I'll start with Tuesday since that is where I left off in last weeks blog. My daily routine for school is the same everyday. I'm not a morning person at all so it worked out perfectly for me to start at 9:30 instead of 7:30, which means I go until 1:30 instead of 11:30, but I enjoy not waking up at 7. Every morning I roll out of bed and get ready for school. I grab a granola bar and take off up the hill to school. It's about a 7-8 minute walk to school but starts off with a pretty steep uphill for about half of the walk and then a pretty steep downhill for the rest of the way, so that usually wakes me up, especially if it's pouring down rain. I get to school at about 9:20 and get my things ready to start at 9:25. I teach the second graders in the morning. From 9:25-10:25 I teach English and from 10:25 to 11:05 I teach science. I love my second graders but they definitely present a lot of challenges for me. My experience is all with older students and so I knew 2nd grade would be a challenge, but it makes it even tougher when the majority of the students aren't near 2nd grade level.
As with teaching any class it is a challenge to teach and challenge the students who understand the material and need more as well as teaching the students who are nowhere near the level of what is being taught, all at the same time. My class is literally the anti-bell curve, typically the majority of a class tests about average and then a few students test really high and a few test really low and it makes a nice bell shape. My class is more of a bowl shape. A third of my class tests extremely well and has no problem acing the tests, while almost half of the class tests really poorly, and there are only a couple of students who are in the middle. I have some extreme overacheivers in the class and some students who are still trying to grasp the alphabet and can't speak or understand much English at all. I have one girl in my class who actually reminds me of myself in elementary school, who is always asking for homework and things to do because she has fun doing school work. She asks me if she can do something for homework and I'll tell her sure and she looks as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. One of the questions on our last quiz was name 1 thing that plants need to survive. She raised her hand and asked if she could write more than one thing, so I told her yes of course, and all the questions on the quiz that asked for 1 thing she had about 5 things written down. At the same time we had an assignment the students were working on and I had 4 different students ask me how to spell TV.
As much as it can be hard to see so many students struggle there are also several times when it can make you smile with certain answers. In science we were learning about living and non-living things. We had gone over the living things and I asked who could tell me an example of a non-living thing was. A student raised his hand and I called on him and he said with absolute confidence in his answer "zombies". He was so certain of his answer, it definitely made me laugh. Another question was to name something that humans needed to survive. I called on a kid and his answer was "men", I asked him "men?" and he said "yes, they need men". One of my fifth graders on his quiz answered the question "what is one thing the kidneys do for us?' with "they hurt when you punch them". That definitely made me laugh while I was grading the quizzes. A little more time studying and a little less time watching UFC would be good.
From 11:05 to 11:35 the North American teachers teach MAPEH which stands for music, art, physical education, and health. We just changed up the schedule so that we'd be doing this now and it works out pretty well. Each teacher has a class that they take for the day and the classes switch teacher every day. The different teachers have different subjects they do some music, some art, one PE because of the limited space, and I will probably be doing health starting the next rotation. Because of the fact that we have another PE teacher on staff I said I would do art and I really enjoy doing it but I will probably be switching to health since we don't have anyone doing health and we have another teacher doing art. It would also be fun to switch around every once in a while to do PE so that is definitely possible to at some point.
At 11:35 the kids have lunch so I go down to the 5th grade class to supervise them. At 12:05 I start teaching with the 5th graders. I teach math until about 12:50 and science until 1:30. As much as I love my second graders, I really enjoy teaching 5th grade. It is a totally different atmosphere and a place where I can get them to do so much more learning. It is just way more into my style of teaching than 2nd grade is. With the exception of 1 student my class usually does very well on things. I have a few students who do really well on things and are just awesome and bright students. I have a couple who struggle with some things but can keep up with class and do the things they need to do to be able to succeed, they just need a little more one-on-one time sometimes. Most of my class is in the above average range though and does well on there work and are able to learn and grow in class. It has been awesome seeing the grades the students go on their preliminary tests before I got to school and then seeing their first quarter tests and seeing that the majority of the class has improved by a lot. It is awesome to see how much they have grown and how well they have responded to a lot of the changes I brought in from doing things the typical way in the Philippines to doing things I feel help them learn so much more.
