By Erwin Mascarinas,VERA Files
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — After the shock and the tears, people here and in Iligan City are starting to pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives two weeks after tropical storm Sendong ravaged their homes and their land.
Lack of sufficient water supply, electricity and other basic necessities, did not stop the survivors of Sendong from moving on.
"We lost our house, clothes, everything. It's s hard but we have no choice but to move on,"said Jocena Kanood who lost her home in Isla de Oro.
"I'm just happy we are all alive," she added as she recalled their harrowing experience holding on to a billboard frame for more than five hours.
She said she does not know where to start but she is determined to push forward and overcome the tragedy.
Many of the affected families who did not lose their homes or lose a member of the family face the daunting task of clearing their houses of mud that invaded every inch and cranny of their houses.
Wilfredo Saludo a resident of Gold City Village in Barangay Balulang, who punched a hole in the ceiling for him and his wife to escape the rampaging floodwaters, started cleaning their house a few days after the tragedy. Lack of water is a big problem, he said.
"It is very hard because we don't have enough water.The mud got into every part of the house and we have to throw a lot of our stuff away.
They are currently staying with his wife's brother in Terry Hills Subdivision in Barangay Bulua." Every day we have to travel and bring several containers of water we had pitched just to clean the house," Saludo said.
Survivors are starting to build small make-shift shelter for a temporary place to stay while looking for permanent a place to transfer to.
People from two of the hardest hit barangays in Cagayan de Oro - Barangay Consolacion and in Barangay Makasandig- picked up whatever they can salvage from what used to be their homes and built temporary shelters made of wood and tarpaulin to protect themselves from the elements.
Others settled under the Marcos bridge, making it a temporary roofing, an unsafe situation as it is dangerously close to the Cagayan de Oro City river.
Amidst massive destruction and stench of death, survivors carry on believing in the proverbial sunshine after a storm.
(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for "true.")
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