Monday, May 12, 2008

Terrible, terrible day

My first day to go back to work yesterday was a bit of a struggle. I had a difficult time leaving Kali at home with the yaya. And for all days, PISTON picked yesterday to stage their transport strike. I borrowed Tatay's car so I won't have a difficult time commuting. I arrived in the store 45 minutes early so I had my caffeine fix first before the big first day. Around noon it started to rain, heavily. Mind you, it's the middle of summer in this tropical country. The roads were difficult to traverse since there's almost zero visibility. From our store we could see cars crawling it's way down Commonwealth avenue, most of them have their headlights on. Then all of a sudden traffic jammed up and busses, jeepneys and cars were stuck in that 7 lane highway. It continued on for more than an hour. The second shift should arrive by 5pm, there's 3 of them and only Jose has arrived. Two of them sent message that they will be late because of the traffic in Fairview. My husband Lay will work the graveyard shift that starts at 7pm. He left the house at 5pm and after 2 hours he is still in North Fairview. Traffic was so bad, cars were not moving. And some of the idiotic drivers took the opposite lane, blocking all roads. Bevz who lives past SM Fairview walked in the middle of the rain from Fairview wet market up to Batasan. She then took a cab from there to get to our store. She arrived in the store at 7pm, she left her house at 2pm, imagine 5 hours to get to the store when in the normal day you get there in less than 2 hours. I felt so bad for her as I see her trying to dry her socks and rubber shoes. She even cried and had to be comforted by Liz. She already has colds and it would probably get worse. My husband Lay arrived in their store in Quezon Avenue past 9pm. More than 4 hours on the road. It wasn't just the rain or the transport strike. A bus sideswept a car somewhere in Fairview that worsened the already terrible situation. It had always been that way. Motorists never learn. It's already a cliche to say that in the Philippines defensive driving should be in mind whenever you are behind the wheel. I was supposed to go home by 8pm but since I don't want to suffer what they had to endure I had to wait and let the traffic subside. My sister waited for me and we decided to leave around 10pm. We took a different route and tried Don Antonio. Good thing my sister knows the road as I would have been lost altogether. We finally got home by 1130pm. I missed Kali so much she slept beside me in the bed. I can only pray to have better weather in the coming days. I don't want this terrible day to repeat again.

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