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!
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