Language Training, HS Prom & Island Cove

Recently, I started taking language lessons in Subic, a 30-40 minute bike ride up & down the mountains.  At first it took a lot of energy at the end of a long day of teaching to start on that hilly trek.  However, I’ll admit it; I do love the route going to tagalog lessons.  I gradually start up the mountain, and then go down like a roller coaster; it’s a lot of fun. 

A few weeks ago, my school had their prom & my teachers told me the morning of prom that all the teachers go & that I should go.  I texted Arleen, the lady I met in Baguio about this, she was our tour guide and jokingly asked her to the dance later that night.  I didn’t think she would hop on a bus for three & half hours to be my prom date.  She came from Manila & arrived there at eight just before I got there.  I was late because Tuesdays are my language days.  I biked as fast as I could back to my apartment to change.  Normally, I would’ve cancelled the appointment, but I was just starting my lessons and didn’t want to do that.  I finally arrived and we all had a good time.  I took other photos of that night, but my camera doesn't take good shots at night.  This was the only good shot I got.

Island Cove

I can’t believe next Monday (3/19) will be my six month anniversary at my site, Kalalake National High School (KNHS).  At that same time, it will be 8 & ½ months here in the Philippines.  Time does travel fast.  Last week my counterpart (co-teacher) & I took part in a conference that got us started on what our main project will be.  Every volunteer has a local counterpart, regardless of what sector they work in; Education (me), CYF (children, youth, & family), or Environment.  Our project will be renovating a reading center here at KNHS and more details on this will come in probably two weeks as we still have to put a budget together, which is going to be tough to do because every single item has to be accounted for.

Back to Island Cove where I only had 15 minutes of internet, enough though to send my VRF (Volunteer Report Form).  That's a report where we have to include everything we did at our site, including the costs of each project.  It takes a long time.  I'm glad to actually send mine when I did (6:15am on a Tuesday, it also helps working out in the morning and realizing no one is in the lobby using the internet.)  I quickly raced up the stairs as if I was five and got my laptop and waited patiently for my computer to boot up, sent my VRF, then off with the internet for the week.

The Project design management (PDM) workshop went well and was a big help for my counterpart & myself.  They're were a lot of details that I hadn't considered such as tasks under each objective and a line by line budget.  We have our work cut out for us in the next 18 months, however just like the bike ride above they're will be ups & downs, but a lot of fun.

Ingat na