beware the wild things, they'll melt your heart.

I've mentioned before how this school year a remedial reading program was going to be added to my tasks. It started in July and it has been one struggle of an adventure.
First, the room. I'm in a huge conference hall maybe the size of a small gym. I have one long table. No desks. No chairs. One small chalk board that was brought in later. Two of those round florescent bulbs, and windows for lighting this big space. And two ceiling fans, which I could do a whole blog post on which fans are best. Hint, not ceiling fans. So, not the most conductive to learning environment.
Second, how education outside of the elite class of the school works. It's ignoring the kids making a mess in the CR. Its ignoring the kids not in your class coming in and running around. It's ignoring your own kids running in and out of the classroom. It's ignoring the kids going to the window and yelling across to their classmates in their rooms. It's ignoring the kids trying to throw their tsinellas onto the spinning ceiling fan. It's ignoring the kids hiding in the curtains on the stage. It's ignoring the millions of kids looking in the windows at the class. It's ignoring everything you learned in any educational psychology, classroom behavior, management class you took for all those semesters in college. I'm not quite there yet. The best part is when I tell other teachers, they really don't care.
Third, the pupils. The rotten, naughty, energetic pupils. I love them so hard. they are 8 and 9 year olds. I love their age group. Any and all attempts to figure out what their reading level's are got stuck in the fan with their paper airplanes. So we just do the best we can. They love taking notes, they love reciting, and love me. It's not as vain as it sounds, these kids are all about me. They wait for me at the gate to the school. Class goes until 3:00 because I have Grade 6. They know this, and yet everyday we barter. Teacher can we have class until 5? No, 3 la. 4? I have class at 3. Pout. They come to class when their teacher cancels their class. Yesterday morning I was with grade 5 when one of my students came peering through the window. His teacher cancelled class so he came to hang out with me. He sat for awhile outside, then told me when he was leaving. My grade 5 students wrote papers on their friends and thy kept using the compliment 'small but terrible', I love it. These rem readers are small but terrible and I love it. I'll try to post weekly anecdotes on them.
And really, who cares if they learn anything beyond all the lyrics to Down By the Bay? I'm leaving soon. Joke! But this approach does seem to be most successful here.

pardon the absence

So I realize I've not posted anything in what feels like forever. I'm working on it.
This whole time here I've felt like I've been busy but not really done a lot. A very common Peace Corps feeling I think. However, this last month or so I've felt busy busy. Which is why I've not been the best at updates, but also why I really need to update.
So, heads up, blogs to come!

watering hole

Across the street from my house is a pump that gets a lot of use. I'm not sure if it's more public than other pumps or the water tastes better, but it's busy.
This evening these girls were filling up buckets to take home. They came over and talked to me about school. Eight of them lined up and giggling. Eight of them sisters. Eight, and the oldest is in grade 4. Sounds like the makings for a musical.
I'm going on a major limb of assumption but I doubt their mother is that much older than me, 26 and no kids.
When I came back from getting my camera there were only the five, but still five is a lot of sisters.

back to the polyester

School started this week and I am so pumped about it.
This is the beginning of the end. Once school gets into the flow I'm pretty sure my months here will fly.
English is now only 80 minutes. I love this. One hundred minutes was a beast for everyone involved.
I've been given a bigger space for the library. I love this. The other space would have been fine, but I feel like they are extra pumped about it this year.
We've got huge plans for fundraising.
Starting in July I'll be helping with a reading program for slow and non-readers. I kind of forced myself into this, and I'm stoked.
Lots of good vibes going on and lessons haven't even started yet, and that's my favorite part.

brass monkey, chunky, that funky monkey

More photos of the evil monkeys.
They probably wanted to give us Ebola.

that time we were attacked by monkeys

As kind of the last hurrah for summer I went and visited L in Baybay (pronounced bye bye). Baybay is on my same island, about 2 hours away, but is quite different than Alangalang. They have a bit of a different weather pattern than we do here, but similar enough. They also speak a different language, and really no one knows Waray.
Another big difference is tuba consumption. Here they drink it because the sun was or was not out today. There they need a special occasion. It was fiesta so we stopped at her neighbors and they had some that was extra Coked down and insisted on us drinking. They thought it was a big deal, and now love that L is a tuba drinker. They also acknowledged for us in the northern part it was no big deal. While we sat there drinking there was a bunch of young twenty-somethings who just stared at us too shy to even try to talk to us in English.
We didn't just party and get stared at, we used Saturday to raise our endorphin levels. She'd heard of wild monkeys near her, so we wanted to see. They. Were. Scary.
When we first saw them we were all alone and it was obvious by the way they hissed at us they didn't like us. Then Filipinos came through and the monkeys had no problems. We walked on towards the top of the mountain and there were monkeys on the trial. They hissed and showed us their scary flesh shredding teeth. We managed to go through and get to the top where the zip line was.
Poor L. She's afraid of heights, but was more afraid of going back through the monkeys. We got strapped into the harness an flew down to the bottom. It was amazing, and thy view was spectacular: mountains, forests, ocean.
A great day. A great weekend.

my security detail

Every month I have to call in my higher ups and give a report on what i'm doing, how school is going, the like. Just a way to talk things out with my regional manager.
Another key part of monthly calls in is to make sure everything is going smoothly. This includes making sure my phone works and I have service, making sure I have a way to travel in and out of site. And the key one to this rigmarole safety and security.
Thanks to my mini PNP I've always been able to answer-nope, no safety and security concerns.