Shangri-La

Manila. My first trip to Asia! Quite a change from sub-Saharan Africa. I'll give you a few examples:

Airport pick-up. After a 12 hour flight from Detroit to Nagoya, Japan (a quick 2 hour layover), we then took a short 3.5 hour flight to Manila. My colleague and I got through immigration and customs just fine. We were greeted in the arrivals area by a representative of our hotel- the Edsa Shangri-La. We were taken to this nice air-conditioned lounge and given cold bottled water. We were alerted that our transport had arrived and our car had been upgraded. A Mercedes Sedan pulls up. Driver is in white gloves, uniform, and hat. Gives us cold towels scented with lemongrass. What a treat!

Our hotel is huge! Near an area of Manila called Pasig City. The hotel is connected via a covered walkway to the Shangri-La Plaza which is a mall- complete with lots of restaurants, stores (GAP, Body Shop, even a Tiffany's and Cartier!). And the breakfast buffet is unbelievable everything from crepes, to sushi, to indian food, to amazing fresh fruit, and chocolate oatmeal! This is a picture of some of the many stations at breakfast. Makes it feel a little odd to be doing development work surrounded by all of this. But I suppose that's the dichotomy- extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

We're here to assist the Department of Health (national government) in designing and implementing a family planning commodity monitoring tool. Government is very decentralized in the Philippines much like in the U.S. There are Regions (like States), Provinces (like Counties), and Local Government Units (like cities) that all have some autonomy with budgeting and planning. The national level Department of Health would like to know how availability of contraceptives is at the health center level in the local government units to see if they can help in any way if there are stock-outs, etc. That's what we're here to help them to do. It just so happens that we get to do that work and stay in this very nice hotel.

We're off to see some facilities later this week and will get a taste of life outside of Manila (and outside of this lavishness)...so I'll be sure to report back on that. Should be a different experience!