Tulang Island, 14/01 - 25/01

Genesis of the project

After our “mission” in Carnaza, we slowly return to our ordinary life in the boatyard of "Dry dock". Kalo and Lia complete the preparation of "Free Spirit" for a new adventure at sea, Sophie and Rémi continue the inside fit out of "Surya". Before we left for Carnaza, we met Patrice, who himself collected donations too and organised relief goods missions in the North of Cebu, using his personal car on his own costs. He reached villages very far away from from the main road and met some people that lost everything without having anyone to help them. We immediately sympathize with him and keep in touch. After returning from Carnaza we call him to share our experiences. He explains us that he is, together with a team of French volunteer firefighters, in Tacloban City, the area that has been most devastated by the typhoon. At his return we catch up and he talks about a small island that he saw on his way, named Tulang, and which seems being affected by the typhoon too. Another friend also talks about the same island. So we decide that our next destination will be Tulang.

We believe that, after one month after the passage of the typhoon, the food and medical emergency is over and we focus on the reconstruction of the destroyed houses. We first think about buying the local nipper leaves to rebuild the roofs. After more discussions, we figure out that the amount of leaves needed, will widely exceed the storage capacities of the two boats. So we decide to buy corrugated steel, that we don’t like particularly but it has the advantage to take little room and to be very appreciated by the locals.

Regarding the information that we received from Tulang, a dozen of houses are destroyed. We try to estimate the quantity of sheet metal and wood necessary to rebuild a small house and then multiply it by the number of houses.

We load 100 sheets of corrugated iron and 80 pieces of coco lumber 5cm by 5cm onto Surya, the catamaran. As the space on Free Spirit is limited, only nails, saws and hammers are taken on board.

As the island is not very far from Cebu we hope that it is possible to buy some more materials over there.

Patrice and Daniel are joining us on this trip, as we consider that the more hands we have, the better it will be.

Saturday

We leave quite early. The sea state is a bit wavy, but there is no wind, so we have to use the engine. After a few hours the sea is calming down and we start to distinguish the shape of the Camotes Islands on the horizon. As Tulang is a small island without mountains, it appears only later on.

Kalo and Lia on Free Spirit are following Surya quite slowly as they have made a lot of modifications on the engine and don’t want to push it too hard for the firsrt time out at sea since two years.

The dolphins are following Surya for some time and make it a pleasant crossing despite the lack of wind. We arrive around noon and some people are already waiting for us, as Patrice had announced our arrival beforehand. People start coming on board without asking permission and offer us to unload the materials.

We explain them that we will stay for a few days, so there is no need to rush. First we need some time to relax  and Free Spirit is still on the way.

We take a meal together, the waves swing a bit around the island and we are surrounded by local fishing boats.

Around 2pm all the six of us go onshore and visit the island. At the first eyesight there is less destruction than expected. We arrive one month after the typhoon and a lot of people already managed to repair their homes. The houses that are still not rebuilt, definately need our help because because they are mainly lacking the necessary funds.

We pass through the narrow streets of the village, guided by Belly, the principal of the elementary school, as well as Happy, who is fairly highly placed in the community. They speak both English, which facilitates the communication.

We cross the village and arrive at the opposite side of the island, which is exposed to the wind. It is a maze of branches and trees that arrived from the sea. After having walked through half of the village we still don’t find any homes that require a complete reconstruction. We arrive at the school, located on a small hill. Some damage is visible, some temporary classrooms have been set up quickly so that the children can still work in good conditions. Two of the classes having resisted to the typhoon, are really dark, even during daylight and the teacher tells us that at rainy times, the classroom is plunged into complete darkness. At the same, time all four of us feel that we have found the right place for one of our solar panels.

While returning to the village we see another house that has been completely blown away. 

It was inhabitaed by three people and it will be the first one on our list. A little further we meet a family with 8 children, the house is not completely damaged, but it dangerously leans over and is only held by a few strings, we add it to our list.  This part of the village seems to be more affected, as only 20 meters away we find a woman on top of a pile of old rotten wood which once has been the home of eight people. Close to the cliffs at the beach another house has completely fallen apart.

Further on we see a family that lives under a very small shelter, equipment has been purchased to carry out the work, but not enough, and the courage seems to be missing.

All in all we decide to rebuild those 5 houses.

