Happy Birthday, Iris

I knew that when I left Manila, I would miss the Precious Jewels team and the children living at Sunflower – these are people I worked with, ate with, laughed and cried with on a daily basis. What I didn’t expect was my experience this weekend – that I would so deeply miss the families that PJM works with.

When I first met these families, I felt a huge gulf between me and them – for a lot of the single mothers, my life experience simply couldn’t be more different than theirs. I don’t speak their language; they don’t speak mine; we share only a few words – thank you, good morning, how are you – in common. I understood my role with Ang Tulay as primarily supportive – taking care of babies and young children takes virtually no language skills, and is not really part of the program proper...the nursery is more designed to enable the parents and older siblings to participate, unencumbered, in Ang Tulay. This is a role I was more than happy to play; the staff of PJM are so incredibly good at their jobs that I could trust that my involvement simply allowed them to do their jobs.

This past weekend was a special one – PJM took the families up to Morong (about an hour outside the city) to a retreat center called Silungan (“shelter” in Tagalog). This is “vacacion grande” for many of these families, who live a very hand-to-mouth existence...Silungan is a beautiful place, nestled on the side of the hill in the forest, with lots of room for kids to run around and play, beautiful housing with high ceilings and automated washrooms and lots of light and breezes from the mountains.

We had sessions on Love, Trust and Forgiveness while at Silungan, and in between times of great meals with great fellowship, rest, rest and more rest, games with the kids, playing with the dogs, running around on the trails. Saturday night was Family Night – games and singing and laughing and more laughing, and then topped off with a bonfire complete with hotdogs and marshmallows (where my years of camping served me very well :).

I was sitting at dinner on Saturday night, across from 2 other cutest little girls you’d ever meet. (For their privacy’s sake, they will be J and D; they are 2 of three siblings who lost both parents and are cared for by their grandmother in the tiniest place in the community of Malabon, which I blogged about a few weeks back). They are shy children...up until this point, neither of them really knew what to do with me and seemed a little scared of me. We had tentatively played together, but their giggles were shy. But as they quietly ate their dinners, I felt a little foot touch mine under the table. When I looked over at J, she sneaked a peek at me with a conspiratorial grin, to see if I’d noticed. I squinted back at her, smiling. She did it again, smiling more, and I trapped her feet with my legs, to her surprise and eruption of giggles with her sister. Of course, this turned into a game of great fun for them (and me :) which lasted through the whole meal.

For whatever reason, this seemed to be the turning point for these two, tiny, adorable little girls...from then on, they’d hold my hand when walking, call me “Ate Nicole!” and sit with me etc...to the point where, in addition to A (who I have also been blogging about) I was never without a child attached to me somehow – “I only have 2 hands, guys!” , so one would hold onto my wrist or my shirt.


It totally became my prayer, as it had been the whole of Ang Tulay, that both they and their entire families would find some healing, some community, some happiness in Ang Tulay. It seems inescapable – when you love a child, when you connect with them, you become so attached to their entire family unit, their parent/caregiver, siblings, and everything about them.
I was telling Lorrie that I was surprised I was so emotional about leaving, that I would miss them so much and that I was surprised at the connection I had made with them, despite the vast gulfs of language and life experiences between us. She smiled and told me that I had loved their children, and so they had loved me.


On our second and final day at Silungan, at lunch time, a tray of cupcakes was brought out for the birthday of one of the mothers (I’ll call her Iris for privacy’s sake). Iris is A’s mother – they live on the streets in Manila; their livelihood is making and selling sampaguitas, garland-y things of the Filipino national flower. Their very existence seems precarious. A took to me from the start of Ang Tulay, and we had become great friends; naturally, I was really concerned for both A and Iris, as they struggled to stay safe and healthy. Iris is a petite woman with a loud laugh and multiple missing teeth; she is a little rough around the edges, a little bit brash; she is every bit a young woman (only a few years older than me) who was raised on the streets herself, and is now raising her own child in the same circumstances. She is a strong woman, an aggressive woman when need be, very much a survivor who will fight for her very existence and that of her child. Iris and I have very little way to communicate, except for smiles and her observing the way I interact with her daughter.

A plate of cupcakes was brought out and the room sang the usual rousing rendition of happy birthday. She immediately buried her face in her bandanna – I thought, at first, perhaps it was just a moment of embarrassment at the attention being given to her, as sometimes happens. But it became clearer and clearer as a few staff members gave her hugs, that she was shaking and sobbing...someone shouted, “speech!” and the room got very quiet as she choked out, through her sobs, from behind her bandanna, some shaky phrases in Tagalog. She just wept. I went over gave her a hug myself – I feel close to her, that I care for her so much because of how much I care for her daughter – and then went and asked Teacher Eve to translate what Iris had said.
Teacher Eve told me that Iris said she had never celebrated a birthday. That she had never had anyone sing ‘happy birthday’ to her. That she had never had the community or the support to acknowledge her and celebrate her this way. And that she feels very happy because now she knows that there are people who care for her and who she can celebrate with.

Iris is 27 years old. And she’s never celebrated a birthday.

Her first birthday was in a room full of people who, 8 weeks earlier, had been complete strangers.

Iris, a woman who is a fighter, a survivor, became a little girl right in front of us, celebrating her very first birthday.


This hit me like a ton of bricks. A few weeks back, we celebrated U’s 4th birthday at Ang Tulay, and it was his first experience of having a birthday celebration. I was so touched by that.

And now this – a birthday cupcake for a 27 year old who had never been sung “happy birthday”, who told one of the staffers earlier that yes, it was her birthday on Monday, and that she would celebrate by herself, on the sidewalk.


To be honest, I haven’t cried much (at all, really) on this trip. But on Sunday, after taking a group photo, I told the group that I would be returning to Canada on Monday, that I would miss them, I loved them, and that they have been a blessing to me. I almost got to the end without my voice breaking.

It still makes me want to cry – the struggle that these families have to return to after a little break at Silungan, the huge capacity for love that these single mothers have, the sheer sacrifice of the grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, and the heartbreak and anger and worry and stress that they carry with them. Ultimately, I’m glad Ang Tulay and PJM has become part of their lives...it’s a step toward healing, toward support and community. But it breaks my heart to leave them.


