6 - Housewarming

I feel I’m well into the swing of things now in the work I’m doing. I presented my site development plan for Handumanan village to the benefactors, (the alumni of St Johns) in a café meeting late last week and they loved it, so it’s full steam ahead. The roads were staked out by the surveyor in preparation for the earthmoving, only to be removed by a local who is opposed to the project. So the site was staked out a second time and a security guard employed to prevent it happening again, but to no avail. The stakes were removed again. Perhaps the guard was bribed? who knows. It turns out the perpetrator is a squatter who planted crops on the site and just wants 2 months so he can harvest them, but the benefactors are keen to get on with the project. So the strategy … do the staking out and the earth moving simultaneously. Risk management in a different cultural context!


Thursday 28th August was a big day. It was the 27th Birthday of my flatmate, Aruna, and the 48th Birthday of my counterpart, Butch! The following night we threw a party to celebrate Aruna’s birthday as well as our housewarming. It was a week of preparations, cleaning, shopping, cooking and decorating but in the end it was a great night. We had about 40 guests and it was really good to be able to return some of the hospitality that we have received. It was a multi-cultural menu: I made pumpkin soup and ANZAC slice, Aruna made Indian curry and fruit salad, and friends helped us make Kinilaw (Philippino fish salad) and Lumpia (Philippino spring rolls).


As you will see from the photos that accompany this blog post, we also gave the place an Aussie touch with green and gold balloons, we had Aussie music playing from my laptop and a continuous slide show of Australian scenes. Aruna’s colleagues had brought along a Karaoke machine and later in the night they cranked it up. Philippino’s are, almost without exception, all great singers. But eventhough they’re a hard act to follow, Aruna and I (the Downunder Duo) got up and sang a couple of songs! “When’s the next party?” the guests asked as they started to leave at around midnight.


It certainly is a good house for a party. It is 3 storeys. The ground floor consists of the garage and the maid’s quarters, and as we have neither a car nor a maid we don’t use the ground floor. The first floor is the Kitchen, open plan Lounge/Dining area and balcony – with pretty good cross ventilation. On the second floor are the 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It is within a complex of 12 apartments with a 24hr security guard who made sure we didn’t get any random people wandering into our party! We’re really happy with the place and now that we’ve got a few candles and plants around, it feels a lot more like a home.


In the same week, I attended another housewarming of sorts. GK Smile Village in Murcia had the handover ceremony for the first batch of affordable housing for municipality employees (such as school teachers, fire fighters and police). This development model is the first of its kind in the Philippines, whereby the houses are constructed by the beneficiaries of GK houses who aquired the skills building their own homes as part of the GK Program. The wages of these workers and the building materials are funded by a Mutual Development Fund. Thanks to the elimination of a profit margin on wages and the discount on building materials attainable by GK, these costs are half to a third the cost of a conventional house of the same size. The municipality employees then pay off the cost of their home via a low interest housing loan provided by the Mutual Development Fund. One of the really positive aspects of this model is that GK Smile Village now has the poorest of the poor co-habitating with working class. Although, it hasn’t been completely smooth sailing. As you could imagine, the Construction and Real Estate Building Association was not too pleased as it meant loss of income for private builders. Perhaps with our current housing affordability crisis in Australia we could learn a thing or two from this project.

5 - Dumaguete

Monday 25th August was a Public Holiday known as National Hero’s Day. So being a long weekend, a bunch of us AYADs from various places in the Philippines seized the opportunity, and descended on Dumaguete for a weekend of fun and sharing of experiences. Aruna and I had the least distance to travel. We took a bus for the 6 hour trip over the scenic mountains of Negros to the coastal city of Dumaguete on the other side of the island. The island of Negros is split into two provinces – Bacolod being the capital of West Negros and Dumaguete the capital of East Negros. There are two AYADs stationed in Dumaguete – the girls stayed with Anna and the guys with Dan. Aside from the fun we had seeing another part of the Philippines, it was great to reflect on and compare our experiences a month into our assignments. And particularly as our assignments are so diverse, ranging from human trafficking and orphaned children to sustainable agriculture and housing for the poor.

