Dutch artist Tinkebell has been holed up in her hotel in Manila during this rainy season.
Earlier today she ventured out to Sta. Cruz to brave the flood and take these photos.
“Yesterday I walked around myself and today I took a tricycle so I could take photos while it was raining,” she writes. “While I sat in the taxi taking pictures, someone tried to grab my camera. But I always wear it with a cord on my arm, (and I can do karate) so he failed and I still have my camera.”
“Yesterday the water came up to my hips in one street (Tinkebell is tall by the way) and today it was a bit lower. What I didn’t expect is that the water was quite warm!”
“What I saw is that most people here try to keep on going with their everyday lives.”
“Some are even making fun in the water. I saw some children swimming and playing.”
“But overall it’s a terrible mess. I really feel sorry for all the people who are in trouble now and I’m so worried about the girls! I hope they can swim.”
“My friends and my mom in the Netherlands were really worried about me, because these floods are also in the news there. The last big flood we had was in 1953 and people are still talking about that.
Nowadays we have http://www.deltawerken.com/ in the Netherlands, so we have no floods anymore, even though the Netherlands lays below sea level!”
In 2010, Tinkebell traveled to Guinea-Bissau with the intention of helping a poor couple furnish their home with IKEA.
This year, she finds herself in Manila with a goal to save two young prostitutes from poverty.
I nearly fell off my chair when she told me her plan.
To know more about her project, click HERE.
Your thoughts—good or bad—are welcome in the comments below.
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Me Reply:
August 11th, 2012 at 2:57 AM
that’s the thing – hundreds of years it’s known that the Philippines is on earthquake belt, typhoon corridor or something and battered by rainy seasons that can escalate to this BUT we don’t even have the basic infrastructure like a proper sewage system and urban planning in place to prevent catastrophes like this to happen. i don’t care if it will take 10 years +++ to finish an infrastructure project but at least it will be done instead of suffering through this every 2 years or so. money spent on infrastructure would be nowhere near the amount of property damage/loss and hundreds of lives will be saved. i’m so mad and sad to be filipino.
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