The typhoon has left a lot of damage, and everyone is busy cleaning up.
this video show our area of town:
We are still on generator, and have limited water from our deep well: for some reason the pump isn't working well (maybe not enough current from the small generator). Our large generator was damaged and needs a new radiator, which may take time to fix, so we are on my small backup generator.
the small generator is for the refrigerator, fans, fish pump, and small appliances: and I can run either the water pump (which we got fixed on Tuesday) or my airconditioner, but not both.
Choices, choices.
But alas, since we run it on and off (about 8 hours a day) it was not enough to keep our poor fish alive: (clarification: You need to keep the water oxygenated with a pump)...We lost a couple of talapia and our last two koi. Sigh.
I gave them to the staff to bury, but since they were freshly dead, I suspect they will eat them. Why waste good food.
Electricity is being slowly restored to our town...but not our place yet.
Lots of downed wires: some from trees blown down but also because the newer concrete electric poles broke from the winds or pulled over when the wires were hit with falling trees etc.
The original wood polls were replaced with concrete poles, installed for the high voltage electric cables that are gradually replacing the tangled mess of smaller electric wires...presumably the concrete poles lifted the cables high enough not to be snagged by passing rice trucks, something that which used to happen once or twice a year on the road that goes by our house.
At least the roads are opening up.
We had to cancel a scheduled rice delivery to Manila earlier in the week due to blocked roads. I don't know when it will be rescheduled: Joy is busy packing rice into small packages for her delivery. She is using some of the rice stored here, since she still can't get to her farm and office in Bulacan. I haven't heard if that rice was spoiled or if that crop was destroyed like it was here. (Our winds were stronger: As I mentioned in a previous blogpost, the eye went right over our town so we got hit with the strongest winds.) But of course part of the problam causing damage is the flooding.
We finally can get to the farm with a motorcycle but not a truck. The roof of the bodega on our farm that stores rice blew off and so the men are busy drying the rice on the higher shelves that got wet from the rain.
The bad news is that much of this summer's rice crop in our area was flattened by the winds. Luckily part of our rice crop was in low lying land, the nearby trees landed on the road instead of the field, and most of the crop was planted later than normal, so the rice plants are still flexible and will recover. Alas, the almost ripe rice is probably ruined.
....
The internet is back.
Through every thing, the cellphones were available to communicate. The main problem, of course, being that cellphones have to be charged: So our neighbors, hearing our generator, brought their cellphones to be charged.
And our neighbor, who had water from a handpump, did give us water to drink and wash with until our pump was fixed.
We now have water, but limited amount. No shower: You wash with a tabo (dipper) and a bucket. Ditto for toilet.
The clothes washing has to be done by hand, so probably we will do only what is absolutely necessary until the current is restored, since we are rationing our electricity to what is absolutly necessary.
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