Monday, April 5 from Cliff - The Final Post, We're Home

Up at 3:30 AM (some of the team never went to bed) for our last trip to the airport.  The plane left Manila at 7 AM and we were off to Philadelphia.  There is nothing good that can be said about being in a plane for as long as we were.  After 24 hours on travel we arrived in Philadelphia at 3:30 in the afternoon.  Everything was again familiar.  The traffic was understandable although heavy at times.  But now when I look at things, I am seeing things in a different light.  I expect that this new perception will go on for some time.  I am returning with the knowledge that in the US we do many things right, but we also are overlooking many other things that we could do better.  Maybe in a small way I can add to the voices that want to see positive changes in how everyone in the world lives and interacts.  And that is the whole purpose of this exchange.  I have to thank Rotary for having the foresight to offer this program.  My only wish would be that more people could participate in the program and have this kind of experience.

TS Eliot and GSE

When I was a senior in high school, my English teacher, Matt Carr, gave us a writing assignment based on a quote from Eliot's poem "Four Quartets":
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

A month ago I arrived here in Manila, spent the night at the AIM Conference Center, woke up the next morning and explored the Greenbelt Mall in Makati before attending our welcoming dinner with Gov Sid. Now here I am--it's just after midnight, and I'm sitting in one of Greenbelt's big open plazas outside the Cafe Havana listening to the band. A few hours ago we were at our farewell dinner with Gov Sid and so many of the other wonderful people we met and spent time with this past month. In a little while I'll walk back over to AIM to finish the last bit of packing and while away the final few hours before Fed arrives at 3:30 am to take us to the airport.

Wasn't a month ago just yesterday?

Manila is no longer a foreign land of strange customs. I can order from the menu with relative competence, translate the abbreviations with greater ease...although I doubt I will ever have what it takes to drive on Manila's roads (Palawan, sure, but not Manila!).

It has been an extraordinary month, filled with surprises, education, understanding, appreciation, sharing, and service. We have been given a precious gift in this time abroad--a gift of more than pasalubong (souveniers)--a gift of inspiration. Despite the challenges and hardships present here, our Rotary hosts have stood up and commuted themselves to be of service. Hunger? Feed the hungry, one at a time if need be, then create programs that will help them find ways to feed themselves. Homelessness? Build new houses, by the hundreds and thousands. Government corruption? Sponsor voter education meetings, so people will not fear the election process and be willing to come out and cast their votes. Illiteracy? Adopt remote communities, build schools, supply textbooks and resources, sponsor new programs. Rotarians here are pillars of strength, beacons of light, willing servants for the community's greater good, despite the seemingly overwhelming odds against success.

In every community we visited, I saw roadside signs enumerating the Four-Way Test - as clear an indication as any that Rotarians here are as concerned about community values as they are about social justice.

At the dinner tonight Cliff said we are leaving with far more than we arrived with (and he wasn't referring to pasalubong either!) I absolutely agree - the 84 clubs of 3830 have found a way to develop their leadership potential, be of service, and create an exceptional network of fellowship as well. There certainly is a lot to be learned here, and I hope I've managed to bring some of it home with me.

I'm in the same place I was a month ago, but that place is not the same to me.

It's time to go home.

Lew

Good Friday

This is a hard post to write.

Let's start by saying I'm a bit more of an outsider here than usual--even though I married Sharon, who was raised in a traditional Roman Catholic family, I'm very much a Jew--and here, I'm a Jew in a nation that is overwhelmingly Catholic.

So I expected to be an outsider when we went to observe the crucifixions in Pampanga yesterday. In truth, I expected a LOT of things yesterday, and not many of them were realized.

I expected to see people voluntarily have themselves nailed to crosses--that part most certainly did happen. 6 times, in fact, including one woman in the role of Christ.

But beyond that, it was extraordinarily different than I expected. I thought there would be a great sense of solemnity, but that was pretty far from the case; in fact, the atmosphere would be better described as carnivalesque. The huge crowd was catered to by a horde of food and merchandise vendors that lined the street leading to the...what to call it? Field? Event arena? Hill? I'm not sure. It could have been a street festival for any occasion at all. The only overt reminder of how this was going to end was the hill itself--surrounded by two concentric rings of chain-link fencing, sporting three stark white crosses at the summit.

