Prenatal Day-Landfill

Wow! What a day. Yesterday we went to the landfill to offer our services to the people living there.  Yes there is people actually living in the active landfill here. I would say that these families are the poorest of the poor. The area is more like a land full of garbage, not a land fill because there is no hole that the garbage goes in like at the garbage dumps that I have seen in the states. The garbage was just piled up creating mountains and mountains of garbage for miles. I had to put on a straight face and pretend like the awful smell didn’t bother me. Tons of plastic bags were blown by the wind and stuck to the fences around this landfill. The people that live there start early in the morning and “shop” within the mountains of garbage for things that they need. Most of the houses are made out of scrap pieces of wood and garbage; there were some houses that had cement/brick walls. My heart goes out to these people. Our team walked around from house to house asking if there were any pregnant woman they knew. After searching for awhile we found and went to a house of a woman who was pregnant and when we told her about us, she was so happy and blessed that we were there and soon enough we had 12 buntis(pregnant woman) at this house waiting for a checkup from us. The news that we were there went around fast. The entire crowd of woman had not received any prenatal care yet in their pregnancy, and even though some are due in a couple weeks they had not yet been seen by anyone and didn’t really have a plan of who was going to be their birth attendant at the time of birth. Some of you reading this are probably thinking. “What is the point of helping these woman when their babies are going to be born in a garbage dump and probably live very poor lives, if they even live past childhood.” Well, the point is that every woman has the human right to a skilled birth attendant being with her and her baby at the time of birth no matter if she is the poorest or richest woman alive; and if we can get that mom and new baby off to a good start bonding and breastfeeding, we can promote safe motherhood and child survival. We were able to give all the woman prenatal vitamins and some of them iron supplements, because most were anemic due to malnutrition. I pray that they choose to have us attend them at the time of birth, but we never know which moms are actually going to contact us when they go into labor. Our team will keep going to the landfill every Friday to do checkups. I am glad that we found an area where the woman are willing to let us help them.“If we are to heal the planet, we must begin by healing birthing.”~Agnes Sallet Von Tannenberg

It is hard to see in these pics but this is all garbage-the big mountain thing on the right is a huge pile of garbage

Walk, Walk, Walk

Today the midwives and I hiked up to Mt. Muahay about an hour hike; our goal was to get to the Assembly of God church in the village and ask their pastor if our Mercy In Action team can do a medical mission in June. Well, when we arrived, the pastor was not there and the church was locked up. So, we asked some locals where the pastor lives, they told us that he lives in New Cabalan which is, by the way, close to where we started this whole hike. We gathered our things and started to go back hoping we could find the pastors house. As we were walking along, we passed a kind looking man who said hi to us and thought nothing of it until, we were told by a vendor a while later that the pastor just walked by him not to long ago. That’s when we realized that that kind man who said hi to us was the pastor we were looking for! Ugh! We quickly turned around and headed back for the church (all this work just to talk to one man!) We were very hot and sweaty by then, especially poor Jen who had Ken Ken her 71/2 month old baby boy in a sling carrying him. But, it was worth it because the pastor told us that he would love for us to do a medical mission at his church and also said he would spread the word  about our team doing free prenatals every Thursday in Mercy Land. This is great, because our Mercy In Action team has to do everything we can to advertise and start getting the Aeta tribal families to trust and know us...apparently a rumor is circulating that there is a cult of people capturing children and harvesting their organs… well, if you thought that wasn't bad enough, there is another rumor going around that our team is that cult. We have to break this rumor and gain trust so that we can start serving these families with much needed health care! 76% of the Aeta tribal woman are giving birth to their babies alone with no one there to help in an emergency, so the infant and maternal mortality rates are very high, and breastfeeding rates are low...the other day we went and did another postpartum checkup on that mom and new baby in Iram and found out that the mom is bottle feeding!(we encouraged the mother to start breastfeeding immediately before her milk dries up) The thing is, she has no way to sustain buying formula. In these situations the mother usually ends up feeding her infant rice water, or diluted formula, or some other thing that she can come up with. So you ask "why do these moms even start bottle feeding then." Well sadly the Philippine people as a culture believe that if one can give their baby formula it is the very best thing for the infant...why? Because Americans do it so it must be! And you ask, "well why do Americans do it," I honestly do not know that answer. ‎"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever does." Margaret Mead

Pics of our hike: 

Aeta children, because of their dark chocolate colored skin and curly hair they look much like Africans instead of Philippino 

 

Looks alot like Oregon, don't you think?

Having fun in the Philippines

Cecille and I together on the jeepney coming back from the market

awww so cute, this was taken in Iram when we went to go do a checkup on our mom that just delivered, and her new baby

Eating Halo Halo for the first time with Cecille and Jokes, it is a very popular Philippino treat...fruit, beans, jello, coconut, shaved ice, condensed milk and sorbet, it was yummy! 

The back of a Jeepney(main way of transportation in the Philippines) 

Jeepney-they are usually packed, you feel like you are in a can of sardines

Tricy-the 2nd option for public transportation-you either ride on the back of the motorbike or in the side car, they go pretty fast and will take you anywhere you want to go

thought this was a neat pic

By the way, HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!!

