Unforgettable experience

     It was June 19, 2009 and super typhoon frank was raging around our home and almost all western visayas region roofs were flying trees were being uprooted. “just bend, don’t break”, I prayed

    The storm gathered in force. Rain was falling heavily,  and water was pouring into the house around the edges of the closed windows.

             I looked out at the back door and watched in amazement as the slope behind my aunt Louisa’s house turned into a waterfall. Then I heard people shouting, “the river bed that ran through the back of our neighborhoods was approximately 20 meters wide and 10 meter deep.

           There was no time to think. As the water came rushing in my sisters and I picked up our 2 cats and we ran out of our house  with my father and mother. We decided to transfer in our  nipa  house where it cannot reach by the flood.

          At the nearby house we were given foods, shelters and medical attention. The rain stopped during the night. At dawn the landscape  that spread out before us was so real. Our neighborhood was now a wasteland. The water had receded and sand, mud and debris covered everything. I  made my way to what was left of the house where I left our dog. I found my dog unharmed and oblivious  to had happened.

             “Don’t Break,  Just Bend.” The worlds became a mantra in my mind as I walked around. The house where we had huddled in fear was buried in mud. The old river and creek were both gone new water ways ran ware houses and streets once stood. Pigs and chicken lay dead. And there, amid the debris, was the Christmas tree, bent but not broken! Perhaps it was God’s way of telling us all was not lost.

            We later learned that we were among the lucky ones. Despite everything that had happened, we were alive and could start over again.

         But nature is a force to be reckoned with. In the weeks and months that  followed,  new leaves had begun to sprout from the trees stump.

            Our neighborhood has slowly comeback to life as well. New house had been built were old ones were destroyed, the field are being tilled despite the muddy soil condition.

              Life mat never get back to normal but our neighborhood has adapted as best  as it can. Perhaps the pine tree as a Christmas tree, will light up again.