Little Dreams

Little Dreams set up at Cali, one of the past All Hands Philippines sites

Little Dreams is a program that All Hands Philippines puts on every Tuesday and Thursday where we show a family-friendly movie at either an active site or a site that was completed in the past. We get back from our normal work day, take showers, then head out to the site with a laptop, projector, screen, and speakers. When we get to the site, we walk through the area telling all of the children that we will be playing a movie, which normally prompts the local children and their parents to rush to our makeshift cinema.

Although the children don’t completely understand English, most of the movies are relatively easy to understand even without any audio. At the very least, we can definitely tell that the kids are enjoying the movie by the flood of laughter that erupts whenever they witness a funny moment. It’s in moments like these that we can sit back and appreciate what is happening.

These are children in areas with minimal access to electricity, internet, and most of the modern comforts we experience in the States, yet they are some of the happiest and lighthearted people I’ve ever met. Coming from a place where people complain about life on a daily basis, we can certainly learn to find joy in the smaller victories, seeing the good in situations rather than just the bad. Happiness is subjective, and it’s all in how you look at a situation. Sometimes an impromptu outdoor cinema is exactly all that’s needed to spread joy and happiness through a community.

Something amazing happened last week at Camansihay, the school site where we are building a classroom. This past Tuesday, we were scheduled to host Little Dreams at the basketball court just outside of the school, so the number one priority on site that day was to make sure the court was clean by the end of the day.

Let me set the scene for you. The site is on a hill – the basketball court is right at the entrance to the school near the top of the hill. From the basketball court, you would go through a gate and walk down the hill a bit to get to the school. There are a few buildings already functioning there, but if you walk even further down the hill through the school grounds, you eventually reach the site where we are building the new classroom.

So the big event for the day was that we were getting two truckloads of gravel delivered on the day of Little Dreams, and the only place where the trucks could unload was at the basketball court. So for the entire day, we had our eyes locked on the court, ready to put all hands on deck to transfer the two truckloads of gravel from the court down to our site in order to keep the court clear for the movie to be shown later that night.

The first load came in after lunch, and we worked together to get most of the gravel down to the classroom site quickly, but by the time the second truck dumped gravel on the court, a lot of us were tired, sluggish, and one of us even fell dehydrated and ill. Still, we worked and we worked, bagging gravel and then carrying bags while others used our wheelbarrows to wheel more gravel down the muddy hill to our classroom site.

By about 3:00 in the afternoon, it became apparent that we were not going to be able to move all of the gravel ourselves, clean our tools, and leave the site to go back to base at 4:00 (We needed to do this in order to shower, pack up, and leave base again at 5:30 to get to the court in time to set up for Little Dreams). Still, we worked harder and harder, fully knowing we would not be able to clear the court in time with our available resources.

I remember the next moments quite clearly. I had just carried a bag of gravel down the hill and through the mud to our gravel pile by the classroom, and I was dragging myself back up the hill to get another bag when a shirtless man ran by me with two bags stacked on his shoulder. As I neared our gravel pile, I heard more voices, and I was shocked to see about ten of the local Filipino workers from a completely different construction site helping bag and carry gravel down the hill. They must have heard about Little Dreams and decided to leave their job site to clear out the court for the movie that night. The feeling of walking up that hill, hearing voices, and seeing so many locals helping us out with our gravel pile was just so overwhelmingly wonderful.

Little Dreams is so much more than just a movie on a given night – it’s bringing something special and magical to children who otherwise might not be able to experience a night watching a film. Those local construction workers understood its impact on the community, and they spent their own time helping us bring this wonderful treat to the neighborhood. It brings light and laughter to those who truly appreciate it, and that’s always worth putting in the extra effort.