I cried today. We met one last time as a group and started talking about the children. Chrissie came along too and gave a short speech about how important our visit was to kids like them. Then Tony added to it by saying that he felt emotional every time he was with them. That you only had to turn around and there was somebody else stretching out their arms. And I realised that I knew some of these people by name. Beya, Annabelle, Jojo. And I knew what they were like. Their arms hugging onto me. Their laughter and the way they screwed up their noses at what they didn’t like. And I knew that I wanted to make them smile. And I didn’t want to go home.
We did what you do on a final day. We called everyone together for a set of group photos and the lad who was taking them was swamped with our cameras. We gave out the wash bags and handed out sweets. We kissed and we cuddled and we made all the same jokes one more time. Time dragged along but rushed by all at the same time.
I spent much of the day getting rather frustrated by things taking too long. Becky, Saskia and I went to Subic market to search for souvenirs but could only find tat or rather plain items. Becky was trying to find an iPhone cover for her brother but the mobile stalls only seemed to cater for rather dated looking Nokias. We ended up going to Jollybee again and eating burgers. Then after getting back to the house for lunch (which I ate very little of due to my earlier err… lunch) I spent three hours trying to sort out the washing bags that we’re planning to give the children. Some bright spark had the idea that we should personalise each one with initials. While it seemed like a good idea, it meant that we had to start checking that we’d properly labelled each bag. By the time I went out to play with the children, I’d missed most of the sun and I only managed about half an hour with them before they had to go in to eat their dinner. 
There was time for one last game of basketball. The boys only had to win this evening to be crowned local champions. They’d heavily beaten the team they were up against last night, so there was an air of inevitability going into the game. Even Chrissie turned out to watch – a rare occurrence – but given that her son was one of the players, perhaps an expected one. It was supposed to start at 5 but Filipino timekeeping meant we didn’t get going until 6.30. The boys were in for a shock. The opposition came out intent on making a game of it. But Ablaze were too strong and ran out comfortable winners in the end. For once the boys celebrated. Several of them celebrated the final hooter by taking off their shirts and spinning them around their heads. It seemed a fitting way to leave the team, even if there wasn’t any kind of ceremony to mark their win. We all just got back on the bus and went home. 
This evening John called everyone up to the hill behind the girls’ house. He’d bought a pile of paper lanterns, which he planned to set off into the night sky. The children waited on a mound of earth while the men tried to light the lanterns. It took a while. The wind was gentle but it was gusty enough to keep blowing out the flames. Added to that was the uselessness of the matches and the unwillingness of the touch paper to set on fire. Lito emerged from the gloom with a huge lighter, which helped a little. But then Randy kept his finger on the button for so long that the plastic melted and the front fell off. Gradually we did manage to get the lanterns in the air but they weren’t keen on staying up there. One even landed in a tree just behind the hill and for a moment we were worried it might set fire. It wasn’t quite the magical experience that John had in mind.
The children’s big day out. There were so many of us that there wasn’t enough space in the vehicles to take everyone to the Ocean Adventure theme park on the far side of the airfield in Subic Bay. Some of the older boys were told they’d have to commute half-way there before being picked up by some of the coaches who’d already dropped off a load of us. It seemed like hundreds of us waiting in the car park. All the girls had colourful clothes on and many wore small rucksacks carrying their swimwear. The younger boys who’d travelled on the coaches had already ditched their bags and were running after a deflated volleyball and a smaller plastic ball that we’d bought in the shopping mall yesterday.
We began with the organised entertainment. After a mishap in the aquarium in which several children witnessed a small fish being eaten by a larger one, we found ourselves at the Sea Lion show. There were two of them and one couldn’t really be bothered to show off. At one point the animal’s handlers asked for volunteers from the crowd. Dozens of hands went up around me but Randy’s was the most persuasive and he made his way through the crowded auditorium to a huge cheer. Once at the front, he was asked to take part in a competition against the Sea Lion by copying its moves. To the handler’s surprise, Randy was better.
After lunch, most of the younger ones jumped straight in the sea. We’d bought a range of inflatables, balls and other seaside equipment with us, expecting them to be used in games. Although some of the balls were thrown about a bit, most of them seemed to disappear up the children’s t-shirts. They were being used as buoyancy aids as many of them couldn’t swim. Even some of the early teens were frightened to let go of their floats. Many of the adults spent the afternoon teaching them the basics.
