Philippines E-Mails Week 3
HI every one the rain has finally stopped, it is now blazing hot and humid, air conditioning would be handy but we will have to make do with fans. I am impressed with Angela she has been asked to relate her English lessons to the trade class she is teaching this is a sample, today's class was in welding. In Thermite welding, heat is generated by the chemical reaction that results when a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide, known as Thermite is ignited. The aluminum unites with the oxygen and generates heat, releasing liquid steel from the iron. The liquid steel serves as filler metal for the weld. Thermit welding is employed chiefly in welding breaks or seams in heavy iron and steel sections. It is also used in the welding of rail for rail track, I'm sure my son would be impressed not sure if Angela didn’t no what she was talking about but it went down well, tomorrow is a joinery lesson followed by engineering, the internet comes in very handy. We are both settled in now and have an idea what they want us to do Angela has to double up as a mother at the end of each day, just sit and talk with them, so many have no family at all, she has become a real mother hen with a dozen or so boys flocking around every night. The day is very long the boys are up at 6.30am roll call 7am, cleaning the school till 8am then our first class of the day 8pm to till 12am. I have to work during the dinner hour so that they can catch on any study they have missed. We then get a break till five when we start again till 7.30. Dinner is from 7.30pmtill 9pm then we start again at 9pm and work till 10 .30 pm. The idea behind it is with 125 teenage off the streets there is less chance of them getting in trouble if you keep them occupied with sport and education, it does work they are all very keen polite and well mannered and at no time has anyone given us any trouble
Till next time
Leo
Week 5 Cebu Another tropical Cyclone, millions of gallons of rainwater, but no water to wash with. The pump on the well has broken so we have no means of pumping the water up to the third floor, we are, back to carrying buckets up three flights of stairs, but I must admit as soon as one of the boys sees me with a bucket they carry it up for me. The Philippines does have its problems landslides happen every day during the rainy season most not reported. The local press is full of stories of different people trying to over throw the government it got a bit close last week, the local Mayors wife came here to give graduation certificates to our last years pupils.. The following days press was full of stories of that her husband might be arrested for not banning any public protests against the government, Democracy is not like we know it. Our junior football team turned out in their new boots and won, this week we are buying towels and socks for 120 boys the socks and towels are full of holes, unless items are donated there is no money to purchase anything. Brother Bernard (he is the one in the wheel chair for the past 21 years) has very bad bed sores but never complains so this week with your money we are buying him a special mattress which we hope will make his life a little easier. This morning a jeep taxi carrying one of our students to the training centre had a head on collision with another jeep taxi ,quite a number where injured but because they had no money the hospital would not treat them. It took nearly two hours to treat our student.. He was then sent home with bad head injuries, I wouldn't like to spend one hour in a hospital here. I have finally set up a photo web site so with luck you will be able to see a little of our life with the students.
Till next time
Leo
Week 6 Cebu Ron Thanks for the photos of the snow I will show them to our students. We are both enjoying our selves getting lots of laughs every day. The students are great the120 who live with us and the 70 trainees who come in each day to study woodworking, welding, and machining, all come from disadvantaged back grounds. It's incredible to find 20 year olds that have never used a computer and have hardly any education, they are so keen to learn, and not sure how long we can keep it up. The day starts at 5.30pm, we only start at 8pm but all the noise they create we might as well be up and have breakfast Right out side our window we have a building site, at 6pm each morning a one ton concrete mixer starts and it goes on till 10 am, I call it my alarm clock, with no glass in the windows it's deafening. We are now involved with all 190 students, Angela teaching English to the 70 trainees, and helping the 120 borders in the study room with their home work and our last class finishes at 10.30pm. Angela complains that she has drawn the short straw, no air con in her class room and no fan it seats 120 students. I work all day in an air conditioned computer room, but teaching 6 different classes from 8am to 10.30pm and with five different office programs is no joke every day The idea is to keep them occupied and give them no time to get in trouble, not sure why they have applied it to Angela, I think its about stopping Angela smuggling the red wine in and trying to corrupt the brothers. This weekend we are going into the city to find a hotel and escape for one night.
Till next time
Week 8 Cebu Not sure where to start this week so much happens. On Tuesday Liloan High School used our assembly hall for the day, as they don't have a large enough assembly hall. They have over a thousand pupils with 80 to a class and only 10 computers; talking to the teachers they are paid 4$ a day 6 monthly in arrears, even the head mistress said she had to borrow to survive. Every road has pawn shops, some national and some privately owned; the interest rates in many of them are 20% a week. Anyway back to more positive items, This week we are one more stage nearer to getting our farm established the pig sties have been built, the drainage has been dug, the bio gas tanks have been hand dug and lined with concrete and the gas is being piped to our kitchen so from now on we will have a free supply of gas. Over 200 hundred fruit trees have been planted Calamancos, Pomelo, Chico, Camito, Garva, Papayas, and many others I have not heard of. The ducks and hens are laying well and we have over 70 chickens just hatched. We are one step nearer to being self sufficient in food but we will never be self sufficient in Rice we consume too much; they are now digging a fish farm not sure how Angela going to handle another subject.
