Trip up Barangay 89

Recce concluded a week ago but we only have time to write about it now. However, I must say that overall, it's a superb experience:) Choosing Tacloban City and Mercy Relief was the best decision ever!

Thank you to everyone who came and send the four of us off, really appreciated your effort (esp Joseth and Xinglai's Donuts) Lol and we got photobombed (see QW's face XD)

So after our international flight to Cebu Airport, Murphy decided to play a prank on us. We missed our domestic flight to Tacloban and the next flight is on 24th -.- P.S Please note to book connecting flights or do web check in if transit time is short.

Fortunately, Carol has once informed us of an alternate route to Tacloban and we decided to travel by the longer 7 hours ride. Even though the journey was tiring, we managed to reach Tacloban at 1pm, to be greeted by the heavy rain...

 Us waiting for the ferry to Ormoc

Us on the van ride to Taclo

As you can see, what didn't kill us made us stronger cockroaches, resilient against challenges. After meeting Carol, Sister Lala and Brother Jerry, we headed for lunch at Jollibee before we visited 3 communities to find out more about them. We are really blessed to be able to hear the first hand experiences from the Haiyan survivors and we can't help but applaud their strong survival instincts; all of them picked themselves up to rebuild their communities. If there is one thing we want our team to take away, it will be love. Love for their communities and families kept them going against harsh times as they rebuilt their hometown together bits by bits. We are very fortunate to witness one of the Barangays building back their community houses together.

 The women from Barangay 56A

The meeting at Barangay 89

So after talking to the three Barangays, we have decided on Barangay 89. With 89, we intend to build a reed bed system that collects used bathwater for input and treat to give clean water output for irrigation purposes for their urban gardening. Specific details are been worked out by our Ops team, sincerely thanks to QW and Gordon for joining us in this trip:)

In addition to the Reed Bed System, we intend to build a stall, tended by the local community themselves to diversify the livelihood of the villagers. We will be getting our marketing and Log&Pub subcomm to work on the details. Keep watch:)

All in all, the trip has been a really fulfilling one and the four of us definitely have our own takeaway from this trip. Thank you to everyone who made this trip possible and anticipate a even fun trip in July 2015!

Some pictures to hype:

The setting: May not be the perfect ideal holiday kind of beauty but definitely Tacloban City defines beauty on her own. The coasts are really beautiful and you can see the stars at night quite well:)

The people: As mentioned, they are really optimistic and they love singing. What more can I say?

And here's Michelle favourite boy

The food: Well, you may be surprised but yes, Filipinos love Hong Kong Food alot. And they like meat (Hooray to all the carnivorous like me HAHA)

And lastly, my team and Mercy Relief. Thanks for being so understanding and spontaneous. It's not easy to be travelling in a new place with zero expectations. Quoting Carol:"The best form of travelling is backpacking because you will only get surprises, not shock."

Happy 2015, everyone:)