Kids

The students that I see here live in very different circumstances than the students I teach in Chicago. Loujessa lives in a house near a small river. When it rains, garbage comes rushing past and the first floor must be cleaned out. Queenie told me she has 11 books. Most of them are bibles. That is actually more books than most households I have seen. She tells me that she used to have a television, but now it is just a radio. If you take a shower here, you take a large ladle and dump water (tubig) over yourself. It comes from a large blue barrel. In the humid weather, it is actually much nicer and refreshing than the showers we have. And the last thing you would want here is a warm shower. Some houses use gas canisters to power the stove, but in the more remote areas it can be charcoal or in places like Bontoc it can be wood fires. Clar and Jun Jun have beautiful tile floors, but in most places the floors are grey concrete, and in some homes the floors are hard packed dirt. Most houses have tin roofs and grey cinder block construction, but the pajag in Bontoc is bamboo with a nipa roof. This is much cooler!

The mirrors here are way tooooooooooooooo low. I guess they weren't expecting me, and the doors are often too low. Mary Joyce's family lives in the tiniest house I have ever seen, and I have to sit down when I am there, but in some houses you can see the roof. I actually prefer that because there is much more air and more of a chance for heat to rise. Many houses have fans, but only one I have been in had a room with air conditioning (called air con here).

I should mention that the American Johnny and his Filipino wife and kids have a house that is really a mansion with a swimming pool. He told me that his house costs $170,000. Money goes much much farther here.

Queenie could not believe that I did not have a maid, cook, and driver in America. I told her that the only people I knew who would have help like this were the really rich, and I certainly was not one of them. I have seen quite a few middle class Filipinos who have all of the above. While I have been here, I have had all these tasks done for me. I am sure my wife will bring me back to reality but telling me to start washing the dishes again.

Hannah's mother and relatives work at extracting metal from discarded trash. When I was there, a young man was hammering on some plastic to remove the copper wire in it. Noeme and Loujessa told me that they started helping their mothers make mats when they were in grade one. People who have refrigerators can use them to make ice in plastic bags or make ice candy from coconut juice (buko juice). Wow, is it good. Noeme and Loujessa, who have beautiful singing voices, say they sometimes sing while workingl, but Kathy implied she was faster because she focused more.

I have taken the students to a mall, a McDonalds, and on a trip on the elevated train. Although all of these things are readily available in Manila, the students told me it was the first time for them to have ever been there. Many actually have used computers, but this is because they took advantage of the many, many internet cafes. Internet cafes are cheap for me--about 15 to 20 pesos for an hour (roughly 30 to 40 cents), but for someone who makes rugs, this is over an hours worth of work. Most internet cafes seem to be used for gaming (boys) and chatting (girls). Research for school sometimes happens, but it often means printing out an article rather than writing from it.

In the provinces and in college students often go to school from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. but in the crowded parts of Manila students are usually going from 6 to 12 or 12 to 6. Hannah tells me her class is really noisy, but if you have five noisy infractions you will get a slap on the palm with a hard ruler. All the students wear uniforms.

I guess I have just been rambling. In spite of all these differences, it takes a while for me to realize that these kids are any different than the ones I teach in America. Well, they are probably more polite ha ha, but it takes a while to understand how different poverty can make their life experiences. They just seem like kids. Nice ones.