Less than 24 hours away
It’s been a while since we updated our blog, but as our flight from Bacolod to Manila is delayed, it’s a perfect time to write a few words. But I should probably take a few steps back…
In September we went to Hong Kong for the annual ICM fundraising banquet. This time we took four of the kids that couldn’t come last year. We all had a great time, the kids performed in a few churches, schools and at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. Besides singing they also had fun at Disneyland and Ocean Park. But it seems so long ago already. As soon as we came back to the Philippines we very got busy. We’ve been preparing new material for the choir as well as working on a video for one of the best schools in HK.
Those few weeks flew by so quickly and I’m already sitting at the airport and watching these fourteen children, on their way to Manila, and I’m thinking about the future of the ICM choir. They are all in front of an incredible opportunity. A few weeks ago the choir received an invitation from The John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts in Washington DC to perform there on the 4th of December. What an incredible venue to be invited to. The stakes had been raised, so we decided to transform the “Short Steps” documentary into the stage show. And after a few weeks of intense practice the choir is ready to perform their story in one of the best venues in the world. Alongside that the choir had been invited to perform at the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC and couple of other events in the US. We are so excited about all of these opportunities to tell the story of the fourteen wonderful children, who represent millions of Filipinos and bring hope to their nation.
Tomorrow morning the kids are scheduled to visit the US Embassy in Manila. So we are less than 24 hours away from finding out whether the choir will actually be able to go to the US to tell their story. We are a little nervous but also very hopeful. We believe that whatever the outcome, whether they will get their visas or not, God is in control.
Michal Joachimowski
Caribou
Today, I rode a caribou! I have always wanted to try it, because whenever we have visited rural farming communities and seen farmers and their children riding them, it has looked such a natural and beautiful sight. It is still quite common to see people riding slowly along through the sugar cane fields on the majestic creatures, or to drive by rivers and see caribou cooling off in the water.
So today, in the midst of all our preparations for the ICM Hong Kong banquet, I had the chance to try my hand at riding a caribou whilst visiting some ladies in a rural community. I had ridden a horse once, and thought that I would have to find that kind of connection between me and the animal I was about to ride. But the huge caribou didn’t even flinch when I plonked myself up onto his shoulders, not half as gracefully as my guide had just demonstrated. He almost seemed to think I was just one of the hundreds of flies that were buzzing around his flanks, and took to trying to swat me with his powerful tail. And when he walked, it was nothing like a horse! His shoulders threw me in all directions; it was a little like one of those rodeo theme park rides… thankfully I managed to stay on. I can’t imagine how the locals make it look so graceful.
It’s interesting that animals are still used for farming here. Caribous are used to plough land before planting, and during harvest are used to pull loads of sugar cane from the fields to waiting trucks. Most of the farmers could easily afford to buy machinery to do this labour and quicken the process. But it seems almost all of them prefer to stick to the old ways, with their manual labourers doing the job by hand. The cost of labour is so cheap here, so the thought of the large upfront costs of large machinery may seem to much for some. Or it may be a slight sentimentalism; generations of families all work for the same ‘haciendero’ (land owner) family, and so there is often a tight bond between them.
Part of me likes that farming here is still done the old fashioned way. After all, a lot of people would lose their whole livelihood if the land owners decided to upgrade their caribous to combines. But the wages that they workers are paid are so low that they are trapped in poverty, often with no education and no way out. Perhaps if they were no longer ‘bound’ to their haciendero, they would be forced to educate their families and work their way out of poverty. But for now, the slow, strong, serene caribous play their part in Hacienda Laguda, and throughout these beautiful islands.
Louise Joachimowski
Busy
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so busy. But not in a bad way… in a varied and wonderful sort of way, the way where I don’t really know what’s going to turn up next week and ask me to try my hand at it. Although, Michal’s and my job sounds pretty simple, to run a children’s choir and shoot videos, it has evolved and expanded into a lot more than this, and we are loving it. We’re now working with two different singing groups, preparing them to go to Hong Kong this September, shooting their videos and telling their stories, we’re meeting committed ICM donors, and helping to encourage new supporters, we’re composing, writing, shooting, meeting local government officials, applying for visas, arranging logistics, traveling, entertaining, recording, and lots more…
It’s incredible the way we have been put in this job, something that we never imagined we would be doing, or if we did that it would be so fulfilling. It’s incredible that we are granted the desires of our heart, even before we know what those desires are, if we put our Father first. It’s incredible that someone knows us better than we know ourselves, and trusts us to make mistakes so we can grow. It’s incredible.
