Hannah

In addition to seeing my former students each night and going over their work, I taught for two days in Valenzuela. This is an area where a garbage dump once existed, and many scavengers surrounded the dump making a living. When the site was closed, many of the families remained. The kids here are children of parents who continue to eke out a living here.

When I enter the church where I will be doing the tutoring, a boy named Arthur says to the children assembled there, "Bless" and thirty kids in turn come up and take my hand and raise it to their foreheads. There is a feeding program two days a week when the kids come get lunch, and while we are waiting for the food to come, I juggle with the kids and play songs on my flute. Among the young kids there are two students who tower over the rest. When I start tutoring later, I learn their names are Hannah and Jenilyn.

Our first lesson is about fractions which they are studying in school. I show them how they can time their speeds in running across the room in hundredths of a second, and they have a good time seeing how their times compare. Later we measure our heights in centimeters and feet and inches. The two girls who were so tall are four feet ten inches. Jenilyn is 12 and Hannah is 10. Jenilyn's brother Jason is ten and he is four feet two inches tall. These three stay have the lesson is over and I teach them how to juggle then I ask if they will help me learn Tagalog. We end up talking about what their school is like and what America is like. Because they are neighbors (kapit bahay), I give them the five tennis balls so that they can continue practicing. They need to share them.

Later I tutor several high school students and we do activities that relate to physics. It is lots of fun, and they are wonderfully attentive. Unlike the younger kids, they can understand most of what I say in English. For the younger kids I need Flor to help me translate except for Hannah. The older kids too help me with Tagalog, and we exchange funny stories. I tell them how amazed I am that so many people here use skin whitener since Americans work so hard trying to get sun tans so they will look the color of Filipiinos. We all laugh.

Hannah has been listening in with the high school students and as I am leaving she puts a note in my pocket.

On the way home, I remember it;

Here is part of it:

Thanks for being a good teacher....
When its raining I feel happy because I remember you.
When it is raining I am happy because raining is my favorite day. I like to walk in the rain or to stay home and write a poem. This poem is my first poem I do.

Shy
There's a little shy in my heart
There's a little shy in my feelings
But I have no shy
When I am talking with someone
That's my friend like you.