the beginning

Hey! I’m now in Anda, well not now now cause I’m in a different city using some internet, but now as in this point in my life.  I like life in Anda a lot.  It’s what I imagined from the Peace Corps and so far appears to be a community of people I can’t help but love.  I haven’t seen another foreigner yet on Anda (it’s a small island), although I’ve heard rumors of a foreign missionary.  No one knows what country she’s from though, but maybe I’ll bump into her somewhere along the way.  Interesting fact: the mysterious missionary is apparently teaching at the only college on the island, Asbury College.  I think it’s somehow connected to the Asbury my dad went to seminary at, but I haven’t confirmed this.  Obviously there are still a lot of things I need to figure out. 

What I love about Anda:

*Andanians.  Everyone is incredibly kind and hospitable and I feel at peace around them.  I feel like a lot of people here feel a pretty magical connection to the earth.  It’s an amazing experience to be around people who are so conscious of all life.

*my host family.  They are incredibly and have definitely made me feel at home. I’m so comfortable here and enjoy spending time.  They are patient and understanding and always willing to share their lives with me.  I’m very lucky. 

* so much less drama than Olongapo. 

* no creepy white men

*the food.  Sobrang marami fruits and vegetables.  It’s heavenly. 

* The jungle and the farms and the ocean.  I love being in the middle of the jungle seeing farms everywhere I go while being surrounded by the ocean.  A natural paradise.

* the isolation. I’m sure this will drive me crazy eventually, but right now it is nice to be so far from…I don’t know what, but far from something that isn’t here.  It’s nice not to have that something although I can’t quite figure out what that something is.  Right now I’m back to that optimistic honeymoon stage, but as I’m in that stage I have this sense that no matter how difficult things are over the next two years it will be nice to be isolated as I figure out what it is I’m supposed to be doing with my life and who I really am.  You can’t help but spend so much time contemplating these things as there aren’t really people so far for me to talk to about any of this.  My Tagalog is below elementary I would say and seeing as I have come from such a different background than many of the people I’m surrounded by I can try to explain my past, my being, but I can’t talk about it in the same way I could talk about it with many of you.  that means a lot of internal contemplation and debate.  This may lead to insanity, but right now it’s leading to clarity.  Maybe insanity is clarity. 

*the time.  Holy moly is there a lot of time in a day.  I think in the u.s. we often forget how much time 24 hours actually is.  It’s a lot.  I have time to be.  Time to think. Time to read.  Time to watch tv (my most recent favorite hobby). Time to learn how to weave bags and hats and mats out of dried palm leaves.  Time to get to know my students.  Time to enjoy this place.  Yet, the days go by quickly.  But quickly doesn’t mean I feel like I should have done more or I didn’t get enough done or there are things I wish I could have done, quickly meaning I feel I did everything that needed to be done and now it’s time to spend 8 hours sleeping.  While I feel this will also lead to frustration at times as I often get frustrated if I don’t “accomplish” enough, I feel I’m learning that accomplishment isn’t synonymous with being busy.  Accomplishment is being present and breathing and living and feeling and listening.

*my students.  They are remarkable.  I’ll talk more about them in a minute.

*teaching.  I could have never anticipated that I would like teaching.  Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s one of the only careers I have told myself I would never do, let alone considered doing.  It is amazing and so inspiring.  Every day is different and I get to spend my day with people on a journey of discovery, people who are going to be leaders and parents and thinkers and creators.  I’m not going to lie, sometimes I get so discouraged or frustrated with various systems or injustices that I see through teaching, but my students give me great hope.

Things I miss from Olongapo:

*my host family.  They are amazing and luckily I get lots of texts from them.

*my cluster and Ester.

*free wi-fi at mcdonalds

So…get ready for a long one.  Actually im going to get some banana-q before I start this.

