Last days in Calaanan

It's the last week of work for us in the Philippines this year. On two half days we make home visits to future Batulong families and also visit the two pregnant high school students. The 8th grader is already 17 because she has a few years gap in her school career. If she continues with the ALS class, she can even make up for the years she lost - pregnancy isn't such a bad fit for her. The other pregnant woman has a 35-year-old boyfriend and is also 17. He is a friend of the house who sometimes brought them food and she loves him. No matter how many alarm bells ring in our heads, we can only hope that he continues to stick by her. They will both live with their parents, which we find reassuring - on the one hand, the mother can babysit when the daughter goes to school once a week, and so the teenager doesn't live alone with a man twice his age. When asked about contraception, one girl said that they did it without it at the beginning and that she didn't get pregnant, so she assumed that it would work without it. It takes self-control not to ask if she's ever really thought about it. That same morning we spoke to a 40-year-old who was registering her 18-year-old daughter. She doesn't use contraception either; she's never gotten pregnant with her new partner, so it's definitely safe. We tell her about cases where women got pregnant after 40 and how it wasn't such a big deal to get an implant, but she doesn't respond. We always wonder what and whether certain people here even think a little ahead and how carelessly and fatalistically they treat getting pregnant: Children are gifts from God and who would reject a gift from the Almighty!?

During home visits we can usually help people who really need support, for example a widow who has just lost her husband and can only survive by looking for and selling firewood. We take all three children in and put them on the list of those who receive food every day at the Batulong Center.

At the weekend, the father of a Batulong child murdered his neighbor (over a dispute over a goat and a toilet!) and is on the run. The mother asked if the two Batulong children could get a daily lunch from her, and of course we said yes. The father of two other Batulong children was shot in Manila (probably because of drugs) and the mother and she traveled to Manila, where it took a total of almost 2 months before they could bury the dead man. We were informed about this because the children had very poor grades - of course they did not attend school at the time. Of course, after 15 years we know that many parents give up their children as soon as they have a new partner; Nevertheless, it is sometimes sad to see how the children have to be happy that they can sleep somewhere. The mother, who has a beauty salon and a bedroom above, no longer has space for her teenage daughters and they now sleep in an annex next to the house where they previously lived (the mother apparently has a falling out with the neighbors). A grandmother asks for support from her high school-aged granddaughter. The mother is also there and we say that we should interview her, but she says that it is her daughter, but that the grandmother is looking after her. That's why we're here and we hope that Batulong can not only help financially, but also offer the children and young people an additional social home through the community, the events, camps and so on.

We are looking forward to Switzerland – despite the cold and maybe snow. After a few months, we notice that our resilience is weakening: we have less patience when people act thoughtlessly or tell us fairy tales as excuses. It's particularly tiring with our caretaker at the moment: the smallest things that we take for granted have to be explained to her and repeated over and over again (removing ticks from dogs, emptying rubbish bins regularly, not throwing metal or plastic into the compost, etc.). When one of our dogs became unwell with swelling on her body and was limping, we were worried, but then the caretaker said it was because she had fed the dog mung beans, that it had happened before. Why would she give the dog something to eat that he obviously can't tolerate? She had nothing else... But she couldn't explain the situation to our manager - she'd rather let the dog suffer...

As a positive conclusion, we would like to reiterate that we have a great employee in our new social worker. She can work independently and efficiently, think logically and write English sentences that we understand 😊! And she is very nice and personable. That alone made our trip worth it. Although we will return to Switzerland, our work and support for the Batulong employees continues...