Last week has been pretty hectic for me. I believe it has something to do with the season. The holidays are pushing PR agencies into more and more events and product promotions. There are just a lot of interesting launches that I can’t miss out on last week. But this week, although I originally planned to just go to one event this week, I think I’m ending up having to go to a maximum of three.

The times that I go out, my son is left with his grannies. It’s nice when it is done once in a while, the grannies love my son to bits but it does not do him good when he’s there for a long time. The consequence manifests itself almost instantaneously. My son turns into a brat overnight!Ack!  So as much as I love to attend product launches and what nots, it’s gonna have to be kept at a minimum.  

As for how we are doing since the Ondoy wrath, we’re now pretty good. God has been great. We recently gave up on our outdoor cushions and they have to go. A month and a half since Ondoy and they are still wet.

… not anymore.  It has been sun shiny for a few days, but now rain is here again.  I cannot help but get worried over the flood coming in again.  Three weeks since Ondoy, we still aren’t done cleaning up.  Our resources aren’t the lone things that are exhausted, we are too.  Praying that the Lord’s hand will spare us from another calamity again.  Apparently,  I am not alone. A lot of friends get shaken by incessant rains.  I cannot help but feel helpless.  Even as the government is doing its job in collecting all the debris, garbages that were collected after the storm, they can only do so much.  It even took several days before the dump truck was finally able to reach our home.  Even if they would come every single day,  they would only visit 4 different houses and they are already filled up.  That’s how bad the storm has gotten to our place. But I am comforted by the same words God spoke to my heart even as I was getting weary on my upcoming childbirth, even if we took birth classes at that.

Isaiah 41:10 “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Three weeks after and we’re still not done with the clean up. Even though I’m not as stressed as I was some weeks back, I still haven’t gotten my appetite back. My own mother has noticed that I’m losing weight, she might have thought I was seriously on some best slimming pills. But truth is, this is nothing but physical exhaustion.

What typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy, locally) has brought us is hands down, the most traumatic experience for me,ever.  Something that never occurred to me, that will ever happen in my lifetime.  Last Saturday, it was around lunch time or so when my folks, sis and BIL came and evacuated to our place because their house has started to fill up with flood water.  This has never happened before.  We have endured the wildest of typhoons since we lived here in 1980’s and the most flooded we got was water filling up the sides of the streets and it goes down in no time.

the roof is what is left off our car and a foot from the height of our gate

In the height of the typhoon, the flood waters in our street have gotten higher than that of an average person, inside our house is around the height where my hipbone is. I will be posting pictures later.  Typhoon Ondoy (International name, “Ketsana”)nkilled so many people, the death toll is rising up until now.  As of this writing 246 have died.  We’re thankful enough that we are alive, eventhough we lost a whole lot of things. During the height of the flood, what was left of our car was its roof.  :-(

What really baffles me is that how come people were not advised to get ready for anything like this. Sure they have to release water simultaneously from two dams, but how are we supposed to know that we should anticipate anything like this? Somebody has got to answer for all the deaths and damages! Napocor was said to have advised the local areas that will be affected, but whoever were told about it obviously just brushed it off and this is what happened. I hope people will step up and look into what came about this tragedy. Hiring New York accident lawyers would be way easier for people in the first world and actually expect justice to be served, but sad to say, we on the third world are expected to just suck it all up. It’s crazy!  I just pray that the Lord will comfort and give strength for victims to start over.