“From Thee we came from so to Thee we go back.”

It is still so fresh in my mind what I uttered yesterday to my colleague and my superior in the company. “That’s what we called, expect the unexpected”, that was what I said to them, after our client’s incident of losing his documents, that supposed to be submitted to the bank. And this statement has been repeated today, December 17, 2011 to us.

06-11:58 P.M last night, December 16, 2011: Series of rain and flood drops of water to diverging direction with winds across our way.

12:00 Midnight: Rain stopped, but seemed-liked a flock of birds chirping on the street we heard heading their way out from the area where we live at. People from the nearby streets from our street were in distress and fear with their families; making sure that all of their family members are in-tact safely, while striding on the street out. There were children along with their mothers who were in deep anxiety of what would happened while they are a midst the road, looking up for their behalf. Seeing our yard was in high water flood, we immediately in motion to get our angles to be secure before anything else. Having a baby or a child, on this like of incident would really put us to deep discernment of compassion, loving and sacrifices to make. I,with my other siblings went to our room and got our beloved babies, who were never slept the night long.

I myself, changed my clothes, got my baby boy Bench on my arm, then picked up my bag which I used yesterday with the only net book and the papers I have inside it. Then went out from the house, where water was on my waste line level. My cellphones were gone in my thought. I stopped in the middle of the road to check my other siblings along with my nephew and nieces. I can’t find them by my eyes because of the so dimmed road. There was a total block out of electricity in the area. I entered the opposite gate side of the road, longing to find them, but it was me and my baby who reached there first. Again I went out, then I found them calling me by name with the children on my elder sister with her new born baby on her right arm, my brother with our nephew on his right side and my younger sister with the only shoulder bag with my baby’s few clothing, can of milk, and my bulky wimax. We strode ahead praying to reach the bridge in the highway, which is 100 meters away where we were; and where at first we saw there was no water yet. Only seconds had elapsed, great pressure and volume of water meet against our way along with the other people with their families, pigs, dogs and motorillas as well onward us.

The water was getting higher and higher until my sister was stumble and rolled to the drainage and got scratches on her left knee. Adrenaline rush would really comes in times of trouble naturally. That what helped me to pursue and to look for a way to fight against the current of water and to hold on and not to stumble until I reached the bridge side and, I don’t know, I managed to put my baby Bench on the bridge through the lower hole of the bridge and begged my baby not to cry or to panic. I managed to clime on the bridge and had helped my niece, then my brother, my 4 months old nephew, then my sisters, my brother –in-law and the woman who was with her daughter as well. After a while, my baby uttered that my only phone hanged on my neck fell. At first it made me think and worried about the phone with the clients’ contacts I have there. I shouldn’t have lost it if I never helped them, but that is a very worldly thing to consider. So I let it and think that I am more blessed that those others. When we were all on the bridge, since we were the first group or family we went up on the bridge, we found the other people struggling on the water. Most of them were pushed back to our previous areas due of its current. The water went up and up, up to the point of making those bungalow houses swallowed and washed away anything it passed by and those people who were still on the water fighting for their safety. Along with the volume of water are mud, logs, water poisonous creatures and rubbish from the upper portion and the rest of the areas.

We started our way to Chowking, Velez Street, longing to have a vehicle to let us ride to Upper Carmen. Where we can go home to our mother and have the safe zone area. Seeing the Velez street is so quite, I felt the tranquility deep-in, but somehow worried. I looked back on the road where we came from, to check if there are still people behind me fighting for their lives, and just to be sure as well, that I am not dreaming, since the Velez street is very peaceful and doesn’t have any water on the road. But it was real and not a dream. I found a taxi and asked the driver to ride us to Zone 10. He thinks first then said no. I found another one, which a driver was sleeping. I knocked on his window and he woke up. I begged him to drive us on the said area, but he said, no because we are so many. I told him I will give him 500, but still he was so blunt to say yes. I offered him 1000, but still he said no. Lastly, I told him that even just the babies and my sister, just to make agree to drive us to our mother’s area. Then he finally said yes. We rode the area through Taguanao road. But first we reached there; we followed the Rotonda Street, where water was already in higher level. That made us looks for another way out. I directed the driver of which road to take and prayerful to have a way out just to reach the higher area of Taguanao and to feel secure on there.

December 17 at 2:00 A.M: we reached the Taguanao highway. My baby Bench got feverish. He felt weak and sleepy. He begun to speak and talked to me a lot of things. He bid me “I love you to much mimi nako”, which made me felt weak and lower down the pressure I have inside. I wanted to cry, but I rather not to, in order for my other siblings to stay calm and strong. When we reached the middle way of Taguanao, the electric post fell down horizontally the road. We can’t pass by on the area, so waited for an hour while the driver and the people in Taguanao road tried their best to find a way for us to pass by. When we were along SM Mall area, we felt the security already and the little children begun to laugh and smiled with the Christmas Lights they saw hanged on the trees across the Mall. Finally, we came on the Zone 10 area and got down from the taxi there. We strode our mother’s house bare footed, wet and cold, with the things on our shoulders and the babies on our other hands. The rain begun once again, which made us colder, and we begun trembling under the rain with our getting painful feet due of pinning road rocks to our feet. After 20 minutes, we reached home and had ourselves warmed with the dry clothes we could use from our mother.

Consolacion, Cagayan De Oro is a vast area of numbers of inhabitants, where numbers of little children as well as elderly people are in. It is very sonorous view to think, that in that busy yet gay area could experience such incident, knowing that it must not be, or let say, shouldn’t be. But humanity doesn’t hold its own fate, as majority say. And I will accord on that idea. It really is.

What is my point here? It is the way of living by each of us, regardless of social status we have and family background we are in. Tantrums may vary among us, but that recently done tantrum is really destructive to all of us. What ever the cause of this, is soon to be known to all of us and I am pretty sure that there are still varying life survival stories there by those people who survived. How about you? What was your story during this natural calamity you also experienced? Share it with us for the world to know how still lucky we are, despite that tantrum we felt and had!