Sholing Philippines Project 2010 – 2016

In the words of Adele (who we have been singing along to today) ‘hello from the other siiiide. Busy day today with one group off on the school trip with the littleuns in years 1-3, while the second group stayed in school to make a start on the mural. As it is Chinese New Year, the school was all shut (bar the field trip), so they were able to make lots of progress, and seeing pictures, it is starting to take shape really nicely. School based team consisted of Freeza, Wilko, Jeffers, Gemma, Shakila, Imogen, Priya, Rhiannon, Lucy, Lydia, Robyn, Jess, Alex and ShanPad.

On the trip were the rest of us (25, so I’m not going to name them all). We started off by heading to the mind museum in the mall of Asia (after a minor detour back to the hotel to pick up the forgotten sports kid) which was really interactive. It was great seeing the little 5 and 6 year olds getting so excited in the planetarium and our students were great with them. We then had about an hour and a half in the museum to look around before getting onto the coach and heading to nomads. I got aught my daily Tagalog words by a group of 2nd graders, lalakey meaning boy and baba-ee meaning girl. I also got to use some of the words if picked up earlier in the week asking how much tickets were for the museum and telling the students to wait, turns out yesterday’s takeaway trip provided me with some useful vocabulary.

We traveled the short distance on towards Nomads sports complex and served all of the PCF staff and students with lunch, before splitting them into 6 groups. 4 of the groups would be doing games lead by Mick Mick, Emma and Matt, while a fifth group played in the playground. I had the task of stopping the 6th group from drowning in the swimming pool. What is amazing about the nomads trip is that most of these kids have never played in clean water, or even on grass before, so they are very excited just to play, so much so that one child jumped into the pool fully clothed! The groups would then in theory rotate around every half an hour, along with their TSTC student helpers. This didn’t quite go to plan as at one point all 4 of the field groups charged towards the pool, and we all struggled to keep track of who was meant to be there. At one point Lewis and Ben even started lifting out a child only to discover he wasn’t actually with the PCF school group. None the less the kids (both TStC and PCF) had a great time playing about in the water. I was very impressed with their sense of fun and ability to engage, especially give the limited English of the Filipino students.

We said goodbye at Nomads, and had time for a quick 40 minute swim/obligatory diving competition before heading back for the regular mall/poons/meeting combo for evening entertainment. It’s gunna be a long day tomorrow with a 6am start(!) so I best get to bed and get some sleep. Paalam!

Mr D

Hi All

Just a short blog in order to try to catch up with Daleo in a vain attempt to recapture my blogging crown. Late Sunday night finally got a reasonable internet connection but it may not last. What a great couple of days. Trip over was probably the smoothest of the 5 trips I have been on. Students and staff working together to manage all the baggage on and off coaches, loads of compliments for the students from airline staff and fellow travellers they were exemplary. Imagine yourself finding your seat on a 9 hour plane journey to be amongst 30 teenagers most peoples idea of hell but our team had nothing but praise and rightly so.

Saturday evening meal in the mall I still find it hard to reconcile the opulence of the mall with the poverty that you can find just a few 100 m away. The city does feel better though, fewer beggars, more new build, cleaner streets. The new students I think were a little shell shocked by the sheer size of everything and the non stop pace of the city. They all eat well and retired fairly early.

A luxury of a lie in till about 8-00 and then away to Tondo for our first days work. Yet again I am amazed by the way the Students get stuck in. Old playground damaged bits removed tidied up and holes filled in, over 120 sq m of wall painted in 2 coats of white paint and 300kg bags of donations unpacked and stowed away, all before 3-30.

Chicken and rice for lunch, what else? A great team spirit developing really quickly loads of initiative and support for each other shown and then back on the bus to the hotel. For many their first experience of the legendary Mr Poon Restaurant for our evening meal a most tasty menu chosen by the junior staff and then early to bed.

Strict instructions for tomorrow: – up, showered, breakfasted, bags packed for the day and ready to go by 7-15 tomorrow morning… we will see!! Half the group drawing and painting this enormous mural and the other half taking 2 year groups 120 students on a field trip.. another exciting day ahead.

Good night.

