Notes on Carina/Gaemi

I grew up with flood. Up until I was in first grade, we lived in a studio unit on the second floor of an apartment compound located literally in front of a river. Floods were a regular part of my year. Growing up in a non-airconditioned room, I have always liked the rain for it meant a colder room. That was until the heavy rains of Ondoy in September 2009.

Mama had just cooked my then-favorite ulam that day: adobo. She also made fried rice as per my request. It was around 10 A.M. when people living on the first floor started scrambling for their things as it continued to rain relentlessly. Years of flood experience has taught them instincts when to pack things up and store them at a high place. Mama was busy cooking adobo while I stared out the window watching everyone shouting and hurrying each other.

At around 11:30, we started eating lunch. The flood was already waist deep downstairs. We were not worried because despite being a highly flood-prone area, the water has never reached our floor. It was 30 minutes after that our 2nd floor neighbors had alerted us that we have to pack up as well because the flood was quickly rising, and unlike before, it might reach us.

I had no idea what to do. I only knew of safety, so I sat at the bottom bunk of our double-deck while Mama hurriedly put my school bag and other important things at the top bunk. I looked at the hallway of our floor and saw wet wooden flooring marked with muddy footsteps and a flurry of couches, TVs, speakers, cabinets, and a whole lot more.

At around 1:00 P.M., everyone was on the spacious 2nd floor balcony, waiting for the rescuers to bring us out. The water is already knee-deep at our floor. I was carrying a heavy bag filled with our laptop and important documents. Mama and I were among the first few ones to be evacuated from the balcony because children should come first.

To get to the evacuation site, we had to walk on the galvanized roof of the first floor and cross 2 meters through a 10-inch thick piece of wood at least 20 feet above the ground. Below the wood was a raging flood with strong current, plowing to the river at the back of the apartment compound. One wrong step would guarantee death.

The “evacuation center” was the topmost floor of what used to be a Shellane shop. It was the nearest highest structure that could accommodate a lot of people. There were old tanks of gas at the corner of the center, so everyone was wary of lighting up something because the tanks might explode. Food and water was scarce. Looking down, one would immediately see the brown sea of garbage and fallen tree trunks, carried by strong currents. I had to eat wet bread for that was all we had. We stayed there until around 9 or 10 P.M., when the flood was just waist-deep on the streets.

Around 1A.M., we were picked up by a taxi and dropped off at the house of one of our relatives on Congressional Avenue. We stayed there for like a week or two, until our house was clean enough to live in again.

New (Unsafe) Home

Since then, we have moved to at least 3 houses, if my memory serves me right. The first two were not in a flood-prone area, but had its own issues that pushed us to move out again. The third one is the current house we live in. It’s in an apartment complex with a big parking space. It’s also in a flood-prone area, but not as bad as the street we lived in during Ondoy.

We have been living here since I was in the latter part of my first grade. I am now in my third year of college, so we have been staying here for more than 10 years. There was occasional flooding every year, but nothing as bad as Ondoy, so we stayed. The rent was cheap compared to other similar spaces, and the floods were usually just knee to waist-deep. We could get by; we’ve had worse.

Towards the end of June this year, a street away from us was being “fixed.” It was being elevated in preparation for the incoming rainy season, and flooding there was worse. So, the LGU’s solution was probably to add more cement to the road in hopes of preventing a higher flood in the area.

Fucking absurd idea. It resulted in an even more uneven road and did nothing for the improvement of the drainage system.

Twenty-four Hours Before Carina

On July 23, I consulted with a psychiatrist for my worsening depression. I started my medication that night. I knew the side-effects of the medication: grogginess, sleepiness, weight gain. I felt the second one immediately. After 30 minutes of intake, I was fast asleep.

For the longest time, I was never able to sleep for 8-hours straight. I would always wake up in the middle of the night — somewhere between 2 A.M. and 4 A.M. — for no reason, and then go back to sleep. Sometimes I would wake up multiple times. I knew it was a problem, but I never took it as a big deal, so I learned to live with it.

I thought the medication would get rid of my sleeping problem. It was one of the advantages that my doctor mentioned and a reason for one of my medications. At 4 A.M. On July 24, I still woke up, but with a heavier body and a blurry eyesight. I heard the heavy rain outside, but was too sleepy to process everything. It was disturbing, but I have heard similar rains before; and it has not led to flooding inside the apartment complex.

I woke up again at 6 A.M. The rain is still pouring heavily. Although the medication has not fixed my sleeping problem, it made it easier for me to fall back to sleep once I woke up. So I ignored the rain again and went back to slumber under the comfort of my thick blanket.

Unwelcomed Surprise

At 7:30 A.M., I heard Mama’s panicked voice: Dine, baha na!

I opened my eyes. Stared at the ceiling for a minute. I’m usually late to school, so my body is fine with moving with alertness immediately after waking up. But this time, I couldn’t move. It took everything in me to pick up the upper half of my body. Everything felt so heavy and my mind was just not comprehending what was in front of me. The meds, I thought. I was excited to take them to render myself a robot and stop my mind from going into overdrive. They’re working, but in the worst scenario possible.

