DAY 11

We got up late 8:30 to bag up our dirty clothes and give them to a local lady to wash them for a small fee. We went for a late breakfast in Starbucks, expensive for here but still quite cheap. Ate a bagel with egg and bacon and then a chocolate dipped doughnut with a chocolate frappuccino. Very tasty however no wifi, still waiting 4 days now :( got in a prebooked jeepney and traveled to an orphanage run by some nuns from Italy. A very nice centre. They presented some songs and dances for us and we retaliated with yet another rendition of London's burning and the hokey-cokey. As usual they went down a treat, after we played volley ball and skipping we facilitated face painting and some other games. Left by jeepney and returning to Fr James' house for Mass. After Mass fitted in two games of volleyball between the group it ended as a draw as the light quality had deteriorated to pitch darkness. The evening finished with a dinner cooked by Fr James which was pasta and sauce and the jelly and coconut. It was very tasty. After we had adoration in the air conditioned chapel. It was a great end to the day. It was soo hot in the evening, sitting here writing the blog entry there is sweat running off my face onto the keyboard. It's been unbelievably hot. Incidentally today was declared a national holiday by the new president of the Philippines. Watching the party on the telly right now at 11:05 seeing fireworks on screen and then hearing them live quite odd!

Day 10

Got up, was late for classes as got hit by diarrhoea from the food poisoning later than the others. Helped to paint the mural only trusted with the blue paint, so I got loads of bottles out of the recycling and cut them up using a knife to make small paint pots. Still have all fingers intact. Sat in on a cookery class in home economics, they had a very cool mirror which allowed everyone in the class (about 10) to see the cooking surfaces. In the afternoon we took part in a mini Olympics at the deaf school. This involved lots of games including dodge ball. The major game was a mini assault course which consisted of walking a plank, dropping straws into a line of bottles and then under a web of wires, however before returning we had to eat a boiled egg :( mental!. Went for a Tagalog Mass in the slums. This was really bizarre as we sat between a shop and an internet cafe in a lean-to. I met the woman who owned all three properties she was quite cool and took great pride in telling me about her 6 grandchildren who went to school. Walked back in the dark and then took tricycles back through the streets it was really cool.

Eastwood Mall

Photo of dinner with alumni from SAID in Jack's loft in Eastwood Mall.

DAY 9

Deaf school. Started with sign language class and then went with Issy to a science class. The class was on science and your profession. This was given in the form of a catwalk and a short presentation. We were then dressed up as an engineer and a chemist respectively. The students dressed us in newspaper and pens. This was good fun. We started to paint a mural on one of the walls of the school buildings. It is a street scene, it looks pretty cool. Photo to follow when it is finished. I sat in on a home economics class, this was OK met a guy called Christopher. The activity was making friendship bracelets. We had another sign language class in the afternoon. In the evening we went to Eastwood Mall for dinner. It was uber posh, had a good evening ate in Jacks Loft, although mess up with bills was slightly frustrating. Very tired after signing all day. People still feeling ill from the vomitastic day yesterday.

Church at Ateneo Campus

Day 8

Welcome to this guest edition by Issy. Today we woke up for morning prayer and discovered that the boys had been struck down by acute D & V. We rode the LRT to the Verbum Dei sisters' mission in central Manila, located near the Caritas compound. The boys managed to get there by taxi. Once we arrived we had a quick welcome before celebrating mass. Following an awesome buffet lunch we had a fiesta, with demonstrations of Philippino dancing and singing with us performing our now famous rendition of London's Burning and the Portuguese dance. We got to have an look around the sister's house, which had a beautiful garden with forget-me-nots and other species I've forgotten. The chapel, picture attached with this blog, had a simplistic beauty and was a nice place for a quick prayer. The welcome we received was so warm it felt like being part of a huge extended family and really reflected the global nature of our faith.
Taxi ride back to Quezon City showed us the outlying areas of Manila, and after a forage for food involving a rather tricky conversation with Pizza Hut we managed to eat Pizza whilst watching BLIND a film about a deaf/blind girl, and the teacher who opened up her world. This was great training and informative before our first full day at the deaf school. Most people collapsed exhausted in bed.

