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Published: February 17th 2008
Only 2 months left!! That’s right 2 years has turned into 2 months and its going very quickly. There has been plenty happening this month with the big event being the rounding up of the Christmas book buying appeal. Just like this time last year it’s been raining - hard, I had my pocket picked in the big bad city and continued to enjoy working and surfing in Lanuza.
The rain this year came down even harder than last year causing flooding along my road, I even saw people using canoes to go through their houses! While my house was fine I was up late in the night helping round up pigs, chickens and anything else that could be washed away. After doing the rescue bit we got the cameras and went for a wade around. Amazingly by the morning everything was back to normal, even the houses clean easily with no carpets or wiring. The flood came up in only a couple of hours and went away just as quickly.
Spending all of the money that you donated for Ibuan school was quite an expedition. To get access to a good range of shops I travelled with the
Flooding in Zone 1
This is the road to my house, with a river running over it. the road forms a dam between the ocean to the left and the swamp to the right. The houses on the right of the road were all flooded.head teacher and one of the other teachers to Cebu city. Cebu is the second biggest city in the Philippines after Manila. To get there is five hours on the bus then an overnight ferry ride. It was the first time the teachers had been on a ferry and also their first time in Cebu - they were like kids enjoying the experience and not getting much sleep. Pronie, the head teacher commented that Cebu was like Halo Halo (the crazy Filipino desert that has featured on this blog before) being a mixture of so many different people.
Once we had scoured all the shops, made the list and done all the shopping I left the teachers to travel back to Lanuza with the boxes (6 large ones) and went on to the Chinese consulate to apply for a visa - trip home preparations. I was targeted by pickpockets while getting on a jeepney outside the shopping mall, luckily only loosing my wallet with a bit of cash and my local driving licence. The fun started when I went to get a police report. The sign on the wall said:
Philippine National police Vision:
The PNP is committed More water
The Barangay Hall pretending to be a swimming pool. to the vision of a professional, dynamic and highly motivated PNP working in partnership with a responsive community towards the attainment of a safe place to live, work, invest and do business in.
What it didn’t say was that to get a simple police report you had to travel across town to city hall, stand in two different lines, pay 60 pesos for a receipt then go back to the police station to get someone to type the report. Of course you cant get the paperwork on Sundays, out of office hours, holidays, hot days or cold days etc! All sorted now.
The teachers had a smooth trip back to Lanuza with the books then arranged for them to be transported up to the village by motorbike. The parents, teachers and children are all very excited about their new library! I was up in the village this past Friday doing some basic ecology training so we held a short handover ceremony. As a nice extra Haribon (one of the NGOs that I work with) donated some books and teaching materials focused on the environment.
A nice moment that shows the interest the new books have created happened
before the start of out basic ecology workshop. An older men (50 ish) was looking at one of the science encyclopaedias. He probably couldn’t read anything but was engrossed in the pictures. The workshop began with a prayer and this man was stood praying with his hands crossed over the book in front of him. It would have been a fantastic picture but wasn’t the right moment to dig in my bag for a camera.
Later in the day I had fun showing the children (and teachers) where the UK is on a big world map. With the map centred on Asia the UK is on the left of the sheet and the USA on the right - this really helped in explaining that the UK is not part of America!
Everyone in Ibuan sends their biggest thanks to you all! (and now they know where Europe / the UK is)
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David
non-member comment
Excellent
So good to feel some involvement with that community. Great stuff. The experience with the police will prepare you well for returning to the FC!