Hard Candy can go by another name: eye candy! The packaging of this blusher is so cute it got me sold on first sight. The design is colorful, youthful and eye-catching. It's a square box about 2 x 2 x 1.5 inches in size. The material is made of cardboard and it closes with a magnetic lid. The design may be cute and travel-handy but you should be careful when putting this in your purse because the lid has a tendency to not close well enough and the next thing you know, the insides of your bag will be blushing. And if you are quiet rough, you could break the little cardboard box.

First of all, I am not from Tacloban City.

I'm from Burauen, Leyte. That puts me and my family at about 45 km from the center of this catastrope. The nearest beach from my town is about 30 km away. So when Yolanda ravaged Eastern Visayas on November 8, 2013, we were fairly safe from the storm surge. A blessing, yes. Nonetheless, the rain and wind were still capable of so much destruction.

Owing to our location, we were spared from the sight of death (bless their souls). Life after Yolie was hard. But when I learned about how harderrrrrr it was for people  in places such as Tanauan, Palo and Tacloban, I couldn't, wouldn't complain.

My mother is a born-and-bred Taclobanon and my 79-year old grandma still resides in the Diit area. We spent summers at a beach that has a view of the San Juanico Bridge when I was young so you probably get the idea. My uncles, aunts and about a dozen cousins live there too. We were worried sick about their safety but thankfully they were all alive and safe. Their stories of survival turn my heart into marshmallow and my knees in to Jell-O. Thank God forfor  that three-story unfinished building that they were able to climb to.

2. Stop, Look, Listen. Sunday after 'Y' was the first time that the sky cleared up. It was a beautiful night, perfect for sleeping. But NO! At about 11 pm I was roused from my sleep because there was too much noise coming from the street. Blaring headlights and blowing horns made me ask my brother to get up and check out what's happening. He learned that people were moving to higher ground because a tsunami was coming. I scooped up my baby and me and my siblings together with my grandparents decided to go home and join my parents.* In case there really was a tsunami at least we would all be together. But where was the water? And isn't an earthquake like a prerequisite to having a tsunami?? Apparently no one was thinking about that, including me. There was just pure panic. I don't know how many thousands of people were marching, driving motorcycles, cars and trucks. Wheel chairs, tricycles, name it! It was like the Exodus was coming to life. But where was the water? None. Nada. Waley. Whoever spread that lie must have had a hidden agenda. Or maybe there was a mother who was calling her daughters "Chona"and "Mae". Chona Mae. Tsunami. Someone must have heard it and sounded the alarm. But we learned to 'Stop, Look and Listen' first in Girl Scout. The rules have not changed.

3. Let it go. We love keeping knickknacks. High school notes, grade school grad programs, dried flowers, broken rubber duckies. Anything that reminds us of something. But when those anythings get drenched in wet and you try to sort things out, you would end up asking yourself "Why on earth have I been keeping this?" You would end up keeping just the most important things. What a wonderful way to clean up. Let it go, let it go. We did have a ticket to watch a Sarah Geronimo concert on 15 November, a week after 'Y'. Plane tickets and hotel reservations were set. But we decided to let it go because of other pressing and more important things at hand. :( Plus with our damaged house, we were just not in partey mood.





Where I spent high school: The Burauen Comprehensive National High School

Me and my baby. She's a joy in the midst of difficulties. I, on the other hand, am too dark and too haggard for obvious reasons :)

I've been picking my brain this whole November for a Yolanda anniversary post and these are some of the reflections I realized. The whole story has been recounted so many times, in the news, in papers. But in my heart I will always hold the personal lessons I learned in life because of this experience. You will never know what you are capable of until something as massive as this happens. You will never know how much charity a human heart is capable of until you are the one who is at the receiving end of it. I cry out of sadness when I hear sad stories in the news. But I smile too whenever there are stories of hope, love and charity. This whole thing is bittersweet.

What are your thoughts twelve months after super-typhoon Yolanda? Share your thoughts.


Thank you for visiting my blog today. XO

Carissa

*since our house was damaged, we moved every night to my grandparents' house to sleep
**you know how it clears up when the 'eye of the storm' passes by? There was a brief period of about 10 mins that the winds and the rains stopped so that's our reference for the two halves. Before the 'eye of the storm' passed by and after.