Ever since September people have been telling me that Christmas is near. It is almost a type of greeting. You can even hear people playing Christmas music beginning in September. That is why it is said that the longest Christmas season is in the Philippines.
People here call the months from September to December the "burrrrrr" months because they end in the sound "ber" or "burr". This is also when it starts to get cold in Manila. Instead of being around 100 degrees during the day it is only around 80 degrees!
Now it is getting so cold I need to cover myself with a sheet at night and close the windows to keep out the chilly winds. Christmas is really near.
Next week on December 16 the Catholic Church in the Philippines begins "Simbang Gabi". These are masses celebrated in the early morning around four or five o'clock. Thousands of people participate in order to prepare for Christmas.
At these novena masses we priests are allowed to wear white vestments instead of the more somber purple of Advent. Christmas songs are also sung. From December 16 there is a festive atmosphere. Advent is already over and the Christmas season is beginning. As far as I know, the Philippines is the only country in the world that has such a liturgy.
Anyway, Christmas is near-- really near. Advanced Merry Christmas!!!
Posted:
12/8/2008 8:50:48 PM with
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It might seem sacrilegious to call Jesus a scavenger or garbage-picker, but this is what the parishioners of Smokey Mountain call him.
Years ago someone replaced the shepherdʼs staff from Jesusʼ right hand with a ʽkalahigʼ, which is the sharpened metal hook the scavengers use to stab recyclable materials. Then he added a garbage sack, made of plaster, in his left hand. Thus the statue was transformed to look like the many scavengers of the garbage dump. Now Jesus was someone they could relate to more closely. He was truly one of them.
Probably there is no statue like this in the entire world. This is a statue made through the simple but powerful faith of a dirty and smelly scavenger crying out to his Savior. This is also a statue that has a wonderful message. Isnʼt it true that Jesus is a scavenger? The scavengers go into Smokey Mountain each day to pick up salvageable materials and return them to good use for recycling. Doesnʼt Jesus also go out into the world to pick up and save those of us who have been thrown away or abandoned by society? Then supported by Him, we can be ʽrecycledʼ and become of good use again to those around us.
O Jesus the Scavenger, save us!!!
The pictures show the statue of Jesus the Scavenger which is kept in our parish church. The other picture is of Lee-boy holding his kalahig or scavenger's hook and his garbage sack just like his Savior.
Posted:
12/3/2008 9:41:48 AM with
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Human rights advocates rightly fight in order to prohibit child labor especially when the children are forced to work almost like slaves in very dangerous and exploitive situations. However, 
unfortunately here in the garbage dump child labor is almost a necessity. Of course, working in such a dirty and poisonous environment is a danger to the children’s health, but some have no choice. It is either work alongside one’s parents or starve.
I estimate less than half our children graduate from grade school because so many of them, especially the boys, quit school in grade three or four. Many are hungry and cannot endure sitting in the classrooms with their stomachs growling. There is also money to be made in the dump, which is a great temptation to quit school. Even an eight-year-old child can earn enough in one day of scavenging to buy food for the whole family and have some left over to buy new clothes, candy or a bottle of soda pop, which are luxuries here.
One day when I visited the dump, I had my camera with me. 
Most of the children wanted their picture taken and made stiff or ridiculous poses. Two almost totally ignored me and just continued working. So I snapped their pictures. The boy’s name is Lee-boy. He is probably about seven or eight years old. I never got to ask the young girl’s name. These are just two of the hundreds of children working in our parish. At present there is no other way of life for them.
In the picture Lee-boy holds a “kalahig” which is the tool the scavengers use to stab the trash and throw it in their sacks. It is just a sharpened hook of metal with a wooden handle.
In another picture Bebe is resting with me on top a pile of trash after a long day of scavenging. Bebe was about twelve at the time. When you live around a garbage dump and earn a living from it, you get used to it. After a while it does not even seem to smell so bad. One can even lie and rest on top of it. It is amazing how humans can adapt to such situations. What is even more amazing is that they can keep their dignity while doing it.
Posted:
11/24/2008 12:53:06 PM with
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In these blogs I have been using the name Smokey Mountain to describe the place where I live and work. But why this name?
Smokey Mountain in Manila should not be confused with the Smoky Mountains in the southeastern part of the States, which were probably named thus because of the beautiful mist prevalent in those mountains. There is nothing beautiful about Smokey Mountain because this name comes not from mist but from actual smoke. The garbage including plastics, rubber and, burns almost constantly day and night. You can imagine poisons such as dioxin which are contained in this smoke.
And it is a mountain – a mountain of garbage. For forty years Smokey Mountain was the garbage dump for most of Metro-Manila. The household garbage of around ten million people was dumped on the island of Balut in the northernmost part of the delta of Manila. At its largest Smokey Mountain covered twenty hectares (around forty football fields) and reached thirty meters in height. This smoldering dump was not only an eyesore but also an ecological disaster so it was finally closed in 1995. However, during the hot dry season it still continues to belch forth acrid poisonous smoke due to spontaneous combustion of the methane gas trapped inside below the surface.
Before 1995 about twenty thousand people lived on and around this mountain of garbage. We call them scavengers because they made their 
living by looking for saleable and recyclable trash. They still support their families by going out into the streets or into the new garbage dump and scavenging. The government removed about half of the mountain and built low-income tenements for these scavengers who comprise about half of our parishioners. Our church and rectory are built in plain site of the remaining half of the mountain.
The aerial view of Smokey Mountain is a pre-1995 picture taken by Mr. Georg Gerster of PPS Correspondence and printed in a social studies textbook of Teikyo Shoin Publications of Tokyo. In it you can clearly see the smoke coming from the mountain of garbage and the homes clustered 
around it.
The second picture shows the tenement buildings built right next to the remaining part of the mountain. We moved into these buildings in 2004 after nine years in temporary housing.
The third shows two youth walking through the new garbage dump which we call Smokey Mountain Number Two. In 2003 the whole mountain suddenly exploded and burned like this for over two weeks.
Posted:
11/17/2008 5:03:53 PM with
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As missionaries, we naturally have to adjust to different customs, food and situations.
Like the different types of raw food in Japan. Seeing the Japanese eat sashimi with such relish, I was able to enjoy picking off the flesh of fish still puckering, or eating shrimp jumping around after they were just beheaded and skinned alive or eating the raw squid which was seemingly trying to crawl off my plate.
Here in Smokey Mountain we never eat anything raw, including vegetable salads, because of the danger of germs and disease. However, saying mass can be a challenge in this garbage dump. I have become used to covering the chalice to keep the flies out of the wine. I have even got used to the dogs, cats, cockroaches and even large rats that sometimes run around the altar. But yesterday at communion time I had totally unexpected animal visitors. When I opened the tabernacle, I found it filled with ants. They were the small and harmless type so I brushed them off the ceborium. When I opened it up for communion, I found that it too was filled with ants. Regaining my composure, I brushed them off the hosts and asked the people if they still wanted to receive communion.
They replied, "No problem, Father."
They are more used to the animals and insects around the garbage dump than I am.
Posted:
11/10/2008 3:07:44 AM with
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