The first 36 hours I was in the Philippines, I slept 28 of them. I was so thankful that we had a day to relax while Typhoon Pablo blew through. I'm not sure how much I slept on the plane, but I knew that I was exhausted from 52 hours of travel, on 3 hours of "good" sleep before we had left Nicaragua.
When we woke up in the morning, our contact had gotten us a spread of cold food items for breakfast: breads, fruits, etc. We woke up at our leisure and ate breakfast at our leisure as well. Our electricity and water had already been knocked out when we woke up, so we just drew back the curtains and stayed in our room all day.
A few of us wanted to shower after a long travel adventure, but since we were out of water, it seemed near impossible. Until we realized that there was a typhoon dumping buckets of water outside. So, we grabbed our swimsuits and soap and found a rain spout that was pouring down with rain. Yes, we showered under the rain spout. It was very entertaining, especially when a gust of wind came and the spout moved. We were a soapy mess chasing the down spout of water. And if we went too far around the corner, we would get pelted with rain drops, which hurt quite a bit on bare skin…
We sent a couple people to try to get to the store, but there was a fallen tree across the road, so they waited at our contacts house until it was cleared. As the day pressed on, we watched as trees fell on the perimeter of the property line and a shack nearby that was leaning before the storm grew even more precariously angled.
The eye of the storm came through late afternoon, but the longer we waited, nothing came. This was either the largest eye in the world, or the storm had passed. It turned out to be the latter. We had survived the storm!
The next day, we helped with clean up right after breakfast. One of the complex's neighbor's had a tree fallen on their power lines and part of their house. There was a scrap lumber pile on the campus of Mount Moriah, so we sorted through and found some usable pieces to take over to the house for repairs. Our contact told us that this neighbor often came to their help in times of trouble and it was now time to return that favor.
One of the many houses that was destroyed by Typhoon Pablo.
After helping all morning around the complex with some construction, Team Tumbler packed up shop and headed to our official ministry site! It was about a 20 minute drive to the barangay we would be staying in: Can-Ayan. It was on the outskirts of Malaybalay City. On the way, our contact pointed out locations that we would be doing ministry at throughout the month.
We got to work with Team Redemption Valley while we waited!
We arrived in Can-Ayan and met the Barangay Captain. We were told we would be staying in the Nutrition Center Building. They showed us in to a two-roomed building with a small comfort room (only a toilet). To flush the toilet, you had to pour a bucket of water down it and hoped there was enough force to make it all go down.
Our home for the month
The front room was bigger and was intended for the girls to sleep there. There was a couch and two arm chairs in the room as well. The guys slept in the back room, which was essentially the kitchen. The "stove" was just a concrete slab to make a fire on with a stand to place over the fire. They asked us if we knew how to cook. We said yes, so they showed us to the small sary sary stores around town to buy what we needed for dinner.
Since it was late in the day, there was not many options: rice and vegetables was all we could find. So, we bought rice, veggies, firewood, matches, and candles preparing for a dark night with no electricity. It ended up taking us four hours to make a pot of rice and a pan of veggie stir fry over the fire. Hurray! At least we got to eat dinner…
Our "stove"
We had no running water and no electricity for nearly two weeks from the time we got there. We were living by candle light at night, with candles that cost P2 each (about a nickel a piece) and we had to walk a few blocks ever day to fill up jugs at a water spigot. There was no knob on this water spigot, though. It turned on at random times and just ran for a certain amount of time, so we had to catch it at just the right time, or it was no water for us.
Welcome to the Philippines! Welcome to Can-Ayan!