Happy Birthday, Iris. Mahal kita.

a few more photos...

Gorgeous sunset at Matabunkay Beach



All I really want to do is read good books in interesting places.



Sunday afternoon with friends



Lunch at Inasal - bbq'd pork with rice (in the banana leaf)...SO good!


A night to relax at Quezon City Circle with some of the team


Me with Kashin, one of the young moms who is a home-partner at the Habitat for Humanity site.

birthday blessings...

this weekend, I had my first chance to really get out of Manila - Lorrie, Joke (directors), Mier and Shiomar (2 of the staffers that are my age that Michael and I have really connected with) and Michael went up to Batangas to stay in a little guest house at Matabunkay Beach. What a blessing! So great to relax, be in the quiet and hear the birds and the wind in the banana leaves and eat fresh bbq'd fish...amazing. We hired a boat on Monday to take us to a more remote beach...it was spectacular, so refreshing in so many ways. Got to collect amazing shells and go swimming and take pictures and just run around enjoying God's creation.

i've got one (very full) week left here...it's busy, but it's incredible. So much to say, but must run for now - thank you for all your birthday greetings and continued support, it really means the world to me!

Last night, the staff living at Sunflower watched Slumdog Millionaire (my first time seeing it). Fantastic film. (I would highly recommend it if you haven’t already seen it.)

But it was an intensely difficult film to watch; perhaps mostly because while watching it, I was acutely aware that a short jeepney ride away, the same children in the same landscape were having the same struggles. Lorrie and Joke (the directors) agreed – while the landscape in the film is distinctly Indian, it is very very easily transferable to Manila. Michael went on a home visit to see Abby (see earlier blog posts), who sells sampaguitas (Filipino national flowers, sewed into these sort of garlands) and said it was so incredibly similar to some of the early scenes in the film, where children are selling things on the streets.

I tell you this because I think it’s the easiest way to explain what kind of environment we’re working in. The parts of the city that are most gripping are those that are totally impossible to explain, impossible to photograph, difficult to describe. It’s one of those cases where you can’t really understand until you’ve been there. So I refer you to the film; especially the early scenes where the main character is a child in the slums. That is Manila. I mean, it’s India, but it’s so easily transferred here. These are the children we’re working with.

This past Friday, I went on a home visit with Noli, one of the PJM staffers who does a lot of community follow-up. I had been itching to get into the communities where the families live; I felt like I needed to see them in their communities in order to get the last piece of the puzzle of PJM’s work, to have a better understanding, a reference point for where these people were coming from.

Noli took me to Malabon, to visit Lola Neda (“lola” is tagalog for grandmother) and her children (3 of whom I know from Ang Tulay). Malabon is about an hour from ECCC on a jeepney, and the highways/roads get steadily worse as we go; there are steadily fewer cars and buses, more bikes and jeepneys and people on foot; fewer buildings and more shacks, but the density doesn’t decrease at all.

We got off our jeepney and onto a bike-powered tricycle (in the parts of the city where I’ve been, tricycles are powered by motorbikes). We were pedaled down a street, and you can smell the ocean before you see it. About six blocks before we arrive at our destination, Noli describes to me how during wet season, in high tide, these roads are flooded.

We get out at the end of the street and pay our “driver.” Michael had told me that in this community I would stick out like a sore thumb – I replied, “more than usual?” (when am I, a tall blond white woman, not a sore thumb here?) – and he said, “absolutely.”

He was right. I followed Noli quietly, concentrating on my feet. Malabon, and the community where Lola lives, is essentially a squatter community that is built right on the beach, mostly on stilts above the ocean – making it intensely vulnerable to high-tides and wet season, not to mention typhoons and tsunamis.

We walked through incredibly narrow passages, passing dark doorways, ducking under hanging laundry and carefully stepping as the footing changed from planks to scrap pieces of wood and back again. I realized quickly that my feet were not my only concern; headroom was limited, and the nature of a community like this is that nothing is uniform – in some places, tin roofs came up to my shoulder; in other places, the buildings seemed to be 2 stories – so the jagged, rusted edge of a tin roof that jutted out at neck height is to be carefully avoided.

Most people look at me, one person ventures to say “Hi,” and Noli turns around and tells me I can say “Hi” back. I do, I smile at the children but make sure my posture is not confident, try my best to come across as someone acutely aware that they are a visitor. We pass a basketball court, a broken down room where children pedal around on tricycles, an open sort of court-yard space filled with people, and continue through passage ways. Noli greets a few people on the way.

We arrive at Lola Neda’s, and I recognize the children immediately. The youngest, Diane, is giggly and uncertain about me, especially in the presence of other members of her community. She is playing in a narrow corridor right next to their door way, a space about 2” by 4” with 2 other young boys.

Lola Neda is about 60 years old, although no one really knows for sure. Last year, she lost a grandchild and 2 daughters to TB. As a result, she now has 4 of her grandchildren directly in her care. She looks like a woman weary from life, but always has a smile, a sense of humor. When she brings her children to ECCC, they are always dressed well and are relatively clean; but their teeth and skin betray their poverty.

Lola Neda invites us in. We climb up a sort of ladder and take off our shoes. Their living space is tiny, dominated by 3 benches which have been knocked together from spare wood. A few shelves hold some books, stuffed animals; on the far side of the room, a TV. A few lightbulbs hang from the ceiling – I wonder how they get electricity, what kind of underground economy is used for those kinds of services – and sheets and other materials block off what must be sleeping spaces. As far as I can tell, there is no running water. The windowsill behind us is built out over the walkway, and a pot and water jug rest up there, so I imagine that serves as a pseudo kitchen – although there is no indication of any heat source, so I’m unsure of how cooking actually takes place.

