Today is day two for training at the LCP center.  We left it open to folks yesterday that they could come for more training this morning but only one woman showed up, bringing her niece April.

I did a little session with April around flood trauma.  Flooding is a big deal here.  Yesterday the pastor told of getting caught and swept away in a flood that killed 8,000 people in one day...just in his area.

So April and I tapped on various aspects of the flood, and what happened and her aunt watched carefully.  The aunt is going to introduce tapping to her community group tomorrow!  We got most of the anxiety down, and the sadness at what they'd lost in the flood and then it was the on-going fear every time it rains.  I think that may be very common here, which is a bummer since it seems to rain a LOT nearly every day!

But we got that tapped away and just about then I realized we should be videotaping it.  Oh well.  I taped the next bit on test anxiety and mental block.  And then the aunt's Bell's Palsy!  I'd never tapped on that before.  We tapped on the physical symptoms and then on her various feelings about having it...I had to supply suggestions here, as she's a very good Catholic and the only appropriate feeling, apparently, is faith in God.

Well, when we got to shame we hit the jackpot.  She's had this for 30 years and said she was afraid her son and daughter wouldn't like her because of the way she looks (?!).  At least I think that's what she said.  So we tapped on the shame and hopefully took care of some of it.

It's hard to get an honest answer from these folks, about whether the tapping is working.  They put a strong priority on being polite and agreeable.  Makes it a bit harder to assess.  I told her she should keep tapping on the problem and she agreed.  Alana said that's one good thing here: if you tell them to do something, they'll carry through.  It's that long tradition of Catholic obedience to authority, and that means me, at least this time!

The girl April was very grateful and thanked me profusely, so I said if she'd like to pay me back she should teach at least one other person to tap.  She said she would and I believe her!

In a few hours I get to teach some groups of kids.  I don't know exactly what I'll do, but they are wonderful kids and I'm sure inspiration will come.  Another brilliant inspiration was to have some of the girls address all the postcards!

I'm sending postcards from Dumaguete City to all the people who helped sponsor my trip here.  It's a nice big stack of cards.  Only trouble is, my handwriting is really bad these days.  Three girls helped out and did a fantastic job (although one person's address was "opted out of getting a postcard, Santa Rosa, CA"  I gave each girl a 20 peso bill (I don't think they were expecting to be paid anything) and they were really amazed and pleased (in an anguish of embarrassment kind of way).   20 pesos is about fifty cents, by the way.  I love these kids.