Aftermath

Ondoy left a mess that is now being cleaned up. The past couple days we've been able to go to parts of the city badly affected by the flooding. Yesterday we were able to help clean inside houses that are covered in the mud now that the water has gone down. Today we visited some pastors and their families whose homes were completely destroyed in twenty minutes from flooding and they escaped with their lives and the clothes on their back. The water came in and covered the first floor completely and up to their knees on the second floor. They managed to swim out by holding onto rope to get to higher ground, to safety. They're now trying to move into new homes and starting all over as they've lost everything they've owned. The vast majority of people here do not have insurance, so within a few hours everything they owned is destroyed and now they're starting over with nothing but the clothes on their backs. We've only seen a few homes, but the loss of life and possessions is staggering.

These pictures are taken from inside the van we were riding in, so they're a little blurry. We spent hours on the road because of traffic. Many people are trying to get in and out of the affected places, and some of the roads aren't the best.

These pictures are from the compound of the two pastors' homes. There's no water or electricity there right now, so clean up is not going to be able happen anytime soon. Cleaning up all the mud with water would be challenging, but without water, not possible. The first picture is from inside one of the pastors' homes.

Ondoy

If you haven't heard yet, a tropical storm, Ondoy, moved over the Philippines yesterday. It really affected Metro Manila badly. We were safe, warm and dry in our lovely apartment, but many many others were not. We especially thought of our classmates and the people we've been visiting in the informal settlement (squatter) areas who are not so unaffected. More than 50 people have died as a result of the storm and flooding. Thousands of families are living in the communities pictured below, and life is precarious for these people on the best of days, but yesterday... I can't even imagine. Please pray for them.

Retreat

We joined nine other couples from our church for an overnight marriage encounter. We got to stay at a very nice hotel which was fun, and enjoyed getting to know other couples from our church.


Below are pictures taken from the vow renewal ceremony at our church, including a foot washing. This is the church we were married in six years ago, so it was fun to do this ceremony there.

Our favorite snack currently

That is what a kilo of rambutans look like. They're crazy looking fruit. They're currently in season, so we've been eating them quite frequently.

The picture's a little blurry, but you can see the "hair" that shoots out the sides. The seed is about the size of an almond, so the fruit inside is just a small amount.

Uche is the official breaker open of the rambutans in our family; I can't seem to get them to open. He twists, squeezes and tears it open, and I just take out the tasty fruit inside. The texture of the white part that has the seed in the center is like the inside of a grape, but the taste is not really comparable to something we eat in the States. So, I'll just say that they're very tasty, and you'll have to come visit us to taste one!

That is what a kilo of rambutans look like when the Ajeros are done with them!

Visiting

For the past few weeks we've been spending half a day in a poor community with a couple classmates for our community organizing class. It's been an amazing learning experience. It would be hard to describe to you what we experience there; it's something that must be experienced to be understood. We're so grateful for our time here in school where we get to learn about different ways to work with the poor and get to know people in some very poor communities.

The pictures below were taken in a community that's been built above a canal. We've spent hours here drinking soda and talking with the locals. Quite eye opening.

Where are we??

China??

Nope, we're still in Manila. These pictures were taken in Chinatown. We love Chinatown here and in San Francisco. It's fun to "travel" and experience China without leaving the country. I love this picture of McDonald's with the Filipino flag. Uche's quite the photographer. We ate some great food the day we hung out there. There are no pictures of the food cause we were too busy eating!!

What we've been up to...

If you were to ask me how we're doing here in the Philippines I would tell you we're good, but so busy. Our school load is quite heavy this semester and we're enjoying every minute of it. There's so much to learn! We've also been kept busy with different things outside of the classroom. I'll try to show a few pictures of things we've been up to.

One of our Korean classmates had a team from his home church visiting, so he invited me and Uche to come do a short lesson on English pronunciation. As a thank you they sent us home with t-shirts and kimchi!

For our intro to community development class we had a retreat at our professor's house. She lives outside of the metro area where life is cooler, calmer and less polluted than our place. We were able to enjoy good discussions about the role of the church in the world and relax in that restful place.

One of the things we enjoy here is different kinds of fruit. We miss things like peaches and nectarines which are not to be found here. But we get to enjoy things like mangos, sweet pineapple, and pomelos. You can see what pomelos are like in the picture above. They are bigger than grapefruits and sweeter. When we purchased our pomelo we asked the lady to cut off the skin which took a good inch off the diameter. Later that evening we enjoyed this sweet fruit in one sitting.

Mostly we've been studying. We have been reading and writing and reading some more. We've been spending lots of time in the library which is air conditioned. We especially like these seats as they are just a few feet away from the air conditioner! So, if you ever want to know what we're doing, it's probably a pretty accurate guess that we're sitting in those two chairs with a book and/or computer in front of us.