Life after Yolanda

What now?

I watch the one channel that my host family gets every night during our dinner time together.  This one time during the day when we are all together and at this time this one channel always has a news broadcasting on for all the Philippines to watch.  So guess what we watch…. That’s right, aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda footage.  

It’s been almost two months since the biggest and most destructive storm every recorded in history slammed into the country of the Philippines, almost two months since I have been trying to find a normalcy in what had been my already scattered reality.  Most days when I think of the people that were affected, no devastated, by this storm, all I can think of is pretty much everything and nothing at the same time because I can’t imagine what people are going through.  Yet I am so close to the worst hit areas and yet my area was barely affected.  Even after talking with friends of mine, fellow volunteers, who experienced this horrific storm first hand, there are no clear thoughts to grasp the loss that this country has had.  

There are no reasons for WHY this happened and worse yet there are no easy solutions to HOW to help people still suffering and that will continue to suffer. 

But things are getting better. Volunteers that were sent home because of the typhoon are now starting to return and although some of them have to receive new sites many are going back to their original ones.  Staff from Peace Corps have also visited the areas of Tacloban and a resource volunteer has also gone to help with the recovery process...



What's New?

As for me I spent a lovely New Years vacation with some other volunteers in the beautiful Caramoan Islands near my site.  It was amazing to recharge and unwind; I really needed it.  Christmas was a tough one, being it was my first ever away from home let alone half way across the world.  




December was a very slow month at work, so that didn't help me from getting home sick as well.  Although I did get to participate in Sports Fest which all the workers here at the Local Government Unit (LGU) participated in.  

It was fun and I got to show off my rusty volleyball skills.  Basically it was like a mini community Olympics for the LGU staff, where everyone was broken up in to four teams. Red, blue, green, and yellow.  There was sports and board games and a parade. I was on the red team.

I missed everyone at home very much, but my host family and coworkers were amazing in the celebrations here.

For the new year I really hope to buckle down and start focusing.  Peace Corps volunteers in my batch have a two week training coming up at the end of February, so that will really help me start thinking about my own projects as well. 

I am also super excited because before that my amazing boyfriend is coming to visit and we are also going to the lovely Caramoan Islands. I can't wait! Here is some pics from my first trip there!!! Hopefully they leave this post on a positive note versus the negative one that is started on!  

 

 PEACE