Week 9a Cebu Every day is full of surprises, All the street children who are sent to Boys Home to live with us and are sent to a local elementary school, before they can go to high school, very close attention is given on how they behave, their ages can be any thing from 8 to 14. The age of a pupil can cause lots of problems if they are bright and finish high school at 15 and have no money to attend further education they have to drop out of the system till they are 18 they can then come back to us for skill training which is part on the job. This government has a law that no one can start work till they are 18, it precludes them from the skill training, the only way around it is to get the boys a scholarship into further education, one the scholarships is a football one, and a lot of the extra effort is spent on football and basket ball to help them get a sports scholarship,if you are short it precludes basket ball 12 of our boys are having their graduation day, as usual Angela and I where asked to go. The commentary's started at 2 o'clock once again we where seated in the sun we didn't think to take a umbrella with us to keep the sun off after I hour I noticed thousand of ant trying to crawl up my legs but had to sit still as we had a important roll to play. They make a big occasion of graduating at elementary and High School level, all the students are dressed in white gowns, with white mortar boards and because most of our boys have no parents the boys asked us to act as their adopted parents so we had to walk up to the stadium with each boy to the rousing sound of Aidas. March of the Hebrew slaves, it must have been played 60 times. Each Don Bosco Boy was announced as a Bosconian (it means he is a pupil off Don Bosco) and they received a huge cheer from the 1500 spectators present,. Past pupils are very proud of being a Bosconian The street boy we told you about who had lived under a stall in the market for seven years received a award for the best behaved pupil. The school is situated in a clearing in the forest the children don't have enough class rooms for all of them so they sit under a large Acacia trees our boys have to take their own stool to school each day other wise they have no where to sit. Once again we where invited to dine with them afterwards but having seen the fish and rice put on the top table five hours previously, we wisely found a excuse to leave as would also have had to walk through the Forest in the dark not that we mind that but the Mosquitoes really bite at night. Ninety of our boys have gone home for three weeks break to either stay with relatives or sponsors, but before they leave the school the boys have. to clean it from top to bottom, one off the tasks is to take all the mattresses out side in the sun and beat it to kill and remove all the bed bugs..
Week 9a Cebu Every day is full of surprises, All the street children who are sent to Boys Home to live with us and are sent to a local elementary school, before they can go to high school, very close attention is given on how they behave, their ages can be any thing from 8 to 14. The age of a pupil can cause lots of problems if they are bright and finish high school at 15 and have no money to attend further education they have to drop out of the system till they are 18 they can then come back to us for skill training which is part on the job. This government has a law that no one can start work till they are 18, it precludes them from the skill training, the only way around it is to get the boys a scholarship into further education, one the scholarships is a football one, and a lot of the extra effort is spent on football and basket ball to help them get a sports scholarship,if you are short it precludes basket ball 12 of our boys are having their graduation day, as usual Angela and I where asked to go. The commentary's started at 2 o'clock once again we where seated in the sun we didn't think to take a umbrella with us to keep the sun off after I hour I noticed thousand of ant trying to crawl up my legs but had to sit still as we had a important roll to play. They make a big occasion of graduating at elementary and High School level, all the students are dressed in white gowns, with white mortar boards and because most of our boys have no parents the boys asked us to act as their adopted parents so we had to walk up to the stadium with each boy to the rousing sound of Aidas. March of the Hebrew slaves, it must have been played 60 times. Each Don Bosco Boy was announced as a Bosconian (it means he is a pupil off Don Bosco) and they received a huge cheer from the 1500 spectators present,. Past pupils are very proud of being a Bosconian The street boy we told you about who had lived under a stall in the market for seven years received a award for the best behaved pupil. The school is situated in a clearing in the forest the children don't have enough class rooms for all of them so they sit under a large Acacia trees our boys have to take their own stool to school each day other wise they have no where to sit. Once again we where invited to dine with them afterwards but having seen the fish and rice put on the top table five hours previously, we wisely found a excuse to leave as would also have had to walk through the Forest in the dark not that we mind that but the Mosquitoes really bite at night. Ninety of our boys have gone home for three weeks break to either stay with relatives or sponsors, but before they leave the school the boys have. to clean it from top to bottom, one off the tasks is to take all the mattresses out side in the sun and beat it to kill and remove all the bed bugs..
.
Week 10 Cebu. This week I have been working with Eric, a Salesian brother from Pakistan. It has been a fascinating time listening to the life of a catholic in Pakistan; it is the same province as the Philippines. For part of his training to be a priest he has to come here to study philosophy, he hopes to be the first Pakistan Don Bosco Priest in his home country. There are about eight hundred thousand Catholics in Pakistan, mainly centred in the south of the country. Most leaders of the country have been educated by the Catholic Church and it is the reason why the government, to a large extent, protects them, it is mainly the uneducated Muslims from the north near the Afghanistan border who cause problems, especially when they read news paper reports about Mohammad in the Dutch news papers. They consider all westerners Christians so we all get tarred with the same brush, a number of Christian churches got burned down because of it. Don Bosco are setting up a number of schools in Pakistan, where ever they set them up there is a great demand for them. The Don Bosco brothers and priests are admired for the work they do in training young men for a job, the family culture is the same as here, and it is very important to get the eldest son a job so he can support the rest of the family and then help to educate other members of the family. Eric tells me lots of amusing stories of customs with the various branches of the Muslim faith, one sect near is home has a graveyard named heaven and hell. The heaven has got grass trees paths and lights around the graves, Hell has just bare earth, the elder of the village decides where you will be buried, if you have not helped other people and not generally been a good person you get buried in hell,. You need to keep well in with head man if you want to go to heaven. The other story is about queuing, at all government offices there are long queues, they have people who make their living by queuing, when you join the end of the queue some one from the front will approach you asking for money if you want to go to the front. Back to Angela's fish, we are now being served with dried fish, you can have it any flavour, coated in sugar or honey, salted, pork flavoured, this morning it was bacon flavoured; the shops here have over fifty different kinds of dried fish. The only reason we know it was bacon flavour was down to Zoe plucking up the courage to try a tiny bit. Zoe and Nicole, two of our Granddaughters, have come out for three weeks to help with many of the jobs around the home, and also try many of the 'wonderful' foods. One other prised delicacy is an egg with a partially germinated foetus, you can choose 16 day, 18 day or 21 day, the 21 day foetus has a beak; they suck the liquid out then swallow the contents. Hope you enjoy your breakfast; It's great for loosing weight here. Till next time Leo
