Interesting fact - on the trains here the carriages are male and female and never the twain shall meet. If you are travelling with your pregnant wife you are allowed to go with her in the female carriage!
Today we visited St Scolastica’s in the centre of Manila. The school was huge taking student from Kinder to year 12 plus the
re is a college campus as well so the place is huge. They have some amazing facilities including a hotel where students are trained in all aspects of hospitality.
We visited a kinder class where they sang a song for us -they were so cute. The school really pushes social justice and the students put in a lot of effort to help the local and wider community. We had a pleasant lunch at the school before heading to the airport.
A flight of just over an hour bought us to the island of Negros and a place called Bacolod. This is so different from Manila and from the air the green land and no highrise was spectacular. The main crop is sugar cane and the air was very smoky with the burning off they were doing. We were wedged with our luggage into a type of jeepney (truck)- definitely not made for westerners! Even I feel tall here! Luckily the open sides made for good air conditioning! It gets dark here at 6pm so we have yet to see where we really are!
Wednesday
Early start in the jeepney to visit a Kinder school. We had a beautiful welcome with the children presenting us with a necklace, which had an orchid attached to it. We then had an ‘official’ welcome where the children sang and danced for us. When they headed into class we walked a short way to visit the new community centre the Sisters had built. It was full steam ahead with making 350 cupcakes to give to the children. We were mashing bananas like there was no tomorrow.
Thursday
Later start today because we were back to the Good Samaritan Kinder school, Today the children were in their proper school uniform and when you consider how some of them are living the were immaculate and the white shirt were sparkling. The donations I took from school was over 6kg of undies and we learnt why they were needed. Yesterday one of the boys wasn’t running around and it was because he was worried that someone would pull his track pants down and he had no undies to wear!
We sat in on a class and the first thing they get the children to do after recess is to clean their teeth! I’m also carrying about a 100 toothbrushes so they will also get used. It’s heart warming to know that you can help a tiny bit!
The children learn English and Japanese - one of the teachers is from Japan. The learn by rote but they were very involved and the 3/4 year olds were sounding letters and spelling basic words. We also noticed that their ball handling skills were extremely good.
Some of us left the classroom and started to repaint the hopscotch zone. It looked brilliant after we’d finished it and the staff and students were very excited with the result. I was painting one of the benches when the children left for home but the painting drew them like moths to a flame! I was telling them to stand back and each time I did they though it was a game - I eventually had to call in the ‘bouncers’ to keep them at bay. I was worried about their uniforms.
After lunch at the school we were back to the hotel for a quick clean up - good to get the turps smell off - before heading to the shops to buy some gifts for the Sisters and supplies for the dinner they were making us.
Dinner was a loud affair with good food and company but it was good to get back to the hotel to rest the swollen ankles and aching back!
Friday
Back to the Kinder school for a Liturgy and lunch and later in the afternoon a special farewell to us. There was singing and dancing by the children and staff and then we performed a dance that one of the teachers had taught us - caused plenty of laughs for the watching parents! It was quite sad to say goodbye to the children but I’m sure our painting efforts and our gift which were hidden from the children will be well appreciated at Christmas.
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