May 24th: The last days and final thoughts

On Friday, May 16th, we are all up early although there is no work today. Sally generously offered to take us on her boat to an island with a light house for snorkeling.

Debbie, Dianne, Rick and Heather (the grown ups as Schaana and I have started calling them) take her up on the offer. Schaana and I stay back and relax we also get the chance to meet and visit Sally's rescued monkeys.

After a quick lunch of sandwiches it's time to return to Cebu. We all pile into the van for the long ride home.

After the van we are all happy to be back in the pension with some internet so that we can catch up with our families. Some of the ladies decide to head for the mall to get a few last items. While there we are greeted by Jenny who tells us that the reservation for dinner is earlier than expected. We all rush back to the pension and change into our fancy clothes. It was pretty funny getting into the back of the work van in our fancy outfits.

This was to be our final dinner and we had invited Jenny, Gabe and his wife Marie to join us. Jenny suggested a restaurant in the mountains with a view of the city.

The ride there was a bit of an adventure with steep switchbacks and a final steep uphill that we were worried the van would not make. Upon arrival the view was well worth it. We shared some great Filipino food and got to hear a bit more about quiet Gabe from his wife. After we were done eating, we thanked our hosts with cards and Canada mugs.

We were all tired so after hugs and promises to stay in touch we returned to the pension for bed. Dianne was so exhausted she even fell asleep in the van!

Saturday morning we met for a final team breakfast at the restaurant at the top of the pension served by our favourite waitress Jackie. It was great to have a final meal together before we head home/on our future adventures.

This trip has been a fantastic way to learn about this country and especially to get to know its fantastic people. The team came together wonderfully and we have taken to calling Schaana an honorary family member. I think that everyone valued the hard work and dedication of those who worked with us and we feel privileged to have had this opportunity.

Robin Copestake
DWC Team Leader
Cebu, Philippines: May 2014

May 10th-11th: Weekend in Bohol

Friday we arrived at the ferry station quite early. Schaana had to pay the ferry entrance fee and the rest of the participants got off scot free as seniors. We headed up to the coffee shop where we indulged in cupcakes and people watching. The ferry ride was uneventful for everyone but Debbie, who had a two year old behind her who loved to play with her hair.

We got off the ferry and were greeted by our lovely hostess, Faylyn. We piled into the van and headed to grocery the store to stock up on food for our house this weekend. We were thrilled to buy tons of veggies, four pints of yogurt, granola and cheese.

We walked through a resort to our house and had our first glimpse of our beautiful beach. White sand, azure seas and our house set back on a green lawn with a lovely oleander tree in bloom. Most of us headed straight up to put swim suits on and run into a sea as warm as a bath (Lynns pool).

After swimming, the team relaxed while Robin taught the cook Tash to make Canadian style stir fry with about 3 lbs of veggies. What a treat! We couldn't get enough of it. After that, we took our bottle(s) of wine to the beach where Heather had the first massage of the trip.

First massage of the trip! Lucky Heather

Saturday morning we were up by 5:30 am because we're still on work time. It was swim time again, yahoo! After a breakfast of mangos, pineapples, yogurt and granola (a lovely alternative to the fish and bacon we had been eating all week) it was time for the girls to head off on an island adventure.

The drive was lovely. A chance to see the island and it's communities, farms and forests. First stop was the chocolate hills, they were less impressive than we expected. Although, we had fun taking silly pictures trying to hold the hills.

Chocolate Hills

From there we were off to see the lovely Tarsier. By lovely, I mean freaky. The group agrees they look like Yoda. This video clearly demonstrates how weird these little primates are.

Tarsier! aka "Yoda"

After that, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some things for dinner. In the afternoon, we relaxed and napped. That night, our cook made us tempura shrimp and a lovely traditional seaweed salad.

Mother's Day (Sunday) is our major relax day.

The mothers awoke to Mother's Day cards from their team leader and some of their children. So that Rick didn't feel left out, he got a card from his first communion. With our breakfast, we enjoyed some mango mimosas. Along with relaxing, Dianne, Debbie, Robin and Schaana did some snorkelling.

Mother's Day involved reading, napping, massages a soundtrack from a family reunion of NEVER ENDING karaoke and screaming games from the resort next door.

Robin relaxing!

We will end our time on Bohol with a last dinner on our veranda and maybe one last swim.

Last dinner

Tomorrow we head to Tobogan to begin our painting project. There is no internet there so it may be a while before we post again.

