DMC/Merlin Keyword: TYPHOONHAIYAN
John shows his grandmother’s house where they hid first. He and his parents ran to the nearest village hall after Haiyan was tearing apart his grandmother’s house bit by bit.

Story by Lanie Carillo/ Communications Specialist / World Vision Philippines:
A table in a small village hall that would soon be cramped at night time by families left homeless by super typhoon Haiyan serves as baby Patrick’s new home. Curled in a corner, baby Patrick was fast asleep, unaware of what just happened in his hometown.

His mother, Rowena, sitting outside the hall, was listening to a World Vision staff talking to a village official. A few minutes later, baby Patrick made a sound. Rowena went inside and rocked him slowly in her arms to put him to sleep. When he was silent, she put him back in the middle of the table to avoid falling.

Rowena recounts the day Typhoon Haiyan landed in the northern part of Cebu on November 9. “We ran inside the gym but after several minutes the gym’s iron-sheet roof was also blown away. We ran again to the village hall to take cover. The wind and rain were strong and whistling. I just gave birth to Patrick through caesarian. I was running under the rain, carrying my baby. My husband was also running with our eldest son. We feared then that if Haiyan also blew away the roof on the village hall, we would have nothing to go to and protect us from Haiyan’s rain and wind,” recounts Rowena in Bisaya, a dialect spoken in Cebu.

Outside, many of the houses were damaged. Fallen trees, roofs and house debris littered every corner in Libertad, a small village in Bogo City, where the wrath of Haiyan passed and affected all people. Bogo City has a population of more than 82,000, which are all affected by Haiyan. Like all the trees, electric posts are also damaged leaving the city in total darkness at night. Communication is also a problem. Typhoon Haiyan has displaced 65,907 people in Cebu, the Office of Civil Defense Central Visayas reported.

Rowena’s husband, Jerry, made a living by selling coals. He earns Php130 (3 USD) a week. They used to have a small garden planted with some vegetables that they can use for food. Life then for them was difficult but made doubly difficult in the aftermath of Haiyan. Without money to buy food nor garden to pick vegetables, Rowena’s family would usually eat porridge, supplied by the local social welfare agency of the government.

A few meters away from Rowena is a family whose house was also damaged by Haiyan. John, 4, points to his new home — what was formerly his family’s convenience store but was turned to a house after Haiyan wrecked their house. “We ran to grandma’s house,” John said, “but her place was also damaged. We ran to the village hall. There were many people there. I was shivering and merely looking outside. I saw trees falling and roofs flying. We waited inside until the storm calmed.”

“It was difficult,” John’s mother, Nancy, says. “Everything that we have, our house, our appliances were damaged in an instant.”

Nancy’s home, a 20-square meter house, is in total wreckage. All their things, including clothes, a television, and wooden chairs are damaged. They were able to save a few things — a wooden bed and a cabinet.

“We just finished paying the installment of our house that cost Php18,000 (400 USD) and our TV at Php6,000 (133 USD). I didn’t know that we would still end up with nothing. All those amounts of money are now wasted,” she adds.

Nancy’s husband works in a nearby water refilling station, which is one of the most important businesses among the towns devastated by typhoon Haiyan. “Drinking water is difficult,” Nancy shares. “You are lucky if you can pay Php25 (less than one USD) for a 5 gallon of water. Most of the people here cannot buy it. So they just take water from the well, boil it and drink.” The well that Nancy refers to has been left unused for years since people in her village already have water pipes. But all the water pipes were also destroyed.

John came to his mother, drinking a cup of water from a mug that looks like a soccer ball. He smiled and ran again inside the house. “It is difficult to recover especially when you have no money and you’re hungry,” Nancy says, her eyes pensive, as she looks to her neighbor, whose house was also damaged.