verging_on_random

Adopting a school

This is the Roxas Elementary School in Tapaz, Capiz, Philippines. The occasion is a visit by that eminent kano Ken Lovell to present school supplies to the students.

The school consists of a collection of buildings that range in quality from barely acceptable to falling down. You can watch a video here and see where in one room the roof is literally collapsing. Another room only has a dirt floor and is open to the elements … god knows what it’s like in the wet season.

Here in Australia, the government’s laudable ambition is to provide every student with a computer. I was a bit more modest in helping the kids at this school; I made sure they all had a ballpoint pen, some crayons and pencils, a notebook and a writing pad. Everyone was very excited and grateful (you can see the Grade 5 hussies sending me love letters in the video).

Most of the teachers at this school live in Iloilo City, about two hours away by motorbike and bus. They travel to the school on Mondays and go home for the weekend. During the week they sleep at the school, on the floor. There’s a rice cooker and a few other odds and ends in the administration office where they can make meals and wash clothes. By the way, Americans retiring to live in the Philippines reckon you can live comfortably on 40,000 pesos a month. A teacher’s salary is about 8,000 pesos  a month. Still, they’re a lot better off than some of the parents of their students.

Despite all this, everybody is clean and well-presented and happy. Here’s one of the youngsters doing a native dance at the special assembly they had to welcome their visitors.

It’s hard to evaluate the extent to which people from outside can help this school. I think the impact will be considerable and far exceed the relatively small costs in Australian terms. It’s not just the money but the fact that people from a rich country like Australia are bothering to make a personal effort. On the day I visited, only about 50% of the kids were in attendance. Here’s an extract from an email the principal sent me the other day:

Indigenous Pupils of Roxas Elementary School really amazed the graces they have received. Such things increase almost 100% of school attendance the following school day up to the present.

In the video, you’ll see me meet a rather serious looking lady dressed in black. She is the Barangay Captain, a local government leader who has no exact equivalent in Australia. She thought my visit was so important she hastened over to the school when she found out I was there. One of the men up front with me is a local councillor. If you look closely, you can see villagers outside the gate looking in. The principal told me I was the first foreigner ever to visit the school. There’s no doubt that getting practical recognition from Australia is a Big Deal to these people. So the law of diminishing returns will undoubtedly set in over time but I believe a few people and a little money can have a great beneficial influence on these kids’ lives.

God knows there’s no shortage of ways to spend money that will do a lot of good. Some of the school buildings desperately need repairs and there’s a shortage of all kinds of basic equipment like books and writing pads and so on. Oh I forgot to tell you they just got their first ever computer for the administrators. It runs Windows 3.1 and there’s no internet connection but at least they can print documents … as long as they can afford to buy ink for the printer, which must cost an enormous amount by PI standards. So I’m not going to attempt to make a list of useful things to do with money, it would be too long. The problem will be in working out the greatest need. Essentials that we take for granted, like a photocopier and some musical instruments and a working telephone, are not even in contemplation at the moment.

Any assistance will have to depend on trust. I won’t be visiting again until the end of the year I don’t think. I’ve asked the school principal to let me have her thoughts on getting some minimum prudential oversight of any money I send, so we can all be sure it’s not going on indulgent luxuries like buying the teachers beds to sleep in, and she will get back to me. I’m going to open a new bank account here and I’ll kick it off with $500. I hope that other people will send me some money to deposit too.

I’ll be pestering my friends and work colleagues to add to the collection and one day soon I’ll cross-post at Road to Surfdom, which has a bigger audience. For now though I’d like to see if anybody is interested in helping this rather unsystematically enthusiastic exercise in practical foreign aid.

If you’d like to make a contribution by cheque you can send it to me, Ken Lovell, at PO Box 18, Pottsville, 2489. If you’d like to send by PayPal instead, you can find a donation button here. If you’d prefer, you can wait until I post details of the new bank account and transfer money direct. If anyone would like to help in another way, or would like some more information, please don’t hesitate to send me an email through this site.

This is as good a cause as I can think of for anyone who just wants to give a helping hand to good people who live, through no fault of their own, in circumstances immeasurably poorer than ours. And who knows? We might deter a potential future terrorist from hating Teh West, or even give the necessary first steps to an artist or community leader who can make thousands of people’s lives better. I hope you can send something and rest assured that it will truly make a difference.

The joys of mobile telephony

Old phone

Cris’s story

Cris lives in Navatos, which is part of the great urban spread called Manila. He’s street-smart and also intelligent; he was an honour student at high school and his academic trophies are still displayed proudly in his home even though he is 24 years old now (yes I know he looks about 16 but I assure you he is really 24).

