaxed.  So relaxed that when there was a lull in customers, wait staff would nap on the couch in front.