Doctor Jo

"I did buy some pita bread, but the ants have got into it through the plastic," she said. "So if you don't mind waiting - if you're not too hungry, can I just whip something up?"

"Sure" I say, taking a seat on one of the plastic chairs in her "sitting room", directly in front of the fan. I wipe the sweat from my brow and watch Jo "whip up" some fresh chipatis. She deftly mixes flour, yeast, whatever else, rolls it with a drinking glass on her small "bench" and then throws it into a hot wok on her 2-burner gas stove. She's actually baked a cake, too, which REALLY impresses me. I find baking hard at the best of times, but she has baked a cake WITH NO OVEN! She showed me her clever contraption that involves heating a round stone thing on the gas burner, then putting a metal container on it, which has a tray for the cake tin inside it. She said she picked it up in Nepal. Having no fridge, she had carefully mounted it on a container with a 'moat' of water so the ants couldn't get it. She says sometimes the ants get together and form a 'bridge' over the water! But we were in luck today.

During our delicious lunch, I decide that it's quite like camping. But luxury camping - there's electricity and a "toilet" right inside. I actually really enjoy camping, and find Jo's place quite cozy, even though it's smaller than our family tent. It is roughly the size of the combined area of our apartment's walk-in wardrobe and ensuite. It has everything one needs. But then, I realise, I only go camping for a couple of weeks a year. And the worst pests I have ever had to deal with while camping are the cheeky wekas in the South Island. We had to actually zip up the tent. Jo deals regularly with mice. She said she doesn't even need to bait the traps.

Jo, a fellow Kiwi, lives in one of the squatter areas in the north of Metro Manila. She's lived in the area on & off for the last 17-odd years. She's involved with a medical project up there - mainly education about basic health care. And from her stories, it seems that it's really needed. She lives with the people she has come to serve. She knows them. They know her. Only one person called out to us when we were walking through the squatter area. Jo commented that he must've been new.

I spent the day visiting with Jo, and she taught me some very practical things, like how to catch a jeepney, as well as a few attitudinal things. When it was time to go, I made a freudian slip, and instead of saying 'apartment', I said 'hotel'.