Transforming a house into a home

This is Leena's* story. She is just one of the many people Medair is helping here in the Philippines and it seems a fitting story for my last blog post from this fascinating country.

Leena is a single mother with five children who lost her home during Typhoon Yolanda. In the first phase of the project Medair provided her with a basic house structure but she did not have means to complete it. She did the best she could but it wasn't really a good environment for the family to live in.

This year Medair is returning to families like Leena's and is providing them the materials they need to finish their houses. If necessary, we are also paying for a carpenter to do the needed work.

The materials are delivered

Within two days, and after some hard work by a small team of carpenters, the house that Leena and her family have been living in for nearly a year is virtually unrecognisable.

Inside there are separate areas for preparing food and for sleeping.

The family finally have somewhere they can truly call HOME.

* not her real name

All photographs in this blog post by Edsel Delopere / Medair Philippines

What's cooking?

On my arrival in the Philippines a few months ago one of the first things I learnt about was lechon. The people of the Philippines seem to love their food and lechon is one of the favourite dishes: sold in the street and served at all special occasions.

It is a young pig of about six months old that is seasoned, skewered and roasted whole on a spit for several hours. I have seen lechon stalls in the streets of Tacloban. Some have a cooked pig on display, while others just have the slices of meat waiting to be purchased. Until this week I hadn't seen the actual cooking process.

On Friday our neighbours at the office were cooking lechon in their back yard. The pig had been skewered with a large bamboo cane and two men were cooking it over an open fire. One man was constantly turning the pig to ensure it was cooked right through while the other was keeping the charcoal hot beneath it by adding dried coconut shells to the fire pit.

A few hours later we were informed that the lechon was ready so work stopped again to go and see what happens next. The head and two front legs had been removed and were sitting on a table.

The rest of the pig was lying on banana leaves on another table and one of the men was hacking it into pieces using a very large machete.

It seemed only right that I should taste this local delicacy so we purchased a kilogram for PHP 320 (about $7 USD or £5 GBP). There was no discussion about cuts of meat. We got the next kg the man cut away from the carcass - skin, fat, bones, meat and all...

I'm told, by others, that this was not the best lechon. By the time we ate it at lunchtime the skin had turned chewy rather than being crunchy and for me there was a lot of fat and bone to pick through to get to the meat (although my Philippine colleagues didn't seem to distinguish between meat and fat). But the meat was tasty and I couldn't really have left the country without tasting their national dish, freshly prepared and cooked right next door.

Easter Getaway

The Easter holiday in the Philippines runs from Thursday to Sunday and, due to the country's Roman Catholic heritage, it is probably the most important holiday of the year for many people. It is a time to spend with the family and to participate in the various church services that take place over the four days.

For me and my colleague Esther it was an opportunity to take a break away from work and to explore another part of Leyte Island. The office and the team house where we live are just 200 metres apart at opposite ends of the same street and so it is not uncommon for the majority of our time from Monday to Friday to be split between these two locations. I may be living on the other side of the world but the demands of work often mean I only see a very small part of that world.

We booked a three-night stay at a diving resort in Southern Leyte near the town of Padre Burgos. We had no intention of going diving but as this area is known for its diving sites most of the resorts are aimed at divers. On Thursday morning we left Dulag and drove south and within a relatively short distance you could see the landscape changing. Dulag and the area to the north towards the city of Tacloban were right in the path of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and the devastation caused by the typhoon and the accompanying storm surge is evident all around you. In the collapsed buildings, the missing roofs, the on-going construction, the blown down trees, the coconut palms missing their tops: everywhere you look you are reminded of that event. But further south is a different picture. It is less built up, less industrialised, which also makes a difference but I was struck by how many more coconut palms there were, how much greener, how much less 'broken' everywhere looked.

We had been invited to call in at the home of one of our suppliers on the way and so after an hour of travelling over the mountains that run down the middle of the island we arrived at her home on the west coast. The Philippine people are very hospitable and very generous and breakfast had been prepared for us and what a breakfast it turned out to be: fish, shrimps, mashed potato, salad, bread, watermelon, coffee. If we had not stopped eating I think she would have just kept on bringing out more food!

As we left we were presented with two cake boxes "for the journey". Her daughter is a baker and had prepared us blueberry cheesecake and some kind of mango desert. We accepted them with great thanks for her generosity although we were both wondering what on earth we were going to do with them*

Then it was back on the road for a further two hours drive to reach our destination. And what a destination! It was like being in a different world. Beautiful clear blue sea, the coral beach, the only sounds were the waves on the shore and the breeze blowing through the trees. This was a great place to get away to! On Friday we went out on a boat with the divers. We sailed across Sogod Bay and while some people went diving I went snorkeling. It was stunning. The corals were just so alive - vibrant in colour and teeming with so many fish of all shapes, sizes and colours.

Most of the rest of the weekend was spent relaxing by the sea, reading, sleeping and enjoying the view.

As we were on the west coast the sunsets were spectacular.

 

And on Saturday evening there was a partial lunar eclipse.

It was a weekend of rest, relaxation and awe-inspiring beauty - the perfect Easter getaway!

* We gave the cakes to the manager of the resort and asked him to share them with the staff - I hope he did!