Our next destination was Manila and meeting up with Claire and Dee who were flying over from home for 2 weeks with us! We had to get a very choppy boat ride back from Malapascua to the mainland and then got another open window bus back to Cebu, then a zest air flight to Manila and then get the shuttle bus to terminal 1 to meet them. Now we thought it would be like meeting someone at Gatwick or Heathrow where you can leisurely have a drink and wait - but this is the Philippines and totally different! We went to the arrivals area and to get in you had to get by security guards who would only let certain people in with ID and if the flight you were waiting for had landed 40 minutes previously - it was like a moshpit of eager filipino families waiting for their loved ones to return. We had to sit on a curb for about an hour and then fight our way through the crowds - some people were getting really angry with the guards and there was a shouting match we had to squeeze through - luckily we got through eventually but as they opened the gates lots of people tried to get through too it was a bit of a scrum with our big rucksacks on! Anyway when we got through they wouldn't actually let us into the arrivals hall we were only allowed to wait by the door - we waited for ages and then finally spotted Claire and Dee looking for us - it was so good to see them but Claire was really ill so we got a taxi straight away and headed into Manila. It was gone midnight by this point and when we pullled up to Tune Hotel in Ermita there were lots of girls sitting outside bars with names such as Hugs and Kisses - nice area!!

The next day we took it easy as Claire and Dee got to grips with the new timezone, we knew the next few days were going to be tiring!

We had arranged to do four days volunteering with PCF (Philippines Community Fund) which was founded in 2002 by Jane Walker who had been to our church to talk about the charity previously. PCF operates in the slum areas of Manila - Tondo and San Jose Cemetery in Navatos aswell as other areas around the Philippines. The charity helps children and their families who are living in squalid shanty towns by city rubbish dumps where residents search for recyclable rubbish. The charity has schools, feeding and health programmes and helps rescue child labourers from the dumps - they also provide adults skill training as an alternative to waste picking.

A team from Portsmouth family church was also going to be there at the same time as us so we met them at their guesthouse which was close to our hotel and caught the PCF jeepney. We had to leave at 7am before the traffic got too heavy. We drove out of the leafy Ermita area towards the harbour district of Tondo - we saw lots of shanty houses by the side of the roads and it looked rough. We had a volunteer co-ordinator with us called Jenny and she said we were going to look around a shanty area on the dump first. We pulled up on the side of the road and then entered the shanty town. It was really surreal because there were houses either side of this channel of rubbish - it was almost as if the houses were there first with a road running down the middle but then a rubbish truck deposited about ten years of refuse on it. It was obviously very smelly and flies were buzzing around with manky cats and dogs rummaging through the waste. People were also rooting through bags looking for anything they could recycle or sell, Kam saw an older lady going through a bin bag up to her elbows in slimy goo. Lots of kids were running around covered in dirt, some with no clothes on. We saw where they used to hold the old school in an old warehouse which was surrounded by rubbish but they had to stop as when there was heavy rain it would flood. We then walked further through the 'town' and went by little wooden stalls selling bits, a videoke hut and an internet cafe in a shack! Someone let us look in their house which was a small hut within a bigger hut - a bit like a wooden block of flats!

We then walked down some narrow alleyways and we were by the sea - the water was black and absolutely full of crap but loads of kids were having a whale of a time swimming in it and one little boy seemed to be floating around in an old pram! The most awful part we walked through was where they make charcoal - Jenny told us we had to walk through this bit quickly and we found out why... the fumes were absolutely choking, it was like inhaling 20 red marlboro at the same time, our eyes were watering and everyone started coughing. Again there were kids playing amongst the fumes and adults just working in it. Jenny said that kids can go blind by the time they are 5 in the charcoal area - its heartbreaking.

I can't say I felt comfortable walking around the dumps as a big group of rich westerners gawping at everything - I just wondered how the people that lived there felt about it although most people did wave and say hello. From the charities point of view they think it's important that you see exactly how the people live and then when you tell friends and family it can encourage people to donate and fundraise for them. After the dump visit we went and saw the new school where we would be based over the next few days. The school was a short ride up the road and it was lovely, it has been built out of old shipping containers donated to the charity, they have several floors of classrooms and they also have a salon room where they train hairdressers. There are some work rooms for the adults who make amazing jewellery out of ringpulls and other recycled materials. We spent the afternoon cleaning shoes that had been donated from England as the following day we were going to have shoppers day! The school was by the river which was filthy and me and Kam saw some sort of dead animal float by. We could see raw sewage pumping out and again people were swimming in it. We were all emotionally drained after the first day. Me and Kam had seen a lot of poverty in India but not actually gone into a shanty town - thinking of these families living there was quite overwhelming -we are so lucky to be born in the West.

The following day was shoppers day! We left at 7am again, for shoppers day families from the dump are allowed five items each from overseas donations so there were clothes, shoes, books, pens and toothbrushes. There were lots of kids welly boots that went very quickly, its so dangerous for little feet on the dumps with glass, needles and goodness knows what else. Virtually everything went and I felt sad that we couldn't just go and buy everyone brand new things :-(

Claire was feeling more ill than before so we left early on the tuesday and she went to the doctors for a large dose of antibiotics and eardrops!

On the Wednesday I helped with weeding the playground, Kam did some decorating and Claire and Dee helped sort out some more donations. We then all washed down some classroom walls in preperation for decorating. In the afternoon we had our second visit to a dump, this time it was the graveyards of Navotas. We were all told to wear wellies this time. The drive there took ages as the traffic was so heavy. We pulled up to the graveyard and all walked through concrete coffins piled up on eachother, some were crumbling and falling apart then we got to the houses. We walked by a new coffin on a table - the family were gathered around it eating cake from the surface - I was shocked to see that there was a see through part at the top and saw a young mans face inside - I wasn't expecting that. We then went single file through lots of tiny alleyways - we saw why we needed to wear wellies, we had to slosh through black stinking water, there were planks of wood piled on top but as soon as you stepped on them your foot was submerged in filth. The locals were just walking through it in flip flops or barefoot, two young guys were playing pool barefoot in it! It was a lot more oppressive than the first place we went to and we eventually made our way to the sea. Shacks are built out to sea bridged by rickety old planks of wood with huge gaps in. We could see the remains of several houses going far out into the sea but everytime there is a typhoon they just get washed away, it was so dangerous walking around with these big gaps below you - but kids were running around. At one point our group got split up and we got a bit lost because its like a maze with dead ends, luckily we were all reunited again and we walked by a hairdressers salon amongst all the chaos! The charity are hoping to build another school in this area which would be amazing because it's such a poor poor area - families living in a graveyard and sewage.

On our last day me, Kam and Dee helped decorate two of the classrooms and Claire helped out with a beauty day they had put on for the women of the dumps. One of the ladies from Portsmouth cut hair while others did nails, foot spas and hand massages.

So that was our first taster of volunteering abroad! PCF is a charity well worth supporting and Jenny told us that Coca Cola are interested in supporting them as well as apl.de.ap from the Black Eyed Peas as he was born in a slum area near Manila before being adopted by an American family.

Ermita, the area we stayed in in Manila was obviously a lot more nicer than Tondo but it was quite draining itself - you have massive hotels and malls full of rich locals and western tourists and then on the streets you have street kids roaming, beggars, prostitutes and lots of men trying to sell dodgy iphones and rolexes. There's such a huge divide between rich and poor. The Manila bay area was heavily polluted too.

We were off to Palawan next and I think we were all looking forward to it!