Wow...what an intense past couple of days! Since we got back from homestay we've been working like crazy to get everything prepared for the festival. Most of our booths that we were in charge of were really work intensive, so we had a lot of cardboard and paper to cut up for card making and masks to cut up for collage and 'child rights defender' badges to handmake for our Jail Booth. We also got the job of painting over 50 signs for the day...so we were working flat out and through our rest days to get it all done.
Then 3 of our girls - Jess, Tegan and Erin left for Manila on Tuesday to be on a Filipino morning talk show on Wednesday morning. We didn't get to see it live, but aparently there is a copy of it coming from somewhere. The girls said it was pretty funny - the host was like 'asian koshie' and they did a mock festival complete with dancing to the locomotion!
With all our boxes and boxes of stuff prepared, we left for Manila early Thursday morning. After stopping at several places to pick up various people and things, Diego (our jeepney driver) pulled over on the side of the road for one of the Nanay's (house mothers) to pick up festival t-shirts. He then got booked by the traffic inspector for stopping there (apparently on the ticket, as reason of offence the inspector had to tick 'other') and his licence got taken off him. So we then had to drive to the closest Barangay to pay a P100 fine. We stayed in the jeepney so that his fine wouldn't be jacked up because he was with 'rich foriegners'.
So we FINALLY got into Manila by lunch time and then met with the San Antonio girls and all the PILAK kids (leaders group based through Bahay Tuluyan). We then worked through the days and nights until we all got up at 3am Saturday morning for the festival.
We got to the site and started setting up. Erin and I had been working on this intense volunteers roster (for over 280 volunteers) for the day, assigning everyone jobs and hand writing personal scheduals for them all. That morning, we handed them all out...and before the gates opened at 9am, we knew that the roster wasn't working at all...no one was were they were supposed to be, so I had to improvise for the rest of the day!
Nothing like a bit of problem management when we are also looking after 1500 kids and 300 volunteers! Anyway, nothing went to plan, but it went really well considering! All the kids had a great time and really behaved well and it was a great success.
The objective for the day was to help the kids have fun and give them access to doctors and dentists, a decent meal, and a chance to feel 'equal and included' (the theme of the festival). It was also a non-threatening platform to raise awareness of street childrens issues, in particular, the forced rescue of street children in Manila. They also got great publicity for Bahay Tuluyan and the other partner NGO's.
The FART team (Friendly Australian Research Team) - a group of 5 Aussies who have been working here independantly for 2 months researching about forced rescue. They were able to present their research on stage to local police officals and the Central Manila Mayor and showed our footprint banner we made through the day (46 feet long, of kids footprints and names painted on from the day - to represent how many street children there are in Manila).
So awesome experience! We finished up and cleaned for a few hours, and headed home, getting back at midnight...a 20 hr day! but it was so worth it. I can't believe that it has really finished now, and we have 3 days left to hang out with the kids, finish our smaller projects with them, and then we've got 3 days in Manila to do evaluation, do a trip on the MU (BT Mobile Unit - visits kids on the streets, does feeding programs etc) and then we're off home!
I have huge mixed feelings about going home. Of course I can't wait to see everyone and go home and start the new challenge of starting full time work and moving out...but then I'm sad to leave the kids that we've really only recently REALLY got to know and love and I'm also sad to leave this amazing country!
I'm definately coming back one day...I'm not sure when...but I'll definately be back...even just to get my fix of riding a jeepney!
Can't wait to see you all soon...
xoxo
