My busy busy Schedule

Weekday Schedule

5:30 am Wake up

6:00 am Mass

6:30 am Welcome students and talk with them

7:00 am Breakfast (There is rice and fish, but I cannot eat it in the morning, so I always have bread, banana and yogurt, eggs, and coffee)

8:10 am Go to the office

8:30 am Good Day Talk for all the office workers with one of the Sisters

8:45 am - 11:45 am Work on the Business Plan and Project Proposal for VIDES Philippines

11:50 am Lunch & Read

1:00 pm Leave to go to one of the areas on the Mobile Library

1:45 - 3:15 pm Teach and talk with the street children

4:00 pm Return to Santa Mesa/Don Bosco School

Finish up anything in the office or, recently I have been going to the Alternative Learning System with the children from Pasay as they are now studying at the Don Bosco School ALS.

6:00 pm Free Time = Relax and watch TV, do laundry, read, play basketball

7:00 pm Dinner (The food is delicious: always rice, beef or chicken with different sauces, some type of banana dessert, sometimes noodles, fresh juice (mango is my favorite), eggplant, salad, and always a soup)

8:00 pm Recreation = Play badminton with the sisters or watch the news

8:30 pm Go to my room and read or watch a movie.

9:30 or 10 pm Go to sleep

This is my normal Weekends if there is no outing with the sisters or celebration

Saturdays

8:00 am - 11:30 pm Go to Del Pan area

2:00 pm - 5:30 pm Go to Pasay

Sundays

Mornings

Play soccer with the oratorians at the school.

Afternoons

Talk on Skype. Relax.

Outside of Manila on an outing

Pictures teaching my new friends!

Here are pictures of "on the field" teaching the children. They are usually 5th grade to high school/16 years old. Many times I am tired from waking up at 5:30 am, but when I am able to talk with these children, it all goes away. Only one session I had was difficult to get the kids to participate, but for the most part these kids are so desprate for knowledge and attention, they are very respectful. I hope this gives you a little insight and picture into what my life has been over the past month. Please pray for these kids, I already know they will forever be in my heart.

Del Pan - Saturday Mornings

Recto - Wednesday Afternoons

NIA Road - Tuesday Afternoons


Pasay - Saturday Afternoons

Unfortunately I don't have pictures from two of the sites, San Roque and South Triangle. I will try to get some ASAP.

Vive Don Bosco!

We celebrated the feast of Saint John Bosco on January 31st. He is the founder and inspiration for the Salesian order. He is a great man of God who had an incredible heart for young people. And boy did we celebrate! The school, which is named after this Saint, had three days of celebrating which entailed kids running booths with games, movies, facepainting, all that fun stuff. There was plenty of good food. I am kind of jealous because I never had any kind of celebration like this when I was in elementary school.

On the actual feast day we had a day off to commemorate Don Bosco's life and had a great mass where the priest explained his miraculous healing from cancer. It was a great week topped off by a concert at an arena downtown which featured dancing and singing by all the students. There were also a few famous Filipino singers there that the kids really enjoyed. Again, I don't ever remember my school putting on such a fun show for the students and parents. This a such a fun school that is celebrating all the time.

Another celebration was last saturday for "Gratitude Day." The school put on another show to thank the superior of the community Sr. Celia for all her support and guidance. Three of the high schoolers were the MCs and each grade performed a dance from around the world. The little ones were especially cute. It was such a fun celebration and seemingly there is always another reason to celebrate right around the corner. Well usually there is, because almost every other day I find the sisters telling me "Vive Jesus, Happy Feast Day!"

Don Bosco School in Manila with all the kids:

What am I up to in Manila

I am in Manila and have been here for about three weeks now. I have been a little sick for about a week, so unfortunately (or fortunately) I have been resting and trying to get better. I wanted to give you a little update about some of the things I have been assigned to do here.

First, a little about Manila. It is a huge city with lots of traffic which mostly is jeepneys, i.e. public transportation. It is one of the biggest cities in the world. I am staying in the area Santa Mesa, which is one of the good parts of town. When I travel to teach the street children, I go to the poorer areas, which is mainly made up of squatters, people who set up houses made of plywood and other materials on other people's private property. They are illegally living there and using other people's electricity. They came to the city from the outer provinces because of the hope that the big city is supposed to provide. There is also more access to hospitals and schools as well.

After going to mass at 6am, then meeting with the children at the Don Bosco school where I am staying and working in the office in the mornings on the project proposal for VIDES Philppines, I go out to one of the six areas (see picture) that VIDES drives the Mobile Library to. There are about 250,000 street children in the Philippines, and 60,000 in the Metro Manila area. Along with three other volunteers, I teach and talk with about 10-30, 11-16 year olds. There is even more little kids as young as 5 years old there as well. In one of the areas, Pasay, we go on Saturdays, there can be up to 300 kids coming for education and food. We sing, dance, talk about God, teach a lesson every week for a little over an hour. After that, the children all receive a drink and some bread. The children are precious and beautiful.

Of course, the kids are very intrigued by me. They are especially fascinated by my white skin and blue eyes. Sometimes I feel the little boy or girl rub their hand on my arm to feel if my skin feels different than theirs. They are so innocent, and rarely see foreigners. They are good at speaking english for the most part, although it is their second language, but some are very shy to use it. They have been teaching me some of their language, Tagalog. It is most similar to Spanish because the Ferdinand Magellan and his conquistadors came to the Philippines. One of my favorite boys told me that I have a lot of "polka dots" on my skin. I laughed and told him, "they are called freckles." Haha, cute!

I was also able to meet some of the mothers who are attending the Alternative Learning System that provides a free education through government-provided lessons. A VIDES teacher goes to Pasay each week to teach them. I was able to talk with them about why they want to finish school. Some are young mothers, one is 25 with three children already, and others are grandmothers. Their main reason is because it has been a dream of their to finish high school, and they are so grateful to VIDES for giving them this chance. Another reason was to help their children with studies so they would be able to graduate also. Some said they hoped to graduate in order to get a job as a cashier and earn more money. How different our goals can be if we are not exposed to what opportunities are out there. It also makes you appreciate how important an education is and what possiblities it opens.