Mahaba What? Where Are We Going Again?

Thursday, June 16

We were told that we would be going to the most remote elementary school that feeds into Boot National High School and it was definitely remote; we had to take a boat on Lake Taal to get to Mahabang Buhangin.  Our host teacher Amy had arranged for the Tanauan City Rescue boat to take us to the school.  Wendi, one of my travel partners, had heard from a student at Boot, about a local dragonboat team and the team's headquarters was right across from the pick-up point for the boat.  We had a little bit of time for a quick detour to check out the dragonboat team's facility and meet with the founder of the team, Anthony.  He told us the story of how he started the team in 2013 and they have fought their way up through the rankings to be a championship team.  Like baseball, he told us how dragonboat racing became important to the kids and their families.  He continues to use the sport to keep the kids' focused in school on their college aspirations.  He even invited us back for their Saturday practice.

After our impromptu meeting with the dragonboat team founder, we set off on our boat ride to Mahabang Buhangin.  It was a scenic ride and just the chance to get on the beautiful waters of Lake Taal was fantastic!  Lake Taal was created by a volcanic eruption, so it is a lake inside the crater of a volcano that also has the world's smallest active volcano in it.  It was about a 20 minute boat ride to the shoreline of the village, although I'm not even sure that you can call it a village, it was so small.  Several kids came rushing out to help us get off the boat as there was no dock, nor a graceful way to get off the boat.  We were a little confused why the boys weren't in school, then we learned that the 5th grade teacher was at training and there are no substitutes, so the 5th graders didn't have school.  None of the schools we visited had substitute systems, so other teachers were often expected to cover classes or assign work for the students to complete without a teacher in the room.

It was quite a trek up to the school!  We had to walk through the small village and at one point I'm pretty sure we were walking across someone's front porch to get to the school.  I was walking ahead of the group so I missed the pet pig that tried to take out Wendi!  The school consisted of 2 long buildings and a small building in the middle for the teacher-in-charge's office and the computer lab.  To meet the need for classroom space, two of the classrooms had been subdivided with plywood into smaller classrooms.  Each classroom had access to a presenter and each teacher had a computer.  This access to technology was driven by the Teacher-In-Charge, Marco Catacutan.  A Teacher-In-Charge has a foot in the teaching world and a foot in the administrative world; he's a principal, but he still teaches 6th grade at the school.  We had an inspiring conversation with him about the struggles his kids face living in such a remote community and why remains committed to this tiny community.  When his students go to Boot, they have to walk almost 3 hours to get to the high school because there is no accessible road to the village.  It is a strenuous walk to say the least, yet the students are willing to make it everyday unless it's storming.  There is talk about adding a road to the village, but he said that could take up to 10 years.  He actually lives in Manila, but lives in Mahabang Buhangin during the work week.  He is hoping to continue working at the school, so that he can see his vision come to fruition.  

While I was at the school, I had a chance to observe a fantastic lesson on transportation sounds in a 1st grade class.  The teacher did such a great job keeping the little ones engaged throughout the lesson and they were quite possibly the most enthusiatic learners I have ever seen.  One student rushed up to the teacher to answer her question and the next thing you know the whole class surrounded her wanting to answer her questions.  Once again the lesson was in Tagalog, but I could follow along because she was using so many visuals with the kids.   

After lunch, it was state presentation time again!  We were hoping that these presentations would be better because we knew we had access to working technology, or at least we thought we did!  I had Wendi's presentation on my flash drive, so we presented together to the older kids first.  Overall, things went well excluding the oven that we were presenting in...there was absolutely no air circulating in the room and the corugated steel roof was absorbing the blazing noon heat!  It's is hard to describe how hot it was in those tiny rooms filled with about 40 kids.  We switched classrooms with Jan only to discover that this room was surprisingly even hotter than the other one.  I begin to present and I notice this fidgety kid on the side of the room.  I kept presenting and periodically looking over at him.  By the end of my presentation, the kid was literally hanging on the bars that covered the window.  It was so hot in the room, he couldn't have cared any less about Maryland, North Carolina, or anything else that Wendi and I were talking about and honestly, I can't say I blame him because I wanted to get out of that room ASAP, too!

Below are my two favorite pictures from the day.  The boats picture needs no explanation.  The picture on the right is Jan, Wendi, and I laughing at our host teacher Amy's Filipino umbrella that has flipped in the wind...even umbrellas are more fun in the Philippines!

