FIRST TYPHOON OF THE SEASON

Normally the first storm of the season isn't until later. Much later. But yesterday it rained heavily, with wind gusts of up to fifty knots along the coast. Some commentators saw fit to call it a typhoon - the storm had blown in from Asia, and the rain was warm.

Calling it a typhoon was a bit of an overstatement, despite its ancestral provenance. Real typhoons bring in much more rain, much fiercer winds.
Unless you are a chicken, this was no typhoon. Such things do not occur in San Francisco.


THE HOUSE IN PASIG

The Tanguey family lived near the border of Pasig and Marikina, not far from where Bonifacio becomes Sumulong (though still called Bonifacio). The house was up on a concrete berm, above the warehouse, but the courtyard and sheds were marginally below street level.

Old man Tanguey (uncle Bennie) had made his modest pile by selling leather processing equipment of some sort, I never found out what.
When I told him how badly the tannery in Canterbury had smelled, his eyes twinkled cheerily, and he said "yes".
Knowing the stench of curing hides was something we had in common.
Besides favouring the same type of tobacco.

I was living with him and his family in between going to other parts of the Philippines. They were very nice people, and all of them had a queer sense of humour.
It was a good place. Good food, too.


TYPHOON

We got back on Friday afternoon at about two o'clock, several hours before the storm hit. By nine o'clock the electricity went out, and the entire neighborhood was pitch black. All day Saturday the wind pounded the building, and sometime during the morning water crested the embankment of the river. Saturday night was very noisy - the walls and ceilings shook violently.

At some point after ten o'clock, Pingping (the youngest daughter of uncle Bennie) suggested "you go outside with that, okay?" The 'that' in question being a pipe.
I think she was joking - outside was not safe in the darkness, with torrents of rain slamming almost horizontal. Nevertheless, to please her I finished smoking it in the kitchen with the terrified maids. At about twelve thirty there was an enormous crash outside.

[Pingping may also have simply wanted me to go elsewhere for a while - white people whiff a bit when the temperature is around one hundred......]

By the next morning, the winds had lessened considerably, and a steady rain hazed everything in silver grey sheets. When we went outside, the steps into the courtyard disappeared in water about three or four feet from the bottom. There were five bodies wedged between the edge of the sheds and the shrubs at the back, behind one of the trucks. Two of the trucks were askew, one of them was tipped over.

All along the road up to Mendoza was under water, about two or three feet. In some areas deeper - near the basketball fields, only the roofs of the houses were above the flood.
There were many, very many, fallen trees lying everywhich way.

It was good to have real food again - on Saturday we had snacked on biscuits from a large red tin box, wedges of mooncake, and weak tea from the giant thermos flasks in the kitchen. The maids had been too scared to cook. Pingping's nanny had 'entertained' them with tales of disasters she had lived through as a youngster many years ago - "ehhhhh, water up to there! (points bony finger at ceiling), kambing and manok all ploating ploating, ploating, like pish! (waves hands horizontally just above her eyebrows to signify the drowned goats and chickens), sad, sad, sad!" - in between spells of loudly counting her beads and theatrically sighing.
I'm fairly certain that she had enjoyed herself immensely at the expense of the younger women.


AFTERWARDS

Nanny went up to Calo'ocan for several days. When she left, she was cheerfully speculating that her brother and his family might all be dead. Apparently, that would be a "trahhhedia op unimatsi-nibal proporsion!"
She didn't seem at all depressed by the prospect.

Auntie Ningning (actually 'Luningning', and yes, she's the mother of Pingping) decided that we needed to go to Tabon in Bulacan where her sister lived. Auntie, Floriza, and Pingping, along with Ronaldo, Esty, and myself, as well as two drivers left the next day when the roads were said to be reasonably safe. We took the station wagons, leaving uncle Bennie and the men from the factory to deal with the mess and the tipped trucks.

On the way we passed through Antipolo, where there is a miraculous statue - mahal na birgen nang mabuteng-paglalayag (the 'statue of the virgin of good voyages').
Auntie Ningning remarked almost wistfully that her ancestors had tried to burn the idol - "but it perhaps lucky, lah, not charcoal yet".
I couldn't read her eyes behind the glasses. But I suspect that they twinkled.