Christmas in Iligan

Typhoon Sendong made us think twice about spending Christmas in Iligan.  Our tickets were booked months in advance and a week before we were supposed to fly, the typhoon struck.  At one point, we decided to cancel the trip, which I thought made sense but saddened me anyway.  When we finally decided to still travel to Iligan for Christmas, I felt really good about the decision and knew that it was the right thing to do.  Things were challenging for sure but we were together and that's what mattered.


Christmas is a big day for our family because it's also my parents' wedding anniversary and my Manong's birthday.  In years past, we would have relatives and friends at our house for dinner on December 25.  This year is different because the house is not habitable.  Our family stayed with Mama Mely and Ate An but we all gathered at Mama Mely's to celebrate.


This is a relatively low-key celebration but filled with gratitude and appreciation.  Other families suffered worse and lost more.  On December 24, Richard and I joined my cousin's group in distributing cupcakes and juice to the children in the evacuation centers.  


We went to the San Lorenzo Church and MSU-IIT where most of the displaced residents were.  It's heartbreaking to see so many people in desperate situations, having lost all belongings, but also heartwarming to see smiling kids who thanked us and greeted us Merry Christmas.  I tried to speak blessing on each kid that passed me...

It was a meaningful week spent in Iligan.

Ground Zero

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Filipino Friday 3: Reading Habits and Book Formats

Image
Reading Habits and Book Formats . Where and how do you read? Can you read anywhere and everywhere, or do you need a certain place/mood/state of mind to get reading? Do you read more in the morning or at night or any minute that you can? Where and how do you usually read? Are you exclusively for print, or do you go for ebooks more than print? Have you ever tried audiobooks? I am old school.  Even as most books now have digital versions, I still prefer the physical, ink-on-paper variety.  I like holding a real book, flipping the pages and being able to see my progress based on the thickness of read/unread pages.  Somehow, I feel more engaged and focused reading a physical book vs. from a gadget. I very rarely reread books so most of my collection just sit on the shelf after I'm done with them.  I feel it's a waste of precious trees if they are not shared with others.  So I started a Google doc at work where the team can list down their collections and anybod...
Read more

Trivia and Reading

Image
I am currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and I am inspired.  It’s about the author’s year-long quest to be happier.  It’s purposeful and practical and has lot of tips that I can apply or have started doing. Rubin focused on different areas every month and for May, it was Be Serious About Play.  The author was trying to go back to activities she enjoyed as a child. This led me to also think about a favorite childhood pastime, which was collecting trivia.  The Philippine Daily Inquirer used to run a trivia section by Bong Barrameda and I would religiously cut and paste them onto scratch papers, which I would then collate and read again and again.  Nerd zone! Not only that, I also kept a trivia notebook where I researched and wrote down interesting information like areas of study, capital cities, historical figures, scientists and discoveries, everything!  That was fun for me.  I was about to say they were useless info, ...
Read more

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

Image
There is something to be said for collective recommendations like bestsellers list.  I found this title on such list at Fully Booked, read a few pages and decided to buy it.  I was intrigued by the theme of the book which is memory, specifically, how the author started as a journalist covering the US Memory Championships and ended up as a contender in the finals of the same competition one year later. It claims that with proper training, one's memory can be improved to be at par with the top mental athletes of the world.  Memory training has become an esoteric discipline because we practically do not need to remember a lot these days.  Information is very easy to retrieve from electronic devices and what not.  You just need basic search terms and the Google provides the information you need and more. Photo from Rainy Day Books I have to admit I rely on external memory a lot.  I can recall birthdays of my very close family members but outside of tha...
Read more