Graduation!

It's hard to believe but the school year is over already. It seems like I just started and it definitely doesn't seem like a whole school year has gone by. I am definitely ready for a break and excited for the things I'm doing this summer but I will definitely miss my kids. We had graduation last week and it was a great time to celebrate our students.
Graduation is a huge huge deal here and along with graduation for the kindergarteners and grade 6, we also have awards for all of our students from each grade level. Each class comes up with awards that each one of the students has earned (gift of science, gift of friendliness, etc.). We recognize all of our students for their special gifts and have a ceremony before the graduation ceremony just for them. It is an awesome ceremony for the kids just to feel special and bring all the school together. After the recognition ceremony we had our grad ceremony for the kindergarteners and grade 6. It was a long but very awesome day and it was great celebrate with all of our kids and their families. I wasn't able to take pictures during graduation, but I was hoping someone who took pictures would post them so I could put them in here. If someone posts them I'll put them in a blog but for now I don't have any, sorry.
A couple weeks before school was out we had our family fun day on the beach out in front of the Jungle Barn. The whole school and their families were invited to come on a Saturday and enjoy games and lunch and a fun time together. Me and a couple other teachers took charge of organizing and planning the day and it was fun coming up with all the games to play. We split the school up into 4 different teams, red, yellow, blue, and green. We had several games and competitions for everyone, the kindies through grade 6 and even the parents. To start the day we had each team make a team name, design a poster, make a sandcastle, and come up with a team cheer.

team green dragons

Team red love

Team yellow king

Team blue whale

The next game we had was probably the funnest of the day. Four way tug of war. We started with the kindies and went up all the way to the moms and then the dads.

 There really aren't many things more fun than watching kindergarteners in a 4-way tug of war.

Grades 1-3 were up next.

 Then grades 4-6 started to bring out the muscles.

The parents got their turns next and those were also very exciting to watch. The fathers and the mothers wee both extremely competitive.

 We also had a three legged race with mother-daughter and father-son.

The mothers had a straw tower building contest. Each team got a pack of straws and had 5 minutes to build the tallest tower they could.

 Our last game was our amazing race. Each grade level had to do a different part of the race.

Halfway through a parent from each team had to swim out to get their team flag and bring it back to a student to run back to the finish.

 At the finish line the teams had to build a human pyramid.

 Blue was the first team finished, then green and yellow finished at the same time.

Last weekend after graduation we took a retreat to the other island. It was so nice to take a break and relax for a weekend after the end of the year being so stressful.  We took a trip to Antique which is about an hour and a half away on the other island. We stayed in a "resort" right on the river and it was so nice and peaceful. I got a much needed weekend of relaxation and rest. It was also nice just to take a step off the island for a little bit and get out to see some more things. It was so awesome being over there in a completely different world. Boracay is basically city life everywhere and is covered with tourists everywhere. Antique is farm and jungle. There were a lot of people that lived on the river and used farming as a way of survival. It was also surrounded by jungle everywhere there weren't fields. It was really what I was thinking Boracay would look like before I came to the Philippines. It was really nice to get away from the city and get to a place where things were slowed down and relaxed. During the day we hung out in the river with some of the local kids that wanted to swim with us. We also took a hike into the jungle to see some waterfalls. The hike in itself was awesome, trekking through the jungle and seeing so many cool things. We got to the falls and it's a 7 tier waterfall with the bottom three being possible to get to. You had to use a climbing rope and climb up the cliff to do it, but it was doable.

This was the first tier of the water fall, or the seventh if you start from the top I guess. There is a lot more water coming down in rainy season than there was now.

 This is the third tier fall. There were some rocks to the side to jump from.

 Our guide started climbing straight up the waterfall. He is an amazing rock climber because there was not much to grab or step on but he did it no problem. The water is also falling a lot harder than it looks, it's still a strong force when it is falling on you, plus the rock is super slippery. I was definitely extremely impressed.

A cool looking flower.

 A lot of rice terraces just in the middle of the jungle.

 Wild pineapple.

 Everything is made out of bamboo, even the bridges. It's not as sturdy as it looks, and it doesn't look very sturdy.

 A water buffalo taking a bath in the river.

 Another bamboo bridge.

 A cable bridge. It was actually a lot less sturdy than the bamboo bridges. We were jumping and shaking it back and forth, definitely pretty fun but not super smart.

Looking over the river from the bridge.
The weekend was so relaxing and was just what I needed. It was also so much fun to see another part of the Philippines and see people living in a completely different style of life. It was also amazing how cheap it was also. It costs us 50 cents to take the boat to the other island. In the Philippines our group of 15 only needs to take one 11 passenger van. The van cost us $3 each to go the hour and a half trip to Antique. The place we stayed cost $3.75 per person per night and we stayed 2 nights. Our guide to the falls cost us $5 split between 15 of us. It was definitely the best $16 vacation I've ever been on.
I got back to the island and had a few things to wrap up in school with grades and finishing everything up for the year. I also had to come up with the schedule for summer school. One of the Filipino teachers who is staying over summer and I are doing summer school, we had to come up with the scheduling and everything to set it up. It has been good the last couple days to be able to rest and take it easy for he most part. I still have plenty of things to do, but just have more time to do it now.
It has also been interesting being here over Holy Week. The Thursday and Friday before Easter are both holidays here and so everybody takes their vacation to Boracay this weekend. There are so many people here, it's crazy. I've just been staying in for the most part because everything is closed and it's hard to walk anywhere with so many people everywhere. Holidays are also hard times to be away from your family. It's always hard but it's magnified on holidays and when you have so many memories of everything you'd be doing at home it makes it hard. It's part of being here and it's what I signed up for but there are times when it's just tough. I love what I'm doing and I know I need to be here but that doesn't mean I wouldn't buy a teleportation device if it existed.
Thank you for your love, support, and prayer. I appreciate it so much. I hope you all have an amazing Easter and enjoy your time with your family and take advantage of the time you have together, don't take it for granted. Enjoy it for me.