LOVEBIRDS

FIESTA

This is Unisan, Quezon, my parent's hometown and one of the oldest towns in the Philippines. Yesterday was a fiesta, which is like a mega block party, because here they actually like their neighbors. We got invited, almost forced, to eat at several houses, and then asked to drink outside with different friends.

People keep telling me Filipinos are some of the happiest people in the world.

KAPATID

TOTAL

The small city I'm next to is named Lucena. The biggest thing they have at night is Central Park Garden Cafe. As a club, it's known as Total, adopting the name of the gas station next to it. It was fun. They play a lot of Black Eyed Peas here.

MANDATORY

While planning this trip, I found out it takes a lot of money to volunteer. It could cost up to $3000 for a few months stay, plane ticket, lodging, food, and work placement. Luckily, my distant cousin happens to be a social worker, and her husband too. They are letting me tag along.

These humble heroes are my Ate Cecil and Kuya Carlos. They work hard at helping people, but in different ways - Ate Cecil is a manager at Child Fund Philippines, which sponsors poor children so they can go to school. Kuya Carlos is part of an organization that doesn't hand out any money at all. He is piloting a self-help approach, empowering people to take care of their own community development.

In the next few months, hopefully I'll have a better understanding of their work and the situation in the Philippines. I see a lot of things, but I don't really understand what's going on. I just know it can be very difficult for many people living here.

LOL

Family Day for Child Fund. The kids played, the adults listened to a lecture on children's rights, and also played.

HI

There aren't many posts here because many of my experiences have been things I don't feel like sharing with the internet.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Batangas, a place 2 hours away, for my volunteer work. I've received a small introduction to the type of community development taking place there, but I still don't know what to expect. I'll bring my camera.

Take care everyone.

MANILA

Last week I finally spent a few days in Manila, which I don't care much for, as this post shows. I have three pictures - I looked up and thought those buildings looked nice, saw a cool Derrick Rose display at the Adidas store, and we were on a bridge so I took an obligatory photo of the street below.

I do think Manila is an amazing city, I was surprised by much of what I saw, I'm just not interested in the material things it has to offer. It's not why I came to the Philippines.

I'm sure I'll be visiting the big city again, I will try to explore more next time.

FB

LOW TIDE