Clare heads out on 2nd November for four months. If you've missed out on her summer trip, you can read about it here in Part 1 .
-
MORE
Taking in the sights and smells...
One of the most distinctive things about working in the communities is the smells. I remember the very first time walking into the community where I help with the pre-school and thinking ‘O my gosh, this is vile!’. The alley ways in the communities are only maybe 2 or 3 feet wide and the houses are very densely pack... -
MORE
Day to Day in Davao
Now that I’ve been here a while I’m pretty settled. I live with a Filipino family in the GSIS subdivision, to the west of the city. We live on a fairly steep hill in a single storey house, it has three bedrooms, a lounge, a bathroom (here it’s called a C.R - Comfort Room) and a kitchen. In the garden is a small bamboo house where our helpers live. The daughter of the landlady also lives in th... -
MORE
Being a Ninang
Back in December Grace and Kuya Mang asked me if I would be a ninang (godmother) to the newest addition to their family, Josephine Himig. I was really chuffed! Grace has been my best friend here and in her I feel like I found a new soul mate. Grace is Filipina and her husdand, Mang, is from North East India. They joined the team two years ago and Kuya Mang started the project in the community... -
MORE
Better is one day in Your courts...
I think there must be a time on every trip that you just want to go home. For me the homesickness hit bigtime on the flight back from Australia. A timely tax refund meant that I could afford the flights from here (it’s considerably cheaper than flying from the UK!) to Brisbane to see an old friend that I hadn’t seen in ten years. I’m not sure if it was being back in Western society, or if it... -
MORE
Merry Christmas!
It feels really weird spending Christmas in a hot climate, it’s a bit like celebrating Christmas in the middle of your summer holiday. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas as I know it! It’s been a busy time though, there have been lots of parties and I was surprised to find out that the Muslim communities celebrate Christmas as a holiday, but don’t recognize it for being the birth of Chris... -
MORE
7 ways to be sure you're in the Philppines
Jeepneys & a million taxis These are one of my absolute favourite things about the Philippines. Most people don’t own cars so traffic mainly consists of jeepneys and taxis. Taxis come in two varieties: Air-Con and Non-Aircon. The Air-Con taxis are the newer cars, with interiors chilled to near freezing, and... -
MORE
A New Plan...
It’s funny how things turn out. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem to matter what you plan, God has other ideas! There are quite a few things that I’d planned to do on this trip and now I’m here it doesn’t look like they’ll work out and other opportunities pop up instead. The news of my women leaving for Saudi really got me thinking. What if they didn’t have to go? What if there was some way of helpi... -
MORE
Celebrations & Self Sacrifice
Twice a week I teach an English class in the same Muslim community where I teach at the pre-school. There are 9 women who come, including the teacher of the pre-school, and we have the both classes in the main room of her house. We sit round the small plastic pre-school tables on the little pre-school plastic ch... -
MORE
Transformed, inside and out...
This trip I decided to take a step back from the street work as my main focus this time round is to be in the communities. There are quite a few SAW’s (Serve Asia Workers, like me) here at the moment and all of them are involved with SO (Sinilikway Outreach, the street-based part of work here) so there isn’t the need for me to be as involved as I was last time. But I decided to still join SO... -
MORE
Out of the ashes...
So, the community centre in the community that was destroyed by the fire is almost finished and O my gosh, it really took my breath away! The place is HUGE! When I was last here there was a patch of concrete (around 15 feet by 7), surrounded by piles of rubble and sand, a tent type covering and a wobbley bamboo fence hedging us in. Now there is a two story building, with running water, electr...