Our arrival, first impressions, orientation and our daily life

Our adventure here on the Philippines started with a very relaxed fist week at the campus of the Ateneo de Manila University. We weren’t allowed to leave the Campus at this time and got to know a lot of different people from many different offices, with which we will work together during our time here. Moreover the whole Campus (which includes a high school, a grade school, a college, many different offices, cafeterias and even a church -in short: it is very big) was shown to us and we got to know the main rules of campus life. For example that every morning the national anthem is played on the whole campus and as soon as you hear it you have to stand still. This rule counts for everybody and everything, so every morning from now to then every vehicle, every student who was jogging to his class a second before and everyone else stops and doesn’t move anymore until the national anthem is over.

In our second and third week we started working in the feeding program of ACED (=Ateneo Center for Educational Development). This program makes it possible that undernourished children get the chance to have a full meal at least once a day in school. Every morning we had to get up at 5am and then take jeepnys (jeepnys are vehicles, which are originally former US military jeeps, left over from world war one and today one of the most common forms of public transport in the Philippines) and  tricycles to get to Bagong Silanan Elementary school in our first, and Cainta Elementary School in our second week. Both areas Cainta and Bagong Silanan are poorer parts of Metro Manila. There we cooked lunch for 6oo children together with other volunteers, mostly parents who have children at this schools. We helped with preparing vegetables and chicken, filling the food into the lunch boxes and cleaning up everything after the kids are gone.

Besides cooking, one of our tasks during the feeding program is to interact with the children, check their names and convince them to finish their meal, because they often don’t like vegetables and therefore refuse to eat them. While checking the names of the children we recognized that many filipino parents love to give their children special names. There were kinds who had Julius Caesar, John Lennon, King James or Kurt Cobain as their first name. Later this day we asked a member of the ACED office and found out that it is a common thing to give your kids such names.

While working in the kitchen we had a lot of time to talk to the parents who worked with us. Sometimes we had some struggles with understanding each other because English is their second language as well but all in all it worked. We asked them why some children who are in the feeding program don’t come and they told us that it doesn’t matter if the children go to school or stay at home. So sometimes the kids stay at home because they have to help their parents and sometimes especially after a Taifun it is difficult to get to school because of the floodings and the traffic. Then it would take too long to get there, so they rather stay at home.

In our fourth week we worked on Campus in the AIS (Ateneo Institute of Sustainability). There we had to collect data for a campus microclimate profiling project. Four times a day we had to walk a specific route across the campus and measure the air temperature, the current wind speed, the relative humidity, the barometric pressure and the heat stress index at several stops. Afterward we typed the date in an exel file and analyzed it.

One of my first impressions in general was the very hot and humid climate which makes everything so exhausting. At our fist campus tour we walked about 15 minutes outside and back in our dorm it felt like a marathon. Afterwards the supervisor of our dorm told us that right now the weather is „cold“ because it is rainy season at the moment and that it will be way worse in February.

Another impressive experience in our fist days working outside the campus was, that we as white foreigners attract a lot of attention (especially in the poorer areas). Some people on the street turned heads when they saw us, the children, who nearly never see foreigners in ‚real life‘ sometimes can’t stop looking at us and even a few teachers came just to take pictures with us.  At the same time we were sometimes treated very respectfully. For example at one of our first days when we were on our way to Bagong Silanan we walked along the sidewalk and there were two women standing in front of us, talking to each other. One of them saw us and pulled the other one to the side so that we have enough space to pass by. Then they started whispering and looked amazed at us. That was such a strange situation and I felt a bit insecure.

But normally the people we meet are very very friendly and kind, the parents and teachers in the schools as well as the people from Ateneo. We were invited for lunch or dinner so often, the parents brought traditional filipino finger food to the kitchens and we were taken to different places in Manila on the weekends by students or members of the different offices here.

Furthermore we tried as many different typical Filipino dishes as possible in our first few weeks. One of the most exotic snacks we had, are the so called ‚one day old chicks‘. These small one day old chicks are eaten butter-fried together with a vinegar or sweet chili dip. I was surprised how delicious they are if you force yourself to not think about what you are eating.  It just tastes like a crunchy piece of fried chicken meat.

Another experience was eating Filipino spaghetti because they are sweet. Before, I could not imagine that this is possible but it is. Filipinos like sweet food at all that’s why spaghetti isn’t the only dish which is sweet. We also had sweet sausages, sweet bread, Taho and even sweet cheese ice cream.

All in all our first month here on the Philippines was a huge experience for me. I met so many different people, heard so many different stories and experienced a lot. That’s why I am really looking forward to the next seven months, which hopefully will be as amazing as my first one.