July 31st

Just a quick message because the internet has been out of order due to bad weather the last couple days and when it is accessible it doesn't stay so for long.
I think the news said it was a typhoon, regardless, we have had strong winds and lots of rain the last couple days - the Manilla area was hit the worst, but we, being only about an hour and a half southeast, have had our fair share. It's letting up for the most part, but the winds are still pretty gusty - I'm guessing that is the culprit for the poor internet.  Hopefully it continues to let up overnight and I will post a little bit longer of a message when the internet is working on a more consistent basis.

July 25th

It's been almost a week back here at Sankey and I am getting settled back I to the routine here with school and what not. I have posted some pictures from last Friday at school - the were celebrating healthy food month. They had been working on different activities the previous weeks when I was gone, and Friday was the culminating event. They performed their skits and winners were announced for essay, slogan and poster contests for each grade.
I'm not sure if you can see it one of the pictures below, but a lot of the younger kids wore hats decorated with a variety of vegetables in different patterns and designs - they were really quite cool looking!
The skits and winners of the competitions were all announced in the morning, and that afternoon when we reconvened the kids broke up into three different groups and each group made a healthy dish and drink - enough for everyone to sample!! I had a lot fun going around watching, and occasionally helping the different groups prepare their dish - I got a few pictures of that.
Throughout my time here I have noticed how much more lax they are with taking precautions than we are in the states - this cooking day was a prime example. I chuckled a little because never in a school in the states would you have a second grader using a 6" knife, or cooking over an open flame (even if they were being supervised). Here, no big deal!
Anyways, the fishes all turned out great! We had vegetable loaded spaghetti, some sort of chicken burger (the green patties in the picture below - I know they don't look overly appealing, but they were actually really good), and fried vegetables. Potatoes, carrots, and leaves...I'm assuming it was some sort of healthy vegetable leaf, but I got a kick out of it - and they say Americans will fry anything.
This week has been pretty regular thus far. It's starting to set in that I only have a few weeks left here, so I'm trying to get as much time in with the kids as possible. I've gone back to eating dinner with the kids more often - so it's back to the canin, isda, at gulay - but like I've been telling the kids, in a few weeks when I'm back in the states I will probably miss it, so I'll enjoy it while I can!
Thursday and Friday are half days for Cugley students this week, they have their first round of tests. So for computers this week we have just been reviewing. Most of the teachers are making up the computer test for their kids and I am just administering it, but I get to make up tests for a couple of the grades (I'm kind of looking foward to being on the making, instead of taking, end a test).

July 23rd

Week 3, take 2 (this had better work)...
As I think I mentioned, the Friday after camp ended two of the people from Maryland left for Tanza - they were going to meet up with a couple of Filippino nurses who run a free health clinic to her with that.
The rest of us went in on Saturday morning, and then by the time we got everyone's bags dropped off at the appropriate places (there were six of us, and we stayed two people at three different places) it was the afternoon before we made it out to the church we would be joining for the next few days. I ended up staying with one other person at the house of American missionary family.
That afternoon we met some people at the church they were getting things set up for a multi-church event the next afternoon after the morning service. So we tried helping get stuff set up with that for a little while, and then we went to the home of one of the ladies who attends the church because she was having a weekly children's bible study/feeding program. So we stopped in there for a little bit - long enough for me to teach them (some of the kids already knew though) the chicken dance (or in my broken Tagalog: manook sayow) and the macarena.
To get back to the church from this lady's house, we all ended I cramming in the cab of a garbage truck because we couldn't find two tricycles (which is how we got out there) to take us back - so that was kind of fun.
Sunday morning we attended this same church, and then we're there pretty much all day. The multi-church event started around 4 or 5 and they had music, skits, musical skits, and Mr Mauk, Miriam's dad, came and performed his spinning tops show.
Something he hasbeen doing for over 20 years now I believe, he combines his hobby of spinning tops (which is much more elaborate than I ever thought top spinning could be - and really quite fascinating) with a message of faith and reliance on God. I had seen this the two weeks before as he performed at each camp as well, but this time he spoke in Tagalog, and it was probably one of the neatest things I have seen since being here. Just his ability as an American to communicate and captivate a Filippino audience in such a unique way - I don't know, it may not sound like much, but I thought it was.
We had several people to drop off on the way home, but only one vehicle - so we ended up fitting 16 people in vehicle about the size of a Ford Explorer - crammed, yes - but also impressive.
Monday morning we got up and helped with another health clinic at the church (like what the first two people who went on Friday did). Well, a few of them helped - myself and one other girl, because we have no medical experience, jut played with the kids and gave out candy. Several mothers (and a few fathers) brought their kids by for routine checkups and to get different vitamins of sort. I did get to talk to one dad for a while - and at the end of our conversation he very genuinely told me that he had always wanted an American friend and that I was his first - I am glad to be so! The picture I posted before of me and the Filippino man, that is him, Rolando.
Tuesday we stayed in the area because we were going to meet up with some of the other counselors for dinner, so we did that and then headed back to RRC. We got back late and we're up and out early the next morning to go to Palm Beach Resort (the one here in the Philippines). <br>
The Mauks, the group from Maryland, and myself went and had a nice relaxing beach day at a very nice resort. We rented a few kubos and played games and swam (some in the sea and some in the pool). I actually got to do a first while there! Mr Mauk had brought along his scuba and snorkeling gear, so I borrowed some of it and went out snorkeling. About 50 yards out from the shore there was some reef with a surprising number of tropical fish living in it for not being very large. I stayed out there for probably close to an hour checking out all the fish/searching for a clown fish (which I never found) - it was really quite fun! <br>
Thursday I got up and packed and then went with the Marylandians (I don't know what the official name is for people from Marlyand) to the market of that they could get some souvenirs to take back to the states with them. Then shortly after lunch one of their drivers brought me back here to Sankey.
It was a wonderful three weeks, but it was also great to be back here and to see everyone again!