Cris has three sisters and four brothers and a bewildering collection of aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews and assorted other family whom I have not even tried to keep track of. That’s a niece in the picture. He was born and grew up in Navatos and lived there until he got the kind of work I described in an earlier post, which he does from his employer’s studio in Angeles. Like all Filipinos he needs to be surrounded by his family so he travels regularly between Manila and Angeles (about a two hour trip). You can get a comfortable air-conditioned bus with aircraft-style seats or a non-air-conditioned bus with hard bench seats designed for midgets. I’ve travelled in both; I will never catch the crappy one again unless my life is in danger. Cris catches it routinely because it’s cheaper (to be fair, he’s only about 5′3″ so he can sit in the seats without suffering the torture that I did).

Cris’s mother also works … she sells water door to door. Price is two pesos a litre - that’s about six cents. If she sells 10 litres she makes a whole 57 cents. She has to carry the water of course, and 10 litres weighs a bit. She and Cris are the only two in the family with any regular income. Here’s the neighbourhood … it’s what’s known as a squatters’ area.

The house is a series of small rooms that must be unbearable in summer. Cooking is done in the tiny front area immediately adjacent to the street, on an open fire. Electricity comes from the house next door via an extension cord.

I have no idea how these people survive but they are all very clean and take pride in their appearance and share a lot of down-to-earth good humour. They adore their children and nobody goes hungry, although the diet is not good (rice and vegetables and rice and occasional fish and extra rice). One thing that struck me was the poor state of the people’s teeth. Whatever the reason, it’s rare for a Filipino over the age of about 30 to have all their teeth.

Some people might ask why they don’t get off their butts and find work. It’s a reasonable question but it misconceives the nature of this society. There are few jobs; any large organisation limits hiring to college graduates even for unskilled work so the millions of very poor have few opportunities. Many people have various side projects but there is so little money in the neighbourhood that the rewards are negligible. You could be the smartest operator in the block but you can’t get blood from a stone. Remarkably, the crime rate appears to be little different to what you might expect in any Australian city. Certainly I never felt any nervousness or the need to keep my hand on my wallet although I’m sure it would be stupid to go wandering around after dark by yourself.

Strangely enough I didn’t feel any sense of despair or hopelessness after visiting these people. They are reasonably contented, they derive great happiness from the simple joys of family life, and they still have hope of a better life for their children. Indeed the only times I have felt seriously awkward in dealing with Cris’s family is when they have asked me for help in coming to Australia to work and I have had to explain that it is not possible. Yes I would love a maid and a houseboy for $50 a week plus board , which is a lot of money for these people, but under even WorkChoices it’s not allowed … something that’s hard to explain to people who have no way of grasping things like a minimum wage or OH&S laws.

I guess sooner or later some transnational companies will decide to shift manufacturing operations to the Philippines and the people will break out of the poverty cycle, albeit at tremendous social cost, as has happened in other Third World countries. In the mean time it’s hard to know what to suggest apart from individual acts of sharing. There are 10 million people in Metro Manila, most in slums like these … it’s not really practical to teach them to catch fish or grow mangoes or make macramé knick-knacks for tourists. Compared to Rex and his family, who I talked about in my last post, these people are the truly poor.

I’ve helped Cris get his own computer at his mother’s home and he’s going to teach his brothers and sisters and sundry other relatives how to use it. I don’t know if it will do any good but it might; at least they’ll have a basic skill that they will need if jobs ever become available. And I can talk to them often on web cam and show them that they are not forgotten by Teh West, which might do some good, to hell if I know.

Doing nothing however is inconceivable.

Rex’s story

Meet Rex. He’s 18, turns 19 next week. He’s intelligent, confident, and very good at organising practical things like negotiating to rent a car and driver for the day or getting shop assistants to gather school supplies for 300 students.

Rex was born in Raxos, in Capiz province in the Visayas in a village in the hills. His father died when he was still a baby; his mother and stepfather still live in the village where Rex was born. I visited it last week. The family home is made out of bamboo, with an earth floor and iron roof. The iron is badly rusted and full of holes; in the wet season the house must be very damp. Needless to say there’s no town water, sewage or electricity. They have a gas lantern and cook on a fire.

The people of Capiz are an indigenous tribe with their own distinct identity. Physically they are quite different to the people of Luzon. I think they are very graceful and attractive, but here are some of the children so you can judge for yourselves.

The village school is opposite the house. I’ll be writing more about the school in a week or two. Rex attended grade 1 there. After that he did something that illustrates the way in which Filipino culture is based on the extended family: he went to live with an uncle in Manila to go to another school for a few years. He returned to Raxos late in elementary school and then went to the local high school. The high school is quite a long way from Roxas and Rex used to try to get a lift on a friend’s motor bike (there are no school buses, if you were wondering. I went there in a high clearance taxi and it struggled in a few parts of the road; a bus would end up in the bottom of the valley). If he couldn’t get a lift he walked. It’s a very long walk.