Sunday

We get told that on the nearby island some families are manufacturing walls out of bamboo. We cross the small channel between the two islands on a local Banka boat and after 15 minutes on a motorcycle ride we arrive at the manufacturing area. Four or five families are sharing the market. They are overbooked because of the huge demand after the typhoon. Everyone is working even the youngest ones. Nothing is available straight away, we order 40 pieces of plain bamboo sheets and 20 decorative ones. We have to wait for one week, this gives us enough time to work on the frames of the houses.

Meanwhile Patrice and Daniel are using the chain saw and try to make beams out of trunks found on the beach, but the result is not very satisfactory. After a few unsuccessful attempts, they realize that some of the people standing around are much more talented than them and they let them going on with the slicing.

Monday: Serious things begin

Sunday night we made a call for volunteers and on Monday morning at seven o'clock, 10 of them are present. We also met a carpenter who was working on another house. We asked him to give us a hand and for 300 pesos a day, which corresponds to 6 euros, he was willing in. The owner of the house stops his own work and lends us the carpenter for the coming days.

Our plan for the day is to start the house of Teresita with the help of Rolly, the carpenter, and secondly straighten the house, which leans over. We begin with Tereisita, so we can observe how Rolly is proceeding, what can be very useful for us later on. The site gets first organized, Patrice is playing with the chainsaw, while others dig large holes for the pillars. While the construction seems to be progressing well, Remi, Daniel, Patrice and Lia leave to the other construction site. They are looking around, they seek, but cannot find any house leaning over. After a while they find out that there is no such a house anymore. The owner, who may have misunderstood the message, completely razed his home, the space is empty now, so we have to start from beginning. After consultation we decide to build the same house as Teresita. We take the measurements and than we start. After a while, we can feel that some of the volunteers are very skillful and certainly more than us, they slowly start managing the building site and gradually we are becoming their workers.

The day ends, the roofs are already installed, we are happy with the result, tired but satisfied.

We plan to start another two houses for the next day: "the Big House" and the Beach House.

Tuesday

The locals start working at 7 o’clock, and we are divided between the two sites. We are a little less motivated at the “Big House”, because we feel that they are wealthier than the others. They have a lot of materials: wood, sheet metal, ect. We let them carry out the plans themselves and they decide to build a huge house, we surname it "the Castle". Only at the end of the project we understand that actually two families will cohabite this place. We give them a few lacking materials and pay the carpenter for a couple of days.

The second site is the "Beach House." A small family of three people will live here. The back of their house is faced to a cliff. Together we realize the plans because we will provide all the materials. We are choosing in favor of a flat roof, which seems much easier to realize. Here again the Filipino volunteers show their independence, they are not very smiling, but are working hard. We only give them a hand with the foundations before we go to the other sites. Daniel tries to make the workers change a post that he considers quite rotten, while it doesn’t seem to shock them too much. After multiple discussions, he finally got them to change the post, probably the best decision for the long term.

In the evening the roof has already been installed, but a small modification has been made to the originally plans. The single roof has been modified to a two-sided roof and will need more corrugated steel than planed. We don’t oppose us to their decision, but Patrice mentions that some people might try to take advantage of our generosity.  It is true that those metal sheets could have served to other people, but we have to admit that the house is much nicer with a roof on both sides. The workers, Jesus and Andro, are not very talkative and are a bit distant to us, but we figure out that they are a bit timid.

“The Big House” is the largest one, as its name indicates and it was not possible to get the roof started before night.

Every day we bring a bag of food to each family in order to cook for themselves and for the people helping them to rebuild their house. We are getting fed too and enjoy delicious meals like soups, grilled fish, sea urchins, shells, bread made out of corn flower and even chicken is on the menu one day. 

It is sure that during this mission we are not going to loose any weight.

Wednesday

Today we start another project, the house on the top of the hill: “Babi’s place”.  When we first saw his destroyed house, Babi was absent. We only saw his wife who is quite timid and reserved. Babi seems never contented and he is always talking very loudly. He is nearly shouting at us when he is asking for some more materials. Some people of our group regret to help him while there are so many other nice people on the island who could need some help too.

The problem with Babi’s house is that the ground is very rocky and we cannot dig holes to embed the poles for the foundation. We decide to ask Rolly, the carpenter, in order to make the best decision, because Babi himself is not really a handyman…

The “Sea helpers” team comes together to discuss about the solar panel installation in the elementary school. We choose to put lights in the two classrooms that are the darkest ones. 30 LED lights should give enough light for 60 students. We integrate the LED’s in bamboo poles, which we hang up in the classroom. 

