All of the kids who could make it there went to the house of our family on Northern Cebu Island, and all of those kids left with candy. That was never the intent back in October when we launched that candy on its way from the U.S., but sometimes outcomes seem to get made for us.
One interesting aspect of Philippine social structure is that "family support remittances" are encouraged to be made "in kind", and not only as cash. Each of the millions of expatriate filipinos, spread far and wide across the planet as opportunity permits or circumstance dictates, can ship large boxes (24"x18"x24" commonly) back home with, really, very few limitations. No contraband, and no commercial quantites/intent. "Balikbayan Boxes" are a very nice thing to do for family. But at $130 each for shipping and any conceivable amount for contents we're really much more hit or miss on the goody packages than we would like to be. But suffice it to say that three of them had filled gradually over time, with all manner of odds and ends, and were sufficicently in the way that we finally cut back on some other support things and our local service provider started them on their journey around the first part of October. About the time that giant bags of cheap Halloween candy started hitting the shelves. So we topped off with twenty, thirty pounds or so, taped everything up tight, and sent them off to the ship.
It was our intent, based on the normal expectation, that ETA would be in that general first part of November. And of course we would have planned otherwise if we had had any way of knowing a month before that the time window we were targeting would have put our three boxes, candy and all, on a perfect collison course with the largest ocean born storm to make a landfall in modern history. At the time we were not happy to be notified by our chosen freight forwarder that the U.S. side of that sort of thing had randomly chosen our personal freight to be channeled through further inspection processes. Engendering delay!
My, my, my, what a difference a couple of weeks can make. Instead of all involved suffering anxiety and heartburn, the golden load, the sweet paradise graced and blessed more young tongues and tummys than ever was imagined to be the case. Of course we called as soon as possible and asked that that particular bounty be as widely shared as possible. And as we imagined, and more than a little expected, we were told that the kids were beginning to arrive in ever larger numbers even as we spoke.
So now I don't know why none of the "food aid packages" that I've read about include candy. Such a simple gesture, and one that I'm gratefully now able to understand the importance of.