Orphanage party and first swim

Tuesday 9th of December was a day i wasn't looking forward to but it turned out all right, actually it turned out very well. The "friends of Mindanao" group had decided to sponsor a Christmas party for the orphanage in Calinan called the Pag-Amoma orphanage, there are going to be 18 kids but three of the children are infirm (muscle wasting disease, seems to be congenital) and they need individual carerers, with three other helpers for the rest of the kids and then the "friends of Mindanao" members and family, well there could be 40-50 people going.

The party is on the 18th of december at Mergrande a rather splendid beach resort, sea, playground, swimming pool, gardens, an ideal location. I had voluteered to help organise the party and several meetings had taken place to decide on events. Yesterday Tuesday it was decided that Lisa and I (Lisa is the orphanage manager) should go shopping for the xmas presents for the kids. We set a budget for the party (about 75% collected so far...) and a sum of this per child (going to be fairly vague here) was allocated for the present for the child to be given to him or her on the day. Tuesday was the shopping day aaagh, it was bad.

James dropped Lisa off and we went to Mergrande to ask for discount, partial success there, Lisa chose NCCC China town, Uyangaren (sp?) traffic was horrendous and parking was nearly impossible, circled 3 times, found a smiling boy who parked us up and off we went to shop.

The store is big and suitable, full of bargains and loads of stuff, T shirts, Shorts, outfits, shoes (don't tell the kids) and various other things for the 18 kids. No idea how lisa kept track of it all but i left it all to her, quite a logistical task. Various trips back to the car and then it was done, back to lucnch at our place, mong beans and fried fish, Lisa's favourite, tasted fine to me too.

Then, see photo, Germaine and Lizelle helped to sort the gifts and store them in gift bags ready for the big party, the biggest task here was taking the price tags off everything.

See picture, job got done and Lisa left, the party should be really fun.

Then PM after negative advice from the medical profession here, i asked Ann to check various web sites, which confirmed actually that Annika could swim. So, about 5pm Dad and daughter had our first swim, it went well, Annika very happy, splashing and the usual happy stuff, to be repeated daily for the next few years, pool, toys needed, always something eh.