The great router hunt and other stories

Hey there friends,

I hope you’re all doing good. So let me share with you my experiences over the past week from here in the Phils (yeah I’m down with the lingo now!)

Last week was pretty frustrating for me at school. I had this timetable where I was being asked to go here there and everywhere at all different times but because I was only going to each place like twice a week the teachers didn't know when to expect me and so had nothing for me to do. If you know me at all you will understand that this does not sit well with me. I like to be busy, busy, busy and I find just observing others teach tough. I think God is trying to teach me a couple of lessons.
1. Patience- I don't have enough of this, I tend to expect everything to be working well straight away without giving people time to get used to me and me to them.

2. My identity is not in being a good teacher; my identity is found in him. I guess at times I let my role as being a teacher kind of define who I am, and I think pride can slip in when I think I’m good at this. I need to remember my role as teacher is not who I am it's simply the job I do. I think the Lord is using this time to teach me these specific lessons.

So anyway I was feeling really frustrated and in the end went to see one of the teachers and ended up telling her how frustrated I was feeling and crying quite a bit. She was so supportive and said I should speak to the head. Amazingly a few minutes later the head asked to see me to review my timetable (I had said nothing to him at this point!) I explained my frustrations to him and he gave me the opportunity to re-write my own timetable putting myself where I feel most useful to the teachers here. This was such an answer to prayer and I praise God that he is always in everything, even these little things.

So now I’m in week 1 of my new timetable and it's so much better. Rather than being a general classroom support I’m taking out specific children during parts of lessons to support them where they have gaps, (kind of like what TA's do back home). I'm supporting one boy daily in phonics, 2 in maths and 2 in reading. I'm also still a general classroom support for grade 2 math’s and PE in the afternoons. I really thank God for this new timetable which gives me something I can really get my teeth into. Please pray for good relationships with the kids I am working with.

Outside of school life is going ok, but I have come to realise that things just don't work the same in the Phils and sometimes you just have to deal with that. First there is me and Meg's car. The gears stopped working a couple of weeks ago and we are told the transmission is shot. Now I’m no mechanic but I’m pretty sure that’s kind of important for driving. The lady who owns the car in the states and she may have to raise more support to fix it which means she probably won't do this until she gets back in January. This means for the time being me and Meg are carless, which is kind of hard when the place we live has very infrequent public transport passing by. We are at the mercy of others for lifts etc but this is hard when you have no food left and no-one is going to the supermarket. Let’s just say we've eaten quite a lot of Pizza over the last few days. Meg is thinking of buying a car but your prayers in this whole transport issue would be really welcome.

The second frustrating thing is that we can't get internet in our house. We have paid for the connection but we can't seem to get it. We've phoned the internet company but this just seems to result in crazy instructions from people who don't understand what I’m saying. When I call I have to refer to myself as Ariel (no, not the little mermaid) because bizarrely this is the name on the account. I was then asked to find the router in my house. After explaining that I did not have a router I was then given 5 mins by the man on the phone to go and search for it, (bear in mind I had already told him it did not exist), I found a box on the wall which I was pretty sure was not a router but was asked by said man if it was a dirty white colour, if so then it would be a router!
After a frantic evening of router hunting using a torch I still have no internet at my house which means I can only go online at school. This is ok, but we are paying for the internet at home so this is kind of frustrating. I did consider asking the internet guys to send an engineer out but a friend who has been here 2 months said he booked an appointment for an internet engineer to come and fix his on the week he got here. He is still waiting for the engineer to call him. Well that’s the Philippines for you!

Finally last weekend me and my friend Helena went to a mall, getting there was no problem, we took a jeep and were sitting pretty. The journey home was a different story. We took the Jeep to the bottom of the valley where I live and waited for the next Jeep. It did not come, in the end we decided to take a trike (this is a motorbike with sidecar) up to the gate but the trikes cannot pass through here so we planned to walk the last section. When we got to the gate we started walking but a security guard shouted us back. He then explained that if we walked we would be robbed; only Helena who is German thought he said we would be killed...needless to say after this news we waited with him until another Jeep came!

JeepneyTrike

All in all I feel more settled here this week but still have the tendency to feel lonely especially at the weekends when there is less to do. I'm so used to just going out when I want I find it hard to be confined to other people's schedules for transport. Please pray for continued strengthening of friendships while I’m here.

