Steven: Wednesday June 6th and Thursday June 7th

Weds:

I wonder how the kids know to get up at the ridiculous hour of 4:30 AM, maybe it’s the roosters crowing. Once they get up however, sleep is no longer an option for me so I arise as well. Lately I've been getting up and getting a few sprints up the mountain in, then taking a nice cold shower. It's a good way to start the day, although by 10 AM you feel like half the day is over.

Dropped in on some more classes. Most of the kids can understand English very well, it’s speaking it that’s another matter. I was amazed to learn that in the grade V/VI class the youngest kid was 13, and their ages went up to 19. It’s disheartening to see such a lack of fundamental education in the populace, it’s no wonder the country is so poor.

I did find out that while the make-up of the school is basically a pyramid structure, meaning a lot of kids in the lower grades and fewer in the higher grades, most of the graduates do end up going to high school. Yet even with high school and even college educations well-paying jobs are extremely rare around here. The people behind the cash registers at malls are often college educated people!

Thurs:

Slept in a little later than usual this morning, maybe I’m getting used to the morning sounds. Spent about an hour gathering the necessary materials to do laundry (scrubbing soap, plastic bin, working faucet). It’s amazing how simple takes can become such a chore out here when you have limited resources. I also had trouble finding a shower with running water.
Trevor and I took a brief trip around the island to deliver school supplies to other schools. I was surprised how ‘well-kept’ they were, with tended gardens and very clean rooms. Wherever we went kids stopped what they were doing to wave at us, I’m sure the teachers were quite pleased. All of the principals were also very surprised to have foreign visitors.
I’ve become very accustomed to receiving a few very common greetings here, ‘Hello, friend’, and ‘Good morning Sir’. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard those phrases.

We had a pretty nice storm last night that cooled things off significantly, the room actually felt pleasant. Of course there was a drawback since the entire school is situated upon a reddish, clay-like soil. As such the entire place is turned into a mudslide. I don’t know how the Filipinos can keep the massive amounts of mud off their rubber sandals and keep from slipping all over the place, but they do.