It's Teaching, So Why Am I Nervous?

Wednesday, June 15

Another required activity of my fellowship was a co-teaching experience.  I was partnered with Jen Plete who teaches 9th grade Social Studies.  In this grade, the content focus is Economics.  Since the year was just starting, she asked me to focus on the basic economic terms of opportunity cost, trade-off, incentive, and marginal thinking.  As usual I did a lot of overthinking about the lesson I was going to teach and how I was going to teach it.  One thing I knew for sure is that I was not going to base my lesson on technology given our experience yesterday with the presentations.  I went old school and used the same manila paper that the teachers at Boot use on a daily basis.

I was so nervous when I stepped in front of the class.  What if it didn't go well?  What if they didn't talk? What if I completely lost them because I was talking too fast?  There were a lot of what ifs going through my mind.  I started off by telling them that I was probably as nervous about teaching them as they were about speaking English with me; Social Studies is usual taught in Tagalog.  I reassured them that if I started going too fast or losing them, they could just ask me to slow down and I told them that even my own students did that to me.  Within a few minutes, I had them up out of their seats, moving around the room, and talking with me about examples of the economic terms-it was great!  I had them plan a special evening on a limited budget and then discuss how the terms applied to the activity.  I had such a good time with them and they were so cooperative.  It is definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip!  

After lunch, we went Boot Elementary School which is just in front of the high school, so it was a quick walk.  We thought we were going there to do our state presentations, but to our surprise we were there to do formal observations!  The problem was that we didn't know we were doing formal observations until after we had finished the observations.  I observed a 3rd grade science lesson on the part of the eye and eye safety in Tagalog!  The only words I knew were the parts of the eye because they are the same in English.  You see the Philippines is a linguistically diverse country and another fairly new initiative in Philippine education is Mother Tongue for K-3.  Kids are taught in their native dialects and do not start English until 4th grade.  I should have known something was up when the teacher handed me her lesson plans in Tagalog when I walked into the room!  From what I could follow, she did a nice job with the lesson and so I focused on that for my evaluation.  We later found out that the teachers we observed were working on their next level of teacher certification and having an observation from an American teacher would carry a lot of weight for them, so we were happy to do the paperwork even if we didn't understand Tagalog.  The teachers were very appreciative and even the students of the class gave me a traditional Filipino blessing of placing their forehead on my hand after we did our group picture.  I felt very appreciated!  There is A LOT of paperwork invloved with observations and promotions in the Philippines as there are 4 levels of teacher certification based on credits as well as professional development activities and action research.  Documentation is the key to getting a promotion!  In fact, we even ended up with a certificate as a result of our observation.  I am now a teacher accreditor, which sounds super fancy, right?  I am not sure what I can do with that title in the US, but I am going to post the certificate in my classroom anyway.  We were often asked if we were going to get a promotion because of our participation in Teachers for Global Classrooms and we had to explain that promotions didn't work that way in the US.  Haha!   

My Official Teacher Accreditor Certification Ceremony :)

Presentations-We Got This, Right?

Tuesday, June 14

This day started off with classroom observations.  I observed a MAPEH class on First Aid, an Economics class, and a Math class.  Each class had no less that 45 students in it, which was a sight to see.  I know that at my school teachers will complain if their class sizes even approach 30 and yet these classes had 45+ in them with no air conditioning.  The classrooms are roughly the same size as the rooms at my school, but with many more desks.  The only cooling options were 3-4 large fans that rotated from the ceiling.  Some of the students brought their own little fans to cool off.  Almost every student had a sweat wipe...I wish I had thought of that, I relied on my sleeve or a paper towel.  The classrooms are open, which I found to be distracting because you could hear everything going on outside during class.  Surprisingly, the heat and the noise did not distract the students at all, they are clearly adjusted to the distractions.

Even though there are so many students in the classroom, I did not observe any discipline issues in any of the classes.  The students were always very respectful to the teacher and any other adult in the room.  In fact, all of the students would stand up and greet anyone who came into the room, "Good morning, visitor.  Mabuhay!"  Another interesting observation is that students would stand to answer questions whether they volunteered or were chosen by the teacher.  Often when a teacher would ask, "Class, does everyone understand?," in unison, the class would answer, "Yes, Mam."  Students weren't asking questions, they were only answering questions posed by the teacher.

