By Casey Aelbers & Rachel Cloutier

The Philippines is a place where one can walk off a busy street in Manila and end up in an alleyway full of hundreds of small family owned and operated stores that sell just about anything you could ever want or need. 

Being a group of tradeswomen who embarked on a Delegation in Quezon City to teach basic carpentry and plumbing skills, unable to bring much for material from our former countries, we were faced with the overwhelmingly and exciting task of collecting everything we would need to host a trade skills learning week upon arrival in Quezon City. 

The first adventure to the markets were experienced by a small group of our delegation who were fortunate to meet a local guy named Nicko. His family owns a small store front along the street in Raon Shopping Centre. The shopping centre is huge! On the first street that the jeepney drops you off, you will find a row of electronic and stereo repair stops. Loose wires, cables and speakers hanging off ceilings on in display in every angle. As you make your way down the street, the shops appear to be selling more items used for electrical construction, like wire strippers, conduit benders, and a variety of hand tools. Eventually you end up at a fork and there is Nickos’ families stand. Smiley young 28 year old filipino guy with blonde frosted hair and looking eager to help a bunch of lost looking foreigners. 

On our return to the Raon Shopping Centre, Lori, Cassy, Rachel and myself (Casey) find ourselves lost on this street, bargaining for speeds quares, 1/4 inch drill bits, and on the hunt for wood screws. Lori who has already been to Raon Street knows the way. She recognizes the shop that offered the first group a terrible price on some C- clamps, and so we carry on. We finally find a young guy, not Nicko, but at the same time very eager to help us! We show him some pictures off our phones of the items we are looking for. He starts pulling drill bits out of corners of his store, brings us box cutting knife blades and philips heads driver bits. When we tell him we need a couple speed squares, he takes one look at the picture on my phone, says he will be right back and takes off into the abyss of crowds, cats and vendors. After around 10 minutes he comes running back, panting and out of breath, carrying two brand new speed squares in a plastic bag. Clearly he has gone above and beyond for us, bargained for them with another local vendor to resell them to us at a different price. Perfect! We take what we can find and get going. 

Out of pure luck, Lori spots Nicko’s stall, and we run over and ask his family if Nicko is around. Same spot, same blonde hair and big glasses. He remembers her instantly when he arrives and insists on taking us to Screw Street. 

A few long alley ways, past a couple cats and rats along the way, and a lot of attention on Nicko from all the locals as he leads four foreign women through the back streets to screw street, we finally make it!  Unfortunately we quickly learn that this street closes from 12:30 to 1:30 for families to enjoy lunch. We almost turn around and head back, but not before an older gentleman waves us over from down the street and tells us that his stomach is rumbling but he will fulfill our order of 600 finishing nails, 160 bolts, washers and 300 wood screws. We hand him over the cash and get out of there. 

We hop in a taxi, fight the Quezon City traffic back to the training centre, and get back just in time for our own lunch, which has been sitting on the counter for an hour but still tastes pretty good!