Well, the team is all home now and reality is slowly starting to settle in.  The Philippines seems like another world compared to our comfortable Canadian home. 

In the beginning, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking “an amazing adventure, cultural learning, once in a lifetime experience that Rotary pays for, what’s the catch?” It took about a week or so into the trip before the team really started to understand the reason why this opportunity exists.  And those reasons became so much clearer as our trip rolled out.

We learned some wonderful realities about the Philippines:

• The people are amazingly joyful and know how to celebrate, sing, dance and laugh
• We didn’t really know the word ‘hospitality’ before we arrived – we learned what it means to give when you have nothing
• The land is beautiful, rich, lush and full of opportunity

Unfortunately there is another side that may not be talked about too much that we also learned about:

• Freedom of speech is limited in a way that Canadians can’t really understand
• It’s the fourth most corrupt country in the world and corruption leaves an ugly footprint on everything from road drainage and education to business
• Poverty is worse and wider spread than what we could imagine before going

Within hours we could go from extreme highs to plummeting lows because as you can see, the Philippines is an amazing land of contrasts.  Thirty days of that has drained us, but also opened our eyes to some learnings that we didn’t anticipate we’d take away from this trip.  This is what we quickly learned that the Group Study Exchange is about, and it came as our core understanding of this world began to shift:

1)      We feel compelled to be the voice of the Philippines.  To tell the world about the challenges Filipinos face, and the joy and celebration the people have in their souls.  We have left a piece of us there, and have brought some home with us too.  This GSE team can show the photos, tell the stories and share this amazing culture that few know well. Rules and assumptions differ greatly as we saw many children that our western perspective would think ‘if you work really hard, you can get out of here’. That may be true for us, but it’s a different reality over there.  We have seen, and now feel responsible for telling the stories of this amazing land that possesses both sadness and joy. 

2)      As Canadians, we are proud on Canada Day, when we travel with the maple leaf on our backpacks and when the Canadians sweep gold in Olympic hockey.  I believe our generation misses what it truly means to be free, to have laws that are adhered to, to vote as we wish and to voice our opinions.  Sure no country is perfect, but we now understand why people work as hard as they do and pursue any opportunity to come to this country.  We are so fortunate as Canadians, and our team feels it is now our responsibility to tell our generation that it is very different ‘out there’ and we are some of the fortunate few.

3)      Our team is a young, energetic and curious group interested in finding new truths and seeking adventure.  What we found is an international organization that we feel people need to know about and be proud to be a part of.  We saw a lot of the work Rotary is doing in the Philippines.  Unless you’ve been there it’s hard to understand how far, wide and meaningful it truly is.  It’s one thing to hear about water filtration and literacy projects, but when you see it actually put into place, and the people who are doing it and others benefiting from it – you can’t help but want to shout from the rooftops the amazing things Rotary International is doing throughout the world.  And Rotarians should walk a little taller because the work being done is truly pivotal to this nation that the five of us have come to love.  It’s nearly impossible to see all the good that Rotary is doing and not want to be a part of this exceptional and extremely effective organization.  And we again, feel compelled to tell our generation about the infrastructure that already exists to do something truly meaningful.

So as our sleep patterns return to normal and our world view adjusts back to this reality, we now know why the GSE.  Our families and friends will have to adjust to the soapboxes we’ve all come home standing on.  Spreading messages of a new wonderful land and people, our fortune to live in this country, and the organization called Rotary that is impacting the world.

I know I speak for the team when I say we’d love to share this adventure with you – at rotary, in a coffee shop, in schools or wherever it is, to tell the story of the Philippines.  We’ll soon have a presentation ready.

And as things come up, thoughts, ideas, the impact of the May elections and other info we’ll continue to post to this blog as long as people are willing to read.  We will continue to share, because we’ve gotten a little glimpse of a big world, and I know we’ll never be ready to shut that door…

Well the last few weeks have been crazy busy which explains the absence of a post.  From Davao to Butuan to San Francisco and now we’re in Tagum.  We’ve managed to explore a great deal of Mindanao.  Our highlights were definately seeing Rotary projects from water filtration, schools, day cares, medical missions and job creation programs for women and ‘differently abled’ Filipinos – and so many more that I’m sure I’m forgetting right now.

We’ve managed also to really get to know the culture and meet amazing people.  It’s crazy how you can spend just a few short days with a club and feel like you’ve known them forever.

I think we’ve also managed to establish a fun loving and adventurous reputation around here that has been preceeding us.  Perhaps the main reason is that we’re usually the first on the dance floor, the first to sing (with some prodding) and there may have been a little incident in San Frans where the entire team jumped in the pool in our GSE uniforms.