Week 12 Cebu The Fiesta season started with a bang, at 5am this morning we were woken here in the forest with the sound of drums fireworks and bugles, the custom is to wake everyone up early to start cooking for the celebrations, it is similar to hogmanay where you go into as many houses as you can to eat and drink, the food offered,. The meat is usually fresh pig done in about five different ways, the pig meat is usually 80% fat considered a great delicacy, one of ways is to is chop the pig up into 1in squares and preserve it in solidified fat. Most people here do not set a knife at the table so you have to eat it by hand, or use your spoon and fork, you eat the pig by tearing the meat off by hand or using your fork.. We will try to avoid invitations to the Hogmanay fiesta. Last night we were invited to join a friend of ours from England who has been working here for the last twelve months teaching maths in a Don Bosco school in Pasile this is the poorest area in Cebu, a warren of shanty houses and narrow streets, Most of the fish eaten in Cebu is landed in Pasile, the area becomes alive at six in the evening and goes on till six in the morning, the street become impossible to drive along at night, in fact we have difficulty getting a taxi to take us to this area, as it is a totally no go area for the police. Don Boso where asked to go into Pacile to set up a high school and skills training centre, teaching all the usual subjects plus welding, carpentry, machine shops, dress making and basket weaving, giving the local people skills that will bring currency into the area many of the jobs are found in other countries over 4 million Philippines work over seas. The local gangsters and drug dealers have been asked to get involved in the running of the school. the crime rate has dropped and it is now giving the people hope of a better future. I must admit that I am glad they didn't send us to Pacile as the environment is depressing Last week our school went on summer camp to the south of the Island staying in a school near the beach 120 boys had sleep outside on the beach all week everybody else slept on the school room floors, one of the highlights of the week was walking up to a waterfall in the forest and swimming in a large pool at the base of a 200foot waterfall, our health and safety people would have had a nightmare. A large bamboo raft with children eight years upwards holding fifteen to twenty people was pulled across the pool, To one side of the pool was a large thirty foot limestone overhang giving about twelve inches clearance of the 20 foot square raft was d under the overhang with every body lying flat on the raft, it immerged from under the overhang behind the waterfall as we went through the water fall it knocked people of the raft and really pummelled you as we went through the children just loved ever minute.
Week 13 Cebu
Another interesting week, we are in the middle of the Typhoon season and for the past two days it has rained non stop but life goes on. Angela was invited to go and judge a Miss Cebu contest last night, she got dressed up put on her high heels thinking it would be a glamorous do held in a hall, we should have realised that they don't have halls here. every thing is open air They informed us that we would be picked up at 8 o'clock, at 9 thirty the pickup arrived with twenty children in the back, we then drive, down a dirt track road through the forest which eventually petered out, We all got out of the pickup in the pitch dark and proceeded to go down a very muddy steep slope through the forest trying to avoid thousands of frogs with only Angela's torch to guide us. After about fifteen minuets we a arrived at a clearing where a stage had been set up with a generator providing the lights at the same time attracting all the flies from miles around I don't think I have ever seen so many flies the air was black, my first thought I haven't any mosquito protection .on .but I was quickly assured that this type didn't- bite The show began at 1 0.30 with about seven hundred villagers watching after10miniutes the heavens opened Angela hair do lasted another two minuets. Evidently this is the main show of the year, so they quickly set up a awning for the contestants to parade under, and then the show went on, I don't think any one left because of the rain they were determined to see it through. We eventually finished at two thirty in the morning, and were asked to go back to the feast the following day. We politely declined. .Evidently the fiesta was held to celebrate the feast of St Vincent the patron saint of their village. Every village has their own saint so there is a fiesta celebrated somewhere every week!!! Angela has gone into hiding. Even at to nights dinner here in Don Bosco Angela was stirring the soup to see what was in it, out popped three hens heads, on stirring the other bowl about ten fish heads swirled around, at least we have now trained the cook to make us chips. Till next time.
Leo
Philippines E-Mails Week 3
HI every one the rain has finally stopped, it is now blazing hot and humid, air conditioning would be handy but we will have to make do with fans. I am impressed with Angela she has been asked to relate her English lessons to the trade class she is teaching this is a sample, today's class was in welding. In Thermite welding, heat is generated by the chemical reaction that results when a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide, known as Thermite is ignited. The aluminum unites with the oxygen and generates heat, releasing liquid steel from the iron. The liquid steel serves as filler metal for the weld. Thermit welding is employed chiefly in welding breaks or seams in heavy iron and steel sections. It is also used in the welding of rail for rail track, I'm sure my son would be impressed not sure if Angela didn’t no what she was talking about but it went down well, tomorrow is a joinery lesson followed by engineering, the internet comes in very handy. We are both settled in now and have an idea what they want us to do Angela has to double up as a mother at the end of each day, just sit and talk with them, so many have no family at all, she has become a real mother hen with a dozen or so boys flocking around every night. The day is very long the boys are up at 6.30am roll call 7am, cleaning the school till 8am then our first class of the day 8pm to till 12am. I have to work during the dinner hour so that they can catch on any study they have missed. We then get a break till five when we start again till 7.30. Dinner is from 7.30pmtill 9pm then we start again at 9pm and work till 10 .30 pm. The idea behind it is with 125 teenage off the streets there is less chance of them getting in trouble if you keep them occupied with sport and education, it does work they are all very keen polite and well mannered and at no time has anyone given us any trouble
Till next time
Leo
Week 5 Cebu Another tropical Cyclone, millions of gallons of rainwater, but no water to wash with. The pump on the well has broken so we have no means of pumping the water up to the third floor, we are, back to carrying buckets up three flights of stairs, but I must admit as soon as one of the boys sees me with a bucket they carry it up for me. The Philippines does have its problems landslides happen every day during the rainy season most not reported. The local press is full of stories of different people trying to over throw the government it got a bit close last week, the local Mayors wife came here to give graduation certificates to our last years pupils.. The following days press was full of stories of that her husband might be arrested for not banning any public protests against the government, Democracy is not like we know it. Our junior football team turned out in their new boots and won, this week we are buying towels and socks for 120 boys the socks and towels are full of holes, unless items are donated there is no money to purchase anything. Brother Bernard (he is the one in the wheel chair for the past 21 years) has very bad bed sores but never complains so this week with your money we are buying him a special mattress which we hope will make his life a little easier. This morning a jeep taxi carrying one of our students to the training centre had a head on collision with another jeep taxi ,quite a number where injured but because they had no money the hospital would not treat them. It took nearly two hours to treat our student.. He was then sent home with bad head injuries, I wouldn't like to spend one hour in a hospital here. I have finally set up a photo web site so with luck you will be able to see a little of our life with the students.
