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.

The beginnings...

Mabuhay from Manila!

I’ve hummed and hawed about posting a blog, but figure it’s probably the best way to keep people posted (without clogging up inboxes :) – so here goes.

(A little background may be useful at this point: I’m spending February and March in Manila, volunteering with an organization called Precious Jewels Ministry. For more info, take a peek at www.precious jewels.org. Essentially, PJM works with children and their families (many of whom are impacted by HIV/AIDS) and acts as a support for those in need.)

Michael and I arrived at the Sunflower House (the main “base” of PJM) in Quezon City (a suburb of sorts in Manila) on Friday afternoon after 24+ hours of travelling and a +16 hour time change. We’ve spent the past few days getting oriented to the house, catching up on sleep and trying our best to adjust to Filipino life...a lot to adjust to! Sunflower is home to 6 children (ages 4-9) who are in the care of PJM (most are orphaned or abandoned) for the time being (long-term, the staff is trying to place these children in adoptive homes); and about 10 staff members for PJM (who take care of the children and also run PJM’s programs at the Extended Child Care Center at the hospital, community visits, etc etc.) Needless to say, it’s a busy house and there’s always something going on! It’s been really amazing to get to know these children so far, they are so fantastic and so much fun to be around. “Ate” (first syllable rhymes with “hat”, second rhymes with “hay”) is the Tagalog word for older sister – thus, I am Ate Nicole.

This week, Michael and I have been asked to work on the Manila Habitat for Humanity (H4H) site in San Mateo (another part of Manila). Several staff members have been selected to get houses at the site (which is in a kind of townhouse format, forming a community of 15+ families), and each “house partner” is required to contribute 600 hours of labour to the project. Much of this is through hired labour, but the PJM staff is contributing on their days off and PJM volunteers are working out there as well.

We’ve spent one day out at the site, and will return tomorrow for 3 more days (staying with a PJM family living in one of the completed portions). I am learning to put my expectations aside...a Filipino worksite is a whole different adventure than in Canada! Having to cope with the heat, different food, language barriers, and cultural differences is all magnified on a worksite.

A quick example...we were instructed to work on a hole that was being dug for a septic tank for one of the homes. How many people does it take to dig a hole in Manila? 8. 2 digging; 2 holding open old woven cement mix bags for the diggers to put their dirt in; 2 to haul those bags out of the hole and walk them across the worksite (through some of the houses, which at times, have <5.5 feet of head room); 1 to sit on top of the wall at the edge of the site to dump the dirt onto the other side into a vacant lot; and 1 on the other side of the wall to rake the dirt around to prevent a massive mountain from forming.

There is also a group of guys working on removing the root cluster of a massive mango tree that was cut down – a job that would take a chainsaw less than an hour, but has so far taken about 2 days of labour. Wheelbarrows are held together with rebar and wire, but rusting through (which makes moving sand difficult) ; shovels are on the verge of breaking; hollow cement blocks crumble if you don’t put them down gently enough...

Needless to say, a lot to adjust to! Cultural stress is an understatement – the combination of the physical stress of working in the heat and with limited tools/machines/resources and the mental/emotional stress of dealing with a new culture is a lot to handle. Prayers appreciated!

At the same time, it’s a real privilege to be able to contribute to this project – H4H has been on my heart for a number of years as a potential career goal for the long term, so it’s great to get some practical experience working for them. Plus, we’re contributing to housing that will really make a difference in the lives of the staff that work so hard here.

Missing family and friends a little bit already, but I still feel like it’s a real adventure :) My stomach is still getting used to a very different diet (and the fact that my appetite is significantly decreased in the heat), so prayers for my physical well-being would be much appreciated.

N.

P.S. Not much to speak of in the way of photographs yet, but I’m attaching a shot of me journaling on the porch at Sunflower...more to come.