"A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view!"
8:04 AM
How was I
during the storm? One word: ASDFGHJKL!! (I know it's not really a
word but..yep.) I have to say, that week was crazy. 😂
Monday
morning, my parents caught a flight to Samar for a seminar leaving me and my
siblings at home. They were to
stay there until Friday so we all agreed to keep in touch with
one another, we even loaded up our phones and availed a week’s worth of
unlimited calls and texts (which I don't normally do…just because).
*Fast forward!*
We didn't
expect a typhoon coming and what's more is that we did NOT expect it to be that
strong. I guess it’s also because we didn’t bother to watch or read news about
it either.
At 3 A.M., Wednesday, the rain kept pouring
and the winds bashed into our house. I woke up feeling shocked, thinking that I
peed on my bed (haha sorry!) because it was so wet, but then
I realized that it was flooding in our bedroom already. *panic
mode ON*
Electricity went out.
Garage fell on car.
My precious marigolds that have just started blooming – not so precious-looking anymore (my poor babies!).
My precious marigolds that have just started blooming – not so precious-looking anymore (my poor babies!).
Kitchen – gone.
Yes, gone.
The wind blew so hard, I could have ridden on the roofs of our
makeshift kitchen singing, "A whole
new woooorld!!!" Pinoy version of Princess Jasmine on the magic
carpet.
It was
seriously difficult not to have parents around during situations like saving a
gas range from being blown away by monstrous winds or finding scrunched up
roofs amidst the heavy rains. Plus, my parents weren't the only ones who were
not home during the storm, my older brother left too. He got stranded somewhere
in Biga while working on a thesis so we only called or texted each other from
time to time, asking if things were going okay. Good thing he got home right
away when the storm laid low. Anyway I am still grateful that there were people
from our church who helped me and my little sister clean up the mess the storm
caused. I didn’t tell my parents about our house being attacked by Glenda yet
since I thought Mom would go hysterical about it, ‘til she called sometime at 7
A.M. to check on us. Surprisingly, she didn’t react as I expected. She was
completely calm about it, telling us to stay inside the house and be careful.
Candles were very useful to us and every night, they made us feel like people
living in the olden days. When we get bored, we pick up the guitar and sing, or
we dance around the fire, make up our own chants, and pretend that we are
tribes of some kind.
 |
I still managed to take a photo with my 3%
battery life, haha! I just had to have
something to remember the funny
moments we had after typhoon
Glenda.
|
Some nights, we role play haha!:) and pretend that we are
actually watching the television (with
matching use of the remote control, shifting from comedy to drama). We even
say “Tayo na’t mag hapunan, Rizal..”
because of the “feels” of living in the past that the candle light gives (lol). It’s all thanks to the power
outage that we got to spend time with each other :) **I remember the
night sky being so clear and
beautiful during those times, too! The stars were breathtaking!**
One of the highlights of that week was us doing every single thing we could to keep our phone and laptop batteries
from dying. I was in deep need of finishing our AVP during those times, too!
What huge pressure!!
We tried hard to find
charging stations wherever we could including 7eleven stores. We were even
willing to pay P25/15mins (though we
thought it was total crap 😂 so unjust) but we were unsuccessful. A week
without phones made our
week-long unli promo a w-a-s-t-e. A week without TV. A week without
the internet. A week without electricity! Therefore, our parents weren’t able
to reach us for days. We had a hard time communicating with each other since
the technology of cell phones or the internet was unavailable. Good and
not-so-good things happened that week but I still thank God for keeping us safe.
 |
| Some people from church helped us secure our stuff temporarily. This photo was taken by my dad when they got home from Samar. |
Now, I think this
is the part where I say…
Even without technology, Glenda made me see ‘a whole new world
and a new fantastic point of view’ on real
and actual communication :)
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! 💃
(on Coping With Power Outage and Calamities Through Communication and Technology)
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