Sige.  If any of you ever visit I will be making you lots of banana-Q and kamote-Q.  You might be saying, “Really? You’re going to cook?” well, yes.  These two things are to good not to cook.  They may also cause diabetes at a tragically young age, but when in Rome.  Actually, that’s not really funny.  There is so much sugar and fat in most Filipino diets that a lot of people really suffer medically and people seem to die pretty young from “high blood” and heart attacks.  That’s for another day though.

Sige. I’ll start off with a story because I don’t know where else to start.  And then I’m sure this story will lead to more stories.    Today as I was dismissing my second to last class a student raised her hand and asked me what my talent is.  I laughed and said “hindi ko ng mga talent” meaning I don’t have any talents.  She got a very firm look on her face and stood up.  She then said “but miss (I got my students to call me miss instead of ma’am…quite the achievement in itself) Kaitlin, you told us on Monday that everyone has talents.”  I laughed and said “tama tama,” or true.  This made me really happy because 1) at least someone in one of my classes is listening and understanding what I am saying, 2) the look on her face would suggest she really believes that statement when a few days ago she seemed hesitant to believe she was gifted. if I do nothing else I want my students to know that they are talented and that they have great gifts to offer the world.  If this process is already starting to happen I feel blessed.  3) Before I got here my trainers, the Peace Corps staff, and the teachers of the school told me my students wouldn’t speak in class in front of me because they would be embarrassed of their “poor english.”  I was also told that my students would never correct me if I made a mistake because of the respect given to “authority figures here in the Philippines.” Her statement defied both of these things as have many different class discussions this week.  It’s only been one week and I feel my students are already increasing in confidence and starting to ask questions.

The Peace Corps wants us to co-teach.  This is to promote sustainability of our teaching techniques etc.  However, there is a lack of English teachers at my school right now for a variety of reasons so on Monday I was thrown into several classrooms on my own. I was given no lesson plans, no books, no curriculum…I had no idea what my students were supposed to be learning. I asked my year one class a couple days ago what they were learning the last time they had a teacher (for some classes they haven’t had a teacher in 3 weeks) and they said past tense of verbs. I then decided I should try to be teacherly and teach the future tense of verbs to carry on where they had left off.  I failed. I have no idea how to teach grammar, even in something as simple as verbs.  The English language doesn’t make sense. It’s confusing and complicated. I decided to scrap that lesson.  Instead I taught the south African philosophy of “ubuntu” and the west African philosophy of “unity through diversity.” 

I’ve been teaching years one, two and three and in those various classes we have talked about African philosophies and the power of liberation speech throughout the history of slavery and oppression around the world, we’ve talked about the differences between socialism, communism, democracy and dictatorships in asia and all of their roles in the Asian Economic Crisis as well as in their role in the return of the Asian economy, we’ve talked about racism and ethnic conflict, we’ve talked about reservations for Native Americans, we’ve talked about homeless ness and poverty and the students have created their own tragic poems about things in their lives, written essays on what makes them happy, composed skits to add alternative endings to poetry about poverty, written about their feelings and thoughts as if they were Native American children being sent to a school set up by the white people, given speeches as if they were running for president in the Philippines about the things they are proud of and the things they want to change, and created their own life philosophies.  Now, don’t assume this means there are no language barriers.  We use lots of stick drawings and lots of role playing and lots of moving around the classroom to demonstrate native amreican migrations and China’s open door policy etc, BUT I think my students understand what we are talking about, which is the greatest feeling in the world. 

Actually, even better than that my students now ask questions.  Lots of questions.  They aren’t embarrassed to speak even if their grammar may not be perfect.  They laugh and participate.  Today we were reading a story about a Pueblo Girl being taken from her parents and when I asked if they wanted to keep reading or work on the art activity I have to go with it they all yelled “keep reading!.”  I could have never hoped for such a response.  Students then connected her story to the treatment of some native peoples here in the Philippines.  This was all without my initiation.  It was my hope, but I thought it might take a few more classes.