Till next time
Leo
Week 6 Cebu Ron Thanks for the photos of the snow I will show them to our students. We are both enjoying our selves getting lots of laughs every day. The students are great the120 who live with us and the 70 trainees who come in each day to study woodworking, welding, and machining, all come from disadvantaged back grounds. It's incredible to find 20 year olds that have never used a computer and have hardly any education, they are so keen to learn, and not sure how long we can keep it up. The day starts at 5.30pm, we only start at 8pm but all the noise they create we might as well be up and have breakfast Right out side our window we have a building site, at 6pm each morning a one ton concrete mixer starts and it goes on till 10 am, I call it my alarm clock, with no glass in the windows it's deafening. We are now involved with all 190 students, Angela teaching English to the 70 trainees, and helping the 120 borders in the study room with their home work and our last class finishes at 10.30pm. Angela complains that she has drawn the short straw, no air con in her class room and no fan it seats 120 students. I work all day in an air conditioned computer room, but teaching 6 different classes from 8am to 10.30pm and with five different office programs is no joke every day The idea is to keep them occupied and give them no time to get in trouble, not sure why they have applied it to Angela, I think its about stopping Angela smuggling the red wine in and trying to corrupt the brothers. This weekend we are going into the city to find a hotel and escape for one night.
Till next time
Week 8 Cebu Not sure where to start this week so much happens. On Tuesday Liloan High School used our assembly hall for the day, as they don't have a large enough assembly hall. They have over a thousand pupils with 80 to a class and only 10 computers; talking to the teachers they are paid 4$ a day 6 monthly in arrears, even the head mistress said she had to borrow to survive. Every road has pawn shops, some national and some privately owned; the interest rates in many of them are 20% a week. Anyway back to more positive items, This week we are one more stage nearer to getting our farm established the pig sties have been built, the drainage has been dug, the bio gas tanks have been hand dug and lined with concrete and the gas is being piped to our kitchen so from now on we will have a free supply of gas. Over 200 hundred fruit trees have been planted Calamancos, Pomelo, Chico, Camito, Garva, Papayas, and many others I have not heard of. The ducks and hens are laying well and we have over 70 chickens just hatched. We are one step nearer to being self sufficient in food but we will never be self sufficient in Rice we consume too much; they are now digging a fish farm not sure how Angela going to handle another subject.
Week 9a Cebu Every day is full of surprises, All the street children who are sent to Boys Home to live with us and are sent to a local elementary school, before they can go to high school, very close attention is given on how they behave, their ages can be any thing from 8 to 14. The age of a pupil can cause lots of problems if they are bright and finish high school at 15 and have no money to attend further education they have to drop out of the system till they are 18 they can then come back to us for skill training which is part on the job. This government has a law that no one can start work till they are 18, it precludes them from the skill training, the only way around it is to get the boys a scholarship into further education, one the scholarships is a football one, and a lot of the extra effort is spent on football and basket ball to help them get a sports scholarship,if you are short it precludes basket ball 12 of our boys are having their graduation day, as usual Angela and I where asked to go. The commentary's started at 2 o'clock once again we where seated in the sun we didn't think to take a umbrella with us to keep the sun off after I hour I noticed thousand of ant trying to crawl up my legs but had to sit still as we had a important roll to play. They make a big occasion of graduating at elementary and High School level, all the students are dressed in white gowns, with white mortar boards and because most of our boys have no parents the boys asked us to act as their adopted parents so we had to walk up to the stadium with each boy to the rousing sound of Aidas. March of the Hebrew slaves, it must have been played 60 times. Each Don Bosco Boy was announced as a Bosconian (it means he is a pupil off Don Bosco) and they received a huge cheer from the 1500 spectators present,. Past pupils are very proud of being a Bosconian The street boy we told you about who had lived under a stall in the market for seven years received a award for the best behaved pupil. The school is situated in a clearing in the forest the children don't have enough class rooms for all of them so they sit under a large Acacia trees our boys have to take their own stool to school each day other wise they have no where to sit. Once again we where invited to dine with them afterwards but having seen the fish and rice put on the top table five hours previously, we wisely found a excuse to leave as would also have had to walk through the Forest in the dark not that we mind that but the Mosquitoes really bite at night. Ninety of our boys have gone home for three weeks break to either stay with relatives or sponsors, but before they leave the school the boys have. to clean it from top to bottom, one off the tasks is to take all the mattresses out side in the sun and beat it to kill and remove all the bed bugs..
