The eyes have it: Emergency Trauma Treatment for Child Victims of Yolanda

The calm came first.  It made the warnings of a most terrible phenomenon seem like an alarmist’s tale.  By battening down their homes and securing their belongings, Visayans have managed to survive storm after storm to look forward to a new day.

Then the rain fell, soft and rhythmic at first, like a drummer trying to stir a crowd into anticipation.  Then the wind came, with a hint of malice, like a shark circling a drowning prey.  Then the wind became blasts of malevolent screams, bringing rain that traveled with such velocity that they pierced the skin like nails.  Then the sea rose, higher than any human structure in the area, higher than any tree.  It came with such ferocity and impunity that it took away everything in its path.  There was no time to react.  It was instant chaos; earth was inundated, whatever was left underneath was rendered useless, and whatever life that floated above was left defenseless – at the mercy of a force that recognized no status in society.  Everyone is losing everything.  And life -- the one thing hanging in the balance – was fast shriveling into mere flesh and bones, its spirit violently being swept away.

That’s what I imagined happened to many people as typhoon Yolanda ravaged Visayas.

As I look at the faces of a group of young children brought over to Ortigas from the tent city in Roxas Boulevard for post-trauma intervention, I saw confusion layering a canvas of fear, numbness and distress.  Some merely stared blankly, moving as they are told, often not before a slight nudge of encouragement; others were smiling, but happiness never reached their glam eyes.  They are still in shock and now they are in some strange place, with strange people looking over at them, smiling and nodding, which I suppose intensified their bewilderment even more.

Then volunteers, led by our mostly German trainors, began to grab one child by the hand, linking one volunteer to a child to form a circle of singing unit that gently pranced around the room.  We stopped and another trainor led a eurythmic activity which involved gestures of acknowledgment of one another’s presence, and of connection and warmth.  Most of the children quickly got into the motion and smiles visited some of the faces; they can sense that they were with people who care.  Soon, the group linked hands once more and the circle began to move, still singing, to an adjacent room where balls of clay awaited to be molded.

We ushered them to their seats, but as soon as they saw the clay not too far away, half of the kids instantaneously grabbed their share as if that was the most logical thing to do.  This is indicative of the situation that they have left in their ravaged place.

When order was restored, the kids were still listless.  Nina, our art therapy trainor began giving out the instruction for the child closest to the clay blocks to pick up one and pass it to the next person beside him, which then will pass it to the next, who will also do the same until everyone, including all the volunteers had a clay in their hands – all these while a song about good mornings and smiling and sharing was being sung. Not every kid got the idea at once, but when they realized that there would be enough for everyone, they stopped collecting clay and started passing them around.

However, when Nina said that everyone must cut in half the clay block, a lot of the kids hesitated.  Nina did not pause and simply continued as she began to tell a story about an egg, kneading the clay into an ovate as she narrates.  The clay changed shape as the story unfolded, from an egg to a chick, to a bird that wants to spread its wings and fly.  At this point, Nina took her clay bird and started a conga line of kids and birds, and adult volunteers and birds.  The room was full of chirping sound and song about malinis na batis and masayang kapaligiran as the birds exchanged kisses in mid-air.  For the first time, every child was smiling, and this time their eyes shared in the mirth.

Nina then asked the child to find an adult partner and so the bird story continued.  Because the bird had found a partner, they were now ready to start a family, and this required making a nest out of clay.  The kids, having experienced what total destruction meant, made sure the clay twigs they made wove into a sturdy abode; strong enough to accommodate the small eggs that materialized out of their busy small hands, for then the bird story became a family lore.

It is interesting how the children’s individual stories and aspirations reflected in the nests that they built.  One child made his bird’s wings spread out so wide so that it covers in security the entire nest and the eggs within.  I wonder if that’s what his parents did when Yolanda struck.  I wonder if the parents survived.

Another placed a worm into a parent bird’s beak and made it appear as if it is feeding the chicks inside the nest.  I wonder if she is depicting the sacrifices of her parents, or the aspiration that their parents, in their present situation, can still do the same.

Another was not content with having a bird, a nest and some eggs that he had to add a towering tree.  I wonder if a tree was instrumental in saving their lives.

When the story was over, each child was asked to point to his/her masterpiece, to the applause of those in the room.  There was a hint of accomplishment in their demeanor.  But the smiles were not fixed.  Like the tormented sea, it rose, fell and sometimes disappeared.  But there were instances when happiness reached their eyes.  And during these brief moments, they have cleared in their mind the devastation that they have gone through.  But they won’t forget.  Not ever.  But they can recover.  And they can’t do that on their own.

The task now is to help their young minds process what they went through and guide them to a life of structure and stability, which Yolanda totally wiped out of their psyche.  On its own, the art therapy is not going to do it for them but it deeply helps them to be in touch with the beauty, innocence and potential inherent in every child.  It allows them to release the trauma that may hinder their development.

If the eyes that have seen destruction that many of us will never see in our lifetimes can flash, however fleeting, a twinkle of happiness, then all is not lost.

The seminar “Stimulating Self-Healing from Trauma in Children and Youth” was conducted by The Freunde, a group of mostly German child trauma specialists who have, over the years, visited disaster areas (man-made and natural) all over the world.  It was attended by members of NGOs, and groups and individuals with ongoing or planned intervention programs in Yolanda affected areas.