Today we went back to Gerry’s jail. It was our second prison visit of the day and – like last week, we spaced out the two of them with a trip to a big shopping mall in San Fernando. As we entered the first jail this morning, Lynne and my mum turned to me and asked whether I would be doing my testimony again. I said that I hadn’t brought my notes but thought that I could probably remember most of it anyway. I thought Lynne had been joking when she said I’d be delivering it more than once but it actually felt just as easy without prompts as it did with them. As I sat back down, the pair of them asked me how I’d change it if I was to deliver it a third time infront of Gerry. I said I’d think about it.
“PRAYER REQUEST
FOR BETH EUGENID FOR HER EARLY
RELEASE ON ANYTIME. PRAY TO GRANT HER CASE WILL BE DISMISS.
ALSO PRAY FOR ME
TO GET OUT HERE ON MAY SO THAT I CAN BE WITH MY KIDS IN U.S.
LEONA
ZIOBRONSKI
THANKS FOR COMING ESPECIALLY FOR SHARING THE WORD OF GOD.”
This afternoon, I went to Subic market with Becky, Saskia, Ian and Mandy. We took two of the 16 year olds from the girls’ home, Alexia and Rachelle, with us. We started with trip to Jollybee, where the hamburgers are served by well turned out, eager looking assistants. At least they should be. A sign in the window was offering work to 18-22 year olds with a college education who were “good looking”. 
Once in the market, we realised that there were beach balls, flumes, buckets and spades and other seaside items on sale. Ian recalled a conversation the group had been having over lunch about buying similar equipment ahead of a trip Wednesday when the whole children’s home is going to a resort. We agreed that it would be cheaper to buy the items in Subic, rather than at an expensive shopping mall as was planned tomorrow. But we didn’t have the list. The sun was already beginning to dip behind the mountains, so to save time, Rachelle and I took a sidecar back to the house. There’s a steep hill just before the end and the motorbike coughed and spluttered it’s way up. I had to keep my head tucked into my chest to stop it banging against the roof. On the way back, the small sidecar became even more crowded as the driver took on two boys. At least one of them had the sense to sit on the motorbike. The other one crammed in with us. Ian offered to take the return sidecar ride once we’d bought the equipment. I was happy to let him go.
The second service was in a small community apparently in the middle of nowhere. Rows of wooden pews had been placed in a concrete hut and the words for the songs had been written on a make-shift flip chart, which one of the congregation flipped over at the appropriate moment. The singing went on and on, although the words for the songs had to be quite brief in order to fit on the sheets. It meant most verses were repeated about half-a-dozen times. Mum gave another sermon, which was her strongest yet. She’s starting to learn how to play the congregation. The Filipinos like their ‘praise God’s and ‘A-men’s. I’d written a testimony which I wasn’t asked to deliver. I was quite pleased in the end. By the time the Sunday school, meet the visitors (pronounced vee-say-tors), extended worship session, Bible teaching bit, prayers, readings, youth songs and offerings had been factored in we already over two hours. It meant we’d managed around four hours of service before lunch.
This afternoon we organised an egg hunt for the children up at the Philippines Outreach Centre’s school. The hunt itself took longer to set up than it did for the kids to finish it and pretty soon they were running around playing basketball, tag and other games in the school grounds. Chrissie took the opportunity to show us round the derelict hospital that overshadows the classrooms. She wants to buy the building to extend both the school and the children’s home. At the moment she only has a couple of thousand pounds but she’ll need around half-a-million if the work is to get completed.
And there’s a lot of work to do. The building is a wreck. The roof has disappeared and rooms are gradually being taken over by plants, graffiti and rubbish. There’s even a twenty-foot tree that’s growing between the first floor and the area that used to be used for surgery. I moved from room to room, taking pictures of the children in the remains. On the top floor there was a spectacular view across the whole of Subic Bay.
A group of us went into the town to see what was going on for Good Friday. Earlier in the week, we’d passed a blindfolded man who was flagellating himself. Some of the managers at the home told us that there would be others doing similar things today and I was keen to see how the Filipinos marked the day. During the morning various people called by the house complaining about how they were being held up in all the traffic around Subic. It seemed that lots was going on in the local market, but by the time we got down there it had all come to a halt. We comforted our wasted journey with a stop off at Chowking for a desert called Halo Halo and a journey back in a jeepney.
The houses weren’t as run-down as I’d expected. There was the familiar mend-and-make-do feel to the place, but most of the houses were built out of well-laid concrete slabs. We walked right through the village, past a group of men crouching round a card game and – further in – another huddle of people playing bingo with tatty coloured cards and small stones to cover up the numbers. Behind the houses was a small patch of sand where around 50 children were running around. When they saw our group, they excitedly gathered round, asking questions over the top of each other and pulling faces at our cameras. One tiny girl whose face was already covered in mud found it all too much and burst into tears. Her ever-so-slightly bigger sister tried to carry her off to clean her in the sea but only succeeded in making things worse by carrying her around the neck.
