Augusto dayon sa Septyembre

School started again and the months have flown by since summer. I handle four classes along with my counterparts. This school year I have three different teachers (counterparts) that I co-teach with. There is Maam Bacang, who I worked with last school year and whose been my main advocate at school.

Maam Ann Bacang and her son Haniel.

Maam Panesa and I co-teach one class and the girls basketball team.

Maam Panesa

Lastly there is Maam Lasola (picture to follow later). Her and I teach the Homogeneous class in our second year curriculum. The Homo class (yes that is what its called for short, no implications of anything gay are meant) are amazing to teach because they all listen to lessons and do their homework.

I am lucky to get to learn from three different teachers with three different styles. I work morning from 7:30am -12pm and then have afternoons to work on secondary projects. I am trying to get funding to start an after-school club for at-risk students where we will do different activities like painting a wall mural, taking an environmental tour of Mangroves.

Besides teaching I now coach the girls b-ball team twice a week and we are getting ready to do our Provincial wide meet which if we win we will go to Bohol (a neighboring island) for Regional competition. So wish us luck, we have come a long way from practices filled with double dribbling, fouls and traveling to practices now filled with drills and offensive plays.
Fellow volunteers David and John helping out with coaching basketball

My team with David (whom they all like because he looks like a Korean actor)

Glorie, our star point guard.


Latest Adventure's:

1. Mount Talinis is the second highest mountain on this island, at 1890 feet. This dosen't sound like much, but when you go from sea level it can be a nice hike. My German friend and adventure buddy Loana and I did a two-day trek up the mountain, camped overnight on a crater lake and slid down the other side of the range the next day. We were guided by this amazing mountain man named Adong who grew up and worked in the mountains all of his life. This man was in his sixties and was kicking our behinds the whole hike. He would walk barefoot at a pace that made him look like he was floating on air. We would stop every once in a while where he would show us some plant that was harvested for something or a spot where Japanese soldiers hid out from American Soldiers during the war. As we approached our camp the first night Adong runs into the woods cuts down four logs, skins a palm tree and throws a tarp over the top to form his tent. He always had water boiling for us and at one point when I was trying to dry out my tennis shoes from the morning dew he went again into the woods to get four more branches and he sets us this shoe rack to put my shoes over the fire on.
This mountain was a huge challenge to me, as we were literally grabbing roots and pulling ourselves up for hours the first day and then sliding down on our butts the other side of the mountain in the rain the next day. At one point I started crying like a baby but when nobody came to carry me I had to get up and keep going. I now have fond memories of our trip but at the time of finishing it, I would tell you that I would never do the hike again. The bruises and cuts have healed and I am left with a great sense on accomplishment. In fact Loana and I are thinking of doing another one in a few months. We both forgot our cameras and so unfortunately we have no proof that we really were on the mountain so here is us posing with what is kind of the mountain we climbed in the background.

2. Apo Island adventure with Peace Corps volunteers from neighboring island and cities. Four amazing women converged upon my little city for a holiday weekend of eating at the best restaurants, laughing and two snorkeling trips to world famous Apo Island and Dauin. Apo is world reknown for its reefs and we got to ride on my friend Harold's new boat! Here's some photos of the adventure.
Amari (Iloilo City), Mindi (Dao, Panay), Stacie (Bacolod, Negros) and Hanna (Iloilo)

The girls with PCV Rachael (Bacolod), Loana (originally Germany) and Zelda (local)
Our destination, Apo Island, a marine protected area known for its amazng diving.

3. MoalBoal is a town known for its reefs on neighboring Cebu island. Loana and I decided to check it out. I am not ceritified to dive yet, so we stuck to snorkeling the reef, but there were beautiful corals and an amazing drop in the ocean floor that we got to free dive a bit, or at least tried to. A German woman who is in the same program as Loana joined us for the night. We stayed on one beach but the next day went to White beach which was supposed to have.....white sand. That it did, giving us a nice relaxing Sunday on the beach.
White beach

4. Cousin Michael on his way home from working a year in Laos stopped by the Philippines for a visit. We got some great beach time and headed to "The healing island" Siquior for a night. It was great to get some time to catch up on our lives, as the last time we met was Nuni and Josh's wedding in 2007.The beach outside our front door.

5. My good friend Sarah from Panay, came to visit for a few days randomly after a failed beach weekend in a town on the other side of the island. Turns out there was a Typhoon coming through while they were staying at this beach resort. She decided to extend her vacation and come visit me in Dumaguete. We mostly hung ou around town, but what a special treat it was to have her here.

If you want sugar its extra.

Checking out the Chinese temple

May through July.....

After one month of R&R a hectic May schedule began. A close friend Larissa, who is also an archaeologist studying the Indigenous group here on the island, held a one week long Archaeological excavation. I was able to go assist her and we ended up finding lithics from hunter-gatherer days which I think was 1500's. It was a treat for me as an Anthro major to be able to actually do Archaeological fieldwork because I never got the chance to go on any digs while in Hawaii.

