Get up and jump back after Kristine

After Severe Tropical Storm Kristine, I had wanted to visit the area where she unleashed her fury, Camarines Sur.

- CHIT U. JUAN

I saw the photos in the papers and on the internet and actually could not contact our friends, Bernadette or Bidi-Bidi and our community leader, Teodora Aquino, who supplies us with her banner product, taba ng talangka (crab paste).

Aquino was a beneficiary of our Great Women Project in 2012 which Global Affairs Canada and Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) supported. We merely provided market access for her products but 12 years later, we are still in business with her group. Bernadette, on the other hand, is a multi-awarded artist who also is a rural farmer.

I waited for five days until Bernadette finally replied to my messages. Aquino, on the other hand, reached out about a few days later, much to our pleasant surprise. She said: "Your goods are on the way!" and "Our electricity is back." Just like that, I wondered what the back stories were.

As luck would have it, I was invited to grace the awarding ceremonies of the Outstanding Rural Women of Bicol held by the Department of Agriculture's Regional Gender and Development (GAD) focal point Madame Aloha Gigi Bañaria. Guess where? Camarines Sur! Though I was a bit unsure if my flight would push through with three storms yet coming, I prayed it would and it did.

First stop was Bidi's farm store where her people are still drying bales of cloth on her rooftop, and many of her people still cleaning up or as we say in Filipino,