The teachers move to the students rather than the students switching classes, so the classrooms were pretty bare in terms of decoration.  The standard decoration can be see in the picture above on the right.  It the seal of the Philippines in the center, pictures of the current president and mayor, and pictures of Jose Rizal and Mabini, Philippine national heroes.  Students are responsible for keeping the classrooms clean.

After our morning of observations, we were asked to present our state presentation, which was a requirement of our program.  We had put together these presentations to highlight our state and local area and education system to share with our host community.  We thought this would be one of the easiest activities of our time at Boot...boy, we're we wrong!  The projector kept overheating and going out because the voltage was too high in the plug.  I was up first, so I was completely winging it without my presentation for the first session.  Did I mention that it felt like 125 under the roof of the outdoor auditorium?  Did I also mention that the kids were scheduled to go to lunch right after our presentations?  It was a mess to say the least.  Wendi, Jan, and I all agreed that we were happy there was no evaluation of our presentations that day.  The second presentation went a bit better because we actually had a working projector and laptop!

Thankfully, we were scheduled to talk with the 7th grade classes after our presentations.  It gave us time to forget our technology woes from our presentations!  My group of 7th graders were very shy about asking questions, but they eventually warmed up with some encouragement from their teacher. By the end of our session, I had them teaching me Tagalog words.  

We had dinner on our own and we discovered...Shakey's Pizza!  I know some of you are thinking "I can't believe she's eating pizza in the Philippines," but in my defense we had eaten a ton of Filipino up until that point, so a little taste of home was needed.

The First Day of School

When I left the US, we only had 4 days of school left and now, in the Philippines, they are just starting school.  The school year in the Philippines runs from June to March, with April and May being the "summer" break.  When we found out that we were going to be here for the opening of the school year, we were surprised to say the least.  All of the TGC fellows are classroom teachers and we could not imagine have international guests in our schools the first week on top of already stressful start to the school year.  Not only were we surprised to be there for the opening of school, we were also surprised by how welcoming everyone was at Boot and how willing they were to answer our many questions and help us during our time at the school.

This year is an exceptionally exciting year for schools in the Philippines because they have moved to a K-12 program from a K-10 program and this year is the first year they will be offering 11th grade nationwide.  The decision to move to a K-12 program was based upon keeping the Filipino worker competitive in the global market considering how many Filipinos work overseas.  With this addition in the Philippines, there are only 2 countries in the world that don't offer a K-12 program-Angola and Djibouti.  This is a huge commitment and investment on the part of the national government with a lot of questions surrounding the potential success of this addition.  Like many new initiatives in the US, some argue that the K-12 program is underfunded given that many of the classrooms needed are not even built yet, as well as the present teacher shortage to staff the new grades.  The Department of Education is providing training in the national curriculum for the new grades, but it was 7 days straight of unpaid training right before school started.

According to the government, there are not enough students to offer grade 11 or 12 at Boot, so the students will have to use the voucher program to attend private school or move to another public school.  This is not fair to the students of Boot that they cannot finish in their home school and will have to travel great distances to get to school.  However, in our conversations with the Supreme Student Government today the students are committed to completing grades 11 and 12, even if they do have to go to a different school.  

We also had a a conversation with a group of teachers and we learned that there are a lot of similarities between the struggles of Boot teachers and American teachers.  Lack of resources is probably the biggest issue facing the teachers at Boot.  Funding is primarily controlled by the national government and it is based on the school enrollment, so the smaller schools like Boot get significantly less funding.  There is only internet access in the principal's office and one projector for the whole school.  Some teachers do have laptops, but only because they bought them.  Teachers are often asked to teach subjects they do not feel qualified to teach and lack the resources to teach.  For example, in the cooking class, students are required to bring in the ingredients of a recipe rather than the ingredients being provided by the school.  Also, teachers are assigned to teach MAPEH (Music, Art, PE, and Health), which would be a challenge for any teacher and yes, they are expected to teach all of those subjects.  Each subject is taught once a week on a rotating basis.  My host teacher Amy had to teach the class and she couldn't even read music notes!    

All Filipino schools participate in Brigada Eskwela at the beginning of the school year.  It is program of school maintenance that everyone, and I mean everyone, participates in to help prepare the school for the upcoming year.  It involves teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members in various projects around the campus from painting to tree planting.  Our visit was even included as a part of the Brigada!  It really helps build a sense of community among the school even if it does involve a lot of paperwork.

