Love and Dirt

“Meet at the Starbucks,” were my instructions.  I glanced back and forth with a confusion familiar in my hometown of Seattle.  Which Starbucks??  It was 6:35 am and I was to meet my hosts in 10 minutes, at one of the two Starbucks on either side of a major road.  I did a mental coin toss and crossed thestreet to the “other” Starbucks to wait. 

Hazel and I had arrived in Manila the day before and settled into a condo owned by her extended family.   It was Saturday, and I was joining a team that went into the slums each week with a children’s program and a meal.  Metro World Child was started in New York City in the 1980s to help children in urban poverty.  Since then, it has expanded to 12 countries and supports hundreds of thousands of children.  I had connected with the team just a few days before, and they invited me to their weekly event to better understand how they work. 

I had a phone number of my contact, but she wasn’t responding to my query on which Starbucks was the intended meeting point.  I craned my neck in both directions, hoping to stand out as someone looking for someone to someone driving along looking for someone looking for someone. Finally, my phone buzzed with an update that my ride was a few minutes late and that I should be at the Starbucks next to the McDonalds.  Done! I do enjoy guessing right.  The truck pulled up and Hannah popped out to say hello and introduce me to the crew sitting on benches lining the covered truck bed.  There were three full time staff and two interns, each from a different country, including Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, America, and the Philippines, ranging in age from 18-50 and all with a love for children.  I hopped in and we took off for the 30-minute drive to one of the most notorious slums in Manila.

Tondo is the densest district in the densest city in the world.  The neighborhood hosts many slum areas, with the largest built on the now-closed Smokey-Mountain landfill.  It still serves scavengers trying to survive through reusing and recycling trash, low-wage service jobs, begging, and crime.

At 7:30 a.m. we rolled into the neighborhood.  The buildings were a mix of concrete structures and corrugated metal lean-tos, indicating the social divide even in the slums.  People were already outside and busy with their day, washing, cooking, and carrying. Others had settled into plastic chairs and benches to smoke cigarettes and gossip.

Hannah turned around to our team in the back, “Ok, it’s time!  Wake ‘em up!”   The team open the side windows and started shouting, “Sidewalk Sunday School! Sidewalk Sunday School!  Good morning!  Sidewalk Sunday School!”  Faces, young and old, started popping out of windows and doors.  A small parade formed behind the truck as it slowly wound through the narrow and crowded streets to a basketball court in the middle of the neighborhood.  A team was already there, setting up tarps and awnings, and stages and props, and sound systems and snacks.  The set-up team was made up of volunteers from the neighborhood, many who had grown up attending the weekly programs and now wanted to help other kids.  They spent hours each week localizing the lesson, preparing props, games, songs, and most importantly, visiting the kids at home. The home visits were the most important part of the program.  It allowed them to provide support to stay in school, help connect the families with critical social services, and build relationships with the people they were there to serve.

Within minutes, over 200 kids were swarming the basketball court.  Each child filled out a registration card that allowed the team to track attendance and coordinate statistics and services with the government social welfare office.  Once the kids handed those in, they climbed and ran and played until the loud music indicated the program was starting.  The theme that week was “Mad Scientist” and each game and story was done through wacky experiments, colored smoke, and wild wigs and glasses that the kids found hilarious.  Over the hour-long program, they sang songs, had contests, watched the story of the Good Samaritan, and learned a Bible verse about loving your neighbor.  The engagement continued as rows were orderly dismissed to the food line, with each kid holding their dish from home to get some creamy bean and rice porridge. 

I stood in the back through the program, watching the kids laugh and sing.  The older ones, wizened at the ripe age of 8 or 10, nannied the younger ones.  One little ragamuffin who looked about 5 marched through the area in a large t-shirt that hung off one shoulder and reached his bare knees.  He had the cocky confidence of someone who knew everyone everywhere and would probably be running the neighborhood in 10 years or so.  Some pre-teen girls kept looking at me, shyly smiling and giggling. After the program, they ran over and started talking to me in halting English.  “Halo!  You so pretty!”  They pointed to my blue eyes and giggled with each other.  One came over and gave me a big hug.  I hugged her back, and saw that her head was visibly covered in lice nits.  But her smile was electric as she held my hand and started chattering about everything important in life to a 10-year-old girl. 

The neighborhood pack-up was done, and we were off to repeat the program in another area.  About 300 kids came to that one, carrying their bowls for food and listening with rapt attention.  Many years ago, there was a law that each neighborhood had to have a basketball court.  Most of the basketball stands were rusted and in disrepair, clearly not used for community pick-up games.  But the courtyard areas are usually covered and spacious, and ideal for programs.  The team would sweep the ubiquitous litter from the center of the court to the edges, joining the piles of garbage being picked through by feral cats and many other creatures, I’m sure.  When kids had to go to the bathroom, they just went, right there on the court.  I chose not to sit for the program.

