Try It On For Size!

Elder Jordan was leaving the next morning to return home from his mission. He was so excited you would think it was his new car. He just had to stop by to check it out and get a picture with the new car! I was teasing him that the Mission gave me a new car for his birthday present, it was his birthday that day.

He just had to sit in it and soak up the new car smell. From the smile on his face you would think it WAS his birthday present! It was fun to watch his excitement!

Elder Rabanes was not to be left out. He just got right in the driver's seat--none of this passenger seat stuff for him!

Brand Spankin' New Car

Manila gave us a replacement car (just 6 days after the flood) while they took our flooded car back and got it running again. Shortly after that, (about 3 weeks) the Mission Office called and said they were bringing up a new car. We thought--Wow--Okay, bring it on!

So---on October 31, 2009, Manila delivered this brand new car! I remember that day because it was the day before Elder Jordan was leaving to return home from his mission. We couldn't believe that out of the flood came a brand new car!

All of the Filipino neighbors watched as the replacement car appeared so quickly out of no where and then a few weeks later here comes a BRAND NEW CAR!! I am sure they thought "boy those Americans are really rich!" We explained that the Church brought the car and we just rent the car from the Mission.

Road Art

This is a town square in the Lingayen zone, the monument of the man, Rizal, is in honor of him leading the rebellion against the rule of the Spanish. He was killed for his part in the rebellion but is honored as a National Hero in the Philippines.

The eagle is in the town of Agoo, just after you turn onto Marcus Highway, which takes you to Baguio. You get an idea of the magnitude of the statue when you look at the car on the road.

This statue is in the town of Tubao which is also on Marcus Highway.

The Clean-up Begins!

Two days after the typhoon hit we were able to go downstairs with rain boots and begin the cleanup. Who ever thought we would be using them in the HOUSE!! Everything that was in the apartment got 3 feet of water.
We had only been working for about 20 minutes when these two boys (whom I had never seen before) came to our door and asked if they could help clean up! We were so surprised but welcomed the help. (Later we learned these two teenage boys were some of the people who we shared food with -- their families at this same time were trying to clean up THEIR homes!)
They worked like troopers for over two hours. In that length of time we got all the water out, all the mud and even had the white tile showing. There was so much fine silt that we couldn't keep the floor clean, we hadn't even gotten to the disinfecting stage yet.
The workers were trying to clean up the driveway You can see Bot repairing the tool that he used to scrape the mud off, with a hammer!

The cars in America would have been a "wash". Not in the Philippines, they don't throw anything away, besides in America we all have insurance, they don't have insurance here.
The owners of the cars came one by one to tow the cars away, then begin the long arduous task of tearing them down to the frame, rebuild them and replace parts so they would run.
We were fortunate--we didn't have to deal with the mess of trying to reclaim our car along with the mess in the house. Manila came about 6 days later with a replacement car (until our car was repaired) and took the "flooded car" (you will see I refer to this car in future postings).
The woman standing in front of her home with a yard full of mud is Asun,the mother of Epie,the older boy that helped us clean up.
I took some pictures of her home so she could get a "calamity loan" but her husband didn't want to get the loan. She said it usually takes about 2 weeks for her yard to dry out from a typhoon.
We learned later that her son went around the next day and helped 11 other people on our street clean up their homes. (Epie borrowed our mop, push broom and dustpan to help those other 11 families.) He received no pay nor did he expect any!
I learned a great many lessons that day about what kind of people the Filipinos really are! They are a resilient people and they find joy amid their trials. They were so grateful that no one lost their life even though many lost most of their possessions which were few at best.

Typhoon Parma/Peping Aftermath!

