Finishing the Ferro-cement tank

Today’s Mission: Go to Barangay Mangingisda to follow up on construction and finish ferro-cement water tank. Expected Departure 7am. Completion of Mission 2pm. Return Home 3pm.  

Flexibility and patience and then patience and flexibility. That’s Peace Corps. Today I woke up at 6am, ate some freaking delicious faux captain crunch cereal, shotgunned some instant kape and was picked up at 7am to go to, what I thought, the Youth Rehab Center. I had thrown on my classy construction clothing; basketball shorts, t-shirt with sleeves cut off by yours truly and safety first flip flops. First problem, my supervisor is not in the car and instead of heading to the center we start back into the bayan.  “Saan tayo papunta?” I ask, “where are we going.” The answer, in English is, “to pick up two employees and two children at risk for the Persons with Disabilities parade that our office is leading at 8am, no one told you?” Great, I get to walk in what I assume is a big parade in my scummy work clothes. I contact my friend Tom who is helping with the tank and he says that since we will be late and he has to deliver veggies in the afternoon he cannot go. Ok, no problem, we will go up ourselves later.

We arrive in town and get to the parade to find out it was at 730am and it is almost done. I take a quick video of the parade and head over to the office. I meet up with Ma’am Lyds and she tells me that someone is coming in to audit the office in just a few minutes and after that we will head over to the center. Bout 2 hours later still no auditor so we plan to head out when a woman comes in with a 5 month old adorable baby girl. The woman is the baby’s aunt and she is stating that the mother cannot take care of the child and they want to turn her over to the CSWD. I didn’t know her name at first so I started calling her Isabella but it turns out her name was Vanessa….I was close J She is slightly malnourished but is happy and alert. Of course, everyone starts telling me that I should adopt her but I’m still a child myself!

As we are working on this case and also discussing getting a backhoe to fix our well and begin digging a fish pond at the center I get a call from Bart saying that he is meeting a person from a big organization that may be able to help us with getting roughly 9 million pesos for the construction of a new dorm for CICL. I don’t want to reveal who they are yet because we are just in the beginning phase of discussion. Bart wants to meet at 330. Again I am in my scummy construction clothes and all my presentation materials/info is at the house. I quickly break out ruler, pencil and paper and re-sketch our design for the building as well as the current layout of the rehab center. I do some quick calculations, get the square meter age(?) not footage we work in meters, and get an estimated cost using City Engineering figures.

Right before I start to leave it begins raining and I have no payong/umbrella. I “tsssk” a trike and we head out only getting lost once. The meeting went really well and it’s always great to meet with Bart and his wife. The meeting was a first step and we will have to follow up soon. Bart gives me a ride back to the Capitol, I catch a jeep to the gym. After that I get some soy milk and tofu and get home about 730pm. Luckily my amazing wife cooked chili which is awesome, and overall a pretty awesome day.

However, what’s the mission for tomorrow? Go to Barangay Mangingisda to follow up on construction and finish ferro-cement water tank. Expected Departure 7am. Completion of Mission 2pm. Return Home 3pm.