Hundreds of people had come out to take part in the walk, which was punctuated by luminous floats of Jesus, Mary and the Saints. Most were carrying candles cupped in small cardboard cases to catch the drips. You could see that many had been made using old cigarette boxes, as ‘Marlboro’ and ‘Camel’ were lit up in the candlelight. I walked from one end of the parade to the other with Saskia and Becky. It took us right into the centre of the town.
We spent the day around the house, beginning by painting the outside wall and later playing with the children. Randy turned up wearing the Manchester United shirt again and then started painting in it, so I made him take it off. It might not be mine for much longer but it’s still an expensive shirt. And anyway, the paint was pink.
Later we played stuck in the mud and cricket. The girls are much easier to control than the boys although they get just as mucky. We told them to put on their sandals before they left the house but they just kicked them off before they started running around. One of them cut herself on a rock but she was so keen to play, she refused to go back inside to have it dressed. The weather was stifling but they laughed at us for drinking water so often.
Mandy’s been looking after two tiny kittens that have been sleeping just outside the girl’s house looking perilously close to death. I’ve called them Podgy and Fatso due to their boney frames and the names seem to have stuck. Podgy’s the smaller of the two. When she was found, her pipe cleaner tale was so matted and frail that it didn’t move. Mandy’s such an animal lover that she was never going to let them go without help. Over the past few days fussed over them and fed them leftovers from the table. Yesterday she even bought cat biscuits.
Cats aside, we spent most of the day at a local tourist resort, soaking up some sun as a treat for a day off. The White Rock Hotel is beautifully set in a particularly tranquil cove of Subic Bay. The facilities include several swimming pools with waterslides and wave machines, a banana boat and canoes, and plenty of space to lap up the sun. It’s totally let-down by its staff, who have little enthusiasm for their visitors. We’d briefly visited on Sunday to have a look around and established that it would be 500 pesos each to get in. But this morning, the woman on the gate insisted that we’d have to pay a further 4,000 pesos between us to hire a cottage for the day. We objected and I asked to see the duty manager. He insisted that the fee was mandatory, given the size of our group, despite the fee appearing as point number 8 on the ‘optional extras’ section of the charge board. He said they were busy. We ended up paying. Once inside, the cottage turned out to be a pagoda. The drinks orders that we were told could be made on the beach had to be made inside, the wine had run out (except for the most expensive varieties) and the staff couldn’t work out which tills were working.
There’s something extremely powerful about men singing in union. The strength of their words is magnified and purposeful. On both today’s trips into jail I felt a tingle of pins and needles down my back as groups of prisoners counted their blessings and sang to their God.
Later in the day, we visited a second prison in San Fernando, the Pampanga County Jail. A well-dressed man with modern looking glasses led the service. He had charisma and style and a large audience. “God is good,” he cried, “All the time,” they roared back. “God is good.” “All the time.” “All the time.” “God is good.” The applause seemed to be carried by the majority of the jail. Hundreds of men watched the man lead a worship group through a string of well rehearsed songs. Wifes and girlfriends of the inmates had been allowed in for the service and many had brought their children with them. Some of the female prisoners from the women’s area had also been given permission to go and they sat on plastic chairs just behind us. There must have been 400 people watching the service. And although the majority didn’t have a choice, most seemed willing to take part. 
I hadn’t seen the man in charge before, unlike the other worship leaders who usually travelled to the jails with us. This guy was so confident, I wondered whether he was from another prison ministry, or some kind of guest speaker. After the service, he invited us on a tour of the prison and I wondered whether he might be the prison governor. But it turns out Pastor Gerry is himself a reformed prisoner.
Just before the sun went down, I got on a bus loaded with kids to make the short journey from the boy’s home to a basketball court down the road. The children were excited, anticipating the game ahead. We stopped on the hill to pick up the girls, who overfilled the vehicle. Half a dozen of them crammed together at the front, chatting to each other in their local dialect, peppered with p’s, b’s and d’s. The driver didn’t bother shutting the door until we were on the main street; so two of the boys spent much of the journey leaning out to wave at people passing by. 
