The last few weeks have certainly caught up with me. I am writing from my sick bed fighting an awful bug, and sniffling my way through a leaky nose. Thankfully, my body was able to hold out until after I got back to Manila from the Operation Smile medical mission in Cebu. Prior to that, I found myself on an overnight trip to Baguio (which thankfully turned into two nights). Then back to Manila for a couple of days before flying out to Legazpi City to join the Hands On Disaster Response (HODR) volunteers in Barangay San Isidro for a week. Then back to Manila for another couple of days before heading out to Cebu with Operation Smile.
Click on image above for HODR photos in Albay Province.
I always seemed to have a hard time waking up at 6:00AM in NYC, London, or HK, to don on a suit and pantyhose (yes! I did for those of you who did not know me during that lifetime!); but there was no escaping the crowing roosters bellowing away at 5:30AM daily in San Isidro. It was go, go, go! We were out the doors at by 8AM to either tarp or dig lahar. The treat at the end of the day was electricity from a generator set from 5PM to 10PM; a shower in either an outdoor shower or indoor shower; dinner at 6PM sharp prepared by San Isidro’s own Marisa; and, warm beer hurriedly chilled over ice till lights out. Then it was back to bed in sleeping bags over air mattresses tucked into mosquito nets. Just be sure to have your headlamps ready at your side in case you need to make a trip to the loo in the middle of night.
On my first morning in San Isidro, I thought I’d take it easy on my back and lay out tarps on roof tops. I quickly became bored with tarping and went to dig out lahar from the corner of a house instead. When I arrived at the house the first afternoon, I told Tim that something was decomposing underneath that pile of lahar and debris. Two days later, I came upon what looked like a femur. A few minutes later Tim discovered a vertebrae and then what looked like a scapula. All looked too small to be human, and we all hoped it wasn’t human. Soon enough Tim, perched above the buried kitchen, discovers some ribs which turned out to be from a decomposing dog.
There were 20 volunteers when I left San Isidro – all were foreigners who flew out to join HODR when word got to them of the group’s project in San Isidro. They came from all walks of life: a bartender from south London, an ex-corporate banker from London, an Irish electronics engineer who used to work in Silicon Valley, a retired Scotsman who used to work in shipping, a caterer from Seattle, a freelance writer from Brooklyn, a pair of engineering consultants from New Zealand, an investment management executive who quit his job with one of the top investment management firms in NYC to help out the residents of San Isidro. A number of them had joined HODR in their other projects in Biloxi, Mississippi (Hurricane Katrina), Thailand (2004 tsunami ), and Indonesia (Yogjakarta earthquake). By the time the daily evening meeting came to a close on my last night, nearly half of the them had indicated that they were willing to stay until the project ends on April 1st.
Unfortunately I had to leave and return to Manila and then to Cebu for Operation Smile. This is an amazing operation that has been in existence for the past 25 years. Also notable is that Op Smile’s first ever mission was conducted here in the Philippines, in Naga City 25 years ago. Every year an international mission sets out to perform hundreds of surgeries on underprivileged children with cleft lips and cleft palates all over the world. This year’s international mission was held simultaneously in Bacolod, Cebu and Davao with a team of foreign and local surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and pediatricians.
I was amazed at the energy of the international crew who, despite jet lag, managed to plow through hundreds of screenings on the first day, and through an average of 45 surgeries per day. Even more amazing was seeing how the parents reacted after their child was operated on and their cleft lips/palates are repaired. As someone said in Cebu, they thought they’d do these missions for 5 years tops. However, as each year comes along more and more children seem to seep out of from hiding and head out seeking help and hope from Operation Smile’s medical teams.
It has certainly been an interesting month. The only problem is that whatever weight I lost while digging out lahar in San Isidro was quickly replaced by “crispy pata”, “lechon” and whatever else sweet native delights the MSY Foundation pulled out of their magic Cebuano hats.
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