If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am…

is there any hope for us?

This is the question I was asked by the polite young man at the check-in desk of the minivan company when I checked in for the van to Tacloban at 7:40 in the morning.

He might as well have asked me the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.

It was not a question I was ready for. Not three weeks into living here. Not at 07:40 in the morning. And not after the comedy of errors that was my journey to the minivan company, which involved being woken up at 06:00 to be told my van was now leaving at 08:00 not 09:00 and I needed to be there at 7:30, three pedicabs, a broken bicycle-chain, climbing through a hole in a wall and a barbed-wire fence, and scrambling over deep open sewers with nothing but the barbed wire fence to hold on to, in order to get there on time. And forgetting my breakfast.

(Don’t ask: clearly, none of this was meant to happen).

But there it was.

“Good morning ma’am. How are you? How long have you been here? How long are you staying? If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am, is there any hope for us?”

…

I will never forget his question, nor the look of absolute sincerity with which he asked it. In the moment of stunned silence that followed, I think my heart actually broke a little.

…

Given what I’d just gone through to travel less than 3km to the bus terminal, I felt like screaming “No!”

But of course, I didn’t. The fact that I had a bad start to my day was no excuse for shattering someone else’s hopes. So I looked him straight in the eye and said the only thing I could say, with as much sincerity as I could muster: “Yes, of course! Of course there is hope!”

I must have been a better actress than I felt, because to my amazement, he actually seemed reassured and thanked me for coming here. I smiled back and told him he was welcome and it was a pleasure to be here.

Then I asked directions to the nearest bakery.

Because whoever you are, and wherever you’re from, it’s always easier to feel hopeful when you don’t have an empty stomach.