We pulled up and the bus quickly emptied onto the street. Once we’d crossed over we passed behind the roadside buildings to the court, where an announcer was interjecting over hip-hop music every few moments. The setting was amazing. The venue was pushed right up against a beach where several boats had been pulled into the shore. Beyond the water the sun was going down over the mountains. Ian and I had just discovered a panoramic feature on my camera while we were waiting for the bus, so I set to work taking pictures before the light disappeared behind the rocks. Meanwhile the two teams were warming up on the court. The opposition looked more organised than our lads, although both were suitably dressed in kits emblazoned with their names and numbers across the back. The boys from the home were playing under the name ‘Ablaze’. 
The game got underway, with every move described by the announcer and punctuated by squeals from the player’s friends on the sidelines. A surprising number of people had turned out to watch. There must have been around a hundred before counting the hoard of noise that had travelled with me on the bus. Our boys were good and ran into a 6-0 lead very quickly. But the opposition had some strong talent too. Over the following minutes I watched the scoreline swing one way, then the other. Ablaze were keeping their noses just ahead until the start of the forth quarter when the opposition scored several quick, unanswered points. Suddenly the squeals of delight turned into nervous tension. The crowd edged forward, prompting one of the umpires to have a word with the coach to move us back. With 1 minute 26 remaining, scores were level but both teams were tired. A timeout was called. The coaches called their boys round to pass out instructions. A boy just infront of me jumped up onto his seat and started clinging onto a pole that was just next-door. The announcer’s tone sounded sharper as the game got back underway. Ablaze were next to score. 50 seconds, 40. Ablaze scored another point. 30 seconds, 25. Even timeouts and penalty breaks weren’t making events slow down. The opposition scored again. Just one score would determine the outcome. Both looked hungry and eager. The crowd squealed one more time for one more effort. And it came. Ablaze scored two more points. And although the last 18.4 seconds took an eternity, it was going to be a happy bus travelling home. 
The journey home did have a sense of summer about it. Once again we all had to cross the busy road. Once it was assumed we were all on board, the driver three-point-turned into the traffic to get us out. It felt fun and carefree and had no knowledge of all the red tape that would surround a similar trip back in the UK. Randy wanted to know what I’d made of the match. I said I enjoyed it very much and he said there was another one tomorrow. For much of the day, he’s been wearing my Manchester United top. I gave it to him after he turned up wearing a Leeds shirt. I told him it was a loan but I doubt I’ll get it back. If I do, I’ll present it to him before I leave. I won’t get more enjoyment out of that shirt than seeing him wear it. Before watching the basketball, Ian and I had been invited to play a game with some of the adults and the older boys. All of us ran up a big sweat in a big hall on the other side of town. Randy was still wearing the shirt then so it must have been humming by the time he took it off this evening. Assuming he isn’t sleeping in it.
There were about 20 prisoners who took part in the service. There were a range of ages although almost all had some of their teeth missing. They wore bright yellow tops. Most of them had the jail’s branding across the back, but some of the inmates had substituted theirs for similarly coloured yellow vests. Here and there, some women were wearing entirely different coloured clothes. The singing was raucous and possibly a bit too happy. Just infront of me, a woman who I later learnt was called Oli enthusiastically clapped along to the singer at the front, encouraging the others to do the same. She was one of two prisoners who volunteered to come forward to give testimonies. Both were full of emotion with positive messages but eyes that shone heavily. I remembered that these women had had their freedom taken away.
Definitely a day of rest. I’ve hardly spent any time with the kids today, although they were at both services that I attended. Mum gave the sermon at the first. In the second I sat with Randy and we spent much of the sermon comparing different body tricks – twitching eyebrows, hand clicks, impossible arm movements etc. The illusions he was showing me were good but John’s talk was actually rather interesting and he kept trying to show me stuff as stories approached their punch-lines.
Early this afternoon we went for a drink at a coastal resort just down the road. Chrissie and Rachel are hoping to take the children for a day out there later in our stay but as it stands, the managers won’t reduce the price to a level they’re happy with. Something that’s surprised me about this project is the amount of money that continues to be invested in it. The set up is not swilling in cash but it doesn’t appear to be as third world as I imagined it might be. On the one hand, Chrissie is clothed in hand-me-downs and the project’s bus sounds like it’s about to stall every few minutes; but on the other the church is kitted out with a full drum-kit, sound-system and PC-based projection system. Money is obviously a major and ongoing concern but it doesn’t stop the children getting a fair standard of living, considering the converted pigsties that their neighbours are housed in just down the road. Part of that must be due to the project’s longevity. Chrissie and her husband have been working at this for more than a quarter of a century. She told me earlier that the long-term plan is for her daughter to take over as its administrator.
