Hello all, its way past the 6 week mark for updating since my last post there was a little of this, little of that and some other things.
I hope you summer has gone well and you are enjoying the last few weeks well so far. Hopefully you got in on some some camping, fishing, swimming, drinking lemonade and eating watermelon. I imagine parents are busy getting kids ready for the return to school.
Here in Tagaytay, our Summer ended in June, and we are enjoying the rainy season now, and.... I.... love it!! the weather is cooler than our intense summer heat was. In Manila the rain is just a sort of humid wetness but here in Tagaytay the air actually cools off, its wonderful! some nights I have my fan set to the lowest setting instead of highest, and during cool afternoons I sometimes don't have it on at all. I am even drinking tea in the afternoons and we have had hot chocolate several times for our afternoon snack time.
Merienda (snack time) of hot chocolate and pancakes
Everyone has been back in school for awhile now. Getting the younger girls back to school required a lot of arrangements such as sorting supplies, shopping and last minute things. The day after the kids went back to school they told us they needed to make name tags, so I was hand making name tags at 8 O'clock at night. One of our youngest little residents has started kindergarten, she loves it! and seriously so cute in her uniform.
I have been uncovering my teaching skills, and have found I quite like helping kids and teens with homework. I feel that my homeschooling background helped me with this.
A few weeks ago our oldest child was learning her times tables, I was quizzing her on them which brought back memories of when I was struggling to learn them. I found myself finding lots of tricks to help teach her since I had struggled so much with them when I was young.
Liz, Chesa and Emma, our three ALS (alternative learning system) students
I have been learning how to de-lice. I used to be freaked out about lice before I came to the Philippines and now its just part of life, I have gotten it a few times here and realize its not as horrifying as I once thought. Its just a thing you get and a thing you get rid of. when I had my lice one of the girls used to brush them out every few nights, I was actually kind of sad when they were all gone as I loved having someone brush my hair. Two of the kids had them pretty bad so I was picking and brushing them out and then finally used some shampoo that was sent from the USA. (the stuff here doesn't work) One Saturday I drenched their heads in shampoo and the following week did the same. It seemed to do the trick for now.
I have continued to help out with admin stuff here at safe as needed, I also check lots of Blood pressures as two of staff are high blood. I am learning lots about how to deal with conflict among the girls. The kids are a lot easier for me to deal with, some days they seem to be at each other's throats, just like normal siblings. One night a few weeks ago was specifically bad and it seemed I was constantly telling kids to apologize to each other. I had just finished reading a novel where a father talks to his son about how he made Jesus unhappy with something that he did, I thought that was a such a corny way to discipline a child and then all the sudden I found myself doing it, it actually worked really well.
Baking continues, I think if I missed a Friday baking event there might be a mutiny! Our Fridays are our fellowship and we typically watch movies, but one of the other staff and I decided to start adding games to each night, This has resulted in a lot of laughing and enjoyment, the girls absolutely love games
I have gotten to spend some time with a few of the girls one to one, some times just hanging out, other times letting them talk through things. We have a new resident! code name Liz and her two year old daughter Lilly. Its fun having a toddler in the house and everyone dots on her, Liz is so sweet and because she doesn't speak much English she is proving to be one of my greatest teachers since it forces me to speak and form sentences in Tagalog. She speaks slowly and waits for me to translate the words in my head so I find her an easy person to practice my Tagalog with.
Liz and Lilly! our newest addition to our family!
I was involved with some Dr. checkups and took one of our teens to the dentist, which was probably a mistake since they charged my way more than they did when one of our Tagalog ates took some of the girls a few weeks before. The reason probably being the colour of my skin. White equals money so I am often overcharged for things. But I was grateful I got to be there for Meggie as she got two of her teeth pulled, they were too far gone to be filled. It was the first time I had ever taken anyone to the dentist and it was much harder to watch than I thought. I had to look away a few times as the dentist struggled to pull the teeth out. We went for ice cream after which was a nice silver lining to the event.
We are still looking for a lot where we can one day build a bigger house but so far nothing has been quite right. Its hard to find property in our budget as land is crazy expensive here. So we continue to pray for the right place. We have struggled with water leaks, leaky roofs and plumbing issues in our current home. We had leaks that went undetected for so long that our water bill shot up so high, the water company asked us if we had a swimming pool. we got that leak fixed but several leaks kept popping up. But the Lord provides.
Bible studies and worship time are always an important part of the week for the girls, one of our staff will bring us altogether, we sing, study God'd words or the girls will share what God has taught them lately. It is often an important time for them and their healing journey. They all really have a heart of worship and it is so precious seeing them Praise their Father. ate Charisa and ate Grace do group sessions every week, also a an excellent tool in helping the girls with their healing and growing.
