There are no fog delays or snow days in the Philippines, but there are typhoon days!
It is still rainy season, and we have had 3 days of school cancelled so far due to typhoons. A typhoon is a tropical storm. The most recent typhoon was last Wednesday. The teachers and some of the students had already arrived at the school before it was cancelled. We got very wet on the way back to our apartment!
Here are some pictures from that day:
This is the stairway leading to the main entrance of the school.
It looked a little like a river!
We found some flip-flops at the bottom of the steps
the next day that had fallen off of people who walked
up the steps during the storm!
A local basketball court.
The road leading to the beach. No swimming today!
Many of the roads were flooded.
It was hard to find an empty trike because most
people wanted a ride to get out of the rain!
In case you were wondering, kids in the Philippines don't miss out on the ice cream man experience that many of us have grown to love. I remember how excited I was when I was in elementary school, and I heard the ice cream man's music on a hot summer night. If I was lucky, my parents and I would quickly collect money and run out to the front of our house to wait for him to pass. Many of us in America recognize something like this as the ice cream man:
I thought you might find it interesting that in the Philippines, the ice cream man concept is the same, but he looks a lot different. It is a man that carries around a cooler on his back with ice cream in it. Instead of playing music, he rings a bell. I saw an ice cream man the other day and took a video of him with my FlipCam to share with you. See the video below:
Welcome to Agape Boracay Academy! I will use this post to begin to show you around the school that I am teaching at this year. I am teaching first grade this year which is certainly much different from teaching at the fifth grade level! I am really enjoying it, though!
The picture above shows the back entrance of the school. The Red Cross is located on the first floor. A representative from the Red Cross comes to teach the students about health and hygiene twice a week .
My Classroom
My First Grade Class.
This is Mrs. Salguero. We are co-teachers for our class; she teaches Filipino, Social Studies, and some other required subjects to our class while I teach Reading, Writing, Spelling, and Math. I really enjoy working with her!
I took some pictures of my students while they were practicing their spelling words:
Hazel, Ralph, and Heshen
Kent James
Danelle and Shawn
Alexis
One of the unique things about this school is the fact that it was built using donations. This means that a lot of people gave some of their own money away to help build this school! The school was also built by volunteers. All of the North American teachers are here as volunteers as well.
The photo below shows a room filled with donations that were sent to the school from a number of different places. Some of these boxes came all the way from the United States and Canada! Many of the resources that I am used to having as a teacher are not available here or are very expensive to purchase on the island. You may have noticed items like stencils and WikiStix in the photos above. Those items have been donated from across the globe!
Organizing the room filled with boxes of donated school supplies
When someone gives from their own resources in order to help someone else, it is called philanthropy. Since I have been teaching here on Boracay, I have seen many wonderful results of the philanthropy of others, especially at Agape Boracay Academy.
It is so exciting to see the results of people being so generous with their time, money, and other resources! Can you think of a way that you can show philanthropy?
The principal of the school this year is from Canada. Her family is here and her daughters are 13, 11, and 9 years old. They are homeschooled here by their dad, but each week they each come one day to help tutor the kids at the school. That is one simple way they are able to use what they are good at to help others.
There are lots of small things that you can do that can make a big difference! If you think of something that you plan to do, I would love to hear about it. E-mail me at missebinboracay@hotmail.com. Start helping! :-)
The most common language in the Philippines isFilipino Tagalog, but most of the locals simply call it tagalog. Many of the Filipinos on the island speak at least a little bit of basic English. So, when I go to the store or ride a trike, for example, I can communicate with whoever is helping me in English.
While I am here, however, I am taking advantage of the opportunity to learn some tagalog. It is not easy for most people to learn another language, especially when you are an adult. If you are a kid reading this, I would encourage you to begin learning another language as soon as you can because it is easier to learn a new language when you are younger.
My roommate, Carla, and I have been taking some tagalog lessons with Aileen, one of the Filipina friends we have made. We write down what she teaches us on notecards and quiz each other. Even when you are a teacher, you still have to work hard to learn new things! Tagalog has many unique sounds and some really long words. One of the letters in this language is "ng" and you basically use your throat to make the sound for this letter.
I thought I would give those of you reading my blog the opportunity to learn some tagalog, too. I thought learning the numbers 1 through 10would be a good place to start. I asked a couple of my friends, Ajay and Yon-Yon, to help me make a video to show you how to prounounce these numbers. The words are typed below and the pronunciation video is underneath.
I cannot believe it has been so long since my last post! I have been incredibly busy since then with preparing to teach then beginning to teach my wonderful group of first graders. I have also been spending time with so many wonderful new friends and experiencing so many new things! I feel like I am constantly on the go!
I plan to write a more detailed post about many of these things soon, but I wanted my wonderful followers to know that I haven't forgotten about my blog!
