Our first visit to Davao City, Philippines. January 2000.

We flew from Manado in North Sulawesi to Davao City, Philippines for a joint retreat of MCC Philippines and Indonesia after an unscheduled three day layover in Manado. The retreat site was Blue Waters on the island in Davao Bay, with a view back across to Davao City.

The industrial-looking operation across the water is a copra processing plant. Copra is coconut shells. The smell was confusing, being like cooking bacon.

Traditional fishermen were busy in the water off our retreat site.

This is most of the group. Two from the Philippines are missing.

Most of our transportation was by Jeepney. How many people fit in a Jeepney? "One more." The only jeep-like part of them is the front end, which does look like an older model Jeep.

The bay was busy with shipping. This container ship went by as we were getting on the ferry.

We stayed in a Catholic retreat center in the city the last couple of days and visited MCC program sites. MCC supports an organization working on child labor issues, one of which is employment of children on the docks. We toured the docks. That's the same container ship.

Housing for people who work the docks.

The same organization also provides support to a day care center in a village of people who were moved away from the docks. We visited it and had lunch there. The day care is in the lower level of this house.