day in the life:5-8

I am not a morning person.

All those social graces don’t exist before 8:00. However, I’m not one of those not a morning person people that can sleep the morning away. But, before coming here I was totally a roll out of bed and head out the door person. Not here though. Here I’ve got a nice slow leisurely morning with a crazy thing called down time.

The alarm goes off at 5:01 (hey, ain’t that quirky?) but usually I am more or less awake and being serenaded by minions of roosters. I lay there composing myself enough to get up and say good morning as I shuffle to the bathroom. Then I troop back upstairs get dressed for a run and head back down to shove my shoes on. Then I go go go, by the time I get back I’m in a much better mood. Let’s here it for endorphins! I go upstairs get out of the sweatys, grab my towel and head back down. I brush my teeth and turn the hot water on on the water cooler to make tea later, grab my pot of hot water and head to the bathroom. Yes, my Auntie boils water for me. At first I felt super guilty and like a bad volunteer for taking a semi-warm bucket bath. Then I figured out my Auntie always boils her water for her baths. My site mate has hot showers. Other volunteers boil their water.

After my shower I still have an hour and half before school. This is when I drink my tea  (recently I’ve been rocking some tea sent to me from Boston!) and eat my mango (my favorite part of the day, for sure).  This is when I blog, or write emails, or journal, or do a crossword the whole time while having a bit of a dance party. Around 7:45 I get dressed for school and head out the door at 7:55 to walk down the street to start my day, always showing up right on time for class.

day in the life: 8-10

Being that I’ve been here just about a year (whoa) I figure I’ve finally got an idea of what a typical day is like here.

So first, my morning at school. I show up to school right around 8. My first class is Grade 5 Sped English. Ma’am Hazel starts the day with spelling. She does the spelling, mostly because, as an educator I’m not yet sure how I feel about spelling lists. I’m sure there is a way to do them right, and I’m sure that that way is not giving Grade 6 pupils bourgeois, cadaver, cachet, cachou, cabriolet, caddie, calaboose, callus, camaraderie, and canthus on a spelling list, even if English is their first language. But I’m in the Peace Corps and have to pick my battles, and this is not one of them. Besides, the kids really like spelling. They are perfectionists and super competitive, both of these things are easily fed with spelling lists. Then she will give a pronunciation drill that we all go over together. Usually I’m informed I’m pronouncing all the words wrong, or that I may be right but in the Philippines they say it differently. I wish I could think of a really good example. Then Ma’am will review a topic and introduce a new topic. Filipinos know grammar rules, and they know about crazy grammar things I never ever heard of. So I learn a lot at this point. Then I’ll get up and do three activities with them applying these grammar rules. I usually end up combining the three, which I figure is fine as long as I cover the goals. One activity that is teacher focused, one that is material focused, and one that is student/group focused. I love this. Every once in a while it is on the topic that I actually prepared, but usually I get thrown under the bus topic wise. I’m starting to be ok with this. Then after my turn Ma’am Hazel gets back up and gives the students a quiz and an assignment. This class is supposed to be 100 minutes. Which is a long time for one class. However, my class is not 100 minutes. In a very untypical Filipino fashion it is two solid hours!

I love when the recess bell rings and it is time to eat, because at this point I’m exhausted.

*Note: On Tuesdays the students have catechism class from 8-9. 

day in the life: 10-3

I only have one class in the morning, the rest of the morning I spend doing school focused work.

But first we recess. Ma’am Hazel always buys my meryenda. At first I offered like crazy to buy it, or buy my own. She buys meryenda. I’m finally getting over the guilt, and try really hard to like some of the choices she makes. Usually we have hot cakes (which are like thick crepes, with butter and sugar), ice candy (think popsicle in a plastic bag, no stick), and banana-que. It use to be we had turon also, which is a personal favorite, but this year they have not made it a lot. Sometimes she’ll buy pansit. Which is awkward. Pansit is one of my favorite foods, but I really don’t like my schools’ pansit. They put the nasty pink hot dogs in it, and teeny-tiny shrimp still in the shell with the super long antennae still attached. Not my favorite at all, but she knows I like pansit. Sometimes we eat in the classroom, which I like, we discuss what it was like for her to grow up in Mindanao or we discuss lesson topics for the week.  Sometimes we eat in the canteen, which I also like, we get to sit with the other teachers and just talk away.

After recess I go talk to Ma’am Vivian for a bit and do some library stuff or go home to work on some lesson things. If I really have no idea what to do for the lesson I’ll go to the where the Internet is and do some research.

Then I go home and eat lunch. Nothing fancy, usually tuna fish and crackers or a fried PB and J or oatmeal. Depending on the day and how hot it is I’ll take a quick nap or read and hope for an afternoon shower to come.

If the shower does come I go to school around 2:30, if not I’ll go back to school between 1:00 and 2:30. I never know when Ma’am will come back from lunch or what she will be working on. We discuss lesson topics and usually I learn that that lesson I worked on during break will not be taught that day (or probably ever) and instead we’ll probably teach Grade 6 something that is very similar to what we taught Grade 5. I’ll buy us sodas if it is super hot. We wait for the teacher to come tell us it is our turn around 2:35 and we talk with her for about half an hour (our class starts at 2:40).

