See Spot Run

My host family’s dog, Spot, follows me everywhere. He follows me to school, and sits in the classroom waiting for me to go home. He tries to follow me to the city, running behind the tricycle until he can go no longer keep up. And the other day I rode my bicycle into town and he ran alongside- for 12 km! I’m not sure why I kindle such devotion and loyalty from him. He’s become a joke around my barangay and everyone now knows him. Students at school have finally learned to ignore him, as he site on the floor near my desk.

Occasionally, Spot wanders over to one of my host siblings’ classes and they both get slightly embarrassed when he comes in. My six-year-old host brother, who’s in the first grade, was downright mortified that Spot intruded upon his class.

I’ve tried locking him in the house when we go to school, but he always manages to find a way out and he comes bounding down the street after us.

Right now, at school, three classrooms, mine included are under repair. So, my class, the kindergarten, and grade four are all sharing one big classroom in an abandoned building at out school. It’s distracting. Three classes in one room- so much noise! My counterpart and I have been giving our classes mostly reading assignments to help keep the noise level down. Although, almost all of the students read out loud and not silently to themselves as they should. That’s going to be a skill for us to work on.

My school principal really wants a remedial reading program, which our school really does need, so I’ve been working, by myself, on it. It’s a massive undertaking. About half of every class needs additional instruction in reading, that’s about 200 students. There’s no way I can possibly do that all by myself. We also have zero books for them to read. And it’s not really that sustainable if I do all the work myself- what happens when I leave? Unfortunately, the principal is difficult to speak with because she’s not usually at school- I think she does work at the division office in San Jose.

Rainy season has started (the Philippines has two seasons- dry and wet). It rains almost every afternoon, and some mornings. It’s also typhoon season. My province doesn’t typically get the full force of the typhoon, but we usually get rain bands and wind. I miss sunshine, but I do like that it’s not sweltering hot, less sweating for me. And the thunder of rain on the tin roof at night is soothing, it drowns out the family’s TV, the kittens’ screeching, the roosters, the dogs, and innumerable other sounds that typically awake me.

Summer Pictures

All camp photo- with wacky faces.

Alex, my counterpart, and another fellow teacher.

Campers at camp. After learning about keeping the environment clean, they decided to clean the fish pond so the fish would have oxygen and clean water.

Cute neighbors. The girl always says: "Hello, ma'am Sarah. Good afternoon," when i walk by, regardless of the time of day. Adorable.

PCVs who helped at camp.

Third graders at camp.

Pretending to be an octopus at camp.

Apparently I made this face a lot while teaching at NOMET.

Mimi, and one of her kittens. So cute.

My awesome color-coded schedule for camp.

campers dancing!

Torrential downpour during a typhoon. Kept us from going home after camp finished.

Mindi and I in Sipalay.

Sunset in Sipalay.

Kesa and I walking down the non-crowded beach in Sipalay.

Awesome hut that we slept in on our vacation.

Enjoying the hammock in Sipalay.

Summer Time

The rest of the world is gearing up for summer; school has ended or is finishing up, days are getting longer, the weather is warming up. Here, however, is different. Summer is over. Rainy season has arrived, driving away hot dusty days. The rice paddies are being plowed by carabaos. And school is back in session.

It’s crazy that summer has already come and gone. At a mere seven weeks it felt rather short. Despite its short length, however, I managed to squeeze a number of activities in- in fact, I hardly had a break.

Graduation, on April 7, signaled go and was the beginning of my marathon summer. Just after graduation, I went to manila for a week. Thus far in my service, it’s been my only trip to the capital. I didn’t get to see much, other than a huge discrepancy between rich and poor, because I was there for the meeting of the PC Philippines Grants Committee.

After a week in Manila, I flew back down to my island and on my way back to site I stopped at the Mango festival on Guimaras island. The sweetest, tastiest mangoes in the Philippines are grown on Guimaras and every year they commemorate their claim to fame with a festival devoted to the delicious fruit. Unfortunately I didn’t get to enjoy any of these mangoes at the festival as there was a shortage. But I did get to hang out with a bunch of PCVs, so it was worth it.

After the mango festival it was Holy Week. I escaped the crowds by traveling to Sipalay for some beach time with two other PCVs. It was very relaxing! We could actually swim in our bathing suits and didn’t need to wear shorts and a t-shirt. There was hardly anyone there, so we enjoyed a nearly empty and very beautiful beach. The place we stayed at is owned by a German man, and everything on the menu was deliciously Western. I ate at least four BLTs.

I went straight from my short vacation to a teacher training seminar held by a PCV near my site. After facilitating sessions on teaching writing, I rushed back to site to hold my own teacher training seminar for the teachers from my district. The training was successful, and it was fun to meet teachers from other schools in the area.

After one day off it was time for IST/PDM (In-Service Training/ Project Design and Management), another PC training. My counterpart was also invited and we learned about project planning and even started planning a project for our school. It wasn’t all work- there was a very memorable night of videoke!

I returned to site with three other PCVs, just in time for my barangay fiesta (it’s festival/fiesta season around here). We danced in the plaza, aka a small basketball court, and ate lunch at several different houses. There was just enough time to prepare for summer camp, which started the following day.

Camp was so much fun! It was day camp for 100 students from grades 3-6. Campers came from all over the nearby area, so we had campers from a bunch of different schools. There was a lot of fun and screaming, all things the kids don’t normally get to enjoy. In the morning we had life skills oriented sessions, and in the afternoon campers could select a given track for the whole week. Most campers went to dance, art, sports or photography. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, including the 8 PCVs who helped out. I’m already excited for next year!

I had one day to recover and then I was off again for a two week teacher training extravaganza. I helped out, along with twenty-six other PCVs at the Negros Occidental Mobile Education Training (NOMET). I facilitated a session on differentiation and multiple intelligences. We traveled to four different schools and gave a two-day teacher training to approximentely 500 teachers at each school. It was an exhausting two weeks, but was fun to hang out with volunteers I don’t get to see very often, as well as work with teachers excited about becoming better teachers.

And that brings me to my last week of summer break. I spent all of last week taking a rest. I read, watched movies, hung out with my host family. I even squeezed in a little laundry. And now school has started. This year I am teaching grades five and six, as well as handling English Club for grades 3-6. I’m excited school as started again! I’m looking forward to learning more about my students, Filipino culture, and working on some fun projects.