This is what we woke up to on October 8, 2009! At about 6 p.m. the night before the electricity went off. Around 8:00 p.m. we decided to bring some of our water jugs upstairs and also some food. All during the night we heard the pounding rain -- I would get up to check what it looked like outside. As the night progressed I would say, "oh no, I can't see the slope up into the driveway." I went downstairs for some reason about 10:00 p.m. and noticed the bathroom was full to the lip with water. I told Rick --there was nothing we could do, we just grabbed more food. Later on it was "oh, my gosh, I can't see the bottom of the tires." An hour or so later, it was "oh, oh--I can't see the top of the tires" (this was about midnight). Within another hour I said,"the water is up to the bottom of the window" and the rain was still coming down.
We watched is disbelief as the downstairs fulled with water! It was bubbling up underneath the floor at the bottom of the stairs like a mini volcano! It was surreal. We were helpless to do anything about it -- so we just watched as the downstairs took on about 3 feet of filthy, stinky water! It is now the wee hours of the next morning and we were exhausted.
Realizing there was nothing to be done we went to bed. We slept for a few hours, then got up hoping the water level had begun receding. No such luck! It was still raining, not as hard but still steady. We looked out our balcony and there on the next door balcony was Fay, our neighbor, her family AND her next door neighbor, her 2 children, plus Bot the construction worker. All were stranded upstairs in the vacant apartment next door.
Fay and company had no food, we had no way to get some of ours to them. We were not about to walk down into that filthy water to retrieve food. Bot, the construction worker jumped down into the water and walked right underneath our balcony so he could catch some of the food we had brought up the night before, to take back to the stranded neighbors.
About 3 hours later they needed more food -- we hadn't given them much because we didn't have much. We explained we weren't walking down in that dirty water, we could give Bot the key to the door but the screen door was locked and it wouldn't do any good. He then proceeds to walk up the ledge leading to our balcony. We let him in and he went downstairs and started gathering food off the shelf that we told him he could take and what we wanted him to give to us.
He took the much needed food next door and shared with all of the neighbors. Fay had a small baby who was cold so we gave her our brand new blanket to sleep on. All day we watched the swift moving river that use to be our street! Even though we could see it with our own eyes, it was hard to believe! Later in the day the rain dwindled to a sprinkle but it never let up till late in the evening and the water never went down!
Upon arising the next morning we could see the water level was subsiding and there wasn't so much as a sprinkle! Good news!
The smell of the water was putrid but it still wasn't lower than our rain boots so our hands were tied. We just kept our eye on the water and knew that once it went down we had a lot of work to do.
By about 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 10, 2009 we ventured downstairs into our flooded apartment. The frig had been floating in the water for 2 days, the couch and chairs were completely ruined. They were now a memory! That was a crying shame too because they were SO comfortable!
We had only been in the cleaning process for about a half hour when two "angels of mercy" came to our door and asked "Can we help you clean up?" I thought for a slip second -- I must be dreaming!! I was not. They helped us get all the water, then the mud out of our apartment. We did it with their help in about 2 1/2 hrs. That in and of itself was unbelievable!!

THE DAY BEFORE TYPHOON PARMA

We needed to wind up our apartment checks for the Lingayen Zone, and down this road was our last one. When we got there, the elders had left so we were going to miss their apartment. As we were leaving we saw them in the distance so they turned around and headed back to their apartment.

It is Oct. 7, 2009 and we are in Lingayen, it has rained off and on most of the morning and we are headed back toward this companionship's apartment, they chose to walk back instead of getting our car all muddy. The tall elder is Elder McKeown, from Austrailia and his companion, who I don't remember right now. This is actually the "road" to their apartment. I think they were one of the last apartments we needed to check.

This gives you an idea of the weather we were experiencing at the time. Wet, very wet! We didn't think too much about the rain, it had rained all day many times before, we just thought this was another typical day during typhoon season. Little did we know!

Unique Things about the Manor

In Baguio they have a rule for limiting the traffic, if your license plate ends in a 1 or 2 you can't drive on certain days, and this day happened to be the day we couldn't drive our cars. SO, in order to all go together, we had to all pile in Pres. Jensen's 4-wheel drive car, the hitch was there are only 5 seats so some lucky soul got to ride in the back! Guess who? Pres. Thomsen's won!! It was hilarious driving up to this fancy hotel with a grown man riding in the back end. The valet opened the hatch and let him out, meanwhile we were all having a good laugh about it! I guess there is still a little kid hiding in all of us no matter what the age! The objective was still reached--we all went together to a fine dining experience. I am sure we gave the valets something to talk about during a lull in the customers!! They all had a smile on their face! He he he!

I had to take a picture of this "Comfort Room"--it was awesome. If you knew what a "normal" comfort room looked like here you would know why this one caught my attention big time! This one looks like one you would find at home. Most of the CR's even in the nice modern malls do not have the normal items you would expect in a restroom. For example, a seat, soap, toilet paper, paper towels and sometimes water. This was a joy to behold.

I just had to document that there really are very nice CR's in the Philippines.

This is a different view from the terrace, the place is amazing. They have gone to great lengths to make sure this is the place to be.