The kids come in and out; Noli talks to Lola Neda, and I listen as she sounds concerned about something related to 7000 pesos (about $175 CDN). Her nephew, a teenager, sits on the floor nearby, as does her adult son and his child. It’s hard to tell how many people live in this tiny space, but I guess about 6. Two neighbours poke their heads in the door, evidently to meet me – we awkwardly introduce ourselves, and one of the men says something about getting a drink – Neda frowns when he leaves, complaining that he drinks and is a loud and problematic neighbour. I notice that near the ceiling, you can see the floorboards of their neighbours, and their ankles as they walk around next door. I imagine that there is no such thing as privacy here.

We hear rain on the tin roof; it is almost 2 pm, and time for us to leave. I thank Lola for having us, for letting me into her home, and she smiles warmly and says something I don’t understand. I tickle the kids again on my way out; the little boys continue to say something about me being “Americana.” We walk back through the same maze of passageways; the cage of a rooster on one side, someone’s washing in a basin on the other side. It seems an impossibility that there is enough ROOM for all these people to live in this space; and even more impossible for them to be earning any sort of existence. I still don’t know where Neda gets her income, if any.

We walk back along the street in the rain to catch a jeepney. I am happy to be in the rain; the first rain since I’ve arrived, in a country experiencing African-like drought and water shortages. I thank Noli for taking me. I’m not sure what else to say.

I can’t say I was entirely surprised by the whole experience – it’s about what I had come to expect, through images from all sorts of place about third world living conditions. But when you start to understand a family, how it works, how it exists and keeps surviving, it starts to hit you in the stomach how desperately they are clinging to normal life.


I’ll end there; I’m not sure what else to say about it, other than to describe it. I’m still processing it all, I guess, but wanted to give you a bit of a picture of what our families are dealing with. There is an incredible amount of courage here.

"for such a time as this.."

For the past 3 weeks at Victory Christian Fellowship, the church that Michael and I attend with 2 PJM staffers here in Manila, the pastor has been preaching a series entitled “God and Government.” (As a political science major and Christian, you can imagine how stoked I was to see what stance this church would take, how Filipino world-view would impact the message, etc.) The series aimed to tackle three questions – who’s really in charge? why do we need civil government? and, how can i be involved?

Without giving you the entire run-down of the sermons (which was as fascinating as I had hoped, in case you were wondering :), I’ll just mention one of the things that’s really been stuck in my head. In the pastor’s discussion of the role of young people in this country, the timing of the upcoming election (May 10), the global economy and our position in history at large, he referenced Esther 4.

(Readers digest version of the context of this verse: Mordecai’s reply to Esther’s concern that if she goes unsummoned before the king to plead the case of the Jews, she will be risking her life; his reply refers to an Old Testament promise that even if Esther doesn’t step up, God has promised that a remnant of the Jewish people will always remain; but that God has placed her in the palace for this moment....)

Esther 4:14 “And who knows by that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”



A decent chunk of my time at PJM has been spent doing paperwork. The Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Department of Health, both have stringent requirements that mean BOATloads of paperwork must be filed occasionally. Despite the fact that PJM has been licensed and operating for 20+ years now, we are currently working under a deadline to submit a substantial report to them by the end of the month. I’m still not entirely positive what it all is (I’m just trying to do what I’m told :) and/or what it’s all for, but it’s been a major stress for the staff that just requires some serious administrative leg-work.

Luckily, my time working for the BC government has lent me some experience in terms of bureaucratic hoop-jumping. So, almost 6 weeks later, the end of this paperwork project is almost in sight, and I’ve been a big part of it. And the jist of this verse feels appropriate – even if this is related to administration, not a royal position – that I have been placed here “for such a time as this,” a time when the ministry needed an extra boost to get over some bureaucratic hurdles in order to keep doing what it does best. And ultimately, that’s what I want to contribute to; regardless of how I contribute (behind the scenes, front lines etc.), I believe in what PJM is doing and I want to help them, to contribute to the great work that’s already going on.

N.

one child at a time

The majority of the population of the Philippines is either Protestant or Catholic. I have come to realize and understand more that, as a result of this, the work of Precious Jewels really is as the hands and feet of Jesus in this city. The need for evangelism, for spreading the gospel to those who haven’t heard it, is (by comparison to other nations) not nearly as intense as the need for people to be tangibly shown the love of Christ. There is a deep, deep need for relational giving, for showing love and compassion, for investing in friendships, for providing a shoulder to lean on, a listening ear. PJM serves the community this way, along with the more tangible elements of relief goods, linking families to doctors and specialists, social services, monitoring kids in the communities, etc. Needless to say, it’s an amazing project to be a part of.

I’m learning that this takes place, of course, one family and one child at a time. (Which means my tendency toward utilitarianism flies out the window).

This past week, I was with Allene in the San Lazaro pediatric wards. A large department store in the Philippines, SM, has outfitted a room (named Sentrong Musmos) on the pediatric ward with a tv/dvd player, couch, play house, little slide, coloring books and videos, etc etc. It’s meant to be a play space for kid and to provide a break from the monotony of life on the wards by giving kids developmental activities etc. The room was outfitted by SM, but operations are undertaken by PJM each afternoon.

There were 2 children with us in Musmos that afternoon – Patricia and Rey. Rey is about 9 years old, and has spent 3 months in San Lazaro because of a condition that resulted in excess fluid on his lungs, and the insertion of a tube to drain his lungs (or at least, that’s what I gleaned through interpretation…it’s always a little fuzzy). He’s been in rough shape, Allene told me, but when we saw him last week, he was a few days from being discharged and looked like a pretty healthy kid.

So, Rey and I played together – the usual playing with kids stuff, coloring books, Barney dvd’s, slide, puzzles, etc. (He was pretty disappointed when he realized that I couldn’t read Tagalog – he had about 10 English words, and I have about 5 Tagalog words).

Eventually, he motioned that I should follow him back to his room. I brought a coloring book with me, and he climbed onto his bed and I pulled up a chair. The room was about 8” x 15” – the size of a hospital room for a single patient in Canada – and had 3 cribs in it, each about 4.5” long (which meant that Rey barely fit in his). Rey’s father was crumpled into the crib on the far side of the room, trying to get some sleep. 2 small stainless steel carts provided the only storage for a family of 3 (Rey and his parents) who had now been living at the hospital almost full time for 3 months. The bottom of the cart was stacked with anti-TB meds. The window was wide open, the only fan was a small table top fan aimed at his father.