To stand outside the perimeter to watch was completely free; but as we quickly discovered, for a small fee--500 pesos--we could get courtside seats (that's obviously an exaggeration--there were no seats here--standing or squatting only). Who could resist? Certainly not us--nor the could the others up there with us, a crowd mostly comprised of foreign tourists and members of the media, accompanied by a large group of men dressing the part as Roman centurions (painted cardboard armor and drawn-on beards). So there we were, a mere 10-15 feet away from the action, able to see it all in fine detail--6 of the faithful submitting to having themselves nailed through the palms.

What to think of this?

I have never attended a public execution--with any luck this is as close as I'll ever get. But I couldn't help but realize that this festive atmosphere--all of these smiling, happy people (perhaps as many as a thousand, from the look of it)--was no different from ever similar moment in human history. Public execution has always brought out the townsfolk, picnic lunches in hand, to watch the criminals receive their just punishments, and be thankful it's not them suffering the long arm of law.

Why was I there? The official Church has condemned this practice. There was no member of the clergy present as an officiant. No prayers were offered (except by those who were to be crucified). There was no official reenactment--no crown of thorns, no words from the Bible, no lines of dialogue.

When the hammer was raised, why didn't I look away? Why instead did I make sure my camera was rolling, so I could get the best photos and video possible? Why didn't I gasp in horror when the hammer came down, when I could see the nail driven in, when I could see pain on their faces? Moreso, why didn't a crowd of a thousand react in horror? I heard only a few scattered gasps, a natural enough reaction to the sight of anyone submitting themselves to any willful act of physical violence--but no great swelling of what I would call heartfelt religious fear at witnessing the reenactment of the death of Jesus Christ. Are we all so desensitized?

I was not expecting to have my own moment of religious epiphany--but I thought I might see others who did. In the end, all I saw was a crowd hungry for entertainment, devouring the show.

So I really don't know what to think or feel about what I saw yesterday. I don't doubt that those who volunteered for this act did so out of some sense of the expression of their faith--but I don't know how much of that was shared. I am glad I went--but mostly because I come away with more questions than answers.

It seems odd that this would end up being the final trip of our GSE experience; tonight, a dinner...tomorrow, a free day in Makati before our farewell dinner in the evening...then the flight home on Monday morning. I had thought it would be important to be here for Holy Week, and to witness the event surrounding it, and I was right--it was important. Now I just have to figure out why.

Lew

Finishing what I started

Since we're here at the airport in Puerto Princesa with two hours to wait until our flight departs for Manila, might as well take the opportunity to do some writing.

First let's explain why it's been 5 days since my last post. I fully intended to finish off that last one sometime on Thursday - but I woke up at 5:30 am with a bit of a stomach bug that not only kept me from posting, but also kept me from leaving my room at Sonie's all day. On the plus side, I learned a few things about Asian TV. On the downside, I missed the team's visit to the university of Santo Tomas rare book room. Grrrrrrrrrrr. More on all of that later

So here's what I learned from the Paranaque club's report to Gov Sid:

Over the past year they ran a vocational training program; 40 adults enrolled, 36 of them graduated.

They sponsored the purchase of a water filter for a village without a source of potable water.

They were among the first of the Manila area clubs to respond when the call went out requesting emergency relief assistance in the aftermath of Typhoon Ondoy - running a feeding program in Quezon City and and Laguna that aided some 8000 people, and provided material relief goods to an additional 5000 people. In December the returned to Laguna with Christmas presents for residents still suffering displacement.

They were one of four clubs out of the 84 total clubs to sponsor a member of the outbound GSE team soon heading for New Jersey - Lorena Gerna.

They established a partnersip with an Interact Club. They sponsored Red Cross emergency training and a local conservation briefing for the community.

