Our
first proper day began with a very early start. (although apparently 5am is
normal to allow Filippinos to get through the traffic to begin work at 8). The
flag raising ceremony at City Hall was attended by hundreds of workers in their
purple shirt uniforms and we were ushered onto the stage as the mayors guests
with our host families.
This
ceremony takes place every Monday morning and included and address from the
Chairperson on Women and Family Relations which I think was linked to women’s
month being celebrated here at the moment. A documentary filmaker was awarded a
scroll and the best performing TB task forces were presented with certificates.
As the ceremony was almost entirely in Tagalog it wasn’t always that easy to
understand the standing up / sitting down / applauding ettiquette but as we
were on the second row I hope the crowd didn’t notice our confusion.
When
the mayor arrived on stage I think he was slightly overlooked by the UK team
who were expecting him to be older and more formally dressed. No suits, chain
or minder here, just a youthful looking man in his early 40s happy to be
sorting his own chair out for the signing of a paper on TB. Perhaps our mayors
could pick up some tips here although perhaps it is representative of the
younger demographic; 40% of the Quezon City are under 20.
After
a short breakfast where I managed to knock the table and spill four cups of
coffee simultaneously onto the white table cloth it was off for tours of the
memorial and museum (I’ll get Dan to write something interesting about the
architecture here as he completely outdid me on this)
A
whirlwind tour with our host club South Triangle included a drive round the
university where there was a student demonstration about tuition fees following
the suicide of a student over this recently and lunch in a rice restarant where
we has (I later discovered from my host) what basically is pork scratchings in
blood. I’ll have to check the details on this but tasted good before I knew
what it was!
It
was then off to UNTV to film a segment for the ‘Rotary Hour’ programme. It was
the first outing for our formal group uniforms (yes that is the blazers and no
there are no pictures) and I think given that we weren’t given any advance
warning of the questions I think it went pretty well. Dan the ‘media face’ of
policing and Richard’s smooth policians answers definitely helped us out.
Final
trip of the day was to the mall and for a type of exercise I seem to remember
being described as ‘mall walking’ in Modern Family. The malls are endless and
include every shop you would see on the British high street and I imagine every
chain you’d find in the US as well. If you’re struggling on scale think of the
Trafford Centre stacked over 5 floors with a fairground in the top.
Tomorrow
a lie in for a 9am start and a cultutural tour.
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