Of course, our life isn’t one easy, blissful breeze full of sunshine and rainbows. It’s tough being away from our families, and it’s also challenging living in a foreign country. But I can’t say enough how much we love and believe in what we are doing; taking care of the poor, the widows and the orphans, the ones who the Father’s heart aches the most for.
Louise Joachimowski
“Recharging batteries” in Hong Kong
On Monday the 11th of July we were celebrating our quarter of a decade wedding anniversary. That same day we were supposed to end our three month trip to the Philippines, but as we got involved with the ICM Choir again we decided to stay in the Philippines for few more months. We canceled our Hong Kong-Warsaw tickets, but we couldn’t do so with the flights to our favorite city. So we decided to go to Hong Kong for a week, to “recharge our batteries” before we go back and hit the last leg of the ICM annual banquet preparations, which is usually extremely busy.
The trip started with a romantic dinner, our favorite ‘char siu fan’ (barbecue pork on rice) at Hong Kong airport, where we met four years before. It was interesting again being in a country where we didn’t stand out from the crowd.
Anyway, the trip was supposed to include shooting some interviews, but it turned out that all of the potential interviewees were out of town, so the heavy tripod and lights stayed in the suitcase the whole time. We had a great time though. We stayed with our Irish friend and had loads to catch up on. During our stay we also spent some time with our other friends that just had their fourth baby, and for some reason they named him Comrade, like a fellow member of a communistic party…interesting huh (I’m probably going to get in trouble for that as his actual name is Conrad) 
baby Conrad AKA ‘Comrade’
We also picked some audio equipment for the choir which made our luggage 25kg heavier, and the trip back to the Philippines more exciting. We also got invited to an MMA tournament in Macau. It was fun but a little disturbing at the same time. We had VIP front row seats and watching guys beating each other up from up close was definitely interesting.
MMA-Legend 5-Macau
On Sunday we went to the Vine church where I used to go when I stayed in the city. It was great seeing old friends and their new amazing building which the church just moved to. It’s an old cinema in Wan Chai and as cinema is close to my heart it was great seeing their huge screen, where we’re hoping to show our new documentary in the future. I mentioned this visit as while we were there something struck me. I saw 2 years old children running around with iPads and iPhones and it made me think of the children that we see in the Philippines every day.
Children without enough food to eat, without school supplies, without birth certificates and without hope. I’m not saying that possessing things is bad, but it made me realise the difference between those two, not so distant countries. It made me want to do more to bring change and hope to the less fortunate people of the Philippines. I feel that we are in a perfect place at the moment, we do what we love, we can express our worldview artistically, we can tell stories of the Filipinos in order to bring hope.
So on Monday we came back to Manila, of course more tired than before we left the Philippines, but full of energy and motivation to tell more stories of those in need to those who can make a difference. As Bono said, we are the generation who can make extreme poverty-history.
Michal Joachimowski
Hand to Mouth
A friend of ours from England recently visited Bacolod City, and wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes. He went to a small road side shop, and asked the lady inside for some cigarettes. She proceeded to offer him a small jar with single sticks inside, for him to take one. When he looked surprised and asked for a whole packet, the shop keeper could hardly believe her ears, and had to go and look for a whole pack of cigarettes to sell this ‘rich white man’!
Of course, there are places in Bacolod where you can buy a pack of cigarettes quite easily and without any fuss, but among the poor it is almost an impossibility that someone would have enough money at one time for a whole pack. And this perfectly demonstrates the day to day, hand to mouth lifestyle and attitude of the poorest of the poor. People buy sachets of shampoo and conditioner because they can’t afford a whole bottle. Stalls sell single servings of cooking oil and soy sauce because people can only afford enough for one meal. There is no saving, no budgeting, no planning for the future or looking forward to something new. There is only today. ‘Can I feed my family today?’ ‘Can we make it through until tomorrow?’
sari sari store
We’ve been in Hong Kong this week, and were shocked by the contrasts. In the bathroom where we stayed there were huge 1L bottles of shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, moisturiser and lotions, in a country with an opposite dilemma – people with plenty of money, but no time to just pop to the shop whenever they need something. So there becomes a ‘stockpiling’ attitude. We say to ourselves “we’d better get extra, just in case”. Which would I prefer – plenty of time and not enough money, or plenty of money and not enough time? We’d all love to have plenty of both, but I’m sure the perfect balance would be somewhere in the middle.