More Pictures

I had a post all typed up about the third week I was gone, but upon attempting to publish it, something went wrong and it frozen.
So - I will have to retype that tonight, but here are some pictures from Tanza and our beach day which I will talk about.

Pictures From Camp

July 21st

So, the middle school and the high school camp:
Even though both of these groups were there during the same week, for the most part we kept them separate during planned activities - this was for safety purposes for the middle schoolers as there have been problems in the past. The groups were together however for lunch and dinner, evening worship music time, and then during afternoon free time they could be together depending on what activity they wanted to do. There were about 35 high schoolers and 45 middle schoolers.
I was with the high school group - myself and another guy had a cabin with the oldest boys - so primarily juniors (most of the seniors who would have attended camp were there as staff/middle school counselors). I had some of the same guys that I had the week before as OFWs, so that made things a little easier as far as learning names and knowing what to expect.
We didn't do a whole lot of games with the high schoolers, we took them on a couple different trips during the morning. Monday morning all of the high schoolers and hgh school counselors took a couple jeepney to a place about a half hour away to go on a hike. We hiked up a mountain for about an hour and a half, and had the option to go further, but when we asked the campers if the wanted to continue, the answer was a resounding "no." Kind of unfortunate, but what we did get to hike was fun!
Then Tuesday morning we loaded up the jeepney again and headed off to a waterfall nearby. We spent a couple hours there jumping off, or for some, watching people jump off. It was about a 30 foot drop, which from the ground didn't look too big, but once at the edge and getting ready to jump, seemed a lot higher. But I think almost everyone who went up with the intentions of jumping followed through and did it, at least once - myself included, I ended up doing it a couple times. I was nervous everytime, but it was quite exhilarating. (I have a picture of this when if I can get those pics onto here.)
Some of you may have seen the picture on facebook of me in girls clothing - not my most masculine moment, but here is the explanation for that: the last night each cabin was to prepare a skit which would be judged against all the others to determine a winner. Our cabin planned on doing a dance to the song "Be a Man," from the movie Mulan. This was a good idea, but what made it great was when we decided to asked the girls cabin to borrow som clothes so that we could dress like girls for it as well. The girls were more than willing to rovide us with a few articles of clothing, primarily just tops, but one guy had a dress. Was it worth it? Well, we won the contest...
Also during skit night, all of the counselors helped EJ, the co-director (and boyfirend) of Miriam for these two weeks of camps with a special dance/skit - at which the end of he proposed to Miriam. So that was fun and exciting to be a part of as well!
This second week of camp seemed to go by a whole lot faster than the first week - I think partially due to the "field trips" we got to go on with the high schoolers.
The campers and almost all of the counselors left that Thursday, and there were only a handful of us left who were planning on going into Tanza to help out and be a part of theministry that Miriam is a part of there. The people who stayed were Miriam and EJ, a group of about a half dozen people that came from Maryland for the three weeks, and myself. A couple them left Friday to help out with a health clinic, the rest of us stayed at RRC until Saturday morning and then we went in as well. But, I will go into more details about that in my next post, probably tomorrow.

