Dear Friends,

SCHOOL AND FARM IN MAPA

    We closed the school for one week at the beginning of November for our semestral break. But seventeen of our students, all of whom live on the mainland, asked to stay at the school for the week.  We give each student carfare to go home and expect their families to provide the return fare.  We used to give them round trip fare, but found that their families almost always used the return fare for their more immediate need for food.  So the seventeen boys said they were afraid they and their families wouldn’t be able to come up with the return fare.  We were sorry that they missed this opportunity to see their families, but we are happy that they care enough about continuing their education to sacrifice this visit home.  They stayed at the school, along with our head teacher, and did a lot of work on the farm.  And we gave them the money we would have given them for their travel home, for them to buy their food, other than the rice, which we provided.

    We accepted a special new student on August 20, 2009.   Eleven year old Jessa comes from a rural area of Cagayan de Oro City.  She is one of nine children and was born with both arms ending just above the elbows and no lower right leg and only a very short left thigh.  She had started school for the first time at her local public school last June.  One of her siblings would carry her piggy back to the concrete road and then she could ride in a wheelchair the rest of the way.  But the class was very big and many of the students teased Jessa.  She got discouraged and stopped going to school.  When we heard about her, we offered to let her try going to our school.  It is actually quite amazing to see the things she can do.  She had no trouble going up and down the steep stairs to enter her home.  She can feed herself using both arms to manipulate the spoon.  She is also able to write this way, but more slowly than a normal person.  She can run and even play soccer.  She has regularly taken a cow to pasture at home.  She started the year late with us and was having some trouble catching up, so our teachers gave her some school books to take home and asked that her older siblings help her practice and review.  Since coming back, she is doing better and we hope she will be able to pass Grade I by the end of the year.

HANDICAPPED

    This year we have been providing the transportation money for a new student in the Special Education (SPED) class for blind and low vision students, in one of the local elementary schools on the other side of the island.  Marvelous is twenty-three years old.  He had training in reading Braille in Manila , but he never actually did elementary school.  He is very bright and articulate and is studying more or less independently in the classroom.  He recently took the Department of Education exam for possible placement in a higher grade.  He hopes to complete elementary and high school and then go on to college.  Ultimately, he wants to be a teacher.  He is not only studying but also giving support and encouragement to the other students.  We provided the transportation for him and another adult blind girl to go to Davao City for a two-week training in computer encoding.  He was very excited about this and can now hook into the internet and use the special program that makes the computer say the letters he types.  So he knows what he is writing.  In all, we are assisting eight students to attend this SPED class.  Some have multiple handicaps.

    We continue to gradually send our cleft patients to Cagayan de Oro city for their surgery.  This has been a light year for newborns with clefts, only three so far, rather than the usual ten.  We have no idea why.

BABY HOME

    Diane brought Marco to Cagayan de Oro for his palate surgery on November 24, 2009.  He had surgery the following day.  He was discharged two days later, but Diane could not bring him home.  A tropical storm had dropped a lot of rain in the whole region, the boats weren’t running and roads were closed in several places due to landslides.  They finally got back to Camiguin the next day. Marco has had a tough time, having to give up his bottle temporarily.  And he also developed a urinary tract infection after the surgery.  The antibiotic for that apparently gave him diarrhea, even though we gave him a probiotic to help replace normal flora in the bowel.  But his surgery seems to be healing well.  We are very grateful for all the doctors who donated their services for his surgery.

    Andrie, who is the same age as Marco, was happy to see his play pal return home.  Andrie has been matched to a family by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.  So we hope he will be on his way to his new family early next year.

    James will hopefully have the same palate surgery that Marco had come January.  He has been quite healthy and is now a rotund 5.9 kilos (13 pounds) at eleven months.  He is now about the length of a six month old.  He is still delayed in his development, but does steadily make progress.  This past week, he has started crawling on his stomach, to the delight of all of us.  And he can sit for a brief time.  He almost always has a big smile.  He loves to walk with someone holding his hands.  And when we are holding him on our laps or up to our shoulders, he often moves his upper torso from side to side and vocalizes what almost seems to be a song.

    It will be a special Christmas with these three babies and our youngest son John.  And our oldest son, Paul, a Gunnery Sergeant stationed in Okinawa , will also be visiting with his wife and two children.  We hope your holidays will be filled with special times with special people.

James gently touching Marco's face

Marco

Andrie & Marco

James

Grace and Peace,

Tom and Diane Palmeri

For pictures of some of the children already assisted, click here

    We now have a two page leaflet/brochure that you can print out and give to your friends or send to them electronically: http://family2family.org/Brochure/fam2fambrochure.pdf .  We also have a blog that shows video/audio:  http://familytofamilycamiguin.blogspot.com .

    Contributions are IRS tax deductible (ID#42-1087104) and eligible for matching by employers.  They should be payable to "Family to Family, Inc.".  If in U.S. dollars, they should be sent to:

Family to Family, Inc.

c/o Carroll County State Bank

Box 67

Carroll, Iowa  51401

    Packages, letters and peso checks should all be sent to:

Tom & Diane Palmeri

Box 37, 9100 Mambajao

Camiguin Province

Philippines