Edmund Rice Philippine Mission Diary - 6
12th October 2007
Greetings from us all and you can see us sporting our new congregational hats, icon and all, provided by Marie and her family. Philippino people love giving gifts. Family – Well that’s what is on my mind at the moment. We had the good fortune to be invited to an anniversary Eucharist of a dear departed. (The Father of the household) This family is well known in our area for their charity work among other things. The MJs have a similar associate membership as we do and this family figures prominently as members, so we see them a lot. They seem to be helping Fr Ely get his own dialyses for example, which of course is a huge expense beyond his budget. Anyway family solidarity, like it is at home I guess, though less demonstrative, is very important. The customs of Mo-Po was very evident and for the first time not just confined to children as adults were giving Mo-Po to their seniors also. (I talked about this in one of my previous diaries) Anyway it was very moving to see how the family works together as one. Family is very important here and some how is much tied to their faith which is extraordinarily strong as you know. The final point concerning family is the custom of members sending money back to their family from their work places over sea. This family is no exception and has two siblings supporting the family (Nursing overseas) in this way. Apparently a large part of the economy is reliant on such money flowing in from other countries. A good time to send greetings to you my family, relations and friends and to let you know you are all in our prayers.
Rod has returned to Kabankalan and I will be catching up with him in a couple of weeks. He seems to have been part of a wonderful gathering in Brisbane. We will pray for the men who were chosen to represent us at the chapter next year and we thank God for the hard work our delegates in the pre-chapter meeting put in. We notice our cluster leader (Tony Hempenstall) is one of the chosen so we have a rep. (Salamat Diyos)
The city of Davao is very big, in fact territory wise, it is one of the largest cities in the world or so I am told. It takes in the entire city block and a large part of the surrounding country side as well. This makes the local Bishop’s job very difficult as he does not have enough priests to minister to this great and widely dispersed flock. (85% Catholic) The catholic schools here are getting some government support but there is a huge short fall, so the teachers don’t get paid any where near what their counterparts in the government system get. The kids seem very contented and happy though, maybe this has something to do with the fact that only primary education is compulsory at the moment secondary could be seen as, only for the privilege few, though I think this is changing. Carl has explored the city more than Frank or I. He loves walking.
The little house lizard (Tiki) has me fascinated as it makes loud clicking noises and from such a small animal too. (A little over the size of 20cents piece) It is just another addition to the countless different sounds we encounter every day. It certainly is a noisy place compared to Girrawheen’s tranquillity. The locals count the clicks when they occur as a way of forecasting weather. I even saw a Priest while giving a sermon counting the clicks with his fingers which looked quite odd. I have caught a Tiki, which is strangely transparent and living in my bathroom, on camera. Speaking of the weather we are just 9 degrees north of the equator so have hot and humid condition often enough. (Nights hot also) Rain is spasmodic but we have had some good falls and this does bring some relief. We are not in the real extremes of weather here and its common enough just to get the tail of the heavy stuff that is experienced in higher latitude. Leyte is in this typhoon zone so they tell me. Oh Joy.
Carl and Frank and I are doing very well and the improvement can now be seen in the way we attempt to make up sentences outside school time. Excuse “the lifting of my own chair” which is the Cebuano way of saying “your pushing your own barrow”. (It sounds better in Cebuano of course) We hope to start conversing with one another in Cebuano in a serious manner in the next few weeks. At the moment its more talking in English with a spattering of Cebuano words thrown in for good measure. Our vocab is steadily growing though some times I feel I learn new words one day at the expense of losing a couple I learnt the previous day. If anyone has some advise as to how one retains what one has learnt we would love to hear from them. I guess for the moment its just hard work that is the answer. I wish I was 20 years younger. Ha!
The last word on the sonoy story; apparently they always flap their wings at a great rate before crowing. It was the sound of the wings flapping that had me beat for a while. I thought it was our neighbours banging plastic buckets to wake them up at all hours, to get them more aggressive for their future careers. (Shown a champion fighting bird from next door) My new theory is that artificial lights being put on at midnight that makes the Cocks think it’s time to perform; so way they go. I used to use the light trick at Bundoora (Victoria) back in the 60s to get more eggs out of the hens, so maybe I am being punished now for my past sins. Ha!
You can get first hand experience of the noise these wonderful creatures make when you Skype me, as Berkeley found out today when he did just that from Broome. They are part of a continuous background noise along with the traffic of course. A delegation was sent round to see if any thing can be done to lessen the noise factor. We wait in anticipation for the effect this will have on our peace and quiet.
Our first graduation occurred yesterday. Sister Anna (French) is moving off to Manila to continue her work with the street kids. She was taking a refresher course in Tagalog and gave a moving speech in the said language. How do I know? I hear you say. Well she put plenty of emotion into her talk so I could tell from her facial expression that she was sad to go but happy to be doing Gods work. God bless her. (Middle back)
The whole school community at Sister Ann’s graduation can be seen above. Many countries are represented e.g.: Brazil, Nigeria, Tanzania, France, Germany, The Philippines, India, Peru, Korea, New Zealand and of course Australia. All the teachers are able to speak Cebuano as well as Tagalog and are wonderfully patient with us which never seems to amaze me. I think its one of their natural qualities of which they have many. 
I went into town with Fr Ben on his Motorbike, which was the most daring thing I have done so far since being here. I did shut my eyes a couple of times but we arrived safe and sound. ( Thanks St Christopher) I got a taxi back as we both had a lot of shopping and one daring move per day was tempting fate enough. The traffic is horrendous. The 8KM ride home cost about $1.50 (P60) not bad Ha! Thanks to brothers of the Holy Spirit Province (WA & SA of old) we have a projector which should be handy when we start our ministry.
We are being exposed to the Philippine culture which goes hand in hand with our language 
course. The first paragraph of this article is a good example. Another revelation is the people don’t like saying no so we have to be careful when making our needs known. They do have many polite ways of saying no however. Hospitality is taken to a new level also as shown in the last newsletter in the way they provide food for the visitor regardless of the time of the day or occasion or lack of appetite. (Rice, fish, Baboy and fruit are the usual fair) Bye for now till next time. PT