This is our “own” project, as we realize it 100% by ourselves without outside help. We are very happy with the result and so are the teachers who can even use the room for meetings in the evenings.  It takes us a few days to finish the whole installation.

Thursday

The sites are progressing quite fast and the locals are doing very good without us. Our main task is to find out what materials are missing and getting them to the island. The hardware shop is located on the neighbor island in the town of San Francisco, called San Fran. Numerous are our trips between the two islands, transporting wood, metal sheets, nails, bamboo,… Everyone get to know us and people thank us for what we are doing, we get called “the French that are rebuilding houses in Tulang”. Not everybody seems to like us. The mayor, the head of the municipality, isn’t too excited about our action. He owns a big part of Tulang Island, especially the beautiful sand beach that gradually merges into the blue sea. In order to build his own tourist resort he would prefer to relocate the people from the island, but they have been living there for generations, for more than hundred years. A few times he asks us to meet him, but we were so busy that there was no time for official meetings. One day we cross his way unexpectedly. He arrives in his big 4x4 car, body guards surrounding him. First, he ignores us and only later on he asks somebody to call us.

He says that it is alright if we rebuild the houses, but he wants to make sure that nothing will be built in concrete. This will make it easier for him to destroy them once he would have managed to move the people from the island. For Lia it’s not easy to stay quite without pointing him out his injustice.

Since a few days, a small boy, around ten years old, follows us like our own shade. He is helping us wherever he can, 

Since a few days, a small boy, around ten years old, follows us like our own shade. He is helping us wherever he can, while distributing the materials, tying up the dinghy, getting the right people to us. He is also coming onto the boat and one day we find him asleep in our bed. The kid’s name is Jun Rey and together with his brothers and sisters, they are twelve people. He is the youngest, whereas his oldest brother is probably around 25years old. One of the older brothers is married and has one child and together they live in the same house. Their father died and the mother works in Danao, on Cebu Island. All those people live in a hut that is partially falling apart and there are only two benches out of bamboo where they sleep, the others find a place on the ground. Every day we passed by this house, but we never realized that so many people share this small place. So we decide to help them rebuilding their home. They have already some materials and were waiting to have enough from everything before starting the work. So we give them 10 metal sheets and some wood and immediately they start rebuilding their home.

Jun Rey is very attached 

We ask the teacher how he is doing at school. He tells us that since 4 months Jun Rey didn’t go to school, because the mother doesn’t have enough funds to pay the school fee, which is 300 Pesos per year, so around 6 Euros. Belly, the teacher, tells us also that Jun Rey was one of the best students in his class. The donations were originally not for such a cause, but we took the freedom to pay the five years of elementary school as well as for the according school materials. We ask Belly, who we fully trust, to observe Jun Rey’s progress and to send us his results after each quarter. Maybe Jun Rey will not be much more happy in school, but he will definitely be more educated and better armed for his future life. 

Friday

The six sites are progressing slowly and we distribute the materials progressively so that there will not be too much wasted. We mostly give a little less than the people ask us and than we see how they are getting on. They mostly do very well and this way, more of the old wood is recycled. As we are going around all the sites, we get to know which materials and how many are needed for the following day. The wood is our main problem, because we need a lot of it. Here the people use coco lumber which is quite heavy and we seem never to stop loading and unloading the vehicles. Unfortunately we cannot just call and the wood will be delivered to the beach. Nearly every day we cross with a banka the channel to the other island, take a motorcycle to the hardware, wait for hours to get any wood that is available and sometimes we have to negotiate hard in order to get the truck to transport the materials to Tulang.

A lovely family of five people is living next to Babi.

One day Jan Mar, the father of this family, arrives with his child having a skin infection since a few weeks. We decide to take him to the hospital in San Fran and in the same time we bring medications, left overs from the French fire fighters that helped in Tacloban. The doctors and nurses are starring at all the new things that arrived from Europe and don’t hide their excitement of their gifts. They don’t charge us for the consultation of the child and provide also the necessary medication for his treatment. Jan Mar is always happy, smiling, and not asking for anything regardless to the problems in life. So we decide to help him too! The structure of his house is still in good shape, so we give him some corrugated metal sheets, and nails for repairing his roof and some bamboo for the flooring. His smile becomes even brighter, it is a real pleasure to help people like him and we are all happy together.

