Today started early after a long night of calls and texts reporting that the cities to the North of Manila were under water, some for the second time. Dam walls have collapsed, rivers have overflowed and many villages, (including Salvation Army Corps, and our School), are up to 8 feet underwater - as the rains continue to fall. And there is absolutely nothing we can do to help yet as access is impossible.With this news as a backdrop we waited patiently for our truck to arrive so that we could load 1,000 food packages for our latest delivery - this time to the South of Manila into Santa Rosa, Laguna. Almost two weeks ago, this community, like many others were 6 feet underwater when a local school teacher called her friend, a Salvation Army Officer and asked if there was some help that could be given. The call was the catalyst for todays adventure.
Manila Central Corps (church) was piled high with the sacks, (12kg of rice, 5 cakes of noodles, and about 1kg of assorted canned fish and meat). Teachers from the barangay school, councillors from the Santa Rosa Council and Salvo staff and officers formed a human chain as they loaded the thousand sacks onto a truck supplied by the Santa Rosa Mayor. And, as the sky turned a threatening shade of black we headed off in convoy, headed for the little barangay (village) by the lagoon that two weeks after the rain was still 5 feet under water in area.
Unfortunately, as can happen, not all worked according to plan. We arrived in Santa Rosa City where we were joined by an armed police escort, they were concerned that as this was the first supplies that would go into the area that there could be some issues with crowd control. And then we discovered that our entrance to the village was a the narrow main road that wound its way through the villages of the city, with a spiders web of electrical cables that hung so low that the truck could not pass without coming into contact with them. As the first contact threw up some sparks and caused a surge through the electricals of the truck, the driver stopped to consider his options. Solution: put one of your truck crew up on the roof, behind wind spoiler for protection, with a stick to push up, or aside the live cables. It took about one hour of moving electricals, dodging jeepneys, motor and peddle cabs, and at times driving through 3 foot deep water all at the same time to travel the 4km into the village but we made it. 
As we cleared the last bridge and waded through the last few hundred meters of water we were met by a sea of people, all waiting to great and thank the Salvos for coming. We had food for 1,000: there were at least 3 times that amount waiting for us.
As the rains continue the needs of this tragedy are growing. At this time it is anticipated that waters will not recede in some areas for up to 3 months. The people are amazingly resilient, but behind the smiles and the 'thank you' lies a fear - for some a growing fear of water, and for others a very real fear that the typhoon season is not over!
