July 10, 2004 - If its your birthday in the Philippines, its your day to treat your classmates to their favorite foods. Our classmate Greg had his birthday last week, so everyone got a box containing spaghetti, hot dog, sliced bread and a muffin. These are consistently rated as favorites by all the children. I would not have believed my skinny classmates could eat all the food in their boxes, but they did.

Bona Mae (picture left, far right) is one of my classmates in grade 3. Her sister is Dea Pia (picture below, far left, last row) Dea has 9 brothers and sisters, so I thought it would be fun to ask Bona about it, practicing Filipino.
Me: "Ilan ang kapatid mo?" (How many brothers and sisters do you have?) Bona:"Nine." Her answer drew amazed looks from her seat mates. Sherrie (picture top, far left) said something about her nanay then had a fun laugh about it. I thought it was neat that they have so many in the family. I also know their older sister, Liana Mae who was in the Holy Cross class I worked with last year. They are all nice girls.

Sitting in class with the children, I'm amazed that they go to school from 7:15-5:00, Monday through Friday. Its hot in our classroom in the afternoon. Our students wake up at 5:00 in the morning to get to school. This is much earlier than our epals anywhere in the world.
Our epals are impressed that the students here get up so early and spend so much time in school.

Through all the school days, I have not heard any student say "I'm bored." They are able to "entertain" themselves with girls grooming each other and boys running around the class. They can look through a book, draw or just sit and watch the others (like I do). They don't complain. They clean their classrooms everyday after class. Most don't have gameboys or other fancy entertainment gadgets. They are kind, helpful and friendly. They are a good indication of the values of their parents and teachers here in Carigara.

Spot the unhappy little majorette?
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