Day 20, Wednesday 21st June

Wednesday was supposed to be our day off but in our opinion we already spend most of our time here 'having a rest', so after breakfast we went to the office to ask if there were any jobs that they wanted us to do and they gave us some, (well, Sarah had two, and I had four), reports to edit. These reports were either progress or incident reports about the children in the homes that were going to the children's sponsors in England. We had to check that the spellings were right, (so I don't know why they asked me!), and that the sentences made sense, basically making sure that it was good English and that someone in England would be able to understand what they had written!

But before I could get all of mine finished we had to head off out.

Ate Vergie, (one of the social workers based at the homes), took us to visit the home of one of the girls, Remy. Her mother lives in a squatter area some distance from Masinag so we got a crowded train, (like the underground, but above the road), and a jeepney and had to walk a little way before we got there. Remy's mother has learning difficulties and so is deemed unfit to look after children. She has other children but they are cared for by a different organisation. Both the mother and the father would rather that all the children were cared for by a Catholic organisation, but as Remy was refered to CCM she will now stay there. Only Remy's mother was in when we got there and apparently she never goes out but stays in the small dark room all the time. Ate Vergie talked with her for a little while and gave her some bananas as a gift. When we looked around the room, which was pitifully bare, we noticed that there were three cockroaches in one corner (big ones too!), and although I'm sure this is common throughout the community we had not seen anything like that before and it really brought it home what a dirty, disease-ridden area they live in.

Having just seen that we then went and experienced a very different way of living, when we went back to Megamall. This felt a little odd after what we had just seen, but it's shocking how quickly you can forget.

It took us a little longer to find the right place this time as Ate Vergie didn't know what shop we were talking about and then we had some difficulty finding it (the mall really is that big!) But eventually we ended up in the right place and were able to finish shopping for presents.

We had to get an even more crowded train back to Cubao and it was a squezze getting everyone in, dispite being in the compartment reserved for only women, children and the elderly. But we got there and made our way to the church for the prayer meeting.

We were there too early for the meeting and so were able to have a rest in the library before it started.

After the prayer meeting we gave all our bags to Ate Fe, who was going back in the van, whilst we stayed to help with the street outreach. We met some of the street people we had met the last time we did the outreach, but they were in a slightly different place. We also met some new people, one of whom was a nine month old baby (whose name changed each time we asked so I'm not sure about the name!) and her mother. Although a little unsure by the five white faces at first, (the American girls were also with us), she soon gave us a big grin which was lovely to see. We also met one of the girls who is being put through school by CCM and we got shown her lovely yellow uniform. Although I would love to have stayed and helped more there is not much we can do really, as we don't speak Tagalog and they speak very little English, so after a short while we got a jeepney back to Masinag and headed off to bed.