So we’re at a point in the trip where we are doing many lasts: presentations, host families, club greetings and travel days.  And we’re realizing that this motly crew gagthered from cities all over BC will have to say goodbye to this country that we’ve grown to love and to one another.  Sad day, but I think it just highlights how much we’ve learned and are growing as people.

Thanks for following and hopefully we’ll be able to post before we head back to the great white north!

Sonja.

I just got some time to upload these.  Enjoy!

Rotary project visitation

a school on the mountain top for flash flood victims

Meeting the Mayor of Koronadal

Our GSE team, the UK team and our host Lawrence on our last night together

Cultural dance

Rotay project – home for kids with cancer

After a rotary meeting

Mangrove planting

Rizel, our GSE chair on this end for this trip has really gone all out in getting us some amazing vocational days.  So today we were all spread out around Davao to experience our respective vocations.

Kelli went to the tv station where she will connect with Melanie who is a news anchor and part of the outbound GSE team to our district. Rumour has it that she may also make the 5.30pm news tonight!

Bevan was sent out to see a couple of elementary schools and their feeding programs.

Brooke is back to a maternity ward of a local hospital for the day.

Faydra is at a YMCA here today then will be spekaing at and visiting a rehab centre.

I am at SM mall – this place is huge!  I’ve spent the morning with the mall marketing manager, and am astounded at both how similar and diffent our retail industries can be.  It’s amazing the difference culture can make in business.

Anyways, we’re here in Davao – a big city – for 4 more days so hopefully we’ll be able to report in on our learnings and our gracious and fun-loving hosts!

So yesterday we went to mass at the hospital with Lawrence and his family.  Lawrence has been charged with looking after us for the last five days and he’s been wonderful.  We took a tour of the hospital where he worked and talked to Brother Rob from the US who has been doing some amazing things around training, feeding programs and micro loans for the past 40 years.

As we were leaving Gensan that day, we’d already had to say goodbye to some of the amazing people we’d already met on this trip.  Anita, John, Lawrence, Dervin, Ray, Elvie, Henry, Lucia, Noel, Pitok and Rene are only a few of the people who have made us feel like we were totally at home.  Only knowing them for a week felt like a lifetime. We also said goodbye to our new and great friends from the UK GSE team.  Who also felt like they’d been friends for years.

So off we went to the new town of Digos where we were welcomed by a wonderful group of fun loving rotarians.  Again, another goodbye and Lawrence passed us over to Pearl’s welcoming hands.  This is when the culture began.  We went and saw an outdoor manual pottery factory – incredible.  And we took a boat trip to a small island.  This is where the rotary had initiated a re-forestation project of Mangroves.  The scene was like it was out of a postcard!

That evening we were presented with traditional music and danc in the Pearl Convention Centre. Kids from a local highschool were dressed in traditional outfits playing all sorts of instruments.  They were so talented and then tried to teach us rather unsusessfully how to do some of their dances.  That was at least goof dor a laugh on all of our parts.  And of course, the way to both start and end the day – a bit of Kareoke!

Today we’ll be heading to to Davao for a full 5 days of learning, exploring and ‘fellowship’.  We’re getting better at thinking ‘it’s not goodbye, it’s see you later…

Kelli was cut short on her last blog post about our vocational visits.  Yes, we visited a few hospitals and often we’ve been able to do our vocational studies together which has been incredible.

Kelli and I (Sonja) were able to tour a local tv station in GenSan and do an interview of what we are doing here and what we think.  As Kelli is in media, she found it very interesting.

We also got the chance to talk to Bing, a serial entrepreneur in transport and fiber optics.  His insight into how business is conducted is remarkable.  I felt like I was hanging on his every word.  From dealing with corruption, to not using equipment so that they can employ more people are very different issues than what we deal with.

We were also up at 5am the other morning doing a Filipino excercize class outdoors with about 100 others.  It was amazing, and fFaydra as a community fitness instructer and YMCA director was in her element.

We’ve also visited many many schools to see the amazing rotartian projects.  I really can’t wait to come back and show the rotarty clubs in BC first hand of what their support means to this country.  It is much needed, and appreciated more than you can imagine.  It’s a very good thing!

The team is doing well, and other than a cold (Bevan) we have yet to eperience any dire ilneesses.  We’ve also met up with the outbound GSE team from here who will be coming to BC – they are awesome, and I can only hope we can come close to treating them the way they’ve treated us.  And we’ve ,et with the UK GSE team too and had a great time with them.

