The main difference this year is that a huge portion of my city looks like a flattened biko, and people are milling about under bridges and city streets looking for all the world like scarred survivors of a civil war. There is no water running through our pipes, and I think in other parts of CDO there's no electricity as well. Grocery shopping has become a matter short of life or death, and volunteering might as well have been declared a trending topic for helpless, helping youth. Sendong has transformed this year's Christmas into an affair of hushed-up panic.
Because I live on top of a hill, my family was mercifully spared by the storm. Some of my friends were not as lucky, however, and I can only be guiltily thankful I don't know anyone who's passed away or gone missing because of Sendong. For a technical account of the damage, kindly check this memo released just minutes ago: NDRRMC Update on "Sendong" (Washi).
I wrote this because I wanted to share the more eccentric side of this year's Christmas. My friend and her family are staying at our place while they're waiting for the water to come back so they can scrape the mud off their floors, so it's really been an interesting holiday. To start:
1. I have seen more fire trucks in the past two weeks than ever before. Only one of them, it must be noted, bore the sign for the CDO Fire Department. I saw one sent over by Bukidnon, another by Balingoan, and the others, I forget. The one from CDO stopped right in front of my house to distribute water to the people in my street. [There really are perks when you live right in front of a fireman.] Watching my neighbors, even ones I didn't recognize, carry pails back and forth from their homes with smiles on their faces, I thought I saw the perpetually-touted Filipino trait of bayanihan. That scene was definitely postcard-worthy.
2. I've developed dandruff. It would be an exaggeration to say we've got absolutely no water, but it wouldn't be right to say we have enough to provide luxurious, bubble-enhanced showers for everyone. So. I've only been showering as soon as I start to smell. [Gross, but well.] For the past three days, too, I've been wearing nothing but dresses, when in the past I lived on jeans. Dresses are flimsy, you understand, so washing them doesn't require much rinsing. Thus...
3. My Arashi converting skills need practice. Because I have three girls living with me for an indefinite period of time, I thought up a plan to entertain them by possibly getting them hooked to my hobbies, the most prominent one at present being Arashi. Their first day here, I fed them about 20G worth of Ninomiya Kazunari and Ohno Satoshi. They've seen 5x10 and Letters from Iwo Jima. But they are not hooked. They do not seem to be hook-able. As revenge, I refuse to sit down for more than ten minutes to watch any of their Korean distractions. Must concentrate. JPop. JPop. JPop.
More next week.
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