Street Kids, Prostitutes and Flooding. Oh my!

Week 7
10/04/09 - 10/11/09

Week 7 saw Jessie and I spending our first bit of time apart. The CYF people throughout Luzon went to Manila for some street immersion. We got to follow around a couple NGO's as they did street education with homeless children. It was interesting to see young kids with barely any clothing, barely bathed, yet flocking around the educators to learn their lessons. It was impressive to see these street educators teach valid lessons about life skills, while not being boring or lecture-y. I have a lot of respect for those people after seeing them in action.

CYF Luzon also got to witness two types of prostitution in Manila. One was obvious, one blew my American mind. The obvious one is that there are bars in Manila that you can go to to get GROs (Guest Relations Officers). Quite simply, there are bars with lots of prostitutes in them. You go in, make eye contact, and next thing you know, you are surrounded by 3 attractive women who will flirt with you all night, as long you are buying drinks. You then have various options to pay for sex with them. What made that experience disturbing was all the "white" people in there. There are so many older male foreigners who go into these places and act like they are just the shit. It's creepy and despicable...though I think there is a psychology of pathetic-ness involved in some of the lonely old men who actually feel special in these interactions, but that is a conversation over drinks, not blogs.

All in all, it was a fascinating experience. I was moved by it, but am not good at articulating feelings like that. There are other blogs that can do it better. I will say briefly, though, that it is unreal seeing this young kids on the street, who barely have food, who barely have adequate clothing or shelter...it is unreal seeing them there with big smiles on there faces, helping each other out, always curious about strangers (not just begging)...just so much more positive than their circumstances would indicate. It makes me want to contribute that much more to help meet their basic needs in life.

While all of this was happening, I also had to deal with a scare back at site. The day that I left La Union, the rains from Pepeng were really picking up there. Sadly, Jessie had to stay behind and deal with it. Our town generally doesn't flood with heavy rains, but this time the water started creeping up. In the middle of the night on Thursday, October 8, Jessie woke up during the heaving storming that had gone on since the day before (when I left). The power had already been out all day. The water was starting to rise outside of the house. Jessie went upstairs and woke up our host parents...at which time they proceeded to move everything that was downstairs to the upstairs!

Needless to say, Jessie was a little freaked out. I didn't find out what was going on until Friday morning because the inexpensive Nokia phones that we use here don't give you any warning alarm when your text inbox is full...and mine was full. I felt so terrible (and scared) the next morning because Jessie had been trying to text me throughout the night and I wasn't getting any of them (it eats up too much money to call). Thankfully everything turned out ok in the end. No major damage to our town, though the town just North of us had some mudslides and a few deaths due to the river washing some people away.

That wrapped up week 7 for us...which transitions to week 8 when Jessie and I were reunited at the Supervisor's Conference in Cavite.

More on that to come....