Then I put out the hint to go to class by going to class, subtle I know.

day in the life: 3-6

Sometimes I tend to dread the afternoon part of the day.

Last year I struggled with my Grade 5 class. They were wild and naughty classroom management is kind of not very much a thing here. This year I struggle with my Grade 6 class. See the correlation?  I think my teacher struggles with them also. They are definition naughty.

I go to class and get set up in the back and wait for Ma’am Hazel to come. Then we do much of the same drill as for our other class. Ma’am doing the discussion usually, but not always, and me doing some more activities. However, this class has some added fun. Ma’am does a lot of yelling at them. They wander all over the classroom. I’m always asking them to be quiet, look at me, listen, just fun stuff like that. Sometimes I get to explain to them the proper way to treat other human beings. So far I’ve explained we don’t make broad generalizations. We don’t write sentences whose object is to make someone feel bad. We don’t make fun of the guy from the deaf institute who comes asking for money. We don’t make fun of kids for not being able to breath after we’ve driven them to tears. So many things we don’t do it. After I yell at them, Ma’am gets up and yells at them. She does her part in Filipino, but she talks about church a lot. Score Catholic guilt.

Individually they are benign, but together can be a disaster.

After class I sometimes have a meeting with my library club. After this I go shopping. If it is a Monday or Thursday I stop and get some mangoes and fresh veggies. Our market days are Tuesday and Friday. I find them to be very overwhelming, so I go the night before when they are setting up. Then I’ll go to my usuals for garlic, onion, potatoes, and stuff like that as well as a piece of pineapple. Then home again home again. I drop my stuff off and then go attempt to chitchat with my Auntie.

By now it is getting dark and my afternoon is over.

day in the life: 6-9

Evenings here to tend to slowly fly by.

After getting home from school and sitting or not too long it is time to make dinner. Which is interesting. The kitchen has one light bulb, so I’m always fighting my own shadow. The stove has 2 burners, which is fine because I only have 1 pot and 1 pan. I make a lot of one-pan meals.

When my Auntie cooked for me she would never eat with me. I don’t know why. So now that I cook I still eat alone. After eating I’ll clean up and head to my room for the night. Usually it is pushing 7 so all I do is make sure things are set for the next day, maybe listen to a podcast or two, and read. Then lights go out fairly early (sometimes helped along by a brown out).

I’m usually in bed by 9. I’ll save you a blog for this time of day. I sleep. The roosters crow.

bathroom news, which means a random post

July 31, 2011
If I was the kind of person who relished in TMI and was a fiber freak (reader, you know who you are) I could probably do a bathroom post everyday. Luckily for you, I'm not so you just get them now and again. I've now got running water in the bathroom. Note: running water and shower are not the same thing. I'm not sure what sparked the change, but the electric pump is set up (Get it? Spark, electric?) So, if I have power, I can turn on the faucet, to fill the bucket, to flush the toilet. We've got running water in the kitchen also. This completely revolutionizes brushing my teeth and washing my face (yes, I do these both in the kitchen, bathroom doesn't have a sink) Moving on up people!
We've had typhoons moving on up through the Philippines, which for me means rain all night. Which means it waits to get super hot. Which means I don't have to wake up so early to run (on the weekends that is, when I don't have places and times to be). Which means when I get back from the run people are up and about. Which means kids our out playing games with their tsinellas. Which means I run the risk of getting hit with foot wear. Read: Which means I got hit with a flying flip flop. Which means I got the cutest apology ever. No complaints.
A quick complaint. On my phone I don't have a plan. I buy a load card and then just spend away until i need more load. It costs me a peso to send a text, but luckily they have promos. For 60 pesos I can buy unlimited texts for five days. Which is a great deal and let's me text with reckless abandon. However the system to sign up for promos never works. I shouldn't have to pay for texts when they wont let me sign up for promos. You're wasting my load Smart!
And now for something completely random. My Auntie has a niece from Las Vegas coming for lunch. She doesn't know when, just that she will come. Could be today, could be next friday. Would that drive any one else nuts? Or is that just a me thing? We've got a super clean house because of it though.

all about the food

July 18, 2011

This past weekend we had big plans and they all revolved around food. The plans kind of all fell through, but the food was still there.

Recently in the mall a new kiosk opened with siomai and C and I went. We also finally tried the waffle kiosk. It was just recently we learned that hotdog wasn’t the only flavor.

spicy garlic, soy sauce, fresh kalamansi-win

We also took the idea of cucumber salad and turned it into an awesome meal. It has fresh cucumber, shallots, vinegar, rice, salt and pepper, and a Peace Corps splurge of olive oil. That was when we thought it was going to be picnic food. The picnic never happened so we upped the anti for dinner by adding Chooks Chicken-to-go, kalamansi, mango, and hot peppers. Amazing!

before the mango and chicken-win

Another something for the picnic was cookies. C has made them several times, but the stars have never aligned for me to eat them… until now. I had her add peanut butter and then was going to feel awful if they didn’t turn out. But they did and were amazing.

and a win for the toaster oven
I always liked food, and have always been able to eat my fair share, but I never knew just how food centric a person's thoughts could be. Probably 60 percent of my texting conversations are about food.

Such is life in the Peace Corps.