North II Zambales

Jul. 20, 2008 Newsletter by Tara C. Alverson

I know it’s not the end of the month yet, consider this a midway<br /> update. I am getting busier now that I see the end coming up. I return<br /> to the states October 1st. Just a few days back I returned from a three<br /> day trip up to the Zambales Province. It’s a three and a half hour bus<br /> ride north from Manila. You might remember the infamous eruption of<br /> Mt. Pinatubo that devastated the cities of Zambales back in 1992. The<br /> evidence of the lahar mud slides can still be seen throughout the region,<br /> especially the town of Olangapo. It was a long journey from Dumaguete,<br /> but well worth it.<br /> While in Zambales I visited the Jireh Children’s Home Orphanage<br /> in a small town called Castillejos. It was originally established by a<br /> Japanese Missionary team that still comes to help out with the children<br /> and different outreach programs. 28 children call this place home. They<br /> have no where else to go, as they’re parents either abandoned them<br /> and or couldn’t afford to feed and raise them. Everyone has a sad story.<br /> Neglected, abandoned, beaten, sexually abused by family members;<br /> these kids have gone through more then most of us could imagine. But<br /> they continue to smile. What resilience, and yet it has to be hard to<br /> help a child get past those types of hardships. It’s sad to think that these<br /> children have also been neglected and abused by previous orphanages<br /> and children shelters in the area. Jireh Home seems to offer a safe haven<br /> for these kids. There’s a grade school on the property where the children<br /> from the Jireh Home and the surrounding community go. It has over 100<br /> kids in attendance. There’s also a basketball court, playground, pig farm,<br /> community garden, a really big caribou and a soon to be established<br /> library on the premises.<br /> While I was in Castillejos, I staid with Katie and Rick Hartland<br /> who came over from England a few years back. They have worked in<br /> Hong Kong for different missionary teams. Rick is a medical doctor who<br /> has recently started a medical outreach up in the mountains to the triad<br /> people. He plans to have a hover craft built so that he and the medical<br /> team can get up the mountain and over the lahar’s during the rainy season.<br /> Katie has been teaching English to the children at the grade school.<br /> The kids seem to light up when she’s around. They live with very little,<br /> giving most of what they have to the children and the people in the surrounding<br /> community. It’s easy to pretend your one thing, but to actually<br /> do it is completely different. I think they are amazing.<br /> I was asked if I could paint a mural in the library of the Jireh<br /> Home. I thought about it and I said I would. I think it would be a great<br /> experience for the kids to help out with. The plan is to have the kids<br /> paint a large map of the world. Then we could paint some animals,<br /> maybe some birds, butterflies, ...a dung beetle. It should be a lot of fun. I<br /> will likely travel back north to do the mural in the beginning of August.<br /> I also have a plan to paint a few animals in the Dumaguete<br /> Orphanage as well. As it doesn’t look like we will get the chance to go<br /> dolphin watching with the kids, I thought I would bring the dolphin’s to<br /> them, ... well, at least on their walls.<br /> Another good note. You were able to help donate over 150 kilos<br /> of rice to the Precious Women’s Program in Dumaguete. It will be handed<br /> out to more then 40 women in the community affected by prostitution.<br /> This basic necessity helps tremendously as 4 kilos of rice can feed a small<br /> family up to one week. It cost about 3,750 pesos. (Around $70 US.)<br /> Since I’m on the subject of rice, let me go off on a small tangent,<br /> being the inflating cost per kilo on rice throughout the Philippines and<br /> the rest of Asia. It was already hard on the poor to feed their families, this<br /> isn’t helping. One of the reasons for the high expense of rice is that it’s<br /> being grown specifically for export to other countries, mainly western<br /> countries, causing the price of local rice in some places of Asia to sky<br /> rocket. And the grotesque thing is that the rice that is being exported isn’t<br /> always being consumed as food, but rather put into cars, in the form of<br /> ‘bio-fuel’. That’s right, some people are starving while others are driving<br /> their extraordinary large pick up trucks with nothing in the back of the bed<br /> for cargo, and or sitting in their fabulous sports cars, capable of doing 120<br /> mph in less then a few seconds, however idling in the midst of the heat<br /> and traffic, and for every gallon of gas gone to the wind, another crop of<br /> rice is born to fuel the furious fit in the hopes of ‘being green.’ (I’m not<br /> red in the face yet.) ‘Bio fuel’ bureaucrats and oil fiends are pointing the<br /> fingers at one another, all the while missing the point. Perhaps being, we<br /> could tread the earth a little lighter, that a practical lifestyle can save the<br /> world. I know, I’ll be home in less then three months, hoping to ride my<br /> bike and help the world out, but I know I’ll get stuck in my Honda on I-5<br /> during rush hour (should be called schmuck hour), like everyone else. It<br /> just sucks to see people unable to feed their families because the world has<br /> ‘better’ ideas. $80 bucks might fill your tank for a week, but it could have<br /> feed one poor man in Dumaguete for an entire year.<br /> But on the lighter side, I may have lost a pound or two. I’m going<br /> to be busy painting so I’ll send off the next newsletter the mid of August,<br /> when I get back from painting the mural in Zambales. That’s right,<br /> I’ll be taking a long bus ride, polluting the air all the way up to Zambales.<br /> I might be guilty, but I’ll still have a blast spending time with the kids and<br /> painting on another island. Thank you for the continual support.<br /> North II Zambales: Pagpipinta Sa Pulo - T.C. Alverson - T.C. Artworks - July 20, 2008

Photos on page 2: Big Carabou under tree (water buffalo)

Photos on page 3: Pig at Jireh’s Home, Pig Farm; Jireh’s Home, Garden

Photos on page 4: Ram; Camera shy carabou (I’de be shy if I had a rope through my nose too)

Photos on page 5: I fell in. It was fun. M. Falls, Bohol<br /> Man Made Forest - Bohol


pagpipinta sa pulo Newsletter © 2008 Tara C. Alverson. Reprinted with permission.