Easter Holiday

I wrote this this morning but wasn't able to post it until now:

Easter Holiday…

Here in the Philippines Easter is a national holiday; the Philippines is mainly a catholic country and the way they celebrate easter here is very unique. Most everything closes down on Friday and Saturday and then opens back up on Sunday, this is because they literally believe that Jesus is truly dead on these days and comes back alive on (Sunday). So for Friday and Saturday(and sometimes even earlier in the week; the holiday week starts on Wednesday) they believe that since Jesus is dead there is no protection for themselves and it is not safe to be out. But, on Sunday everything opens back up again and goes back to normal because it is the day that Jesus rises from the dead… It is Friday morning here and until 3pm there is a very “famous” parade/tradition type thing that is put on every year for this easter holiday. In this parade, people walk down the streets being whipped beyond bloody by themselves or others. There is also living people who will be hung on crosses by nails hammered into their hands while being carried down the street. These people take this very seriously, they are trying to reenact what Jesus went through believing that if they do this, they will be loved and cherished by God even more. (Thank God for Jesus! He did it so that we don't have to!) It will be very gruesome and we do not want the little ones to watch this, so our Mercy In Action team is leaving and going to Subic Bay for the day...oh my gosh! I thought it wasn't going to start until later in the day, but just now as I type this it is going on right in front of our apartment complexes...

Wow! What a way to experience how different cultures celebrate holidays...

Prenatal Day

Yesterday the midwives and I traveled out to a village called Iram, we have a building there that we can do prenatal checks out of.  We will be going there every Tuesday, but we don’t yet have very many women coming to us because it is taking a while to gain their trust. They are a people group that were displaced from the big volcanic eruption (Mount Pinatubo) in 1991. But the midwives did have one patient who was supposed to be delivering soon and when we got there we found out that she delivered already the night before on her own. She wasnt able to contact us for some reason, when woman here go into labor and don’t have any “load” (money) on their phone to txt the midwife, they just have the baby on their own. It is very sad, but that is one of the reasons why having a birth center is good because a woman can walk to the birth center where the midwives are when she goes into labor, and she doesn't have to have money on her phone in order to contact the midwife to come to her. Anyways, we were led to where the new mom and baby were so that we could do a checkup. The baby hadn’t nursed since it was born 6 hours earlier, so our main goal was to get the baby nursing before we left.  When all was well, we prayed over the mom and new baby and headed home. So for now I will be going with the midwives Jen and Cecille 3 times a week to do prenatal checks and be attending the homebirths. As for Mercy In Actions clinic, the process is going slower than expected and the building of the birth center has not yet been started, they are working very hard to get things going and to get all of the permits and licenses they need, but it is more complicated than one would think. Here is some pics of Iram...

The Market

I have to learn how to get around in Olongapo confidently, and safely, so the Philippine midwives I am staying with decided to take me out today to teach me. The main use of transportation in the Philippines is a Jeepney. I will have to take a pic tomorrow and post it on here, but it is like a very small open bus. They are colored coded depending on where in the town you are going. The ones we have to take from our house to get around are the brown jeepneys with the white top. It cost exactly 12 pesos each way which is about 3cents in American money. The jeepney does not stop only slows down a bit, so you have to hop on quickly and when you are at your destination you knock on the roof and the driver will stop to let you off. On the jeepney there is a padded bench on each side and you have to squish together(like a can of sardines) When I thought that no one else could possibly fit the driver let 2 others on. Good thing I am not claustrophobic! Once we reached the market we all hopped off and joined the bustle of Pilipino’s buying and selling things. To explain what the market is like in American terms-it is like a HUGE Saturday market but people also sell electronics, clothes, toys, ect...The people treated me like a celebrity always saying hi maim, beautiful girl, pretty girl, wow look at her, what is your name? Are you wearing contact lense?(they find it hard to believe that my eyes are actually blue) It is saddening in a way of how much they want to be like Americans-the people here never want to be out in the sun, and buy whitening products for their skin even...The fruit and vegetables here are amazing and fresh, I bought 9 mangoes for 80 pesos which is about $1.75. Seeing the meat on the other hand was very interesting. The smell of raw meat is not very appetizing to me anyway and the meat lays out on tables the entire day waiting to be purchased. carcasses would be hanging with flies on them and animal heads would be staring right at you…I am sure that it was fresh; just butchered even; just the way that it was presented made me think about if I wanted to ever eat meat again... There are many beggars in the market and the little kids try to sell you plastic bags to put your stuff in, one little boy and 2 girls came up to me to try to sell me one, and I gave them my fried plantain shish kabob instead. It seemed they were more pleased with that than if I would have buyed the bag. Next was going to the grocery store, unlike the grocery stores in the states, it is very hard to come by milk or cheese, lettuce, or spinach and many other things. If one wanted to buy a more Americanized brand of something, it would be very expensive. A box of cocoa puffs was selling for $10.80. But most things are very inexpensive here, I bought some stuff to make spaghetti for dinner for the family tonight, hamburger meat and all and paid 436 pesos which is about $9.00, don’t you wish food was that cheap in the states? All in all I had a blast going through the market. It is so interesting and fun to experience a whole different culture! I feel like I will get used to living in the Philippines soon, my jet lag is slowly resolving!