How to save the world

This is a swarm of bees.  It is composed of several thousand worker bees, a handful of drones and a queen.  When the weather becomes cooler toward the last quarter of the year, a bee colony, in its instinct to ensure its specie’s survival, will produce several queen cells.  When a queen bee is about to emerge from her cell, the old queen will exit the hive, bringing along with her half of the colony in search for a new home.  This is what is called a swarm, a buzzing cloud of insects that looks threatening but is actually quite docile.

Let me explain that. 

You see bees only become aggressive when they sense that their home is in danger.  Hence, you can actually sit beside a hive for hours in a non-threatening way (meaning you are relaxed), observe their comings and goings, and not get stung at all.  But since a swarm is still looking for a home, it has nothing to protect – meaning they are not prone to sting.  Of course, you don’t approach a swarm recklessly then take a swing at it just because they are at their tamest.  Do that to a stranger (a person this time) and it is logical to expect retaliation.

However, before the swarm can find a new home, it will usually gather first under a tree branch where it will stay for as short as an hour to as long as a day.  The length of its stopover depends on how quickly or slowly the scout bees (worker bees assigned to find a new home, usually a hole in the wall or a tree, or a box, or an abandoned house) can search for a relocation site.  When a scout bee had assessed that she (yes, a female) has found a suitable home, she will go back to the swarm, announce to everyone that they are ready to move, then guide the swarm – worker bees, drones and queen – to their new abode.  But until that happens, the beekeeper can capture the swarm and then place it inside a new box that is prepared with a few frames taken from the box where the particular swarm came from.

But I don’t think getting a swarm would make it to anyone’s wish list this Christmas, after all, you can’t wear it, play games on it, use it to call friends, or start a fun conversation with it unless you consider stings, swelling and throbbing pain as topics you’d like to swap stories with friends.  That would be so uncool.

I have been receiving these gifts since early October.  By the time the swarming season ends in around February next year, I would have increased my number of colonies to around 30.  Cool, right?

Well, when you romanticize about the uniqueness of this pursuit and that one can actually earn a little on the side while you’re at it, then yes, I guess it is cool.

But being a beekeeper is not cool, especially when I am in my bee suit, sweating like a boxer who overshot the weight limit by two pounds and trying to go under the limit in an hour’s time, or when I am inspecting a hive unprotected and some bees decide that my presence is not welcome and begin giving up their lives (bees die soon after stinging) to shoo me away (I have experienced getting stung 20 to 30 in one go on several occasions), or when I find myself some fifteen feet up a tree trying to capture a swarm, which sometimes makes me question the sanity of what I am doing, or the safety of it.  After all, at 6’1” and 180 pounds, I am a fairly large and heavy man by any tree branch standard.

So why do I do it?

First, it was fascination.  Then I realized it could be a hobby that can also be an alternative source of income.  Now, it is all those, plus it has grown into some sort of advocacy – one that is bigger than what I do.  Now more than ever, call me a suffering idealist, I believe that what I do will help save the world, a mission that is nice to hear but difficult to substantiate with action because it usually means either having to give up something or doing something that may be inconvenient, bothersome, or uncool.

According to scientists, bees are central to the survival of humans because it comes in contact with two-thirds of the food that we and land animals eat, or the foods that animals that we eat, eat.   They say that should bees go because of a combination of global warming, heavy use of insecticides and decimation of land dedicated to planting, so will humans, not long after.

So are bees really important?  I don’t know.  Maybe.  Scientists are positive that they are.  But then again, scientists do say a lot.

They say that global warming is now in play and that its effects – drier dry seasons characterized by extreme heat spells and wetter wet seasons with stronger typhoons and storms unlike any experienced before – will be catastrophic, and that the Philippines will be one of the most at risk of these global climatic upheavals.

Maybe they are onto something.

Yolanda happens and its devastation is unparalleled in Philippine history that is already long in cataclysmic weather and geological spasms, from earthquakes to volcanic eruptions to torrential monsoons and destructive typhoons. 

They say Yolanda sets the record for raw power.  What’s more terrifying is that records, just like political promises, are meant to be broken; it’s just a matter of when, how frequent, and at what cost.

We, those that are not directly or as severely affected by Yolanda, especially those of us here in Luzon, are lucky, extremely lucky.  Luck involves probability.  And we may soon run out of luck.

In 2012, also nearing Christmas, typhoon Pablo literally leveled a large swath of Mindanao, leaving thousands dead in its wake.  And this year, Yolanda violently drops by on a slightly higher trajectory – leveling Visayas.  Next year, it is probable that a new monster will form and it will be out to get us this time.

So while the nation, with the help of the global community, is desperately trying to resuscitate Visayas, with donations and rebuilding strategies, it is also imperative that Yolanda should not be treated as an isolated case – a fluke of nature.  It is not.  We, you and I, had a hand in its making.  And the probability is high that it is going to happen again, unless we desperately act as if our lives and everything that we deem important depended on it.

It is time to do the uncool things.  Now that you have read this far, I ask you – for all our sake – to do something uncool: sweat it by walking or biking instead of riding your own car, eschew gadgets and devices that consume disproportionately large amounts of energy, avoid foods that take a lot of resources to produce such as animal meats, plant a tree, or even a flowering plant in a pot, give to World Wide Fund, dispose garbage properly, call out someone who unmindfully litter, recycle, share what you don’t need, spread the word, tell your kids, encourage the youth to be mindful of what they do.  Whatever it is, do something. Anything. Doing nothing is not an option.  I hope you realize that Yolanda has made that very clear.

I’ll be doing all of the above, including climbing trees to catch swarms.