Rey fished out his crayons and sat on his knees and instructed me to color Ben while he colored Jerry (in his Ben and Jerry coloring book). It was another one of those moments like with Abby from a few weeks back – where the child is so totally stoked to have someone and something to play with. He was laughing and joking with me and teaching me words for the different things in the picture he was coloring. We were playing hide-and-seek behind his towel, peeking around the bookshelf, etc….he was a happy kid.

When Allene and I left, he asked if I would be there tomorrow. Via translation, we figured out that I would be here next Thursday when he would return for a check-up – he was totally stoked, because he said I was fun to play with. Later that night, Allene told me she thought he would never forget that – puzzled (I just played with him, nothing super special or extraordinary), I said, “You think?” – and she explained that I was someone different, and that for someone like me to play with someone like him was a really big deal for him.

She said the same thing applied to Abby, the little girl I played with last week. She lives in a squatter community with her mother, who also grew up in the streets. She attends school in the morning. Her mother sews the Philippine national flower (which are made into these sort of garlands which are often hung on the saints and other altars, esp in the Catholic church). Because people are less inclined to buy the flowers from an adult selling them on the street, Abby’s mother gets Abby to sell them, while she stays nearby to keep an eye on her.

On one hand, this doesn’t startle me at all; it’s economics of survival. On the other hand, it means that Abby is subject to rejection for hours every day. One of the PJMers who visited Abby and her mom last week said she saw Abby begging in the street, and that one lady gave her 10 centavos (worth ¼ of a cent CDN) – it’s the second smallest coin in Filipino currency (like the equivalent of giving a homeless person in Victoria a nickel). The staffer telling me this story frowned at this, frustrated with what Abby was dealing with. She explained to me that there is actually a law in Manila that forbids people from giving money to beggars; if caught, the fault lays with the giver, not the beggar. I asked, curious, whether people still did give – they must, considering the numbers of children begging – there must be some money to be had, even if it’s a pittance. She said that people did still give, but in a city where most people lack any sort of disposable income, pity accompanied by money is hard to come by.

I asked my roommate Mier if there is hope that Manila will no longer have squatter communities (I gather this is the PC term for what used to be called slums) – she paused, and said, “There is a hope, yes.” But she seemed doubtful that it was anywhere in the near future, and described the cycle of poverty that maintains the squatter communities.

For example: there are few jobs in Manila, but even fewer in the provinces. It’s nearly impossible to get a job if you don’t have a skill. To get a skill, most people need to have a basic education. There is free education available in Manila (although there are a lot of private schools as well). But the cost of everything that goes along with school – uniforms, school supplies, project supplies, transportation, food – means that some kids don’t attend. Those kids who don’t attend are often set to work small jobs to contribute to the income of the family. So, in adulthood, with no education, they end up struggling to find employment. Which means they aren’t able to see a life outside the squatter community where they will eventually raise their own families.

None of this is truly shocking to me, on one hand. It’s a story that repeats itself in cities around the world. But that doesn’t make it any less heart-breaking.

Some of the early shots from my time here in Manila – I apologize, many of them are poor shots/poor quality, but my aim has been to just capture as best I can, when I can, primarily with a little point-and-shoot camera. (Sidenote: at this point, for the sake of confidentiality, I won’t be posting direct photos of the children who are living at Sunflower. But I assure you, they are adorable :) This ended up being a random selection as I am tired of wrastling with computers, so here goes...

I've been here for a month! At Fort Santiago, overlooking the Pasig River and into Manila proper

Doing the tourista thing at Fort Santiago, remnants of the Spanish, then American, then Japanese, then American again occupations.

Kind of classic part of downtown Manila (even if this is a bad, out-the-window photo, you get the idea) - huge numbers of people living in tiny tiny spaces.

The totally beautiful chapel and courtyard at the San Lazaro Hospital grounds.


A familiar scene these days - Mier and Joyce (and Lorrie and I) up in the tutorial room at Extended Child Care, doing paper work, pretending like we enjoy it.



Lorrie sitting outside the Extended Child Care center with some Ang Tulay kidlets, as they prepare to head home. The green bag in the bottom right corner is a sack of rice that was given to each family.



Shiomar (right) and Mier took us out for bbq one night. i tried chicken intestine. chewy, if you were wondering.

Michael helping April "play" basketball...

My attempts at joining the world of filipino cuisine...i'm still working on it, but when i cooked this (a few days after I arrived) i was very impressed with myself (for those of you Street Cafe-r's, this kitchen is like a third-world-version of the mustard seed kitchen :)

Before-bed story time with Ate Nicole

By way of apologizing for the recent dismal and extremely lengthy posts (sorry!!), i’m now aiming for something slightly shorter and slightly more positive. Here goes – these are a few bits and pieces from my first month here....

Free Willy is the fish that lives in a Tupperware container on the kitchen counter (with a few rocks in the bottom and inevitably some sort of foliage from the garden stuck in there like it’s a flower vase). The staff talk to Free Willy. (They joke about how he “speaks English”) Early in the morning, Juni walks over to him and says: “Hi Free Willy.” Juni, noticing his cross is dangling over the Tupperware, holds it and says, “This is Jesus.”

April (4, youngest at respite care) says to me: “Ate Nicole, you are so beautiful and fat.” Not really knowing how to respond I just said, “April, you’re so beautiful.” And she said, without missing a beat, “And you’re so fat.” From the mouths of babes :)

Michael (a childhood friend from Victoria who is here for 6 months) was walking around the yard with the 2 boys wrapped around his legs and sitting on his feet (you know how kids ride on your feet and then you walk around and they think it’s great fun). He walked inside, trying to get them to climb off because he was finished, and the proceeded to climb up his legs. He said, “Do you guys know what leeches are?”

