iHome-GMM home building, turning 'grey' to 'white'



15 OCT 2011 – Rain has just passed and the sun was out in all its mighty glory. On this day, our stoked traveler is given another chance to give back to the society. 

Through the combined efforts of iHOME-GMM, formerly greater metro manila habitat for humanity,  and Inspire@HP, volunteers gathered in Tandang Manang, Valenzuela. This is to continue what started as a strenuous home building activity to now a less tasking application of the finishing touches through white paint.



The stoked painter with Inspire@HP volunteers

To our stoked traveler this isn’t exactly one of those adventures where one expects to see nature and scenic sights in its grandeur. It is actually the opposite. Nonetheless, it is one of those tasks that alone he will never get a chance to accomplish.

The groups coming from each of the Hewlett Packard offices arrived on site at 10AM. As soon as the stoked traveler and his van-mates stepped out, they were greeted by the blazing heat of the sun. It was painfully harsh and it was a good thing that the residents of the community set up a central tent as the command post/dining area for the volunteers.

It was running late and the group was a little behind the schedule. Inspire@hp organizers wasted no time and went thru the opening program/refreshments. As soon as everything was set, it was time to paint the houses.

Our stoked traveler (in this case stoked painter) was looking forward to getting started with the painting. Unfortunately, there was a little set back with the paint brushes and who’s to paint what house. After a few talks and moving around, he and his group finally settle to join other volunteers in painting a row of houses.

Time to paint!

A homeowner was pleasant enough to exchange stories (even jokes) with our stoked painter and his group. He learns that the houses built are paid for by the tenants at a 10 year program. About a thousand pesos goes to the land and another thousand pesos or so goes to payment for the house every month. Roughly P2,500/month for 10 years and they get to finally own a house for themselves. Not bad for a rent-to-own scheme considering the place was approximately 30sqm.

At 4PM the group called it a day and they were sent home with warm appreciation from the community. A whole day of painting transformed what started out to be a gloomy ‘grey’ place into a bright place of ‘white’.  



Homeowners applauding inspire@hp volunteers and iHome-GMM
KatCo (lady in front-center) is one of the organizers from inspire@HP



To the volunteers it may just be another day, a new experience. But to the people whose houses they built and painted, it’ll be years worth of use. Someday those white houses may be painted a livelier color (who knows) but atleast every time the people of that community looks up at one of those houses, they will remember the volunteers from inspire@hp who helped build for them the houses they are now living on. Truly an inspire-worthy activity J

To learn more about iHome-GMM visit their website:

http://ihomegmm.org/about-us/



International Coastal Cleanup 2011: Cleaning up the coast of Anilao

This is the first visit of our stoked traveler to Anilao. It’s also his first time to join Inspire@HP (a group of concerned Hewlett Packard employees). Being his first time on both, naturally he is very much excited to see what's in store for him.

After all the planning and behind the scenes coordination, the day of the cleanup has arrived…

September 17, 2011 – an early call time was necessary to reach Planet Dive, Anilao, Batangas in time to meet the schedule of activities.



Our blogger with the rest of the organizers



Unfortunately for our blogger, he was running late and amidst all the rush — he left his company issued cellphone on the MGE cab he rode on the way to the pick up point. Only a few minutes after stepping down from the cab, he asked his team mate to call the number only to find out that the phone was already turned off. (So there, even company taxi drivers are not so honest afterall!)

It took about 2 hours or so to get to the dive resort. It wasn’t a pleasurable trip because the blogger was the assigned van marshall and had to entertain the driver who was extremely talkative. The driver was also a little bit of a know it all and didn’t follow the directions to the resort so it may have taken longer than expected to get to the destination.


After arriving at Planet Dive and settling down, the first thing that hit our blogger was that the interior of the Villas looked great. It was breezy and had good natural lighting. Even better was that it was facing the sea!
The activity started with a quick talk about ICC 2011 and AM snacks followed thereafter. The snack wasn’t the greatest but an ok tummy filler nonetheless.


At 10:30 am the cleanup teams were deployed to their target area. Green 02 Team (the blogger’s team) was to take a boat ride over to Kambingan Island for their cleanup assignment.

Clear emerald waters at the cove...

Kambingan Island was just a small cove but it seemed like it was were most of the trash was heading.

It is called "kambingan" for obvious reasons...

The team had their bags full of trash at the end of the 1 hour activity under the scorching heat of the sun. Trash was anything from diapers, bottles, toys, slippers, shoes to some of the most unusual stuff like a fuse box and syringes (how could those things end up there right?)
 

bags of trash way more than what we expected..glad we got to pick up this much

  So everyone knows, normally our blogger doesn’t like spending too much time under the mid-day sun. But for this activity, he took an exception, it wouldn’t be nice to sit around in a cool and comfy shade when everyone were taking their time picking up trash washed away on the coast of this beautiful island.

Taking a quick rest under the shade...

All in all it was a fulfilling activity. It was a saturday well-spent for nature and learning not to just throw even the littlest of things in the water.

(Although our blogger wasn’t able to take a dive or even a swim in the clear water, he was satisfied just to know that there are places like these not too far from urban Manila. He will surely be back for some diving lessons next time!)

 

Our divers ready to take the plunge (to clean