Day 7

Day7. Got up and went to the Sacred Heart chapel in the side of the main university campus church (which is huge). We popped to the golden arches and I had a big Mac for breakfast. After this we packed and left for Manila on the LRT which is an above ground rail network. The stench in the city was awful, so fashioned a respirator out of my bandanna. We walked to some of the city memorials about the revolution in the 80's which was quite interesting. After this we had lunch all together. It was local food but I got a fish which hadn't been gutted and then had some peanut and oxtail soup. We then went to the sea front which smelt awful. The beach was made of rubbish and there was rubbish floating in the sea. It was unbelievable. We then went to Mass at B""". this was great and was a televised Mass however it was in Tagalog so we didn't understand much of the homily.... Apart from the bit about spiritual and physiological suffering (as these were English phrases). After we came back to the accommodation at the university, again using the LRT. On the way from the train station I hit my head on a concrete block, this hurt a lot. However I didn't suffer any lasting pain :P I got dinner with Davide, Chantelle, Vicky and Dom at the golden arches, top quality service and then we went to the pancake house for desert and then back to the accommodation where we immersed ourselves fully with the local custom by chatting with some of the other students staying in our halls.

Zoom Volcano

Volcano

View of the volcano in Lake Taal. We had originally planned to climb the volcano however it was due to erupt and there was a lot of toxic sulphur dioxide leaking out of the top. So instead we climbed up to see it from the ridge.

Mushrooms

Visit to Mushroom Burger Mushroom Farm. 18 Damp houses of Mushrooms. They even sold Mushroom and spider burgers!! mental!

Mobile Broadband

Connecting to Mobile Broadband with the help of Davide's phone! (:P lol)

Girls Dorms

The Last Breakfeast in Tagatay (right)

Tagatay

The house where we stayed in Tagatay

Day 5

Got up early and packed. Then got to the chapel at 7:00 and prayed/slept for 1 hour. Read the first reading at Mass and then moved bags over to vans for the journey to Manila. After saying goodbye to the nuns in Tagatay we spent 2 hours on the road to Manila, this time I sat in the air-con car! Fantastic. We arrived at the Jesuit University of BLAH. And then went to the library to use the Internet. Picked up copy of student newspaper.

We rode tricycles to Fr James' House and then had a brief orientation about Verbum Dei work in Manila. The tricycles were amazing and after equipping myself with a bandanna I also had a respirator, which was essential when riding as a second passenger on the bike. We then waked around the slums and met some of the people in the community. The kids were fantastic. Bandanna in its own preventing ear sunburn. We walked right up on to the ridge and looked out across the whole of Manila the view was breath taking. We saw where the river flooded in 2009 drowning lots of people, (later on we too were to be drowned but to a lesser extent). We caught tricycles back to Fr James' House where we played volleyball with the Missionaries. It was excellent.

For dinner went to Pizza Hut by tricycle again. This was very cheap only costing 25 pesos in total. The food was good and some very cheap. In particular San Miguel was 85 pesos. I had a regular Hawaiian Supreme with cheesy pops.

When we left Pizza Hut it was raining about a 2 out of 7 scale according to Fr James. Bandanna was used as a hood. We walked back to The Institute of Social Order at the university. Where, after having a shower, a brief sharing session and writing the blog I fell asleep. Its mentally humid.

Day 4

Went to visit the PHVOLCS DOST, seismology center to find out why we could not climb up the volcano as it was active. Very interesting. All computer based imported from Japan. Nowhere to train in seismology in the Philippines so civil engineers and geologist go to Japan to receive further training. Walked back after taking yet more pictures of the volcano from the ridge. popped in to look round the mushroom growing rooms in mush burger, there were 18 in all and they harvest 150kg of mushrooms a day. It was grown in cylinders of sawdust suspended on a wire frame. We had lunch then a rest, connected to the Internet using Davide's phone 30 mins for 10 pesos then uploaded the blog. We prepared for a children's party in the afternoon. We had games and face painting, skipping races of various descriptions and then sweets to finish the evening at sunset some local Philippine girls performed a dance with candles for us it was nice. The kids left and then we had dinner and mushroom burgers from the mushroom burger shop. After we had a time for refection in groups. This was very long but worthwhile. Isaac broke is alarm clock by dropping it on the floor, he then proceeded to fix it quite impressively but still managed to drop it on the floor for a second time. Now time for bed after discovering the sound proofing of the walls to our room is non existent

