I have returned to Chicago. From the time I left Manila to the time I touched down in Chicago was 25 hours. I have never been able to sleep for more than a few minutes on a plane, and the flight over the Pacific was a little bumpy so I am quite tired. I did get an e-mail from Gloria Niez in Bontoc saying that a comment that I put in by an American named Johnny was causing a stir among some of her friends in education.
Johnny is an American who came to the Philippines thirty years ago as a member of the Peace Corps. He got married to a Filipina and has lived in the Philippines for thirty years. He has two teenage daughters who have gone to school in the Philippines and in the United States. He spends time in the Philippines and in the US as does the rest of his family.
The comment that he made to me was that he was having his daughters finish their high school in the US because he thought that schools in the Philippines relied too much on memorization rather than critical thinking. I should mention that his daughters went to school in Tagbilaran in Bohol.
I should state that this was HIS OPINION. I have visited classrooms and talked with students in Bontoc and Dalaguete in the past three years, and I have tutored students in Payatas, but I have not done any observations of class instructions and certainly can not make such a blanket statement. However, people in the general public do make blanket statements, and they do have impacts. People in America are convinced that Asian students are way above Americans in math skills. My friend James Kang who was born in Korea can tell you how he has lived with this stereotype. He will be the first to tell you that he was not one of these way above average Asians. Another instance of opinion was that of one of my co-teacher Bill Singerman's acquaintances who was from the Philippines. He was indignant that I could actually have taught English in the Philippines. All Filipinos he said knew English, and why would anyone have to teach them the language? OPINIONS DO HAVE IMPACTS.
Do Filipino schools stress memorization as opposed to critical thinking? There is no way to answer this question because schools differ. However, these opinions do matter. Johnny made decisions because of his opinions. Teachers differ widely in the way they teach. Bontoc National High School has an English teacher, Joseph Anavesa, whose classroom I visited this year and last year. One of the activities he had students do was analyze a song from the Disney movie Pocohantas. I thought it was a wonderful lesson. It combined the love for songs that I saw in the Philippines with the opportunity to think about what was being said in the song. It was definitely an assignment that involved critical thinking. Mrs. Caday's classes in food preparation gave plenty of opportunities to combine these assignments with chemistry. Pastor Lando Ceniza who lives in Payatas and grew up in Bontoc, is always experimenting with agriculture in his work and Payatas, and he remembers how his classes in Bontoc integrated chemistry and biology with farming and fisheries.
So can I go back and tell Johnny that he is wrong about the schools in the Philippines? Well, he is wrong to assume that all schools are stressing memorization over critical thinking. The example that he gave me to justify his opinion was that his daughters who were quite fluent in English and had spent a good deal of time in New York had done poorly on an English test which required them to identify the meanings of 150 jargon phrases. This assignment could easily become an example of sheer memorization I admit. But there are assignments like this in US classes too.
Every parent makes decisions for their children, and Johnny and his wife made a decision for their two girls. The decision on what school to send your children to should involve researching the school and the teachers.
As a teacher, I must say, however, that my decisions would be influenced by some other factors too.
Class size, I am convinced, does make a difference in how teaching goes on.
I regularly see in frontof me twelve to eighteen students at a time. I think my lessons would be quite different if I saw forty to fifty students at a time.
Class size in the Philippines is considerably larger those I am used to.
Class days in the provinces seemed much longer, but in Payatas they were much shorter.
Inday regularly leaves for school around 7:30 each day and finishes after 4. So she has at least an hour more of school each day than my students do.
I do think that longer school days do help teaching instruction. (My students will probably kill me if they see this in print!!)
In Payatas, students would tell me about going to school from 6 a.m. to noon while others would go from noon to 6 p.m.
In spite of what I just said, I went to a high school where we had classes from 7 to noon, and I think I benefited because I read close to three books a week with the extra time.
Access to books, the internet, and multi-media does impact teaching, and the schools in the Philippines really could benefit from more of these.
Bontoc has a high school where students can do hands on projects in agriculture. This is something that I think is a great asset, and I saw a number of kids in other schools working on gardens. Very few American schools have something similar.
