For people like me who just stayed home and slept through Typhoon Glenda and was only without power for only a couple of hours after the typhoon's devastation, it wasn't really difficult for me to cope up. But for many who lost their homes, their families and love ones, friends, I couldn't imagine how tough those times could be — the grief and despair.
For most modern Filipino's, loss of power means the complete loss of normalcy. Our lifestyle is so dependent upon the grids constancy that we don't know how to function without it. How do you cook a meal if your gas stove has an electric ignition? How do you find your way to the bathroom at night if the light switches don't work? What do you do with a freezer full of expensive meat? How do you find out what's happening in your area with the TV and radio silent? What will you drink if your water comes from a system dependent on electrical pumps?
After the devastation that Typhoon Glenda brought us, these are just a few questions that we should seriously start to consider.
Like, thousands of families in different regions in our country, most of our relatives and close friends was without power for a couple of days, even a week or more since last week.
We consider ourselves lucky our place was only out-of-power for a few hours.
As we are in the middle of 2014, much of our social communication is done via technology. We create distance and are dependent upon technology for entertainment, and in most cases, for a distraction from such intimate and consistent communication with those closest to us.
For me, it felt unnatural to be sitting around, talking, listening, and being with the same people hour after hour — with no breaks. That's tough enough, but when the lights are out and it's full of silence, I was really tested.
Much of surviving the aftermath of this recent typhoon had to do with finding real clean water and cleaning the mess out of our property, another critical component of surviving involved communicating in close quarters with loved ones.
In our case, we are talking about me and my partner. I sensed that my partner and I were on each other's nerves more than usual. It soon became clear that we weren't the only ones, my friend, Paris, said that his family and neighbors experience some of the same communication "issues".
Sure, it sounds great in theory that we are going to get to spend a lot of quality time as a couple or with other we care about, but the truth is, too much familiarity may not breed contempt, but it does produce pressure. And so, if we overreact to that initial tension, we can make a not so bad situation a lot worse.
Even if you have the best intensions, that doesn't mean that those who are stuck with you are going to understand or appreciate where you are coming from. Different people have different ways on how to handle an emergency. The key is to be flexible.
If we can better understand how difficult it is for everyone to cope with power outage and calamities, in this day and age, we could be more efficient in interacting and communicating, be more patient and cooperating.
xx
Photo from Rappler.com
Photo from Rappler.com
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