I’m sitting in Krispy Kreme in the Philippines with Dani. Everyone else has gone to see American Sniper. Today is our off day. We all got dressed up to go out so we wouldn’t be the smelly, gross looking Americans when we made our one of two daily stops at the local McDonalds. Literally they know us there. The workers at Starbucks (which is across the street from McDonalds) know me by name. I’m thinking about mailing home a Starbucks mug from each of the countries we go to because I absolutely love coffee and the ones here have Cagayan De Oro on them. I never want to forget the 15 days we spent here. I can’t believe we have made it through week one of work.
Lifting rocks with the boys was so hard but fun this week. The wall is looking so good! I bounced back and forth from helping the boys move rocks to helping the girls paint the container. Between killing spiders and buying fly paper to catch the hundreds, yes hundreds, of flies that like to hang out with us around the container, we are all pretty bugged out. It was nice to get all pretty and leave for the day, although today is the first overcast day out that site that would have been nice to work in.
I’m trying to think of what to write and tell you all. There are little things that come to mind that I think might be interesting but each one would be too small to be a blog post in and of themselves. So here goes a short overview of moments from the week.
This is Mary Ann. She is four and lives on the street. She is missing a toe because of injury or infection most likely. She has some rotted teeth and is very tiny. She scares me to death running out in front of traffic to get across the road but it is every day life for her. She has learned to live on the streets and for her it is normal. Many of the kids have had injuries involving cars, which makes me all the more worried when I see one of them dart out in the road. But Mary Ann also has an adorable smile and sweet, sweet hugs. She loves it when Jess chases her around the square. She also likes to be held by me, Dani and Kelsey. She has an adorable laugh and it hurts every time we leave during the week and I have to let her go back to life on the street. Her mother is always around but doesn’t do much. I’m going to miss Mary Ann so much.
Thursday night on our drive back we saw an accident. It had happened five minutes before if even that. It was the first time I’ve ever seen someone dead that wasn’t in a casket at a funeral hall. It was messy and sickening and sad. But also surreal. I see scenes like that so much on TV shows that it was hard to believe it actually was real. That this man had died there in a motorcycle accident with his bike 75 feet in front of where his body lay twisted and mangled in a pool of blood. It was sobering to our whole group. I pray that we don’t see too much more death on the race but I know that we probably will.
While at Street Light, I saw one girl pick lice out of her sisters hair because she’s a good big sister. It made me sick to watch though; praying that’s one thing I can avoid if at all possible on the race. I’ve seen boys love playing basketball with the tall Americans. I’ve almost seen one boy stab another with a broken bottle because they were teasing him mercilessly. I’ve overheard a girl talking to Kelsey how shocked she was that Americans could be bullied – cause here white people are viewed in high respect, some even think we are God. I’ve started getting a little tired of everyone staring whenever we walk into a building. It would be nice to blend in but it is fun to wave to little children who stare and have them wave back. I’ve grown more with my team and learned how to talk out miscommunications which is huge for me. I hiss at chickens that like to hang out between Dani and my tent at 5am EVERY morning. I am the only girl who will kill spiders and last night I killed one of the big ones in the “bathroom” for Lydia. I went to Ate Evangeline’s store and asked for a water bottle, and she handed me a liter coke bottle, which I gladly accepted and paid for. The language barrier is still somewhat frustrating for us both but we are working at it. Kelsey is definitely the best at pressing forward in that. We are slowly but surely learning Bisaya phrases. Salamat means thank you. Mahal Kita is I love you. (Peevee will have to help me with spelling later)
As I sit here people watching at the mall, I am shocked how we are just 15 minutes from the village and yet the people here all look well fed, well dressed, and well educated but our village has people who have worn the same clothes more times than you can count, children who are all very thin, and who have some basic education at best. So close in proximity but still worlds apart. I hope that I never go back to living in the bubble of wealth, health, and comfort that I did live in. I pray that the faces I have seen change me forever and that I always look for that Ata Evangelines and the Mary Anns of the world.
