It’s a day before Christmas, when usually the spirit is up. But it seems like the other way around. I can feel the sadness in my city.
Yesterday, December 23rd, the day of our flight coming back to the Philippines, I couldn’t go to bed until around 2 AM. Yes, I was excited (I was excited weeks and even months before that), but more than being excited I was worried trying to monitor my family (and relatives and friends) in the Philippines. There was a flash flood brought about by typhoon Vinta in my hometown and our place, just by Davao River, the largest river in Mindanao, is one of the affected areas. I went to bed after knowing that they were safe and rescued.
Waking up in the morning was a mix of excitement and sadness. The aftermath of flood is as distressing as the flood itself. I’ve seen pictures and videos of our house and my neighborhood soaked in mud. Everyone was busy cleaning up their houses. Just seeing them doing that made me feel tired as if I was there scraping the mud out, too. I’ve read news of death and missing people. Just bad vibes for the season. Not a good feeling to start our trip scheduled in that afternoon.
And because of that I blamed the troubles I had in the airport coming to the Philippines. I don’t have my residence card and I lost my laptop along the way of getting through immigration without that very important card for foreigners living in Japan. Bad news after bad news.
Yet, another bad news was on the way for my fellow Davaoeños. One of the big malls in my city and the nearest to our house, NCCC Mall, is on fire. The fire started around 9:30 in the morning of Saturday, December 23, and as of writing (morning of December 24) the fire is still on, engulfing the entire mall.
Coming back to the Philippines, my family is excited to do many things in the city and one of them is going to NCCC Mall. We often go there for shopping, dining and just whatever. It’s a big part of us. I think most of us in our neighborhood go to NCCC mall for Christmas shopping or any regular day shopping. It’s not uncommon to see a friend, a neighbor, a teacher, a classmate, an ex in the mall if you go shopping there, especially for us living in that area.
It’s just sad that around these days, when people usually go shopping for Christmas, they’re cleaning their homes of flood dirt and even if they finished cleaning and they decided to go to the mall they love, it’s not there anymore. It’s turned to ashes. An ugly sight. There’s no more walking distance mall to go to. Of course, there are still other malls in the city, but there’s nothing like NCCC. It’s a sad feeling. Not a very merry Christmas this year for my hometown.