The reality of this place is setting in, and there is so much sadness, but the spirits of the Filipino people really are second to none.  They posess so much beauty and we can’t wait to share it with you.

Time to sign off before the power crashes – fairly common in a drought.  Will post soon!

With the variety of careers we all have, it’s been incredibly interesting to get out and experience each other’s vocation.  Though we have travelled individually to TV stations, hospitals and retail stores, yesterday in Koronodal we toured around together.  We got to see Brooke scrub in on the maternity ward at a local hospital.  The rest of us admired the smushy new faces on the other side of the window and tried to convince a new father to consider one of our names for his new daughter.  I think he was leaning towards Sonfaybrooke. 

And now we are running off to tour a Rotary program – a school for special needs children. 

Stay tuned…

We are now in a tiny town of Koronadal and again treated amazingly. The people we are staying  are again totally hospitable, funloving and genuine.  Rotary is an amazing organisation, and we all can’t wait to get back and tell the world about the great things happening here! 
 
Last night we did our first formal presentation which went well.  Then the Rotary club had ‘fellowship’, which means beer and kereoke.  It was awesome!  Today we are going to visit a project site which is a school for the deaf and blind kids.  Should be good.
 
And we’re going to a lake with waterfalls to check out the beauty of this place as well.  We just came from breakfast with the state governor and a number of politicians, as it is a small town many people seem to know one another. 
 
We went to the market yesterday too which was a total assault on the senses, but very local which was great as it was our first time really checking out how many people live.  Faydra and I had a hard time walking under the tarps .
 
Anyways, that’s all for now. Oh, and we even celebrated the big Canada win by singing our anthem last night at the meeting.  They seemed to like it!

Have we ever learned a lot.  After being welcomed by a banner of our own faces, and some of the kindest Rotarians you’ll ever meet, we were donned with ribbons and flowers around our necks.

Instead of resting, we began a whirlwind adventure all over Gensen (General Santos).  Not slowed by jet lag, we were brought from site to site to experinece this small city.  A highlight was a visit to the Dole Pineapple plantation, where three of the five team members cast our eyes to the skies in search for the pineapple tree.  But alas, it was the acres and acres of low lying plants that produce this amazing fruit.  Our hosts still haven’t let us forget about our rookie mistake.

I think that first day we had about three breakfasts, two lunches and only one dinner.  The theme was definitely food, and mostly fruit in all forms.  Including the unpopular durian ice cream, made from a fruit that they say ‘smells like hell and tastes like heaven’.  I’d argue that the ‘tastes like heavan’ part is a bit of a fallacy (understatement).

The team has been totally taken aback with how wonderful the hospitality is here.  We have truly been treated like royalty.  Yesterday, when we went to see the big festival and parade, they literally stopped the parade so that we could walk in it.  I’m not too sure who was more interested in whom as many people were taking our photos, pointing and sending their children to come say hi to us.  Apparently they don’t get many tourists here and we stand out like a sore thumb.

We’ve also been over to visit the Rotary Surgical mission taking place in Gensen.  A doctor from Australia has partenered with her club and the clubs here to deliver over 400 both major and minor surgeries over the course of four days.  The organisation around that is truly remarkable, and those who are recieving the care would not have access to healthcare otherwise.  Brooke, the nurse on our team was right in there in her scrubs.

There is so much more to talk about, but we’ll be signing off for now.  Post soon!

I cannot believe that I’m getting a free moment to blog.  Well so much to update everyone on. We leave tomorrow!  There has been a frenzy of excited emails bouncing around these last few days with details, timelines and some really important things like ‘what shoes are you bringing?’

We’ve received an itemized and thorough timeline, which for the A types in the group (guilty) is very helpful. I can’t even begin to tell of all the cultural celebrations, city tours, project visits, Rotary presentations, homestay families and yes even a wee bit of leisure time we will be experiencing.

As the bustle of the Olympics is slowly drowned out by packing, planning and some good byes, we are so excited to be on the eve of a journey that will surely be a pivotal moment in each of our lives.

We wouldn’t have been able to get here without the support of the Rotary District 5040, and especially the coordination of GSE Chair Garry Shearer. THANK YOU! Garry, we’re going to miss you and a few of us are still trying to find ways to get you to join us. Rumour is you’re waiting for some really exotic land before he goes as leader. :) Iceland?

Back to the post at hand, we can’t wait to share all of our news with you! Next time we update will be in a new time zone, and a new land as ambassadors for Rotary District 5040!