Menewsha Avatar Community - Okay just mental

Fear? You never know what fear is like when you experience it. I had my worst experience with flood in the Philippines its not the Yolanda (Haiyan) but the Ondoy. I can still remember we started preparing our food for lunch. It surprised me when I went out of our house and saw flood starting to get high, which isn't normal in our village. Some of our neighbors blamed the flood to the excavation of Manila Waters (a water company in the Philippines).

When I was preparing at the kitchen, the rug I was stepping on was soaked I though it was just a leak from the sink. I tried to replace it, but after a couple of minutes, it was damp again, so I checked out all the corners of the house. Just then, the flood began to enter. We try to mop it out so that it will not enter my children’s room, but when I saw water coming out of the comfort room, I immediately called my brother their house is like near from our house so that he could come over to get my children and bring them to their house where it was safer because they have 2nd floor and we only have a bungalow type house which we don't have 2nd floor.

We put everything on our house’s high places. We thought that if flood will continue to fill our house, it would reach up to knee level. We left and had lunch at my parents house. When we came back, the water had already reached our sofa, so we put everything on our bed but still the water got higher. My family started to help us get necessary things such as my children’s milk and some clothes good for 2 days. Meanwhile, flood water continued to enter our house, so we put our refrigerator, washing machines, electric fan, and other appliances about a table high. In a minute, our refrigerator tilted and fell in water. The only thing we could do at that time was to get all the food we could get. I tried to get back to our room to get additional clothes, but my partner grabbed me out of the house because the flood was almost chest level. He told me to leave everything. In a matter of 2 hours the water immersed all the things that we had.

I didn’t even get enough rest because of the fear that the flood might reach us at the 2nd floor. I thought. Thank God the flood stopped rising! All power was cut. It was hard to get cellular phone signal, so I decided to go up the roof of the 2nd floor, and it shocked me when I saw that all houses and vehicles around us were submerged in the flood. I tried to contact my co-employees just to inform that I might not come to work by Monday. I tried to keep calling until I reached Ms. Ynas, our company nurse. I asked her for a favor to tell our boss that I might not come to work that Monday due to flood. Ms. Ynas informed me that Metro Manila was totally devastated by flood. She asked me if I needed to evacuate or need any help. I told her that we’re okay. After that call, I tried to call my relatives at Bulacan it is a city which they always experience flood but there was no way to reach them. I started feeling hopeless.
The next morning the flood subsided. We tried to go back to our house, but the door was difficult to open. My partner had to forcefully open the door and when finally it did, we were saddened when we saw our things. We didn’t even know where to start again! I tried to go outside the village to buy water for my children, then I saw that many of the families in our area were also waiting for relief goods, looking for open stores to buy food from. It was a terrible experience. I had to go back without anything. We waited until somebody came to our house, and asked them if they could buy us potable water. Kindly, they said “Yes” to our favor.

After 2 days, Thursday, I tried to call my relatives in Bulacan. Finally, I got to talk to them and they said that they’re okay.

In a blink of an eye, everything we worked hard for was gone. But we knew that we had to be strong and start again somewhere. So, we started by cleaning up the mess inflicted by Typhoon Ondoy, grateful for the safety of everyone we loved and hopeful for a better and brighter future.

So it really saddened me when i heard the typhoon in Leyte which is the Yolanda (haiyan). It brings back my fear during my experienced with Ondoy.