Unusual Shots!

Does this shot of the driveway at a chapel look a littlte odd to you? (This is in the town of San Carlos)! A basketball standard smack dab in the middle of the driveway! This does not pose a problem for most members because they either own a tryke, a motorcycle or hire a tryke or pad-yak. However, for a car, even our little car we take extreme care going in and out of this parking lot! I thought it was funny. BUT--you have to understand the Philippines--the Filipino people LOVE, I mean--REALLY LOVE basketball. If there is an empty space somewhere, they have erected a basketball hoop (it doesn't matter if it is dirt that they play on, as long as they can play. One place we have seen has been played on so long it has packed the dirt so hard it looks like cement and even stays that way with all the rain we get.) and there is always someone playing basketball there. Even at our chapels, most have a basketball standard in the parking lot--not many Filipinos own a car so there is always room for non-members and members to play a game. When the gates are not open (they keep them locked here when the chapel is not being used to prevent vandalism) non-members scale the fence and the game begins! They even have hoops along the side of the road and if a car comes along (on our street it is usually us) they just move out of the way till it passes and just keep right on playing! THEY LOVE THE GAME!! Pres. Allred always stops when we come across a street game that has to stop for us and asks: "Who is Michael Jordan?!" The Filipinos always get a big kick out of it and sometimes will point out one of their players! The elders have told him how to say that in Tagalog but he hasn't learned it yet!

This is a little girl (about 8 or 9) at the end of the street where the "Palenke" (market) is. (She is sorting through the pile of trash for things that can be sold at a recycling center. There are many people who go around town trying to find things to sell at these centers. Sometimes that is their only source of income.) The vendors all bring their trash to the front after mornings business here because the trash is picked up daily at this corner. Filipino towns all have a Palenke in the center of their towns. The Filipinos sell vegetables, fruit, dishes, and everything you would normally find in a store--they do the food along this street--it is the street where the Mangaldan elders live. It can be very smelly but it is packed with people selling a variety of items. You can NOT drive down the street at all during the day--you are lucky to be able to walk down it. This section where the food is sold closes around 12 noon. We were walking down this street at 4:00 a.m one morning recently to take some medicine to a sick elder and it was a beehive of activity at 4 a.m! Many people were already buying their food for the day, several children were with their parents at that hour. It was still dark! (Filipino people go to the market every day for their food, most have no refrigerator to keep things fresh. It is their way of life) The rest of the Palenke where clothes and staples are sold stays open almost around the clock, they have shifts. It is like one elder explained to us--The market almost never closes down!