Typhoon... Part 6 - Last typhoon post

Wednesday morning 20 December

It's 10am Now

our day started at 5am

I meditated for 5 or 10 minutes, dressed, I had mini cup of cold instant coffee and one piece of bread...

with flashlights in hand, we headed down the stairs. Word on the Street was the SaveMore store down towards the Colon area had water, if you line up by 6am

got a taxi

 

it was so nice at 5:40am - cool, relatively speaking. 

Another huge reason for me to get out and start my early morning walks

so nice, and less people

6:20am - got in line outside of SaveMore and looked up to see it was the grocery store on the ground floor of the E mall where we've driven by many times. Actually I confused it with a different mall, with the same name?, when we go to Ayala I think. I don't know.

I stopped taking photos pretty soon after the typhoon

the destruction and damage is everywhere. And one reason we didn't see help in our building is that workers had their own families to take care of. One guy who works downstairs in our PMO office, property management, lost his whole house. He was here, and his wife and child survived somehow, probably with neighbors or other family. 

Anyway, we were in line at the SaveMore from 63:0 to 7am. When they let us 30 to 40 people in (the line was shorter than previous days), we queued up the manager gave us two bottles 32 ounce bottles of water each. We got to shop for groceries, toilet paper, coffee for me, wet wipes, canned tuna and sardines, etc. Inday waved at me at one point and the manager was giving us each a third bottle because there were less people this morning. We hit a gold mine! Also, being down towards the Colon area where most regular folks shop, and everything else  was less expensive. My instant coffee or luxury was at least 20 pesos less than Robinsons. I'm limiting my coffee to four maybe five cups a day the first two caffienated, andthe last two or three decaf.

I know I/we are spoiled. I know that I am. We are privileged...life isn't that hard for us.

But, I keep seeing the British officer from the film "King Rat?", sitting on the shithouse seats on the hillside in their POW camp, dipping his one tea bag into a cup of hot water... his one special luxury in his day. A little later in the film. If I remember correctly, someone says old officer whatever died sitting on the shitting seat. 

Day number five, and we're still finding little jagged squares of broken glass that have come out somehow from their hiding places.

I felt sad for the young man with the flip flops in front of me at the grocery store. He only had three bottles of water in this basket. At the last minute he put his basket down and rushed back into the store. He added some aluminum foil dishes to his purchase.

Info a valuable commodity in this situation. Information I got from people was that Manila was sending more power people to help with our electricity situation. 

When we were outside standing in line outside of the SaveMore, there was an old guy diligently sweeping garbage off the sidewalk into the gutters and roadway. When he got aggressive at one point, a bunch of plastic, empty water bottles went flying out into the road, and Jeepneys rounding the corner would run over them pop pop pop!

chuckles in the waiting line

3pm - Inday just left for another swimming pool on the ninth floor run,

for showering, as we call it, five gallon plastic buckets three fourths full one floor at a time, coming back up to the 16th floor...

fairly clean looking water, with a few leaves. The plan is to scoop up the water and pour it over our heads and then catch it and another but more shallow large plastic bowl, which we'll use for flushing the toilet. That's the plan Stan

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3:30pm - Wow! Ecstasy! sitting in the shower...

poured water over my head

cold but felt soo good

washed...

more cold water over my head and body

finished with a little clean bottled water on my face

such pleasure...

I really want to walk early tomorrow morning

logic says we have to combine function with pleasure. My hope was to walk over to the Citidane's Hotel, the lit up "castle on the hill" we look at each night where people have electricity and water. Oh well. Our my walk instead will be the other direction towards Colon again and the SaveMore store again, for more water. The available water bottles for sale are getting smaller and smaller with each passing day

 

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Day six 3:45pm

It'll be dark in two hours and my stomach is growling. Time to eat. I'm thinking a small can of tuna with spicy chili or something. Maybe an apple and or a banana. Yum. 

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Day seven Thursday 23 December

Christmas Eve is tomorrow night

I was thinking electricity by Christmas. Not so optimistic right now. We left a little later this morning, around 6:30 or6:45am 

We decided to walk because it's so nice - it was cooler in the shadows on the east side of the street when we headed to the SaveMore grocery again. 

Zero drinking water today

but we scored a coke and some coconut water!

I bought a few bottles of soda water with less sugars than the Gatoraide drinks left on the shelves. We found a small Carendaria with some yummy chicken pork veggies and rice for p280 ($3.33)

Next door to the Carendaria was a small sari sari store, which had some reasonably priced bottled water. Inday smiled and said they couldn't raise the prices because they were next to a police station.

Back to our "island in the sky".

The stair climb up mostly dark stairwells is a pain. We're thinking the electricity is getting closer. Last night, when we were watching the world below, Inday said "look, the lights are on now in that building", pointing down.

