PAGSANJAN FALLS

Some of you have seen these pictures in my web albums. I uploaded my pictures there so that they are reduced to a manageable size that transports easily. So even if you have seen the pictures, let me tell you about it.
This was the last day trip of the old Senior Zone. We do have a lot of fun together: I'm glad most live right here in Eastwood so we can still see each other to do dinner and such. But anything that gets one out of Metro Manila is a lot of fun. We traveled to the bottom of Laguana Bay into beautiful country. This is old Spanish terriority. All along the bottom of the bay are famous mineral baths popular with the old Spanish conquerors.. So you can see a lot of Spanish architecture in the small cities. Here are some maps of where we were, the first so you can see my "home" in Quezon City, the green balloon is the falls. . .

. . .and the second a tight shot of the area. As an aside, you can see Tanay where my Branch is in the upper picture at the top of the middle toe of the dinosaur footprint.

You can hike down to the falls from Cavinti, but the best way and the most fun is on the river. You load into a small dug-out boat (made of aluminum), and your2 boatmen paddle and pull to get you up the river. 

The  boat men, one at the front and one at the back, almost drag you through the rapids. But here you will notice, there are logs across the rapid and the boat men pull the boat along the top of the logs

Here it is just pulling and pushing. With 2 big, heavy Americans in the boat, it was a huge job. We gave this guys a good tip.

The sides of the canyon felt perfectly vertical but amazing trees were growing out of the sides. There were falls like this all the way along.

But sometimes it was quiet paddling.

Finally at the falls. Now we all get on that little raft you see being pulled along a rope. They pull you under the falls into Devil's cave, turn you around and bring you back out. You get plenty wet!

A CHAIR FOR BISHOP WILLIE

One of the people who works in our office is Willie. He is such a great guy. And he is also a Bishop. Bishop Willie needed a wheelchair for a woman in his ward. During the holidays we got our secretary, who is a certified wheelchair assessor (We are not yet and it is a problem) and we drove out to Taytay to take a chair. Actually we took several chairs so we would be sure to have the right one.

This is MeAnn measuring. She also has to assess balance and sensation. She has to teach the recipient how to live in a chair, how to keep moving to avoid pressure sores and how to keep the chair clean.

Our Group Photo. I surely look pasty white next to those beautiful brown faces. I am having second thoughts about the phrase "white and delightsome".

SMOG

The smog here is just the worst. Some days it even hurts to breathe. So I am giving you an idea of what it is like by sharing a sample of pictures from my apartment window.

This is not an ordinary day. Look at that sky. This a one in a million day!

But it can get a little worse. . .

And a little worse. . .

And then it can get a lot worse! ! !

And this is the worst.

A TRIP TO BATAAN

Now the first thing everyone needs to know about Bataan is how to pronounce the name. We in America always say "Bah-tan".  Just so you know, it is pronounced Bah-tah-an.
Now that we have finished the language lesson, let me tell you about our great visit in Bataan. I love to get out of Manila and travel in the Provinces. Less smog. Fewer cars. Beautiful green. We had some down time around New Years and we joined up with the Morellos for this  trip.

There are of course rice fields everywhere. They are all in various stages of harvest. This farmer is preparing the field for planting. They flood the field not to water the rice but to keep down the weeds.

Here is the farmer's Caraboa. They say the Philippines was built on the back of a Caraboa. Note the rice field behind him. The rice seed is first planted in a nursery and later placed in the fields in bundles. The individual stocks will get separated and then replanted. Labor intensive. There are rice fields everywhere but they do not produce enough for their needs.

In the end the rice ends up on the side of the road to dry before they thrash out the grain.

We went to Mount Samat where a monument commemorates the great battles fought in this area. It did not prevent an invasion by the Japanese but so slowed them down as to create difficulties to their timeline.

Mount Samat is a historic mountain in the town of Pilár,Located near its summit is the Mount Samat National Shrine, a national shrinededicated to the fallen Filipino and American fallen during World War II.

At the start of World War II in 1942 after suffering heavy losses against the Imperial Japanese Army all over Luzon, the Filipino and American soldiers retreated to Bataan Peninsula to regroup for a last valiant but futile stand. After four months of fighting, the 78,000 exhausted, sick and starving soldiers under Major General Edward P. King surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942 known as the fall of Bataan. It is the single largest surrender of U.S. soldiers in history and Mariveles, a town in the Bataan province, was their last stronghold after which, together with the Philippine soldiers, they were led on to the 80-mile march to Capas, Tarlac known as the Bataan Death March.

The Mount Samat National Shrine shrine was erected as a fitting memorial to the heroic struggle and sacrifices of those soldiers who fought and died in that historic bastion of freedom. Wklipedia

Bruce and I walked to the top of the Mount. It is a very steep path but the hard part was that the path was sort of falling off the side of the hill

You can take an elevator up the the arm of the cross. I don't do those sort of things well, so I did not go. The smog and moisture in the air make it difficult to see that far anyway.

Don't know this little family but I liked the view.

These are the markers along the road that indicate every mile of the death march.

