tidbits of the week

    It has been a full week of being in Manila area and fulfilling activities involved with the Latter Day Saints Charities Wheelchair program and an interesting visit we paid a Dump Site 2 weeks ago.     We continue to see the great need for wheelchairs and other medical needs in the Philippines.    The non-regulations over the years in regards to Mining and the pollutants in the air and in their water supplies have truly taken a toll on the health of the Filipinos.    The Government is trying to get regulations in place and attempting to cleaning up water supplies and air quality .... but everything takes time and huge amounts of money.  The population of the Philippines continues to grow, and density increases which adds to the problems.    We are humbled and grateful that we have the opportunity to be here serving these good-hearted and resilient people.   We have a great love for the Filipino people.

    We have just put a few pictures together to give you a flavor of the week.    Next Sunday we will be in Tuguegarao in Northern Luzon as we prepare for 3 sessions of 3 day training in connection with a new Partner with LDS Charities in placing wheelchairs out to those in need.  ( We will be training the assessors the proper way to fit and interview the potential recipients.   One of the main concepts that the LDS Charities Wheelchair program emphasizes is that the wheelchair must be properly fit so as to 'do no harm' to those recipients of chairs.   We don't want to see injuries or pressure sores because of a wheelchair which we provided.)             So it may be a week or two before we are able to be in a place where we can Post the BLOG.

Cloud formation on the trip into
Manila last Sunday.  

The beautiful. fluffy cumulus clouds are amazing to see
here in the Philippine's sky.    They are a constant reminder
to us that we are living on an island out in the ocean.
During June, July, and August, we are seeing more and
more of these as we watch the rain storms develop and prepare
to drench the island in nourishing rain.

Sometimes we can capture the depth of the clouds in the picture and give you
a sense of their enormity and their magesty.

We spent one morning in the warehouse
in which LDSC stores the wheelchairs.
This warehouse services 9 partners who
provides wheelchairs throughout the
Philippines.

This is one of two vans that was being loaded for a
wheelchair distribution in Northern Luzon.  They needed to fit
37 wheelchairs in 2 vans.   They did a pretty good job.
There is a long story about this distribution.   I ended up having
an Area Seventy call me on the phone and it was not a
'warm & fuzzy' situation that warranted the call.   Ask me about it
some day, if you are interested.

This is a passenger Bus sent to pickup wheelchairs from
the University of Northern Philippines in Vigan, Ilocos Sur.
Elder Bell and I was amazed at how many they were able to fit
into the bus.    The big square boxes are the new "tri-cycle' chairs
designed to add a quadriplegic or amputee to be able to
get around town or possibly even use it in a self-employed situation where
they could sell things out on the street.   (Street vendors are huge in
the Philippines.   Many traveling salesmen like back in the early
1800 times in rural America.)

This is one of the assessors at NAVOTAS CITY , a partner that we work
with in the Manila area.    She is demonstrating the "Tri-cycle" wheel chair and it's
maneuverability.     You push the steering wheel back and forth to
propel the unit.   It will give the recipient a good 'arm and back' work-out.

Participants of a 1 day training which we
arranged and conducted for NAVOTAS
City.  These are Barangay (Neighborhood)
Health Care workers being given
information about the Wheelchairs.

The benefit of this Barangay worker training is
that it helps the people who are home bound or
need a wheel chair to have a contact person who
knows all of the people living in the Barangay and
can help them get the resources they need.   39
participants from 14 barangays.   Great day of
training for them and a good step forward for
this wheelchair partner.

On the way back from Manila, we stopped into the
Tarlac Member Welfare Project site and visited the
Piggery.   It is feeding time and the piglets are very
anxious to feed their ravenous bellies.

The feed is prepared and the gate is opened.  They
race to find the perfect spot to eat and eat and
eat.  They are about 5 weeks old now.

