The Great Manila Trashcan Debacle

The Philippine capital of Manila was the infamous home of a massive steaming garbage dump nicknamed "Smoky Mountain." Until it closed several years ago, hundreds of families lived on and around the dump, surviving on food scraps, trying to make a few pesos repairing and reselling refuse.

During my yearlong stay in Manila, I joined the "Junior Rotarians," a student-run charitable offshoot of the local Rotary Club. When they announced a project to help the poor of Smoky Mountain, I volunteered.

While normal life at Smoky Mountain was miserable, some- times it crossed into the realm of the abysmally tragic. Three weeks before my arrival, an open cooking fire had spread, burning down a section of Tondo, the nearby shanty town, killing dozens. Without running water, no one could stop the flames.

In this setting the noble Junior Rotarians stepped up and a day of service was declared to help the hapless Smoky Mountaineers.

I joined the assembly in the parking lot of the Bel Air Country Club. Empty trash can-size oil drums filled the lot. About 25 volunteers painted some cans bright red and filled others with sand.

"What exactly are we doing here?" I asked Jojo, the group coordinator.

"The Junior Rotarians are donating this fire-prevention equipment to the poor in the Tondo neighborhood," he answered.

I looked for some sign of hoses, portable pumps, fire extinguishers, even a squirt gun, but saw nothing.

"What equipment?"

"All around you! We're filling these cans with sand the Tondoites can use to dump on fires. The sand won't attract mosquitoes like water would, which means we're saving them from malaria as well."

"So essentially, we're giving away trash cans?" I asked.

"Yes."

"To people who live in a trash dump?"

"Um, yes ... But we're painting them bright red! They'll stop fires!"

see how this turned out by clinking to the link of my story in the San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/19/CMGU9GJ0CF1.DTL

How did I get "Dunked in Manila?"

I went to Manila on a one year internship through an international business club called AIESEC, which is a French acronym meaning something along the lines of "please send me somewhere cool to get a job." (Actually, it stands for Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales).

Prior to graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in Japanese Studies and Comparative Literature, I landed an internship with IBM in Japan.

Why would a comp.lit major work for IBM? Well, as my dad often pointed out, it's tough to open a comparative literature store. Unfortunately, IBM Japan, the sponsor, wanted me to come to Tokyo before I my studies were done. IBM Philippines didn't really care when I showed up. So I was dunked in Manila.

And so the troubles began...The AIESEC program depends on cooperation between corporate sponsors and local university student clubs. Most exchanges work out quite well. From the vandalized sign in the photo, you can see that one of the trainees didn't like the local Ateneo club too much. AIESEC Ateneo had stuck him with a resentful host family who tried to get him to leave by refusing to let him bathe in the house or change his sheets. The Ateneo students just laughed at his dilemma, so as a parting shot he (ok, we) climbed this sign and repainted a bit.

If you know Manila, you'll know the corner of EDSA & Ortegas doesn't look like this anymore, and I'm presuming AIESEC Ateneo has undergone improvements as well. I can't vouch for the other vandalizing trainee, but my experience in Manila changed me for the better.

My book Dunked in Manila follows the story of how a clueless American like myself learned how to "play ball" both figuratively and literally during some difficult times in the Philippines. Think of the story as "The Year of Living Dangerously" meets "Hoop Dreams."