Life after the Wrath of Typhoon Odette: Every Day now is like a Fighting Battle

December 22nd 2021: Day 5 After Typhoon Odette

Electricity has been down since the night of the typhoon happened and we had been dependent with this small candle since the generator's diesel fuel is at the edge of running out. But at least we have power for not more than two hours just for the residents to charge their phone for emergency use but we don't know how long until the community appointed leaders can get more diesel since there is a very limited supply now of not just diesel but all fuel in the whole City. They said the big companies are holding most of the fuel supply and its really hurting the people who does not have the access to money.

I haven't taken a full shower for two days since the storm because I just got really exhausted and since we are rationing our use of water. And just decided to take good bath, our tap water ran out, so I had to go to one of my friends to take a shower, I walked back and forth to two of my friends place, Hive account@itsmiessyonpeakd which is about 20 minutes walk from our place, because I need to spend ky wisely (most ATM doesnt have cash or if it has, the lines are crazy long) but not to make her feel bad, coz she wasn't there when I got there. Luckily, I have a friend who lives nearby, and I was able to take a full shower and Jason gave me some water for my baby's milk.

Everywhere you go there is a crazy long line!!!

Fuel Catastrophe

Yesterday, I left our place around 4am to fall in line for a fuel.

I had to bring an empty bottle to store the fuel because we ran out the day after the storm due to driving around to look for water and baby's canned milk powder.

Thanks to this our lobby guard who helped me look for an empty container.

It was still very dark outside so I took a habal-habal (motorbike) to get to the gasoline station but when got there, the line at was already pretty long.

When we saw the line, we took our chance go to look for other gas station that has fewer lines but we went to six four stations and eveyone of those places has long lines, some already slept the night there.

I have to do all this things because my partner is doesn't speak the native language and I know better how to get and where to get the resources. Also, I trust him more to take of our baby while I get some necessities for our family in this time of crisis.

I gave $20 usd and some food and energy drink to the motorbike driver to hold my post for me since he was also lining up for gas.

Hence there is a limit of how much you can buy, 5 gallons

I took that time to go home and took care of some house holds, and help clean the outdoor community (our place was wrecked but its okay as long as we are all safe.

I go back to my post every now and then because the motorbike driver's mobile does not have mobile reception at all.

It was scorching hot outside that caused people to get pass out. One of them, I was taking a timelapse and I caught from my camera view
Good thing I had still had water with me so, I gave it to the lady who was on the ground shaking and crying. It so heart breaking to see all this is happening. We brought her to the nearest public clinic which is about five minutes from the gas station.

I ran fast as I can to go back to my post. It took a little over 7 hours until it was my turn to buy fuel. I really owe it to Israel (the motorbike driver) and we exchanged contact number, so I can give him some help in the future.

Drinking water is the new fortune

As I have mentioned above that for couple of days now, we didn't have electricity at night but I can deal with that as long as we have drinking water, we have also started boiling some tap water drinking because my sister Hive account@gerel and I and my partner haven't been drinking water but we had gatorade because that was the only thing available at the store. Am glad some of my friends, Hive account@hiraya and Jason gave us some distilled water and I put away some to make sure we won't ran out of distilled water for our baby's milk. Things a lot harder when you have kids and toddlers because if it was just me and my partner, we won't even worry about water that much. But having a baby during this crisis makes it harder and the pain and stress is quite hard to endure. 😢

Tap water crisis

Because our tap water runs through power and we don't have sufficient energy from the generator, our tap water is also on and off. Yesterday it came back and this early morning, it off again.

So, yesterday, I bought some small trash bins purposefully use it to store tap water since I need save my cash because everywhere you go they only accept cash. We have to be mindful of how much water we use, so we don't ran out easily. You see how things can change so drastically? We used to have overflowing water and few days after we're rationing our water consume. But I truly believe nature has its reasoning why this things has to happen. 😔

Last night, we were sitting at the balcony, the only light we had was from the sky above and few buildings from the city. It does not look like the view that we used to see from our place and smoke fog from the city is visible due to no public electricity, everyone is using diesel to run their generators. All those work of Covid to clean the air is now being replaced by pollution caused by humans.

While, the sad part of not having electricity, having a candle as source of light, brings peace to all this. *slight smile

Upon writing this, (December 22nd) it's three days before Christmas, and even after all these struggles and stress, I am not skipping Christmas this year, not, specially that we ha our baby boy.

I hope everyone who was devastated by this typhoon will get through this in time. 😔😢 It's tough but let's keep moving forward!