Banana Training

100 Islands National Park

The school year is underway. In addition to teaching English, I was also given the subject of Values for the senior students.

Values is taught three days a week and typically involves a short sermon to students about quitting their bad vices, focusing on their ambitions, and strengthening their spiritual relationship with God. I asked the principal if I might take a slightly different approach. She said go for it. When she asked what materials I would need, I said only two things. A condom and a banana.

Since I started teaching at Mt. Data, three students have become pregnant and several others had previously given birth. This is somewhat surprising given that there are only around  200 students at the school ranging between the ages of 11 and 16. On top of the problems of drinking, smoking, and gambling, it was easy to see that the values subject wasn’t as effective as it was meant to be.

I found an excellent resource - a teaching manual from Advocates for Youth meant to give Life Planning sessions to inner city children in the U.S. By following the lesson plans and altering it to fit the students, I have been enjoying this subject more than any other. It’s been a great chance to help educate the students and prepare them for topics that are typically seen as taboo in public schools. We tackled gender equality, sexuality, safe-sex, and a ton of other topics including the STD horror show we all encountered in middle school sex-ed. We have also discussed peer pressure and relationships, and this quarter the students are planning community projects to improve their communities.

While I have been given full support by the staff, I am wondering what parents will say this Wednesday during our parent-teacher conferences. An American teaching Filipino values? I’m sure it will cause some protest. What Filipinos generally assume about Americans is that the second we turn 18 we abandon our parents to go frolic and have lots of sex and eat white bread and get filthy rich. So I’ll be surprised if no parents make a few comments to the school about my role in the development of their child’s principles.

On top of teaching, my time has been spent helping to advise the new Art Club and organize basketball games for the students. Last month was our Nutrition Month program during which students danced and brought huge vegetables from their gardens to showcase before cooking them and eating.

The Peace Corps Close of Service Conference was held at the beginning of the month and was the last chance most of the volunteers had to say goodbye to their fellow volunteers before going home to the U.S. On the way to the conference I stopped at One Hundred Islands National Park with my host family to go island hopping and explore the hundreds of small islets. It was beautiful and I’m happy I got the chance to have one last adventure with my host siblings.

With less than a month to go I’m trying to make the most of my time left. While many volunteers choose to travel around the Philippines during their last few weeks, I’ve decided to dedicate it to my site. I’ve developed close relationships in a lot shorter time than two years before, so saying goodbye to my friends here will surely be difficult. My going away party is planned next month so I will have my last in-country blog post then!

Dancing to "Gentleman" during the Nutrition Day program.

Dance crew preparing to play the gongs in a tribal dance.

Jump Cabbage

How teens look cool.

Our campsite at 100 Islands

My host family and I at the national park.

Filipino Haircut

June means the start of school and it also means every student and teacher in the Philippines will be making the trip to the barber to get a haircut, myself included.

Getting my haircut is one of my favorite things to do here for several reasons:

•      A haircut typically costs between 30-50 pesos. That’s around $1.
•      The barbers use enormous scissors like you would use to sheer a sheep.
•      They take their work very seriously, methodically shaping your head like it’s a piece of art.
•      Afterwards they crack your neck or give you a short shoulder massage.

Local hole in the wall barber shops usually consist of 2-6 chairs lined up between mirrors similar to what you would see in the U.S.  There is sort of a menu of options you ask for. For example, “High Cut” will leave you with short hair on the sides and a crew cut on the top. “Siete” or “Seven,” will make your hair flat on top and straight down the neck like the shape of a seven. “Calbo” or “Bald” will leave you bald, while “Semi-Calbo” will leave you with a buzz cut.

I’ve had my hair cut maybe a dozen times since being in country. The procedure is always the same. Walk in give my order, and walk out a new man. The weekend before the first day of school left me searching for the barber with the smallest line out front its doors. I walked in and gave the usual instructions.

“Clean cut.” This means just a trim. I get it every time.

“Sir, clean cut?” the barber asked.

“Yes.”

“With electric razor?”

“Yes.” Anyway that is standard procedure. They usually start with the neck. But this time they didn’t.

“Ok sir, clean cut.”

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Right down the middle.

“AYSUS!” I literally shouted and nearly knocked the razor out of his hand. I don’t even know why I said “aysus” I must have been in the country long enough to where expressions just slip of my tongue.

