Thursday 8th April

The children know we’re going and they don’t want us to leave. Lots of them keep asking why we’re going and pulling long faces. Hannah Joi keeps calling me daddy. For the first time today, she stopped jumping around and put her head in her head in her hands. Some of the children have started giving away their teddy bears. They want us to have them. Tomorrow’s going to be difficult.

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.

Our quiz seemed to go down well. Mandy and Ian won, which wasn’t surprising given that they’ve probably spent the most time with the three of us over the past few weeks. For once, I’m not the last to bed. I’ve left mum making cards for the children in the dining room. She’s making one for every single girl. I imagine she’ll be up for quite some time.