Are You Looking at My Ax?

I’m going to try and do this chronologically so this post is about our arrival in Manila and flying over to the island where the children reside at God’s Town.

The 3 of us weary travelers arrived in Manila very early in the morning. Linda had made arrangements for a van to pick us up knowing full well we would be laden with large, heavy bags. And there he was, our smiling van driver, ready, willing and able to take us to our hotel and much needed beds for some real sleep.

Even though it was pitch black driving to the hotel it was the start, for me at least, of an eye-opening and at times over-whelming experience. It is not like we don’t have poverty here in the US but this just seemed to go on for quite some time and some of these were the nicer homes. Of course parts of the city are very neon and glitzy but that was not where our final destination would be. We went to an out lying area of Manila called Quezon City. Which by the way, if you Google the city, just had a devastating fire in what the article referred to as a slum area leaving over 3,000 people homeless.

Our first couple of days in Manila included catching up on sleep, making arrangements for our flight to Samar and getting ourselves “pretty” for our visit with the children at God’s Town. We availed ourselves of one of the continuous places advertising massages and the like and it was heavenly. This and subsequent visits produced one of our new Ma’amisms as we call them: “If massage was an Olympic sport, the Filipinos would win the gold medal”. Stay tuned for more Ma'amisms we had many "pearls of wisdom" during our adventures.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t report that we visited a hair salon where I got a pedicure, had my hair cut and colored for 1,000 pesos. Now sure 1,000 pesos sounds like a lot but in US dollars: $22 bucks..that’s right, $22. But sadly regardless of all the compliments I got about it once I returned, I really can’t travel ½ way around the world to do it again any time soon.

After finally securing airline tickets for our next leg of the journey we headed for the airport to leave. I say finally secured because everyone was traveling due to it being Holy week. So through security we head laden down with huge heavy bags full of much needed items, tools and things for God’s Town including a big wheel trike. As one of the large duffle style bags goes through the guard looks at Ma’am Linda and ask, “Is this your bag?” to which she replies in what can only be describe as a near Marilyn Monroe, coy sort of voice: “Are you looking at my ax?”. Well yes he replies and proceeds to explain how it is election time over there and this item is not allowed. Linda then continues to make her case in a very charming voice that it’s a tool needed at the orphanage to help with the farm where we are going. She also offers to go get him coffee or a soda and needless to say, God’s Town now has an ax for the farm.

I’m going to end this post with a bit of history that we got to see.

The pictures are of MacArthur Landing Memorial situated in Red Beach, Palo, Leyte. The monument commemorates the landing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur at the beaches of Leyte in October 1944. It was the first time MacArthur had set foot on Philippine soil since he promised "I shall return" before evacuating Corregidor Island for Australia. The landings at Leyte kick started the liberation of the Philippine Islands from Japanese imperial forces in World War 2 which had occupied the country since 1941.

And finally here we are in front of the monument from left to right Lourdes, Linda, me, Becky, Purie and her granddaugher Lavelle. Purie is the Director of God's Town and Lourdes is her sister. They were among our welcoming committee at the airport when we arrived.

The Saga Begins & An Ode

It appears that most of my jetlag fogginess has subsided enough for me to start to relay the adventures and stories of our 2 week whirlwind trip to the Philippines to visit God’s Town. I have so much to talk about but I guess it’s best to just start at the beginning.

We said farewell to our men folk we were leaving behind to fend for themselves, who god bless their hearts got up early to see us off at the Harrisburg PA airport on Saturday, March 27^th. ( see photo)

That was pretty much uneventful and I must say the airport was nice and pretty quiet at that day and time. Our massive amount of baggage was checked and we were told it would go all the way to Manila even though we would be getting on at least 2 different airlines and flights later. We left Harrisburg for Newark which is where we would leave for the major leg of our journey. This is where the 16 hour long flight would begin…but not without our first “hiccup”.

And now, the following is my ode to Mr. Snippy. We boarded Continental flight 99, in Newark bound for Hong Kong which, by the sea of humanity appeared to be fully booked. Becky and I had trouble finding a place for our carry-on luggage. When we questioned a flight attended he immediately said I can take care of it and whisked away our bags. Now our assumption was he was going to simply find a little, hidden unknown spot for them. Perhaps an overhead compartment we hadn’t looked in. But no, he returned to us, smiling saintly and announced “your bags have been checked to Hong Kong”! And while yes we were going to land in Hong Kong it was not our final destination and we had no reason to claim any bags in Hong Kong before our next connection because, as I mentioned before, we were told in Harrisburg all our checked luggage was going straight thru to Manila. So we calmly told him “Hong Kong is not our final destination, why are they going there, we’re going to Manila?” To which the flight attendant made a resounding comeback from across at least one aisle “how was I supposed to know, did you tell me you were going to Manila?” To which we replied, “you didn’t ask us.” This exchanged was a bit heated and other passengers even looked at us with sympathetic eyes and offered us some comfort and suggestions.

Our fear was it could take too much time to claim our now checked bags in Hong Kong causing us to miss our connection to Manila. We asked to talk to other flight staff to see if they could make arrangements while we were en route before landing to expedite our first hiccup. It appears word got back to the original hiccup producer because the flight attendant showed up at our seats, leaning so far over Becky on the aisle to actually touch my arm, while seated in the middle seat to say “I wasn’t being ‘snippy’ with you but you didn’t tell me you were going to Manila”. I interjected that I had never flown out of the country before like this and had no idea I had to tell him this detail. We didn’t know what he was doing with the bags and he never asked. It was his attempt at apologizing but didn’t cut much ice with any of us. His comment of I wasn’t being “snippy with you” from then on officially named him Sir Snippy in our books. We also at times referred to him as The Snipster or other similarly affectionate pet names. He later tried to make additional amends, after learning we were going to an orphanage, by giving us a whole tray of those little cloths they heat up and give you for your traveling pleasure!! Those cloths actually did come in handy at God’s Town but the ‘hiccup’ stayed etched in our collective memories.

Please check back later for more trip blog posts with titles such as:

• Are You Looking at My Ax?
• I Slept with Lizards.

and my personal favorite

• Attack of the Toilet Bowl Gaga'mba!

Not to mention lots of heart-warming stories about the incredible kids and staff at God's Town.

Baby Duck is Back in the USA

This will be a short post because I think I'm still feeling the effects of jet lag, but wanted to say the 3 of us returned home safe and sound from our far off trip. We got in Friday evening to Newark Airport which sounds strange when you figure we left from the Philippines at about 7am on Friday but with the time difference we basically traveled back in time!! It was good to be home with Aaron and Sammy but sad to leave my 2 travel companions and especially the children and staff at God's Town.

I have a ton of stories to tell, not to mention pictures, about our travels, meeting Sebio, his co-children and the staff at God's Town. While the trip really tested me in many ways, it did also give me a tremendous appreciation for what we have here in our country. I definately won't be taking things like running water and consistent electricity for granted any more.

Fair warning that some of the upcoming posts will tug at your heart and others may make you laugh so hard you'll pee your pants! I will end for now by saying I met some amazing, hard working and caring individuals and created bonds with people, although they are half way around the world from us not so very different.

Hello from the Philippines

Sebio and I are here at the Internet Cafe and came to say hello to everyone who is reading this blog. We are in town and just got done shopping and it is hot!

Everyone at God's Town is doing well and we are happy to be visiting with each other. We will keep this short but wanted to say hello and tell everyone we are doing good.