Hobbies Evening

I ought to acknowledge that many of these young people are far more gifted with performance talent than I am. This is particularly true of the artists, below are the finally results of their work.

 

Father Mac's Feeding Programme

Last week Steph and I went out with Fr. Mac to help with his feeding programme. He and a team of young volunteers visit the very poorest parts of Cebu to give out food on the streets.

There is nothing as pure as..........

They Pray a lot here

Steph and I have been living here at DBTC for  two weeks. In some ways it feels like much longer yet at the same time it feels like we've only begun to scratch the surface of what goes on here.

Four institutions inhabit the same campus here, they each have a different timetable and different routines. One thing which is common to all four is the emphasis on prayer.

Every morning the vocational students begin the day with a 6.30am mass, later on they have prayer during a morning assembly, the working day ends with more prayers at another assembly and every evening the students who board pray the rosary while walking up and down the playground.

The High school and Primary school students also begin each day with prayer. During October they are praying the rosary together everyday at 7.15am . Every week each year group shares a mass and every week the pupils have the opportunity to go to confession.

None of this religious practise seems forced. Of course there are pupils told off for being stupid during prayers but I've also seen groups of pupils holding their own times of prayer or praying individually beside a statue of Mary. Before a football match starts the players of both sides will pray together on the pitch, before every lesson the class will pray a short prayer together.

We have no way of knowing yet whether this is typical of the Philippines or happens just in Salesian schools. However I think it is fair to say that religion is a lot more practised and a lot more visible in the Philippines that it is in Europe. The local parish 'Our Lady of Lourdes' is said to have a Sunday mass attendance of about 20'000 worshippers. Religious inscriptions appear everywhere on houses, shops, cars and buses. The people here will speak of God much more readily than we do in Europe, God is thanked regularly and invoked easily.

What does all this say about the Philippines, it is far too early for us to make any judgements. Is all this prayer a sign of deep spirituality or a fake veneer of cultural religion? We cannot say. This is culture very distance from our western separation of private and public life with religion very much kept in the private sphere.



Induction of the New Vocational Trainees: Friday 15th Oct

.......and here is what the trainees were preparing for.

(See my previous Blog entry if you don't understand)

Induction of the New Vocational Trainees: Thursday 13th Oct

The day after Super-Hero day and the hoop game the vocational trainees were hard at work preparing for another challenge on Friday.

Address

we've been here at DBTC for just over a week now and we've finally gotten round to finding out the Postal Address.

Matthew and Stephanie Neville,

Salesian Residence,

Don Bosco Technology Centre,

PO Box 271,

6000 Cebu City,

The Philippines.

All post is most welcome!

Induction of the New Vocational Trainees: Wednesday 12th Oct - Part 2

here is the second part of the video

Induction of the New Vocational Trainees: Wednesday 12th Oct - Part 1

While we are here in the Philippines our main role is going to be teaching English and Maths to the vocational trainees who are taking course on Mechanic, Carpentry, Electrics and handyman skills. However before the courses start all the students have the attend a three week induction process.

This video and another which will appear shortly are of what they were doing on Wednesday last week.

Moving to DBTC

On Tuesday of this week Steph and I left the Salesian Provincial House and moved to the Don Dosco Technology Centre (DBTC). This is where we will be living and working for the rest of our stay here in Cebu.

The Technology Centre is comprised of four part.

An Elementary (read Primary) School,

A High School,

A College – running higher level courses for over 16s

A Vocational Training Centre – running skills based course for over 16s

Most of the students live in the local area and come daily but there are about 65 boarders who come from the villages and town in more remote parts of Cebu Island.

Our principal work will be helping the Vocational Training Centre Students with their English and Maths Lessons.

For the moment we are just settling in so there isn't too much to say, here are some photos which show you what the place looks like.

A City of Contrasts

A city of contrasts. A city of differences

Shanty towns stand alongside homes of a far better standard than those in which most western Europeans live. Air-conditioned shopping malls filled with famous international shopping chains stand next to, and tower over, rustic local markets where food is sold off tarpaulins stretched on the ground. Plush, spotless branches of McDonalds, Starbucks and KFC can be found in the most unlikely places, nearby vendors can be found selling hot meat fresh cut from a whole pig roasting on the side of the road. 

To walk the streets in some area is to pass kareoke bars a plenty, sometimes more food stalls than there seem to be people and to occasionally come close to tripping over a live chicken tethered to the curb by it's foot, or a small child who is surely too young to be playing so close to a road. Then all of a sudden there appears a smart looking restaurant with a polite security guard on the door beckoning you inside. Dusty streets filled with potholes merge quickly into well maintained grass-verged roads and then are followed once again by glorified dirt tracks.

On the roads top range black windowed people carriers compete with cars glad that there is no one checking MOTs. Motorcycle taxis laden down with six or seven people struggle to get up speed while dodging the potholes. A cacophony of beeping is a constant soundtrack, not as a form of aggression but used as they are intended, as a way of saying "I am here".

Cebu is a not a city which gives itself to quick judgements, there is too much diversity and too many extremes to allow any quickly made judgement to stand for long.

A Change of Plan

Before we arrived in Cebu we were expecting to be working in a home for Boys, not actually in Cebu itself but in a small town outside the city called Liloan.

Yesterday morning Brother Carlo who is responsible for all the volunteers told us that we weren't going to be able to live and work in the Boys' Home. This is for a variety of reasons.

Instead we are going to a different Salesian centre called the 'Don Bosco Technology Centre'.  On the site are a Primary School, Secondary School and a Vocational Training Centre. A handful of  students live onsite but the vast majority live in the local area. Nearby there is a parish church which is run by the Salesians, in the parish buildings there is a youth centre, an education centre to supplement the local schools and give the children somewhere to do homework, and there is a feeding centre which serves food to children from 0-6 who otherwise might not be given adequate food.

So it looks like there will be plenty of possibilities for work we might do.

Given time to make the necessary mental adjustments I think the new project has a lot of potential. We will most likely move there on Monday.

History can be very Contradictory

Arrived Safely!

Steph and I have arrived safely in Cebu.

The total journey time from door to door took just over 24hours.

Our fatigue and our disorientation has been somewhat allayed by having met some good people and having been given a really warm welcome. For the next few days we will be staying in relative comfort at the Provincial house of the Salesian Community in Cebu. In a few days time, after we have recovered from the journey we will move to the Childrens' home where we will be working.

At the moment the excitement of a new beginning is very much mixed together with the nervousness and anxiety associated with all new starts. There is a lot of learn, a lots to reflect on and a lot to experience.

For the moment it is time to rest and recover.