Kids in the provinces have much more freedom than American kids in big cities. American kids are much more likely to be confined to classrooms
or their homes than kids in the provinces of the Philippines. My opinion is that American kids can really miss a lot because of this. Television becomes a baby sitter.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Despidida
Despidida
In two hours I will be on my way to the airport for my flight back to Chicago. There is a lot I have left to report about--the program with Grace Buado for funding college student's tuition, the Mission Ministeries Philippines and their programs of community building, and my meeting with Admiral Ernesto Levanza from the Philippine Coast Guard and Jerry Simon who is the CEO of a shipping company here. They are working on a project of building a school in Zambales.
These are all things I want to talk about at length with my friends in America. For right now, I will tell about a party that was arranged for me last night. The students called it a Despidida party. It means that I am leaving so I was supposed to cook but Ate Glo and Flor's cousins did that. I just bought the spaghetti and mangos. haha
In addition to Flor, Lando and Josie and their daughters Rapha and Gwyneth, there were nine kids that I first met tutoring three years ago. Jennelyn is a great singer as is her closest friend Myca. I have been able to help them with college expenses. Myca gave me a necklace that has Zeus written on it in case I forget who I am. She tutors many younger kids now, and she is a born leader. Loujesa is a great leader too. She has a great sense of humor often directed at herself with the added "Joke Lang" which means just kidding. She is in first year college studying community organizing. Julie Anne teaches preschoolers in the morning and then goes to college in the afternoon studying information technology. Clifford is a great guitarist who is in a band with Myca and Jennelyn. Shirley Ann is another first year college student who stunningly beautiful as opposed to just beautiful. Noeme and Kathy are still in high school. Noeme towers over everyone since she is five foot six inches tall I think. She wants to be a stewardess, and I am sure she would be a great one. Kathy is quiet. She told me she was scared of me when she first saw me because I was so tall. Ha ha and looked like Santa Claus, but she is now a great friend. Karen is tiny and so smart. She will be going back to school in October and wants to be a teacher. She came with me yesterday when I met with the admiral, and I introduced her as my bodyguard. She is soooooooooo cute!!! Rapha is much younger--in sixth grade. She is just a wonderfully friendly girl and a great leader among her friends.
There are two things that I think are remarkable about these students. They all will tell you that they are poor. In many cases, their parents make two dollars a day on a good day.
And I expect all of them to finish college.
There is a sense of community in this group which is absolutely amazing. They all performed at a seventh year celebration for their church on Sunday, and they are all talented. They have all been working since they were very young.
After we had finished eating, each in turn said thanks to me for coming. They were embarrassed that their English was not good enough, and I knew that my Tagalog was so much poorer. This is a group of students I will never forget.
Danny, I played the song Bulak for them. They loved it.
I have to go.
In two hours I will be on my way to the airport for my flight back to Chicago. There is a lot I have left to report about--the program with Grace Buado for funding college student's tuition, the Mission Ministeries Philippines and their programs of community building, and my meeting with Admiral Ernesto Levanza from the Philippine Coast Guard and Jerry Simon who is the CEO of a shipping company here. They are working on a project of building a school in Zambales.
These are all things I want to talk about at length with my friends in America. For right now, I will tell about a party that was arranged for me last night. The students called it a Despidida party. It means that I am leaving so I was supposed to cook but Ate Glo and Flor's cousins did that. I just bought the spaghetti and mangos. haha
In addition to Flor, Lando and Josie and their daughters Rapha and Gwyneth, there were nine kids that I first met tutoring three years ago. Jennelyn is a great singer as is her closest friend Myca. I have been able to help them with college expenses. Myca gave me a necklace that has Zeus written on it in case I forget who I am. She tutors many younger kids now, and she is a born leader. Loujesa is a great leader too. She has a great sense of humor often directed at herself with the added "Joke Lang" which means just kidding. She is in first year college studying community organizing. Julie Anne teaches preschoolers in the morning and then goes to college in the afternoon studying information technology. Clifford is a great guitarist who is in a band with Myca and Jennelyn. Shirley Ann is another first year college student who stunningly beautiful as opposed to just beautiful. Noeme and Kathy are still in high school. Noeme towers over everyone since she is five foot six inches tall I think. She wants to be a stewardess, and I am sure she would be a great one. Kathy is quiet. She told me she was scared of me when she first saw me because I was so tall. Ha ha and looked like Santa Claus, but she is now a great friend. Karen is tiny and so smart. She will be going back to school in October and wants to be a teacher. She came with me yesterday when I met with the admiral, and I introduced her as my bodyguard. She is soooooooooo cute!!! Rapha is much younger--in sixth grade. She is just a wonderfully friendly girl and a great leader among her friends.