I angrily told him had I asked for clean cut, not “calbo.”

“But sir, this is a clean cut,” he said. I told him he was crazy and he turned to the other barbers who all nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, that is clean cut.”

Sitting there starring myself in the mirror with a bald streak down the center of my head there was only one thing that could be done.

“Just finish it,” I said.

Afterwards I went straight outside and bought a cap and a beanie for fifty pesos. All I could think of was what would I do in two days when I was expected to show up for the first day of school? I went home and stared at myself in the mirror. Eventually I just forced myself to accept it and not to hide it. Anyway people would get used to it eventually (I was wrong on that bit of logic).

Reactions on the first day of school were as to be expected. Jaws hit the floor, students just starred and whispered. Strangely the comments were not what I expected.

“Sir, why did you get calbo?” they would ask. “It is winter.” Apparently it wasn’t the fact that I was walking around with a shiny scalp that intrigued them. It was the fact that only an insane person would choose to go bald at the onset of winter. I explained the story and it became a joke around the school. I laughed along with it and at the interesting names they came up with for me. Mr. Clean, Brue Willis, Vin Diesel. One student said I looked like a chess pawn. Hahaha! Two and a half months later I still only have about an inch of hair. It’s growing agonizingly slow for some reason but hopefully by the time I fly home it will be back to normal!

Mural Painting

Has it really been five months since my last post? I guess as time goes on and things become normal topics seem less and less interesting to write about. But with less than a month left to go, I often wonder what I’m going to say to people when I arrive home. Certainly most of you will want an abridged version of my life in the past two years, so writing it out seems like good practice. And since it’s currently down-pouring and gusting 1000mph outside (not a typhoon, but who can tell the difference?), I don’t really have an excuse not to update you guys on what’s been happening the last few months!

I returned to site sun-burnt and exhausted from the sand and sun and 12 hour bus rides. During the summer, Mt. Data becomes a lonely place with most of the high school students returning home to their villages, replaced by a few of the college students returning to visit their parents for a few weeks before returning to the much more exciting life in Baguio City. I spent most of the time at the school finalizing a college guidebook and thinking of a summer project.

A common Peace Corps project is creating a mural of the World Map in the community or school. While my school already completed the World Map project (initiated by a previous Peace Corps Volunteer), I decided to plan another mural, this time a map of the Philippines.

Because there was no template for a Philippines map painting, I had to start from scratch. This proved far more challenging than I could have imagined, as the first and most difficult step was in finding a reliable map of the Philippines. This is surprising because the shape of the Philippine Islands as become sort of a national pride icon of the country. It’s patch is sewn onto t-shirts and jackets, stickers placed on the backs of phones and laptops, the image flashed during the opening jingle of news and television programs. However no two maps I examined were the same, with most inconsistencies in regards to the division of regions, and the size and shape of regions in general.

I finally settled on one, printed out the grid, and used a little of the English Club money to buy some paint and brushes. I called for the few students left in Mt. Data with nothing to do to come and help make the map.

The first step was drawing the grid. It was long, tedious, boring work but necessary for an accurate map. Next, the students drew an enlarged representation of the map onto the wall, using the squares of the grid as a reference.

Tracing the map onto the grid.

After the map was drawn, we traced it in permanent marker and began painting in the regions. A quick lesson in Philippine geography. The country is generally divided into three large regions: Luzon (where I am), Visayas (the center of the country with lots of islands), and Mindanao (forbidden to Peace Corps Volunteers). The country is further divided into 17 regions. These regions are divided down into provinces. Provinces consist of cities and towns, with each town broken down into villages or barangays. I live in the barangay of Mt. Data in the town of Bauko in Mountain Province in the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Painting in the regions.

After painting the map (color coded by region), the students began labeling the map. Again tedious work because they are perfectionists when it comes to making letters. But it was worth the wait! My friend Becky (another Peace Corps Volunteer) also came up to lend us her eye for detail and make our map 100% perfect!

Labeling the map.

As of now the map is still not finished; the students are listing the names of the more than 80 provinces on the two columns on either side of the map. It has been a good project because the students have learned a lot about their own geography, now knowing the locations of all the places they here about in the news. We also continued the project by making a map of our region, province and town for a total of four maps! 

Nearly finished!