What are those ladies laughing at?

I would love to tell you what my friends are laughing at, but that would breach our women’s gathering trust (I can tell you though, that it both shocked and delighted them).

Yesterday was the first gathering of women on the deck. Living now in Estancia I want friends, so what better way than to invite women of the Barangay to gather together, drink coffee, read and talk. The growing library of books, art supplies and games is also for the ladies.

women gathering to remember our dreams, to smile and relax, to feel beautiful again, to speak and be heard, to help our community, to explore what it possible, to find our creativity, to share our stories …

We watched an inspiring short TED Talk highlighting the issue of women’s literacy as well as discussing the community clean-up drive in response to the more than 100 local cases of Dengue Fever since January. This figure only includes the reported cases and certainly doesn’t include my own bout of dengue in March and the countless people undiagnosed. We also had time to talk about the 8 gun-shots from the night before.

Next week we are going to learn one of the songs from my choir-leader days in Mission Beach as well as discuss heart-disease: the leading cause of death of Philippine women. Ok back to Vanity Fair.

Bhec and Lanie enjoying the books and magazine (and a short break from family responsibilities).