1-Orientation Week

After a bittersweet farewell at Sydney airport, I boarded the flight to Manila along with the 7 other AYADs of intake 22 posted to the Philippines. As the flight progressed, my excitement for the adventure that lay ahead steadily increased. The first thing to hit us as we disembarked was the intense heat and humidity, and this was 7.30 in the evening! A welcome party was there to greet us and we were whisked off in a couple of vans to a resort on the outskirts of Manila. Here, our in-country manager and the current in-country AYAD’s were killing time singing karaoke (the national sport!) while they waited for us to arrive.

The resort was our home for a week as we had our orientation to the country and its people. While it felt a little like we were being cocooned from reality, we appreciated being eased into the madness that is Manila! During the day we had sessions on topics such as Filipino workplace culture, the history of the Philippines, our assignment expectations (with invaluable input from the current AYAD’s) and a crash course in the national language “Tagalog”. I was incredibly impressed with how well organised it was, yet at the same time, in true Filipino style, nothing was rushed and there was time to hang out by the resort’s pool. The only issue was brown-outs during the afternoon storms which wreaked havoc with the powerpoint presentations – but even that was not a problem as the presenter would call a break for “meryenda!” (snack time). I think eating is the second national sport! There seems to be a meal every couple of hours! Rice is an essential part of all of them (including breakfast), so it’s a good thing I love rice.

During the evenings we were treated to different Filipino restaurants around Manila to sample the local cuisine. This included fried crickets and bulls balls soup!

On our exposure day tour of the city itself (the population of Australia within an area the size of 5% of Sydney!), we experienced all the forms of public transport, from packed over-airconditioned trains to the infamous brightly couloured jeepneys to the 2-person tricycles. My first purchase was a much needed folding fan at the main market. We also explored Fort Santiago, which is part of the original walled city of Manila on the bank of the Pasig River. It was here that the National Hero, Jose Rizal was detained for inciting revolution against the Spanish prior to his execution in 1896 aged in his early 30’s. What I found particularly interesting to learn was that during WW2, Manila was the 2nd most destroyed city in the world, after Warsaw. But unlike Warsaw, where I spent a year 10 years ago, Manila was not re-built, and some say has never recovered since.

On the 5th day I met my supervisor and counterpart from my host organisation, who flew up from Bacolod to attend the 1 day workshop and I clarified with them the details of my assignment. I will be working closely with my counterpart, an experienced architect, in the planning, design and construction supervision of 7 proposed GK villages in the province as well as assisting with the 24 pre-existing villages that are in varying degrees of completion. The Filipionos have been nothing but friendly and smiling, and these guys are no exception. They have a keen sense of humour and quite evidently love what they do.

I am now very keen and excited to get started and intrigued to discover what has made the organisation such a national success. Everywhere we have been, including the Australian Embassy, there has been nothing but praise for the work GK is doing.