Today, we are finally able to move to a new house my family rented as our temporary shelter for all the goods we received and the things we saved from our old home. Nothing feels lighter than being able to have our shelter now, and it is promising to know that we can finally rest comfortably during our sleep.
First thing in the morning, we cleaned everything and all corners of this little shelter a family friend offered to us while we were still stuck with the earthquake's effects. This was our home every nighttime since we couldn’t share a bed in our community at Curvada due to limited space.
As a setup, we spent our day at Curvada, where our relatives and good friends reside, and then we came here by nighttime to rest comfortably. As a sign of respect, we cleaned this shelter before leaving today since this is the last time we would use it. It gave us a safe space during every tremor, and this was a place where I slept comfortably knowing it wouldn’t collapse because of the light materials used and because I knew it would protect us.
After our general cleaning, we headed to our community in Curvada to spend the whole day there socializing with our friends and making the most of the present moment, as earlier was the last time we would be visiting the place often. We would still visit it but not as often as before. We also had to visit it since our belongings and goods were stored in my auntie’s house, and we also had to get important papers from our old house before it vanished into dust. We spent our day joyously and full of laughter because the people are so comfortable to spend time with and funny enough to erase our worries about the earthquake.
By 4 in the afternoon, we found ourselves standing in front of a tricycle, waiting patiently for the driver, who happened to be my uncle. We rented his tricycle since we had to evacuate a lot of things from our old place, and his tricycle was a good fit for that much stuff. Our old bed for kids, some wood, a cabinet, and even our kitchenware were packed and loaded onto the tricycle.
There were many other things also, like our clothes and chairs, that we loaded on the tricycle, and five of us rode as well—so imagine how much capacity this tricycle could bear when traveling. My uncle is a wizard in this part, like his tricycle is a pocket of Doraemon. Lol.
We traveled immediately since it was getting dark, and we had to clean our new home.
We even passed by the San Remigio Gymnasium before reaching the new boarding house. Watching the gymnasium gave me goosebumps, knowing that a lot of basketball players were killed by the earthquake inside that place. It was so sad and grieving to know that what was once a vibrant building had now turned into a place full of wasted lives and agony.
After about ten minutes, we saw ourselves unloading the things from the tricycle.
And this is our home. For now, this is our temporary shelter and a place to store our belongings and goods. It has been raining consistently in the past few days, so I am happy to have our things secured. We cleaned the house the moment we got there and decided which part of the house would become the living room, bedroom, or stockroom.
My family still plans to build a makeshift house made of trapal and wood—one that is not concrete and light for the tremors. We would stay for a few nights in this new house and observe if the tremors could still disrupt our sleep and if it is safe to stay here at night. We plan to build a light shelter beside our house so it would be near us if we need something from our house.
When we finished cleaning, we visited our public market to buy some food and passed by a thrift store that marked the end of our day. This thrift store is new in the market, and I didn’t expect to stumble upon new stores considering the effects of the earthquake that still occur until now. We bought some clothes since we lost many of then in the earthquake.
I was with my mother and two siblings at the thrift store, and I was only a watchdog since the store is concrete, so I stayed outside the whole time watching them safely. After the thrift store, we proceeded to buy meat for dinner, and the rest was history.
Today was full of long errands, and it feels tiring too. But the idea that we finally have our new home and were buying something for dinner means so much to me and feels promising—that we are slowly recovering and going back to our old way of living.