Those are the highlights; I was writing notes as fast as I could during the presentation! Clearly this club, although small in membership, has a lot going on. I was interested to hear they plan to assist local aspiring community folk to break the poverty cycle by helping the look for sources of funding like microgrants, and starting a cooperative venture between the club members and local chefs to teach the poor Cooking as a household skill (if anyone out there is curious about the link between superprocessed fast foods and significant health problems among the poorest populations around the world, give me a shout and I'll happily explain it).

Gov Sid took the opportunity to address the club, congratulating them on their success and challenging them to improve and intensify other efforts. I was particularly thrilled to hear him reiterate the challenge he accepted at DisCon on behalf of the entire District to identify 100 high school graduates intending to pursue careers as teachers and do everything possible to facilitate their progress.

He also advocated a renewed effort to create programs to help develop ethical leadership and prote positive values both within Rotary and without.

Gov Sid also promised to assist the club's effort to establish sister agreements with clubs in Macao and Thailand. He used the phrase "Service beyond boundaries," which I though was a really great slogan.

Once the formal reports were finished, there was nothing left but singing and dancing - and yessiree there was plenty of both. It was a fun and interesting meeting from start to finish, and I'm very glad Sonie gave me the opportunity to attend!

Lew

Holy, Holy week

The traditions of Holy Week certainly vary from country to country. I've been fortunate to spend holy week in three foreign countries: Italy, Australia, and now, the Philippines. The Italians of course have the college text book Holy Week. Being one with the Vatican, what more could you expect? In Australia, which is known for their public holidays, they basically turn the whole week into a beer fest. I do not mean to be critical, but we hit the bars Easter Sunday, and the government had "Easter Monday" off. Easter Monday, seriously?

Well here in the Philippines, Holy Week is, well, holy. Manila comes to a standstill from Wednesday night until Easter Sunday. No business is done Maundy Thursday and is still limited on Good Friday. Even Manila's infamous traffic takes leave as most of the inhabitants head for the provinces to be with their families.

I wanted to soak in all that I could. So I made arrangements to attend mass at the Manila Cathedral which was conducted by the Archbishop of
Manila. The Mass if the Lord's Supper and footwashing was 100% in Tagalog, but thanks to the uniformity of Catholicism, I was able to follow along. The High Mass was more than well attended. After communion, the Archbishop had one announcnent which he made in English: two hours before the mass, Rome had called informing them that they have selected their nominee for a new Archbishop. The church went into a roar. It was an exciting moment. After mass, I managed to find a taxi, and
a trip that normally would take 39 minutes, took a mere 15.

The next day I awoke with the excitement if attending a real live crucifixion. It sort of made me excited but nervous in one breath. We headed off to Pampanga with a hope and a prayer to see some crucifyin'. Well, we got what we asked for (I'm sure all of you will see my pictures). I too even had a spot on the cross--nail-less of course. We got literal front row seats for the action. There really are now words for what I saw. It was true devotion, but a carnival rolled up into one. So for our last "cultural day," I was certainly not disappointed by what I saw. All in all, the Filipinos know how to do Holy Week with their own unique flare.

Friday, April 2 from Cliff

Good Friday, the day of the crucifixion of Christ, a day in the Philippines where all activity ceases.  Normally choked roads are empty and in the province of Pampanga the unusual ritual of re-enacting the crucifixion takes place.  People are literally nailed to a cross.  We witnessed one of the re-enactments in the town of Angeles.  Upon paying 500 pesos we were given access to get as close to the action as we could.  Behind us there was a throng of at least a thousand people.  This was truly a sight to see.  You could see the pain in the faces of those crucified (there were two sets of three people nailed to the cross).  It may be spiritually uplifting for those involved, but to me the carnival atmosphere of the crowds and all the vendors that showed up made it a different experience for me.