I usualy have to stick around a little bit while the kids clean their room after school. Then I take off for home back up the hill and then down the hill to my apartment. I usually get home at around 1:50 and eat lunch and try to talk to anybody who is still up on facebook at 11pm in California. I typically have 2 peanut butter and banana burritos for lunch everyday unless I feel spendy and have a couple bowls of cereal. Both cereal and milk is expensive here so it makes cereal with milk a rare occasion. I was happy when I got my box that my mom sent and it had a box of cereal in it. It is unfortunate that it is so expensive because it makes it so much easier to have the milk. There is absolutely no dairy on this island at all. If you can find cheese somewhere it is extremely expensive and all of the milk is fake and from New Zealand. The cereal is awesome because it makes the milk taste like cereal instead of like gross fake milk. I have bee trying to keep having milk as much as possible because there isn't really any way of getting calcium on the island. It's just so hard to drink it when you have taste buds. The milk is so gross that the starving cats around my apartment wont drink it. It is so gross that not only would they not drink it but the mere thought of me making them drink it made them poop all over my porch. It comes in boxes so its hard to get the last drops out, so I poured out the last drops onto my porch because there are always a bunch of starving cats running around and sleeping on my doormats. I came back after school and the milk was still there, and there was cat poop everywhere on my porch. That is the only time there has ever been cat poop on my porch. I got the hint I won't put anymore fake milk out anymore. Apparently beggars can be choosers.
Anyways, after I get done with lunch and check up on the baseball games and anything else going on I have an hour or two to get anything done I need to get done before the feeding sites. Whether it's shopping for groceries, getting things for school, or any of the little things that always seem to come up. On Tuesday's we have the feeding site behind the jungle barn but I may be starting to look for another feeding site that needs financial support and someone to go to it. There are 18 different feeding sites on the island but a lot of them aren't being done all the time because there isn't enough financial support right now to support them. One of the things I really wanted to do here was be able to use some of my financial support to be able to do things like supporting the feeding sites. So it means living on a budget so that I have the ability to give money and to be able to get a feeding site that serves between 30-80 kids a dinner, teaches them about the Gospel, loves on them, and provides them with first aid care, to keep going every week. For me that's worth it. I am talking to the pastor's wife who runs most of the feeding sites about what site needs the support to be able to keep providing them with dinner every week. So I am looking forward to be able to get that started.
After the feeding sites I go out to dinner usually with the 2 other missionaries who live by themselves here. The nice thing about eating breakfast and lunch that costs very little is that I have the ability to go out for dinner. My other option is cooking, which is sometimes a little bit cheaper than eating out but with the cost of the gas and the fact that most restaurants are extremely cheap it isn't too much of a difference. The biggest difference is that the cooks at the restaurants actually know how to cook. There are a ton of really good and cheap restaurants here which is awesome. The most that I typically ever pay for a dinner is $6 and that's for a really good meal at a really nice restaurant that would probably be something like 10-12 dollars in the US. The majority of the time I stay under the 200 peso mark ($5), and still get really good meals. On occasion I'll find places to get a dinner for about 100 pesos ($2.50), or less sometimes.
It gets dark here by about 6:30-7, which was weird coming form back home where it was getting dark really late. After dinner I go back home and get my lessons planned out for the next day and get everything ready or done that I need to do. At about 11pm here some people start coming on facebook from back home at 8am there so it is good to be able to talk to people sometimes.
Wednesdays are pretty much the same as Tuesdays except that we have staff meetings at the school in the afternoons. So I don't really have an afternoon on Wednesday. I have been going to the helicopter pad feeding on Wednesdays which is one of the poorest neighborhoods on the island. I have become the official doctor wherever I go and this site has some pretty bad injuries. It is so hard for the kids to be able to stay clean, especially on their feet and lower legs, which is where they usually have their injuries. Kids don't really where shoes here. If they are wearing anything it's flip-flops, which don't really do anything to protect their feet. They get some big cuts that are pretty bad, but most of them just have small cuts, but they don't get cleaned or treated at all and so they get infected and turn into a lot worse problems than they should be. Things like band-aids and clean water for washing are things we take for granted so much but it's something not everyone is able to afford, and that makes it tough for some of these kids.
