Meeting with the Students

 

We went to an activity at the Institute on Friday, August 30th.  The activity was kind of like Filipino Idol although we do not think any judging was going on. It was pretty interesting as they were singing songs written by Filipinos in English. There was a band that included guitars, drums and keyboards. We stayed until about 8:00 pm when they were changing over to sing songs in Tagalog.

 

 

"Filipino Idol" participants

 

About our PEF Students



These kids are fun to talk to and are excited about life. They tend to be younger than American college students because most of them graduated from high school when they were 15 or 16 yrs. old. Two of them had graduated from college and were now working and shared testimonies about how much the PEF program had helped them. One of them who is now working as a radiology technician shared that she was so excited when we asked for a meeting because see wanted to talk about how great the program is. She even brought her camera and asked if we could have our picture taken with her. We of course agreed and all of us had big smiles when the picture was taken. We asked both girls if they would be willing to share their stories at an upcoming fireside and they agreed.

 

On Saturday, August 31st we walked about 6 blocks down to the main park in Manila called Rizal Park. It is named after one of their heroes whose death helped start their revolution against Spain in the late 1800's. It is a pretty interesting park with a large relief map of the Philippine that you can walk around. It is pretty interesting but it has not been maintained so the lettering and numbering were worn down and gone in some cases. As we walked around the park we were again reminded of how different we look to the Filipinos as a group of young people touring the park came up to us and asked if they could take our picture. We agreed and many o them surrounded us while one took the pictures. They were very nice and took 2 or 3 pictures of us and asked where we were from. As we were leaving a young boy said, "See. it's more fun in the Philippines." "It's More Fun in the Philippines" is their tourism slogan. You do not see many old white people with gray hair here. When you do they are probably another Missionary Couple.

The one green area in downtown Manila

 

A relief map of the Philippines

 

Scenes from around Manila:

 

A Tricycle with a big load

(Notice the mother with a baby in her lap and two girls in the side car)

The view from our office window
(Most of the houses here have corrugated tin roofs)



 A view along a waterway near our office