Team Cebu 2014 Adventure
DWC Volunteer ParticipantsBohol, Philippines: May 2014

May 9th: Last Day

This morning we awake to pouring rain. Since it is our last day and we need to leave early to make it to Bohol, we decided to go to the worksite at 5:30 am instead of 6:30 am. Although we are still really enjoying the work we are pretty tired and ready for the weekend.

We get to the site at 6:00 am sharp. Gabe has to honk the horn many times to wake Michael up who lives at the site. He lets us in and we get straight to work. We have 4.5 hours to finish the project and we all really want to see it completed. I go back to my new found trade as a mason. I think trying to get the cement perfectly smooth appeals to my obsessive nature. I also really like working with Romeo, one of the professionals helping us. I think he is sort of laughing with/at me but that is nothing new and makes me like him more. This photo is of him stopping me from falling into wet concrete as I smooth out an area just out of reach.

 The rest of the team mixes and carries cement. They are machines today, they are refilling the place where we mix the cement as soon as it is empty.

Team work!

There are fewer breaks today. Luckily, Jenny has brought a small coffee maker so we kept well caffeinated. Schaana uses the caffein break to supervise!

Schaana supervising

By 10:00 am we are pouring and smoothing the final section with glee. Schanna and I approach Gabe with some money to buy celebratory beers for the team. He returns and the canadian and local workers share a drink and marvel at the volume of work we were able to complete in just 5 days!

Celebration time!

After final handshakes and a last cuddle for my new doggie best friend, we are off for a quick shower before we head to Bohol for some much needed r and r.

Today has really been what the trip is about for me. Both our team and the local team came together. Teasing each other, working closely, sharing ideas about how to finish the job together and genuinely enjoying each others company.

These men are fantastic people and hard workers and I only wish we could bring them with us to Tobogan!

Robin Copestake
DWC Team Leader
Cebu City, Philippines: May 2014

May 7th: Progressing on the project & visiting a mall

6:45 am and "off goes" the team to the community centre! Everyone is pleased with our accomplishment so far. We now see results!

Our other team members are there already and waiting for us; Romeo, Nario, Michael, Mac, and Gabe. We all have our "specialties": Rick out works everyone and teaches Schaana to shovel; she now swings a mean shovel. Are you listening, Eric?

The retaining wall is set. We levelled the patio area, add gravel, and laid the rebar. Everyone pitches in to tie the rebar and voila! Done in short order.

Frederick and Schaana pour gravel into the patio.

Back at the pension, we have our "debrief" in the top floor restaurant. My favourite time!

Team meeting!

This afternoon, we girls will visit the Ayala Mall. Rick and Dianne will meet us there at 6pm to dine and watch a show - a well know Filipino singer is to sing in the courtyard.

Ayala Mall is another world next to what we've seen: huge mall, very affluent, beautiful landscaped courtyard.

Ayala mall courtyard

We all have great fun choosing and haggling for jewelry at a kiosk- a very hard sell.

Ayala mall food court!

Unfortunately, by 8:30 the opening acts are still performing and the singer has yet to start. We are too tired and call it a day. We compensate ourselves with a great gelato. Mine was blood orange!

Heather Bagg
DWC Volunteer Participant
Cebu City, Philippines: May 2014

May 6th: Working on the drainage pipe

We woke to the second day of work with the heat and humidity rising. Rick and Shauna dug into a Filipino breakfast of egg, dried fish and toast or rice. The rest of us stuck with more familiar breakfast choices.

When we arrived at the community centre, we were all anxious to see how work had progressed. The trench we had so proudly dug was almost twice as deep as what we had completed the day before, thanks to the workman who had stayed longer. So the project was ready for the next stage. This was a day of cement mixing and pouring a floor.

Rick jumped in to help the workers prepare the cement. The mixing platform was moved closer to the back of the centre, where the cement would be poured. We were eager to get moving and pitch in. Some lugged buckets of water to make the slurry. Others hauled in wheel barrels of stone to be mixed in. Once the cement was ready, we carried buckets of heavy wet cement to the area that was laid out neatly in sections of t-bar and gravel.

No sooner was the cement down than the dogs got into it! They looked so funny! So we grabbed them and wiped the wet cement from their snouts. Robin volunteered to give the dogs a shampoo at the end of the job. Robin was thrilled at the prospect of hosing the dogs down and lathering soap into their gritty and grimy fur. It made her think of all the fun she has at home with her own two dogs. After all, dogs and dirt go together no matter what part of the world you live in.

