Typhoons in Small Places

I live on a very, very small island. This is what I tell people when they ask where I am assigned, and I feel that the the words "very," "very" again, "small," and "island" in combo indicate that this place is, essentially, the size of an anthill on steroids. I can sneeze in my hut and my furthest neighbor will say "god pardens you" in Cebuano, which is what they say -- don't ask me why. I hear the generator at night as it's powering 60 of the island homes with electricity; for the remaining 60 homes, I can hear matches strike boxes as darkness settles in. Himokilan Island isnt like one of the San Juan's; it's not Sanibel; it's not flippin Cuba. It's small. FRIGGIN DARN SMALL.

Imagine what a friggin darn small island with limited electricity has to offer in terms of current national and international news updates. I award five points to the individual who has surmised that "news" is generally slow to reach this and other similarly isolated rocks on earth. When there are coups attempts or natural disasters or emergencies from home that I should probably know about, well, I have no way of knowing when I'm out there. Granted, sometimes news can wait, but sometimes it can't. Take, for instance, news of the typhoon that struck Leyte two days ago. Seven foot waves and hurricane force winds don't make for a good combination when you live on an island as wide as two American Arses. Fortunately for me, I was on the mainland boozing it up at a wedding; but regardless, what if I went home as I originally planned? What if it were a signal five typhoon, the most powerful storm?

I worry sometimes about the things that I can't plan for. I do all that I can to be safe -- I take medicine when I'm sick, I don't ride on buses with toothless, drunk-looking drivers, I don't eat foods that double as pets, and I certainly don't ride a boat in crappy conditions when I could just wait another day and take the same boat in calm seas. The trouble is, when I'm out on that island, that island is where I am. Is that very Tao of Poo to say? Well it's true. And that island is very, very small. There is no escaping a strong wind or rough seas; waiting and hoping are the best defenses out there.

The sad truth is that a lot of news doesn't reach a lot of the Philippines. Technology is booming in this place, but only to those who are fortunate enough to be near it or rich enough to afford it, and as such a lot of people don't have access to information, including daily news. Even with my government issued allowance, I am out of the range of proximity to news. And while indigenous knowledge of weather, water, and land continues to serve FIlipinos well (for example, the worst of the storm is over when the frogs begin to croak in volumes), that same knowledge isn't a doppler radar that shows how bad the storm is going to be in the first place.

In the end I am okay, and in the end I will only live in this tiny place for two years. Still, I can't help but be sympathetic for most of the population in this country - and, indeed, much of the population of the deveoloping world - who are at nature's mercy. After witnessing the horrible devastation from the landslide in St. Bernard, Southern Leyte, I hope other people are too....