Thursday, April 1 from Cliff

Today was a rest day with no scheduled activities.  Lew went to meet Efren Penniflorida’s group in Cavite.  Tim met up with Melody, got to ride the jeepney and was able to take a long walk.  Haven’t heard what Ben did yet.   I connected with Sam Lim, from the RC Parañanque St. Andrew, for a round of golf at Eagle Ridge Golf Club.  This was a very nice facility with 4 golf courses, a large swimming pool, and a recreation center that included a bowling alley.  I played with George Lim, from Singapore, and Deb, from India (the pronunciation sounds like ‘debp’).  All three of them are in some aspect of the marine shipping business.  After golf, we sat by the pool for a little while and then went to a Korean Restaurant where we sat on the floor to eat.  The food was very good.

A visit with the Dynamic Teen Company

I'm not going to deny that I've seen a lot of amazing things, DONE a lot of amazing things, and met a lot of amazing people over the past month. But today has really been the day I've been waiting for since October, when I first read about Efren Penaflorida and the Dynamic Teen Company--and when I was selected to be a GSE Team member--and when "F" was named the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year.

You don't really know what to expect after such a lengthy buildup. After all, fame and renown has been known to do funny things even to the most well-intentioned person. But I had high hopes; after meeting 2008 Hero Liz McCartney in December and finding her to be a passionate but unassuming indivdual still devoted to her cause, I had no reason to expect disappointment.

And indeed, I was not disappointed.

The hardest part of the day was the drive--even though today was Maundy Thursday, the roads to Cavite City were packed. Folks were taking advantage of the half-day to get done whatever needing doing, since everything would be closed on Friday. Lea and her husband Max picked me up at 9am, then picked up Baby who would accompany us - but I think we didn't get to Cavite until close to 11am.

The second hardest part of the day was actually finding the DTC office--we drove right past it without even noticing it. We'd find out the reason for the subtlety later.

But we finally figured it out--and F was there on the sidewalk to greet us himself. We walked down a narrow alleyway and through a gate into the DTC "office" proper, where all the introductions were made. We then sat for an informal chat - obviously I knew some of the organization's history, but was interested in the inside details, and especially what's been going on since December's awards ceremony.

It turns out that all the credit for DTC has gone to F, but it really should be JB who gets the lion's share. JB was a college engineering professor who first realized his larger responsibility to the children of Cavite, especially those who were too afraid to go to school--afraid of being victimized by gangs. F was one of those children, and became one of JB's scholars, children who were given the support and strength necessary to complete their schooling.

From there, the DTC concept was born. The organization, comprised almost completely of teens, set out to do the same thing JB had started--give children the interest in education, and the strength to persevere even in the face of the threat represented by the gangs.

They realized it wasn't enough just to save kids who were being threatened by the gangs, drugs, prostitution, and the syndicates that round up helpless kids to further their nefarious ends; they had to find a way to take the legs out from under the gangs by cutting off the supply of helpless, ignorant children that was their lifeblood. Thus began the effort to bring the spark of education to the slum children of Cavite City. Armed first with backpacks, then pedicabs, and finally now the pushcart classroom, groups of 25 to 50 teens set out each week into the city to give children education, medical care, food--and above all, hope that they can indeed rise above the desperation of their situation. They now have a four-cart system: a literacy cart, a values education/canteen cart, a playcenter, and a medical/hygeine clinic. Every Saturday, these carts make the rounds through the city, and the children swarm to them like the proverbial flies to honey.

Of course, everyone wants to know what F did with the money ($100,000) he received as CNN Hero of the Year. The media has been as quick to tear him down as they were to build him up, accusing him of using it to throw parties, etc. The truth is a lot more humdrum, and a lot more telling of the political and social realities of our time. For starters, he owed 30% tax; then, his immediate desire was to give the entire amount over to the DTC--however, had he done so, he would have owed another 30% as a donation tax! Thankfully, F and JB had excellent legal advice; acting in accordance with that advice, F used the entire sum to purchase an empty plot of land upon which will be constructed a new learning center. At the moment, there are no funds to begin that construction, but the land itself is bought and paid for.