Week 9a Cebu Every day is full of surprises, All the street children who are sent to Boys Home to live with us and are sent to a local elementary school, before they can go to high school, very close attention is given on how they behave, their ages can be any thing from 8 to 14. The age of a pupil can cause lots of problems if they are bright and finish high school at 15 and have no money to attend further education they have to drop out of the system till they are 18 they can then come back to us for skill training which is part on the job. This government has a law that no one can start work till they are 18, it precludes them from the skill training, the only way around it is to get the boys a scholarship into further education, one the scholarships is a football one, and a lot of the extra effort is spent on football and basket ball to help them get a sports scholarship,if you are short it precludes basket ball 12 of our boys are having their graduation day, as usual Angela and I where asked to go. The commentary's started at 2 o'clock once again we where seated in the sun we didn't think to take a umbrella with us to keep the sun off after I hour I noticed thousand of ant trying to crawl up my legs but had to sit still as we had a important roll to play. They make a big occasion of graduating at elementary and High School level, all the students are dressed in white gowns, with white mortar boards and because most of our boys have no parents the boys asked us to act as their adopted parents so we had to walk up to the stadium with each boy to the rousing sound of Aidas. March of the Hebrew slaves, it must have been played 60 times. Each Don Bosco Boy was announced as a Bosconian (it means he is a pupil off Don Bosco) and they received a huge cheer from the 1500 spectators present,. Past pupils are very proud of being a Bosconian The street boy we told you about who had lived under a stall in the market for seven years received a award for the best behaved pupil. The school is situated in a clearing in the forest the children don't have enough class rooms for all of them so they sit under a large Acacia trees our boys have to take their own stool to school each day other wise they have no where to sit. Once again we where invited to dine with them afterwards but having seen the fish and rice put on the top table five hours previously, we wisely found a excuse to leave as would also have had to walk through the Forest in the dark not that we mind that but the Mosquitoes really bite at night. Ninety of our boys have gone home for three weeks break to either stay with relatives or sponsors, but before they leave the school the boys have. to clean it from top to bottom, one off the tasks is to take all the mattresses out side in the sun and beat it to kill and remove all the bed bugs..
.
Week 10 Cebu. This week I have been working with Eric, a Salesian brother from Pakistan. It has been a fascinating time listening to the life of a catholic in Pakistan; it is the same province as the Philippines. For part of his training to be a priest he has to come here to study philosophy, he hopes to be the first Pakistan Don Bosco Priest in his home country. There are about eight hundred thousand Catholics in Pakistan, mainly centred in the south of the country. Most leaders of the country have been educated by the Catholic Church and it is the reason why the government, to a large extent, protects them, it is mainly the uneducated Muslims from the north near the Afghanistan border who cause problems, especially when they read news paper reports about Mohammad in the Dutch news papers. They consider all westerners Christians so we all get tarred with the same brush, a number of Christian churches got burned down because of it. Don Bosco are setting up a number of schools in Pakistan, where ever they set them up there is a great demand for them. The Don Bosco brothers and priests are admired for the work they do in training young men for a job, the family culture is the same as here, and it is very important to get the eldest son a job so he can support the rest of the family and then help to educate other members of the family. Eric tells me lots of amusing stories of customs with the various branches of the Muslim faith, one sect near is home has a graveyard named heaven and hell. The heaven has got grass trees paths and lights around the graves, Hell has just bare earth, the elder of the village decides where you will be buried, if you have not helped other people and not generally been a good person you get buried in hell,. You need to keep well in with head man if you want to go to heaven. The other story is about queuing, at all government offices there are long queues, they have people who make their living by queuing, when you join the end of the queue some one from the front will approach you asking for money if you want to go to the front. Back to Angela's fish, we are now being served with dried fish, you can have it any flavour, coated in sugar or honey, salted, pork flavoured, this morning it was bacon flavoured; the shops here have over fifty different kinds of dried fish. The only reason we know it was bacon flavour was down to Zoe plucking up the courage to try a tiny bit. Zoe and Nicole, two of our Granddaughters, have come out for three weeks to help with many of the jobs around the home, and also try many of the 'wonderful' foods. One other prised delicacy is an egg with a partially germinated foetus, you can choose 16 day, 18 day or 21 day, the 21 day foetus has a beak; they suck the liquid out then swallow the contents. Hope you enjoy your breakfast; It's great for loosing weight here. Till next time Leo
Week 12 Cebu The Fiesta season started with a bang, at 5am this morning we were woken here in the forest with the sound of drums fireworks and bugles, the custom is to wake everyone up early to start cooking for the celebrations, it is similar to hogmanay where you go into as many houses as you can to eat and drink, the food offered,. The meat is usually fresh pig done in about five different ways, the pig meat is usually 80% fat considered a great delicacy, one of ways is to is chop the pig up into 1in squares and preserve it in solidified fat. Most people here do not set a knife at the table so you have to eat it by hand, or use your spoon and fork, you eat the pig by tearing the meat off by hand or using your fork.. We will try to avoid invitations to the Hogmanay fiesta. Last night we were invited to join a friend of ours from England who has been working here for the last twelve months teaching maths in a Don Bosco school in Pasile this is the poorest area in Cebu, a warren of shanty houses and narrow streets, Most of the fish eaten in Cebu is landed in Pasile, the area becomes alive at six in the evening and goes on till six in the morning, the street become impossible to drive along at night, in fact we have difficulty getting a taxi to take us to this area, as it is a totally no go area for the police. Don Boso where asked to go into Pacile to set up a high school and skills training centre, teaching all the usual subjects plus welding, carpentry, machine shops, dress making and basket weaving, giving the local people skills that will bring currency into the area many of the jobs are found in other countries over 4 million Philippines work over seas. The local gangsters and drug dealers have been asked to get involved in the running of the school. the crime rate has dropped and it is now giving the people hope of a better future. I must admit that I am glad they didn't send us to Pacile as the environment is depressing Last week our school went on summer camp to the south of the Island staying in a school near the beach 120 boys had sleep outside on the beach all week everybody else slept on the school room floors, one of the highlights of the week was walking up to a waterfall in the forest and swimming in a large pool at the base of a 200foot waterfall, our health and safety people would have had a nightmare. A large bamboo raft with children eight years upwards holding fifteen to twenty people was pulled across the pool, To one side of the pool was a large thirty foot limestone overhang giving about twelve inches clearance of the 20 foot square raft was d under the overhang with every body lying flat on the raft, it immerged from under the overhang behind the waterfall as we went through the water fall it knocked people of the raft and really pummelled you as we went through the children just loved ever minute.