I have had some interesting "Vienna moments" lately. One rainy dreary morning I headed to the grocery store to get ingredients to make hot chocolate. We also needed fabric softener so I said I could get it when I went out. I was also out of coffee and was feeling the loss of my ritual of a cup of coffee before I started the day, so I was a little on the grumpy side. I chose to go to the closer grocery store and took the two different public transportation to get there. Despite the fact it was closer I had forgotten how things were a little more expensive at that store, which kind of put me off but anyway, I bought my things and headed back. The rain had stopped and I didn't feel like waiting for the public jeep so I thought I would walk to the intersection where I would take just one ride home. I finally made it back and began to empty my begs I pulled the fabric softener out and then and only then did it hit me that the saleslady had packed two begs for me. But only had one beg. the fabric softener. The hot chocolate ingredients and coffee had been left behind. How I had not noticed that I was only carrying fabric softener while I walked more than a half mile is beyond me. Utterly frustrated I went back outside hailed a tricy and paid the extra to get me a little closer to the grocery, it took me as far as it was allowed and I marched the rest of the way chastising myself the whole way. Before I even entered the door the security guard (every major store, mall, has a security guard inside each entrance) spotted me and exclaimed "Mam! your grocery!" I smiled, at that moment I admit I appreciated that my foreign look distinguished me enough that they remembered who I was and therefore there was no need to show my receipt. I retrieved my grocery, again took the transportation back and by the time I returned to safe Lunch was pretty much ready. I spent my entire morning buying hot chocolate ingredients, coffee and fabric softener! Fortunately after a cup of coffee the world seemed a little brighter.
Then a few weeks ago I took our newest resident for a Dr. follow up check with another staff member. I was in charge of the money. After we left we got medicine and headed back. I took out all the documents from my purse when I returned and was telling ate Red about how it went and I took out one document that had a Dr. note on it. "This is great that they give this to us," I said. After ate Red looked at it for a moment she said "I think you were supposed to give this to them." finally it dawned on me, I was supposed to give that document to the front desk and then pay the dr. fee!!! I had walked out of the medical center with out paying!!! granted I was raised in a country with universal health care, so paying at a hospital or medical centre isn't exactly a reflex for me. Non the less, I was incredibly embarrassed! ate Red called the center, they said they had noticed they were missing a document. I rushed back to the center, as much as one can rush with public transportation. did the walk of shame in front of all the patients to the receptionist desk. the lady was good about it, I think she even found it rather amusing. I said how sorry and embarrassed I was, paid and then left, thinking that maybe I should have apologized more than once, this thought was immediately followed by "Vienna....you are so Canadian..."
I attended another workshop with ate Red and our social worker, working through the process for a referral system among faith based organization in the Philippines. We headed to Manila at 4 AM arrived in Manila in good time then took rail transit to the workshop. we were all exhausted as none of us had slept well the night before. all three of us were functioning on about 3 hours of sleep. But it was a good workshop, just very long, from 8:30 to past 5 PM. As always it was nice to connect with other organizations with the same passions. It was the third meeting we went to involving this process so I have started to get to know some of them. Pretty much everyone is Filipino so it was all in Tagalog or Taglish. This was really good for me and I was impressed with how much I was getting, but I was pretty done in by the end of day. The trip back was long. Ate Red parted ways to go to her place and Deni (the social worker and I) stuffed our selves into the LRT )one of the rail lines) it was during the rush hours and so it was wall to wall people. By that time I was so tired I was starting to giggle. We made it to Pasay where we waited for over an hour or so in line to get a bus and finally arrived back at safe around 11:30 at night.
We celebrated a few more birthdays which met more cake! Watermelon cake and caramel cake
We had a teaching by our missionary from the states ate Charisa who is also a psychologist. We had our staff meeting and celebrated another birthday!
So life continues, I am shocked that I have been here almost a year now. I have gotten into a routine now and the fact that life has a kind of flow confirms that I really am coming to the 1 year mark, Everyone settles into culture differently and I find for me it takes about a year to feel comfortable and two years to feel established. Interestingly enough I think I have a harder time with the culture in Tagaytay than I did in Tabuk. This is surprising as the culture in Tagaytay is actually much more western than in Tabuk. But I have come to two reasons why I think this is. One is that even though its more western its still the Philippines, so I might be in western culture mode and then all the sudden I will hit a Filipino cultural item and I will have to stop and think. Because of the mix of western and Filipino cultures I find its hard to know where one stops and another begins, so there is more tripping up and having to check myself. But In Tabuk even though there is a variety of different tribal cultures it all feels very, well...Filipino. Once you get the culture I find its easier to sort of melt into it. The other reason is that Tagaytay is a city, so although it has western themes those themes all have to do with city life. As most of you know I was raised in the country, in a ranching and logging community where everyone knows everyone, and I loved that way of living with every fiber of my being. Hence I feel more natural in a more provincial living environment like Tabuk, its difficult to describe the rituals and things that are similar to country living in Canada and provincial living in the Philippines, but there is a similarity, something that gets into your blood, that cannot be described with mere words.
Speaking of which in about two and half weeks I will be heading to Tabuk for three weeks to volunteer at the midwife clinic and to have more meetings and planning strategies with ate Cheryl about starting the shelter in Tabuk.
There are days that are harder than others that's for sure, but there are days full of joy as well. My every day life always varies, I know people often ask what it is that I do and my answer is typically "Whatever safe needs me to do" this means that my days vary a lot. some of my activities are really not very glamorous, like waiting in line at banks and bus lines, writing up documents or handing out allowances. But there are also times of playing with the children and giving them extra attention and talking to someone about their day at school or helping with an assignment. Reading stories or having a tea party on my deck. Its often hard to know how much of difference these things make but one of my prayers is always that God will use me the way he wants me.
As always I want to thank you all for your prayers. I do not do this alone, it would be impossible, Of course God is over everything, but neither is it just be and God, its all of you, the ones who pray for this ministry, who partner in this ministry, the ones who helped prepare me for this journey. I do not walk this road alone, you are all right there as well. God Bless you all!
until next time
The sheepishmidwife