Additional funds are an interesting dilemma. Upon being named CNN Hero, F was deluged with sudden celebrity--overnight, he received some 15,000 emails. His Facebook account was overrrun. The DTC email address was similarly overwhelmed. Returning home, he was accorded every award and honor available, all the way up to the office of the President. Not surprisingly, that's pretty much where the support ended; DTC received a lot of promises from politicians--but this is an election year, after all, and politicians offer promises free of charge. DTC has resisted all efforts to engage them in the political debate; F and JB have refused to endorse any of the presidential candidates (they "have no color," referring to the fact that each of the 10 presidential campaigns is identifiable by a particular color--orange for Villar, yellow for Aquino, green for Gibo, red for Erap, etc.). JB said they were continuing their work "silently," as they have always done.

F was actually invited to be a panelist for a presidential Q&A; in addition to questions on their positions regarding education, he asked each of them to define what "heroism" meant to them--he wouldn't give names, but he said the responses were exactly what you would expect: the most popular candidates in the polls managed to turn their answers into something about themselves, while the least popular candidate actually gave a decent, honest, and forthright answer. Go figure.

The challenge now is whether or not to restructure the organization. There's certainly an advantage to becoming a large-scale nonprofit NGO--but one huge disadvantage. Until now, the DTC has been fully run by the teens, kids who have escaped the clutches of the gangs and are now working to protect others from the same troubled existence. They've made all the decisions, chosen the organization's direction, planned and executed all projects (sound familiar, Interacters? As we were talking, a young man, 16 years old, sat nearby. JB gestured to him and said, "Do you know what he's doing? Answering DTC email. That's what our teen volunteers do--everything around here. But under a new system, that might not be possible--everyone in the administrative end will have to be of legal age.") If F and JB go through with the paperwork, that will no longer be allowable under the government's terms--it will have to be adults providing the leadership. So what to do? If the next step is indeed to be taken, F and JB figure the best way to go about it is to set up a Board of Directors comprised of program alumni. Many have remained involved anyway; after graduating from the program, attending and graduating from college, their careers allow them to provide the funding by which the next generation of scholars are able to attend college. These are the people who know and understand how the DTC works, and why it has been so successful.

"The world is after the story." The past months have seen a steady stream of media outlets all looking to feed F's story into the ravening maw of their consumers. Film crews have been here to do a dramatized documentary of his life. It's easy to have all this excitement swirling around you, and forget what you're doing, and why--but F just laughs about it. It's a way to keep people interested in the DTC's work--to remind them of the need that still exists-but it clearly hasn't gone to his head.

Quite the opposite; there's more work than ever. Another young man in the organization--with a story similar to F's--is Emmanuel (Em for short). Growing up in the protection afforded by the DTC, he established his own sub-program: M.Y. Rights ("Mind Your Rights"). The intent was to target child abuse. F mentioned that child labor laws are routinely violated--children as young as 12 are frequently used to help local fishermen in the backbreaking labor of hauling in their long nets, and paid almost nothing, perhaps 5 pesos (today, the exchange rate is 45 pesos to the USD). But even that pales in comparison to the actual physical abuse--the violence--many children are forced to endure. Em created a program that started with educating children that they had rights--and that those rights included protection from such abuse. But that wasn't enough, so he added on parent sessions--using food as a lure--to educate the parents (many of whom were themselves the victims of abuse, and lacking any significant education to know better).

Things got really challenging when Em discovered that despite the education sessions, some parents continued to abuse their children. Without hesitation, he acted in the best interests of the children, and reported the offenders to the police. The abusive parents were arrested, tried, convicted and sent to jail. But eventually their terms were up, and out they came...and guess who they came looking for? When Em started receiving death threats from these people, the DTC acted to protect its own--they set up a safe house for him. He was there at the office today, continuing his work. He's planning to do pre-law in college (do you see the empowerment of youth here!), and eventually get a law degree to work as a human rights lawyer--but he thinks that might not really be where his life needs to go. He's asked JB and F to groom him-toughen him!--for a run in politics, to help improve a system sorely in need of his kind of integrity.

Perhaps now is where I should mention the offhanded reference JB made to another DTC member, now 11, who at the age of 8 was brought into the organization after he was discovered sleeping inside a tomb in the cemetery. That child created another sub-project called "Caring Children."

