{"id":1325,"date":"2015-02-20T15:14:45","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T15:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sparkexperience.com\/projects\/adra\/?p=1325"},"modified":"2026-04-15T17:53:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T17:53:03","slug":"stronger-than-the-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adra.org\/fr\/stronger-than-the-storm","title":{"rendered":"Plus fort que la temp\u00eate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stronger than the Storm: Behind the Scenes with Sanjay<\/h2>\n

\u00a0
\"PHILIPPINES<\/a>
The man and his boy are bowed over the side of the boat, their faces dark in the shadow of the setting sun.\u00a0 Cast against the light fading behind ageless mountains, they seem to flow formlessly with the sea, and, but for the flash of nimble fingers and woven nets, they are specters on the water.\u00a0 The world is a wheel of dissolving colors in that encroaching night, and through it all the fingers dance and dart and cut through the shadows.
The man stands, his muscles straining.\u00a0 The boy bends and grasps something below the surface, then lifts the hand-woven trap from the water and stands alongside his father.\u00a0 Together they examine the crab clacking through the mesh.\u00a0 There is a murmur of dialogue and then silence, as they bow over the side of the boat again.
I observe them from my boat until they have finished for the night, and in tandem we return toward shore.
\"PHILIPPINES<\/a>
Not long ago, this same man watched helplessly as his family began to starve. The sea that had once given Cesar the means to send his children to school had taken everything away from him, including his ability to feed his wife and kids.\u00a0 With no food and no income, Cesar had no hope.
For people in the Philippines, the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan is measured not only in lives, but also in livelihoods.\u00a0 When the unprecedented storm finally retreated into the ocean, thousands of boats lay in splinters along the coastline, leaving thousands of families with no source of income or sustenance.\u00a0 In a country where life depends on the haul of one\u2019s boat, the chaos was unprecedented.
The storm didn\u2019t just take Cesar\u2019s boat\u2014it took most of his roof, too.\u00a0 He thanks God it didn\u2019t take any of his family, though that alone is a miracle.\u00a0 When he showed me the damage to his house, I was amazed that there were no fatalities.\u00a0 During the storm, the family fled to a downstairs corner in the kitchen, huddling together against the wall while the winds tore the roof piece by piece, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. \u00a0Had any member of his large family been caught upstairs, they would never have come down alive.
Fifteen months later and the roof is still a gaping hole.\u00a0 When it rains, which it often does, Cesar and his family maneuver tarps and sheets and hope they hold, which they often don\u2019t.\u00a0 Over time, they have grown accustomed to the inconvenience. For Cesar, it is simply that\u2014an inconvenience.\u00a0 Compared to the agony of helplessness when he was unable to fish and feed his family, a roofless house is a small problem.
In the wake of Typhon Haiyan, ADRA got busy restoring order.\u00a0 As soon as the immediate needs for food and clean water were met, they began repairing boats and nets and livelihoods.\u00a0 They also offered a cash for work program where fishermen could earn money in exchange for making crab traps, which they then got to keep.\u00a0 Watching them weave these crab traps was like watching a farmer planting seeds in a field.\u00a0 These traps are the seeds of their future harvest, and a bastion against hunger and extreme poverty.
\"Crab<\/a>
Now that he has a boat again, and new nets and crab traps, Cesar is confident that he will soon be able to fix his house.\u00a0 For him, like so many others who depend on the sea for survival, it is all about the boat.\u00a0 Just by owning this simple wooden vessel, Cesar has the means to feed his entire family, while earning money.\u00a0 And though there may be a hole in his house, Cesar has a boat.\u00a0 And that is the hope he needed.<\/p>\n\n\n

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