Saturday

Today we pick up the bamboo walls in San Fran. Most of them are finished and the rest will arrive the next day. During the transportation we have to pay attention to the sharp cutting edges of the bamboo, some members of the group will keep the marks on their hands for a while. We try to share it equally amongst the families and check how the people are using it. 

Some people finalise quite big areas, using every off cuts as good as possible while others are wasting and ask for more.

We tell them though, that our stock is very limited and that they have to do with what they have got. Bamboo is very demanded at this moment and becomes rare. The order period is quite long and the price is high. We have not enough time to make a second order and try to share the bamboo walls fairly. The people that chose to build a bigger house than planned in the beginning, have to provide themselves the missing materials to finalise their house. The hamacs are already installed in the house at the beach and we nearly get tempted to try them out. 

Sunday

On Sunday it is like a Sunday, we don’t do much and neither the workers. We finish the solar panel installation. Patrice returns to his family in Cebu and Daniel shows signs of a fewer that could be the dengue fewer and has unfortunately to return to Cebu too. He really would have loved to finish this mission together with us. Only the four of us are left, “the fantastic four” as Daniel used to call us.

Monday

The houses are looking beautiful, having the bamboo walling installed. The families are starting to move in, we see some smiling heads looking through the windows, but the doors are still missing.

We still have some metal sheets, some food, hammers, saws, nails and bamboo. We start to organise a last big distribution 

This time we are focusing on the volunteers that helped during the whole week. Elli has impressed us the most. He is a farmer and his rice plantation at the northern part of the island has been completely destroyed by the typhoon and reduced his income quite a bit. He is very skilled and he helped on nearly every house being the main person leading the site. He is very shy and never asks for anything. When we realize how well and how hard he is working, we offer him the same salary as a carpenter, but he doesn’t accept it, pointing out that he is a volunteer! Today we will inspect his house. It isn’t completely destroyed, it is still holding upright, but a lot of the wood is rotten, the metal sheets have holes and are leaking, the wind is passing through the walls and from the outside it looks more like a chook house. He has 49 years, is married and has 3 kids. He could have spent time at home trying to fix all those leaks, but instead he decided to help other people rebuilding their homes. This man is a real hero! His house is next to the most beautiful house in the village and the contrast is obvious. We ask him to make a list of all the materials that he will need and we provide everything without exception. His few thankful words will always stay in our hearts. He takes a picture with us four together with him and his family. He wants to laminate it and put it up in his new house. He doesn’t want to start straight away, as the other houses still need to be finished first. We will return to Tulang, to see the progress of his home and to bring him some pictures that we took of him.

We are looking at all the houses of the volunteers to see what materials they need and we also provide some food for them.

We meet Joseph and his house is very familiar to all of us as we passed a dozen of times in front of it. We didn’t take any action as we thought that this small sticks tightened together with ropes could only be somebody’s kitchen and we choose only to rebuild the living spaces. Joseph is very young and he has a wife and one kid. Good on him to have helped his neighbor. We give him metal sheets, bamboo walls, nails, a hammer and a saw to help him in his owm house.

Neil is also a volunteer that helped during the whole week. His house isn’t in great shape and we help him to improve it.

Mario, we will never forget your small family and your great kindness!

In the late afternoon, everyone is gathering at the beach with the tickets that we distributed earlier on. Remi holds a speech about our impressions and strong emotions during this week.

He says that first of all we want to thank the volunteers, starting with Elli as a great example. Remi also mentions that this is one of the most beautiful weeks of his life, the happiness can really found in helping the others.

Christmas

A small tension has immerged the group of the “Fantastic Four”. Since they know each other this is the first time such a thing happens. It is probably due to the emotional and physical fatigue that we all experienced during this week. We nearly spent Christmas separated, but than we forgive each other and share hugs for a long time. We eat some crepes and a tuna cake prepared by Lia. We think about going to the midnight mess, but we are too exhausted and Kalo has numerous small infections on his feet, preventing him to walk normally.

The next day we are hoisting the sails in direction to Danao, where we return to our usual life before getting back into new adventures. Many waving hands wishing us good bye, while we are taking up our anchors.

The crossing is similar to the first one, not much wind with a bit of rain. Ideal to take some time and write this words.