The cement pouring didn't need too many players. So other tasks were found. Robin learned how to measure and tie t-bar sectional frames to use later for building a small retaining wall. Heather, Debbie, Shana and Dianne set up an assembly line on the porch and separated medical supplies into boxes of gauze, surgical pads, and bandage strips. These would be used by volunteers dentists arriving in a few weeks to provide dental care to kids and adults living near the centre.

Just before lunch, the t-bar frame was carried over and placed in a trench, which was later filled with more cement.

Dogs washed, work done, we settled into a great lunch of tuna sandwiches and succulent mangoes. It was another great day and we came away feeling proud of what we had accomplished.

Back at the hotel, we met for our daily debrief and headed off for some private time. Thai food for dinner hit the spot -- along with a few cold ones of course!

Dianne Clarke
DWC Volunteer Participant
Cebu City, Philippines: May 2014

May 5: Starting on construction projects

On Sunday evening, Rick chose a restaurant nearby for our meal called Cafe Verde. He had asked the hotel desk clerk if we could walk there and she said yes. She and Rick discussed some street names and directions. Off we went! However, in Cebu streets can look like alleys and they are not remotely well marked. We were beginning to feel a bit lost when a street vendor selling maps saved the day and showed us the hidden restaurant. Note our fearless leader said if Rick had allowed her to read the map, she could have found it. :) After dinner we all went back and off to sleep.

Monday was the first day of our project work. We met for breakfast at 6 AM and then met in the lobby to travel to the Rise Above centre.

Our team really came together. We fell into a really great groove that allowed us to be safe, productive and comfortable.

We worked on the main project of laying a concrete pad in four mini projects today:

• Dig a trench for a drainage pipe.
• Level out a high corner of the pad area.
• Dig out and replace a damaged drainage pipe.
• Dig a trench for a footing for a retaining wall
  
  

Around 11 AM Jenny served us lunch of chicken and rice. It was delicious and well received. After lunch, we drove back to the hotel in chaotic traffic, Each of us raved about how good it felt to shower. After our shower break, we met for refreshments and discussion at the hotel restaurant guided, of course, by Robin and her binder.

Schaana Puetz
DWC Volunteer Participant
Cebu City, Philippines: May 2014

May 4: Day Two in Cebu City

Before I share today, I will just sum up what happened yesterday post blog. First Rick and Heather's luggage safely arrived. After that we went out for dinner then and everyone headed to bed early. I think this photo really shows how exhausted we all were:

This morning we met for breakfast at 7am. Everyone slept well and was ready to start the day. Our task for today was to do a "feeding" with the Rise Above Foundation. This is where we help cook and serve a meal to the children from the area that use the foundation's services. This also gave us a chance to see and support one of the many programs run by the organization we would be working with.

Jenny and Gabe picked us up at 8am and took us to the centre. It is in a field with housing surrounding it. Jenny wanted to take us to see the community and the people they served. Walking into the neighbourhood was surreal. It was everything one expects: housing made of corrugated tin, children and animals everywhere. As we entered, we were greeted by someones stereo blasting "Impossible Dream" over the community. The juxtaposition of such poverty with this song of hope just intensified the sites and smells around us. We also felt a bit like voyeuristic wandering through people's community peering into their homes.

After that we returned to the centre to work on the meal and make kits of pencils and erasers for the children to use a school. I feel like a picture is worth a thousand words here so enjoy our cooking process:

It's Debbie here, helping out with the blog. The pictures may not clearly depict what the finished meal became so let me describe. A delicious, nutritious thick rice soup with finely chopped vegetables, ginger and ground beef.

There is a very strict organized protocol. Jennie had distributed meal tickets to the children in the community the day before.

The children began to line up at the gate to the Centre about an hour before they were served. Little boys were peaking through the bottom of the gate, so cute!

You'll see from the picture it looked like a cauldron. It was dispensed into tubs and placed on a table at the centre's entrance. The gate opened and ten kids were admitted at a time. One ticked equaled one mug scoop into whatever they had brought to hold it from sturdy containers to plastic baggies. Some were as young as three.

By 11 am there was little soup left so we grabbed a ride back to the hotel with Elizabeth who shared the background and history of rise above. After lunch nearby, we headed to a local fancy hotel's pool to cool off and grab a little R&R. After going back to our hotel, we headed out for dinner. Now we are off to bed and an early start tomorrow.

Robin Copestake & Debbie Bagg
DWC Team Leader/Volunteer
Cebu City, Philippines: May 2014