Typhoon season is supposedly coming to an end. I’ll be glad to have hot sunny days back. It was nice for a few weeks that the rain kept the heat down, but after three months of gloomy days, I can’t wait for continuous sunshine. All the sunshine will certainly make laundry much better. Because of all the rain recently my clothes have been taking a long time to time. My host family has an area to hang up clothes over the pigsty (luckily we don’t have any pigs), so they are kept dry from the rain. However, because they don’t get any sun, it can take a week for them to dry. And by the time they are dry, they sometimes have a not so delightful mildew smell; I wear them anyway. I’ve been trying to re-wear clothes as much as possible to cut down on the amount of laundry I need to do, but this too presents a problem. The clothes I don’t wear are left in my dresser to fester. Everything in my room is damp, so the clothes left in my dresser become moldy. So in the end I need to wash the clothes in my dresser as well. Either I was my clothes and they’re mildewy or I don’t and they’re moldy. Which is worse?
The last few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time working on the remedial reading program, or trying to at least. We’ve decided to call it a reading enhancement program so that the students that will be enrolled won’t feel so stigmatized. It’s a slow going process. It looks like the students, between 5-7 from each class, will have at least two sessions during the regular English class hour, and then additional tutoring after school. I’ll be teaching the hours during the school day, and most of the teachers volunteered to help with tutoring after school (yeah!). I think we’re going to try and start a peer-mentoring program as well. Hopefully we will be able to start holding classes beginning mid-September.
I’ve also been working on fixing up the library. There are a few organizations in the US that donate books to libraries and schools overseas. My counterpart and I have contacted a couple and have already received confirmation of a few shipments of books! The school is excited; hopefully the books will be able to fit our needs.
I’m also going to start having biweekly seminars for the teachers at my school, and maybe even a few from the neighboring high school. Earlier this week the teachers completed a needs assessment survey about what type of trainings they are interested in, and specifically what topics they would like covered. Every single teacher was interested in a seminar about remedial reading and general reading comprehension strategies. When I got their surveys back I was elated that they all felt that way. It’s always awesome to recognize a need, but then to have the community recognize the same need!
From all the above paragraphs it sounds like I’m really busy- I’m not. I have a lot of free time. I’ve been reading a lot of books, luckily my mom has been sending a lot, and I have a bunch that I borrowed from the Peace Corps office when I was there in July. I’ve also been spending a lot of time with the four kittens. They are adorable, and take up a lot of my attention. My host family needs to give them away before I become too attached to them!
I don’t spend a lot of time seeing other PCVs. Occasionally I have lunch or a dinner with a couple who live near me. But most weekends I spend my time at my house, playing with the kids. It’s so different from Kyrgyzstan. There I spent a lot of time with other volunteers. Every weekend we would all hang out, plus lunch on an almost daily basis. Some days I miss having that camaraderie, but other days I love that I spend so much time with my awesome host family!
Earlier this month, my host mother’s and counterpart’s mother died. The last month has been filled with traditional Filipino death observances. First there was the wake, across the street at my counterpart’s house, in the week leading up to the burial. Every night I trooped across the street and sat while families from all over the neighborhood came and prayed and sang.
The night after the funeral, all the kids rubbed used motor oil on their skin to they would blend in with the darkness of night so that the ghost would pass them by. It turned into a bit of a slap fight as all the kids ran around trying to rub oil on everyone. The next night, many of the older women from the community returned and after saying the rosary, they played games. One game involved everyone sitting in a circle holding hands, with one person standing in the middle. While they sang a song, they moved their hands rhythmically and tried to pass a stone around the circle without breaking their hands. The person in the center would try and guess where the stone was. If the stone made it all the way around the circle without being found, then the circle won. If, however, the person in the middle found the stone then the person who was holding it as the time had to say a joke. It was fascinating to watch. The funeral was over two weeks ago, and still every night we congregate at my counterpart’s house to hold vigil and say the rosary (I mostly watch, and eat the snacks after).
Last week I celebrated the one year anniversary of my arrival in the Philippines! There wasn’t really much celebrating, but the event prompted me to reflect on not only my last year in the Philippines, but also my last three years as a volunteer. I still can’t believe that I’ve been doing this for three years, it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. But I’m happy to say that knowing what I know now, if I went back to three years ago, I would still make the decision to be a volunteer.
