First Look at the Super-Typhoon Haiyan Disaster Site: Tacloban and Tanauan

Gabe Mercado and our teammates -- Bing, Celene, Dingdong, Sander and I -- left for the Manila airport at 1:45A on Friday, February 28, 2014.  Bing was an important part of team, because he spoke the local language - Wahri.  There are at least 120 languages in the Philippines.  Filipino is the official language, which is the Tagalong language spoken in Manila.  English is another official language.  Many Manila citizens use English no problem.  Outside of Manila, my experience is more people understand English than can speak it.

Cebu Pacific Air donated six airline tickets for our Heroic Improvisation team.  There were no direct flights to the affected area.  We flew to Cebu from Manila and then transfered to Tacloban flight, which took us to the island and province of Leyte, Philippines. 

Leyte is a province of the Philippines located in the Eastern Visayas region. Its capital is Tacloban City and occupies the northern three-quarters of the island of Leyte.  We were to do three workshops with over 50 disaster survivors in Tacloban and Tanauan over two days.

Our team mostly slept in the airport and on the plane, so we would be ready for our first workshop in at an elementary school in Tanauan - 10 km north of Tacloban. Our JCI Makati Princess Urduja Chapter Coordinators - a team of 5 young women entrepreneurs from Manila - picked us up from the Tacloban airport in a van with a driver.  That airport still looks like a disaster zone.  There is a roof and the rest of the terminal has been blown out.  There are blue tarps as walls now.  This keeps the dust flying onto waiting passengers when jets take off.  There is a significant military presence at the airport and lots of ruins of cars, shanties, water towers, etc.

We went directly to a breakfast buffet at the nicest hotel left in Tacloban  - Hotel Alejandro.  It also serves as the informal headquarters of the UN effort here.  http://alejandro.tacloban.biz/  We cooled down in air conditioning while we had our breakfast.  At 9AM, we were off in the van again for the 10 km drive to Tanauan.  Our first stop was the Tanauan Mayor’s office to be officially greeted.  We received Certificates of Appreciation signed by the Mayor and ribbon necklace with a sunflower and seal of the city from uniformed staff.  More about Tanauan here:  http://www.tanauancity.gov.ph/

Then we got to the local school (Tanauan II Central School), where we were greeted by about 120 school children, grades K - 6.  The single story school building was damaged by the storm.  There were no windows and the roof was recently repaired.  Three school children drowned in the building during the storm surge from the Super-Typhoon.

Most of the children were living with their parents in a tent city on the school grounds.  The tents were white UN tents with side ventilation and they sure did seem hot.  The tent city residents were using the water from the school for cooking and washing.  It was a quiet orderly place.  Someone already planted some flowers, so the place looked pretty.  Since the school had good drinking water, the kids’ had their labelled toothbrushes there.  A bittersweet image.  All the kids were clean, well-dressed and well-behaved.  I was impressed because there was over 150 school kids and they were sitting quietly in the school in the heat.

Our JCI partners presented the students with backpacks of simple school supplies:  paper, pens, notebooks.  These kids lost everything, so the supplies were welcome.  The parents take turns cooking lunch for the kids, mostly rice and vegetables.

As guests, we were treated to the best food available.  This part of the Philippines is famous for roast pig, so we got that....still on the spit.  The only time I saw Filipinos agressive was tearing into the pigskin to eat it.  Plus, there was a special noodle dish only served for special occasions, like birthdays.  We actually sang “Happy Birthday” to no one in particular, because it felt like a party with the food so special.