Larissa and Nida (Philippines National Museum representative) looking for stratigraphic evidence of history.

Evelyn, me and Larissa surveying fields.

Next stop was the other side of Negros to the capital Bacolod, for a Peace Corps training on how to design projects. I met up there with my main counterpart, Mrs. Ann Bacang, where we had a wonderful time planning a project for our high school, eating, taking hot showers and sleeping in comfortable beds.Maam Bacang and I posing with our tarpaulin tree of questions.

After a week in Bacolod, myself, Sarah, Jessica and Mindi headed to Hamtic, Antique, Panay (Neighborhood, Province, Island) to facilitate a week long summer camp for elementary students at Sarah's elementary school where she volunteers. There were nine of us who stayed in two bedrooms for a week. As you can imagine, we became really close and hosted a pretty successful camp. About 100 students attended, where we taught them subjects and skills such as self-esteem, environmental awareness, community building, art, sports, photography, public speaking and dance. I got to teach dance for three hours a day which was fantastic! "Firework" crew above and "Boom, boom, pow crew"

Camp facilitators, L to R: Jessica, Hanna, Stacey, Sarah, Mindi, Lysette.

I also got the assistance of a local art high School dance student. It was an overall good experience but started off a bit shaky. She came in to teach hip-hop dance to the kids, put her music in and got them lined up to start learning the moves when "Girl take your Mothe@% F&%cking shirt off" started playing through the speakers. I didn't think to screen the music and panicked running over to my friend Sarah, the camp organizer and apologizing profusely for my lack of screening. She just looked at me laughed and said that kids in her neighborhood blasted this song all the time and that no one even listened to the lyrics. So "take your shirt off" became a number for the final program along with Katy Perry's "Firework", which had better lyrics and was chosen and choreographed by the girls themselves. The boys rocked Black Eyed Peas "Boom boom pow".

All too soon the camp ended and a few of us headed back to Bacolod, Negros to do a two week mobile teacher training. There were 23 other Peace Corps volunteers who joined us. Sarah and I co-taught Listening activities and Differentiation or Multiple Intelligences. We trained 1000 teachers in four different high schools. It was an amazing learning experience for me, and I started out a bit skeptical at what I had to offer teachers with over 15 years of experience. The Filipino teachers were open to our lessons and were so thankful for the training in the end. We were bombarded with requests for pictures after each class and at any possible moment. People here are a bit camera happy.

Our training organizer and fellow volunteer, Justin Tabor.

After being away for the whole month of May I headed home to say goodbye to Larissa who was done with her fieldwork and heading back to Chicago to write and teach. Goodbye Philippines, hello Chicago outing.

A week later school began and it had been a crazy time warp filled with sleeping, lesson planning, eating and more lesson planning. Oh, and of course I'm super excited to have another niece in my life......what a treat!Welcome Zadie, love Aunty Kesa and Uncle Michael.

Hugs to you all,
Akesa

School's out for summer......School's out forever!

Weather forecast…..eighty degree heat with 6 degrees separation from sun. Init Kaayo!

Summer has officially begun here in the Philippines. Despite prediction for the rainiest season yet, it has been just plain hot here. During the middle of the day it is impossible to go outside with out feeling like you are in a huge frying pan. Filippinos don’t go out during the heat of the day, and if so they are fully covered or under the canopy of a some overhead component. It is not unusual to see people wearing jackets and sweaters in the heat of the day to protect them from the sun.

Besides the weather indicating summer, the end of the school year was another reminder. Graduation for the 657 students took place on April 4th. It was probably the longest graduation that I have been to including that of my Alma matur, good old St. Paul Central High School, which was considered to have many students. Four hours after the start of the program we got to have a complimentary meal thanks to the PTA association.

Larissa and I headed up to Fiesta in Andrea’s town. Basically every town here has a fiesta once a year where people save up money and fatten up their pigs to slaughter for the occasion. Sometimes families end up spending huge amounts of money. Guests are invited to different houses and you just go, eat, visit and then head to the next house and do it again. How ever many invites you get the trickier it gets to say no to food. We ended up going to five houses in five hours. We documented the whole process for you to see our progression from loving food to seeing it as our enemy. House number 1, Alvin and Chona's.

House number 2.

House number 3.

House number 4, still going strong.

House number 5, Andrea is happy to be done eating.

April 7th, my birthday, fell on a Thursday this year so it was a pretty low-key day with a nice birthday dinner with Larissa and My language tutor Emi. We went to the best burger joint in town and were not disappointed. Fellow volunteer Evelyn’s birthday was Friday the 8th so we decided to do a joint celebration. Saturday we had lunch, then got two hour long massages that were amazing. We then proceeded to go to my house where we met a few other volunteers, Larissa and Harold. It was supposed to be a potluck but I was too relaxed to even think about cooking so rotissere chicken and rice became the main dish. Besides that there was one other dish and the other volunteers brought cakes. There ended up being more desserts than main meals, which I had no complaints about.! I’ve been on a sugar high for this past week………..

