Kat Ellis is one half of the 'Kat and Kat' dream team volunteering in the Philippines.
Pasil Part 1Close your eyes. Breathe in the smell of the sea, the fish, mixed with the smell of urine, open sewers and pollution. Listen to the children laughing, people singing karaoke, the kissing sound of the men on trisicads to let you know they’re coming, and the constant background drone of the factory. Imagine walking down a narrow street, just wide enough for a car, a street lined with people, smiling, saying hello. There are hundreds of children, babies in makeshift cots, cockerels for cock fighting, piglets, pigeons in cages, every house with a small store, their only source of income. Imagine looking up and seeing a sky filled with electricity cables, and brightly coloured flags which give the place a festive feel.
This is Pasil, a slum in Cebu City, the Philippines, and my home for 5 months. Pasil was once a rubbish dump. Today it is home to about 80,000 Filipinos, many who started out as squatters with no land to call their own. It is impossible to ignore the poverty here. Some houses are made of wood, with corrugated iron roofs. There are communal squat toilets which they are so ashamed of they won’t let us use. Some houses have no running water, some have 1 or 2 rooms for a family of 10. Some have no home; they sleep outside, in their store, or in their tricycad. People wash their clothes by hand, in tubs sitting in the street; they cook on bits of coal, or on a basic stove outside. The youth here don’t have money to treat themselves; they look to us, because Europeans are so rich.
And in the middle of all this is God. The Salesians of Don Bosco have had a presence here for over 50 years. The church is filled with people every mass. In the evening, Don Bosco Youth Center has over 300 children, running around, playing basketball, volleyball, having a good time. I will write more about the Salesians and my role here next time.
Pasil is another world. It is so completely different to anything I have ever experienced before. Pasil has become my home, and I love it here.
Pasil Part 2
After one month of being in Pasil I finally felt like I was settled and into a routine. As I said before, life here is so different, and sometimes walking down the street I have to stop and think about the differences. It’s so easy just to accept this as the norm here. But when is it normal that babies are starving? When is it normal that children can’t afford to go to school? Is it normal to be earning just enough to live on? Is it acceptable? These are just some of the questions I’ve been faced with here. Poverty, once something seen on the news, read about in books, has become a reality. No longer am I an outsider, an observer looking in, but a friend to these people, someone involved in their lives, which makes it impossible to ignore the poverty.
Other than making friends, observing life here, and thinking and reflecting a lot, I do actually have work to do! I wake up at 7am (I finally seem to be able to sleep through the 5am wake up call of the cockerel and Mass!), and spend the morning assisting with admin work in the clinic, or preparing and distributing food for the feeding program for malnourished children. After lunch I am in the Planning and Development Office, helping to keep on top of communication between sponsors and the scholars. Never has office work been so much hard work! Computers don’t always work, or printers, or there just isn’t one available. I have even learnt to use a type writer. We also seem to have a case of too many cooks….sometimes work gets done twice! But it’s a good experience. I am also teaching basic Maths for 4 hours a week to 17-22 year old males at Don Bosco Training Center (DBTC). I’m not sure they’ve had a white teacher before, or a young female, so it’s been lots of fun!
In the evening Kat and I have decided to refurbish the library. It’s certainly in need of a good clean out. It’s hardly used, dusty, with irrelevant books, and books dating from 1930s! After dinner DBTC
is transformed into DBYC (Don Bosco Youth Center) and we have about 300 children attending the rosary followed by fun and games.
The work here is certainly fun, although challenging at times. The Salesians are well respected in the community, and DBYC is regarded highly. The center is providing a safe space for children to play, for young adults to learn technical skills, and for the sick to receive free medical attention. And in the heart of all this teaching and playing is God. The Salesian presence here gives people a hope, a reason for living. They may be poor, but many are more spiritually rich than we can ever hope to be.