It was steady rainfall like that for several hours.
Anyway, when it stopped raining super hard, I went with Ricky to one of his Brotherhood meetings. Ricky is part of a local group that refers to themselves as the "Brotherhood," and they support the community by organizing beach cleanups, feeding the hungry children, and whatever else helps benefit the community. I'm not sure what Ricky's position is, but all the members "blessed" him when they came in.
Let me explain "blessing." In the Philippines, when you greet an elder (it doesn't matter if you're related to them or not) you take their right hand, palm down, and bring the back of their hand towards your forehead. It's a sign of respect, and during holiday's, the elders will sometimes sit in a line and when the children bless them, the elders give them a little bit of money. I was raised to do this to my parents and to other Filipino's, but it's something that tends to phase out once you get older.
I'm assuming Ricky is the leader because he organized the flow of the meeting and because everyone that came in blessed him even if they were older.
A few nights ago Ricky was explaining how they were going to start raising money to help feed the starving children in the community. They've done it before and they make a type of dish called puspas. It's basically a rice porridge, but they add eggs, meat, and all types of vegetables in order to give it a full compliment of vitamins and minerals. He told me last time they fed close to three hundred children and that I could help once they're ready. I asked him how much it costs to fund a session like that and he told me 5,000 pesos. At the current rate of exchange, that's only $125 dollars. I offered to fund it so they wouldn't have to wait so long. Before I left for the Philippines, I calculated that I would have 4,000 pesos per week, but didn't realize I had another check coming from work. Plus, 4,000 pesos is already more than enough to survive a week here so I'll have a surplus anyway. Besides, if you do the math, it means the price of feeding each child is less than 50 cents!
Ideally, what I'd like to do is propose an outreach program to my work once I get back to Oregon. This is how I envision the outreach program working. I'm going to make a conservative estimate and say there are probably 50 people on the payroll back where I work as a CNA (Avamere Court at Keizer). If every payday, those 50 people donated just one dollar from their paycheck, that would be enough to basically fund one feeding program per month (we get paid biweekly, so $2 per month). In actuality, there are probably more like 100 people on the payroll, so essentially, if those 100 people donated just 50 cents per paycheck (or $1 per month), it would go towards feeding 300 starving children once per month. I know feeding children once per month doesn't seem like much, but imagine what the Brotherhood chapter in Dalaguete could do with 5,000 pesos that wasn't spent towards their monthly feeding program! I'm inspired by the people here because, even though everyone is suffering from poverty, they are still willing to help those who are even more impoverished. Anyway, the feeding date is set for December 2, so I'll make sure to take lots of pictures and videos so I can bring it back and prepare a presentation for work.
Anyway, I'll leave you with a video clip and picture. If you don't like eight legged creatures, you better not look at the picture.
This is what it sounds like outside of the hospital. What is that noise? Frogs, geckos, and probably birds.
Found this sucker between my bed and the wall the other night. It could've easily fill up my entire palm. Not even kidding. I'd been waking up with bites that were definitely not from mosquitoes, so I didn't feel bad for squishing it with my flip-flops. I'm not sure if those bites were from this guy, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Needless to say, I wrapped myself up in a thin blanket that night and just ignored the fact that I felt hot.
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