Business Fit Magazine October 2019 Issue 1 | Page 30

Travel
Business Fit Magazine editor, Claire Morley,
writes for our occasional Travel Fit section in
this issue, sharing with us her experience of
volunteering in the Philippines after the havoc
wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan in November
2013.
In light of recent Hurricane Dorian’s devastation
throughout the Bahamas and the constant
warnings that climate change is affecting our
weather, I am reminded of the worst Typhoon
ever to hit landfall, Typhoon Haiyan, known
locally as Yolanda. I have some knowledge about
this, while I was not there when it happened,
three months afterwards I was on my way as a
volunteer to the decimated city of Tacloban on
the Philippine island of Leyte to help with some
of the rebuilding.
My reasons for going were several-fold. I had
always wanted to do some volunteer work, not
with local charities, although I have done much of
that, but something deeper, something altruistic,
something where I got my hands dirty, something
which put my life into perspective. I had wanted
to go to Romania in 1990 after Ceauşescu’s
orphanages had been exposed, to help there, but
circumstances then didn’t allow. In late 2013, I was
struggling with a bout of depression, something
which has plagued me on and off throughout my
life. Although this was nothing like my suicidal
depression of some thirteen years previously
– fortunately I had managed to understand my
triggers and coping mechanisms since then – but
I was feeling hopeless, helpless, emotional and
unfulfilled. When Yolanda happened, I wanted to
go, I wanted to feel purpose in my life, I wanted to
reach out to the people there and offer my help.
elements. Once I had managed to wrestle my
baggage through the throng of passengers, I was
met by a jolly Filipino woman who drove myself
and another volunteer the 15 minutes it took to
get to the house which was to be my home for
the next month. We passed untold numbers of
“tent cities” the makeshift accommodation for
those who had lost their homes. Trees, buildings,
cars, shops – everything destroyed. The one thing
which hit me the hardest was the trees. Those
which hadn’t been uprooted and lay stricken on
the ground, were bare, tall trucks stripped of
most if not all of their leaves, it made me weep.
And everywhere there were banners – Tindog
Tacloban meaning Rise Up Tacloban.
The house the volunteers occupied was situated
in a district called V&A. Two large rooms were
filled with bunk beds housing 10 people in each,
sharing one bathroom. There was no running
water or electricity. Two makeshift showers had
been erected in the garden containing buckets
of water we got from a hose and scoops for us
to pour water over ourselves. It was basic. The
generator would run for a couple of hours every
other day, a chance to recharge phones, diesel
was expensive and hard to come by, so a luxury
item.
The projects the small charity I was volunteering
with included creating a communal vegetable
garden; clearing schools of debris so the larger
So in March 2014, I boarded an Emirates flight
from Cyprus (where I reside) and headed to
Manilla. At that time, flights into Tacloban itself
could only be made during daylight hours due to
lack of power, so it was the following day before I
completed my journey and therefore light when
we circled the city. I had a window seat and I
stared disbelievingly, open-jawed at the ground
beneath us. Of course we had all seen the news
footage of the terrible devastation but looking at
it in real life was a different story. The place was
flattened for as far as the eye could see, an ugly
scar, where once coconut trees had grown, and
people had lived.
The arrivals part of the airport had no remaining
walls or baggage carousel, it was open to the
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