Smokey Mountain and Hapilan

I've decided to come back to the beginning and give a description of the geography of Smokey Mountain and Hapilan. These two communities are adjacent with what can pass as a small road separating the two. Both are on the sea with Smokey Mountain being reclaimed seafloor created my layering trash and dirt. Hapilan was the original Smokey Mountain (the current Smokey Mountain is technically called Smokey Mountain II) but had since become better (don't confuse this as it being good) as the recognition of its habitation by the government has led to some degree of services and improvements to the area. The communities, it feels obscene to describe them as neighborhoods (and "communities" is far more descriptive), are about 3 miles from the US embassy and there's a country club even closer. There's more than 1000 families in Smokey Mountain and another 40,000-50,000 people in Hapilan. Keep in mind that Hapilan is about 8 hectares (or was it 4? I can't remember) and Smokey Mountain isn't much bigger.

I've also come to the realization that this will take much more time, time not afforded to me with this particular blog format, to finish to my satisfaction if text and pictures could even be considered a medium that can do this subject justice. So this will feel and very much be an unfinished product so... tough.

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Earlier, we had our trip to Smokey Mountain and Hapilan. Hearing of it from my friends I had felt fairly prepared for what I saw. I knew of the smell, the gross poverty and the appearance of the children.

Smokey Mountain and Hapilan

Despite this, the squalor was gut wrenching. The description of Smokey Mountain as a dump site barely does it justice. This expansive space of reclaimed sea was composed of alternating layers of trash and dirt as the lone source of education, that could only loosely described as a structure, sat unimposingly in the foreground.

We toured the vicinity, seeing children clothed in tattered and dirty clothing, "houses" made of pieces of wood and metal cobbled together in some Frankenstein fashion and piles of trash being sifted through in the effort to find recyclable material to sell to help support themselves. Later, we would discover that most of those in Smokey Mountain and Hapilan survive on a single meal a day, if that much. Even then, the meals were remains of the meals of others. I think it's kinda ironic... kids in the US would, albeit partially a stereotype, be told that kids in Africa would love to have their food as a way to motivate them to eat the rest of their food. In Manila, if you don't finish your food poor children a couple miles, or blocks, away end up eating what you don't.

Between playing basketball with the kids and taking pictures of them, it is amazing how absolutely happy they can be in such an environment. Playing basketball, keeping score or even having a team doesn't really matter. They simply enjoyed trying to throw it into the hoop while their friends chased them. We even had the opportunity to hold an American vs Filipino 4v4 with some of the locals but it was cut short thanks to a bloody nose (mine) and the migration of our group farther into Smokey Mountain.

This post is so disorganized... and will continue to be.

You know... I'm tired... the combination of physical and emotional exhaustion means I probably won't completely write my thoughts and feelings on Smokey Mountain and Hapilan down for awhile. The group and myself are planning to do some things to try to help. Creating a documentary on the area, making T-shirts to promote awareness, a book to raise funds, donating clothes... we'll see how much we'll come up with.

In the end, I guess I just want to say some grand message. These communities are not the only ones of their kind in the world. Perhaps they're rarer in the US... but I very much believe they exist there as well. But they exist because they are ignored and the world doesn't care. That's not to say there aren't people that would care... just that... who knows about it? When I first heard about it over a year ago I first thought it was some mountain that happened to by very grey (turns out, it's rather flat). At the time, Smokey Mountain didn't have a Wikipedia entry... it does now but it consists of:

Smokey Mountain is a large landfill in Manila. It is famous for rotting at such a high temperature that parts of it caught on fire, and collapsed, thus killing many people (hence the name). Smokey Mountain was officially shut down in 1995, but there are still ill effects from that landfill that continue to the present day.^[1][2]

On August 15, 2007, the Supreme Court (of the Philippines) declared valid the 1993 joint venture agreement between the National Housing Authority (NHA) and R-II Builders Incorporated (RBI) to build a low-cost housing project at the former Smokey Mountain dumpsite in Manila. RBI is owned by Reghis Romero II, a businessman who was among those abducted by Abu Sayyaf bandits at the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan in May 2001.^[3]. Not closed as of March 2009

Look at the pictures I took... that entry is worthless. And Hapilan has the second paragraph and lacks its own entry. These people were some of the nicest people I've ever met (keep in mind I've met Al) living in by far the worst conditions I've ever seen, with a government that cares less about them than most of us care about where we'll be getting clean water to drink. Those that know me know I never become so... well, that I never act like this and that I actually dislike ever acting like this. I guess that's a sign of how much this has affected me and in ways I don't care to post on the internet. If you want to know more, let me know and we can talk when I get back (wherever "back" happens to be).

Over the coming few months, yes it will probably take that long, as I let it digest and my thoughts become more organized I'll write something that I can be happier about. Until then, this is the closest to a record of my thoughts on it that I have in some form outside my head.

Later guys.