It was a Friday when Yolanda hit the province of Leyte. As early as Thursday, I haven't been sleeping right.
"Hello? Hello?" said an anxious voice on the other line.
"Yes, hello?" I answered.
"Hi Ma'am Dinky ini (Is this Ma'am Dinky)?"
"Yes," I said. Since this caller used the waray term "ini" and referred to me as "Ma'am," I deduced that this was one of my former UP Tacloban students. My heart started beating fast. This time, I replied to her in Waray: "Hin-o ini (Who's this)?"
I haven't even finished my sentence when the young voice on the other end whooped in elation.
"Ma'am," she said excitedly. "Ma'am, ayaw na kabaraka ha imo pamilya! Hi Frances ini, aadto yana tim pamilya ha amon balay. Safe hira! (Ma'am, you no longer need to worry about your family. This is Frances, your family is now at our home. They're safe!)"
With the words, "Safe hira," my knees gave in and, in the quiet of my room, I cried like a banshee on amphetamines.
Then I had the soundest sleep I ever had in ages.
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According to my former student, Frances, she only managed to get in touch with me after two days when she found out earlier that day that a satellite telecommunications station was set up about a kilometer away from their area in Housing Mountainside (sister subdivision of Housing Seaside). The poor kid braved the long and treacherous walk to the station, sometimes going over scattered debris and scattered corpses just to make important calls and to recharge her dead mobile phone.
By late afternoon of the same day, Frances made another trip to the satellite station, this time with my daughter, Ingrid.
As soon as I heard my daughter on the line, I just broke down again. I was so anxious to find out from her how they survived the storm, how she and her grandma ended up at Frances' place, what their current situation was, etc.
To all this, Ingrid answered in a listless tone: "Mama, the house is no more. We weren't able to save anything. We're with Ate Frances, but they are also planning on leaving for Samar. Lola (Grandma) has no more medicines. When will you get us?"
Holy crap, I said to myself. My daughter has just turned into a zombie from the trauma of surviving Yolanda.
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After the jubilation of finally hearing from my daughter and finding out that she and her Lola were fine, I immediately worked on finding a way to get them out of Tacloban.
I had several challenges to consider for this endeavor:
- My mother is already 82 years old and is too weak to travel by foot -- and travelling by foot is the only means to go to the airport since most transportation in Tacloban City was destroyed by the storm surge. Add to that, the debris that is rendering several roads unpassable.
- Funds were running low already, especially since I just came from a vacation to the area a week before Yolanda.
- Even if I did have the funds, the city was still mired in anarchy. Reports of rampant looting and thievery were all over the news. Even those arriving from the airport to bring needed relief goods to their respective families were said to not have been spared from thieves among the desperate survivors. I was afraid that I might only end up a victim myself if I made that trek to Tacloban for my family.
I tried looking for someone who could get my family on my behalf, someone already on the ground who can assist my family in getting to the airport so they could hop into one of the C-130 planes shuttling people and goods to Manila for free.
There was none.
And I still was short on funds.
Then, a miracle came in the form of my high school batch's alumni president.
A doable but risky rescue mission was finally hatched.
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Gonz (short for Ronald GONZales), has always been a doer. In fact, if not for him and his effective leadership, our recent alumni homecoming wouldn't be a rousing success.
His can-do capability once again came to the fore when I was desperate to get my family to Manila.
He got in touch with me with the sole intention of coming to my aid on behalf of the batch. We tried options that did not involve us having to go to Tacloban for my family.
When we exhausted all venues, he came up with a last resort -- he and his son will go to Tacloban to search for my family and get them to Manila.
I was dumbstruck. Here were total strangers to the vast expanse of Tacloban which was now made even worse by the devastation and the anarchy, who were suggesting that they go there themselves to fetch my family.
Dammit, if they were not afraid to fight their way to Tacloban for my own family, then I had no reason not to join them.
As soon as the plan was hatched, we wasted no time in making the necessary preparations.
Yes, we were flying to Tacloban City the next day.
Just like that.
(To be continued)
Photo credit: Google Images
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