Week 13 Cebu
Another interesting week, we are in the middle of the Typhoon season and for the past two days it has rained non stop but life goes on. Angela was invited to go and judge a Miss Cebu contest last night, she got dressed up put on her high heels thinking it would be a glamorous do held in a hall, we should have realised that they don't have halls here. every thing is open air They informed us that we would be picked up at 8 o'clock, at 9 thirty the pickup arrived with twenty children in the back, we then drive, down a dirt track road through the forest which eventually petered out, We all got out of the pickup in the pitch dark and proceeded to go down a very muddy steep slope through the forest trying to avoid thousands of frogs with only Angela's torch to guide us. After about fifteen minuets we a arrived at a clearing where a stage had been set up with a generator providing the lights at the same time attracting all the flies from miles around I don't think I have ever seen so many flies the air was black, my first thought I haven't any mosquito protection .on .but I was quickly assured that this type didn't- bite The show began at 1 0.30 with about seven hundred villagers watching after10miniutes the heavens opened Angela hair do lasted another two minuets. Evidently this is the main show of the year, so they quickly set up a awning for the contestants to parade under, and then the show went on, I don't think any one left because of the rain they were determined to see it through. We eventually finished at two thirty in the morning, and were asked to go back to the feast the following day. We politely declined. .Evidently the fiesta was held to celebrate the feast of St Vincent the patron saint of their village. Every village has their own saint so there is a fiesta celebrated somewhere every week!!! Angela has gone into hiding. Even at to nights dinner here in Don Bosco Angela was stirring the soup to see what was in it, out popped three hens heads, on stirring the other bowl about ten fish heads swirled around, at least we have now trained the cook to make us chips. Till next time.
Leo
Philippines E-Mails Week 3
HI every one the rain has finally stopped, it is now blazing hot and humid, air conditioning would be handy but we will have to make do with fans. I am impressed with Angela she has been asked to relate her English lessons to the trade class she is teaching this is a sample, today's class was in welding. In Thermite welding, heat is generated by the chemical reaction that results when a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide, known as Thermite is ignited. The aluminum unites with the oxygen and generates heat, releasing liquid steel from the iron. The liquid steel serves as filler metal for the weld. Thermit welding is employed chiefly in welding breaks or seams in heavy iron and steel sections. It is also used in the welding of rail for rail track, I'm sure my son would be impressed not sure if Angela didn’t no what she was talking about but it went down well, tomorrow is a joinery lesson followed by engineering, the internet comes in very handy. We are both settled in now and have an idea what they want us to do Angela has to double up as a mother at the end of each day, just sit and talk with them, so many have no family at all, she has become a real mother hen with a dozen or so boys flocking around every night. The day is very long the boys are up at 6.30am roll call 7am, cleaning the school till 8am then our first class of the day 8pm to till 12am. I have to work during the dinner hour so that they can catch on any study they have missed. We then get a break till five when we start again till 7.30. Dinner is from 7.30pmtill 9pm then we start again at 9pm and work till 10 .30 pm. The idea behind it is with 125 teenage off the streets there is less chance of them getting in trouble if you keep them occupied with sport and education, it does work they are all very keen polite and well mannered and at no time has anyone given us any trouble
Till next time
Leo
Week 5 Cebu Another tropical Cyclone, millions of gallons of rainwater, but no water to wash with. The pump on the well has broken so we have no means of pumping the water up to the third floor, we are, back to carrying buckets up three flights of stairs, but I must admit as soon as one of the boys sees me with a bucket they carry it up for me. The Philippines does have its problems landslides happen every day during the rainy season most not reported. The local press is full of stories of different people trying to over throw the government it got a bit close last week, the local Mayors wife came here to give graduation certificates to our last years pupils.. The following days press was full of stories of that her husband might be arrested for not banning any public protests against the government, Democracy is not like we know it. Our junior football team turned out in their new boots and won, this week we are buying towels and socks for 120 boys the socks and towels are full of holes, unless items are donated there is no money to purchase anything. Brother Bernard (he is the one in the wheel chair for the past 21 years) has very bad bed sores but never complains so this week with your money we are buying him a special mattress which we hope will make his life a little easier. This morning a jeep taxi carrying one of our students to the training centre had a head on collision with another jeep taxi ,quite a number where injured but because they had no money the hospital would not treat them. It took nearly two hours to treat our student.. He was then sent home with bad head injuries, I wouldn't like to spend one hour in a hospital here. I have finally set up a photo web site so with luck you will be able to see a little of our life with the students.
Till next time
Leo
Week 6 Cebu Ron Thanks for the photos of the snow I will show them to our students. We are both enjoying our selves getting lots of laughs every day. The students are great the120 who live with us and the 70 trainees who come in each day to study woodworking, welding, and machining, all come from disadvantaged back grounds. It's incredible to find 20 year olds that have never used a computer and have hardly any education, they are so keen to learn, and not sure how long we can keep it up. The day starts at 5.30pm, we only start at 8pm but all the noise they create we might as well be up and have breakfast Right out side our window we have a building site, at 6pm each morning a one ton concrete mixer starts and it goes on till 10 am, I call it my alarm clock, with no glass in the windows it's deafening. We are now involved with all 190 students, Angela teaching English to the 70 trainees, and helping the 120 borders in the study room with their home work and our last class finishes at 10.30pm. Angela complains that she has drawn the short straw, no air con in her class room and no fan it seats 120 students. I work all day in an air conditioned computer room, but teaching 6 different classes from 8am to 10.30pm and with five different office programs is no joke every day The idea is to keep them occupied and give them no time to get in trouble, not sure why they have applied it to Angela, I think its about stopping Angela smuggling the red wine in and trying to corrupt the brothers. This weekend we are going into the city to find a hotel and escape for one night.
