the time the vice president came to town

July 15, 2011

This has been a strange week:

My teacher pulled an ear of steamed sweet corn out of her purse for meryenda. It was so tasty.

The desk I was sitting in fell over.

The Vice President came to town. That’s right. The Vice President. Of the Philippines. Came to town. My town. And they didn’t even cancel school, what’s up with that?

On Wednesday I got a text from D saying that her host family said that the Vice President was coming tomorrow at 10:00. To Alangalang? That is what they say. So of course we texted everyone looking for details. Supervisors, friends, volunteers (like they would know more about my site than I would), no one really knew any details, but he was coming. Or at least was invited to come. I'd noticed earlier they had been scrubbing the municipal hall and setting up tents.
On Thursday the motorcade came through as I was getting ready for school. Sure thing, he was coming. However, when I got to school nobody knew a thing about it. Then about 9:00 teachers started running around in a panic, not talking to me, shouting to kids. This could only mean one thing, they found out. They had all the students make flags to wave to Binay.

In true Filipino fashion, the flags had to be perfect.
After making the flags we marched on to the municipal hall only to discover they high schoolers had dibs on the good views. So we just hung out in the shade. Deb and I snuck to the front, because of my height all I could really see was umbrellas.

No one knew why he came, to be honest I still don't think they know. I know while here he was named an official son of Leyte and Alangalang. Yes, we have that authority. It started with a long prayer, as it always does. Then a lady yelled something into the mic that was set to too loud a volume already. Then the mayor got up and did what he does best, yell into the mic. Then the vice-mayor had her turn at yelling in the mic. She shouted out all the minutes for the meeting in which it was decided that they would name him a son of Alangalang. Then the Vice President spoke (not shouted) in Tagalog for about 20 minutes. And like that it was over.

Luckily I have long arms and could get a good picture.

My view was only slightly better than my students'.