This article is my entry to NomNom Club’s Starbucks USB Christmas Wishlist Contest. If you wanted to join this, contest, check out the mechanics here.
This year is probably one of the most memorable year in my entire life. My family and I, and our entire community just experienced this September a life-changing event which resulted to losses — of lives, of properties, of hopes and dreams, of sanity…
Every filipino must be familiar withe name Ondoy now. To Boholanos, Ondoy is probably just a taxi driver (I was fortunate to meet him in my trip to Bohol last month, a kind and nice soul), but to Marikenyos (local folks of Marikina), Ondoy is a household name for the great and raging typhoon which killed thousands of lives and destroyed countless properties. Ondoy, the cause of the relentless flood, put my whole family’s lives in danger and destroyed our two-storey home and everything in it.
Almost a couple of months later (the flooding happened in September 16, 2009), we can already smile again and the nightmares of another flooding already stopped. We have overcome the trauma thanks to the countless number of people who opened their hearts to us and provided help untiringly. The signs of the flood is still very much visible in our house, yes, but we are ready to move on and feel hopeful again.
With this, I’d like to share with everyone my five (5) Christmas Wish List, not all for myself though, because I have learned one good thing about the flooding — that we should always share our blessings with other people and extend help whenever and however we can.
- Can of Paints. We already cleaned our house but the blotches of mud are still all over painfully reminding us of the tragedy. How I wish we can paint the whole house anew before Christmas so we can start really fresh and with high hopes for the future.
- A cellular phone for my Mom. My nanay’s cellphone broke down a week ago. I am really hoping I’d receive a cellular phone (even the basic one without camera) so I can give it to my mom.
- Grocery Gift Certificates.  After the Ondoy, I started my goal of helping other people by providing tuition fee for a former student in college who is having financial difficulty. Sadly, her financial problems are worse now, she had to quit her part-time job which is supporting her daily expenses because of her busy class schedule plus her aunt is now forcing her to evacuate their house, she never liked her staying with them since day one. She was telling me she will try to bear her attitude as long as she can until graduation (which is four months away from now) but her health is terribly suffering now as she no longer eats at home because of her aunt’s evil stares. I am planning to support her in renting a small space where she can live until graduation but I can’t support her daily meals as its beyond my budget anymore. I hope the grocery GCs can provide for that part.
- Construction Materials. This is a really expensive wish. These construction materials will be used to construct our house’ third floor. We are really praying we can afford it soon because we are really traumatized by the flooding which engulfed our whole second floor. My family only survived the flooding because of the third floor of the neighbor’s house beside ours. Hopefull, we can have our own third floor so we can feel safer whenever there’s a typhoon.
- Lastly, relief assistance for the Fire Victims in Marikina, about three households which  families were also victims of the last typhoon. Tragedies for the second time for these families living in Malanday, Marikina City. Two of the owners’ of the three houses were officemates of mine and my heart really goes to them. I already tried helping by providing them some items like clothing, mat, and grocery items but I know they need more. I hope good souls out there would extend their help to these families who are now two-calamity victims.
May god bless us all this Christmas and may all our wishes come true for our good and for the good of others. 
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