After the second program, we walked through the slum for 15 minutes until we reached a 5-story concrete apartment building where we would be eating lunch.  The building was dark.  There must have been electricity in some of the homes, but none in the common area.  There were open window squares with no glass.  We climbed up four flights and walked through a hallway where someone was cooking over a fire on the concrete floor.  We crossed the opening and went to one of the apartments that was being used as a church.  It was about 10×15, with a small kitchen in the back and a loft that doubled the useable space.  Even though I don’t think you could squeeze more than 30 people in there, the church had a drum set, a keyboard, and a sound system set up and ready for Sunday’s service.  The apartment was the typical size for the building, and often 2-4 families would live in a similar space, perhaps divided by curtains.  The cheaper apartments were at the top, the more expensive ones on the ground floor, because … no elevator.

The team dug into piles of rice and some chicken that had been prepared by the church.  They used thick plastic plates covered by produce-type plastic bags.  When they were done, they threw away the produce bags and the plates were ready to use again.  Over lunch, I chatted with the intern from Singapore.  She was in her 50s and had been a public school teacher.  She was ready to do something different and wanted to see if a program like this might work in her country.  It was a 4-month intense internship, full of reading, reports, and practical engagement.  She seemed to love every minute.

The third and final program for the day started at 3:00.  We got there at 2:00 to set up and I noticed this neighborhood seemed both friendlier and poorer than the previous two.  This was Hannah’s neighborhood, where she and her team visited the families and checked up on the 300 kids who came each week.  Immediately, a small group of kids adopted me and took me over to where they had staked out a spot for the program.  I noticed a small child, about 2, wandering around.   I nicknamed him “Buck” for he had on not a shred of clothing.  He was filthy, his hair lightened several shades by dust and dirt, and caked mud on his arms and legs.  His feet were almost black.  I noticed a tired mother with a small baby who looked about 4 months old.  The baby was smiling and making faces at me.  As soon as the mother noticed, she immediately handed me the baby.  I smiled at the mother.

“How old is your baby?”

“Eight months,” she mumbled.

I was shocked.  The baby was so small, too small to be that old and healthy.

“I have no husband. So many children.  Seven children.  No husband.  No milk. No milk for baby.  No medicine.”  She kept repeating she had no milk, and then sat down on a small rock next to a metal pillar where she rested her head, and fell asleep.

Little Buck, the naked toddler, came over and leaned on the sleeping woman.  It was his mother.  Another worker came over and picked him up and cradled him in her lap, watching the program together.  Hannah noticed and came over.  She had a box of baby wipes with her.  Gently, she knelt down and began cleaning his feet, going through sheets and sheets as each turned black with layers of dirt.  She carefully wiped each leg, his little arms and hands, his sweet face and hair, as best she could.  By the time she was done, there was a pile of baby wipes and a sleeping toddler, looking so different without the dirt and dust.  It was such a simple act and so full of love.  I was still holding his baby brother and walked over to Hannah.

“Do you know this family? Is the mother ok?”

“Yes, I visited them just a few days ago.  Her husband is in jail for drugs.  She either has 5 or 7 or 9 children.  It changes every time.  I’m never sure how old the baby is.  Sometimes she says 4 months or 9 months.  She just needs to sleep off whatever she’s on right now.”  I was relieved to hear that the baby might actually be 4 months old, and not just severely malnourished.

The baby soon started to fuss.  The mother woke up, but didn’t reach for him.  After a few minutes, she pulled out a bottle from her pocket, half filled with milk and handed it to me, before she drifted back to sleep again.  After finishing the bottle, the baby settled into a nap, along with his brother still being held by the volunteer next to me.  I looked at these sleeping cherubs and realized that kids from neighborhoods and situations like this were the ones who ended up at the Children’s Home where I had spent the last few weeks.  This story repeated in neighborhoods across the country, where parents were unable to provide the care and protection their children needed.

When the program ended, the mother woke up in time to take her toddler and the registration card for the baby and get in the foodline.  The baby was too young for the food they were serving, but every child still got a meal, and she filled up his bowl.  After she had eaten, she reached for the baby and drifted outside.  One of the volunteers handed her a package of powdered milk he bought from a small shack-store across the street.  She nodded, and then disappeared down the street maze deep into the Tondo neighborhood.

I watched her leave and wondered about her story.  What was she like as a little girl?  Did she grow up here in Tondo?  Did she ever dream of leaving, of having a different life?   Did she have neighbors or family that kept an eye on her kids when she couldn’t?  And what would life be like for her kids? Would they go to school?  Would they have more opportunity?

There are so many reasons for the poverty and misery in places like this, and so many people who are trying to help, from government agencies to NGOs to missionaries.  Is it enough?  Not yet, anyway.  But 800 kids have fun, have food, and are loved, week after week in the slums of Tondo.  That’s something.