I looked to where she was pointing, and I said "I think that's my Bo's coffee". "And the intersection by the National Bookstore has their traffic lights going again!" I'm not buying coffee out much anymore since I perfected my formula of instant coffees, but....Bo's coffee has power!

Inday bought a six page newspaper today in Colon. Duterte is supposedly coming to Cebu today. The typhoon affected a wide area of the Visayas, even down in Mindanao. 

I just got out my Cannon and put on the telephoto lens. Yep, Bo's coffee is open and there are customers sitting outside enjoying their coffee.

Even the beggars weren't putting their hands out as I walked slowly by with my backpack this morning. I was purposely walking slowly, not so much becuase I'm old or it was too warm. I was thinking about that 16 stories of darkened stairwell, and preparing myself mentally.

I got in a little wood carving yesterday. Just as the sun was close to disappearing behind the foothills, a small shaft of sunlight shown right on my little box just right. I could carve little bits with my numbers 11 and 17 Xacto knives

2:55pm - we just made a swimming pool run with one 5 gallon bucket each

shower time! 

more cold water over my head...

I've been staring at this page for a while

nothing

just listening to a generator from somehere, the dog who barks all day when his owners are gone, all the different sounds of the city. Holy cow! that felt good, my shower. I took my time today 

a Tabo scoop of water over my head, but with my head tilted forward over the plastic shallow pan catching the extra water for flushing the toilet. It's cold, and I'm a weenie. I would I would pour water scoops of water with the Tabo, a plastic mini bucket with a handle, over a wash rag and use of the wash rag to scrub my body

having dinner around 4pm today

just remembered the carinderia food we got this morning...veggies, chicken and/or pork, a splash of soda water and/or coconut water. And my fourth cup of my instant coffee formula, but more decaf than Caf. With sunset around 5:30.

the battery on my Kindle is dwindling. So I'm only reading aloud a half chapter of the John Sanford novel each night. Inday is getting into the story more as well, and not falling asleep as fast. 

I really don't want to be in one of those super long ATM bank lines and or the "load" lines for cell phones etc. I'm turning on my main cell phone once a day just to see the words "no internet connection". We are spoiled.

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6:05am Friday 24 December 2021. The day before Christmas

I didn't wake up until 4:25am

went to bed last night around 8pm

these words, in Visayan and Tagalog are pronounced phonetically

eg - Carbon is not pronounced "carbun", it's pronounced Car-bone

Negros Island is pronounced Nay-gross, etc. 

After seeing the debris crumpled metal and broken glass when we walked to SaveMore yesterday, we're no longer thinking power by Christmas tomorrow. 

Nope,  not going to happen...

thinking about going to Ayala today and getting some SaladStop take-out for us. I'm thinking maybe they have internet over that way over towards IT Park, where all the banks have their headquarters.

We're limiting my trips down and back up to one one time a day but if there's internet over there (praying hands emoji here)...

after a week of drinking my wonderful coffee formula, it's not so wonderful anymore. Thinking a cup of hot Bo's coffee

The Hills northwest of us are really beautiful. More so when the sun is rising and slowly casting yellow bronze colors over the Greens, and pushing the darker shadows down lower during the day. And the wonderful shapes of shadows that move across the landscape, shadows of the puffy white clouds passing over.

Some quotes from a lady Inday was talking to in the SaveMore store line:

"Biden wants to eliminate the Bible"

"Bongbong" Marcos, yes that Marcos's son "wants to eliminate corruption"

Say what?! Just like the Trump lover hillbilly saying "re-dik-u-lus" when arguing against some some left wing comments, showing his eh-dyu-kay-shun...

we're going to the Ayala "Terraces" this morning. My fantasy dream is that they have internet over there. We will see... 

TYPHOON - LAST ENTRY IN THIS JOURNAL BY LONGHAND

to be transcribed soon

10:30am 8th? day after Typhoon Odetta

I was headed to the garbage room with two days of garbage bags

as I turned the corner by our elevator, I noticed the digital elevators light was moving

it didn't register...

I turned the corner and noticed the hallway overhead lights were on

What?

I opened the door to the garbage room and it wasn't dark!

The light was on

goosebumps...

I almost RAN back to our apartment and yelled "Inday, come here! I want to show you something." She told me later that she assumed the hallway was flooded or something. Just another problem to deal with. As she approached our apartment door, I pointed up at the light above our kitchen area and turned on the switch...

It's now at 1:47pm, and we have our electricity back. Still no water, but we have our one bottled water left and Inday's going to make a run later for supplies. I'm the tech guy, recharging everything, making my first cup on a hot water coffee yada yada...

I am not a writer. 

This is the journal I started last Friday, the day after Typhoon Odetta rode through and left us without electricity and water for a week

"The End", 

as Addie and Claire say,

after telling us about their favorite stories...