PHOTO #1: Two dogs along the C5 highway that caused quite the scene.
Even before my Angkas flew by these two dogs, I could hear the one crying out in pain. And as I passed by, I could see it writhing in pain as the chain was too short, leaving it to stand only one foot and try to survive. I could say it was too early, that's why I didn't react, but it was almost as if I couldn't digest what I was seeing. Had I honestly seen a dog pretty much hanging for it's life with the rest of Manila zooming pass it on the C5, totally oblivious or unconcerned for the welfare of this poor creature?! I was on route to go coach one of my fighters but by the time I arrived at her condo, I was a mad mixture of disgust in myself for not stopping, disgust in the owner of the dog for creating this, and total sadness for the dog that was so clearly in pain.
I ended up heading back for the dog after posting for help on various social media platforms and coaching my fighter. I was the obvious one to respond first so that's what I did. By the time I arrived back, probably about 1 hour and 20 minutes after I had first spotted the scene, the dog's chain had been attached to a lower part in the wall and two massive bowls of what looked like meat were out for the two dogs.
I suspect someone had called the owner of the two dogs out before I had arrived, hence him being suspiciously extra nice to them with the excess of food. I should note that I see these two particular dogs every single day since I've moved into my clubhouse and not once have I ever seen them with food. I've never seen them even with so much as a bowl of water.
PHOTO #2: The community garbage men sifting through some stuff I put out.
I received various donations the past couple of weeks but most of them weren't actually clothing donations like I had asked for. Instead, most of the donations were things that I really didn't even know what to do with them much less even know what they actually were. They were a lot of odds and ends of things but some were salvage-able. I had asked for clothing donations though -- gently used clothing.
The garbage men that take care of the garbage collection in my community collect the trash three days a week -- Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Often they come wearing nothing more than flip flops on their feet, jeans and a t-shirt. Some of them are young but I know many young guys in the Philippines marry early and have kids early so when I had all these boxes of donated this-and-that random stuff, I thought perhaps I'd offer it to them. They work hard, it's obvious, and I'm sure there's no such thing as employment benefits or perks of the job beyond the odd thing they find when they sort through people's trash before throwing it into the garbage truck. So today, after I returned home from boxing, I placed all the boxes outside and then waited inside for their arrival. Soon enough, the truck pulled up and two guys jumped off the back of it to collect my trash. When the first worker spotted the boxes, he quickly opened it up and then started to call out to the other collector and the driver. Next thing I knew it he was yelling again but to other workers. I counted seven workers in total that came to search through the boxes.
They looked so happy.
I wanted to open the door and see their reaction face-to-face, ask them if they wanted a bag to take the stuff home or whatnot but I knew well enough not to. I didn't know if doing so would bruise their ego and I didn't want to come across as if I was giving them some kind of charity handout because that's not what it was. I just thought if anyone was deserving of something extra it was these guys plus I really didn't know where to donate this stuff because I didn't really know what "this stuff" was. Turns out the workers knew what "this stuff" was and were so happy.
PHOTO #3: The arrival of some crates from a friend's business, for my business.
Trying to order patio furniture has been an epic fail and I resorted to trying to buy it online, which was also an epic fail. Next attempt at any kind of patio lounge furniture meant making it myself. Skittles is taking the lead in this project and it's for the Empowered Clubhouse second floor balcony. Of course I still have the fourth floor balcony to deal with but that's not an immediate need. I've only actually been up to the fourth floor maybe a handful of times since I moved in.
The design for the second floor patio lounge is pretty simple but I suspect executing it will be a whole other story. Cutting, sanding, sawing, nailing, drilling, and then of course figuring out where to get custom cushions made... it's a lot of work. On the plus side though, it'll be exactly the size I want and a friend actually donated the crates from his business. That was super sweet of him.
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