Site at last

I have been a Peace Corps Volunteer now for one month, and I have just, finally, arrived in Sitio Old Boso Boso (or Boso Boso as they call it). Was it worth the wait? Most certainly. It has only been a week, and as always so much has already happened. Grace Christian Mission (GCM) is located in the central area of the Sitio, just a minute walk from my house. The center has currently 65 kids, mostly girls, ranging from ages 4-18. The kids are quite simply wonderful. All go to the affiliated Grace Christian Mission Technical School during the day (elementary and high school) except for the twins who are too young, and spend their time at the center in the afternoon and weekends.

My days off will be on Sunday and Monday, and Tuesday-Thursday mornings I will be at the school helping with 6th grade and 2nd year high school English. That’s right. I’ll be teaching. The school system is a bit different here as there is no middle school. Elementary goes until grade 6, and then there are 4 years of high school. So the high school aged students in the Philippines are younger than those in the U.S. Another key difference is the structure of schooling. The concepts of communication and time management are very different from the rigid structures seen in the U.S. Things are relaxed here. Class may start at 7am, or maybe at 7:30am, depending on a whole number of factors. There may be a review for an exam, or something may come up and there may be no review. And the same goes with communication. While in the U.S., “yes” means “yes” and “no” means “no,” here these words may not imply their direct meaning. Filipinos may say “yes” when they are not sure, when they do not understand, when they do not want to talk about something, and also if they really mean yes. Planning and organizing, then, will be very difficult for an American who comes to the Philippines and tries work within the American set of standards. Indeed as much as I would like to get right to work planning lessons and trainings and activities, this is going to take time. The Philippines works through a series of relationships, not through the American principles of time efficiency and direct communication. If we are friends, there is a mutual unspoken agreement to help one another when needed. Plans occur and activities get done largely because of relationships, not because there is a scheduled meeting that I think is very important. So my job now is to build those relationships. Ideally, things will start to fall into place after that. But it will take time and patience, and I must throw my American values away, or at least put them in a box for later.

On Fridays, I will be working in the community doing a variety of jobs not yet specified. The most concrete activity so far is helping in the local health clinic. Barangay San Jose is divided into many Sitios because the barangay has over 100,000 residents. The clinic is in Sitio San Joseph, which provides a beautiful and bumpy drive through the mountains. The clinic is run by a local doctor who sometimes stays at my house in Boso Boso. It is comprised of a small building, maybe ten square meters, and a covered patio of the same size. Doc sets up benches which serve as the waiting room, and a chair and a desk for the exam room. Medicine is picked up on the drive to the clinic, and is stacked along the perimeter of the patio. Patients pay a 50 peso exam fee (about the equivalent of a U.S. dollar) but the medicine is free. Most of the patients are mothers and their malnourished children, but a few elder men and women come to have their blood pressure checked. Many have “high blood.” There is a feeding program for the children, or a small hut below the patio where a few women sit stirring a large pot of macaroni. I try to talk to the women, but my Tagalog is not good enough and they only speak a little English. I sit and I smile and I observe. I try to push any feelings of uselessness out of my head. I am smiling and attempting to speak to them; that is relationship building. Surely next time will be a little easier, and I will learn a little more. I eat a lunch of fish, rice, kalabasa flowers, and buko juice and try not to feel guilty for eating the elaborate meal when the families have only pasta with a ketchup sauce. They would have it no other way; I am a guest here.

Saturdays are my full day at the center. I will be conducting Life Skills sessions for all of the kids. I will cover topics such as communication, team building and trust, confidence building and self esteem, self awareness, health and hygiene, the list goes on. Yesterday was the first session, but I only focused on getting to know the kids (i.e. learning 65 new names!). It went surprisingly well, despite not being able to plan much (I may be adapting to this already?). Any doubts I had vanished with the smiles and the laughter of the kids. I spent more time with them in the afternoon, going with them to their “fellowship.” The fellowship, which in English terms would refer to some sort of religious retreat, was simply an afternoon of fun and games in the farmland just a short walk from the center. They played volleyball in the harvested rice fields, sang and played guitar with staff Kuya Jeff, made a dessert out of pounded bananas, sugar, coconut, and cashews, and played in a large pile of dried rice stalks. It was serene, surrounded on all side by mountains. It was wonderful.

Friday night was the first nights of Hannukah, so I made a menorah out of tin foil and brought it to GCM. I prepared a short program and lit the menorah for the kids and staff. They looked so confused, but they smiled and I smiled as I tried my best to explain. They were satisfied because I had sung the prayers for them. They are always asking me to sing.

I think it will be good here. I just need to remind myself of these things every once and a while, and reflect a little on the good moments. Because certainly there will be plenty bad and also good.