Reunited!!

We got word tonight at dinner that our friends would not be rescued today.  Ginny and Tano (Peace Corps Lang. Coordinator & our driver) had tried to get to Dinalupihan again today but the 2 roads that lead into the city were either a river, or covered by a mudslide.  We spent the rest of dinner plotting different ways to suggest getting our friends out of Diwa Street.
We came back to our common room and were still contemplating the situation while messing around on our computers.  We had ordered pizza for dinner and got enough extra to save for our friends in case we would see them tomorrow.  We also planned to ask Tano to take us to the closest food store so we could get lots of goodies to be ready for tomorrow when we would (hopefully) be reunited.
We saw the van pull up to our building and were excited to see Tano return.  We saw the passenger side door open and we assumed that Ginny had returned with Tano.  Someone stepped out of the passenger side, but I saw blonde hair! No Filipinos have blonde hair! It was Hunter!  We all shot up and started running outside because our other half had arrived!!
We ran up the stairs to embrace our fellow Trainees and poor Chelsea was so excited she slipped and fell at the top of the stairs!  Looking back now that she’s not hurt, she’s more upset about dirtying one of her limited outfits!
Everyone hugged everyone and there were joyous tears shed by all!  We brought them inside, made sure all the bathrooms were vacant, set up the limited internet access we have, got out the leftover pizza, and Chris and I went to the canteen to get plenty of beer, sodas, mangoes & fruits for them.
We sat around hearing all about the past 2 days and their rescue.  Hunter & Karla were stuck in the house for 42 hours and Diane, Mary & Diane were there for 37 hours.  At points there were upwards of 30 people in the house.  They lost power and water so everyone was using the same unflushable toilet.  Men would wade out into the water to go get food for everyone and they moved the gas stove up to the second floor so they were able to cook.  3 of the ladies shared a twin bed last night and the rest slept on cardboard on the floor.
It was about 5 o’clock today when they were coming to grips with the fact that they would have to spend another night stuck in the house.  As the story goes, one of the people they were with came into the room and basically said, “Um, we think there are people here for you”.  The group looked outside to see a huge police Humvee/vehicle with a squad of police in the back preparing to rescue them!  They waded out toward the truck and all piled in.  They said the vehicle made more rounds picking up Red Cross workers and rescuing people before taking our group to our driver.  Hunter said there was a young boy all by himself, standing in the water and shaking when they were exiting the truck.  She gave him her sweatshirt and umbrella but had no idea if the kid had anyone coming for him.
There are still several feet of water in our street and there’s another typhoon on the way.  It’s been raining hard in Olongapo all night so we have absolutely no idea when the water will start to retreat.
One of the girls said they saw my host family waving to them from their porch, so it sounds like they’re OK.  I still haven’t heard from them yet, but it’s possible they don’t have electricity to charge their phones.  Apparently Kathryn’s family was also at their house and the TV was on, so it sounds like they’re trying to return to some normalcy as well.
Listening to all of their stories tonight, we’re encouraging the people who were stuck, to take time tomorrow to write out each of their personal experiences.  Hopefully they’ll all post them on their blogs so I can link them for all of you to read.  They’re sure to be an interesting read!
We’re currently all sitting around together, chatting and playing ‘Nana Wilson’!  Hunter says she knows the game but her family calls it ‘Idiot’!  This is the first time I’ve met someone else who plays… I think I’ll stick with our name, though! :)

Today marks the 1 month anniversary of us arriving in the Philippines.  As I sit here among the 10 other Education Trainees placed in Dinalupihan and our language instructor, Fe, I’m amazed at how close a group of people can become in only one month.  These are life-long friends, for sure.

Here's a visual of the amount of water flowing by us, yesterday, at the mountain resort.  This was taken in the middle of the day in the midst of heavy rains.  Notice the slim piece of wall sticking out on the far side of the river (near the top one third of the picture).

This is the same section of river earlier today.  The low section of wall near the middle of the picture is the same as the picture above.  As you can see, the water fell at least 5-10 feet today.  You can also notice all the trash left behind.  I can only imagine what our community will look like when we go back...

I'm currently using a "Tattoo Stick" which is basically like a HotSpot for wifi.  It's great but it's fairly slow for uploading pictures.  I'm planning to buy one of my own tomorrow so I'll try to upload more pictures soon!