We wound our way through a maze of unbelievable tight walkways, in a hidden world of shadows beneath the bridges and roads of metro Manila. This is a world that most 'respectable' people would like to pretend didn't exist and certainly not a world that they would visit.Here in the slums, the shanty towns of the 'informal' residents of Manila live millions of people. The aroma of frying food and fruit stalls mix with the smells of rotting garbage and non-existent sanitation systems. Little children play with mangy little mutts amongst putrid, stagnant water. A young woman washes clothes in a tub of water alongside a stream that seems to slither around rocks and garbage rather than flow. An older man fishes bits of plastic out of the garbage washed down from the outside world - plastic that he may be able to sell for food. Men and women sleep on raised wooden platforms in the shadows of the bridge, whilst over their heads hang all their worldly wears, buffeted in the vehicle wash caused by the unrelenting traffic on the road above.
It seems inconceivable that this world still exists here - a month ago, almost to the day, this flood water canal was about 15 feet under water. If you had been able to walk on the bridge, about 12 feet above our heads, you would have been waist deep in water. And yet a month later, the people are back, the huts reconstructed, the platforms they call home rebuilt and their lives reestablished in the only place they have ever been able to call home.
Their landscape has changed though, now they have the added blessing of the garbage and mud washed down from the homes of those that can afford to wash and clean. But despite the aesthetics and aromas of this barangay of despair, the children laugh and play, glad to see us and waiting for their turn to have a picture taken.As we leave that place, looking for the bottle of hand sanitiser, we wonder how we can make any lasting difference in the lives of the 'informals'. It may seem such an insignificant thing - but for a few minutes this afternoon a team of respectable, privileged white guys acknowledged that these forgotten people exist. We brought little with us into their world - but what we left (we trust) was that intangible but powerful commodity - HOPE.
