Thursday, March 18 from Cliff

This morning we convened at the Manila Polo Club, an exclusive club with a posh club house.  We were served a buffet breakfast/brunch and told that the Rotary Club of Makati East, our hosts for the day, were changing the schedule.  Instead of the visit to the Children’s Hospital we would instead be going to the main TV station in Manila and get to watch the live broadcast of a variety show called Wawawee.  It is a mixture of Lawrence Welk, American Bandstand, Name that Tune and Let’s make a Deal all thrown together in one 3 hour long show.  We were the only non-filipino faces in the audience.  So you can imagine what happened next.  The host Willy came over to where we were sitting to ask a few questions, they stick a microphone in my face and I have to answer for the group.  You have to understand that one of my main goals in life at this point is to never be on TV again because I don’t come off very well.  Everyone was smiling when Willy moved on and I was able to at least mention that we were there because of Rotary.  This show has the highest rating of any Filipino show.  Apparently you have to wait up to 6 months to get a ticket for the show.  One of the members of Makati East works for Ernst and Young Accounting firm and one of the responsibilities of his department is to certify the contents of the hidden prizes to keep the show honest and believable.  So he was able get access to the people in charge of seating and we were given reasonably good seats.  What a great experience.  After the show two of the other Rotary members who were also with started receiving texts asking why they weren’t at work and were on TV, we really did have prime seats.  When we went to the international dinner, at night there were a number of Rotarians that came up to us and mentioned that they had seen us on TV.

For dinner we had a Rotary International Dinner at a Chinese Restaurant in Resort World, a casino.  This was to honor delegates from a Rotary District in Malaysia and the Rotary International President’s Representation Liam, from Taiwan.  The dinner was a nice affair, the food was good and the speeches were short.  We were able to have dinner with the GSE Team that will be going to New Jersey in April.  Another very nice group of young people.  They will have a good time in our district.