living amidst poverty
Posted by emh1969 on July 30, 2008
Yesterday, I found a place to live. I went with a place with a shared outdoor kitchen…not the one I mentioned in my post the other day…this place is across the street from that one but was about $75 less a month and nicer looking in my opinion.
When I got back to my hotel to gather my stuff, I mentioned to the woman at the front desk (Selsa) that I had found a place to live. She was aware that I was looking and asked how much it cost. I told her $12,000 pesos (that’s about $280 which includes electricity, internet, and water). She gasped. To her, it was an incomprehensible amount. To me, it was incredibly cheap.
We talked a little bit about her life….she comes from a family of 11, her dad has passed away already, she’s on her own In Davao. She lives in the hotel (I think a few other hotel staff do as well). I don’t know what kind of accommodation the hotel provides its own staff, but the room I was staying in was a total dump. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I can’t imagine living in that hotel. Here’s the thing that I sometimes struggle with….I’m here because I want to help poor people. But I have no desire to actually live like them. I don’t know what that says about me, but I’m just too used to my Western comforts.
BTW, Davao doesn’t get a lot of tourists. In general, the Philippines doesn’t have much in the way of historical sites so most tourists skip the cities and come for the outdoor activities (diivng, snorkeling, rafting, hiking, etc). So I’ve had lots of people ask me what I’m doing here. I’ve been a bit hesitant to tell people that I’m here to volunteer…not being sure how they’ll react. I’m not sure how I’d feel about a foreigner coming to my country to volunteer. But so far, everyone has been very positive about what I’m doing.