This is Riza Nacpil and her husband, Benito.  They have
become very dear to our hearts.   Elder Bell plans to take a day
to work with President Nacpil in building a chicken coop designed
to increase hatchings of the chicken eggs.    I will spend the day in the kitchen with Riza as I share recipes for Banana Bread, Zucchine
bread, and carrot cake.    They have been given the opportunity to
run the Elementary school Canteen (there are no school lunches
provided by government) and they are trying to put together
low cost, nutritious meals for the children, as well as provide
employment opportunities for some of the ward members who
are struggling to find employment.     

I have tried for 2 months to have my camera in my hand when we saw one of the men who have a business to provide drinks and such for the public.     I caught him as he was preparing to go out and sell his pineapple and mango juice for the day.  

This is exactly what it looks like.   A garbage Dump.   We visited this site just off the north end of Baguio.  It has been an active dump site for 20+ years and was just closed a few years ago.    Now there are hundreds of families that have established homes amidst, around, and inside of this area.  People who are so poor, they have no where to live, but can put together enough materials and hollow-block pieces that they can live in what they call their 'home'.   Their source of income is possibly a 'trike driver' (remember the motorcycle with the side care) or a hired out manual laborer.  Most of the people living here are surviving by digging through each bag of trash and methodically separating out recyclable items.  The recyclables can be cleaned and bagged up and sold for a minimal price by the kilo.   This gives these people barely enough to put rice on their tables.   The fortunate ones are the ones who are willing to scrimp and save up enough (or fortunate enough that someone will give them) to purchase a chicken.    They have the chicken hatch the eggs they don't consume, and then raise the little chicks up for meals and more hens or roosters.     

This is a shot down an alleyway that you can walk in which you fill find many of the homes back interwoven among the sacks of garbage.   The sacks you see here in the front are bags of recyclable items that are awaiting a larger truck to come and purchase them to take to a recycling factory.          These people are doing the best they can at whatever they can find to do.
LDS Charities have one project with an organization which works with these people to assist them in their needs.   One of the projects going is a workshop in which the women of the community will bring in items such as 'pop-tops' off of soda pop & beer cans (& meat, tuna fish, vegetables, soups cans) and learn how to crochet purses that are durable and can sell in the marketplace.   They also make other decorative items and jewelry which can be sold at market.     This organization is also providing access to a school for the children from this area.    In order to qualify to go to the school (they only can handle so many children because of their limited space and finances) the child must have symptoms of lung disease.   The child will then be given the chance to enter the school system and will stay in the system through all grades.    At the school they will provide a lunch meal of rice and vegetables and fruits, (this and the medicines are another part of where the LDSC donation monies are being used).    It gives the kids 1 decent, fairly nutritious meal a day.   The school also provides medicines to help the children with the diseases that are prevalant, and the lung problems.   They have found that they can reverse the lung damage over a period of a few years with the medicine, the improved nutrition provided, and getting the kids out of working in the actual dump site.  (Chemical fumes, etc and the pollution from the mining activities are extremely caustic to the child's developing lungs.)        It breaks your heart to see all of this .... but everything takes so much time, so much money, so many changes needed ............. and not enough resources or manpower to accomplish it all.    This is why every little bit helps.  Every penny or dollar that is donated to LDS Humanitarian work goes to help in situations like the wheelchairs and survival needs like this.  
We may be able to post other pictures, but right now we are under obligation to protect identity of those involved.  There is so much 'child trafficing' etc ... and so the organization must screen any photos that we use and give us permission .   These of the actual dump site are OK ... but not many of the others without permission.     You may get to see more of the story.       

This is one  project we are currently
putting together.   School chairs are in
great demand.  This school took us into
their classrooms and showed us the
desks/chairs that their students are having
to use.  Many are beyond repair.  

Many of the schools have to have the children just sit on
overturned 5 gallon buckets or rough benches made out of
a log that has been cut in half.     LDS Charities have brought
in over 2000 chairs to go into the schools in desperate need
of the chairs.   We are responding to this school in our
area to see if we can continue to provide more .