Sunday Funday! :)

Sunday, June 12

The day started with a visit to our host teacher Amy's church, Lifestream Ministries.  They are in the process of building a new church and we were able to worship in the shell of the new building.  When services were finished, I discovered my favorite Filipino dish-ligaw.  It's a chicken and rice "stoup" that is delicious even when it is 95 degrees outside.

After church we started making our way to La Virginia Resort for an afternoon of swimming and relaxing.  A Jollibee stop was necessary for a quick bite of lunch and who knew we would get a show, too!  Apparently, Sundays are really fun days at Jollibee's because there was a dance party on the main floor.  I also tried the world famous Jollibee spaghetti with hot dogs.  It's the same one that Anthony Bourdain tried and I have to say I disagree with his approval of the spaghetti.  The sauce was way too sweet!  The chicken joy (aka fried chicken) was really good with the gravy and rice patty.  They serve their rice like a hamburger bun wrapped in paper.

 

La Virginia is a resort of multiple swimming pools that locals often stay at for vacation.  We knew we were in for a treat when one of the 1st things we saw was a collection of Santa Claus statues.  Thanks to Chef Jeff we were able to get a great deal on ziplining to start our visit off on an exciting note.  Only 300 philippine pesos (about $6 usd) for 2 ziplines is a great deal, right?  The fact that we were given our tickets through a little mail slot without every seeing a face should have given us pause, but we were too excited.  Let's just say this zipline did not have the most current safety equipment!  You had to be forced, or maybe jammed is the better word, by two scrawny Filipino guys into the full-body harness to do the zipline Superman-style.  Jan went first because I was afraid she would chicken out and she was freaking out about being able to touch the trees.  Clearly, the rules of running ziplines in the Philippines are different than in the US!  The braking mechanism to prevent us from slamming into the walls was literally 4 Bridgestone tires.  We probably should have checked into this before we allowed ourselves to be hooked onto the zipline.  After "successfully" completing the zipline, we wandered around the park in the rain checking out some of the more interesting statues, including ones that were far more anatomically correct than statues need to be.  

  

 

A Day of Mixed Emotions

Saturday, June 11

We went to Boot National High School for the Welcome Ceremony in the morning.  The school is located about 25 minutes outside of Tanauan City in the rural area of Boot.  Boot is a barangay, which is the smallest political unit in the urban structure of the Philippines.  As a barangay, Boot provides a few services to its residents including school, a few stores and police protection.  

The welcome ceremony and school tour was great!  The school is made up of multiple buildings for the different grades and you have to walk down an alley by the elementary school to get to the high school.  There are approximately 640 students at BNHS which we later learned was extremely small by Filipino standards-another group went to a high school of 6000 students.  I am glad we ended up at a smaller school because it was easier to get to know the faculty and the students at Boot.  Faces became familiar pretty quick.  Like the previous schools I visited, I felt genuinely welcomed at Boot.  Everyone was excited for us to be there even if it was the first week of school coming up and the ceremony was scheduled for a Saturday morning.  The teachers, PTA, and the Supreme Student Government came out to participate in the Welcome Ceremony, which included a few welcome messages as well as student performances.  Like many high schools, Boot has some phenomenally talented students!  After the welcome ceremony, the PTA treated us to a delicious lunch of traditional Filipino food, although we didn't realize this lunch was actually our mid-morning snack because we had another meal to eat within a few hours.  

 

After our welcome ceremony, we visited a neighboring barangay, Maria Paz.  We met with several community members and discussed the importance of education and the invaluable role parents play in their children's education.  The barangay's chief's wife wanted to share with us a new project they were implementing to boost tourism-an eco park.  It had a breathtaking view of Lake Taal!

 

After our visit to the eco-park, we went to our host teacher Amy's house for lunch.  Her husband had travelled back to Boot from Manila to prepare lunch for us and rumor had it that he was a very good cook.  The rumor was correct!  We had the opportunity to meet Loujane, Amy's daughter, as well as her aunt and uncle.  Her auntie was so excited for us to be there so that she could practice her English with us.  I think many people we met were excited to practice their English with native speakers!  Auntie also let us try jackfruit, which was fruity with an interesting texture and flavor.

