Tambis,15/01

The wind is blowing really hard today at anchor. Kalo and Lia decide to keep an eye on both boats while Sophie, Jacques and Rémi leave towards the Tambis Mountains. We are a little late, and a little wet as a huge amount of sea water makes its way into the dinghy taking us to land. The driver is waiting, let’s go! Short stop to load bamboos. Short stop to the hardware centre to pay a debt from the day before and we continue towards Tambis as every other day for the last week. Visit of the work sites, distribution of corrugated sheets bought the day before, it’s all becoming routine. We make a point of visiting the work sites every day. Some need encouragement, otherwise everything stops. We don’t want to waste building material. It must be used quickly or it will be taken for other sites working more rapidly.

Dolce’s house

Theresita’s house

Dolores’s house

Louis’s small house is not making progress in spite of a carpenter that we pay every day. We have doubts regarding the abilities of this carpenter and are thinking of replacing him. . Assaya just started work, there’s always something going wrong. Today wood is missing. The chain saw is moving to a different valley tomorrow and will be able to supply more wood for Assaya and Louis. In the meantime a new worksite has opened, it’s Dado’s. Dado only needed corrugated sheets, everything is going well, and the workers know what they are supposed to do. This house will most likely have a roof tomorrow. Next to Louis’ house there’s a cabin with a corrugated roof, but no walls. We now know that it belongs to Arnel and Juna Pinon. They have four children and one on the way. Kalo and Rémi had met Juna the day before; she was with her children in a temporary slum without any comfort. Juna received the corrugated sheets distributed by the Mayor. She asks us for some more to cover the kitchen. We tell her we only supply corrugated roofs for the living area. We offer her bamboos for the walls. She has the honesty to tell us she has all she needs. She then says that her husband is a volunteer working on Perdita’s house. We make a decision, she will get extra corrugated sheets....
Another volunteer, Dodong Magnan will also receive our help. He has six children; his house is very small and hasn’t withstood the typhoon. We give him 14 corrugated iron sheets and bamboo slats. We eat at Jerry’s again. We find Jacques who’d come back earlier. Some women and children sing the Palompon anthem to him. We ask if there’s an anthem for Tambis but there isn’t. Rémi offers to compose one that we could sing before we leave. We go back to Lucia’s house. Nothing’s standing; everything is on the ground and in rubbles. Lucia is very shy and would never have come to see us. Her neighbours did it for her. We take Lucia’s photo in front of the rubbles and see twelve 8 feet corrugated iron sheets. She has wood at her son’s place and bamboo, work can begin tomorrow.

All that’s left of Lucia’s house

We are taken to two houses that are in very bad state. Our first impulse is to supply building materials, but something tells us not to. The first one is in ruins but one part of it is habitable. The neighbours push the owner to tell us she has six children. In fact she only has one who no longer lives here. The remaining part is big enough for one person (all things being relative). We offer bamboos for partition walls, she’s not interested. We move on to the next house that’s even worse. There again we are ready to help. A detail bothers us: the owners have started a big bamboo fence, massive posts have been planted in the ground. The amount of work and money would have been enough to build the house. We decide to wait for Jerry to get his advice. After consultation the lady we met no longer lives here. Too many uncertainties for us to help. We make our way back to the city. At Palompon the wind hasn’t settled down, the bay is white with foam, but the boats are still there waiting for us.

All the coconuts trees have fallen sparing this house

On the way back we don’t cease to admire the rice fields