Steven: June 12th and June 13th

As I write this the kids are at their nightly study hall being supervised by one of the teachers. For them it's the equivalent of having caring parents who would sit down at the dinner table and go over their lessons with them. I really think this place is doing a lot of good things for people that otherwise would be entirely neglected. Without this school these kids would probably never get a basic education and live their lives at the bottom of Filipino society. All of them are from poor families, you can tell by the fact that they all wear the same, dirty clothes every day. When I compare their lives at this stage to mine I can’t imagine living like this, no mom to wake you up for school in the morning and cook pancakes for you, no watching cartoons with Dad on a Saturday morning before hitting the baseball field, no weekend trips to the movies with friends. Instead it’s farm, clean, cook, go to class, study, sleep on the floor, obey the rules. Would I be tough enough for it? I know they have to learn to look out for themselves but sometimes I wonder if this is the best way for a child to grow up. Although they have no alternative, it’s this or back to their families who have enough problems of their own and certainly won’t be an impetus for success in the child’s life. Also, Tom and Diane are smart enough to know the society these kids live in, and to give them an artificially comfortable environment would do them more harm than good in the long run. Life is tough and it's a lesson these kids must face early on in order to overcome their poverty.

I went by the cold springs today and I swear everyone there stopped what they were doing and just stared at me. I mean this pretty much happens everywhere I go but I just wanted to get a swim in and wasn't in the mood for any extra attention. Additionally, people here frequently call out to me to come inside and have a drink. So let's see, here we have a naïve American traipsing into some random hut to have a drink with complete strangers who speak no English. Probably not the best idea, so I politely turn them down.

In other news Trevor and I, along with some teachers, have started daily table tennis matches. Trevor right now is undefeated, although his dominance will not last. It's amazing how much we sweat when we play. I never thought of the game as exercise but when I'm soaked after a couple of games I seriously rethink my earlier conclusion.

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Well another hot and busy day here in Camiguin Province. I woke up bright and early at 5 AM and even attempted to sleep in but my bug friends had other plans. A nice big spider decided to crawl up on my leg, I quickly dispatched it before it managed to get a bite in. After that I was wide-awake. I then sprinted up the hill a few times, got an ice cold shower in, and had a breakfast of rice and hard-boiled eggs. I taught two math classes today, one for grade VI and the other for grade IV. I’m astounded at the repetition of topics, so far it's been the same things for grades IV, V, and VI. The teacher I substituted for in grade IV told me to teach the kids about rounding decimals. I’m pretty sure no one in the class had a clue to what a decimal even was, so that was interesting. The call me “Sir Steve’ for some reason, which makes me a little uncomfortable. I mean if I was a medieval knight it would be cool but otherwise it seems out of place. Also, I find the Filipino names difficult to remember. They are often very similar to English but with a twist. For example Milfred is Wilfred, Omar is Jomar, John is John Binky, etc. Hopefully the students don’t find me too incompetent with their names, I’ll learn them eventually. Another thing I've noticed is that with non-native speakers teaching the students I often spot a lot of errors in the lesson which means the kids are sometimes learning the wrong things. While it’s not overly critical and often involves things like pronunciation errors, it is something I feel could be improved upon.

Tonight the power went out here at the school for a brief period of time. While we were waiting for the generator to kick in I stumbled over one of the staff room cats. I apologized and hoped the cat didn't take it personally. After dinner I checked up on the newborn kitten to see how she was doing, a very cute site indeed. Trevor and I were planning on watching some 'Andromeda' on TV since we saw a pretty good episode last week. However, there were kids in there watching news in Tagalog so we decided to abort those plans. Instead we hung out in the staff room with one of the deaf teachers and were taught some more signs. It seems such a daunting task to really become fluent in American Sign Language. I’m having trouble keeping what little I know now straight in my head. I do enjoy learning it though, and our teachers are very patient with us.

Now I am about to turn the lights off and go to sleep. I just saw my nightly lizard visitor climbing across the ceiling. We're headed back to our host's house tomorrow afternoon to meet a doctor coming in Friday morning, should be interesting. I'll be sure to let you all know how that goes.