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It was attended by people who run each program and also those who are in the programs they facilitate. There were also those who support the center in attendance. It was a liturgical celebration which made it a lot like an extended church service, just a little less traditional.
The part that really moved me was the testimonial part. While most testimonies were in Tagalog, the emotions conveyed by those helped by this program surpassed the language barrier. From the little I did understand, I know that Batis is an important resource for many women and it has helped countless more that were not in attendance at the celebration. It was great to see our friends perform in the program, but also to see who they have been working with this whole time.
This past week I stayed at Harris Memorial College, a school for student deaconesses. For those of you who don't know what a deaconess does (like me when I first heard the term), a deaconess can major in Christian Education or kinder education. They work as teachers for young children and usually run the music programs at churches. While I'm not sure if there is anything similar in the Methodist church back home, it often reminds me of nuns or Sisters of the Catholic Church. On a slight tangent, a lot of traditions of the churches here seem to emulate those of the Catholic Church. Communion is commonly given with wafers. There are kneeling rails in many of the churches and sometimes even the individual pews. The large catholic presence in the Philippines probably contributed to a lot of these things, but it is interesting to see the differences.
What was I doing at this college for deaconesses? Certainly not attending classes. I have enough of those at Cornell! No, I was there to teach kindergarten in a local impoverished community. But first, we visited the fishing community of Ticulio where we would leave our male companions, Kosta and Anthony, for the week.
To get to the island, we first traveled on the school bus to get to the docks. This school bus is very different from American school busses. It actually resembles a jeepney in many ways except it is smaller and there is a door that closes you in. Plus it's got AC (or as it's called here, Aircon). At the dock, we got onto a boat that could've come straight off of Survivor. I kept expecting Jeff to pop out at any time. The middle was rather large and could hold lots of people. The boat was balanced with two bamboo skis that jetted off on each side. The views from the boat were spectacular. The islands slowly faded in from the cloudy distance and the mountains seemed to form from nothing. We saw fishermen out on the water and communities built on the edges of each island.
Once on the island, we proceeded to receive a tour. We hiked up to the school. And up and up. It was so high! But the view from up there was spectacular. The school was in a state of disrepair due to typhoon Glenda, but the students still used it. We also visited the recreation center which consisted of a basketball court and a little school house. All of the children, and some people a little too old to be considered children, stared at us in awe. But if you walked towards them, they immediately backed away like they were afraid. It was rather interesting. The lady who was leading us around gathered the kids and asked us to teach a song. So we did, except no one sang along. They mostly just stared. When we asked for a picture with them no one wanted to get close enough to us for it. It was the first community who had not been super excited about taking pictures. Except this one little boy. He walked right up to us and smiled. I like him. He's cool and can stay. :) Yet despite not wanting to be in our pictures they continued to follow us until we got back to the house that was hosting us for lunch. After lunch we just dropped the boys off and headed back to Harris.
We got to teach the kindergarten students for the rest of the week. We planned the lesson at night with Teacher Devine, who was a 4th year student at Harris studying to be a teacher. To get to the school, we had to take two jeepneys and a tricycle, which if you remember is a motorcycle with a sidecar attached. Right before we reached the community, we passed through a very nice subdivision. It was a very clear contrast between those houses and the ones in the community we were teaching in. The kids were the saving grace of the week. They were so cute and precious! We taught them songs like the Itsy Bitsy Spider and The Ants Go Marching to help with weather and counting. Their topics for the week were weather, counting 1-20, and vowels and consonants. We were tasked with teaching the math section and helped them count from 1-20 by clapping. Then we would draw the number on the board so they would recognize it. Of course being the only native English speakers there we did not teach the English portion. We instead sat in the back and snickered at the interesting pronunciations that were being taught to the kids. I guess accents perpetuate accents. But I will not be riding a school "boos" anytime soon. On the last day we got to give them an untraditional quiz by doing activities with them. I ran the letters game. I would say "Hop to the letter..." And if they got it right they got a star. It was usually a group effort but eventually they got it right. I really enjoyed our week at Upper Javier. It felt like we were really making a difference by teaching. I love to have experiences like this one that really validate why I am here. Hopefully this coming week will provide the same satisfaction as we prepare to fix up a building at Paranaque, where we taught the kids a few weeks ago, so that it is better suited for use as a learning cent
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