So, first day of work today and what a fantastic amount we managed. Day started with a nice lay in and 2 cups of tea in bed (thanks Freeza) followed by breakfast in the shalom cafe. Straight onto the school and our first view of what will be our working area for most of the first week, and a place some of us know very well from 2 years ago. Our mammoth paint job was still in tact, along with the music room, which has had new flooring put down. The school building itself had been painted purple on the outside (legend has it that caretaker Kone did it singlehandedly in his spare time…). The students who hadn’t been before were given a talk by Wilko and Bez while the rest of us set to work. Our first task was sadly to dismantle part of the playground built 4 years ago (and fixed on the last trip) as it had rotted clean through and was no longer safe to play on. It was sad to take it down after all the hard work that went into putting it up and fixing it, but obviously we didn’t want any of the PCF students getting hurt playing on it either, so it was the right call.

I then went with Kony into town to pick up lunch for everyone and experienced a very different Robinsons mall. The one round the corner from the hotel is huge and palatial, this one was much more modest, in both size and appearance, an indication of the difference in the wealth available in each location. After waiting for jolibees (like Philippino macdonalds) to make us up 4 meals, we then headed back to the school for some lunch. Kony also gave me my daily Tagalog words, today:
sun-da-lay (waiting, as in “we’ve been waiting ages for this Jolibees”)
Ma-caa-no- how much is that?

I came back to find that the rest of the playground that needed removing had been taken out, and the massive wall surrounding it had been painted white. Throughout the week Freeza and a team of students will be painting a mural on it, so it was vital we got the undercoat sorted today.

After lunch, we went down to paradise heights, site of the 2012 playground that Bezza famously ‘lost’ 2 years ago. Needless to say it was still there and in tact, although probably not as used as we might have hoped. The students also had their first real chance to interact with the people of Tondo, who all gave us a very warm welcome.

We managed to get all the walls around the playground washed and painted with 2 coats, special credit to Alex and Hannah who had to squeeze into a tiny gap behind the water tank, and managed to paint the whole section behind it with very little arm room.

Back home for an hour and a few hours of down time before out for our first poons of the week. For those who haven’t heard about Mr Poons before, it is basically a big Chinese/Indian buffet which every time you think you have finished, another plate is brought out. Jess sat with us on the staff table and did a sterling job humouring Bezza by listening to his stories long after the rest of us had switched off! Now just relaxing before bed as it’s an early start tomorrow, with the coach picking us up at 7.15 tomorrow.

Hope everyone’s well at home and not missing us too much!

Mr D

After a well deserved lay in, today was the first chance to go to the PCF school in Tondo. The school stood out from its surroundings with its new purple skin, painted on expertly by Kone. It was nice to see that since my last 2 trips, 2012 and 2014, that the school was moving forward with many new additions over the last 2 years. But as the school changes, so does the rest of Manila. It was sad to see driving down the road the houses had bulged out further into the oncoming traffic. This potentially as a result of the large amounts of people loosing their houses when the rubbish dump was closed last year.

After being welcomed to the school by the Sunday morning church congregation, singing songs several members of the group recognised from British churches, the day of work commenced. My work started with removing the playground at the school that the 2010 project constructed. Most of the timber was rotten through and was unsafe for the children to play on. The school asked us to remove the playground so that they could use the ground space to grow vegetables. The timbers were pulled out of the ground and removed in what felt like a split second compared to the amount of man hours that were needed to erect the construction. A personal highlight of mine was getting the jack hammer stuck in ground (mostly in the timber not in concrete) taking a good 30 minutes of our time to remove. Of course the removal of the hammer was done by Mick as we are all incapable and not as holy as he is.

The second project of the day was to paint the new 7ft5inch wall at the back of the school (double its original height). This was great to see everyone involved in the project, old and young (obviously not Bezza), grab a roller and a brush and start painting. Hopefully we all managed to meet Freezers quality control check, and the wall is now ready for a new mural to be painted on by the more creative members!

A great first day back in Manila!

