Words can’t give justice to what the catastrophic devastation had done to the ever virgin land of Mindanao. It’s beyond imagination, beyond reality, a nightmare that seems to haunt you, me, everybody who suffered the calamity.
A day before was a deception to the naked eye. The hot and humid atmosphere of the city seems to soothe the nerves of people about the coming typhoon. It lured everyone to sit back, relax and take a sip of coffee and wait for the usual rain and hush of the wind.
9:00 am. No sign of a bad weather, even better than ordinary days. Calm wind, blue skies. If there were no news of an upcoming typhoon, it would be one of the days where summer mix in with winter.
3:00 pm. Well my favorite part of the day. Clouds cover the sky, not too blindingly white and not too grimly dark, just the perfect shade of a fluffy yet satin cotton. It tempted me to snuggle under the covers in our soon-to-be new house of my soon-to-be new room.
6:00 pm. Davao del Norte has been put on signal number 3 along with the nearby provinces but like I said, still no sign of a whirling mass of cloud and air in the atmosphere. Can’t wait to prove that PAG-ASA would sometimes mislead an information.
1:00 am. Not all wishes came through. Raindrops were starting to fall on the roof creating a musicale on my head. I just love rain, it don’t just me give good luck but also the blanket of cool breeze that makes me sleep more soundly.
5:00 am. It’s getting colder but still very soothing and relaxing. Raindrops were still falling but this time, they beat like a drum, BIG DRUM. But no trouble. My family woke up early and my sister took a bath and got ready for school. She really needs to learn a thing or two, when tv announces signal number 3, it will certainly guarantee you that class would be nowhere to be found.
6:00 am. My mom gave us 3 glasses of milk to warm us. We even raced who could finish first and well no doubt, it’s always me. But as soon as the glass felt empty, so as the heat. Cooler breeze started to bust in and out of the window. The fun thing was it has it’s rhythm, a second it goes crescendo then subsides immediately. It feels like waves in the sea as they welcome the shore.
6:30 am. Each minute the wind grew stronger, we need to go downstairs for more insulation. I brought a blanket to keep me more warm during the slightly unusual weather.
7:00 am. I was startled and my heart beat faster. The roof of the house rattled, it looks like it wanted to break free of its permanent place. It creates a screeching metal sound across a hard concrete. It unnerving and frightful.
8:00 am. If screeching sound were bad enough to make me shiver to my bones, the view of swaying trees, big and very tall coconut trees makes you want to dig a hole. At this very moment, I was sure that the roofs of some houses were flying across mid-air causing loud crashes. Trees were being uprooted from their places and any minute it would smash the houses beneath.
9:00 am. The only thing I could do was pray. It seemed to last forever. It’s cold and very noisy. Trees blocking the road. The electricity was out and it’s purely dark. It’s almost noon but it looked like the sun was already heading to the west. The hard gush of the wind, the deafening raindrops, the bent trees, the dome of darkness, it was a typhoon alright, a massive super typhoon.
(c) pssst.com.ph
Mindanao was called as the Land of Promise until that day, December 4, 2012. The mass of land was rarely, close to never, hit by a typhoon especially by a Super Typhoon. But a change was made and a what a big change it was. We were caught off guard, leaving us with nothing but a total wreck.
Lives were taken, hundreds and hundreds of lives. Children buried alive on the mud. People tugged by the flash flood down to the pits of death. Survivors start to wilt and die in search of food, water and shelter. Houses were smashed to pieces. A massacre in the nastiest angle possible.
It’s hard to believe a paradise as beautiful as my homeland would lose some of its beauty on the map. It would take a long time to heal, but the big problem is, would mother nature let it heal again or would she totally destroy Mindanao’s beauty with another apocalypse?
To whom it may concern,
Assistance is needed at this very moment in time here in Philippines, especially in Mindanao. Food, Clothes, Water and Shelter are the most crucial amenities for the victims. Please help the people in need from the bottom of your generous heart. 🙂
The Cheesecake Monster 