Day 10

Life as a Filipino from Cabacungan

We start the day same as always, by dumping all our technology in a bag. Oh wait… this day is starting a little different. Instead of our normal breakfast feast cooked up by the amazing cooking staff at the White House, we began with rice porridge, cooked with a dash of salt, a handful of spring onions and a skerrick of chicken. Not only do we eat this odd concoction for breakfast but that’ll be our food for the day, a small bowl breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Today is our opportunity to walk in the shoes of one of our Filipino hosts. No technology, small amounts of simple foods, with one of the busiest days of the trip so far, and when it’s all said and done, muddied, covered in specks of dried paint, we will climb into bed, un-showered. Hopefully we’ll be a little wiser from our experience.

So we made it! As we are sitting here updating the next episode of the blog, we are absolutely wrecked.

Another successful day in the school, with rousing renditions of ‘My God is so Big’ and ‘Stand up and shout it’. Despite a last minute change the year 1’s, 2’s and 4’s thoroughly enjoyed the story of David and Goliath and the enthusiastic presentation by today's teaching group.

A last minute change in the bakery saw a group harvesting sugar cane, a little bit more painting and some rock shifting. We have it on good authority that a taste of the sugar cane is a not to be missed experience.

The final group was out in the rice fields, building paddies, guiding Caribou (we have no idea how to spell this but it is some sort of water buffalo and not to be confused with the big moose like animal) which involved ploughing and hoeing. We discovered that after two hours of work that what we had completed would probably be have to be redone due to the fact that we just don’t do a good enough job, this did feel a little disappointing that we are not able to contribute as much as we would like.

After our meagre lunch we headed up to the school for a Volleyball and Basketball tournament. The girls were admirable in defeat, with some stunning rallies. The boys were able to come away with a win; and a little ear damage from the screaming teenage girls.

We donned our rice sack pants again and headed back to the IRC to paint doors and complete the first coat on the walls. It is amazing to see it all coming together.

Instead of heading back to the guest house for dinner we took our dinner into the homes of the local villagers, sharing with them over food and attempting to discover as much as we could about life in this beautiful and yet totally impoverished part of the world. This was definitely a highlight and the assigned hour disappeared before we knew it.

We learnt first-hand how physically demanding life for the people here can be and also how much we are capable of, despite the lack of the things we so often think are necessary. We are grateful for a day with such experiences.

And a quick Birthday shout out to Zoe’s Mum for tomorrow, she also asks that her Mum bakes a cake to bring to the airport to celebrate (This was definitely Zoe’s idea and not the two guys writing this blog post) 

Ben K.S. & Mr Pitman