tree of life

no unexpected visitors were expected during that day in september, when suddenly our teacher's methodic voice (explaining the multiplication of 4 digit numbers) was rudely interrupted by a loud, growling, howl. one girl screamed, some boys wow-ed, everyone felt chills go down their spine as the roof began partly disappearing into the sky. classroom building 101, the ceiling really shouldn't be made out of tied up tree branches.

'don't panic!' the teacher seem mouth to the cries of the wind. 'hide under your desk!' she continued. we happily did as we were told. outside everything bowed by force. i don't remember how long we stayed like that for, maybe just a few minutes. the rain calmed as the wind left our school. i sat back on my chair and wondered whether my baba had been blown away while riding his motorbike. before long we learnt classes for the rest of the day were cancelled. to one side of what was ceiling remained just the sky, we huddled towards the front of the classroom, and preoccupied ourselves with games on the chalkboard as we waited for our parents to pick us up. no one was allowed to leave without a guardian today, the teacher said. it was almost lunch time.

my baba only picks me up after school. i am collected for three hours every lunch time by a teacher at a nearby kindergarten. people think i have a nanny, but i don't. she is just someone paid to feed me a bowl of porridge (too little rice in too much water) and some grated potatoes for lunch. we mutually dislike each other. she makes me take nap time, everyone knows six year olds don't take naps. you can't trust them to pick you up in a typhoon when they don't even want to see you awake outside of a tropical disaster. barely minutes pass before some students are already collected by their parents. while i spoke to the teacher about having no parent who picked me up during lunch, i made eye contact with a woman collecting her son, 'teacher, i'll take her too, her father and i work at the same company', the teacher asked me if i knew the lady, but without hearing my reply she waved her hand for me to go, relived one more student was leaving.

the truth was, i didn't know this woman. she said she has seen me with my father, and that we 'live only a few buildings down from each other'. i looked up at the heavily depressed sky as i walked out the gate, i did not want to be sold across the border that day. outside the school gates there were buses and private cars, taxis and motorcycles, everyone shouting, trying to get a ride to somewhere safe. this auntie, as i will now refer to her as, held her son in one hand and mine in the other. my mind was not with my body, and though i knew disaster had struck i had no idea of the severity. while we waited to hail a cab, a bus heading in the direction of her (and my baba's) work place pulled up.

we squeezed on the bus, with possibly a hundred others. yet as the bus drove off silence sunk all of us. everyone was exhausted. i stared out the window, making sure i was heading in the right direction, but i could not recognise anything. though the rain had stopped to a faint drizzle, there were palm trees uprooted and vehicles overturned, the driver drove in a zig zag to dodge the debris. time has since ceased to exist from my memory of that ride, but somewhere sometime the auntie tugged me to get ready, our stop was next.

we got off the bus and i saw that we were in a familiar place. moments later many of my baba's colleagues arrived with their children, all coming here to take shelter in the main office building. i wondered where my own parent would be, if he is not at work, did he really go and collect me? the worry inside my heart grew and i could only sense danger. while i sat alone i wept gently, the children and their parents around me recalled their own ordeals, i listened in and out while praying that everything will be okay. 

'it's okay!' an auntie's voice (one i am very familiar with) greeted me as her hands clasped my shoulders, she then handed me a tissue, it was soft and i wiped my tears from one side of the face to the other. 'your baba just called, he went to school to pick you up but the teacher said you left with someone else. so he is coming back now. no need to cry!' no need to cry? did you see the roof of your school being torn off? not know where your only relative amongst all this mess is? are you six? no? i nodded slowly wondering how he made a call. she patted me on the head before walking back to her family.

thankfully my baba did arrive shortly after and put me out of my morbid imagination. i remember knowing it was a typhoon at the time, but typhoons happened all the time, on this occasion the school closed for nine days so repairs could be carried out. i thought that was normal, sometimes typhoons will close your school down. it was only years later, during a casual conversation that i learnt more than 100 people died that day. upon hearing that i did a search online, 1.2 million houses were damaged while more than 270,000 were destroyed.