Vonage is back online!

Thanks to one of Barry's colleagues traveling from the US to Manila, we now have our Vonage line back up and running, so please give us a shout when you can.

Thursdays for others trip to Smokey Mountain, Tondo - named for the mountains of garbage dump that look like they are smoking because of the methane gas emitted. Yum! This is a big "squatter" community that used to live in shacks on the dump, but the government furnished "permanent housing" which we toured. In particular, we are here visiting YWAM (youth with a mission) and it's Tuberculosis ministry, following up with TB patients to take their medicine regularly, sponsoring children's education, etc. This is an area where the main source of income is garbage picking and reselling. I was told that when children are asked what they want to be when the grow up, they reply "a garbage picker, like my parents". And that is exactly what they do - only they don't usually wait until they are grown up, unless you consider a 5 year old a grown up... Gerald, Oliver and Jojo, posing for a picture. They love digital cameras because they get to see themselves immediately. They laugh and poke fun at each other when they see the pictures.
One of the ladies who helps distribute the TB medication to patients in the program. It can take 6-12 months to fully recover from TB if medication is taken regularly.
Two sweet little girls that it was too hard to resist taking a picture of...
 

Paradise Heights is the name of the buildings here at Smokey Mountain...go figure! It may be difficult to get a picture of the filth and imagine the smell that permeates the air here, but this green hill here is actually a mountain of garbage. They dug it out and put up housing right beside it. Notice the layers of plastic garbage that make up the hill. Who could ask for a greater paradise than this?

They love to pose!
 

Kids hanging out of a hallway window in the apartment complex... Cindy posing with a little girl outside the baby day care center that will be opening soon.
Walking in between buildings to see the new baby day care center that was being painted.
These are some of the shacks right in the middle of the garbage dump where many of the people in Smokey Mountain used to live before they were placed in permanent housing. Because they have to pay rent for the housing, many will choose to stay in places such as these. And the commute is much quicker! One cannot imagine the stench until you are actually there. People who live there wear high rubber boots because it is just muddy and nasty. Who would have imagined how useful the innersprings of mattresses are for walls?! It seemed like the standard building material here.
 

Most recent trip to the Baseco Habitat for Humanity site. We visited "Beautiful Temple" as we usually do, joining Pastor Nixon's "Sidewalk Sunday School" by teaching a little bit of Dr. Seuss' ABC and some songs to go along with the letter of the month...The picture below is Cindy holding a little girl who had gone to sleep during the story and her brother (maybe 10 years old) was taking care of her. Cindy couldn't resist taking a sleeping baby off his hands. Ethel is in the background...BTW, Cindy is here with her husband working at the US Embassy and Ethel's husband is working for General Motors. Luz is at the front introducing us to the kids. This was a smaller crowd, but usually in this small one-room church, over 200 kids are there. This time there was only a little over 100. We bring juice and snacks to hand out afterward as nutrition is a big need here...
Video of Pat and Luz teaching letter "B"...

Michelle's Tennis Team

Here are some photos from Michelle's and her team with at their first tennis tournament.

Yoshie, Michelle, Diane, Sachi, Naoko and Scotty (Akemi not pictured)

Michelle, Scotty, Naoko, Coach Dward, Sachi, Diane and Yoshi (Akemi not pictured) at opening ceremony of their first tournament together.

 

We've Got The Power!

Finally, after nearly 12 days our power was restored mid-day this past Sunday, October 8, 2006. We moved out of our friends house and enjoyed a great night of sleep back in our beds. Monday we had the land lord send people to put things back to normal with our power and water supply. By Monday evening as we had our first meal together at home in nearly 2 weeks things seemed very much back to normal.

I hope to have our Vonage back up and running by Thursday this week. Please check back for updates.

Still Powerless!

Yes, it is now very early Sunday morning here in Manila and yes we are the laughing stock of our neighborhood as the only remaining residence with no power. Unfortunately, the power company can't or won't give us any dates, so we continue to enjoy our stay and Hotel Hiday (friends in the same village who live very close by).

FYI... If you are trying to call our Vonage number it will go straight to voicemail. Feel free to leave one, as we can check it online. However, when we stayed at the hotel for a few nights, I plugged my 110v Vonage box into a 220v outlet. Needless to say, it stinks both literally and figuratively as it no longer works. I should have my replacement device mid next week so stay tuned.

 

Oh, the joys of staying in a hotel room when you have no power...By the way, it is a week later and our house remains the only house in the village with no power...we have checked out of the hotel and are now staying at a friend's house down the street (Hotel Hiday). This feels like I've just had another house fire...
 

Here is Jasmin (left), Bond (center) and Aniceta (right) having a splash in the pool during the typhoon. Sorry, it's hard to get a really clear picture when it's windy and typhooning outside... 

TYPHOON MILENYO
Yep. Our first real typhoon since we have lived here in the Philippines. According to a Naval website the winds ranged from 130 - 170 miles per hour as the storm battered Manila for nearly 90 minutes. Below is the paper from the following day, as this storm has been the biggest thing in the news.

Browse through the pictures and videos below and hopefully you will start to get a sense of what we experienced.

 

Here are some videos Michelle captured from our house during the storm.

 

Here is the big tree next to our house that brought down a cement pole along with the power, cable and phone lines.

Check out the root structure of this tree. It totally formed to the inset area of our fence.

 

Here is the big tree next to our fence that brought down our power, cable and phone lines.

The pole laying across the road is cement.

Here is Davis with our dog Bond on the other side of our downed tree.

 

The aftermath in our back yard.

Notice all the limbs and leaves in our pool!

 

Checkout this video of windows and drapes being ripped out of a condo building near us during the storm.

 

Pictures after the video above of the Pacific Plaza.

A closer shot of some of the missing windows blown out by the storm.

A view of more of the windows.

 

More pictures from our village...

A downed tree leaning on a fence.

Our friend Kim near another downed tree.

 

More pictures from our village...

Another downed tree in our village.

A mangled tree over some power, phone and cable lines.

A tree leaning against the power, phone and cable lines.