Till next time
Week 8 Cebu Not sure where to start this week so much happens. On Tuesday Liloan High School used our assembly hall for the day, as they don't have a large enough assembly hall. They have over a thousand pupils with 80 to a class and only 10 computers; talking to the teachers they are paid 4$ a day 6 monthly in arrears, even the head mistress said she had to borrow to survive. Every road has pawn shops, some national and some privately owned; the interest rates in many of them are 20% a week. Anyway back to more positive items, This week we are one more stage nearer to getting our farm established the pig sties have been built, the drainage has been dug, the bio gas tanks have been hand dug and lined with concrete and the gas is being piped to our kitchen so from now on we will have a free supply of gas. Over 200 hundred fruit trees have been planted Calamancos, Pomelo, Chico, Camito, Garva, Papayas, and many others I have not heard of. The ducks and hens are laying well and we have over 70 chickens just hatched. We are one step nearer to being self sufficient in food but we will never be self sufficient in Rice we consume too much; they are now digging a fish farm not sure how Angela going to handle another subject.
Week 9a Cebu Every day is full of surprises, All the street children who are sent to Boys Home to live with us and are sent to a local elementary school, before they can go to high school, very close attention is given on how they behave, their ages can be any thing from 8 to 14. The age of a pupil can cause lots of problems if they are bright and finish high school at 15 and have no money to attend further education they have to drop out of the system till they are 18 they can then come back to us for skill training which is part on the job. This government has a law that no one can start work till they are 18, it precludes them from the skill training, the only way around it is to get the boys a scholarship into further education, one the scholarships is a football one, and a lot of the extra effort is spent on football and basket ball to help them get a sports scholarship,if you are short it precludes basket ball 12 of our boys are having their graduation day, as usual Angela and I where asked to go. The commentary's started at 2 o'clock once again we where seated in the sun we didn't think to take a umbrella with us to keep the sun off after I hour I noticed thousand of ant trying to crawl up my legs but had to sit still as we had a important roll to play. They make a big occasion of graduating at elementary and High School level, all the students are dressed in white gowns, with white mortar boards and because most of our boys have no parents the boys asked us to act as their adopted parents so we had to walk up to the stadium with each boy to the rousing sound of Aidas. March of the Hebrew slaves, it must have been played 60 times. Each Don Bosco Boy was announced as a Bosconian (it means he is a pupil off Don Bosco) and they received a huge cheer from the 1500 spectators present,. Past pupils are very proud of being a Bosconian The street boy we told you about who had lived under a stall in the market for seven years received a award for the best behaved pupil. The school is situated in a clearing in the forest the children don't have enough class rooms for all of them so they sit under a large Acacia trees our boys have to take their own stool to school each day other wise they have no where to sit. Once again we where invited to dine with them afterwards but having seen the fish and rice put on the top table five hours previously, we wisely found a excuse to leave as would also have had to walk through the Forest in the dark not that we mind that but the Mosquitoes really bite at night. Ninety of our boys have gone home for three weeks break to either stay with relatives or sponsors, but before they leave the school the boys have. to clean it from top to bottom, one off the tasks is to take all the mattresses out side in the sun and beat it to kill and remove all the bed bugs..
Week 9a Cebu Every day is full of surprises, All the street children who are sent to Boys Home to live with us and are sent to a local elementary school, before they can go to high school, very close attention is given on how they behave, their ages can be any thing from 8 to 14. The age of a pupil can cause lots of problems if they are bright and finish high school at 15 and have no money to attend further education they have to drop out of the system till they are 18 they can then come back to us for skill training which is part on the job. This government has a law that no one can start work till they are 18, it precludes them from the skill training, the only way around it is to get the boys a scholarship into further education, one the scholarships is a football one, and a lot of the extra effort is spent on football and basket ball to help them get a sports scholarship,if you are short it precludes basket ball 12 of our boys are having their graduation day, as usual Angela and I where asked to go. The commentary's started at 2 o'clock once again we where seated in the sun we didn't think to take a umbrella with us to keep the sun off after I hour I noticed thousand of ant trying to crawl up my legs but had to sit still as we had a important roll to play. They make a big occasion of graduating at elementary and High School level, all the students are dressed in white gowns, with white mortar boards and because most of our boys have no parents the boys asked us to act as their adopted parents so we had to walk up to the stadium with each boy to the rousing sound of Aidas. March of the Hebrew slaves, it must have been played 60 times. Each Don Bosco Boy was announced as a Bosconian (it means he is a pupil off Don Bosco) and they received a huge cheer from the 1500 spectators present,. Past pupils are very proud of being a Bosconian The street boy we told you about who had lived under a stall in the market for seven years received a award for the best behaved pupil. The school is situated in a clearing in the forest the children don't have enough class rooms for all of them so they sit under a large Acacia trees our boys have to take their own stool to school each day other wise they have no where to sit. Once again we where invited to dine with them afterwards but having seen the fish and rice put on the top table five hours previously, we wisely found a excuse to leave as would also have had to walk through the Forest in the dark not that we mind that but the Mosquitoes really bite at night. Ninety of our boys have gone home for three weeks break to either stay with relatives or sponsors, but before they leave the school the boys have. to clean it from top to bottom, one off the tasks is to take all the mattresses out side in the sun and beat it to kill and remove all the bed bugs..
.
