Mangyan Village

Today was our last day of classes. It was a busy one. In the morning we practiced managed delivery of a placenta then in the afternoon we had a short class on suturing. After that Pastor Todo and his wife drove us to a visit a village of mountain peoples known as the Mangyan, I'm not sure that I spelled that right but it is pronounce like onion but with an M in front. While we were there we did a survey for Vicki. She wanted to know how many of the women had delivered with a skilled birth attendant and/or received any postpartum care. We split into groups of 3 with an interpreter and walked around the village asking our questions. Of the 5 women that my group interviewed with total of 17 children only two of those children had been delivered with a midwife. All of the others were delivered with grandmothers, mothers, husbands or even some alone.
Thankfully most of the children in the village were receiving an education since there was a elementary school that had been built there. We even talked to one young girl who told us that she had been able to go to high school and is studying to be a nurses aid.
I was surprised at how young the women appeared. I talked to one who I would have guessed to be somewhere around 13. She was already a mother of 3. Ir is normal in an area where malnutrition is common for individuals to be very small for their age.
At the end of our trek we went to meet a 99 year old grandmother who was a traditional birth attendant. She was very beautiful and gracious to us.
For dinner we will be heading to the Italian place again to eat homemade ravioli. Yum!! This has been a beautiful end to my first week in the Philippines.

Travel between Islands

It is Thursday morning already here in the Philippines. I find it difficult to believe that a week has already gone by since I left home. It is so strange how a week can go so quickly when each day seems to stretch endlessly ahead of you. It feels so peaceful here that you can’t think to have more pressing matters than being mesmerized by the ebb and flow of the ocean. Each hour stretches luxurious in front of us. Meals are a leisurely affair as well. It can take 45min or sometimes an hour for your food to arrive to you but you find that you just really don’t mind.
Saturday we left Manila by bus bound for Batangas , a three hour drive. Not because it is that far but because traffic is that bad. Add 10 times as many cars as we have on the road in the treasure valley, then take away half of the traffic laws and that may come close to the craziness of Manila traffic. It is a throng of vehicles of every shape and size from the little tricie (a small motorcycle with a side care for caring passengers, sometimes whole families or as we found out 5 Caucasian women) to the bigger Jeepnes or passenger busses and everything in between. Each one weaving in and out of the other traffic in 4 lanes vehicles on a 2 lane highway. It is an intricate dance incomprehensible to the western mind. A nightmare of gridlock, yet beautiful. It is a dance that the Philippinos somehow know and understand well.
In Batangas we made our way to the pier, bought our tickets and awaited a boat to take us to our temporary home at Tamaraw beach resort. The boat is a long boat tipped up on either end similar to the shape of a banana with a canopy over the top to keep the worst of the sun off of its passengers. There was a heavy breeze blowing so the water was choppy and somewhat uncomfortable to ride. My mind kept coming back to the story that Vicki had told our class when we were still back in Boise about nearly drowning on a similar crossing when the waves got so bad that the boat she was on broke apart.
Thankfully we did arrive in Puerto Galara safely and a hotel shuttle picked us and drove us the 10 min drive to Tamaraw. Tamaraw is not the fanciest resort on the beach but it is clean, peaceful and the food is decent.

It is a strange sensation being here. It is so completely different so opposite everything that I know as normal in my life at home.

I arrived in Manila just after 4:00am. Even at that early hour the heat and humidity of the island weighs heavy on you body. You almost immediately break into a heavy sweat. Then comes the smell of the place. I find it impossible to describe the smell of Manila. It is a strange combination of sea air, pollution, and rot.
A friend from my class in Boise who gone ahead of me to stay in Manila was to meet me at the airport at 6:00am. Come to find out that the International airport in Manila has a very complicated system of 4 separate terminals. She thought that I was arriving at one terminal when in fact I arrive at another. When I inquired I was told that I should go to the other terminal. Unfortunately so did my friend so we missed each other in passing. After waiting at the second terminal for an hour and without any means to contact her I felt that I had to keep moving so I continued to my rendezvous point with Mercy in Action. When I arrived, Vicki and our other companions were very glad to see me. I was glad to be with someone that I knew and knew where I needed to go next and Vicki was able to contact the gal that had arranged to meet me at the airport so all was well.

On My Way

I left Boise at 5:27pm yesterday. Then to Vancouver Via San Francisco. My plane leaving San Fran was 45 min late on departure so I missed my connection with Philippines Airlines. Spent the night at the Airport Fairmont Hotel with United picking up the tab. Very Nice! It was a very relaxing night overall. Wish I could have stayed in the hotel for the rest of the day. Anyway I will be here at Vancouver International until midnight tonight. Thinking that I may see about riding the rail system here for a little while to get a look at the city. More Later.

Time to Fly

Finally after a month of frustration, multiple calls and lots of prayer we have 4 round trip airline tickets to Manila.

I leave Boise June 2nd at 5:27pm. Jes and the kids fly out on July 6th at 8:40am. We all leave Manila on July 19th but unfortunately we are on different air lines. They get in to Boise at 9:00 that night. I get in at 9:20 the next morning. Oh well, if life didn't challenge us we would never grow into who we are meant to be right?

Praying for safe travels, quality family time, and for the women and their families that I will be working with when I get there.

Washing Machines from Heaven

I've told a few people this story but I think that it is worth a repeat.

A few weeks ago before we moved into our new house we were looking for some "new to us" furnishings on Craig's List. I found a cute desk for Skylar that was only $30.00. When I went to go look at it, I met with Mike who was selling the desk and some other items because he and his wife and 3 children were moving to Michigan to work with an organization that provides homes for refugee children. I bought the desk but I also inquired about the other items that he was selling. He said that he would sell the red microfiber living room set to me for $250.00, throw in a second desk and even deliver it for me. He also had a very nice high efficiency washer and dryer set that he said that he couldn't sell for less than $1200.00. It seemed a little high to me and we didn't have that much money to spend but I really felt like God was telling me that I needed to buy it.

I went home and told Jes about it and to my surprise he said "Lets do it." So the next day Mike delivered to us a couch, love seat, recliner, desk, and washer and dryer. We paid him a total of 1480.00 for everything we bought from him. The following day we received a call from our lender to let us know how much we needed to make the check for our down payment to bring to closing. The amount we needed was $1478.00 less than what she had originally estimated that we would need.
Totally a God thing!

Fast Forward

I have been feeling like someone hit the fast forward button on my life VCR. Everything is moving so fast all around me that it leaves my head spinning.
In the last two weeks I've signed closing papers on our house, moved, got sick twice, finished the "in class" portion of my midwifery journey and had to say good-bye to some of my classmates and good-bye for now to others. I will so very much miss our class sessions. I have learned so much, experienced healing, loved, been shown love and thoroughly enjoyed the comradery of our group of ladies and Ian too.
In just over two weeks I will be starting the next chapter of this journey when I take off for the Philippines. For now I will rest up, catch up, make plans for our time there and unwind a little before I brave the next storm.
Praying for health, quality family time, God breathed appointments, and as always finances. God is Good!