Hello!
Yesterday, we arrived in Manila after about a fifteen and a half hour flight and got in at about 6:30 am Manila time. We stopped over in Guam for as a refuel stop. Our first day was the team bonding day. We ate at a seafood overlooking Manila Bay and then went to a museum. It was a religious museum that was connected to this really big church. There was a wedding going on when we visited the church. The food is soo good! I have tried a version of kare-kare and payasamda ham. It was all very tasty. It is very hot and humid but we are very lucky and stayed in an air conditioned hotel in Makati City and now in Pampanga too. After we went to the museum we went to the Mall of Asia- the largest mall in all of Asia. The sunset was so pretty over Manila Bay. For dinner, Melanie, Adrienne, and I had dinner with Adrienne's cousin at a place called Banana Leaf where we ate on banana leaves. It had all types of Asian dishes. Back to the hotel, we showered and quickly fell asleep.
Today, we drove to Pampanga from Makati City. We ate lunch at one of the in-country volunteers' houses. We had adobo chicken, rice, and a noodle dish. There were also many other traditional Filipino desserts like flan. After we went for a tour of the hospital and set up the screening room. There was a huge welcome sign for us and also it was advertising that we were coming. We then made it back to our hotel started to sort through all of the toys that we brought. Melanie brought over 1,000 toothbrushes! Tonight we had our welcome team dinner. It was in this backyard with these huge trees decorated with hanging lights. There were singers that performed traditional Filipino songs for us and the head of Operation Smile Philippines spoke to us. I tried rice in wrapped in a crepe and delicious coconut ice cream. The mangos here are the best I have ever tasted before.
Tomorrow we have our first day at the hospital for screening. Also, we are doing the Name Game tomorrow morning before we start the day.
I learned a few words in Tagalog: Salamat-Thank you, Oo- Yes, and Hindi- No.
Salamat for reading my blog! : )
Mary Claire
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Keep posting Mary Claire! Pampanga sounds so beautiful and the food does too. Screening days are crazy but they were my absolute FAVORITE! If you get this before, I would advise you to bring a TON of stuff on screening days. Do you know how many surgeries you're doing? Because you will see the most people on screening days and most of them won't be able to come back on surgery days. We only had about 30 kids a day get surgery so it was pretty slow at the hospital. Don't be afraid to give out those 1000 TB! You two are amazing. give my best to melanie! Love you!!!
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