| Saturday, June 23, 2007 |
| the dumaguete smile |
from my 3 days so far at the shelter I've been overwhelmed with smiles. And smiles here are sometimes deceiving because locals smile when they're happy, when they're stressed, when you commit a social faux pas. People here are so incredibly selfless and accomodating. The 6 year olds are teaching me a thing or two about manners. Everytime an elder enters the room, the kids on cue say "Good afternoon sir/maam" and take their hand placing it on their forehead (asking for a blessing) and then run to find a chair for the visitor to sit on. The hours that volunteers and workers work here are ridoncurous (one day off working sometimes from 8 in the morning to 8 at night).
What I'm specifically here for is to provide assistance and training to the social workers here in the areas of individual and group clinical counselling and present some new methods of intervention that have worked well with kids from my own experience. My actual duties are many and varied on the other hand: Past few days I've done site visits to the children's homes, i've done some advocacy work for my agency by spreading the mission of our agency to the kiwanis club among other rich social clubs, i've lead biblestudies (but biblestudies here are the equivalent of sermons back home since the leader is usually presenting to over 50 ppl).
My living conditions are pretty good according to local standards. I eat with the kids consisting of meals of rice and pancit (noodles) costing 5 pesos a meal (45 pesos make up an american dollar), when i have both electricity and running water at my apartment it is a good day. (I have a dinosaur ac unit in my room but the last time i turned it on, i knocked out the power for about 5 apt units so i think i'll probably not do that again). I've gotten used to the no shower bidness but am trying to but down on the number of buckets of water i require to do the job. Laundry will also be done in my shower bucket.
The ppl here have so little but they are so grateful for everything they've got and they dont take anything for granted. More updates to come =) |
posted by DarrenGene @ 7:13 AM  |
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| 2 Comments: |
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hehe hey dar! how many buckets does it usually take you to shower?! i wonder how many bucketfuls we use here... stay cool with the kiddies 'n keep them updates coming! (haaa.. and you thought hawaii was hot!!)
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hehe hey dar! how many buckets does it usually take you to shower?! i wonder how many bucketfuls we use here... stay cool with the kiddies 'n keep them updates coming! (haaa.. and you thought hawaii was hot!!)