Lottie the volunteer's BLOG

KC By: Lottie Salarda Tacloban City, Philippines – Fetching a jug of water for others in the NHA bunkhouses for 10 pesos has been Kristia Camille Oliver’s means in sustaining her daily meals. She is 13 years old. She formerly lives in Brgy Palanog, Tacloban City. She lost her mother during typhoon Yolanda. Of the 4 siblings, only one of them is now attending school with the help of her relatives. Her father had just got married and left them to live in Manila with his new family.  KC, as she was often called by her friends, stopped her schooling since she transferred to the bunkhouse. She strives each day to have some food to eat together with her friends who are also out of school youth. She lived in any unit of the bunkhouses where they find comfort to sleep. Like her friends, the only wish she wanted for Christmas is to go back to school. Supposedly this year she is in her grade 8, but because of the abandonment of his father, she then have no choice b...

Our coconuts; our source of life By: Lottie Salarda      I was born in a small village of Leyte town here in Eastern Visayas. I spent my childhood there. Until such time that I studied in Tacloban City and found work. I spend more than 10 years in that City. It is the City where we, from the hinterlands, find a work opportunity. The minimum wage is only 260 pesos. Many of my co-villagers in my age tried to find opportunity outside of our town. Our livelihoods were mostly on coconut farming. We depend on it.       For many years, many of them depends their lives out of what they’ve got in their tenancy. Although we have vegetable gardens, our lives still depend on coconuts. Most of them weren’t able to finish even high school or college. They work honestly and with dignity. They live simple lives. Until typhoon Yolanda came and destroyed not only their coconut trees but also their lives. We’ve lost our livelihoods. Coconut farmers have j...

Pokwang in one of her scenes in the movie By: Lottie Salarda I love reading books and watching movies. These are my favorite things to do when I am not busy. To relax my mind after the deadliest exams, I decided to buy downloaded movies in downtown Tacloban for twenty pesos each. Since I love watching comedy movies, especially local movies, I picked up Pokwang’s movie entitled “Edsa Woolworth”. For me, Pokwang is one of the best comedians in our Philippine cinema. I have watched her movies in the past and she never fails to amaze me in her talent to make people laugh. But when I started watching the movie, I realized that it is not a comedy, but a beautiful drama. Pokwang played as Edsa Woolworth who resides in California together with her siblings Bonifacio, and Paco their youngest. All of them nursed their stepfather Frank, who is an American citizen. Their mother Mercedes married Frank whey they were still in their young age. Mercedes died seven years ago. Frank...

By: Lottie Salarda The idea of making Humans of Haiyan came last August this year. I knew that time that I will take my 2 months review for the bar exams on September and October, and that means I won’t be able to write a story on the 2 nd year anniversary of typhoon Haiyan on November 8. Before I left Tacloban City, I traveled around the region to gather twenty-four personal life stories of the survivors. I made only twenty-four because I intended each of them to represent the twenty-four months after the disaster. In the middle of my review, I took some time to do some edits and print it using a part of my review budget. I had printed it because I want their stories to be preserved and remembered. I want to know how they are coping with their situation two years later. This is not only a collection of sad stories but also an inspiration, hopes, and dreams. The twenty-four survivors have their own stories to tell. And their stories are the living manifestation th...

School children play after classes By: Lottie Salarda Tacloban City—it’s been more than two years since the strongest typhoon hit the Eastern part of the Philippines on November 8, 2013. It killed thousands of people, destroyed properties and lost the livelihoods of the poor farmers. Billions of dollars were donated by many countries to help us bring back our lives into normalcy. Our government received more than enough to rebuild the school buildings and other infrastructures that the typhoon has devastated. For more than one year I’ve worked as a researcher in a non-governmental organization that advocates renewable energy. I travelled a lot most of the time to have my research all over the region. In each Municipality I went through, I noticed that those school buildings that were located along the National Highway were all rehabilitated for less than a year. Is there a pattern? I asked myself. A community in Palo, Leyte has more than enough school classroom...