Riverside Slums in Banago

Bacolod, Philippines; Friday, November 6

Our vans slowly pulled up as we looked out our windows in awe at the heartbreaking scene before us and parked on the side of the dusty gravel road. We got out of the air conditioned vans and walked down the driveway as the sun beat down on our backs. We crossed over a rickety bamboo bridge with missing planks and entered the Riverside neighborhood slums. We saw a huge pig trapped inside a pin oozing with debris filled mud and some stray chickens running around the piles of trash. We turned the corner, only to see another long row of bamboo shanties hovering above the waste. Clothes are hung everywhere to dry in the sun. There are no dryers here. We followed the sidewalks, running alongside a river of slum sewage, and waved to the naked children sitting on their bamboo floors. We passed by a group of people {a father, daughter, and a grandmother, with no mother in sight} walking to their decaying house and a depressing snack shop where a boy in tattered clothing stood. There was a scrappy house with a tattered bamboo fence defining its boarders, trying to keeping out a lake of raw sewage. I stood there for a while taking it all in, in total disbelief. This neighborhood was terrifyingly different from my home in Virginia.