Philippine Adventures: Typhoon Pedring

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from the US Embassy warning of a typhoon coming through Northern Luzon; however, Manila would only feel the tail-end effects of it. At this point, I wasn’t concerned and even went out with a few ladies that night walking to McDonalds around the block. I woke up this morning to an unusual sound though…silence. No cars were honking, air-con wasn’t functioning, no vendors screaming, “Ba-luuuut!” and I got a text message from an office mate informing us that the typhoon in Manila has reached Level 2 Warning, meaning no work today and the office is closed.

After waking up a little bit more, I made the connection that no air-con meant no electricity – it takes me awhile to wake up in the morning. I checked the ref, no power. I checked the lights, no power. I checked the water…it still runs!!!! Being that I’m a foreigner, not only to country but also to typhoons – coming from Chicago I’d know how to handle myself in a blizzard but beyond that…yea, no! - I went to the circuit breaker box, I flicked all of them off and then on again in hopes to spark a charge somewhere and get some power flowing through at least the ref. Still didn’t work.

In my semi-awake state of mind, I went into “survival mode.” I got my wash basin for clothes and filled it up with what I thought was the left over running water in my pipes. My thinking was conserve water and hopefully take a bucket shower today, tomorrow and however long the no electricity would last. I pulled out the phonebook that the apartment building gave me and I started crumpling up pages to stuff in the freezer – I heard from another missionary that newspaper is a great insulator when the power goes out. In addition to all this, I went around the apartment checking for water leaks – turns out that leak in the 2^nd bedroom is still there. From that, I had to strip the 2^nd bed of the wet sheets, and I decided it was time to change my sheets as well.

I resolved that I wouldn’t open up my ref under any circumstances to preserve the food already in there, but before I ate breakfast, which would consist of dried cereal, I decided to take a cold shower and then take out the trash.

Still my head in a haze, and hearing the howling winds and the ropes left from workers outside banging at my bedroom window, after my shower I proceeded to grab the keys on the hook before taking the garbage down the hall and shutting my door behind me. Walking down the stairs to the trash bins, I opened up the staircase window to feel the full effects of a typhoon winds. At that point it finally clicked! Rain/flooding wasn’t the cause for the power outage, it was the WIND! Heading back to my unit, I got my keys ready only to find that I TOOK THE WRONG SET OF KEYS!

GREAT! I would lock myself out of my apartment the 1^st time ever in over a year living here on the worst weather day I’ve seen. Looking at the keys that I had, I thought and prayed, “Lord, I know these keys shouldn’t work in this lock but by some miracle you’d allow it to work JUST THIS ONCE, I’d be really really really happy right about now.” I put the wrong key in the lock….and it didn’t work. I tried fiddling with the doorknob to see if by some form of osmosis my Dad’s German Ingenuity would come to me and I’d figure out how to unlock this door without the right key…and it didn’t work.

Thankfully, considering the circumstances of being locked out of my apartment, I smelled nice after taking a shower, but I was in swim shorts and a tank-top…again no electricity means no air-flow and it’s the tropics, so I’m HOT (quite literally)! The only other viable option was to go downstairs to the front-desk and see if they by some weird and unsettling reason they had a spare key to my apartment, but thankfully no such luck! He tried calling a locksmith, but with horrible phone service, howling winds, and typhoon weather it was impossible to get through to him and I was stuck sitting in the main lobby in my swim shorts and tank-top with Filipinos passing by in their hoodies and long pants (it's cold with typhoon winds) and staring at the strange white girl.

Luckily, after many attempts with the locksmith the lobby receptionist was able to radio the building maintenance to see if he was available to open up the door. His exact words to me were, “Ma’am we can have building maintenance come. He’ll destroy the door and then you’ll get in.” Did he just say, DESTROY MY DOOR?!?!? Yes, in fact he did. As unnerving as it was hearing that, the receptionist assured me that he could fix the door with the same lock after he destroyed it. So, destroy to him doesn’t mean destroy to me. Ok, I can handle that.

So for the rest of the morning, I stood by and watched 2 Filipinos try to break into my apartment with 2 screwdrivers, a monkey wrench, and an ID card. Watching them struggle breaking in made me grateful to have such an amazing lock on my door…but I didn’t want it to be amazing now! I wanted the lock to be opened. Turns out that the lock was so good that the only way to open it was to break the lock and replace it with a new one from the hardware store down the street.

I had to give my consent to have it destroyed and then pay the building maintenance to get a new lock. Bang! Bam! Boom! The door was open…and I was home again! I even got to keep a souvenir from today’s event, my broken door lock! The lobby receptionist even helped me get some power back on by flicking the circuit breaker on the Generator’s power switch…that was the ONLY circuit I didn’t switch…go figure! So, 30 minutes later I had a new lock placed in the door, I was eating my cereal WITH milk, and all I kept thinking was, “It’s just one of those days…”