24 Hours in the Philippines

We have just returned to the Peace Boat from a day in the Philippines. No doubt the longest 24 hours of my life and a rollercoaster of emotions.

We embarked off the ship onto buses that would take us to a local college for 16-21 year olds in the Talisay area of Cebu. I wasn't quite expecting to see masses of slums and polluted waters within seconds of leaving the docks and this was a continuous part of the view for nearly all of our stay.

Once we arrived at the college we received a celebrity welcome from hundreds upon hundreds of pupils and teachers. Every young Filipino wearing wide smiles and taking any opportunity to say hello, shake hands or high five. All this while the Village People blasted out and the obvious moves to accompany it. As soon as we settled I had to pull down my sunglasses to cover up the emotion trying to take it all in. Although internet access is minimal to us, I'm sure the Change Agents you know will soon be uploading their versions of events at this moment and I think it too will be overwhelming.

Anyway, after a few obligatory speeches, impressive dances and singing from the College we broke up into our groups and headed to our classrooms to engage with the young people and learn from each other. And that we certainly did. My personal group were energetic and keen to hear our introductions which included a few laughs where the slight language or accent barriers arose. We then went on to invite the young people what the YMCA was to them before we filled in the few gaps in what we believe our movement represents. The meat and bone of the exercise was for the group to discuss issues of social injustice that are current in the Philippines and the response raised several issues as expected. Finally we asked the group to note what changes they would like to see in the future of the Country and a personal favourite from my small group came from 16 year old Lorena who wrote "As we can see today there are lots of people who suffer from poverty. In my opinion we can help them to have a better life by not just giving them food but also love and respect even though we may have different situations". Going through the notes now this is only one example of fantastic input received.

After a bazillion cumulative selfies with every possible combination of pupil/CA we headed off to the City Hall for an official welcome. The City Hall was nice but not over extravagant compared to what you've seen in major cities, but when you knew around the corner there were families living under corrugated metal sheets it certainly did feel unjust. Another enjoyable two hours of talks and performances and we were heading to our accommodation for the night at Cebu YMCA.

Unless you've stayed in a YMCA you'll never know what to expect until you do and this differs from every Country. This YMCA was welcoming however for some of the team who didn't expect 2 inch mattresses, no Wi-Fi, ten beds in a room and the odd cockroach in the toilet may have not had the greatest of stays! This was slightly helped by a McDonald's five minutes up the road and surely enough once baggage was dropped we packed out the joint. Maybe "the amount of chicken nuggets consumed in one hour" can be the next YMCA World Challenge?!

We were located quite close to the built up city centre so the slums were no more, what awaited us was worse. Many groups of us went for a further stroll and what we seen will stay with me forever or at least until poverty is fully eradicated. Dozens of homeless people aligned the street sprawled out on cardboard bedding, and especially a girl of probably three years old sleeping, alone and shoeless in the middle of the pavement caught the attention of everyone, and not just for that moment. It was the first thing I brought up with my girlfriend shortly after via phone which was the first time we have spoke in 8 days. The sadness, then fun, then utter disbelief of the days events resulted in a solemn evening and suddenly our accommodation was perfectly suitable.

As I have done most mornings on the programme I woke up around 5am and seen the sun rise. Today though I was really looking forward to the planned feeding of the homeless children, some of whom we would have seen the night before. By 7am the forecourt was full of 80 or so young people. Nine renditions (yes... NINE) of the YMCA song to entertain the children and wake up the sleepy heads amongst our group followed before the children were finally invited to come up for food served by the awesome team of YMCA Cebu volunteers and fellow Change Agents. They were served a healthy serving of porridge accompanied by a sausage, bread roll and piece of fruit. There wasn't any waste. Interestingly we discovered that this project only costs about £40 a day to feed 100 people. It was great to hear so many people saying they will be getting on to their local and national movements involved to support this and similar causes.

We went to breakfast separately, which I usually would raise an issue with but at this time the young people were enjoying free swimming lessons also provided by the YMCA, before heading back out of town for some alternative tourism which consisted of a group of people who are turning un-recyclable waste such as crisp packets and rice bags into colourful, sustainable handbags, purses and pencil cases. Photos to follow.

Before boarding the boat we visited an enormous shopping mall (again only a stone's throw away from poverty) and lunch. I'm sat gazing at the sea while joking to Stuart from Dumfries YMCA that we've probably done more in 24 hours than even Jack Bauer can manage.

What an experience.

N.b. I've been asked by a few other Change Agents from England and Wales to tell you that they will be posting when back home. I'm currently £30 into internet usage on board so hope you can understand their difficulty in accessing the blog and I'm sure their experiences will be well worth the wait.