Land of Milk and Honey

The Church at Blue Lagoon last Sabbath

Well.  Another Thursday night.  Only...28 more Thursdays left.  That's not so bad.  

Heather and I went to the clinic to help today.  There were lots of people there, but not much we could really help with.  Just a lot of mothers getting vitamins for their children.  We did get to ride on the ambulance, though.  Not to anywhere exciting; just to put chlorine in a couple of the wells around Pagudpud.  

While we were at the first well, it hit me how absolutely poverty stricken our town is...or actually, all of the Philippines.  Every house is made from cement.  Some of the houses are finished on the inside, but most just look how a tiny unfinished basement might look.  There is dirt and muck and trash all around, everywhere you go.  The people are always clean, I guess, but most just look poor.  There are children everywhere.  When we first got here, Uncle Elly asked me if I had noticed that there were so many children.  

"Yeah, there's a ton!" I said.  

"In the Philippines we have a saying," he laughed. "When the seas get rough, so do the men."

Well, I guess that explains something.    

We almost got to see a childbirth today, but at the last moment (right as she was starting to push!) the parents of the mother (she was only 17) decided that she should have her privacy.  This makes sense, of course, but it would have been nice if they had decided that before we had waited an hour for the birth.  

This afternoon Uncle Elly came to give the girls painting lessons.  Elly is quite the artist and has done several murals in the church and around town.  We painted scenes on plywood (he said he would graduate us to canvas later) and each of us painted mountains, grass, and hills.  When I asked Elly for advice on my mountains, he contemplated my picture it for a moment and then said: "those mountains are not from here." 

"What?" I said.

"I mean they are not Filipino mountains.  They look like something from Alaska."

Well go figure.  I guess you can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl.  Ha.  

Tonight us SMs sat around the dinner table like we always do and talked about whatever.  We are starting to be less of acquaintances and more of siblings...notice that we seem to have skipped the friend stage.  Not that we don't like each other, because we do, of course.  But imagine how you are with your siblings.  You always love them and trust them, but sometimes they drive you absolutely nuts.   

Sometimes the group is so family-ish it's funny.  We even have a little kitten now that we rescued out of a ditch last Sabbath.   We eat dinner together, have a pet cat, argue over the food, finances, chores, jobs, etc, laugh a lot, make sarcastic comments a lot, get excited about the same events, leave our stuffeverywhere, do our laundry together, and on and on.  If this is how family-ish we are after a month and a half...how are we going to be by April?? Good grief.  

We all still miss home.  We talk about food a lot.  If someone said I could have any item in the world right now...I think I would pick a mall pretzel.  I really do.  A nice salty soft pretzel with cream cheese dip from Auntie Anne's in the mall.   Mmmm.  Or maybe a pop tart.  My mom was supposed to send me some of those but I think she forgot.  Or a nice sugary melty slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  

Anyway, food is a common topic of conversation around here.  

It's funny.  Usually people in America, myself included, act so pity-filled when they hear of or see poverty like this.  But these people don't know anywhere else.  This is their life, it's there reality.  They don't really know about the amazing wealth there is elsewhere, so they don't miss it.  They have the same amount of "happiness" we have in America.  They have a normal day to day life like everyone in the States.  They don't pity themselves or see themselves as poor.  They are fine, they are normal.  It's like the poverty is in our eyes only, because we know what they are missing out on.  However, most of them have a view of America like it is a magical land where there will be no more tears.  They can get jobs there.  They can be rich there.  They can make it big.  We talked to the principal of the elementary school on Wednesday when we were volunteering.  She is a character of a lady, and she smiled when the topic of America came up.  

"Ah yes," she said.  "Here, America is called the 'land of milk and honey'. Did you know that?"