We did karaoke at Mall of Asia (which was hilarious in and of itself...you’re in a little room with a few other people, and you have a tv and a mic and a song book...) – and i’m convinced that they used a Tourism BC video for the background to some of the songs. Michael and I couldn’t stop laughing when during “Can’t Buy Me Love”, a pan of Victoria’s inner harbour, the empress hotel etc. became the background to the chorus.

p.s. next project is to try and post some photos. but so far it's not going very well. i'll do my best :)

the problem of pain

Not that this thought process is altogether shocking, considering where I am and what I’ve signed up for, but I have (once again) encountered the great (unanswerable?) problem of pain – that is, how there is so much pain in the world, so much suffering, and yet how I believe in a God that is loving, merciful and promised to take care of His children. C.S. Lewis wrote a book on this, and I’m beginning to think I probably should’ve brought it with me.

I think I am guilty of (no surprise here) projecting my views/understanding/academic knowledge onto the third world, perhaps to the neglect of my understanding of the whole person. That is, I tend(ed) to think of poverty in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (basically, that you have to fulfill your base needs for food/shelter before you can pursue things at the top of the pyramid, like self-fulfillment or whatever) and Aristotle’s notion of the political being (kinds-sorta-similar idea).

But I think I did this at the risk of not fully understanding the emotional/spiritual needs of people in poverty. (Perhaps this is inevitably the case when, in a class like the Politics of Development, there are broad stroke assumptions (for the sake of theory) about the situations and needs of huge swaths of people (e.g. those who live on >$1/day).

Ang Tulay is, like I’ve said, designed to help children and adults process their grief. Which means that the small group leaders get an intimate look at what people in local communities have gone through, have dealt with, are currently struggling against.

And I tend to think that if, in North America, your average family struggles with all sorts of things – struggles to maintain a healthy marriage, kids getting along, not getting bullied, having a secure job and income, and a hundred other things – and your average individual in North America deals with all those human emotions/needs for acceptance, love, companionship/friendship, value/worth, purpose, etc etc….

Then how much more are those pursuits complicated with the struggle to stay alive!??!

Everything is intensified, the struggles, emotionally and relationally, become even more indomitable. Crises in marriage turn into women and children fleeing (to what? Overcrowded relatives, where everyone needs to bend their knees when they lay down to sleep, so there is enough room; or to the streets?); crises in employment turn to the use of children to sell hand-crafts on the streets, because people are more likely to be compassionate to children rather than adults; the breakdown of family life because of gambling and alcoholism turns into suicide for parents and fears of abandonment for children.

This may seem painfully obvious, but it was moment for me – that the pursuit of basic food and shelter doesn’t take priority over emotional needs to the point that they are ‘shelved’ until those basic needs are satisfied. Everyone’s heart aches for acceptance and love, regardless of their physical status. (This sounds kind of contrived as I write it, but when you meet families dealing with these struggles, and realize they crave a safe place to talk and someone to understand what they’re dealing with, it hits you with an unbelievable force.)

One of the activities in Ang Tulay, during the session on feelings, is called “color my heart” – basically, each participant is given a paper heart and asked to color it in a way that they feel like represents their emotions/their heart…like, red for anger, black for loneliness, etc etc. One of the participants, a girl (maybe 8 years old?), split her heart in half – one half was colored half happy, half sad; the other half was colored “worried” – the worry, for this tiny child, was that her mom would leave and not return, or that something would happen to her. That hit me like a boatload of bricks – that a child would be so consumed with fear of abandonment. Perhaps it shouldn’t shock me, but when you put a tiny face, a tiny body, a smile, with the story; when you see that child leaving ECCC and imagine what she is returning to, your heart breaks.

After Saturday’s Ang Tulay session, I cooked myself dinner and sat down and realized that I couldn’t really eat. I was really consumed with the sheer enormity of pain in the world – and I thought, I don’t want to listen to any music (everything speaks of struggle, it seemed; and happy music seems contrived); I don’t want to read my book, because it’s about pain; I don’t want to read my bible, because I can’t sort out how God would allow all this pain; I don’t want to talk to anyone, because I know I’ll just start crying; and I won’t be able to sleep, because of all this whirling around in my head.

And a sheer uncomprehension for how the staff here do their jobs – how they confront this pain, the reality for these families, on a daily basis. In a lot of ways, the struggle for me is to figure out how I fit into this.

Following lunch at Ang Tulay, the families who participated where given some gifts – supplies that had been donated a few months back for typhoon relief, but which were just being distributed now – things like sacks of rice, cooking supplies/utensils/pots, towels, pillows, basic clothing, sleeping mats, etc etc. The same girl who had colored her heart with loneliness got a green bouncy ball in her family’s bag and was bouncing around in her seat during lunch, waiting to play with it. When she was finished, I took her outside to throw it around.

(Again, forgive me if this sounds like one of those contrived third-world-missions experiences, but it was a moment for me…)

I have NEVER seen a child so excited about a ball in my entire life. I mean, even in my experiences with children in the third world elsewhere; this kid was all their excitement and more. We threw/bounced the ball back and forth, and she literally couldn’t stop laughing and smiling as we were playing…she was so joyful, so ecstatic, to have something and someone to play with. It was incredible; it made me laugh too, at her sheer joy at catching a green plastic ball, probably worth a grand total of 10 cents. She was so joyful.

I think we threw that ball for the better part of an hour…we started counting how many times we could catch it (in my head, it was how many times we could catch without dropping, but she just kept going up when we dropped it :) and I think we totalled more than 400 in the end (not to mention that I was really impressed by the fact that an 8 year old could count to 100 in ENGLISH?!)

She went home with her mom after all of it; if all goes according to plan, her and her mother will be back next week.

There’s no grand conclusion at the end of this post. I have not solved the problem of pain, I still don’t know how to process a lot of what I’m feeling and encountering (again, no big shock, but still). I am extremely thankful for children and their ability to bring joy; and I’m really thankful for my housemates at PJM, who are able to make me laugh and who I can spend time with just doing nothing and occupying a different mind-space to take a rest from all the madness. And, ultimately, I’m thankful to be here, to be a part of what’s happening, regardless of how much or how little I can contribute.

san lazaro...

