Here comes the rain again…
I can deal with occasional showers and thunderstorms but typhoons make me anxious. Since Ondoy crashed into our home, I’ve been wary of the wet season. While I had no personal experience with Yolanda, I cried many tears over the devastation it brought.
In his book “Yolanda: The Roaring, The Waves, The Waiting”, William Rodney “Bill” Shaw attempts to show how it was to cope in the aftermath of a storm for the ages and what it was like on the ground for aid workers in the city, weeks and months later.
The 224-page “Yolanda: The Roaring, The Waves, The Waiting” sells for P500.
Self-published by Shaw through Urban Opportunities for Change LLC and printed in the Philippines, the book is based on the experiences of seven individuals living in Tacloban before, during, and after Yolanda. Their stories are retold and mixed with the American’s own insights as an aid worker who volunteered in Tacloban for four months, distributing food, relief packs, and building homes for the city’s survivors.
“These seven lives represent a complicated intersection — of understanding and misunderstanding, freedom and captivity, personal faith and cultural beliefs,” Shaw says in a note on the book’s back cover. “We can find heroes in these pages, but no winners. Yolanda underscores the face of catastrophe, where everyone suffers and everyone struggles to overcome.”
Bill Shaw and his wife Deborah first came to the Philippines in 2002. With Filipino friends, the Shaws founded Urban Opportunities for Change Foundation Inc., which published “The Jeepney” street magazine in the Philippines in 2008. It followed the concept of “street papers” that provide employment for the homeless and indigent in First World countries. Urban was also responsible for forming and sending football teams to represent the Philippines to the Homeless World Cup, which uses “the beautiful game” to inspire homeless people to change their own lives. Over 70 countries participate in this annual tournament.
“Yolanda: The Roaring, The Waves, The Waiting” was launched a few months ago at Nuvo bar in Greenbelt 2. Copies may be ordered through Kids International Ministries (KIM), c/o New Faith Family Children’s Home Foundation. Call +632 658 4820 for more details. The book should also be available at OMF bookstores. Their branches are listed here: http://omflit.com/bookshops/
The book is priced at P500. Eighty percent of the proceeds will go to the disaster relief efforts in Tacloban of KIM, the organization Shaw volunteered with in the city. KIM partnered with over 120 churches, foundations, and the city government to distribute 1.2 million meals and build countless structures in the days and months proceeding Yolanda. KIM has also established a long-term center to work with the city’s children, the “Lighthouse,” located between Tacloban and Palo on Manlurip Road.