By 8:00 A.M., the flood was already knee-deep. I couldn’t go down to help Mama to pick up our things and bring them to the 2nd floor. I forced myself to at least stay at the stairs so I could get the things from her and get them to a higher place quicker. At 9 A.M., the flood was already waist-deep. My biggest trigger was flooding because of what I went through during Ondoy, but I had no choice but to plunge into the water to get our 32-inch TV and carry it upstairs.

At 12 P.M., the flood is already threateningly close to our 2nd floor. Just two more stair treads and it would’ve reached us already. The electricity had already been cut off since 11 A.M., and we could only get news from social media. I read that the rain is projected to stop by 2 P.M. I didn’t want to stay on our balcony because I could see how dangerously close the water was to us, but that was the only place I could get a signal.

The rain was not letting up even if it was already 2 P.M. I broke down at one point because I was so scared of my books. If the flood reaches the second floor, I wouldn’t be able to save them. There’s a lot of them and they’re too heavy. I had lost so many childhood photos from Ondoy, I don’t want the same thing to happen to my books that have accompanied and kept me sane throughout the years. It might sound overreacting to others, but I would literally prefer to just drown with them than leave.

It all stopped around 6 P.M. and the flood started to subside. We could finally see the first floor windows by 8 P.M. At 10 P.M., the flood subsided and left mud and garbage everywhere. We couldn’t clean immediately because there wasn’t electricity, so we opted to leave by 11 P.M. and look for a place to stay for the night.

The Aftermath

We walked to the tricycle and jeepney terminal at Frisco. On the way, we walked through the stench and mud of the flood. People were in raincoats and slippers. No one could smile. Beside the terminal was a desperately alive McDonald’s, full of evacuees with muddied legs and carrying bags full of important stuff.

We planned to go to the nearest SOGO branch to us — across Fishermall — to spend the night. There weren’t any jeeps around, but fortunately and surprisingly, tricycles were present. Mama talked to some of them and we found out that they were mostly from Caragay — one of the lowest parts of the barangay, a highly flood-prone area. I wondered then how they could come to work despite the state of their washed out houses. I was certain nothing remained — I had a friend who lives in Caragay and even non-typhoon rains would cause waist-deep floods in their area.

But then again, their only source of livelihood was their tricycles. They need money more than ever to recuperate from the losses. From the things taken away from them by the flood. From the robbing the government did through ineffective city planning and flood control projects.

The SOGO branch was fully booked, so we hailed a taxi and went around Tomas Morato and North EDSA to look for other hotels to stay at. We couldn’t find anything — even the motels and inns were flooded by people suffering from the flood. The taxi meter kept rising, but I couldn’t care less — we needed to find a place to stay.

It was around 2 A.M. when we found a run-down hotel beside SM North EDSA that still entertains new guests despite being fully booked. We were told to wait for at least 2–4 hours just to get a room. It was better than nothing — other hotels would just tell us no anyway. We were able to get a room after an hour and we settled down around 4 A.M.

The bath wasn’t comforting, but it still felt nice being able to wash off the mud from my feet. I drank my meds after and was able to fall asleep around 5 A.M.

What About…?

After the first night at the run-down hotel, we spent another night at an airbnb at the Grass Residences because the electricity hadn’t returned. Mama would go back and forth to where we stay and our flooded house to clean. Her day would go like this: clean, rest, clean, rest. She did not ask me to help because she might’ve known of my condition, plus, she needed me more to look after my siblings.

My siblings and I went back to the apartment complex 2 days after the flood. Outside the gate was a mountain of garbage, mud, fallen tree branches, and discarded things. Paths were still muddy and the stench was unbearable. People were bowed down and focused on cleaning.

The inside of our house was looking better than the state we left it in, but still far from normalcy. Mama told us to go to the bedroom and stay there while she and our tito continued cleaning downstairs. I directed my siblings to help me clean the room so we could at least do something useful and make the space livable again. I returned my books to their rightful places — on my desk and their shelves — and restored the state of my workspace.

Once we settled down, all I could think was that we were so fortunate and privileged to have money during such a crisis. Of course, we were still struck pretty bad, but it would be worse if we didn’t have any money. We wouldn’t be able to spend nights somewhere safe, much less buy food or new toiletries.

What about those who don’t have the same capacity as we do? The tricycle drivers, the little kids on the streets? The maninindas outside our apartment, the jeepney drivers, the people in lower areas? How are they holding up?

It has been 5 days since the super typhoon. I had not heard of any ayuda or relief goods being distributed. Not that we really need it, but others in our area need those to survive. It was already hard for us to get back on our feet, much more for those who aren’t as privileged as us.

Everyone has had enough of the resiliency bullshit. How many times do we have to be covered in mud, shit, and garbage before things get better?

We will move into another house in a flood-free area but at the cost of a higher rent. But what about those who can’t do the same thing? What about those who had the same flood trauma and trigger as me but cannot ever escape it?

Everything is too much for me these days. I can’t imagine how worse it must be for others.

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0720292024

Just a thought dump. Unedited and not reviewed. I just had to write these to try to let them go.