This week (and future weeks), a good chunk of my time will be spent at the Extended Child Care Center (ECCC) at San Lazaro Hospital. On my first day at ECCC, I was given a tour of the grounds with Lorrie:

San Lazaro is part of a health-care compound, which also houses Jose Reyes Hospital and the Philippines Department of Health. San Lazaro is the national hospital for infectious diseases, and also functions as a teaching hospital; it deals with cases of rabies, TB, AIDS, dengue, measles, etc etc. Jose Reyes is a public hospital that treats, as Lorrie said, “the poorest of the poor” in Manila. (I’m told residents of Manila are classified A, B, C or D, according to income – Jose Reyes treats C and D category patients.) The Department of Health is exactly what it sounds like – administrative buildings, the under-secretary and secretary both have offices here, as does the WHO.

PJM’s main role on the property is at the Extended Child Care Center – initially designed to help accommodate children of patients in the infectious disease wards (who were essentially living at the hospital, sometimes sleeping outside the wards, because their parents were inpatients), it’s been expanded to families in the local community and their children, and has become a catch-all for a variety of programs and office work.

San Lazaro Hospital (named after St. Lazarus) is around 400 years old, dating back to the period of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. 2 Spanish brothers, I am told, were called to set up a hospital in the core of the city, dedicated to spreading the light of Christ amidst disease and death.

Historically, this place became quite dark as the 20th century arrived. Because of the kinds of cases San Lazaro deals with, it became a place that represented death – families in the community would ask that they or their children not be admitted, because it was known as the hospital where patients went to die. There was, for many years, a crematorium on-site (which, I’m told, was used during the day – Lorrie said “it was like Auschwitz”). The morgue at the time was also seriously problematic, and bodies were consistently improperly stored and being openly wheeled around the property, in plain view of the children.

While there is a new morgue and the crematorium has been destroyed, the legacy of this place is a dark one. PJM’s presence on the grounds, its daily devotions and prayer walks, and its presence in the wards and events for staff all contribute to this place moving in a positive direction – but inevitably, there remains much work to be done, “much death to be driven back.”
The compound is fairly large, with 30+ buildings of varying sizes. It is walled/barbed wire on all sides (the property borders on Tondo, an area of Metro Manila dominated by squatter communities), and the entrances/exits are guarded. Nevertheless, there are always lots of people. The hospital wards range in size – there are a few 4-5 story buildings that look like fairly standard (albeit third-world) hospital buildings. There are several separated smaller 1-story buildings that house specific infectious disease patients – the TB ward, for example, houses between 150 and 200 end-stage TB patients (who will die of a curable disease) in poorly ventilated buildings which, to be honest, look more like barracks.

In all the wards in this hospital, I am told it is not uncommon to have 2 patients to a bed. We went for a short tour through the Pediatric Ward in San Lazaro; a glance into a room dedicated to pneumonia reveals 10 cribs (of the very institutional, rusting, steel-painted-white variety), each with a child and a parent (who is sometimes sitting on/in the crib as well). The size of the room would house 2 patients in a hospital in Victoria, and in this room, there are easily 12 children and 10 adults; there is little ventilation to speak of. In the Philippines, “you don’t go to the hospital by yourself.” The phenomenon of “watchers” is an institution here – every inpatient has a family member or companion that stays with them.

There are multiple rooms with varying degrees of capacity – each is labelled: pneumonia, measles, dengue, ICU etc. The floors are badly chipped, gouged and worn down to varying levels of concrete (which makes me wonder, with all the divots etc., how tricky it would be to move a stretcher), and everything feels dingy and dirty. The nurses bustle around behind the nursing station; the walls are painted with friendly scenes of woodland creatures (think Bambi) and bright colors.

I have never been in a hospital in the third world. (When we went to the hospital following the car accident last week, we were taken to a private hospital – Medical City – whose facilities were comparable to brand-new hospitals in Victoria (think the newly-renovated parts of the Jubilee in Victoria). Otherwise, my only reference point is various photos, touching World Vision commercials, church presentations on mission trips.

Seeing it in person is pretty surreal. Somewhat unfathomable, really, to think about how nurses and hospital staff provide healthcare in the environment I witnessed, to be honest. The sheer volume of people makes the logistics more than difficult. And, even more, to think about the types of diseases they are dealing with – measles, which has a vaccine; TB, which is curable with meds.

The PJM staff does regular ward visits with patients at San Lazaro. Because of the nature of the patients (e.g. those with infectious diseases), these wards have largely been neglected by organizations/ministries that work within the hospital.

The rest of the property includes research and development buildings, local education centers (e.g. AIDS and STI education), lab facilities, some minimal staff housing, and the admin structures for the Department of Health – these are non-descript administrative buildings, but they are, again, inescapably third world...they are somewhat reminiscent of abandoned buildings in Victoria in appearance: peeling paint, layers of dirt and grime, cloudy windows with bars and air-con units in disrepair, various drips and leaks.

There is a chapel on the property; surrounded by crumbling stone walls and several courtyards. This is the part of the property where you can truly see its history; the walls are old, covered in vines, and immediately upon entering the space, it is quiet. Lorrie said that since PJM has been here, they’re positive that “these walls have heard hundreds of years of prayer.” It is inescapably a sacred place, that courtyard. I anticipate I will be going back there often.