July 20th

Week 1 - Elementary Camp
So first of all, the nature of these camps. I was referring to them as international youth camps, which they are in a sense, but more specifically, the majority of the kids are children in missionary families located here in the Philippines. A majority of them were American, though some of them have only spent a year or two of their lives actually in the States, other were Canada, Australia, Korea, China, and there were some Filippinos there as well. So it was fun hearing stories from these kids who have lived all over the world with their parents who do all sorts of mission work. However, just because they were primarily children of missionaries, don't mean that they were perfect angels - some of them were still more than a handful...haha! <br>
There was a detective theme for the two weeks of camp, and each counselor had to pick a detective nickname (either made up or from a tv show/movie/book) - my nickname was Shaggy (to whom I have been told I bear some resemblance). So for those of you who saw the scooby doo picture on facebook, Miriam, the daughter of the directors of the center, and the one in charge of these camps, photoshopped character pictures that all the counselors used to make a character profile. <br>
Anywho, for the elementary camp I had split role. Some of the time I spent with the elementary aged kids, helping to run games, however I did not stay in a cabin with those kids. I stayed in a cabin with a group of high school boys who were there as, what they referred to as OFWs.
Every year during the week of the elementary camp, they have a group of high school guys and girls come stay at the camp and work on different projects/jobs that need to be done around the camp.
So I stayed in a cabin with those guys at night, and tried to spend some of every day helping them with the different projects that they were working on, which included rebuilding a rope bridge, shredding coconut husks, and removing coconut tree stumps (which I might add, can be ridiculously difficult - the root system wasn't a few large roots, but a giant clump of little roots). I was also put in charge of doing morning devotions for the OFW group - so even though I helped some of the time with their projects, between morning devotion and the time at night when they had to be back I need the cabin, they were out of my control, and under the control of Shane, the brother in law of Miriam, but also a police officer from just outside of Baltimore, Maryland - he did a fine job keeping the kids on in order and on task.
Toads in the Philippines are numerous, and huge. I tell you this not only as an fyi, but because during this first week, I was the recipient of the ol' toads in the bed prank. One in pillow case, one in my dirty shorts pants pocket, and one under the sheet. The two were about the size of my palm, and the third, about the size of my entire hand. The guys thought it was pretty funny...
The times when I was not with the high schoolers I was with the elementary kids, usually facilitating a game of some sort. The kids played several smaller games in the morning, and one big game in each the afternoon and the evening. Probably my favorite game was the unplanned sponge war! The camp went from Sunday to Thursday, and Monday into Tuesday it rained for about a day and a half straight. It would let up a little from time to time, but usually for no longer than an hour. So Tuesday afternoon when it had finally stopped, we went out to the soccer field which now consisted of several big puddles, took a trash can full of sponges, and played in the mud and had a sponge war!
Another fun game the kids did was Fear Factor. They had to go around to different stations and do different scary/disgusting things. Some stations involved crawling through mud, at others they had to eat things (such as balut), at my station they had to kiss a snake - a ten foot python...which I got to hold (Stef, you would have been so proud of me!) for the hour or so the game lasted while the different group came to kiss it! I had a sore shoulder afterwards because it was so heavy, and it ate one kid, but other than that it was a lot of fun ;)
Camp started Sunday and ended on Thursday, so after all the campers left, the counselors went into the mall to hang out in the air condition for a little while and to watch the new spider man movie. We got to sleep in on Friday, as long as we were up before lunch at noon, but my body is so used to getting up early I hard to force myself to stay in bed until 7:30 - I woke up pretty disappointed in myself...haha. Friday and Saturday we spent planning for the upcoming middle school and high school camp and had several hours in there to re-energized, which was nice.
I will talk a little about the high school camp next post... </p>

July 19th

Well, hello again everybody! I had a great couple of weeks up north in the Rizal area. The first two weeks were spent at Rizal Re-Creation Center (one week of elementary camp, and one week of high/middle school camp), and much of the third week was spent in Tanza/Antipolo (towns outside of Manilla a little ways).
I'm going to separate the events that have transpired over the last three weeks into a couple different posts over the next couple days when I have time.
This evening, because I am pretty tired, I am just going to upload some pictures of the Rizal Re-Creation center/camp. I took some pictures of the grounds in between the two weeks of camp, but once the kids arrived we were asked not to have our phones out, so I didn't get to take any pictures of the kids or activities - I did buy a thumb drive though and get pictures from one of the adults who was going around taking pictures, I will see if I can borrow a computer so that I can put some of those on here tomorrow.
Anyway here are some pictures of the camp. Many are just of the scenery - it was so green all around, tons of coconut trees, a very nice pool and slide, a koy fish pond, etc. The bunks are inside a cabin obviously, those were where we stayed with the campers. Each cabin held 12 people and had its own bathroom with shower - very nice! They also have nicer guest rooms with air conditioning that retreat groups can stay in. Those of us who stayed after the camps to go into Tanza got to stay in those guest rooms for a couple nights, I forgot to take pictures of those rooms though. As you will be able to tell from the pictures, it was a beautiful place.
Also at this place is the official biggest spinning top in the world - I forget the dimensions exactly, but it is over 10 feet tall and around 8 feet wide. I will explain more about this later as well...stay tuned.