I can’t really imagine what life is like for a high school kid in a village like that. No television or radio or mobile phones, very little artificial light, and from time to time, very little food. Nevertheless, Rex graduated from high school and on my limited acquaintance, he is as well educated as many 19 year old Australians. He speaks three languages:
his indigenous language, Tagalog, and English. Like many Australian 18 year olds he still has a lot to learn; unlike many Australian 18 year olds he understands it and is polite and respectful to those who can teach him. I was most impressed with the relationship between him and his old elementary school teachers … a relationship of warmth and affection but still marked by the respect owed by a student to a teacher.

Upon graduating from high school at the age of 17, Rex assumed responsibility for his family. His stepfather is a carpenter but I get the impression that he does not feel comfortable in the changing urban world. He works in the village when he can get it, for about 200 pesos a day. That’s about $6. Even in the Philippines where the cost of living is low, $6 a day doesn’t get you far.

Rex now lives with a cousin and her husband and their new baby in a two bedroom apartment in Iloilo City. Rex’s brother also lives there. Every now and again his aunty and uncle and mother and stepfather live there too, when they come to the city to visit their children. In the Philippines, the family is everything (which is just as well, because government support is pretty well non-existent). Rex’s brother goes to the Philippines equivalent of TAFE; Rex does the work that I described in an earlier post. He pays his brother’s tuition, gives money to his cousin and mother, and somehow everyone gets fed and clothed. The whole family seems to be very happy and contented and I was humble and proud that they took me into their hearts.

The plan is that once Rex’s brother finishes his course in computer studies (in March 2009), he will get a job while Rex goes back to college. He wants to be a doctor; I don’t think that’s a realistic prospect but maybe I misunderstand the system. I’ve encouraged him to think about coming to Australia to do a TAFE diploma. It would cost about 100,000 pesos for visas and admission fees and so on which is a sum so wildly beyond the experience of anyone in the family that I don’t think Rex takes the possibility seriously yet. But it’s only about $3,500, which I am more than happy to pay if it kick starts a family out of poverty, so I’ll keep talking to him about it and we’ll see what happens.

I hope this hasn’t read like a hard-luck story because it’s not. Rex is a success story; he’s about to move to his own apartment (albeit one with no hot water) and he’s pretty well off for a Filipino. Yet without a piece of luck, Filipinos like him will spend their lives in a precarious state, constantly on the edge of complete poverty. I think maybe I was Rex’s piece of luck and that I can help him and his family move to a more secure life. If I can do it, I will consider it a good thing to have done, because they are good people.

However, there are 300 kids attending an elementary school in Roxas who won’t all be lucky enough to meet a caring Kano*. I’ll tell you about them later. First, in a day or two, I want to tell you about some people who are really poor … people who live in squats in Navatos City, a place so run-down it doesn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry.

And of course when I finish these tales from the Philippines I’m going to invite you to give money to help these wonderful people. You have been warned.

Next time: Cris’s story.

*Kano=Americano. All white foreigners are Kanos in the Philippines .

A few facts about the Philippines

I’m too tired to write anything serious about my trip so that will have to wait until tomorrow. In the mean time, here are some random thoughts about the Philippines:

• Filipinos are addicted to noise. There’s an old Spinal Tap line about amplifiers going all the way up to 11 … amplifiers in the Philippines only have 11. All the time. Any restaurant, mall or social gathering has music (live or recorded) blasting out loud enough to make your ears bleed. I don’t know why the whole nation isn’t deaf.
• People shudder at the thought of driving in the Philippines. I don’t know why - they must suffer from an obsessive need for rules and regulations. Once I got the hang of it I kind of enjoyed the way Filipinos drive. It’s like the way a big crowd of people make their way to different destinations on foot: if there’s a gap you move into it, and if someone gets there before you well you just wait your turn. I guess people who think lane lines on the road are important would freak out a bit but when you think about it, if a road is wide enough for five cars why force the traffic into three lanes? It just wastes space. I’d be happy to drive in the Philippines … though perhaps not in an expensive shiny new car.
• Whenever you meet new people, expect to have to eat food, and not just a token snack either. Our habit of offering tea or coffee or a drink is perhaps stingier, but much less fattening.
• Most people are bilingual. My friend from Iloilo only has a high school education but speaks three languages.
• The public transport system is staggeringly efficient and cheap. Jeepneys (covered utilities that seat about 14 people) run more or less constantly on all main roads and taxis are everywhere. The longest I had to wait for a ride was about five minutes, and that was late at night. Usually it was a matter of walking a minute or two to a main road and hailing a passing jeepney or taxi straight away. Twice I caught buses to cities that were respectively two and five hours away from where I was staying. We just rode to the bus station, got on a comfortable air-conditioned bus and it left within half an hour. If I lived in the Philippines I doubt that I would bother owning a car.
• I did most of the things tourists are advised not to do and lived to tell the tale … DFAT has an advisory warning against catching ferries in the Philippines because one sank in 2004. I wonder if its equivalent in other countries warns people against catching trains in Australia because one crashed a few years ago … and never stay in a backpackers’ hostel cos they have lots of fires. I felt just as safe in the Philippines as in Australia (more so actually - the last time I was seriously concerned about my safety was in Rundle Mall, Adelaide, about 9 pm on a week night).

