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Story:
I was stranded in a rural area of Bulacan, Philippines during Covid lockdown in 2020. I was enjoying my time in Manila, and when the lockdown took affect I made my way to my parents and extended family; It was the first time experiencing the Philippines (my homeland) as an adult.

We were living in my late Grandma's house-a very old, unrenovated concrete house. The roof is made of one layer of corrugated iron sheets, and attached to the house by nails to the wooden skeleton of the house. The wood mentioned, was rotting and being eaten away by termites over the years, and the house is not really sealed from the outside world; Imagine 4 standing concrete walls in a rectangle, and you throw some wooden 2x4's on top and attach them to the concrete and structure and make them into the frame of the roof, and the throw on the iron roof on top of the wood. Birds, lizards, rats, and other animals can make their way through the openings right under the roof where the wood attach to the house. The house had no ceiling, if you were sitting in the living room and just looked up, you'd see the wood and iron roof, and that's all that was separating you from the elements. It was something to get used to, for sure.

On November 8 2020, Typhoon Ulysses hit the Philippines for several days, effecting Central Luzon the hardest. It caused extreme flooding, leading to over 70 dead, and many injuries. Luckily, my area of Bulacan is on the outskirts of the most affected area but the typhoon still left it's mark, causing power outages for weeks, road closures from debris, flooding, and damage to homes and businesses.

I remember that night pretty clearly. We lost power early on in the evening, and the winds progressively got stronger and stronger, while raining. At it's peak, all you could hear is the wind rushing through our home, I was convinced that our roof would fly off eventually-somehow it didn't. I was looking out the front door glass and I couldn't see anything. I took a flashlight and pointed it out the glass and I just saw our plants fallen over and rain moving sideways from the strong wind; I could probably only see 2 metres in front of me.

When the wind subsided, I went to bed and in the morning I decided to take my camera out and document what had happened. One of the photos I took was of this house, which was only a 2 minutes walk from ours. I pass this house all the time to go to the main street. I almost didn't take a photo of it, but what caught my eye was this dog, who was just standing at the entrance of the lot, almost like it was guarding and protecting it, even though it looked terrified-just guarding the remains of her home.