We had lunch at "Bob's Bunker" and yes, there is a restaurant behind that door. Very WWII army decorations. Food wasn't bad. I had a hamburger with blue cheese on top. 

A New Shipment of Wheelchairs

We have been waiting for a shipment of supportive chairs from China since May. Finally we received word that they were in the harbor. But getting them out of the harbor is tough. Manila is so congested that you pay a special "congestion" fee for all incoming freight. Finally, the crate was at the warehouse.

This is the crate finally off the ship and at the door of our warehouse. Our warehouse is actually an old church that is on the block to be sold, but you can only sell a limited amount of property and we are told this building is safe for awhile. 

We had to stop to capture the moment with a picture

These 2 young men who are unloading the chairs were hired by the "forwarder" (the company you hire to move things from one place to another). They live in the neighborhood, showed up when the crate arrived and were hired for the day. Notice the shoes they choose to do the job. It took them about 2 hours. 

They moved 140 boxes from the crate, 6 boxes at a time.

And this is why we do it. This young child is being fit into one of the supportive chairs. They are  designed for someone, like this young man with Cerebral Palsy, who could not support themselves in a chair.

Sister, Are We Poor?

Our Relief Society lesson in the Tanay branch a few weeks ago was a time of learning for me. The sisters were studying a talk from the Ensign. I cannot tell you whose, as my Tagalog includes how to say "good morning", "good afternoon", "good evening" and "thank you very much". But the language of the land is actually Tagalish: mostly Tagalog but with a smattering of Spanish and even more English. All Gospel terms are English.  So I knew the topic was self-reliance.

First, you must know that at that moment I thought these people were probably not as poor as many I have seen here. They dressed very nicely. The sister who taught the lesson spoke in such a manner as a good RS teacher in any ward. And they talked about the usual topics of self-reliance: taking care of what you have, putting away something for the future, not spending above your means. Sister Dalay was talking about using their swish card: a bank card, like a debit card. She talked about how easy it was with that card to spend more than they had. “What is it about us”, she said, “That we cannot resist the temptation to swipe that swishy card”. Then she turned to me and said, “Sister, are we poor?” 

The Sisters of the Tanay Branch

At the moment I just laughed it away, but I have given it a great deal of thought. The next week we were visiting in the homes of two of these good sisters and I realized that though they were not in the realms of the poorest, we in the North Logan 10^th would consider ourselves very poor indeed if we lived in their circumstances. The two homes in which we visited probably ranged around 500 sq. ft. Walls are made of cement block and windows are few. I think that some of the sister have better circumstances but  by my standard of living these could be called the “poor”. But really, are they?

Walking to visit Sister Elinda, an original member of Tanay Branch. Her health no longer permists her to come to church 

The door to Sister Elinda's home

There are some ammenities. Elinda had a TV. 

Elinda is going blind and uses a very small magnifying glass. I bought a small LED flashlight to help her. I wish I could find a  magnifying class with a light like the one Mom got from the Blind Foundation

All the neighborhood kids were interested in our visit (my white face mostly) and kept saying hello through the window

These people are in general happy. They smile and they laugh. They have lots of fun associating in activities outside of church. They are raising families with a large portion of their children serving missions. They keep themselves and their physical surroundings very clean. The members I meet have testimonies of the Gospel and take a “tricycle” to church each Sunday. (But who would want to drive a car on those narrow streets)! They have friends and family they love. The homes of “neighborhoods” are very close together and grouped into joined structures, and they know everybody and take care of each other.

Are they poor? Perhaps by the standards of the world they are poor, but in the things of the heart and the spirit, in the sort of gold that counts to God,  the saints of the Tanay branch are very rich indeed. So my answer would now be, “No sister, you are not poor. In fact, you are very rich indeed.”

Typhoon Ruby - Part Three: Our Sacks are Delivered

The only problem with creating 3000 food sacks here in manila is that the storm did not actually hit us. We just had a little rain. So one of the employees at our office, Willie, made some phone calls. This actually isn't a picture of the phone calls. That took a whole day to set up

Bruce and Willie

The humanitarian outreach of 2 of the TV stations sent vans to come and get a few hundred of our  sacks.

ABS-CBN, and Channel 5 each sent vans.

And finally, GMA, a third TV station,  sent over the marines. They loaded the majority of the sacks onto their truck and then they headed out to the base where the sacks were loaded on a C130 to be flown down to the Philippine island of Samar, the island most badly damaged by the storm.

This was such a great experience, everyone working together for a common good. We asked for volunteers and people spent all of Saturday and Sunday before or after their church. On Saturday we had 10 of the missionaries from the Quezon City mission helping. They were a lot of fun to talk to. As I worked I kept trying to imagine the people this food might go to..

And finally we had about 800 lbs. of rice left over which we donated to the Bubahay Deseret Hospice House. It was founded by the Jacksons to serve as a home where people could live while their children had their procedures. They treat club foot,, with people having to come for several weeks at a time for a year or more, as well as other conditions. I include a link here. It is a very worthy charity. 

http://www.mabuhaydeseret.org/