About Manila in General

I survived last night without going to sleep till 11:30 pm which was very impressive considering how many hours I had been up. I ended up going for supper and then for coffee in a beautiful area outside amongst hotels with Peter, Denise and Colin who is a friend from Calgary. It's so crazy that we sit and eat comfortably in a nice restaurant and just blocks away there are hundreds of people squatting.

Manila has a population of 15 million during the week which is half the population of Canada in one city. The government here is corrupt and everyone knows it. From the money taken in by taxes about 30% of it goes into the authority's pockets, 40% of it goes to paying interest on foreign debts and 30% is left over for social programs etc. This means that any construction or building is paid for by new foreign loans. There are many half finished projects and there is a brand new airport (it has been ready for use for 5 years) but some political issue keeps it closed. How one might manage to go about fixing these problems I have no idea. The other thing that is difficult for me to comprehend is the difficulty of getting a visa here. The government doesn't allow just anybody to get a visa because they are afraid they just won't come back to the country.

I have my 2 days of training in starting tomorrow and then should be heading out to Romblon (which is a province, completely different from the huge cities here) on Thursday. I'm pretty excited about getting out of Manila soon. It has its own beauty but it is also very polluted and the disparity here is hard for me to take.

I got the chance to volunteer today with a group of 6 of us (3 Canadians yay!!) We packed food packages for families whose homes were devestated by the typhoon. I've been advised to keep the donations I was given until I get to Romblon to see how the money can be best used.
God knows!!