We arrived in Malaybalay, Philippines the day before a big Typhoon hit and devastated the region. We had no power or water for a week.
(homes are made of woven reeds for walls, tin or thatch roofs, and thin bamboo or mud floors)
(this kitchen in the place we are staying is MUCH nicer than most homes)
For meals, our neighbor MaiMai runs a sari-sari store out of her home that includes meals she has precooked. A sari-sari store is basically a small convenience store out of their homes. In Central America they called these Pulperias. Here, some of them are also like little Boston Markets. You can buy servings of whatever dish they have prepared for the day. We buy breakfast and lunch from her regular store, and she prepares dinner especially for us since her store is closed by then.
(the first night we cooked for ourselves, but it took over 3 hours to make rice, not worth it)
In the evenings, we use the hour or so of daylight to take care of laundry, cleaning, and other ‘housekeeping’ items. Although we had power and water restored after more than a week, we find its still better to keep the lights off at night otherwise we are swarmed with mosquitoes. Having our water restored doesn’t change life much either. It just means that instead of having to haul buckets from down the street, we can fill up our jugs from the spicit in the bathroom. The other 2 sinks have broken handles so we cant get the water on and off. The bathroom is a small tiled room with a drain in the floor and no shower capabilities. You just use the bucket and slosh the excess water down the drain.
We are lucky to be in one of the few cement buildings owned by the local government. It is called the ‘health center’ and seems to handle nutrition education for the Barangay. With no screens on the windows, lots of mosquitos, and many, many cockroaches, we have 1 tent set up inside for a few of us to sleep in. It is not large enough for us to set up all our tents like we have in the past, but at least we get some worry-free sleep!
