Typhoon... Part 5

7:15am Tuesday morning 21 December

we just reviewed our rendezvous plans for the fourth time and Inday left for Ayala Metro, next to Rustans for water - drinking kind. Ayala Metro has five litre liter bottles for sale when they open at 10, and Inday is going to get in line early.

Next door, the Rustans (Cebu's Nordstroms, more expensive stuff) has 10 liter bottles. #5s are better because of our 16 flights of darkened stairs when we return. 5 liters are better because of our 16 flights of darkened stairs when we return. I want to surprise her and leave earlier than she assumes I will head out. She's worried about my hernia.

Part of me loves this mini crisis stuff. It's an adventure, keeping in mind that we are more fortunate than many other souls...starting with the rainfall of glass when the window exploded above me. Pure luck I think.

My first victory the day was coffee. I remembered that we might have some ice trays still in the fridge. Voila! enough water for two small cups of my super duper instant coffee formula. And I already had my main dump of the day... sorry...

 

That reminds me of victory #2, maybe. A separate trip by Inday is planned for later, where she will go up to Oprra where Lenie lives...more lines, but they have water for non drinking etc, including toilets. Like Jack Webb from an early US TV show dragnet said "just the facts ma'am"

when we were in Tukwila, with our own with our year round Creek in the backyard, and I had to replace the waterline between the House and the main line out by the road, I just got buckets of water out of the creek for our toilet.  

I think I mentioned the crown in my mouth coming out. That means until I get to a dentist after this business is over - no hot coffee for me for a while. Also it bugs me here just like in the US to pay two or more bucks for a cup of coffee. Even tho it's good coffee, I was telling Inday the other day I was going to start bringing a thermos of my own scientifically developed instant coffee with me. The average cost for a cup of cup here is p120? That's 2.33 US

I've been thinking about a little line of bird poop that was on one of our windows. There's a thin line on the outside of the window where it was before the typhoon, and I was hoping to see that the bird poop was gone the next morning, but now that I'm looking at it, at a small line that is either some tenacious bird boop remnant, or, it's a scratch on the outside surface caused by flying debris

Inday's list of goals today also include a trip to Palais? street down near Colon, where she heard there might be a hotel with electricity and water, and a room available. She's going to just walk around and look for power and ask people. Can't hurt.

I've turned on my new Samsung phone a few times each day just to see if there's an internet connection.

It must have been good karma that my last two messenger messages got through/were sent out before the power grid failed - to Andrea and Nathan... (*emotions...)

It's still two hours before Ayala Metro opens at 10am. Inday is probably already standing in line, people watching and talking. Waiting with her, her line neighbors

I'd better start getting ready. Will look for one of the number 14 D buses, P 15 pesos 15 pesos instead of 100 pesos or more with a taxi.

5 hours later - what a day!!

11:10am Tuesday 21 December

We're both back home and and we finished updating each other about our adventures. Inday waited in one line A Metro before a "No More Water" sign went up.

She then went next door to Rustan's and stood in line for another hour before Rustan's put up a "No More Water"

she came back with three small bottles of thirsty brand water. Thirsty is really good coconut shakes chain and they haven't raised their prices. They're limiting the numbers per customer, still charging only p20 each. The food stand near them always has higher prices, and their price was p50. No wonder they have shorter lines at Thirsty all the time!

I had things happen in my two hour excursion. Our plan was for me to leave a little later and meet up with Inday so I could carry back one of the two five liter jugs of water we hoped to purchase. Instead, I went downstairs about 40 minutes after Inday left. I watched buses and Jeepneys filled the capacity go by for 15 minutes and let multiple taxis pull up and honk at me. After giving up on the buses I started waving to taxis, which dwindled in numbers suddenly, and when a vacant one did finally pull over, I said "Metro Ayala Rustans?" He gestured with his hand to his mouth (*need food gesture) while nodding No, and started to pull away. Not far enough. Not enough money. I reached in with my hand and said "how much?" First mistake.

The following 30-40 minutes was traffic gridlock, et cetera, giving up on joining Inday, negotiating up to p350 (the average cost would be around p120?). (* -I'm a foreigner and p350 is still only $7 US, but Inday was pissed at the taxi driver. In the English language Cebu paper yesterday, there was article about price gouging etc, and governement penalties. Too late for me. I just wanted to get back home...)

Back at the Ultima, I pulled out my flashlight and started my trek back upstairs. I was wearing my little forehead strap headlamp today - really cool. Had it pointed down at the stairs as I climbed. I met up with one of the workers on our stairwell, and I as I've been doing lately, started asking questions

"wastewater anywhere. We haven't flushed the toilet in three days"

"17th floor"

"17th floor wastewater?"

"Yes"

"Thank you!"

the first thing I did after I unloaded my backpack and took off my shirt was grab a bucket and head up head one floor to the 17th floor

Voila! I loaded up to one large bucket we use for laundry and made several trips up and then downstairs, one step at a time downstairs to the apartment. After three tanks FILL TANK fills attempts and one plumbing snake creation using some some heavy duty electric wire - success! This was a victory I shared with Inday after her return, about 12:31pm.

POOP be gone!!

Next,

water...

A few other people I met up in our darkened stairwell earlier was a young woman with a "Colliers" company tag on her light green uniform. And a little older guy. Colliers is the group that bought out Ultimate Residences or the Crown Regency Hotel or whatever. 

The typhoon hit around 7pm Last Thursday and today, Tuesday, five days later, somebody was checking on us. I gave her our apartment number, told her my wife was gone in search of water. I also said it would have been nice or helpful if someone had told us or let us know that there was some wastewater on the 17th Floor, one floor up... that we could use for our toilets. Some people closer to the swimming pool under renovations on the ninth floor were using that the swimming pool water. 

I couldn't help myself and after I thanked them, I said "there could be dead people up there", pointing up. There are 28? floors here. I don't know. I saw them again later when they knocked on our door before Inday got back. After our pleasantries, because we were already checked off on their list, I asked "find any bodies? ...sorry. Thank you."

There are 1000s? of people on the streets, many walking in search of whatever, trying to get somewhere. Walking costs less pesos. 

1000s of people in lines everywhere - ATM lines, grocery store lines, "load" power for cell phone lines, water lines, gas lines. 

Day five and counting...

Coffee...

I would not recommend mixing instant coffee with your favorite energy drink. I tried a  Nescafe instant coffee and Gatorade combination. I drank the whole cup. The only good thing I can say about it, it was liquid.

5pm Tuesday 21 December continued...

Inday just left for her second foray of the day

I'm holding down the fort.

Two things we've done as a couple the past several days is

#1 - talk, have conversations...

we've always communicated well as a couple. I can be verbose to a fault sometimes, but our mutual sense of humor has always been part of our marriage.

#2, we've been watching the world go by down below. We're on the 16th floor, high enough to see birds fly by below our windows, but low enough that we can see the people walking by below

5:20pm - the sun will disappear behind the hills to our west, looking out of upstairs window, in a few minutes

and it will be dark before 6pm. I think between 6 and 6:30 our one candle might come out. We're in the middle of the city, so even with the brownout, there's still light coming in from outside. 

Filipinos love to gossip and it's so much fun listening to Inday and other line waiters visiting. There's always a little English sprinkled in, and I'm understanding one or two words of Visayan every day.