Travel {The Earthquake Children of La Libertad}

Last Sunday, August 26, I traveled with high school friends to La Libertad for an outreach program supported by the Filipino-American Social Club. La Libertad is one of the towns hardest hit by the earthquake that hit the island back in March. People lost their homes and the damage to infrastructure was also severe. Our island became the focus of national and even international news when the earthquake hit. Sadly, it also took a lot of lives.

Today, people are slowly getting back on their feet, but they need a lot of help. A lot of people are still living in tents, especially those who are living along the coast. They were the ones hardest hit when the earthquake came, since most of them were living in shanties that were easily demolished by the quake. And with most of them barely eking out a living, rebuilding their homes is something that most families could not afford to do.

Aside from shelter, food is also a problem. The people of La Libertad need all the help they can get in terms of food and even medications, especially since there are a lot of growing children among them. When we arrived I noticed how many the children were, with some as young as a couple of months old. It was surprising to note that disease among the children is not really a serious problem,    except for dengue which is a high risk since they live in a place where there are pools of stagnant water. 

It is, however, very encouraging to see the children and adults still able and ready to laugh and smile, despite their current living conditions. They laugh and play like other normal children, and although it it hard not to notice a certain trace of sadness when they tell stories about how it's like to live in a tent, that sadness disappears when they flash a smile as I point my camera at them. Children are resilient and hardy, and perhaps being so young is helping them cope with this tragedy better than most adults.  

Portraits {Lolo}

It was a Monday morning when we decided to take a short walk to where Lola was buried. The place is halfway done, with concrete fences enclosing tall mango trees that continue as far as down the other side of the hill which is bounded by a narrow and shallow creek. Lola's grave is the only one there so far, it lies in the middle of the field bounded by a wooden fence and tall ferns. If it weren't for the fence you would not notice the granite slab bearing her name, or the melted candles  that collect in a solid puddle next to it. The grass was being cut when we visited, so the loud roar  of the grass cutter served as our backgroud noise as we talked and as Lolo laid down the flowers on her grave and lighted the candles he had brought.

Tabo on a Saturday in Dumaguete City

The local farmer's market, known as the Tabo in Dumaguete, is where people go to if they want to buy fruits,vegetables, and other produce straight from the farmer's themselves. Dumaguete has a public market, but there is something more appealing to this smaller market which is just a few miles from our house. Farmer's markets are smaller, not as crowded as the bigger public market, and you are buying your fruits and veggies straight from the people who grow them. This is a great way to encourage smaller farmers in the city to keep on planting and producing, since when we get what we eat from them, we can be sure that what we're eating was picked  a day or two ago, compared to buying the same stuff from the bigger supermarkets which probably gets its produce from distant locations like Baguio or any other place across the country.

The Tabo opens on Wednesdays and on Saturdays. It rained last night, so the ground was wet when I got there. During sunnier days the market is usually fine to walk around in without having to worry about slipping on wet rocks or mud, but this time I had to look where I was going in order to avoid slipping or bumping into fellow shoppers. Despite the rain, business was brisk. People were coming and going, and the farmers were quite happy with today's turnout.

And the colors were wonderful! Green Indian mangos going for 20 per kilo, slices of ripe, yellow quash, and the  strange pink of the dragonfruit are just a few of the colorful produce laid out on the stalls here. I got myself  two heads of lettuce for 20 pesos each, and three fat cucumbers along with one piece of succulent singkamas for the salad that I had planned for lunch. All were fresh and none were wrapped in that clingfilm that grocery store fruits always come in. The smudges of dirt on my singkamas were welcome imperfections, even, since I knew that my seller picked her singkamas just this morning.