Birthday potluck friends, John, Andrea, Evelyn, me, Larissa and David.

I’ve taken on a few extra teaching gigs, one being a substitute for my friend Stella who took a trip home to the U.S. My student’s are High School students who are working for a year to earn tuition for college. My job is to teach English for one hour a day. Also I have been working at a school about 50 minutes South of Dumaguete with an amazing lady named Diane who built a boat with her husband for seven years and they ended up sailing here to Negros. She started tutoring a local girl in English and before you know it she had started a school for Creative Arts. Seven years later she is trying to ease away from the project and do her own thing. So I have been seeing how I can fit into helping out at the school.

Evelyn and I at Bright Lights Community Learning Center (Dianes school)

This summer is gonna bring lots of trainings with Peace Corps. Pretty much for the whole month of May I will be gone traveling. I’m excited to grow more as a volunteer. Hopefully cousin Michael who is working in Cambodia, will come for a visit in July.
I am also anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next member of the Silver-Mafi clan. Predictions from the family is a boy but so far I have not been able to pry the secret from them. I even tried to manipulate Malia but I am no more knowledgeable than before.

After a great visit from the family, I settled back into working a normal work schedule without holiday parties every week. I have been teaching more and more and am now pretty confident in front of the class. As I teach though I realize how little grammar I retained from all my years of living in the States. The English language is tough, there are rules but then there are always exceptions which make no sense at all.

My students studying outside after being kicked out of our classroom.

I have been lucky enough to get free internet from Harold a local neighbor who owns a hostel around the corner from my house. There have been many Skype sessions with Nuni, Malia, Josh, Mara, Uncle and Aunt Julie. If anybody has Skype addresses look me up and we can chat. There is something about seeing people while you are talking that is reaffirming, especially seeing little Malia who has lots to say but not necessarily in conversation format.

Harold and Blessie

I am still tutoring my elementary girls at Little Children of the Philippines twice a week and loving it. The love that these girls share with me every time I see them melts my heart.

Glad to know that I am not the only one with a mustache here.

I got to go to a Rotary Dumaguete social with my old host family the Amasulas. It was a night of catered food, lots of attempts at entertainment and dancing the night away. Caloy and Babie were the stars of the floor with their boogie woogies and cha chas. An inspiration to all to be as healthy and stylish on the dance floor at their age. I also got to sit in the same room as the big Kahuna's here in dumaguete like the mayor, the governor, and all those other important higher ups who would normally not pay me any mind, but since I was with Rotary I got recognized......thank you Rotary! Caloy and Babie dancing it up!

There was also an unexpected trip to Sagay (North Negros) for a family reunion of my current host mom. Evelyn and I were persuaded in a five minute conversation to join Mrs. and Mr. Sison on their trip. An air-conditioned van had been rented and hotel rooms already booked we just needed to pack our bags and we were off. The North of this island is mostly sugarcane fields as their are two refineries in the town we were in. The landscape is vast plains filled with sugarcane and huge mountains towering over them in the distance. Mrs. Sison and I at the reunion.

Summer vacation is fast approaching here in Dumaguete with my birthday, April 7th, being the last day of school. There are a few things lined up this summer like a trip to the White Sand beaches on the other side of the island, around the island teacher trainings, a language camp with Peace Corps to refine my skills, and lots of beach time.

I’m planning on moving to a new apartment this week. I’m psyched to have my own place, cook my own food and not live with any animals (I live with five dogs, one crazy cat, and a few neighborhood rats and cockroaches). I will have an extra room so when you all come visit you can stay with me. I also have a little gardening space to work with and a beach about 300 yards down the road.

The best picture of my new place, dog not included.

I’ve been slowly creating a community here. Larissa is a doctoral student from The University of Illinois at Chicago who is here doing Archeological field work for a few months. I get to help her out on a few excavations here and also with some oral interviews of the Indigenous people here, the Aetas. There is also Andrea a Peace Corps volunteer working in Coastal Resource Management who comes down from her town a lot and stays with me and vice versa. Evelyn is another Peace Corps volunteer who is satying about 45 minutes north of here so she comes to the city to hang out a lot also.

Larissa (Anthropology doctoral student) from Chicago, Andrea (Peace Corps), and Evelyn (Peace Corps)

I took part in a feeding program last weekend with Harold and some of his guests. We went to another Peace Corps Barangay (neighborhood) and brought breakfast. We were an instant hit with the kids. Here are some of our fans.Harold's feeding program, barangay Talay

I hope you are all doing well, much love to you from the Philippines!