Day 6

Got up early and walked across the Campus to the Deaf school. Its called SAID South-eastern Asia Institute for the Deaf. We had a tour around Miriam college where the students from SAID are integrated a a suitable time. The College is a private school and the facilities were very impressive. This was a very stark contrast to the deaf school. After our tour we had lunch with the staff who were very friendly and then went to meet the kids. After a brief introduction it was time to leave. Some of us went for a walk up and down the road outside the campus to the supermarket. I bought some razors and a pair of flip-flops. Then ate a McFlurry, it was tasty. We walk to the university library but theInternett was even slower than divides phone :(. at 4pm practice for the fiesta in the evening. Caught a tricycle to Fr Jame's house for Mass at 5pm. this was very cool as Verbum Dei Missionaries from all over the Philippines came. After Mass it was raining stair rods. The roads had flooded bringing with it all the bad water from the non existent drainage system. We ran in the rain to the parish centre only about 300 yards. But we were soaked. This didn't matter as there was so much food and games that we were soon dry. The sit down buffet was amazing and included sword fish. The fiesta was great. We did a few acts including a round of London's Burning which was surprising tuneful, for an encore we included actions! The evening ended and we walked back to our accommodation in rain which had now become a drissel.

View of the Volcanoe over the Lake

Verbum Dei Chapel

Day 3

Woke up legs hurt a Little bit but not too bad. had a breakfast and the went on a short walk to meet a lady who made candles for a living. It involved tieing up some string with loops at the end and then hanging them from a metal frame. when the frame was complete it was lowered into the vat of molten wax. this was repeated several time until the candle was thick enough it was then quenched in water. The candles were then cut to size and stored. whilst helping to made the candles, some children came to the window of the school which overlooked the small group of shacks where we were working. We then had a conversation which involved shouting across the land very loudly. after purchasing some of the candles we walk back to the center in Tagatay. we then met the others who had gone to make some items out of bamboo, this sounded much harder than our task. after lunch there was time for a short rest then we went in a jepeny to a slum where we were met by a small party. this slowly grew and grew as the children came home from school. Sheena gave medical advice to the mothers, whilst Davide and Issac were instrumental in organising games. Skipping and duck duck goose were a favourites with the younger ones, whilst the adolescence favoured Frisbee. we left and came back for dinner and Mass. Legs felt alot better after exercises. Although fell over playing duck duck goose and severely grazed and cut my leg. It was very painful and difficult to clean. however now feel OK, legs slightly stings but very little ache.

Day 2

Woke up felt good. had breakfast, jam and toast, toast and cheese, milkshake. Caught bus to ridge of Tagatay. climbed down to workers food picking level in the valley with the lake and volcano, then climbed back up. Veins stuck out of my leg, it hurt. Isaac cut his head open on some barbed wire. It was fixed by Fr James. Caught jeepney back to retreat centre. Had an orientation session with Fr James. Rested on bed after dinner legs felt much better for the rest of the day due to cooler weather. Had orientation for dinner visit with Sr Ammee. Then walk round some of the squats and met the children. Played games with the wonderful back drop of the volcano behind us. Then went to Friends Family's of Verbum Dei and had dinner. I travelled with Amy and Dan. The food was rice based but we had 3 different sorts of chicken, roasted /grilled/fried. It was fab. We also had some rice noodles. Spoke to 2 daughters & to sons, father farmer, mother and grandmother present. Gave pack of shortbread biscuits, gratefully received by father. Walked back by parents and daughter (2nd year studying business management). Had Mass with Fr James. legs a bit more tired. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Day 1

Arrived after 3 flights totalling 18 hours of air time and 25 hours of travel time. Arriving in Manila we met Fr James and Dan and Sheena. Piled all the baggage into a small Isuzu truck and then drove for 1 and half hours to the town of Tagatay.

We had chicken and spaghetti and some sort of soup which was very tasty. We then had Mass as a group in the church which was a perfect end to the day. shower then bed. It was very hot during the night but the fan provided was very effective. negligible use for mosquito net.

Last CathSoc Mass of Term

The Last mass of Term was held in the grounds of the wonderful Elmsleigh gardens. At the end of Mass with the sun radiating down and the smell of BBQ drifting across the air, the students were were officially dispatched by the CathSoc to undertake their mission in the Philippines.

London Town

On Sunday, we (those from southampton Chaplaincies) hosted a meeting in Southampton for all the students travelling to the Philippines. It was a great opportunity for everyone to meet each other and discuss the aims and objectives of the trip. The afternoon consisted of prayer, discussions and games.