An Awakening

Never in a million years did I ever imagine that I would be sitting in a coffee shop in a little boutique hotel quaintly named XYZ Hotel in the middle of Tacloban City.

Yes, Tacloban City.  The same city that was ravaged by Hurricane Haiyan last November.

I have never been here before, and to my untrained eye it looks like any small town in the provinces. Yet our Voluntour Guide Spanky Enriquez points out areas that were inundated and overwhelmed by the storm surges and in the same breath points out where the beginnings of life and survival can be seen as well.

Worn out tents stand desolate but resolute where buildings once were. Shadows remain where once there must have been gaudy neon signages blaring the trappings of a consumerist, fast food lifestyle.  There is a proliferation of tricycles, multi cabs, and a handful of dusty vans, pick ups, and cars plying the thoroughfares.  I see no shiny new vehicles, certainly not the ostentatious toys one often sees in Manila.

Yet the smiles Filipinos are famous for abound. Music shrieks from all shapes and sizes of town hall speakers and amplifiers. Vendors line the sidewalks offering treats, foodstuffs, and all manners of accessories, knick knacks, and toys.  Foreigners assigned to help rebuild a city from nature's ruins, mingle with the people, representatives of a global conscience and compassion.

Life, as Tacloban knew before the  debacle, and since, happens.

Enter bumbling, bull in a china shop me.  Staring and gawking at everything I see as though for the first time.  Curious and voracious, all at the same time.  

I taste incredibly savory food, from the indigenous binagol and moron on the street corner to Yang Chow Fried Rice found in the hotel coffee shop to an eerily authentic Italian pizza and pasta place downtown called Giuseppi's.

I experience extraordinary hospitality and courtesy, from the smiling hotel staff to the owners of a school supported by the largesse of fellows schools in Manila, to the kindly reminder of a street corner vendor to mind my bag and accessories and not be a magnet for muggers.

I feel the matter of fact, yet dogged resilience of a people who have practically lost everything-belongings, homes, family- yet are picking up the pieces to weave anew a tapestry of their existence, and possibly begin to smile again, begin to dream again, begin to hope again.

Bravo Tacloban...bravo.

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I came on this trip out of perverse curiosity, wondering and not knowing what I would see and find...and am discovering genuine pearls of perfect imperfection, as John Legend would say, and thanking God for the Grace of recognizing them.

I came on this trip because I genuinely wanted to know if there were special children around, and how were they faring in the midst of a population that had an undue share of tragedy, and but for the determined if defiant efforts of a smattering of volunteers and local and international well meaning charitable organizations, had slowly been forgotten and left to fend for itself again.

I came on this trip to find myself, and wonder if there is hope for a writer in me to emerge at this later stage of my life...and am realizing I have a still small voice, long chained by duty to be silent, that nevertheless yearns to speak out and be heard, not necessarily by others, but even by myself!!!

I came on this trip to observe and learn from Spanky the blogger...and have ended culling an insight from Spanky the lover of life. He is proof positive that Do What You Love, and The Money Will Follow.  I don't know his net worth, nor do I care, but I am impressed by his joie de vivre, and his  easy way of relating to people, places, events, and life.  This must be what Go With The Flow means!

I came on this trip to find some distance between me and the world of stress and stimulation that is my work and home life...and hoped to find some answers to the unending questions in my heart. 

I came on this trip in search of an adventure...and I think I ended up discovering myself!!!

Bravo, dragonlady...Bravo.