First Vocational Day.. and Halo-Halo.

Today I visited the Philippines General Hospital Child Protection Unit (CPU) in Manila. The CPU was started in 1997 to serve abused children. There are 39 CPUs in the Philippines and their goal is to have 80+ CPUs to serve the needs of the country. 79% of their cases are related to sexual abuse, with smaller percentages in relation to neglect and physical abuse. Sexual abuse reports seen at this agency are highest at age 13-15 years. I know we complain of high workloads at my agency (where the maximum caseload is 10 per clinician), however, with a small staff there are often upwards of 200 children per day whom come into the center for assessment and treatment. The agency in addition to assessment and therapy offers continuing educational opportunities (including a standardized certificate program), research, legal services, parenting classes, and forensic services. I was also excited to see that they offer sand tray therapy, which I have found to be very beneficial for many of my clients. It was an informative and eye-opening experience to say the least.

Afterwards, we had a traditional Philippine lunch which included meat, fish (tilapia)... and of course rice. However, there was something I have never seen or heard of was placed on the table for dessert called Halo-Halo. Nat, if you're reading this it's something we must try to re-create when I get back. Halo-halo means "mix-mix" because it is mixed first before it is eaten. It is a mixture of sweetened beans (red, chickpeas), corn, coconut meat, jackfruit, pounded dried rice, sweat yam, cream flan, shreds of sweetened plantain, filled with crushed ice, coconut milk, and topped with ice cream. Yes.. all of that gets mixed together and somehow ends up tasting totally delicious.

The day ended up with a food massage and a manipedi in the backyard compliments of our wonderful host mother, Tess, which we were most thankful for. I feel like we have done, seen, learned and accomplished more in the first few days here than I fit in a regular month back home... And for those of you that know me personally, that says a lot. I am so very grateful.