Thursdays again are about the same as the other days. I went to a new feeding site this Thursday that I hadn't been to before. it was in another one of the poorer areas on the islands. It was basically in the middle of the jungle. As we were walking into the site the Pastor's wife was telling me that ten years ago this was all just jungle and swamp, and I thought besides the muddy dirt path we're walking on and the bamboo huts the people are living in it basically is still all jungle and swamp. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any pictures of the site for you because I was busy the whole time. We run the sites pretty much the same everywhere. We lead them in songs and then give them Bible verses. We read them a Bible story that is translated into Tagalog for them. We usually have some games to play with them. We have coloring sheets for them to color and then we get them ready for dinner by washing their hands and giving them each a vitamin. Our dinners are always very nutritious and include things that they aren't getting in their diets, like vegetables mostly. The food is either really tasty or they are really hungry, probably both, but they usually have enough for seconds and they go back until every last drop is gone. As they are finishing dinner I get the med kit out and become Dr. Anderson. This site had a lot of bad injuries too and I'm hoping to be able to go back again this week to be able to treat some of them again.
Thursday nights we have a Bible study with all the missionaries. It is an awesome time just to be all together and have dinner and learn a little bit more about each and spend some time in a good Bible study and prayer. We have it every Thursday and it is definitely something I look forward to every week.
Fridays are a little different because right after school I go over to the other island to feed at one of the Ati villages. We leave right after school to get on a ferry to get to the other island. We stop at the market and pick up the food for the dinner, lots of veggies. We take about a ten minute trike ride to the village and get the food to the kitchen to start cooking it. Some of the mothers from the village cook the meals each week which is awesome. We have a lot of time before dinner to play with the kids. I love this site because we have that time. The other sites we are always doing something and we get to love the kids and talk to them and things but at the Ati site we are able to just hang out and play and try to talk even though we don't speak much of the same language. We really get to know the kids so much more than at the other sites and play is it's own language, we might not know a whole lot of the same words but there is so much more to communication then what we say.
After the feeding we come back to the isand usually by 6 or 6:30. I get dinner and then spend my Friday nights grading quizzes. That's how you know I'm dedicated.
Saturday mornings I get to sleep in a little bit, unless I'm skypeing because it's the best time I really have to skype with people from California. I typically spend Saturday morning relaxing and then Saturday afternoons there is a volleyball clinic that one of the other missionaries puts on that is a lot of fun to help with. Typically the missionaries do things together on the weekends most of the time. So we get dinner and things all together which is a lot of fun. This Saturday we had a potluck and all got together and played games and ate and just had a really good time.
Sundays some of the missionaries go to breakfast together before church at a restaurant that has really good and cheap breakfast. Our church starts at 10:30 and goes to about noon. It is part English and part Tagalog. The worship songs are usually have done in English and half done in Tagalog, although lately it's been mostly English. The message is done mostly in English with translation into Tagalog but there are definitely some parts that he says in Tagalog that he doesn't say in English and it can definitely get hard to follow some times. He also tells all his jokes in Tagalog and none in English. He'll be talking in Tagalog and then start laughing and all the Filipinos will start laughing and the missionaries just sit there not knowing what the joke was about. But it is a great church. The messages are long because of the translation but they are good. I think he does an awesome job of applying his sermons to both the Filipinos of the church and the missionaries. The worship is also really great. They have some awesome singers and have a whole band set up with drums guitar and bass. It is a really nice church but it does get hard sometimes with the language.
On Sunday afternoons I go over to the jungle barn to upload the pictures onto my blog because I don't have good enough wifi at my apartment to do it. Usually the kids from the neighborhood are out playing something in the afternoon so it's fun to be able to play with them whatever they are doing. Last Sunday I played some baseball in front of the jungle barn with the kids and that was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.
Did I mention it's a pretty nice view playing on the beach.
Sunday nights I get everything ready for school for the week and figure out my lessons and everything I'll need.
Mondays I start back in school and then have the afternoon to get stuff done that needs to get done and then start writing my blog. That pretty much makes up my week. It changes from here to there but that's basically what I'm doing every week.
Sorry I was lacking a lot of pictures this week. I hope to have more up next week, and I'll share more of what life is like for me here. So this is what I do but next week I'll go deeper in to what it's like doing everything I do. So yeah little bit of a cliffhanger there. I bet you can't wait.
If you read all of this you're awesome. Thank you for all your support and for caring about me and about what I'm doing here. I really care about what I'm doing and it is so awesome to see other people care about it as well. Thank you and good night, well good morning for you.
Hey Andy! Its great to read everything you are up to! Can you facebook me your address so we can mail you a box of cereal too??? :)
ReplyDeleteChristy