 

We spent the afternoon touring the Apolinario Mabini Shrine and Museum.  Mabini was a Filipino revolutionary who became the Prime Minister of the first Philippine Republic after Spanish rule.  Honestly, I don't remember much of the museum because we received some horrific news that afternoon.  One of our fellow teachers on the trip had received word that his 6-month-old daughter had passed away suddenly and he had to leave the field experience.  This was devastating news and my heart ached for my new friend and his young family.  I wanted nothing more than to hold my own children and never let go, but I couldn't because I was on the other side of the world.  The news turned the afternoon into a blur for me.   

Welcome to Tanauan City, Batangas!

Friday, June 10

While I didn't have any particular expectations for this trip, I knew that Manila was not the Philippines that I wanted to experience.  A fellow teacher used the term "sanitized" to describe Manila and I could not agree more.  We were staying in Makati, which is the financial center of Metro Manila and a place of great wealth and consumerism.  It reminded me of a concept in AP Human Geography-placelessness.  Makati was no different that the big cities of the United States-the stores, the traffic, the construction, etc.  If I was hungry for anything that I could get at home, all I had to do was walk out my hotel doors and I could find it.  I didn't want this experience; I wanted something more authentic, which is why I was excited to head out to my host community-Tanauan City.

Our host teacher Amy Buban bravely travelled through Manila traffic to pick us up.  She brought along our new friend, Chef Jeff who is actually a fellow teacher at Boot.  Immediately, we started with a million and one questions and they answered everyone.  Chef Jeff became Chef Jeff because I asked Amy about cooking and she told me to ask Jeff.  The ride from Manila to Tanauan was eye-opening.  It seemed like it took forever to get out of Manila, but once we did, it was lush greenery everywhere.  If it weren’t for the surrounding volcanoes and tropical vegetation, I could say that it reminded me of home.  The placelessness of Manila was becoming a distant memory thanks to the province of Batangas.

Our hotel was very different from the one in Makati…let’s just say it took us off of our luxury pedestal we were on in Makati!  For example, the spotty wifi is the reason I am so far behind on my blog.  Just to make you a little jealous, my room does have these blue “mood lights” in case anyone is looking for some romance with a smurf. Haha! 

After dropping off our luggage, we headed out to Rose and Grace, a restaurant that is well-known for bulalo, a savory beef soup.  Upon our arrival at the restaurant, we were greeted in the parking lot by a guy selling an iPhone and another guy selling cleavers; it was quite a welcome to Tanauan City!  Lunch was delicious; I even tried bone marrow. 

 

We had a courtesy call (aka a visit) with the Superintendent of Tanauan City Schools and most of the high-ranking officials within the Division Office.  They were as excited to meet us as we were to meet them.  After our meeting at the division office, we went to meet the mayor of Tanauan City, the Honorable Antonio Halili.  He was definitely an interesting person!  He reminded me of a Filipino version of Wayne Newton with his hair and the way that he carried himself; he was even wearing Louis Vuitton sneakers with a matching briefcase.  He was very welcoming and shared with us some clips about Tanauan City as well as Batangas coffee. 

 

While at the mayor’s office we learned about the championship Tanauan City baseball team that had just won an international tournament in Singapore.  Many of the kids who play baseball see the sport as a way to get to college, so they spend countless hours practicing and playing with the encouragement of their parents.      

Mabuhay!

Thursday, June 9

Mabuhay is a very popular Filipino greeting that is used as “Welcome,” but it translates to “Long Live.”  The Filipino people do not take that term lightly as I have never felt so welcomed in a new place.  It seems that no matter where I go, the people are genuinely excited to see me and are happy that I came to visit.  These statements are usually followed by “Now, when you come back, you have to bring your family!”  It’s like they are psychic or something; I can’t wait to bring my kids back! J

Today started off with a trip to Pitogo National High School in Makati, which is in Manila.  The school is beautiful; four-stories tall u-shaped building that surrounds a courtyard parking lot.  We were immediately ushered in to the assembly hall for a welcome program.  The school’s chorus and Folkloric Dance Troupe gave phenomenal performance of traditional Filipino songs and dances.  Of course, I had yet another opportunity to try tinikling (the pole dance), which made it even more fun.  I have to say I am getting much better than my first video as I have figured out the rhythm.  After the performances, we took a tour of the school guided by students, teachers, and PTA members.  It is amazing to see the number of desks that they can fit into these rooms that are smaller than my classroom!  The number of students per class can vary wildly 45-120 depending on the school.  I have a feeling that once I see a class full of students here, I will never complain about having more than 28 students again! The PTA at Pitogo provided us with a “snack” (AKA lunch) and t-shirts. 

