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.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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.
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...
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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!
Monday, March 15, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
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.
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
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