I wonder if you can help. I’m going with my asawa and two kids to the Philippines in the latter part of February. I predominantly do this to make asawa happy. She loves to go back home to see her ma, pa and brothers and just spending time in their presence. As time goes on getting closer to the date things float round in her head. I’d like to go here with the family (extended) or take the familly (extended) there. Me being a Brit (or me being kuripot) generally means I want to assist my family (non extended) and sometimes this causes friction. Well this time I want to try and not be so uptight about my budget but obviously this mental limit of what I can afford to spend kicks in. One way of assisting with that is to place my thoughts elsewhere. This time I’m going to be thinking of others and not myself. I still have a limit on spends of course but what I am going to do is assist kids in one of the poorer Barangays. Since Ive mentioned this asawas family have been brainstorming over messenger. Her sister in laws lolo has a compound right near a run down area. The compund negates any licences. We will be assisting by taking stuff in our cases. Ive purchased kids backpacks, 30 so far (I need to see the physical size before I buy more). These already have art/crafts inside them. We will be raking lighter thing too like clothes. In pinas I will be buying rice (duh), noodles, canned goods (corned beef, sardines). We are looking at giving the 2kgs of rice each to feed their family for the day. There will be games they can play and a bit of a basic disco/music. Thats our idea and we will taylor these things as we get closer to the date. I know some of you will be thinking I may be putting myself at a bit of a risk but it will be a one off event and I will be in the background. Ive budgeted for around 60 kids. I’ve never asked anyone to contribute financially to anything needy in my life before but Im hoping that if you feel inclined then I would appreciate that. Forgive any typos, Im late for work. Thanks
Back in the day when things were much cheaper I once did an event for about 40 members of the extended family it cost about 400 pounds, it was a day out to the beach, hiring two jeepneys then having to hire boats to get us from Nasugbu to a bay a few miles north, was it worth it, maybe, the exercise was in part designed to bond me to the family and them to me and for some of them that was likely true. It was stressful getting up at 3am to get ready for the journey down through Tagaytay, I was so knackered and so was Ana that we slept through a lot of the day at the beach. For a lot of things it is better to purchase in the Philippines just due to things being cheaper there, but of course that depends where you are going as you might not always have access to shopping malls. Do take care to not to be too prominent it can be hard to stay in the background. I might be able to help a wee bit closer to the time Paul, when I was travelling back and forwards back then at least I was only paying for my own flights, when you have four of you to manage it is not cheap. Can't even remember who these folk were but they were the first on the first Jeepney This was why we decided to move up the coast a little In multiple boats Yobin or Yoshua I think, Yoshua has her own children now scary how time flies A small segment of the party At least I got to try to take some nice pics
Hi Jim, thanks for sharing your experience and great pictures too. Yep we will be getting the foodstuffs in Pinas. We got the backpacks for a decent price and we may also be taking some clothes for the kids. We have between us 120kgs but I'm reluctant to be lugging that around. Of course she will want pasalubong for her family too, so we need to manage that as best we can. Not so bad a Manchester but when in Pinas just trying to get through security and it's boiling hot, 4 cases with 2 kids, so it may be just 3 cases Yep I need to assist but I will try to not be so prominent. Her family will be going to the effort of preparing lunch and I will try to assist with that, I mean it is me who suggested this Yea our kids tickets are slightly reduced but obviously they still take up a seat so the difference isn't great, so a fair wack already spent prior to even landing. Ive booked direct with Emirates as I do t want to risk a 3rd party reseller. This will be the first time flying with this particular Middle Eastern airline, which means an A380-800 first time experience too. As I say in relative terms it's a small gesture but if it brings a smile to the kids faces and they have fun it will be worth it.
Better to buy things locally if you can. I am not normally into handing things out to strangers, seems rather patronising and might well be misunderstood. A friend of mine who I knew when I worked in Luxembourg, an elderly Belgian Gentleman, God rest his soul, flew out to Thailand with two suitcases of charity shop European size ladies clothing as a gift for the local Thai ladies. He was a nice chap, I don't understand why he thought that was a good idea,
Yep most will be bought locally. Only things deemed cheaper will be bought here. I’ll also get some big bags of sweets from wholesalers here. I don’t know how it will be received but from asawas past experience of helping, the kids waiting patiently to receive stuffs seemed appreciated. We can but see how it will unfold.