Louise Joachimowski
Cano – short film online
The story of Cano is set in the Philippines, in a barangay (division) built on top of a former landfill. It’s the story of Jun Jun (Dennis Ascalon) who lives alone, and who loves to spend his free time watching American movies and trying to imitate the characters he sees on the screen. His peace is disturbed by his neighbors who nightly come to watch their favourite local soap opera on the only TV set in the area. One evening they hear shocking news about heir neighbourhood.
The Neighbours
We have recently moved into a new apartment, and it is in one of Bacolod’s oldest buildings; the first hotel in town, which used to be right on the promenade by the sea, until they reclaimed the land and built a mall…
That said, we are having to adjust to life with the ‘former residents’… whenever you move in somewhere, you have to take the neighbours into consideration. Ours are a little, well, lets say creepy. They are very quiet, and we only ever see them at night. However, it seems most of them don’t really understand personal boundaries. They often wander into our room quite uninvited, picking at food, climbing on and even eating our furniture; it’s really quite shocking. And they’ve brought out a very dangerous side in Michal. He has actually resorted to violence, hitting some of them with his shoes, to get them out. It really went too far when I woke up one morning and found that a someone had come in at night and bitten me on my leg. I’ve since taken out a restraining order, but I’ve got a feeling that won’t stop them.
We’ve heard rumors about a big fat guy, who lives near the kitchen. I’ve never seen him, but Michal caught a glimpse of him the other night as we were cleaning up after dinner. They say his name is Peter, and he’s desperate for food. All the others left when the management started cracking down, but he refuses to go…
So, I guess for now, we’re stuck with them – mosquitos, cockroaches, woodworm, and Peter the rat; we’re learning how to live with bugs!
Are you from Song In A Different Way?
First of all… I must apologise for the long silence. I have to admit, being so busy with our work here, and not really having time to sit down and write, I did wonder whether many people actually read our blog, and when they do, if they actually enjoy it.
And here’s the answer…
We were in a local hospital a few days ago, as Michal has some kind of infection, when a doctor came up to me and asked me if I was Louise “Jo-ah-chim-mow-skee?” and if I was from Song In A Different Way. I assumed that we must have met before and I’d just forgotten his face, but it turned out that we didn’t know each other. In fact, he was a blogger and had found our site while searching for blogs about Bacolod. He even mentioned some of the stuff which we’d put in our previous posts.
When I figured out that we really didn’t know each other (Bacolod is a small world, so it’s quite likely), I was actually pretty chuffed that he’d recognised us, and that he enjoyed reading our experiences and opinions on his city and his country . Now, rudely I never asked his name as I was a little pre-occupied with Michal who was simultaneously entertaining the nurses and confusing the doctors with his symptoms. But our small, short meeting inspired me to write, knowing that our pictures and musings actually are read by people who are interested to know how two travelers like us are getting on.
So Mr Doctor, who read our blog… thanks for reading, and thanks for saying hi.
We’ll be posting soon
We are back online
And we’re back. For the past week or so we’ve had some server issues but the site is up and running again. During this time we have been quite busy. Louise organised a few small singing contests in rural villages as on the behalf of ICM she’s looking for some singers to perform in Hong Kong this September. Later on, after the ladies had been chosen we went back to their villages and interviewed them at their homes. We witnessed some lifestyles that are so ‘foreign’ to us, people living on sugar cane farms have different look on life. I tried to capture short snippets of their lives, that you can see under one-a-day tab.
Weekend in Manila
It’s been two weeks since we got to the Philippines but we are still living out of our suitcase, mainly as we’ve been traveling and still didn’t find a place to live. Last weekend we went to Manila to meet with the chairman of ICM and now we have clearer picture of the next few months. It’s going to be creative and very busy. We decided to work on the new material for the ICM Children’s Choir, which will require new songs, new videos and new travel schedules. So that’s what lies ahed of us, and we are very excited about all our new projects.
During the Manila trip we realised that we definitely feel better in the provinces, as there is so much concrete and traffic in the capital city, and of course most of our friends live here in Bacolod. But while we were there we had a chance to meet with some Manila artists, one of whom is the designer of the Filipino Peso bank notes. Also we visited Galleria Duemila, where currently our friend Charlie Co has his fantastic exhibition ”Dummies”. If you are visiting Manila between May 7th and June 5th we recommend visiting the gallery.
And of course as we’ve been on ‘the road” for the couple of days we didn’t have a chance to upload shot of the day, but we have been getting them every day. Check out the new ones by clicking on the image below.