Dumaguete is a vibrant university town with a waterfront boulevard and backdrop of cloud covered mountains. On Saturday all 7 of us piled into one trike and ventured up the mountains to swim at the base of the Casaror Falls. Sunday Dan had arranged a boat trip to Apo island for diving or snorkelling. With the choppy seas we began to regret the number of drinks we’d had the night before! But that soon dissipated when a sea turtle swam right under me as I was snorkelling! Monday we bought our “pasalubong” (souvenirs for workmates), chilled out on the boulevard, had some lunch and it was time to head home …

… but that wasn’t so straight forward. We were waiting on the roadside for the bus when it took an unexpected turn (due to roadworks) before it reached us. Dan, who has a motorbike, calmly but firmly told us to “jump on, we have to chase this bus!.” So Aruna and I, before we really knew what was happening, were clinging on to Dan’s shoulders, one suitcase between Dan’s legs, the other in our hands hanging off one side while Dan negotiated the traffic in hot pursuit of the runaway bus! At a strategic moment, Dan was able to overtake the bus, while we released one arm to wave down the driver! He pulled over, and hearts racing, we boarded the bus … arriving safely back in Bacolod at 9pm.

4-Making Friends

My fellow AYAD companion in Bacolod, Aruna, and I had decided we would search for an apartment to share, as we are going to be in Bacolod for roughly the same amount of time and we get on really well. After a couple of weeks of house hunting, we found what we were looking for and have now moved in. The location was the clincher – close to restaurants and cafes in the uptown area and opposite Jo’s place, the other Aussie AYAD in Bacolod. The other big plus is that it is furnished. While it is a little more than we were budgeting on, it just so happened that the owner is a cousin of my supervisor and we got a discount! It is a 3 bedroom apartment so … our spare room is ready and waiting for visitors! (Photos next time after we’ve cleaned the place!)

Aruna and I have started formal evening classes in the local dialect, Hiligainon. Our teacher also works for GK – as a teacher in the primary school of one of the GK villages. We were keen to learn the local dialect, because the national language known as Tagalog (or Filipino) is rarely spoken in this area. School is taught in English and most business dealings are done in English but the everyday verbal communication is in Hiligainon, randomly interspersed with English words. While our teacher is used to teaching from Hiligainon to English, it is an unusual concept for him to be teaching it in reverse!

I have now been privileged enough to have met the founder of GK, Mr Tony Meloto, when he came to visit some of the sites in our province on the weekend. He is a very charismatic and humble leader, highly passionate and committed to nation building. It was both fascinating and inspirational to hear him speak with the rich and the poor, the priests and the politicians about the vision of GK. While he now lives and works from Manila, Tony originates from this province. The other reason for his visit was to attend the 95th Birthday celebration of his mother, which I was also fortunate to attend. A function room of a restaurant was booked out for the occasion and about 60 guests were invited. And what an amazing lady for 95 years old!

During our tour of sites with Tony on the weekend, we happened upon the annual Fiesta of Manapla, a town in the north. The mayor had invited us for lunch in the town hall (complete with a whole spit roast pig!). And afterwards, I had just enough time to watch the street parade before we had to leave for our next engagement. The street parade was made up of dance troupes – one from each suburb of the town, lead by their suburbs Fiesta Princess, sitting pretty on the back of a float. The costumes of each troupe represented local produce or delicacies. I don’t know how they were able to dance down the street under the sweltering midday sun wearing such costumes without passing out, but it certainly was a colourful and entertaining cultural experience!

I am also happy to say that I’m starting to make some local friends. At work I sit next to Marj who is my age and coordinator of the “Singles for Christ” for the Province. She invited me to her place on Sunday to meet her group of friends – a lovely bunch of fun loving young Philippinos. They took me to see the ruins of a former Hacienda (cane farm mansion built by the Spanish) which looked beautiful against the setting sun.

