Edmund Rice Philippine Mission Diary - 5
6th October 2007
We are on skype here now so anyone wanting to have a chat needs only to type my handle (thruppy1) into the skype search engine and you will be able to reach me most nights. If you don’t have Skype it’s a simple move to download free the Skype programme by typing into Google the word “Skype” and following the prompts. The other bit of information is that since the Province newsletter is now defunct one need to go to the desktop to see my periodic diary updates. Good luck on this one.
Hi all and yes we are continuing to make steady progress with our Cebuano. We now can ably put a complete sentence together, though we do need a bit of prompting at times. We are well into the verbs after mastering the nouns and adjectives (well some of them anyway) The Pronouns are very important as most sentences rely on one knowing them by heart (all), the Topic and Non Topic pronouns; Pre-pose and post-pose. Frank and I drill each other each night on various items of the language. We are actually increasing our vocab every day. “La bad olo’’ There are standard drills but this is all spoilt by what Joan calls (Pitsy Pitsy) which basically is the hundreds of minute rules which help you construct a sentence correctly. Carl would be very pleased if there were no Pitsy Pitsys. They certainly make our life interesting. Enough!!
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Now that we have been a new Province of Oceania for a week we no longer feel isolated but part of one big family stretching from the most southerly part of the Province, the south Island of New Zealand to here in the northern hemisphere in the Philippines. That is a lot of Kilometres. We have been in contact with our cluster leader, Tony Hempenstall, and feel we have a good man at the helm. We are all well thanks be to God and hope you are all in top form also. We are expecting visitors next weekend in, Luke Quinn and Steve McLaughlin so that is something to look forward to. 
The new experience this week, or one of them, is witnessing a new home blessing by Fr Ely. As the photo suggests it was a rather interesting time. The picture of a new house with a traditional house in the fore ground shows the two houses we visited, the first house being replaced by a more solid construction and so the reason for the blessing. They are among the few who are part of the “upward mobile” families here in Davao. We go to an outlying Parish with Fr Ely every second Sunday and meet different people each time. This Parish has one big church and 72 small Chapels. About 80 families belong to each chapel and these are run by a lay leader. A priest gets to them twice a year if they are lucky. Ely just tries to help out. It is to a different chapel we go to each time and I have included a couple of photos to give you an idea of what goes on. Fr Ely is a very sick man and is forced to attend a dialyses session twice a week. He is waiting patiently for a donor so he can live a normal life which we of course take for granted. We gave him a relic of the founder today so we would like you all to join us in praying daily for his complete recovery. You can see him in one of the photos celebrating Mass for us in one of the chapels. The Old and New blessed house shown above.
The effort of the local Mayor to provide cheap housing for the poor people in these barangays is interesting. A photo shows you the entrance to the estate (1 st Page) and little dwellings. Not a recommended way of living and certainly goes against their cultural way of living but they have little choice but to live this way with all the domestic problems they cause. The squatter homes (if you call these hovels that) are certainly no better than bits and pieces tied together with string so anything is better than them. We try to help where we can but our studies certainly keep us so busy; we look forward to weekends for a small respite.
We did pass a cock fighting den so I took a shot as it is such a big part of life in the Philippines. We also visited Jacks Ridge over looking Davao. A pretty site. The Japanese had their underground network up there. I have included a shot of a world war Zero. By the way just think of us when you next visit a super Market. It took Frank and me 2 hours of queuing before we could get our groceries out. Computer problems of course. Headache country if you get my meaning, even Philippino ladies lost patience.
The “Sunoys” are still making too much noise for their own good I’m thinking of exporting them all to the cock fighting den. The weather is hot and 
humid still but believe it or not I think I am starting to get use to it. The all saints and all souls weekend is a national holiday so I am taking myself up to Kabankalan to visit the brothers up there to do some business and join them for a couple of days prayer. (God in the now)
I hope this 5 th diary finds you all well and be assured we are all 100% up here. The people are very friendly and have a wonderful spirit of hospitality. The Philippines are blessed by a rich history and a strong faith in God, even in spite of the inefficiencies of the Government. It does take for ever to get any thing done. Red tape plus corruption are the main stumbling blocks I guess. A potential paradise, I hear you say, well the obvious poverty is also every where though I 
feel if the two problems mentioned above were tackled even this may diminish. We look forward to our future mission in Leyte.
God bless from us all here in Davao City. Peter Thrupp (cfc)