What are you looking at?

The people loved posing when I would take a pic

Those fish were still alive flopping around

yum yum

       

Day 1: Jet lag plus culture shock!

Wow! I am finally here and made it safely... As we walk off our airplane into Manila I realize that the hardest part of the trip has just begun. I am with the Penwell family(the people who started and run the organization Mercy In Action.) so it is Vicki, her son Ian, his wife Rose and their 3 children who are 7, 2, and 3 years old. First we all had to go to the bathroom(comfort room is what it is called here, even though it is not the least bit comfortable) They are very different from the states because the philippinos do not use toilet paper. It is too expensive and clogs up their sewer system. So instead, right beside the toilet is a spray nozzle like what you would find by most peoples sinks in America that one rinses off with when they are done. I still have not figured out how one would get clean by doing that or afterwards how to dry off, so I bought toilet paper for myself right away lol. Next we had to go through immigration, and customs, then baggage claim, all in all took over 2 hours just to do that. As we walk out of the Manila airport under the sign “bay 7” waiting for Scott (Vickis husband to spot us and pick us up) it was like we had entered a different planet. The smell is horrendous, garbage everywhere and pollution so heavy that there is a smog/smoke cloud everywhere you go. It is very humid and hot which just makes the smell so much worse. The philippino people are very kind but also VERY nosy; we are stared at and followed constantly because of being white (they love white people.)  As we wait with a sea of people around us taking in the sight, sound, and smell of Manila, I start to wonder what I was thinking even coming here and if this was a good idea. But deep down I know that this is where I am supposed to be and is what God has planned for my life right now.

Finally Scott found us, loaded up our bags and we hopped into Mercy In Actions ambulance, it is a 3 hour drive from Manila to where we are living which is in Olongapo city. Rose and Ians little ones are so excited that they don’t have to be in car seats or even buckles because there are literally no traffic laws here, not even a set speed limit; What was meant to be a 4 lane road turned into six lanes. I could literally shake hands with other people that were driving beside us because of how jammed it was. Also pedestrians do not have the right away and one will get hit if they cross the street when there is a car coming down the road. It is about 5am Philippine time when we arrive to our apartment complex. We are dead tired by now and are very excited to finally be here. The apartments are actually pretty nice, I am living in one with cecille(a philippina midwife) Jen(also a philippina midwife) her husband Jokes and 2 children 71/2 month baby boy and 11/2 year old boy. I share a room with Cecille and the other 4 all share the other room and one “family bed.” The first thing I did was put my sheets on my bed and crashed waking up 2 hours later to start my first day in the Philippines...here some pics, I cant figure out how to flip them the right side up though...

My side of the bedroom

Our living room/dining room/laundry room/kitchen all in one shot

Living room

Dining room

bathroom(notice how it has toilet paper! It didnt before I got there lol)

Cecille holding Jens baby boy! Oh so cute!

Oh the joys of packing

Well lets just say that packing is probably the hardest part of traveling! One not only has to decide what and how much they are going to pack, they have to be careful about not packing stuff that will get them caught at security; I had to add up all the liquids I have, weigh and measure my luggage and on and on....ect. Lets just say last night and today was STRESSFUL. I didn't realize that I should have started this whole packing extravaganza a week ago. Anyways I finally got everything packed up and left Prineville today, drove here to my dads house and we are heading up to Seattle tomorrow where I will be flying out of Thursday. When I left home(Prineville) today, everyone was in tears, including almost all my little siblings and myself. It was a tough day, I have never been away from home for longer than 3 months so this will be very challenging. I already miss them. But, I know that this is going to be an adventure of a lifetime and I am going to learn sooo much, not only about midwifery but culture, which I think America has lost in a way. Well, I think I am going to turn in early tonight, have to be out the door tomorrow by 5:30am because my dad has some appt. in Portland on our way out to Seattle. Magandang gabi po! Which means goodnight in tagalog 
(the main language they speak in the philippines).
-Alyssa 

4 more days...

So, only 4 days left until I board a plane to the Philippines! This morning I showed a little video and spoke at Eastside church to get spiritual/prayer/financial support during my travels. I am so thankful to all who donated and to all who are praying for me. I was very nervous but everyone said my nerves didn't show, I am very glad it went smoothly! After church I went shopping for things I need for my trip and realized how expensive traveling can get. I still need to get a few more things, and pack. I am trying to spend every extra spare moment with my family and friends in the craziness of everything. Yesterday my family got together and threw a going away party for me, I felt very loved and it hit me how much I am going to miss them. I have never been away from home for longer than 3 months...I guess thats part of growing up though. The other day my little sister said the cutest thing, she told my step dad Dave "Did you know Alyssa is going to go to the Philippines?" Dave said sarcastically "She is! What for?"...and she said very nonchalantly "To sell babies". hahaha! Anyways I want to end this post with one of my favorite quotes which is written by Dr. Seuss, and it is "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better its not."
Until next time,
-Alyssa