I liked the country and the people I met very much and I will certainly be going back as often as I can. Over the next few weeks I’ll be telling some stories about the people I met and describing how I intend to try to provide some practical help to a school in a remote area. I hope that some people who read might want to help too.

Tomorrow: Rex’s story.

Practical foreign aid

Over the Christmas-New Year break I became increasingly conscious of the incredible, pointless self-indulgence of our way of life in this country.It’s all part of the glorious revolution brought about by the intertubes; it’s one thing to read about poverty in other countries, or watch documentaries, but when you talk on a daily basis with people who are intelligent and funny and warm, and for whom $10 is as much as they sometimes make in a whole day, poverty becomes a real concept with actual dynamic meaning.

I found myself reconsidering all those random purchases that are so easy to make at any time, but especially in the holiday season. Do I really need another few CDs to add to a music collection that already had many items I may well never play again in my life? Is another shirt really going to make me happier, given that my existing stock will probably last for another 20 years? Most of all, will I really enjoy hundreds of dollars worth of hams and turkeys and cakes and puddings and sweets and dips and champagne and boutique beer and all the other things that are the essential hallmarks of a satisfying middle class life in Australia in the 21st century?

The answer to these questions is pretty obvious when you talk to people whose big Christmas treat is getting a bus back to the provinces to visit the family (and worrying while they do it because they only get paid when they work so Christmas means a time when they get no income). Oh, and also being able to buy some fireworks for New Year, which are doubtless less spectacular than the carefully-choreographed displays in capital cities all around the world but possibly more fun for all concerned.

I’ve read widely over the last few weeks about relationships between foreigners and Filipinos. Much of the commentary is astute and caring and written by people who have many years experience in the country. There’s also a lot, on the other hand, which consists of variations on the theme “Gosh don’t give them money cos you’ll just turn them into a mob of bludgers.” It’s like listening to Newt Gingrich or Alan Jones talk about unmarried mothers and welfare. Coincidentally, it’s an issue that’s been the subject of lively discussion in a forum that I’ve subscribed to. Here are extracts from two of the posts that I particularly liked:

On the other side, foreigners from 1st world countries find themselves with excess finances and just can’t walk away from their consciences. Not a behavioral term but accurate. If you should visit or live here, and you find yourself able to pass through some of the most miserable conditions without a twinge, it will tell you more about yourself than about managing the behaviors of a third world country.

And again:

Filipinos have the extended family to support them. Given that the Philippines is a very poor country, I find it amazing that so few people are hungry, and very few are “abandoned to their fate”. The system actually works incredibly well, even though the complex interlinking of the dependancies is very hard to understand and accept for many a western husband/boyfriend - many of whom seem to accept being taxed for State collective provision of welfare in their home country, but cannot accept giving freely to the wife/gf’s family in a society (which is not taking much tax off them when they are resident in Philippines) which does not provide support through the State.

“Welfare” is just provided differently in the Philippines - it is a family responsibility rather than the State’s. There is a lot less resource to spread around and the method of delivery of support is different.

Anyway the upshot of all this unusual upsurge of compassion on my part is that I’m flying to the Philippines in a day or two to meet some people and explore opportunities to do some good on a continuing basis. Even if I end up just sending money regularly to people who have become friends, it will be money better spent than on self-indulgence on things I don’t really need. I mean what a thoughtlessly disgraceful society we are when ’shopping’ and ‘going to the mall’ have become important leisure activities.

The sad thing, of course, is that many Filipinos’ greatest desire is to meet a rich forenjer like me and get transported to the land where everyone owns cars and big houses and so much money it’s sometimes hard to spend it all. Ah well, there’s no point trying to change the world, but it will be nice to make a difference to the lives of just a few people who I know and like. Much more satisfying than donating to some organisation where most of the money might get recycled to pay Australian style salaries to expat staff who believe the first priority is setting up and maintaining a bureaucracy along the lines of a Western business.

So happy 2008 to my few loyal readers! I might post while overseas but if not, I’ll be back in the middle of January. Wish me luck!