There are two things that I think are remarkable about these students. They all will tell you that they are poor. In many cases, their parents make two dollars a day on a good day.
And I expect all of them to finish college.
There is a sense of community in this group which is absolutely amazing. They all performed at a seventh year celebration for their church on Sunday, and they are all talented. They have all been working since they were very young.
After we had finished eating, each in turn said thanks to me for coming. They were embarrassed that their English was not good enough, and I knew that my Tagalog was so much poorer. This is a group of students I will never forget.
Danny, I played the song Bulak for them. They loved it.
I have to go.
Friday, August 21, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
Manila
Manila is a big city and where I am spending my time in the poorest areas of the city. It has many poor areas. There are eleven to twelve million people in the metro Manila area, and I have seen estimates that between one third and forty percent of the people are squatters living in temporary shacks. I have been running about half an hour each day, but I decide to limit myself to a couple hundred pushups each day because the air quality is so bad. Payatas is a great place to develop asthma.
But the kids I teach here are wonderful. Several of the kids I have tutored in the past are now great friends. They come in the evening to go over math and science, and we just have a great time talking. Myca, Queenie, Noeme, Loujessa, Kathy, and Jenn are going to be very successful. They have come from very poor homes, but they have learned how to be responsible in ways Americans kids could hardly imagine. One evening they show how their parents make a living weaving place mats from cloth that has been discarded at the land fill. I discover how hard the work is trying to cut the fabric and weaving it together. Noeme and Lou jessa started in Grade One doing this work, and they fly through the work.
Although I can't imagine completing a matt in one day, they tell me that some mothers have competition to see how fast they can complete a matt. Half an hour is like a record time.. With hard work a person can complete ten mats in a day. But this makes only one hundred pesos which is about two dollars.
With two dollars a day as an income, the twenty five pesos used in transportation costs by jeepney are huge expenses. And costs of paper and uniforms makes high school expenses prohibitive for many who are poor. The students I see have learned how to economize, and school for them is an opportunity they take seriously.
For students in college a semester's tuition is only about one hundred and fifteen dollars, but this is an enormous cost for a kid from Payatas or Valenzuela. I have begun working with people from Mission Ministries Phillippines on a scholarship program where a student's tuition is paid if they tutor younger students. I will describe this more in a later blog.
But the kids I teach here are wonderful. Several of the kids I have tutored in the past are now great friends. They come in the evening to go over math and science, and we just have a great time talking. Myca, Queenie, Noeme, Loujessa, Kathy, and Jenn are going to be very successful. They have come from very poor homes, but they have learned how to be responsible in ways Americans kids could hardly imagine. One evening they show how their parents make a living weaving place mats from cloth that has been discarded at the land fill. I discover how hard the work is trying to cut the fabric and weaving it together. Noeme and Lou jessa started in Grade One doing this work, and they fly through the work.
Although I can't imagine completing a matt in one day, they tell me that some mothers have competition to see how fast they can complete a matt. Half an hour is like a record time.. With hard work a person can complete ten mats in a day. But this makes only one hundred pesos which is about two dollars.
With two dollars a day as an income, the twenty five pesos used in transportation costs by jeepney are huge expenses. And costs of paper and uniforms makes high school expenses prohibitive for many who are poor. The students I see have learned how to economize, and school for them is an opportunity they take seriously.
For students in college a semester's tuition is only about one hundred and fifteen dollars, but this is an enormous cost for a kid from Payatas or Valenzuela. I have begun working with people from Mission Ministries Phillippines on a scholarship program where a student's tuition is paid if they tutor younger students. I will describe this more in a later blog.
Leaving Bohol
The rest of the world may have a recession, but Bohol seems to be booming. There are many tourists here, and several years ago I wondered if ecotourism would really be successful here. Well, it has been.
