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.