Greetings blog-followers! (I would attempt to use the Filipino phrase for good morning, but a) I have no idea how to spell it, only to speak it, and b) I always get it confused with the phrase for good evening. Those 2 phrases are out of approximately 8 that I have learned/use during my time here. I think “salamat” (thank you) is the only one that I actually use without really thinking hard about it. I should also tell you that April (4, one of the kids who lives at PJM) will ask me at least once a day, “Ate Nicoooole – do you know Tagalog of ‘tree’?” To which I will ALWAYS reply, “No! Can you tell me?” I don’t think she quite grasps the fact that I don’t actually know any of her language, that I only know my language. After one of my first days here, when I pronounced the word for “girl” incorrectly and inadvertently said a bad word instead, I have been more hesistant to “learn” words from her :)

This week, apart from the car accident (see earlier blog post), has been pretty low-key. I’ve been doing some office/administrative work, which makes for really really boring blog posts. But, PJM currently has no administrator, which means that Joke and Lorrie (directors) end up doing most of it. The fact that I’m technologically proficient (at least here they think I am) and can interact with Joke and Lorrie in a first language (they’re originally Canadians) allows us to get things done pretty efficiently. Lorrie joked with me that the fact that I wasn’t writing down the job she was giving me and that she didn’t have to come up with a bunch of different ways to explain the same thing was such a nice change (their staff is entirely Filipino, so L has to explain in tagalog (which she speaks well, but is still her second language), or in English (the staff’s second or third language). Having worked in an office environment (and, moreover, having worked at the Ministry of Health, and thus having a bit of a handle on that world too – PJM does a lot of work that’s geared towards health care) means that I can really be of help here.

I’m starting to get a handle on a few of the services nearby that I will need to be using – it seems simple enough, but for those of you who can imagine a large city in a third world country, nothing is really simple. Jobs/errands like getting photos printed, getting photocopies, sending faxes, buying blank cd’s etc. all become much more complicated when you’re new to the city, you don’t speak the local language, and you’re learning where everything is. That said, I have managed to do all those jobs above this week by myself! Yay for self-reliance! I’ve been doing a lot of the work at Philcoa, which is a mish-mash of a market, stores, internet cafes, and a bunch of other randomness that is a tricycle ride away (more on that later), so it’s been good to stretch my proverbial wings a bit and get those jobs done.

(Sidenote: save walking, there are basically 2 ways to get around here. 1, a tricycle. I think the best way to explain it is basically as a motorbike with a sidecar attached. (see photos) Michael and I are having a contest to see the most number of people we see on a tricycle. Since we started counting, I’ve seen 6; Michael swears he saw 8 before we started keeping track.

(Victorious self-portrait after first solo trip to Philcoa.)

(View from the inside of the side-car-thing on a tricycle. There's a tricycle in front of us too, to give you an idea.)

The 2nd option is a jeepney. Again, kind of tricky to explain, but if you think about a 12 passenger van, keep the driver and front passenger seats, take out all the bench seats and put in 2 long benches running the length of the vehicle. But then, of course, you’d have to developing-country-ify it, which is something that is nearly impossible to imagine until you’ve seen it. (try this: http://www.travel-images.com/phil41.jpg) Best part? Today, we were riding one to church. I felt something kind of clunk around under my feet, looked around to see if anyone else had heard (or, more likely, if anyone else cared – this is generally my tactic, checking if anyone else thinks it’s worth caring about). No one reacted, so I thought nothing of it. A few blocks later, something clunked onto the road from underneath the vehicle and started scraping along the pavement. The driver pulled over, gave us back some coins for the part of our fare we hadn’t ridden, we climbed out and climbed into another jeepney, gave him the rest of our fare, and continued on our way. I was laughing pretty much the whole time, because I thought it was absolutely hilarious – the whole thing happened without anyone batting an eye, completely normal, I suppose.)

This Saturday, we started Ang Tulay (“ahng-two-lie”), which is a program/journey designed by PJM in conjunction with UNICEF to help children process significant grief/loss/transition (see earlier posts for more details). We are offering it on a series of Saturdays over the next two months for the families that PJM works with on a regular basis, all from local squatter communities (which, I gather, is the acceptable terminology – but, from what I understand, they are effectively the slums of Manila). It is a small group (30? AT has been offered for up to 100, but it functions based on small group sessions, so it’s crucial to have a good volunteer-participant ratio).

I’ve been assigned to nursery care, which is less program and more keep-the-little-ones-busy (part of which is allowing the adults that are participating to have some rest from their children and pay attention to themselves and their own journey). So, I’m not exactly on the battleground in terms of working directly with these families (the whole thing is in Tagalog, at any rate), but I’m happy to be involved in any way. AT is a really incredible tool, and it’s so desperately needed in a place where loss of family members to disease (TB, HIV/AIDS) and the reality of abuse, domestic violence, and daily struggles of hunger and loneliness for children are all a too-familiar reality.

(I am still getting over the fact that I’ve been given this job, and I don’t know a thing about taking care of babies – just what I’ve observed, which is incredibly minimal, over the years – why would I know how to take care of babies?! I haven’t had one, I don’t have young siblings. I know it’s not rocket science, but I’m desperately trying not to muck it up (not to mention trying to be culturally appropriate!), especially in front of the mothers, who I can’t help but think are petrified to hand their child over to a young, incompetent white girl who doesn’t speak their language. Sigh. Esther (a PJM staffer) is with me, though, so that’s good.)

On Saturday I primarily took care of CJ, a 7 month old boy. I was instructed by Lorrie, once I had gotten him to sleep and was rocking him in the rocking chair (tried to put him in the crib when he was sleeping, woke up immediately. Lesson learned – if something’s working, don’t mess with it) – to just “soak this child in prayer.” She didn’t give me any further instructions – what to pray for, what kind of situation he is coming from etc. – so I sat there with him sleeping on my chest and pondered it all.

It was a bit of a struggle for me, to be honest. Perhaps I was just in a depressed head-space, but I couldn’t help but think about the odds of this child: the odds of him having enough proper nutrition to have and keep all his teeth, for example. The odds of him being the victim of some kind of abuse, of growing up without a male figure, of not being able to go to school (or, perhaps for a while, but then not past grade 3 or whatever), of falling asleep desperately hungry, of contracting HIV (if he’s not already positive from birth). All that stuff just whirled around in my head, and I couldn’t help but think about how my gut reaction is how unfair it all is – that I did absolutely NOTHING to deserve the privilege I was raised with, to deserve a happy childhood, an amazing family, the privilege of education, etc etc. And, then, the corollary, of course – that this child did absolutely nothing to deserve the life of struggle that he will undoubtedly face.