Workwise, I have been given my first project to concentrate on – a completely new village consisting of 50 houses, a hall, a school, an office, a basketball court and an area for agriculture on a 10,000sqm site in Handumanan, south of Bacolod. It is being funded by the alumni of the St Johns School in Bacolod to commemorate their 50 year anniversary.

3-Weekend at the Beach

The past week I actually got my hands dirty and participated in some building at one of the GK villages. I joined the group of young people from Hong Kong who had come over for 10 days to do work on 10 new houses at the Banago site. We laid bricks one day and did cement rendering another day. It was quite a challenge in the intense heat but so much fun. Part of my AYAD assignment is to develop the design of the housing modules, and what better way to understand what is possible than to build some myself!

To soothe the building muscles I was dying for a massage. It just so happened that my fellow AYAD, Aruna, works at the Christian Foundation for the Deaf and Blind in Bacolod, where one of their programs is training blind masseurs. So I booked myself in … and I think I might become a regular customer!

Also this week, I was one of the party to meet an Australian Rotarian from Canberra and escort him around one of the GK sites. His Rotary club had provided the funding for the furniture, books and AV equipment for the school in the village.

When the weekend came around, I was very much looking forward to the planned roadtrip. Myself and Aruna had been invited by an English aid worker to join her, her daughters and some visitors from England on their trip to a beach resort 200km south of Bacolod. The 200km took about 4.5 hours due to the bumpy roads but the scenery was beautiful – cane fields lined the road with mountains on one side and the sea on the other, and every so often passing through a town or village. We arrived Friday evening in time for a dip in the warm tropical water before a delicious meal of rice with seafood and curry dishes was served in the bamboo pavilion overlooking the beach and the setting sun. The very well appointed cottages stepped up the hillside, each with a fantastic view through the palm trees to the turquoise waters below.

It was a very relaxing weekend of sunbathing, snorkelling, kayaking and devouring plenty of the delicious tropical shakes from the bar. The snorkelling was fabulous – beautiful corals and stunning tropical fish, accessible directly from the shore, no boat required. If anyone is interested, the resort at the other end of the beach is for sale: A$50,000 for the entire resort!

2-Starting Work

Bacolod city has a population comparable to Newcastle which was a welcome change after the hustle and bustle of Metro Manila. It is situated in a beautiful setting - surrounded by cane fields, dotted with palm trees and lourded over by Kanlaon Volcano (which is still active!). The typhoon that ripped through the Philippines in the week before I left Australia luckily narrowly missed Bacolod, but this is typhoon season, and not uncommon for the Philippines to be hit by 20 typhoons a year. I have, however, experienced my first earthquake. While the epicentre was 60km away, it was apparently felt at level 4 on the Richter scale here in Bacolod at 2.15am … I don’t know how, but I slept right through it! No reports of any damage or injuries.

I was hosted for my first week with the family of my GK supervisor, a well known family in Bacolod. In fact the main street of the city was named after his great grandfather who led a bloodless rebellion against the Spanish at the time of occupation.

For my first week of work, I have tried to be a sponge and absorb the projects and how the organisation works. I think I’ve spent a total of about 2 hours in the office itself, in downtown Bacolod. Most of the week has been spent visiting various project sites, or meeting project stakeholders at one of the nice cafes in the more cosmopolitan ‘uptown’ area. Despite the lower population density in Bacolod compared to Manila, there is a very visible gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”.

