Day Eleven: Goodbyes :(

It was a good morning as we anticipated the arrival of Typhoon Ruby, which was due to hit Manila sometime today. However there was little rain and our electives were unaffected. The yellow team and half of the red team went to a feeding at Tent City. A South African team, who arrived at K.I.M. last night joined us. At the feeding, many children and parents turned up and they seemed so joyous. When some of Reho team told them that we were leaving tomorrow, they seemed heart broken but they were all really grateful for us being able to visit their community. On the other hand the other half group stayed in Cuatro to work on the team’s final construction, which involved a whole tonne of cement and a mud fight.

We had lunch and headed to a rather nice condo where we had our debrief session. It was such an awesome opportunity to share the experience with our team members and celebrate the achievement of so many goals. Many laughs were had as we reminisced on our highlights and challenges of the trip.

We then headed up to the JAZ Home, as the girls had requested we join them for some more fun and laughs. We spent time with the girls and this made saying goodbye even harder as most of us have built good relationships with many of the girls. They all seemed like sisters to us.

We left at around 6 pm for YMC, where we had a delicious dinner and later headed straight to the Children’s home where Josh and Jesse P did a devotion on David and Goliath. Once again, it was gut wrenching saying goodbye to these incredible children. We came back to YMC and spent some of the time cleaning and in preparation for departure. Meanwhile Miss Smoker went to the shops and when she arrived she had surprises for the team. (Just like any mother who cares for her children). We then had the ‘delightful pleasure’ of trying certain street foods - chicken intestines, pigs ears, belut (which is a unborn bird foetus with shell, beak, bones and all) and chicken feet. We also tried different flavours of Filipino ice cream including Ube, a purple icecream made from the root of a sweet potato and the very interesting combination of cheese and corn.