Small Things
I’m loving my new nest. I have a nice room with wood floors, big windows, and most of the upstairs is empty so I have most of the floor to myself. The family seems to all crash downstairs.
The house is downtown so its convenient to banks and stores, although not as close to my work as the other house. But everything here is pretty close and the jeepnys run just about everywhere you need to go. I might need two jeepnys to get to Kalinga but its only about 10min further away than my other house.
The above photo is of me with my landlord family. Mom Violy in the pink shirt, husband Ericsson, her two kids standing next to me both in grey t shirts, and the others are the Japanese volunteers.
Most of the Japanese vols are older like me, but some college students are here for a special program at Caring for the Future Foundation. It’s a Japanese NGO that operates a shelter near Dagupan in the village of Sual. The older volunteers teach heavy equipment operation and industrial sewing to filipino job trainees here.
Violy is director of the kids center at Sual. I hope to have some kind of cooperative project going with her center and my kids at Kalinga.
I have at least succeeded in getting a few things coordinated if not actually accomplishing projects. Last night I got a text from a local woman thanking me for putting her in touch with local DSWD (like our state welfare dept.) DSWD are going to help her barangay (village) get initial funding to do livelihood project to help local residents earn money. I think they will do fish processing. They’re real pleased, and I didn’t do much, just put them in touch wth each other.
This is how it is here, very slow and tiny things, one at a time, it takes so much patience and you have to be satisfied with doing very small things.
