Carnaza, 24/11

We definitely have a good feeling with the people living at the cemetery, so we go back in the morning to bring them some more bags full of different things that Sue and John from the boat Solita gave us in Danao. All of them are surprised and very happy that we spend some time with them, later on we decide to install Sue and John’s spinnaker on a community place where they can come together in the shade, and we give them a small solar panel to charge their mobile phones.. People are happy and all the kids enjoy playing under the shade. We spend the morning with them, having good times together and finely we say good bye.


Back on board to Surya we are having a last swim in very clear waters with all the kids from the cemetery, than we decide to move to a different anchorage close to Luyo ... Now we provided food and tools as much as we could to the whole island, but we still have some left overs, so we decide to spend the afternoon going back to Luyo, Condionesio, Barrio and Liog Liog to find some lucky people who will cross our way and who can get what we bring in our backpacks...

Remi and Kalo are not feeling very well, they stay on board while Sophie, Lia and Daniel go around the island. Our pockets are full of candies and all the way we have many kids following us, smiling and playing. We say good bye to most of the villages, they are all very great full to us… We want to see Cesar, but unfortunately he is absent. We get to know that a certain mobilization on the island has took place and that his house will probably rebuild pretty soon. We feel that our mission has been accomplished… We are ready to go back to Cebu island. But we will miss this place…We will leave on Monday morning…

Carnaza, 23/11

This morning we gather all our leftovers together and we manage to make another 30 bags with various supplies inside. Every bag contains at least rice, corn, a can soap and noodles, plus clothes and other items that are left.

By now we have given supplies to all the villages on the island except one, named Bario. It is the main village on the island and the richest people are living here. Instead of trusting blindly a list that has been given to us by the local people, we prefer to check ourselves the stage of this village. We want to make sure that our supplies arrive to the people that really need them. Instead of carrying all the goods with us, we decide to make tickets that people can later hand us over against the things that are written on it.

We are approaching the village from the outer side and instead of finding many concrete houses, we find a part of the village that is quite poor compared to the other ones. Most families are living here in wooden houses and some of them have nothing left. 

The advantage of looking at every house also gives us the possibility to see what kind of help will be the most effective. For families with a lot of children we give them more food supplies and for people rebuilding their house we can supply a hammer, a saw or nails depending on the need of every one. The tarpaulins we give to people that still live in their house and who don’t have any shelter to protect them from rain.

As there is a lot of damage we cannot help everybody and it is always a hard decision to refuse help to somebody, knowing that there could be somebody later on that needs the help more. We spend most of the day wandering through the whole village, making sure that we don’t forget anyone. 

We also visit the medical center and give them the medication that we brought with us. Everything is marked in the logbook, every visit and every medication that has been given to people. We also mark every amount of each medicine into the book.

At 3pm we are back on the boat, quite exhausted and without having had lunch yet. Captain Remy stayed the whole time on the boat as he hasn’t recovered from his fever yet. He prepares us a delicious meal made from fresh fishes given by local fishermen. We are having a quick rest and at 5pm we are ready for the distribution at the beach.

,As the people can’t figure out what the signs on their ticket mean, so every ticket is a small surprise for them. The distribution goes along quite smooth, except somebody wanting to jump in front of the line or other ones being greedy and wanting more. There is always someone trying to get more than others, but after all this distributions it becomes easy to distinguish greedy people from the ones really needing help. All the villages are done now, but we still have a few leftovers… It is going to be our last mission for tomorrow.

Carnaza, 22/11

This morning we are leaving for Luyo. As it is very close from our anchorage, we decide to drive there with our own dinghy. As the message has spread around that we would come to see them today, many people are already waiting for us on the beach.

During the distribution we can feel the tension and the unhappiness of certain people. Some say that they didn’t get what they deserve. While giving the bags people were not very thankful. Some of them can’t understand why we only help the people that were badly affected by the typhoon. We repeat that we are limited because of the size of our boat and that we had to make choices.

Later on we find out that there are different religions in this village and that some people might have been prioritized. After the distribution we decide to go and see the people that are not happy, but surprisingly nobody stands up, so we return to the boat. On our way back, Daniel tells us that he met a person that lives in the middle of his destroyed house at the outline of the village and that nobody has put him on the list. We decide to return to this village at a later stage.

Carnaza, 21/01

Most of the time, we have breakfast on the front of the boat and after a short briefing of the day, we start again organizing an equal separation and repartition of the goods...

Another village is on our list, Bantao, where 63 families need some help.
While distributing the bags, we can feel some jealousy among the people that are not on our list. How can we explain to those people that are themselves quite poor that there is nothing for them amongst the goods that we brought. We repeat that we don’t have enough goods for every person on the island, but there is still deception. Anyway, there are no agressions, no violence, only their envy which is completely understandable.

This afternoon we are bringing help to the people of Linaw, it is a small village on the other side of the island, 7 houses have been totally damaged and the other 25 had smaller damage. We are lucky that the local people of the island give us a hand with the transportation. Two local boats are waiting for us to load the goods and to bring us to the other side.

As we arrive, we can feel the atmosphere in the village is very peaceful, people are looking quietly at us while unpacking the bags. After the whole village mingled together, we are starting with a small speech. We have only 7 hammers for the people that have been most affected by the typhoon. We tell them, that those hammers should serve the whole community, and could be borrowed from each other. The people in the village seem all to understand and agree. While distributing, everyone is patient, waiting his turn without being greedy. We have a really good feeling with those simple and very grateful people.

On our way back to the boat, we make an unexpected discovery. We see a few small houses at the cemetery, the seventh village on the island that nobody wanted to talk about. We are turning around to go and visit this small community. Only 5 families are living here, but they are probably the poorest on the island. Their houses are a combination of tarpaulin, wood, and nipper leaves. A lot of children are around us and while we are leaving the place we have all the feeling that we want to do something for those special people.