Steven: Sunday June 3rd, 2007

*Note: We plan on starting a photojournal site to hold all of our photos we've been taking. We've found that this blog site is not the best forum for handling all of the pictures. We'll let you know when we get that up and running. Thanks.


After approximately two weeks here in the Philippines we’ve finally arrived at the Mapa School. To get to the school we hiked up the mountain for about 15 minutes off the main road. As I’m typing this there are groups of kids outside my window hanging around and listening to music until their 9:30 curfew. The music here is mainly the same pop music you'd hear in America, with an occasional Filipino tune for good measure. The accommodations here are about what I had anticipated, more on that later. It’s quite warm in my room; I’m in a constant sweat as there is virtually no breeze. Staff members are not permitted to have any fans, not sure how I feel about that but that's the way it is. My roommate is named Jade and he seems like a really cool guy, I mean with a name like that how can you not be? He reminds me of Jet Li, and he definitely has the appearance of an athlete. He teaches English at the lower grade levels (I and II) and is from Cebu. His English is pretty good, certainly better than my Visayan.

The scenery up here is nothing short of picturesque. I stopped several times to stare at the sea from up here, I’m almost certain pictures won’t do it justice. The classroom building and sleeping quarters are made in the typical local fashion, which is with coconut and ‘nepa’ wood being the essential components. Bathroom facilities are simple concrete structures with buckets for toilets, although the staff room does have a flushable toilet. The staff room also has a satellite TV; people here seem really interested in the NBA finals. All the water is sterilized by setting filled wine jugs out in the sun, the UV rays should kill most of the bacteria. The students also contribute to the food supply with their farming, but with over 100 people it’s only a small fraction. In actuality most of the food is brought up from the market. I was happy to learn there are cashew trees here at the school, and since I love cashews this was music to my ears. Yet you still have to roast them, unfortunately you can’t just pick them off the trees and eat them. Mango trees are also pretty abundant. Rice is hugely popular here, it’s a staple of every meal. Since I’m not the biggest fan of rice this is something that I will have to adjust to.

Actual classes will start this Tuesday and Trevor and I will mainly be helping out at first. It’s unclear how our roles will evolve but it seems that the staff here is willing to give us a lot of freedom in what we do. Speaking of which it’s amazing how young the staff is, everyone is in their 20’s or 30’s. According to Tom the turnover is typically a couple of years. Well I think I’m going to sign off now. My stuff should arrive tomorrow and then I can finally get a change of clothes and grab a shower. I’m going to try sleeping without a mosquito net tonight, I just don’t want to make it any hotter than it already is. We’ll see how it goes.