This is all astonishing.  Truly.  I know I’ve only been in the Philippines for just over three months, but from what I’ve studied, observed, and been told reading is something that isn’t really a very common things here.  Even in the schools students aren’t typically asked questions that spark critical thinking or debate.  They answer questions that they are able to answer without understanding text.  For instance, “what is the boys name on page 3?”  The first couple class discussions definitely took some work, but once the students started discussing and asking questions they couldn’t stop.  It’s amazing. 

Also, a remarkable thing is the honesty my students give me.  On the first day I had some of the classes write a “sad poem” about anything in their life that makes them sad.  Since I’ve been in the Philippines I’ve never heard anyone mention being sad.  People typically laugh things off and try to cover up sadness (from what I’ve observed), but my students shared words that I couldn’t believe.  Their poems were powerful, raw and overwhelming.  When I had them write their life philosophies I was blown away by their wisdom.  Such young people with so much understanding and clarity.  I am learning so much from them. 

The first couple writing assignments my students seemed nervous to write.  In the Philippines the focus of English education is grammar.  I’ve seen students’ papers that are destroyed with red ink. I don’t want to use the word terrorism, but I know as a student I was always terrified to turn in any assignment because I never wanted to be told my work was bad or I was dumb.  I don’t want them to be scared to share their words because I think words are one of our greatest gifts. I want them to know that their words are powerful and their words are theirs and only theirs and those words that are theirs need to be shared and heard.  They are valuable and have the potential to empower others and create change. 

In the Philippines cheating and copying is a common part of the classroom.  On the first writing assignment I told students that I don’t support cheating and anyone who cheats will need to do their work again. Still, as I walked around I saw cheating. Students, I think, are afraid of getting bad grades and they lack confidence in themselves. They think their peers are smarter or more capable so they are willing to sacrifice their ideas for the words of another person.  We’ve been working on the cheating thing in a variety of ways, and yesterday I received no copied papers! Each paper was completely unique.  I tell the students I won’t grade for grammar seeing as I don’t know grammar and that I love mistakes because it shows your mind is in the process of thinking and creating ideas instead of focusing on details, thus loosing sight of their ideas.  I really believe these things, and I really believe grammar will come through more reading and more writing, but already I have seen that as the students focus on what they are trying to see their grammar is already getting better.  It’s strange what less pressure does to a persons ability to perform and prove himself/herself.  Just because I wrote that it reminds me, I an increased number of my students now write him/her, she/he, man/woman.  It makes me happy. 

I don’t know what a teacher is or what a teacher is supposed to do, but seeing as I’m just trying to figure it out day to day, I’m trying things and so far my students are blowing my mind. They are so patient with me and my attempts at teaching. I have told them that we are all teachers.  They are my teacher and I am their student just as I am their teacher and they are my students.  I feel like they are starting to believe that I said this honestly.  I can’t tell you how many students come up to me to thank me for the comments I write on their work.  I see them carrying around their papers and reading them again and again at lunch or vacant time.  It all just feels right.  I think people need to know someone sees them the way Zulu people see each other. 

Okay, thank you for reading. I know that’s really long but I’m just really excited and I’m excited to continue to get to know my students/teachers and work with them over these next several months.  I really feel lucky to be in such a remarkable place with so many remarkable people.  I love waking up and going to work.  Every day is a new adventure and somehow ridiculously predictable at the same time.  Oh life. What a brilliant Orchestrator (not a word…exactly why I shouldn’t be teaching English) of exchange.  

P.s. I’m not a historian so I don’t know much about Asian history and I know very little about Filipino history and/or culture.  We only have the text books the school has and the text books mostly have writings from Americans. If anyone stumbles upon books concerning asian history for me that would be amazing, or if you miraculously find a book of Filipino literature or folk tales I would love to get a copy of it.  I don’t want my classes to only read American literature (and it’s only two pages from any book they actually take the text from, which is a shame) and I want to be able to answer questions about Asian history that are asked to me. 

I love you all.