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