After our visit to Pitogo, we went to a buffet lunch, because that’s what we do in the Philippines-eat a meal, then go to a buffet! J  The restaurant was in this super high-end area, Bonafacio Global City.  Let’s be real-this area was so high-end it we passed by Lamborghini Manila on the way to the mall.  I didn’t even know that there were dealerships that only sold Lamborghinis!  In an attempt to avoid eating at the buffet, I was wandering around the restaurant and I saw a room with a bird’s eye view of Manila that couldn’t resist.  An owner of the restaurant allowed me to sneak in for some pictures and we had a great conversation about the uneven development of both Manila and the Philippines.  He told me that in the squatter area I was looking at homes could be bought for $80,000 php and, just on the other side of the restaurant, a condo was selling for $100,000,000 php.   

After lunch we went to East Rembo Elementary School.  It is ranked the number one elementary school in Manila and one of the best in the country.  The design and layout was the same as the high school.  It was brigada eskwela week, so it was a very busy place with lots of painting, repairs, and organizing happening.  Brigada eskwela is a national program where all stakeholders (teachers, students, parents, etc.) of a school spend a week getting the school prepared for the new year.  It creates a sense of ownership and community amongst the school, which is something many schools can use!  After a brief welcoming ceremony with a questionable music choice by the dance group, the principal presented a report on the school’s statistics and achievements, then we went on a tour of the school.  We also had a panel discussion with a group of teachers from our sister program, International Leaders in Education Program (ILEP).  The reoccurring theme in many of our discussions is that teachers face many of the same challenges regardless of their geographic location.  We had a great discussion and a great dinner afterwards at ERES.  I even went back for seconds, much to the delight of Alix, our in-country host!

Tomorrow marks the next step in this adventure…I am headed to Boot National High School in Tanauan City, Batangas!

I feel so official!

Wednesday, June 8

We headed out early today to the US Embassy in Manila.  Surprisingly, traffic wasn't too bad, so we ended up at the embassy a little earlier, which meant we had time for a quick stop at Rizal Park, the home of the Jose Rizal National Monument.  This striking monument is to honor the "Pen of the Revolution" against Spanish colonial rule.  His remains are interred in the base of the monument and the surrounding grounds are a beautiful tribute to his contributions.  I left my footprints behind at Jose Rizal Park thanks to wet paint!

           

I would love to show pictures of the embassy, but they took our phones!  Can you imagine it?  We have spent the past 3 days snapping pictures like crazy people and then nothing!  We had become so use to taking pictures that many of us kept grabbing for our phones and cameras even thought we knew they were not in our bags.  While at the embassy, we took a tour of the embassy grounds and met with Cultural Affairs specialists as well as the Regional English Language Officer who is tasked with improving English Language Instruction across the region.  This office offers a ton of FREE resources for Philippine teachers at americanenglish.state.gov.  Our hosts also gave us great tips for travelling and experiencing the Philippines!  Did you know that one of the cool things to do in the Philippines is to go to speakeasies?  Yes, I mean those hidden bars that were popular in during the Prohibition Era in the US.  Some are accessible through storeroom closest or old elevator shafts.

We went to Vikings Buffet for lunch.  My word do the people of Manila love their buffets!  The coolest part of this buffet was the birthday performance.  Our standard restaurant birthday recognition in the US is nothing compared to the Vikings performance.

After lunch, we went to Philippine-American Educational Foundation.  This foundation is in charge of the many exchange programs between the US and the Philippines, including the Fulbright Program.  They help send Filippinos to US and bring Americans to the Philippines for study opportunities.  It was a great conversation with fantastic people and they gave us a little taste of home at the end of our meeting-pizza!

While we were waiting for our vans to take us back to our hotel, I had the chance to explore a 7-11. That may sound a little strange, but a 7-11 in a different country can be a very interesting place.  It was a combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar.  If you want a wide variety of canned meat for a snack, this 7-11 is the place to go.  If you need a Coke, you can get a bottle for 32 Philippine Pesos, which is about 70 cents!