I admit it. This picture was taken a few years ago, but I think I still look vaguely like that. Depends on the day (and the time of day). And today, just before I uploaded this picture, an Indonesian English student told me how much she liked my nose. I heard that a lot in Indonesia. Apparently, a large nose like mine is a good …
Read the full story »MSF and Antibiotics
I DID go to the Medecins Sans Frontieres medical center yesterday, and it was a very good thing that I did. This sickness is not just a passing thing. I’ve been SOOOO sick. I’ve clearly picked up a nasty bacterial infection in my gut. What drives me crazy is not knowing where I got it from. Which dish was contaminated? At which restaurant? Which glass …
Dealing with Illness
I think I’m still a curmudgeon today, but I’m so weak that the curmudgeon is not surfacing very much. I don’t have the strength to be annoyed at anyone or anything. I appear to be an invalid. I was sick throughout the night – stomach cramps, enough gas to lift a hot air balloon, and chills. I don’t know if it is anything that needs …
Christmastime in Tacloban after Typhoon Yolanda
Despite a very pleasant Christmas Day, I woke up a curmudgeon on this December 26th. I went out to have a cup of coffee at a place that had recently re-opened, and I was annoyed immediately outside my room’s door by the horrific tinny sound pouring out of a young man’s cell phone. This young fellow works at the hotel and has his fancy smartphone …
Day 47 Super Typhoon Yolanda – Suhi Body ID Site and San Roque
Despite the threat of rain yesterday (a threat that has become constant in Tacloban in this, the next in a long line of “rainy seasons”), I got on my bicycle and rode out to Suhi – the site where, presumably, the BPI is processing dead bodies to identify them. The initial part of the bike ride – that from Tacloban to the turn-off to the …
Photos – Bodies at Suhi near Tacloban Waiting to be ID’d
I did a rough count and came up with a figure of about 1,400 bodies in this field. It’s located at a government department of health office in Suhi about 15 or 20 kilometers north of Tacloban City. These were all victims of super typhoon Yolanda, which struck this area on November 8, 2013. I had spent some time with the Bureau of Fire Protection …
Day 45 Super Typhoon Yolanda – Chatting with Manny
Sunday December 22, 2013
6:55 a.m. Tacloban, Philippines
Day 45, Typhoon Yolanda
Not proofed
I was chatting with Rene yesterday, and I got another element to the houseboy’s story. Rene said that the houseboy had gone back to his room to get some of his belongings. And that was when he was trapped there. This never came up in all the times I questioned this fellow about his story, …
Day 44 Super Typhoon Yolanda – The Story of Elvis
Yesterday, was definitely what you would call a sick day. I didn’t leave the pension house the entire day and never strayed very far from the bathroom. I ate nothing the entire day, which is my usual treatment for this. I have no idea if it actually starves the bacteria out, but at least not eating denies my digestive system anything with which to make …
Day 42 Super Typhoon Yolanda – Body Retrieval in Anibong
Thursday December 19, 2013
Day 43 Typhoon Yolanda
Not proofed
– Went to fire station at 6:45 to see off the American firefighters, but they were already gone; they’d left at four in the morning to make sure of catching their c-130 to Manila
– – dropped by Hayward to have coffee and ended up having a breakfast of porridge with Manny and his wife; I liked the porridge, …