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Published: March 15th 2009
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Jessie in his livingroomThe Godchildren
We packed our gifts and got in the van with Mr. EmEm, his sister and five other godchildren. The journey went through fields of Rice, Banana trees and pure jungle. After a while in our van it was time to say hallo to the first Godchild. He was adopted by us as Godparents just recently. The boy was 14 year of age and lived with his sister, mother and father. His father was at the moment working harvesting Bananas. The tree of them greeted us with big smiles, and Jessie, the godchild invited us in to their home. Normally I would have called it a house, but it reminded us more of the kind of buildings we used to build as kids. The one with one day of building time, one day of use and years of falling apart. We came in to what he called the living area, a “room” of 2 by 2 meters. In this area the family also had a small unit one with fantasy could call kitchen. The next room which also was the final, served as a sleeping area. The size was the same as the living area, and we could not
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Crowded in 10 m2 with soilfloor see any beds. They slept of course on the floor, with no mattresses. A surprise but not at all unique as our visits went along. Our Jessie was not at all ashamed as we stood in both the living area and the bedroom talking about his school and his daily life. A door between the two rooms did not exist nor any furniture of any kind.
After a first interesting visit we went on to the next family. This godchild was supported by Karl & Isolde and was still in school during our visit. We promised to come back but spend some time there as the mother turned out to be our massage-lady. She showed their home and again we could not imagine how, in this case, 5 persons could share one wooden bed, without mattress in a total area of 5 m2. She explained then that of course two children had to sleep on the floor. The bad thing was that the home had no floor. It was directly soil! She showed us to make it understandable that a piece of carton served as a bed during the night. It still did not make it understandable. We
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Joy lucky with her father have turned our eyes more than once towards the skies and wondered why?
From the warmth of the families we stepped once again into our now very hot van. The journey went on through more fields and banana trees. Next family and godchild to visit was living in a rather big house (40 m2) and all again with no floor. Mary Grace was shy but proud to be one of the lucky one to be supported. Her mother and father were grateful and thanked us so many times before we left to move on to Joy living only minutes away. A very polite 7 years old girl with great ambitions and very skillful already in English. Both the parents were present and we were invited into a living room with rustic furniture. A nice room with a solid concrete floor. It turned out to be a room, and a house own by a landlord. Joy’s home was in the backyard and we guess that the mother did not want to show us their real life.
Our tour went on. We still experienced new family situations with deep impact on us both. We were still a group
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A proud and happy mother of 6 children of nine including the five godchildren, our Mr. EmEm, his sister and us to white people. Although we went through small villages with four to eight children in each house our by travelling godchildren knew the name of them all. We believe the bondage between the godchildren and the community is so strong that it creates commitment and engagement. Having a godparent does oblige and the children show it with unusual encouragement.
After a while our travel group got smaller. The children left us and we continued the four of us. Throughout all the visits the experience was the same. Grateful children and parents living in for us unbelievable surroundings. We travelled at the end south of Panabo City, into a Muslim area visiting two godchildren living as neighbors. In this area it was even more crowded. One mother informed us that the small village of maybe two normal European plots (2500 m2) included 60 homes. We did only see one toilet facility. A wooden fence, two meter high with a door-look-a-like thing. The cube was maybe 80x80 cm. The so called toilet did not exist but was nothing but a hole in the ground. Imagine 4-500 people sharing
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Lucy in Berit's lap. Both parents gone, now living with 4 sister at her grandparents. Few meters from a heavely trafficed road. The (soil)floor in the house had some 15 gr. slope. this? We hope the area had more facilities and we hope that somewhere it was running water. During our journey we could not see any houses with built in water. The country has no problem with water so we believe every area or village has a dwell or some water supply.
A long interesting trip had come to an end. We have visited ten godchildren and have learned to know another five.
It was time to feed ourselves! We went to a barbeque place with excellent food. I tried to find out if anybody in this town had a cable-TV showing premiere league. Tonight (locally) it was time for the big game Man.Utd v. Liverpool. After a talk with the manager of the restaurant I was told that they rent out an executive room for parties and karaoke. This room had a TV with 55 different channels. So my night was saved. I informed Mr. EmEm and his sister that they had two options. To stay and be home late or to leave and pick me/us up later. They stayed and polite informed through SMS their loved one at home that a crazy white man had spoiled the
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Gifts to be handed out to grateful children.. family evening. After some hours waiting with some bowling, we finally could enter the room and prepare for the big game. Beer where ordered along with snacks. The search began to find the right channel. Two handfuls of channels showed sport. One even advertised upcoming premiere league games some days later, but I could not believe that no channel was showing the most important event in the whole world. Dream of my frustration sitting there not knowing anything what was going on at Old Trafford. We zapped for an hour in disbelieve and went home.
I could not get fast enough out of our van and thanked all for the day. Rushed into our house, grabbed my telephone and suffered through the two minutes of upload time to finally reach a page showing the score. 1-2! Could it be true? I updated…..one more minute….1-3! Goal in the 77th minute. I wanted to scream. I waited 8 or 10 minutes feeling like hours, and tried once more to update. 1-4 and the historic result was a fact. I smiled all the way to bed and slept like a lotto winner.
May be I need to be a lotto winner when
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4 sislings in a crowded Muslim area my phone bill turns up next month. But the way I see it; imagine what the cost would have been sitting watching the game live. So crazy or not! The life needs some passion.
Tomorrow is another day. We are invited to join Mr. EmEm to celebrate his daughter as a graduate.
Greetings from Mindanao, 34dgr. 86 % humidity and partly clouded. Good thing that I like sauna……..
Berit & Alf
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