i have been putting off updating this at fear of having to sit down and think
but today has been one of those days i have hit a wall
i have been working with the youth in daccutan the little ones on a Saturday the older ones on a sunday we have begun to build up a relationship even through the langauge barrier
and been working at joyland the Australian filipino run orphanage doing ground clearence landscaping stuff
which has been both a good chance for hard work that will make a diffrence and some well needed male bonding within a small portion of the youth in the village
i forget that by this point i have said goodbye to home and felt at my lowest but started to be picked back up by perseverance and willingness to just plow straight through and not stop to think
alas today i hit the wall as i said the work at joyland had to be canceled
our means of transport was broken which left me to sit at home feeling pretty hopeless and in need
of doing somthing
instead i began to think and reflect in hindsight it was unhealthy not to reflect until now
but it seemed to difficult to deal with the concept of saying goodbye to parents still having the guilt of leaving a loved one and dealing working with a village who practically had no youth left due to drugs and crime
the few we do have have been very inspiring and it has felt good to help them have a direction again
but frustrating in the knowledge that when we were here before there were three times the amount here willing to help and inspire as there are now
it also begs my moral conscience to want to help shape the younger kids not to fall into the life of there brothers and sisters but how does an eighteen year old even begin to think about somthing like that
with faith
faith in that not every human should be willing to throw themselves in the gutter and that it is human nature to want what is best for ones self in your life
but sometimes that gets completely deluded
a lot of the time people think they are doing whats best because they are getting money
in the case of england it leaves them with no soul or personality
here it leaves them in jail

in england drugs are what people do to be cool and escape to fit in for whatever reason the subculture demands to feel free and different but in so many many ways exactly the same only with your worst attributes heightened

here in the Philippines drugs alcohol and crime are an escape they give a sense of belonging and money that they have never had before a way of escaping all the bad parts and becoming who ever they want to be in there life. but it seems this is nothing but deluded dreams another off cut of American culture that has led the Filipinos astray in reality it leads to rape and loneliness jail and torn family's

i will use the example of a girl i used to know from daccutan i met her two years ago when i first came and she was a sweet girl not too bright not through nay fault of her own forgotten by the system not registered at birth so as far as the world was concerned not even a real person no birth certificate no school but still always a smile i was told a couple weeks ago that she had met someone and had moved out of the village i was pleased a summing that she had managed to find a new life a better life but the bitter reality of it was she had fallen to the charms of a older man who was using her to peddle drugs and do anything he wishes she is now serving 25 years in prison at the age of 15 with a charge of possession and accomplice to the murder of a police man.

if you would of have met this girl you would of thought there was no way but this is the harsh life of poverty and the same escapes people in england use to look cool. that tears apart the life of a 15 year old girl and her family.

i have been traveling with a good friend from one of manilas known slums he has lived in poverty his whole life and for what i saw and stayed with the conditions of his living were enough for me to think it was no way to live but when he told me his story i was lost for words completely
he told me how his father had died when he was 15 of alcohol and smoking was how he put it and that it became even harder to live which to mean was a phenomenal to get my head around it would be hard enough to live in Payatas as it is but without a father and a mother who was grieving with 4 children to feed he told me how he went to find work the temptation of gangs and drugs had always been around him but he didn't fall i not it because he has pride and its a pride that has inspired me so much already and so he went to the jeepny stops and asked the drivers if he could be a conductor in a part of manila which is certainly not for holiday takers the age of 15 he would ride the jeepnys collecting money bare in mind everyone takes the jeepny even the characters you would want to avoid at all costs and its very prone to robbery at gunpoint perticuarly the one holding all the money ie the conductor but he went on doing it to be able to provide for his family in whatever way he can he told me of his hope and his struggle and that now in the knowledge that he has survived 24 years of that struggle he can give the same hope to other people and thats why he was so pleased to be able to come and help me work with the youth and he has led me as well as leading them in a way that will change my life forever.