Movin' on Out

I guess in one way or another we were evicted from the little house on the beach. The place with black sand, swaying coconut trees, and various farm animals is in the past. The living arrangement we had was always a little precarious and I guess it came tumbling down about a month ago. We came back from a trip and there were four more people living on the property and we felt it was a sign to move on. We made the decision to move into town for the sake of convenience and cost. We found a place easily with the help of one of Rebeka's teachers; it is a four room townhouse about a ten minute walk from all that our town has to offer. The transition has gone smoothly besides the shock of our new environment. Instead of having the faint sound of crashing waves, we have the immediate sound of motorcycles and instead of being surrounded by green, we are surrounded by people. I guess we might have been a little spoiled in the other place, maybe it didn't give us an accurate picture of living here or at least it provided a more refreshing picture. Things at our new place aren't awful by any means but it will just take some time to adjust. One of the most discerning things is a kid that lives next to us that seems to spend most of his day crying. He is about four or five years old and seems to have screaming fits regularly throughout the day. The main showing is usually at 6:30 pm and lasts for an hour. The most stressful thing is we have no way to remedy the problem. The other kids on the compound have a different hobby which is to play peeping tom with us. We'll be sitting around not doing anything interesting and then notice two, four, six or more little eyes peering in at us through the window. It's always a little startling when you look up and see you have an audience looking back at you. However my favorite neighborhood activity is the true inspiration for this entry. The other day I heard a group of dogs fighting outside the house and after listening to it for ten minutes decided to see what was going on and there it was: an informal neighborhood dog fighting show. The first thing I noticed was that there were seven dogs all attacking one dog and then my eyes wondered to the peripheral of the fight to see every person in the neighborhood watching the fight. There was the grandfather with his granddaughter on his lap watching from their porch, the teenage boys standing in the street for a better view, and our neighbors watching from behind our fence. The dogs started to get bored with the fight and then a little kid out of nowhere started hitting the dogs with sticks and his sidekick was throwing rocks at them. This instigated another round of fighting among the dogs and laughter from the crowd. I decided at that moment that I had seen enough of the day's featured event and went back to reading my book with the lovely sound of barking and snarling in the background. Ah, home, sweet, home.

Just Another Day at School

The best part of working at a school is the unpredictability of any given day. Despite the monotony of our schedule, Period 1 English II-C, Period 2 English II-A, etc., and the routine of the school year, life at school is anything but bland. This past Thursday is a perfect example.
It was actually an exam day, which means all of the students are stuck inside the classroom for hour after hour of tests while the teachers sit in the front of the room monitoring 50 pairs of potentially wandering eyes.
I chose to abstain from monitoring duties and hence spent my day sitting with the teachers who are on their overseeing "break." The morning was passing slowly, until one of the teachers pulled a second year student of mine out of class to perform an important and pressing duty: replace the rope on the flagpole. I did not understand the sudden urgency of this task, because the rope had been broken for a few weeks at this point, but I guess then was the time for the repair. I didn't see the ladder lying around and I tried to ask my co-teacher where it was, but before I could I saw Jayson shimmying up the pole. I couldn't believe it. Granted I have seen kids climb a number of thin vertical objects, such as palm trees, but never one that was quiet this tall. Furthermore it was held together with tape1/2 way up where it had apparently broken at some point!? When Jayson reached the top I watched the pole sway around in a slow circular motion as he put the rope through the small circle at the top. He hesitated as it made an extra far dip and then slid down like he climbs 30 foot poles everyday.
As if the day did not already have its fill of adventures, someone casually mentioned at recess time that the president was coming to our town at 2 that afternoon for a funeral -That explained all of the police officers and military personnel who had been in town that morning. I had all sorts of questions: how was she coming? what for? would she be hanging around? No one seemed that interested in discussing it and I let it go (everyone was much more excited to talk about the party we would be having next week for the teacher who was leaving).
At 2:15 (right on time Filipino style) three choppers interrupted the quiet of our test taking campus and flew over our heads to land in the field right next to the school. It was the President of the Philippines within a few hundred meters of our schol and hardly anyone moved. I grabbed a co-teacher and went running over to the edge of the school property to watch the choppers and a long line of black SUVs. So we didn't really see the President (she got off on the other side of the helicopter) but we were still very close.

At the end of the day I was sitting with the teachers and someone mentioned the choppers and all the cars. A couple of people mumbled a few comments. Someone else mentioned the party we'd be having for Ma'am Gina (the teacher who is leaving) and everyone had something to say.

the infamous taped flag pole