The island is beautiful with the Chocolate Hills, the tarsier, the Luboc River, caves, waterfalls, and the white sand beaches. The Calope family is great fun, and the area where they live is beautiful. I stay with Clar and her husband Jun Jun. Jun Jun is a seaman, and this is the first time I have met him. He has been all over the world, and although he gets to be home for only a short time each year, he seems to be an old friend. Every running with all of Sterling's nieces and nephews. They call me Lolo Zeus, and we take turns racing up a hill along with several of the dogs that live nearby. By the end of thirty minutes I am soaking wet with the humidity (called Egang here).
Our big expedition is to the dagat (ocean), and I rent a jeepney so all the kids can come along. The beach is wonderful with beautiful white sand, and I spend my time pulling the nieces and nephews through the waves (bawad I think is the word). Between the time I am in the water getting a sunburn, I practice juggling five balls and accompanying a blind singer. We play my favorite song Anak which I have been practicing at the karaoke places in Bontoc. It is fun juggling for people here, and I have taught many kids and adults how to. But the most fun is making up juggling games. I also practice seeing if I can play the music that goes with the ice cream vendor. Ha ha.
Sterling has a four month old son who has an American passport, but she is still trying to get an American visa to visit her husband in Massachusetts. Before I leave we meet an American who has been living here for thirty years since he was in the Peace Corps. He tells everyone that Bohol is paradise, but admits he has to go back to New York City every year to make money. Johnny tells me that his two girls are about two grade levels ahead of American kids in math and science, but he believes that the Philippine education focuses too much on memorizing rather than problem solving and critical thinking. But he loves the way his girls have been socialized here. He thinks the Philippines is a much harder place for boys to grow up. I have, in fact, noticed that the high school students I teach are more often girls, and boys are much more often sitting in the back rows.
I leave Bohol feeling sad to have to leave. The airport seems lonely without the many Calopes. I remember Sterling's mother saying to me two years ago about her family, "Always smiling, always happy."
In the waiting room there is a trio of three blind singers with guitars. At first I am not expecting much, but the first song is good, and some of us start clapping. Before long the lead singer has gotten our attention and more of us make our way to the donation box. It is announced that the plane will be late, but I don't mind because now people are singing along with the trio. I have noticed how much Filipinos like melodies, and when the singers start with American Pie, there is music filling the room both from the trio and the people crammed in the waiting room singing along. When the plane finally arrives, I am wishing it would have taken longer.
The island is beautiful with the Chocolate Hills, the tarsier, the Luboc River, caves, waterfalls, and the white sand beaches. The Calope family is great fun, and the area where they live is beautiful. I stay with Clar and her husband Jun Jun. Jun Jun is a seaman, and this is the first time I have met him. He has been all over the world, and although he gets to be home for only a short time each year, he seems to be an old friend. Every running with all of Sterling's nieces and nephews. They call me Lolo Zeus, and we take turns racing up a hill along with several of the dogs that live nearby. By the end of thirty minutes I am soaking wet with the humidity (called Egang here).
Our big expedition is to the dagat (ocean), and I rent a jeepney so all the kids can come along. The beach is wonderful with beautiful white sand, and I spend my time pulling the nieces and nephews through the waves (bawad I think is the word). Between the time I am in the water getting a sunburn, I practice juggling five balls and accompanying a blind singer. We play my favorite song Anak which I have been practicing at the karaoke places in Bontoc. It is fun juggling for people here, and I have taught many kids and adults how to. But the most fun is making up juggling games. I also practice seeing if I can play the music that goes with the ice cream vendor. Ha ha.
Sterling has a four month old son who has an American passport, but she is still trying to get an American visa to visit her husband in Massachusetts. Before I leave we meet an American who has been living here for thirty years since he was in the Peace Corps. He tells everyone that Bohol is paradise, but admits he has to go back to New York City every year to make money. Johnny tells me that his two girls are about two grade levels ahead of American kids in math and science, but he believes that the Philippine education focuses too much on memorizing rather than problem solving and critical thinking. But he loves the way his girls have been socialized here. He thinks the Philippines is a much harder place for boys to grow up. I have, in fact, noticed that the high school students I teach are more often girls, and boys are much more often sitting in the back rows.
I leave Bohol feeling sad to have to leave. The airport seems lonely without the many Calopes. I remember Sterling's mother saying to me two years ago about her family, "Always smiling, always happy."
