Sunday, July 22, 2007

We only have a few minutes right now

Things are in full gear right now. There are so many different things going on this week it's making my head spin. We are going to the community school four times this week to implement environmental education activities with the different grades. Steve and the other CRM volunteers designed fun games and activities for the kids to teach them that everything in nature is connected. Most of the activities are related to the cleanliness of the oceans and how this affects the well being of the fish and marine life. Living here has certainly opened my eyes to the interconnectedness of our actions and the environment we live in.
At the end of this week we have our final language exam. We will be meeting with certified language testers who will speak with us in Tagolog and monitor our comprehension and speaking abilities.
In a week we will be heading to training with our counterparts and from there we will travel to our permanent site to begin our "real" jobs.
We continue to have language classes in the morning from 8 -12 and Steve has his technical training T, TH and S. Last weekend he went to a turtle sanctuary and eco-tourism center. The center is managed by a coastal community who used to use to eat the turtle eggs and sell them at the local market. Sometimes they would collect up to 40 eggs a day. Now they move any nests that are in potentially hazardous locations, assist any injured turtles, and supervise the annual hatching of the turtles. Steve was really impressed with the program and the dedication of the staff.
I travel to a nearby high school M-F and co-teach two first year high school classes. My first class is composed of the 50 highest ranking students in the school, and my second is composed of the 30 - 50 lowest ranking students. Most first year high school students are 12, so they are more comparable to American middle schoolers. I really enjoy spending time with the kids and I have learned a lot about teaching and things that work well (and things that don't work at all). I will be sad to leave these students next week, but i am excited to get to our permanent site and meet the students I will work with for the next couple of years.
Pineapples are in season, and our host family buys us fresh pineapple almost every day - you can get them at the market for as little as 20 pesos, less than $.50! This is also the season for santols, a round fruit with tart coating on the seeds that you can chew; they are good and some are stronger than any WarHead or Sour Patch Kid I have ever tried.

Friday, July 6, 2007

We finally know

The last couple of weeks have been kind of a blur. When we first arrived in the Philippines time seemed to stand still but now it is the complete opposite. On June 22nd I left Bataan and went to Zambales which is about a four hour drive north for Marine Protected Area training. I spent three days there and then met Rebeka in Tarlac which is about a five hour drive from Zambales. We spent three days in Tarlac with our supervisors and then traveled to our permanent site which is in Batangas province. We spent three days there and then went back to Tarlac for two days and then traveled back to Bataan. It's been an intense couple of weeks. Our site has black and white sand beaches with large mountains in the distance. There are an unbelievable number of coconut trees there. It is much more rural than where we are now. The town proper has a Spanish era church, a dunkin donuts, and a couple of parks. It is one of the cleaner places I've seen here but there is still trash along the beaches and rivers. Our camera ran out of power so we won't have pictures of it until August. Rebeka will work at a National High school which has almost 400 kids and is only 3 years old. I'm going to be working on solid waste issues, ecotourism, and protecting marine areas. There is more than enough work there so we are going to be busy for the next two years. When we went for our site visit we stayed in a small fishing village. It was located in a coconut tree grove right on the beach. The beach is lined with small boats and the village has a unique feeling to it. Our host family lives about 200 meters from the ocean in a small concrete house. On our second night there I broke their ceiling fan when I stood up. It wasn't as awkward as you might imagine, they all laughed and then our host pulled the rest of it off the ceiling. During our site visit we met the Mayor, Vice Mayor, a district congressman, about 10 resort owners, and numerous other people. So if any of you have a chance come visit us.