I was reminded of something that came up while I was in Los Angeles this past year: during the graduation ceremony of the Teen Challenge Southgate class (TC is, basically, a 1 year discipleship program to get youth and adults off drugs and alcohol), one of the guys I had gotten to know was the valedictorian. He said that he had faced such intense frustration and anguish, because no one had ever asked him if he wanted to be born. He didn’t get a say in the matter, he just arrived in the world. He spoke with such passion about it, that he was so frustrated for so long because he had no choice in the matter, was stuck in a situation that, in many ways, did irreparable harm, through no fault or responsibility of his own.

It becomes difficult to pray, after all that thinking. I did, to the best of my ability, but it was a struggle, for whatever reason. If you’re the praying type, anything you can offer up for CJ would be invaluable.

That's it for now - missing you all!

today's headache is brought to you by...

today's headache is brought to you by...a car accident! (booooo.)

yesterday, we were on our way to the Int'l School of Manila to teach a session on the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (by the UN) and HIV/AIDS and it's impact on children, to 4 classes of gr. 5 students. i was so stoked!

we were in the PJM vehicle (picture a 12-passenger van, with a regular driver and passenger seat, and then take out the rest of the bench seats and put 2 benches that run the length of the vehicle in the back (so everyone sits facing each other), driving on the C5 (Manila equivalent of a free-way, 6+ lanes, so approximately 8 vehicles wide). PJ, the PJM staffer who always drives (and is an unbelievably good driver, i might add - those of you who have experienced traffic in developing countries can probably appreciate this) was behind the wheel.

everything happened really fast, as it always seems to in this kind of situation, but from what i gather, an L300 (like ours), was basically stopped in front of us but it had no brake-lights. PJ braked hard but too late, and we slammed into it at about 50 km/h. the thing about these vehicles is that there's no front hood to speak of - thus, nothing to crunch and cushion the blow. so, the 4 of us in the back all got thrown forward - it was unreal, the force of it - i smashed my forehead and we all kind of landed in a pile. no blood and no broken bones at first sight, just some serious pain from landing in a pile of 4 people.

we had been rear-ended as well and so we sat, sandwiched between 2 vehicles. the highway patrol guys came and got us after a while, the men stood outside and discussed the situation, we were loaded into a pseudo-ambulance to go get checked out (as part of the insurance claim). the best and most hilarious part, in retrospect, was when the van we were in on the way to the hospital turned on it's sirens...and no one really moved. one car kind of turned it's wheels to get out of the way, but that's about it. awesome. we went to a very impressive hospital, got some x-rays and all the rest - everything checked out.

so, the grand conclusion is that i'm fine but for a few bruises - but i think the trauma of it all is still shaking me up a bit. as soon as we had impact and i had recovered enough to sit up, i had a bit of a cry and thought 'man, i am not cut out for this,' - but put on my brave face, and we all held together and made it through.

the sunflower staff had lunch made for us when we finally got home - the van was driveable, and i was incredibly impressed that PJ just climbed in behind the wheel again. we're insured well, so it's all taken care of (despite the fact that the driver at fault tried to bribe PJ...perfect). all in all, it was frustrating more than anything - i was excited to get going, but this has set us back a bit, as we need a bit of time to recover and all. but, i'm trying to keep a positive attitude and understand everything as part of a bigger plan.

i'm not sure what this week holds, but i will do my best to keep updates here. all the best!

p.s. i've enabled the comment function so that you can comment even if you're not a blogspot member, so comment away if you feel so inclined.

how to build a house in a developing country...

This past week, we spent 4 more days at the Habitat site in San Mateo, contributing "sweat equity" to the homes of 6 PJM staffers who are getting housing in that community.

Michael and I both found that, the longer we were there, the more enjoyable it became - in a lot of ways, it's just been a matter of adjusting to the filipino pace of life and work.

The site consists of about 10 finished units (see left, a shot looking at the finished units) - if I had to guess, each unit is maybe 15" wide and 30" long) - and 6 units currently being built (the shot on the right is looking the opposite direction, toward the end of the lot). The units are built primarily constructed from cement hollow blocks, rebar and concrete. When the unit is given to the home-partner, it is a "shell" - the home-partners are required to arrange electrical, plumbing (including applications to the city for water), and any interior finishes. Each home-partner is selected on the basis of their assessed need, and their ability to contribute to the project - the financial commitment is approximately 150,000P ($3,800CDN?) which is amoritized over 10 years, as well as 600 hours of labour (some of which requires financial commitment as well, as it is often via hired labour).




















There are about 15 filipino labourers (all young men - see right), hired by the home-partners to work (H4H requires that each homepartner have at least 2 workers on-site every day; thus, hired labour is standard practice and volunteer labour (like Michael and I) is used to supplement their hours). Joke tells me they earn about 200P per day ($5 CDN); several of them sleep on-site, as the cost of transportation to get home would eat up a substantive part of their earnings. They keep up an unbelievable work pace! The longer we were there, the more they adjusted to our presence and we got used to their way of doing things. Needless to say, there were lots of smiles and pointing in place of actual words :)

The actual work we did included hauling sand/gravel, mixing cement (usually on the ground), moving and pouring the cement (sometimes up to the second floor), digging holes, cutting/bending/assembling re-bar, moving dirt...among other things (see below). On Tuesday, there was a delivery of some new wheelbarrows and shovels - never in my entire life have I been so excited about a wheelbarrow!!! Again, the amount of manual labour required is astounding...assembling rebar grids (see photo) requires each piece of rebar to be cut (with a hand-saw), manually bent, arranged, and hand wired together (with, what else, individually-cut pieces of wire).




An interesting dynamic on the work-site for me...we were moving sand from a pile on the road to the inside of the site, and Sylvia, a home-partner, told me that passers-by had commented on my presence, both because I was a foreigner doing volunteer work, and because I was a woman doing a man's work. Joke tells me that it would've been a difficult adjustment for the local labourers as well, to have me on-site (as one of 3-4 females, depending on the day; and 1 of 2 white people). The gender dynamics here are something I didn't expect to impact me as much as they have...it's something I haven't quite processed yet, and I'm still trying to find my identity in all of it - both as culturally relevant/appropriate, and as remaining true to myself.

A few more photos as I sign off, of the views around the Habitat worksite.