Good thing I still have lots more time to update: 273 left on the island to be exact!
Also, for those of you that know about my younger sister's tryouts for the U.S. bobsled team, she ended up doing an awesome job! She placed first in the push championships and will begin training in Europe in December!
Here is an excerpt from an article about the event:
"Three veterans and one rookie claimed a 2011 U.S. National Bobsled Push Championship title in Lake Placid, NY today...Rookie athlete Katie Eberling (Palos Hills, Ill.) was the surprise winner in the women’s bobsled push championships. Eberling, 23, led a field of 15 women by 0.24 seconds to claim her first-ever title of what she hopes will be many." Click this link to read the full article!
More info and pictures to come soon from Boracay Island!!!
I have successfully made it to the Philippines! Actually, as of today, I have been here for one week and 3 days. A lot can happen in just over a week, especially when you are in a foreign country! In this post, I will tell you a little about my trip over here and some of the things I have learned so far.
On the way to the Philippines, I had a lay-over in Seoul, South Korea. A layover is when your plane lands at an airport that is in a place that is not your destination. The picture below from Google Earth shows where South Korea is on the globe. (You can click on any of the photos to make them larger).
The arrow points to South Korea.
After my layover in South Korea, I flew on another plane to Manila. Manila is the capital of the Philippines.
This map shows the overall route from Illinois to South Korea to the Philippines.
The plane that I took from Manila to Caticlan was a much smaller plane than the others, and I was only allowed to carry 22 pounds of luggage on it. I brought more than that because I will be staying in the country for 10 months. I was able to send the rest of my luggage on a cargo plane. A cargo plane only carries goods; it doesn't carry passengers. After my flight to Caticlan (see the picture in the sidebar), I took a short boat ride over to the island of Boracay.
Passengers getting on the boats at Caticlan.
On the way: I took this photo from the boat I was on;
the other boat in the picture looks like the one I was riding on.
Passengers getting off the boat at Boracay.
After I arrived in the Philippines, I had jet lag for a little while. According to dictionary.com, the definition of jet lag is "a temporarydisruptionofthebody'snormalbiologicalrhythmsafterhigh-speedairtravelthroughseveraltimezones." In other words, your body is mixed up because of the time-difference from traveling across the globe, so I was not always sleepy at night and would wake up wide-awake very early in the morning (around 4:00 a.m.). There is a 12 hour time difference between here and eastern time in the U.S.A. For example, right now, it is 11:25 a.m. on Saturday in the Philippines, and it is 11:25 p.m. on Friday night in Auburn, Indiana. So, basically, I am living in tomorrow for you! :-) That is what happens when you cross the International Date Line. Watch the short video below if you are interested in learning more about how the Internationl Date Line works. It's pretty cool!
Right now, it is rainy season on Boracay Island. In the Philippines, they have two seasons: rainy season and dry season. Rainy season lasts from May to October, and dry season is from November to April. It has rained every day since I have arrived on the island. Some days it rains for just a little while and other days it rains almost all day. Because you never know when it will start raining (or how hard), I have learned that it is important to carry around a poncho or an umbrella everywhere I go.
My roommate, Carla, and I wearing our ponchos.
The two most common forms of transportation that I have used since coming to the Philippines are walking and trikes. When you hear the word "trike," you may think of a little bike with three wheels that kids ride. That is a kind of trike, but not the kind I am referring to. A trike is basically a Filipino taxi. It has a motorbike on one side and a passenger car beside it.
The vehicles in this picture are trikes.
I have tried a few new foods since I arrived in the Philippines. One of the foods that I have tried is called rombutan. It is a reddish hairy-looking fruit with a soft and sweet clearish center. You eat it by breaking through the outer layer and taking out the clearish center. You eat the center, but you have to make sure you spit out the pit. I have also tried pondesol, which is a type of biscuit.
Rombutan
We recently moved into our apartment. Our first meal was eggplant and fried eggs (called tortang talong here) with fresh pineapple and pancit noodles on the side. It was delicious!
I am going to be a master at cutting up a pineapple by the time I leave!
My roomate, Carla, with our first meal of tortang talong, pineapple, and pancit noodles with soy sauce.
I will start teaching soon. I met some of the students and was able to take a tour of the school at which I will be teaching. The name of the school is Agape Boracay Academy. I am excited to get started!
The picture below is from one of the beaches on Boracay. When it is not raining, the beauty of the island shines through even more!
I have been granted a leave of absence from my job as a fifth grade teacher for the 2011-2012 school year in order to be a volunteer teacher on Boracay Island in the Philippines. I have always wanted to teach in another country, and I am excited to learn about what life is like in the Filipino culture. I know it is much different than what my life has been like teaching in Auburn for the past 5 years! I hope that you enjoy learning about Boracay with me as I experience life on the island!