I've referred to the DTC space we were in as an office--but that's an inadequate word. It's everything: parking garage for the pushcarts, warehouse for donated and purchased supplies, safe house and sleeping quarters for any and all children who need it each and every night. JB gestured around the little alcove where we were seated. "Tonight," he said, "every available bit of ground will be covered with sleeping children."

I asked whether they had a "Big Brother" type of program--and indeed they do. They're called "Accountability Partners," older scholars in the program who partner one-on-one with younger, newer kids to give them mentoring, guidance, assistance, etc.

I guess I wasn't too surprised to discover that the DTC system works in many ways similar to what we're set up for Interact: the teen teams go out into the community every Saturday, and every Sunday they are in the DTC office for "upgrade" sessions, where they learn about or improve their skills in first aid, hygeine instruction, academic skills instruction--whatever they can do to be of greater help the next week.

Of course I wanted to know cost-wise how the pushcart program operated. The literacy cart is the most expensive, because it has 2 laptop computers. All together, that cart costs around 100,000 pesos (today, that would be around $2200). But that cart suffers the least in the way of attrition; the values cart also brings food for the kids, which obviously needs to be replenished each week. The clinic brings a supply of fresh, potable water--as well as basic first aid supplies which get used up quickly (remember many of these kids live in and scavenge through trash dumps). And the playcenter...well (this is the part that breaks your heart) most of these kids have never before had the opportunity to play--their lives have not been so kind. And those who have had the time have never owned toys--they've played with trash, whatever they could find. So JB and F could only smile and laugh when they said the toys disappear off the playcenter cart; who could blame the kids for not wanting to part with a toy, having only one day a week to play with it?

I asked whether other countries have contacted DTC about how to replicate the pushcart classroom--F said yes, absolutely--many areas in Africa, southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent have expressed interest. F has spent quite a bit of time abroad these past few months as an inspirational speaker on behalf of universal children's education (another reason the media has felt justified in criticizing him--"Look! he's using that CNN money to fund vacations!) The media also hounded him to know what plans he'd made to celebrate his birthday--it happened that the DTC decided that would be an appropriate day for the groundbreaking for the learning center. Naturally, the media wanted to know if the rich and famous would be invited, and F replied that those who had expressed interest in and support for the project would indeed be invited. F figures the media was expecting something similar to the circus that annual surrounds boxer Manny Pacquiao's birthday (you can imagine it, right? I don't need to describe it.) How disappointed they must have been when the groundbreaking failed to become a lavish red-carpet affair! When the post-event party was a simple affair back in the office!

Through it all, F and JB never lost those big grins. They are happy just doing what they know is right. Sure, it's an irritation and a distraction when the papers start speculating on F's love life--but it never seems to stop them from doing what needs doing. As we talked, teens began trickling in and getting to work--there had been a major fire in Cavite, and hundreds of slum dwellers had been displaced, including many children who had lost everything, including their prized possessions, their school supplies. The teens began counting out the number of backpacks they had, preparing to load them with brand new notebooks, pencils, boxes of crayons, etc., for distribution over the weekend. The DTC purchases most of the supplies--if stuff is donated, it always comes with some kind of sticker or label trumpeting whoever gave it (I promised not to tell what happens to the stuff donated by politicians).

Before I left, I gave them what I had brought: the $600 check from Interact that was the total raised by this year's puzzle project; This Is New Jersey, the coffee table book we brought as gifts for our host families as a donation to the eventual learning center; my NJ state pin, which I ceremonially pinned on F (only fair, since they gave me one of their DTC shirts--I'd have given them my Interact shirt, but I was wearing it at the time!); my contact card and my heartfelt promise that I as an individual and we as Interact (I hope I was not too bold in saying so) would continue to support their efforts in whatever way we could.

This is what I learned today: many people call themselves heroes. Few deserve that title. I met one of the true heroes today, and I should be lucky to be remembered in even a quarter of the terms that F and JB will be remembered. My life is more rich for having met them, and seen their work; I am inspired to carry on. There are a few folks back home who would benefit immeasurably from taking a trip to Cavite City if they wish to truly understand the value of education.

Here's to you, Kuya F!

Lew