Visiting my fostergirl - Easter in Cebu

Hallo to everybody,

I am now in Cebu, during Easter, visiting my fostergirl, who will be soon 14 years old, and my Filipina friend, who takes care of my child since over 5 years.

5 years is a long time and she changed so much.
She is now a very tall young lady, very slim and has beautiful long black hair and finished Elementary School and is now healthy without any signs or damages of malnutrition.

We found got in contact a while ago with her older sister, who is now 19.
She is now also living with my fostergirl, but is earning barely enough to survive herself.

In Cebu the situation is however better than 2 years ago, there is no food shortage at this moment, less jobless people and not so many beggars and street-children - in Easter-week there are plenty people in the street especially this Holy Friday for Easter procession. This is really a Catholic stronghold.

Some pictures attached.







Internet is terrible here, sorry for short message.

Hi Yohan,

This is a nice story to see.

Thank you.

Great to see more pics Yohan... enjoy your trip.

Yohan,

What a different world this would be if there were more people like you.
You have given this girl a life and set her free. You have practiced direct action
and assumed responsibility where you did not owe it.

Nate

I have problems to post pictures, but no problem to transmit text.
No idea, why ...
I will look for another internet shop and try from there.

NateMcD2, on 2009-04-13 07:24:02, said:

Haha, thanks for your kind words, well... set her free is 50/50, because in Philippines to be a 13 years old girl means you cannot do what you like. This is not Europe, where the child is the boss and parents have nothing to say.

Children do not have so much freedom here and have to respect the people, who care for them.

Now is school vacation in Philippines for 2 months, but during schooltime it's 5:30 to get ready for school starting at 7.00 in school uniform, and back around 4:30 pm, 5 days a week and often up to 70 children in one class-room, and Saturday from 9:00 to 3:00 pm for sports and cleaning school and museum visit etc., and Sunday to church, and if behavior and school scores were bad during last week - no way here to talk back to parents or teachers - then stay the rest of Sunday afternoon at home, of course without computer, without mobile phone and even without food except some rice and some water.

About my fostergirl, there are no problems, she wants to go to school, is very obedient, she knows about her former situation and is afraid that her past might become again her future.

Some pictures of Easter Holy Friday during afternoon and night in Cebu City in the old city around the Cebu Cathedral and Santo Nino Church and Magellan Cross Chapel:





And some more pictures about ourselves:

Yohan,

Yes, you gave her freedom, from the death sentence of her former life, to a life with a future.
Especially now with the "crisis" in full bloom in the Philippines...I am sure she is well aware even at
her age what you have done for her life. Some may bad mouth you for this or that...but has even ONE
done anything like this? I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

Take care,

Nate

This post has been edited by NateMcD2: 14 April 2009 - 01:36 AM

NateMcD2, on 2009-04-14 02:33:26, said:

Well, here in Japan there are many Filipinos, and it is already something like a 'custom' for all overseas Filipinos here in Tokyo and their friends like me (who are working often together with them) to give something REGULARLY for poor street children in the cities or abandoned children in rural regions in the Philippines.

As a fact, most parcels sent by ordinary mail are never arriving, charities are all corrupt and stealing, politicians are doing nothing but buying weapons for the army or introducing ridiculous laws...looking for a better, more serious way, where donations are arriving where they should arrive, is very important for Philippines.

There is some slow shipping between Japan and Philippines, taking cargo with cheap rates and delivering it in a reasonable way, so we give all we do not need anymore in Japan (and this is a lot) into shipping boxes. There is the banking system, which is working correctly, and if you know a reasonable person in Philippines with a banking account, the money will arrive. And it is only 3 1/2 hour from Japan, direct flight into Cebu, return fare about USD 700,- and I can check what happened with my support and if all is for real or a scam.

How to give and what to give and how to make arrangements is more or less up to you, and your income.
In Japan salary is not low. You will not miss USD 300,- or so monthly, if you have a stable job.
I myself decided to select only ONE child and to support it. I cannot help everybody.

In my case all money was used for construction materials, buying 2 small land plots near Cebu City, food, school/expenses, medical fees, and I did not notice so far, after almost 6 years, any misuse.

This post has been edited by yohan: 14 April 2009 - 02:04 AM

I will be back in Tokyo tomorrow Friday afternoon, and will post some more pictures.
Today I will be outside of Cebu City.

This time I had really nice vacation here, the best vacation I ever remember in Philippines.

I am back now in Tokyo,
just a few pictures of my last 2 days in Cebu/Mandaue

View over Cebu from Taoist Temple


Some pictures near of the house of my fostergirl in Mandaue





and 2 pictures about us:


In front of the Taoist Temple in Cebu

On the roof balcony of the house in Mandaue

I forgot to upload pictures of the Cebu area itself, taken from airplane, nice overview

I will travel tomorrow from Thailand, Pattaya to Philippines, Cebu,

This thread will continue with new pictures of my fostergirl and myself.

Look forward to that... have a good flight.

Lucky that the Erkumlukrmflurem volcano isn't erupting over the Orient!

Mandrunk, on 04 May 2010 - 10:03 PM, said:

Thanks a lot, arrived in Cebu without any problems on time, 9.45 PM, with the last flight from Manila.

Yes my fostergirl and her almost blind sister were at the airport to meet me, hotel room was reserved (due to election and school holidays, and May holidays etc. etc, many hotels are fully booked in and around Cebu)

I took some pictures of us all already in evening, but I need some software to make the pictures smaller for posting here, nothing in these internet shop computer, what I could use to edit the pictures down to 300K. Any idea?

I keep you informed what is going on in cebu City, but all looks very nice here.

Enjoy your trip Yohan.
I look forward to seeing your photos.

You can try shrinkpictures.com or picresize.com

yohan, on 06 May 2010 - 12:50 AM, said:

What's the problem with her eyes?

camerata, on 06 May 2010 - 10:24 AM, said:

Congenital Microphthalmia

Right eye is considered as blind as retina is less than 5 percent, left eye is only about 20 percent developed of what an ordinary eye would be.

Microphthalmia in newborns is related to virus-infections during pregnancy without proper medical care, for example rubella during pregnancy is known as very dangerous for the unborn child.

If you look at her, you can hardly see, that she is almost blind, as the eye-movement is normal, and the eyes outside look almost the same as healthy eyes, somewhat smaller and not exactly the same size however.

TizMe, on 06 May 2010 - 08:05 AM, said:

This website seems to work, thanks for the link. However, after Resize the pictures are not really clear, despite using the 'best-option'.

All 3 of us together, and yes, my fostergirl is now taller than her sister.


Not so easy to see who is 14 and who is 21 years old...


Today, some street-vendors wanted to sell me viagra when going out together for lunch....

She sure has long arms, long hands and feet. She's going to be a very tall girl.
And since you're getting smaller, next year picture will be quite interesting to see...
Nice thread Yohan.

Yes, true, these are 2 pictures of July 2007....less than 3 years ago... what a difference...

TizMe, on 06 May 2010 - 08:05 AM, said:

Thanks again, now testing both, PICRESIZE is working fine, it takes a little while, but the quality is much better than done by SHRINKPICTURES.

This is our picture of today...only 164kb, down from 3.2mb, resized by PICRESIZE. Indeed a very useful link.