Week 10 Cebu. This week I have been working with Eric, a Salesian brother from Pakistan. It has been a fascinating time listening to the life of a catholic in Pakistan; it is the same province as the Philippines. For part of his training to be a priest he has to come here to study philosophy, he hopes to be the first Pakistan Don Bosco Priest in his home country. There are about eight hundred thousand Catholics in Pakistan, mainly centred in the south of the country. Most leaders of the country have been educated by the Catholic Church and it is the reason why the government, to a large extent, protects them, it is mainly the uneducated Muslims from the north near the Afghanistan border who cause problems, especially when they read news paper reports about Mohammad in the Dutch news papers. They consider all westerners Christians so we all get tarred with the same brush, a number of Christian churches got burned down because of it. Don Bosco are setting up a number of schools in Pakistan, where ever they set them up there is a great demand for them. The Don Bosco brothers and priests are admired for the work they do in training young men for a job, the family culture is the same as here, and it is very important to get the eldest son a job so he can support the rest of the family and then help to educate other members of the family. Eric tells me lots of amusing stories of customs with the various branches of the Muslim faith, one sect near is home has a graveyard named heaven and hell. The heaven has got grass trees paths and lights around the graves, Hell has just bare earth, the elder of the village decides where you will be buried, if you have not helped other people and not generally been a good person you get buried in hell,. You need to keep well in with head man if you want to go to heaven. The other story is about queuing, at all government offices there are long queues, they have people who make their living by queuing, when you join the end of the queue some one from the front will approach you asking for money if you want to go to the front. Back to Angela's fish, we are now being served with dried fish, you can have it any flavour, coated in sugar or honey, salted, pork flavoured, this morning it was bacon flavoured; the shops here have over fifty different kinds of dried fish. The only reason we know it was bacon flavour was down to Zoe plucking up the courage to try a tiny bit. Zoe and Nicole, two of our Granddaughters, have come out for three weeks to help with many of the jobs around the home, and also try many of the 'wonderful' foods. One other prised delicacy is an egg with a partially germinated foetus, you can choose 16 day, 18 day or 21 day, the 21 day foetus has a beak; they suck the liquid out then swallow the contents. Hope you enjoy your breakfast; It's great for loosing weight here. Till next time Leo
Week 12 Cebu The Fiesta season started with a bang, at 5am this morning we were woken here in the forest with the sound of drums fireworks and bugles, the custom is to wake everyone up early to start cooking for the celebrations, it is similar to hogmanay where you go into as many houses as you can to eat and drink, the food offered,. The meat is usually fresh pig done in about five different ways, the pig meat is usually 80% fat considered a great delicacy, one of ways is to is chop the pig up into 1in squares and preserve it in solidified fat. Most people here do not set a knife at the table so you have to eat it by hand, or use your spoon and fork, you eat the pig by tearing the meat off by hand or using your fork.. We will try to avoid invitations to the Hogmanay fiesta. Last night we were invited to join a friend of ours from England who has been working here for the last twelve months teaching maths in a Don Bosco school in Pasile this is the poorest area in Cebu, a warren of shanty houses and narrow streets, Most of the fish eaten in Cebu is landed in Pasile, the area becomes alive at six in the evening and goes on till six in the morning, the street become impossible to drive along at night, in fact we have difficulty getting a taxi to take us to this area, as it is a totally no go area for the police. Don Boso where asked to go into Pacile to set up a high school and skills training centre, teaching all the usual subjects plus welding, carpentry, machine shops, dress making and basket weaving, giving the local people skills that will bring currency into the area many of the jobs are found in other countries over 4 million Philippines work over seas. The local gangsters and drug dealers have been asked to get involved in the running of the school. the crime rate has dropped and it is now giving the people hope of a better future. I must admit that I am glad they didn't send us to Pacile as the environment is depressing Last week our school went on summer camp to the south of the Island staying in a school near the beach 120 boys had sleep outside on the beach all week everybody else slept on the school room floors, one of the highlights of the week was walking up to a waterfall in the forest and swimming in a large pool at the base of a 200foot waterfall, our health and safety people would have had a nightmare. A large bamboo raft with children eight years upwards holding fifteen to twenty people was pulled across the pool, To one side of the pool was a large thirty foot limestone overhang giving about twelve inches clearance of the 20 foot square raft was d under the overhang with every body lying flat on the raft, it immerged from under the overhang behind the waterfall as we went through the water fall it knocked people of the raft and really pummelled you as we went through the children just loved ever minute.
Week 13 Cebu
Another interesting week, we are in the middle of the Typhoon season and for the past two days it has rained non stop but life goes on. Angela was invited to go and judge a Miss Cebu contest last night, she got dressed up put on her high heels thinking it would be a glamorous do held in a hall, we should have realised that they don't have halls here. every thing is open air They informed us that we would be picked up at 8 o'clock, at 9 thirty the pickup arrived with twenty children in the back, we then drive, down a dirt track road through the forest which eventually petered out, We all got out of the pickup in the pitch dark and proceeded to go down a very muddy steep slope through the forest trying to avoid thousands of frogs with only Angela's torch to guide us. After about fifteen minuets we a arrived at a clearing where a stage had been set up with a generator providing the lights at the same time attracting all the flies from miles around I don't think I have ever seen so many flies the air was black, my first thought I haven't any mosquito protection .on .but I was quickly assured that this type didn't- bite The show began at 1 0.30 with about seven hundred villagers watching after10miniutes the heavens opened Angela hair do lasted another two minuets. Evidently this is the main show of the year, so they quickly set up a awning for the contestants to parade under, and then the show went on, I don't think any one left because of the rain they were determined to see it through. We eventually finished at two thirty in the morning, and were asked to go back to the feast the following day. We politely declined. .Evidently the fiesta was held to celebrate the feast of St Vincent the patron saint of their village. Every village has their own saint so there is a fiesta celebrated somewhere every week!!! Angela has gone into hiding. Even at to nights dinner here in Don Bosco Angela was stirring the soup to see what was in it, out popped three hens heads, on stirring the other bowl about ten fish heads swirled around, at least we have now trained the cook to make us chips. Till next time.
Leo