In the waiting room there is a trio of three blind singers with guitars. At first I am not expecting much, but the first song is good, and some of us start clapping. Before long the lead singer has gotten our attention and more of us make our way to the donation box. It is announced that the plane will be late, but I don't mind because now people are singing along with the trio. I have noticed how much Filipinos like melodies, and when the singers start with American Pie, there is music filling the room both from the trio and the people crammed in the waiting room singing along. When the plane finally arrives, I am wishing it would have taken longer.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Bohol
I have really gotten to like the provinces and small towns much better than the big cities, and my visit to Dalaguete was a nice one. Dalaguete is the home of Ester Hana and her brother Danny Buenconsejo, and their Dalaguete Music Foundation has added to Dalaguete's reputation as a town that develops musicians. My trip this year was short, but I got to meet with Ma'am Judith who is one of the leaders of the organization and then with Danny and Ester's sisters, Edna and Sister Milagros who is a nun. I was glad to see Edna, and it was my first time to meet Mila. She was really great to talk to. She told me about how part of her training to become a nun had involved living in Tondo which was the garbage dump much like Payatas is today. She really reminded me of Ester.
The next day I got on the fast craft for the boat ride to Bohol. This was the fourth time I have been to Bohol, and it is a real gem of a place. I am noticing more and more foreign tourists here, and I am seeing more and more evidence of the people of Bohol developing ecotourism.
I am staying with the Calope family here. Sterling Russell, formerly Sterling Calope, has so many wonderful relatives including nieces and nephews who call me Lolo Zeus. One of the first things I do when I get to Balilihan is go for a thirty minute run with about ten of them. They range from preschoolers to BJ who is in fifth grade, and I have a wonderful hill that takes nearly a minute to race to the top of. I take turns racing the kids, and they form relays so no one has to run all ten times up the hill but this elderly man from America. haha
I have difficulty carrying on many conversations in Cebuano but I realize when I am talking with Sterling's sisters, Clar and Lot Lot, that I have picked up many words along the way. Clar's husband is a seamen, and he is between trips. This is my first time to meet him, and he tells me what it is like traveling on a large ship, then he shows me a video of the ship in the middle of a big storm. Tomorrow I am taking all the kids to the ocean, the dagat in Cebuano, where the beaches are white and the water is turquoise. I am looking forward to it! And all of them are too.
By the way, I have added to my collection of exotic foods. Last year I had adidas which are chicken feet, and this year in Bontoc I watched Eking eat something that tasted like pretzels. Actually, I teased him that we were eating worms, and then he informed me that they were chicken intestines. Well, they had seemed delicious, Lami, before he told me, and I am sure with lots of beer I couild have consumed more, but I am not a beer drinker. haha
The next day I got on the fast craft for the boat ride to Bohol. This was the fourth time I have been to Bohol, and it is a real gem of a place. I am noticing more and more foreign tourists here, and I am seeing more and more evidence of the people of Bohol developing ecotourism.
I am staying with the Calope family here. Sterling Russell, formerly Sterling Calope, has so many wonderful relatives including nieces and nephews who call me Lolo Zeus. One of the first things I do when I get to Balilihan is go for a thirty minute run with about ten of them. They range from preschoolers to BJ who is in fifth grade, and I have a wonderful hill that takes nearly a minute to race to the top of. I take turns racing the kids, and they form relays so no one has to run all ten times up the hill but this elderly man from America. haha
I have difficulty carrying on many conversations in Cebuano but I realize when I am talking with Sterling's sisters, Clar and Lot Lot, that I have picked up many words along the way. Clar's husband is a seamen, and he is between trips. This is my first time to meet him, and he tells me what it is like traveling on a large ship, then he shows me a video of the ship in the middle of a big storm. Tomorrow I am taking all the kids to the ocean, the dagat in Cebuano, where the beaches are white and the water is turquoise. I am looking forward to it! And all of them are too.
By the way, I have added to my collection of exotic foods. Last year I had adidas which are chicken feet, and this year in Bontoc I watched Eking eat something that tasted like pretzels. Actually, I teased him that we were eating worms, and then he informed me that they were chicken intestines. Well, they had seemed delicious, Lami, before he told me, and I am sure with lots of beer I couild have consumed more, but I am not a beer drinker. haha
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