What has become most apparent during my first week of work is that GK is not simply about providing housing for the poor, it is about building communities, of which housing is merely one part. The process begins with land acquisition. In some cases it is donated by wealthy land owners, in other cases an agreement is drawn up with the local municipality. This week, for example, we were invited to meet with the Mayor of a town in the north of the province who has recently purchased 7.5ha and wanted to talk with us about the process of creating a GK village on that site. The next step is securing the funding, which comes from a variety of sources. For example, this week we met with the alumni of one of the catholic high schools in the city. Next year it celebrates its 50th anniversary, and to commemorate the milestone, they are funding a house for every class that has graduated. But before any plans are drawn, the beneficiaries must be chosen from amongst the poorest of the poor. They are generally illegal squatters living in shanty towns on river banks or on private or government land. I was taken to visit one of the slum areas to gain an understanding of the living environment the people endure. In order to be accepted as beneficiaries, they must agree to certain values such as no gambolling, no drinking and no prostitution in the village and they must also agree to provide 200 hours of “sweat equity” to construct the houses. This is a major part of the process as it promotes the sense of community through working together and building each others houses.

Another aspect of the organisation that struck me is that the process doesn’t end when the houses are complete. Most villages will have a multi-purpose hall and some land set aside for productivity (e.g. growing crops or grazing goats etc). Some villages will have a school, and some will have a health clinic. And through the parallel programs for productivity, education, health etc, GK volunteers will visit the villages to run sessions with the community. At one of the villages, students of the local Medical College, do rounds twice a week as part of their training. At another village, the men who aquired the building skills through participating in the construction of their own homes, are now constructing more up-market versions of the standard design for purchase by local government workers, and getting paid for it.

Each GK village has a volunteer Project Director who overseas the whole process on the ground. These project directors report to the Provincial head office of GK. In this case, the Province is Negros Occidental – the western half of the Island of Negros. Negros Occidental is a long narrow province about 200km from top to bottom covering an area of almost 8000km2. Bacolod is its capital. In the head office there is a team for each of the aspects of the community development i.e. a productivity team, an education team, a health team, a shelter team and so on. And this is where I come in. I am part of the Shelter team, along with Bob (the provincial area head), Joe (the senior Architect), Butch (the full time Architect) and Mik Mik (the parternships coordinator). We oversee the planning, design, construction and ongoing maintenance of the 32 or so new and existing GK sites scattered throughout the province.

The standard home is a 6m x 4m room, with a toilet cubicle in one corner. The construction is hollow block walls, rendered and painted, opaque glass louvred windows, concrete infill slab, steel roof frame and corrugated iron roof sheeting. The budget per house for materials is A$1,750. The labour is provided by the beneficiaries as I mentioned plus assistance from volunteers. As a result, the construction must be simple to enable construction by unskilled hands. Everything is manual. From time to time, often on a weekend, volunteers are called on to participate in a build. They may be local church or school groups and sometimes international visitors who use it as an opportunity for a team building exercise. This week, a group of young people from Hong Kong arrived to assist on one of the sites north of Bacolod where 10 new houses are being constructed. When the houses are built, the beneficiaries are encouraged to plant food crops between the houses and ornamental plants in the front.

Visiting the GK sites and meeting the delightful beneficiaries has made me all the more determined to learn the local dialect so I can communicate more deeply with the people. In one village, when we arrived, Josephine, a mother of 5 proudly came to greet us and insisted on chaperoning me around the village shading my white skin from the sun with her umberella! It was so touching and she couldn’t express enough how happy she was to be part of a GK community. In another village, all the children came to greet us and touched our hands to their foreheads – a sign of respect.

On Saturday I was lucky enough to attend a handover ceremony at a village in the north of the province. The site had 42 houses and a further 8 had recently been completed. It was very moving to see the presentation of the keys to the 8 families by the benefactor, a local cane processing plant magnate who provided the land and funded the project. The beneficiaries themselves were former rebels from the mountains who had surrendered. The children all gathered and sang the GK song in appreciation.

Through these numerous site visits with my counterpart, Butch, we have also got to know each other better and discovered we share many common interests such as mountain biking, coffee and taste in music. I am really looking forward to working with him and the shelter team over the next 10 months.

It was a challenge I put myself up for, and already the experience has challenged my emotions, my perceptions, my professional views and my values.