Waiting

I don't quite know how to kick off this post, so I'll just jump straight in! The good news is that I am feeling a lot better than I did last week and definitely a lot less tired!! I last posted on Wednesday, when I said that I was going to be helping with the Tondo youth service that evening. However, it rained! And when it rains in Tondo, it means that the church and many of the homes get flooded, and a lot of things are unable to happen, including the youth service. It was a shame because I was really looking forward to going, but it did mean that in essence I got 3 days off last week which I definitely needed!

The church is still flooded, as you will see from pictures later on in the post.

Thursday was my first day of helping in the school so I didn't quite know what to expect! When I got there, Grace (the principal) asked me if I'd mind helping them sort the library so of course I said I didn't mind. Basically, the school is being inspected some time this week, and they will fail the inspection unless the library is put in order and classified! I don't think they'd had any sort of classification system beforehand so it was quite a big job. This is what it looked like when I started:

At first I was on my own, but soon some youth from the church of the librarian and her brother came to help.

At 11.30 it was lunch time (?!) so I went to the cantine and bought myself a portion of whatever the children were having. Today it happened to be rice (well it's rice every day!) with some sort of tuna/mungo bean based dish. Although it looks a fairly small portion of rice, believe me it's not!! At first I couldn't finish it all, but by the second day I could...

While I was just finishing, Jane Walker (the founder of PCF) happened to walk past my table so she stopped and said Hello. I was glad I was able to see her while I was here, and she even gave me a tour of the school after lunch, as I hadn't really seen much of it properly.

Livelihood - making the products that we sell in UK!

Grace with some of the children

Jane and Marilyn (one of the teachers)

After the tour, I had roughly 30mins left before I was being picked up, so I went back and helped in the library again.

On Friday I was volunteering at the school again, but this time I did spend all day in the library - mainly sitting down and sticking masking tape to the spines of the books! Oh, and lunch was rice with some chicken thing in a liquidy thing with leafy things! Here's a picture as I'm not sure my description is very accurate ;-):

And some lovely children who came and sat with me!

At 3pm I was meant to be picked up by Brenda to take me to Navotas to do the teaching I missed on Tuesday, however she got caught in traffic and didn't arrive until 4, by which time it had been decided that I would travel to Navotas in the school bus (nothing like what we know as 'school bus' here!) with Brenda's Mum. It was all a bit complicated, but, in the end, I did end up going by the school bus, and Maureen and Brenda went by jeepney or some other form of public transport! I arrived in Navotas by 4.40, and again had to wait again because Brenda wasn't there yet, and neither were the other two I was meant to be teaching! I'm getting better at this waiting without knowing how long people are going to be or things will take, but it is hard! I think I started teaching at around 5.30-7 and then we drove home to Malate.

Donna, with Brenda

Lisa demonstrating! (from the left: Rafelyn, Brenda, Donna)

Me teaching Rafee

Lesson finished so Maureen played Chopsticks!

One of my other two Navotas students - Christine

And the other one - Maryann!

On Saturday, the effect of the rain was very evident on my schedule! We were helping with the feeding in the morning, but instead of having the children come in and sing a few songs before sitting down to eat, we had to bag everything up and give it out at the gates. The church was under probably about 6” of water.

Some of the women dishing the food into the bags

Tess cooking the meat

The children waiting at the door!

The gates of the building - outside you can see the rubbish and where the kids live

On their way home from getting their food

In the afternoon, I went to Ortigas (Ron and Joanna's) to teach the Tondo girls – again because the church was too flooded to teach there.

Sunday started very similarly to Saturday, with helping with the feeding at the church and again having to bag it up and give it out at the door. At 11 however, I had the blessing of being able to visit baby Jemar. Almost a year ago, newborn Jemar was abandoned by his mother who was trying to sell him. Joanna asked in one of the PCF church newsletters if there would be anyone willing to sponsor him and pay for his milk every week. I couldn't bear to think of him being abandoned with nobody to care for him, so I offered to pay for his milk, although I could only afford half of it. My Mum pays the other half. It turned out in the end that his Mum did want him, she just couldn't think of having to feed another mouth. With someone paying for his feed, she gladly welcomed him back! So yesterday I was able to take them this month's milk and see them for myself. He is almost a year old now and a lot healthier looking! And it was a nice surprise to find out that his Mum is also called Lisa :-)

Lisa and baby Jemar!

They live in a part of the dumpsite where the air is always polluted from the smoke of  making charcoal

Jemar and his Mum!

To get to their 'house', we had to walk right across to the other side of the dumpsite – so I was able to see even more the huge mass of poverty that there is here. These people aren't poor. They're more than that – the poorest of the poor! And it is heartbreaking to see the squalor that they're living in. I really commend PCF and the PCF church for the work they're doing here – it's amazing. I know some of you reading this know a lot about the work they do, but some of you don't know much, if anything at all! So I really would urge you to look at the PCF website (www.p-c-f.org) and to find out more of what they're doing, and I am happy to answer any questions if you want to know more.

After visiting the dumpsite and seeing Jemar and his family, I went to Navotas to teach and help with the kids church. I arrived quite early however (12.15) and before they had had lunch. But being the lovely people they are, they welcomed me in and gave me some of what they were eating (rice and some pork dish called adobo! - very nice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobo_(Filipino_cuisine)). That's one thing that I do like about this culture, everyone is so welcoming. When you go to the supermarket for example, they are so much more helpful than any shop assistant is in England! Maureen, when she first arrived here, had a lot of things to buy, and most of the shop assistants brought it all the way home for her, and even made up the things like the wardrobe and the fan in the condo!

After teaching I helped a little at the kids church before coming home and having a relaxing evening in the condo, as well as paying a visit to the mall to get a few things, and treating myself to a dinner at Burger King. Eating out over here is very cheap compared to home!

Today I have definitely needed my day off, and I have been quite tired today, but I feel ready to work again tomorrow and I am so grateful to God that I have more energy than last week! “Those who wait on the Lord will rise up on wings like eagles”. I feel like I have been doing a lot of waiting this last week, and the Filipino culture is very different to home – the word 'hurry' doesn't exist in their vocabulary! But, however much I get annoyed sometimes, I think it has been very good for me to stop and slow down. We can get into the 'quick quick quick' mindset so easily, that we can forget to take notice of the important things in life, and in fact I feel a lot closer to God when I am taking things at a slower pace. So that has definitely been my challenge this week!

And finally, the icecream from last week's post! Many people had a go at guessing, in many different places across the wide web, but I don't think anyone got all 4 correct! Here is what they are: chocolate with nuts and marshmallows (this was the .5 for those who just guessed chocolate ;-)), cheese, ube (some sort of purple root vegetable! Sorry this was a very hard one for those who've never heard of it ;-)) and strawberry! Surprisingly, the only one I didn't like was the chocolate!

Here's the picture again:

And a new challenge! These are yoghurts. And this time I'll give a clue - 2 of them are 'normal', 2 aren't!

So that's it from Lisa today! More will come later in the week...


EDIT: About the yoghurts, I meant they aren't normal FLAVOURS, for those who are getting confused!