The problem with painting pink paint on pink walls in bright sunlight is that it’s difficult to spot the bits you’ve missed. But that’s the colour of the girl’s house, so we found ourselves dipping our rollers into trays of the stuff first thing this morning. Some of the children joined in and made a mess of the floor next to one of the staircases. I managed to surpass their clumsy accidents by tilting my tray at the wrong angle. By the time I’d seen it, half my paint had trickled along a walkway. I tried to mop it up but there was so much of it, the cloth was just pushing the liquid further down the path so I decided to leave it where it was. So there’s now a small part of the Philippines that’s pink thanks to me.
This evening we switched camps and went to play with the girls. I brought ten numbered pads that connect together to form a game of hopscotch. The younger kids were falling over each other to rearrange the squares by putting different numbers in different places. Then they launched themselves from one pad to the next with huge leaps and big thumps as they came crashing down. One girl had a moody, concentrated look on her face the entire time she was playing. She had big innocent eyes and a bobbed haircut that kept falling across her eyes. As she landed she’d squeal with delight, then look hard for the next number before repeating the exercise. Their energy gradually weakened as the evening wore on. By the end younger ones especially were more interested in cuddling or colouring in. We packed up and said goodnight.
Subic is flush with posters of politicians. The presidential election is on May 10th. Rachel says the result’s likely to be fixed. She reckons during the last campaign, one candidate attracted 4 million people to a single raleigh but only managed 1 million votes. But it hasn’t stopped every tubby round-faced Philippino from printing up a poster complete with their face and their surname in big letters through the middle. Ed Piano was my favourite. But Ian preferred James ‘Bong’ Gordon, who’s running for re-election as mayor for an area just up the road from here alongside Anne Gordon (who – from the photos – could be his wife or his daughter), who’s trying to keep her seat in Congress. On sheer numbers alone, Anne is definitely winning. He picture is looking at me from virtually every corner of Subic. Jay Khonghun is another vociferous campaigner. He’s mayor of this district and judging from the mountains of campaign material on walls, basketball hoops, jeepneys and sidecars, he’s keen to have another stab. Subtlety apparently isn’t seen as a virtue in this year’s run for the poles. All of which made for a colourful journey into the city earlier today.
This evening was the children’s graduation. Most of the kids were wearing expensive looking clothes. The girls especially wouldn’t have looked out of place on a night out in Britain. The ceremony took place in the square outside the school where we’d watched the practices yesterday. A large banner had been put up across the front of the school to create a staging area. Chrissie told us the event would last for around three-and-a-half hours but that bunking off mid-way through would be acceptable. By turning up an hour later than the advertised start (apparently 4pm in the Philippines actually means 5pm), I assumed we’d find a seat back and side from which we could slip out of part-way through. Instead we were invited to bypass the mass of parents congregating at the back to take up several reserved rows right at the front. The seats had ‘J Khonghum’ in large letters across the back. For once my protests didn’t work. We had to sit in them.
Four hours later, we’d all had a go up front. Elgar’s Prom finisher had played more times than I could count, punctuated by a couple of power cuts and several dances from the children. Mandy and Ian had been attacked by a swarm of bees as they gave out more rosettes and certificates. All kinds of bugs began taking to the stage as the sunlight disappeared, bouncing around people’s heads as the ceremony continued. The children gradually lost interest, despite the introduction of a handyman with a stepladder, who wandered on change the lightbulbs. Soon the kids from the home surrounded us. They wanted to pose for pictures or borrow our cameras to take their own shots. The two teenage girls in our party – Becky and Saskia – came in for particular attention as three well dressed teenage boys asked whether they fancied a chat on Facebook sometime.
As we passed from room to room, class after class got to their feet and rhythmically greeted us, “Good afternoon visitors (pron: veesetooors). Have a nice day, God bless you.” There were about 12 children to each class and while the building felt basic, it was neatly kept with maps and displays on every wall. A religious motto looked down us from behind every teacher. There was no question that God was at the centre of the school’s ethos.
Arrived. Tired, sticky and ready to get out of these clothes. But pleased to be out of the airport system. Passing through Manila airport was an effort in itself. First the forms, then the queues and finally the tired looking men in suits with the stamps. Mum nearly forgot that she’s acting as guardian for 15 year old Saskia. She walked through immigration without her and had to turn back. Then we had to wait for the big games box we’d put in the hold. The bag carousel went round and round and although every other bag came out, this one was being kept back. Finally the men who were unloading the luggage climbed up the baggage ramp to hand out the vulnerable remains. A guitar, a DVD player, several strangely shaped boxes then finally ours.
