Mampweng Day 3

January 12th, 2018:

By: Sarah Lehman 

Today was our last day in the Mampweng Community. We started the day off with a breakfast of corned beef hash and then we were off to Iram Elementary School to spend some time with the children of the community. We sang songs, or at least us CSS students attempted to and danced with them. We also were able to hand out small bags to each of the kids with a toy inside. They were all smiling from ear to ear, so grateful for their small gift, it is something all of us with surely remember.

 After the short walk back, we finished preparing for our presentation for Chieftain Rani and other representatives from the community. As Claire mentioned, we put a lot of time into our data collection and formation of our posters. We presented to our audience and then our Filipino buddies discussed what we should do about the information with the the community members, in other words, how to better the community. After a long discussion it was decided that the priorities were to create more bathrooms and to plant more trees throughout the community. 

We then packed up our belongings, had a quick lunch of fried chicken, rice and tortang talong (eggplant omelette), said our goodbyes and began our hike back. It was hot with the sun beating down on us, but our Filipino friends had umbrellas to stay in the shade. Even with the heat we happily hiked the way back while playing music and singing. When we got to crossing the river we were able to get a ride in the kulng-kulng (pictured below) to the jeepney stop. 

Tired and dirty feet

 We took public transportation home starting with a jeepney ride to the bus station. Luckily the bus was air conditioned and had WiFi so we were feeling pretty good until the bus driver starting driving. He unfortunately had a lead foot so many of us started to feel a little motion sickness during the 3 hour bus ride back to MJ. Some of us worse than others with two of us ending up throwing up. After the long bus ride we had to try and find a jeepney we could all fit in, we finally found one but they couldn’t bring us all of the way there so we rode for a little while, got off and walked to find another jeepney and the same thing happened. So we rode the second one a little ways then got off and walked through a crowed market, a mall and finally made it to another jeepney stop and they were able to bring us the full way to Mary Johnston. 

We made it there even with a couple of us still feeling sick from the bus ride. We were all exhausted after the hours of traveling and were grateful when we found pizza waiting for us. It was a long and busy day but even though we were all exhausted we kept our heads up and stayed positive and tried to make the most of our new experiences.