Matt

Maganda harpon! (Good evening)

We’ve finally made it, after months of planning, fundraising and preparation, 16 hours of flights, and with nearly 60 suitcases in tow, we are here, sat on our beds in the Shalom centre, quite literally half the world away from Sholing. The team all seemed to have a pretty good journey, with everyone getting at least some sleep on the plane and enjoying the various games and films available on the in flight entertainment system (I very much enjoyed the Steve Jobs film and trouncing Matt, Jenson and Jacob repeatedly on the trivia game, not sure they enjoyed it quite so much). Miss Lespierre also enjoyed her journey, being treated to a slice of birthday cake from the cabin crew.

Sailed through immigration with no problems and collected the bags before a short journey to shalom. We then had about an hour to shower and get ready before heading off to the massive Robinsons mall for dinner. Most of the students went to the familiar macdonalds/KFC outlets, while we opted to try ‘the house built by fried chicken’. It was a lot more appealing than it sounds, I promise (and I can confirm, built with bricks and mortar, not poultry!). We had some meat and cabbage soup, chicken and rice (no doubt the first of many) and some pork/liver noodle salad thing, which were all very tasty. Time for a quick evening meeting and then off to bed, ready to start work tomorrow.

Last time I came I tried to throw myself into the Philippine culture by learning as much of the language as possible. I’m gunna try and get a new word/phrase each day while I’m here this time, and will update you all with my progress on here.

Today’s word of the day- ot-ay (meaning a little, as in my response to ‘ah you speak Tagalog?’)

Will update you all tomorrow, with our first days work at the PCF school.

Pahlaam! (Goodbye)

Mr D

… and on the coach from the airport to where we are staying. All are well and taking in the sites, sounds, feel and smell of Manila.

All going well so far… have made it to Abu Dhabi and about to get the next flight to Manila. We’ve all enjoyed Daisy’s Abu Dhabi joke too that inspired the title of this blog. Manila next!

Inverness to John o’Groats- 121 miles

This was the final day of our Cycling Challenge. It started with a standard trip to Mac Donalds for breakfast. We then set off at a blistering pace, completing the first forty seven miles before taking a break. Lunch was taken around eighty two miles, which we bought from a very remote “Spar” with a very unique selection of products.

This set us up for the final push in which we both got our heads down and pushed strong to the finish. A very hilly day in all with some tough climbs but it was all made worthwhile when we arrived in John o’Groats to see Harry’s parents with a large banner.

Thanks to everybody for your support throughout the journey- it has meant so much to Harry and to me. Now if you have not donated yet, if you can spare some money it will be greatly appreciated.

The aim of our Challenge is to make a difference to the lives of some of the most disadvantaged children in the world. We have both been to the Philippines before, and it makes us realise how privileged we are here in the UK. We are looking forward very much to returning to the Philippines as members of the Sholing Philippines Project 2016 and doing our bit for disadvantaged children in Manila and Tacloban.

We can’t change the world, but we can change someone’s world.

TOTAL DISTANCE COVERED- 950 MILES

Perth to Inverness- 115 miles

Today has been a much better day, with no hypothermia. Absolutely stunning scenery through the Cairngorm National Park with snow topped mountains being the standard viewing. After getting eighty miles done before stopping for lunch, we were making very good time and this gave us a nice short downhill of thirty miles to our finish in Inverness, where we arrived at 4.30p.m.

We had a really nice meal with Harry’s parents and now all we have to do is prepare for the final push tomorrow.

Day 7 – Johnstonebrige to Perth – 117 Miles – worst day of the trip so far , weather conditions this morning meant we were soaked through within the first 5 mins of riding. This combined with freezing cold temperatures lead to us both crowding into a small post office asking to borrow a heater for 30 mins just trying to warm up a little bit. This was then repeated only 9 miles later in a cafe were we hugged a radiator for a while. After getting 40 miles we stopped for lunch but we’re both suffering with early stages of hyperthermia , after 1 and half hours trying to warm up here we both found our selfs still shaking with cold. This lead to us both questioning if it was worth or even possible for us to continue in the condition we found ourselves. After a drop of warm dry clothes from Harry’s parents we sheepishly went back out and had left our selfs with a very long way to go with time not on our side. After a never ending second half of the day we have arrived around 8pm. Tough Day all round 😦