I’ve just re-read this and I hope it’s not too rambling and makes you smile in places. Thank you so much for your continued support in prayers and messages. I’ve inserted a picture of a Jeepney and a trike above just so you know what I’m talking about!

School days

Hi Everyone, I hope you are all doing good.


I guess it’s time for me to update you all on my last week or so here. It’s been a week of up’s and downs but I now reflecting back I think I feel more settled now than I did at the start of the week which is all good.

This has been my first full week in school so i’ve been working in most people’s classes at some point doing general TA work. This has been really good because i’ve had the opportunity to see a range of people teach in a variety of styles right from year 1 to year 6. At the start of the week I was feeling a bit redundent because I would go to people’s classes at the time given on my timetable and they would not really have anything for me to do other than general classroom support. This is because they don’t really have many children in school with high educational needs as I would have back home, this is great for the teachers but leaves TA’s without much to do. I also think that back in the states they don’t really have TA’s in the same way that we do so some of the staff were slightly unsure what to do with me. I found this kind of hard, mainly because I’m used to being super busy at school and having alot of responsibility and I felt really useless, I was asking God why he had brought me here when there is very little for me to do. However as ever God is gracious and the day after I was having these feelings I was asked to cover 3 classes in middle school (which is year 7, 8 and 9) all good experience for the CV! I’ve also been asked to teach all the maths for the 3rd grade this week and start to run a lunch time computer club, I think my time will slowly get filled up and i’m willing to do anything that is needed where I can be useful. Interestingly I was asked to cover middle school again later in the week and Steve the primary head was not keen for me to do it as he feels once I start they will ask me all the time and i’m here for elementary. I am really grateful to God that he knows what I need and wants to use me here and give me plenty to do.

Outside of school i’ve been pretty busy. My room mate Meg and the other American guys living here in our condo’s are always doing something and they have been really great at inviting me along which is so kind of them. I’ve been bowling, had a game night where we played cluedo (which for some reason they call clue), been to the mall (the great american/Philippino pass time!) and watched MANY films, it seems to be a popular and free of spending an evening. This has all been really great but what is strange is that sometimes you can forget you are in the Philippines and it seems you are in the US.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went with Jen and Helena (OMF missionaries) to visit another squatter area called wealfareville. I really enjoyed this visit, the people are very poor, their homes are usually 1 room with 1 matress to share if they are lucky, we visited one lady who had no roof just tarpurlins which leak when it rains, and it is rainy season at the moment so this is not good for her. We also visited a pre school which is run by the church, attended a youth bible study and saw a livlihood project. Women in the local community make cards and they sell them abroad. Unfortunatelty they don’t seem to have many places where they sell them at the moment, check out the pictures and let me know if you want any, I think they’ll make great Christmas cards and the cause is amazing. You would also all be proud to know that I took my first Jeepney ride alone to get to Jen’s house, this is something i’ve been pretty nervous about for a while so when i’d done it I felt really proud of myself! Praise God he kept me safe.

Me, Helena and Jen with some of the girls from the squatter area

The squatter area welfareville

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Christmas cards made as a livlihood project

A family in their home making Christmas cards

I really feel that working at faith academy is a real contrast to visiting these squatter areas and i’ve been thinking alot about this contradiction. I find it hard to be here where 1/3 of people live in extreme povertry and spend my time going bowling and swimming in a pool. However I think I need to remind myself that i’m here working with the children of families who are working on the front line in some of these really poor communities, and while i’m not directly working with the poorest of the poor I hope my work at school is of some help. I am going to try and go with Helena again to some of the squatter areas but I can’t spend all my time there as I need to commit to being here at faith and working with the kids as well as having weekend time to relax! I would be really great if you could pray for me as I continue to think through this and get used to my role here. I want to see that my time here has been worthwhile and I have been the most useful I can be.

If you could also pray for further depth in friendships, I feel like I’m just scratching the surface but it takes time. I would really appreciate prayers for deep friendships with people who I can really talk to.  Lastly me and Meg have had trouble with our car this week the gears seem to be broken and getting into gear is really hard. Could you pray that is will be a simple fault that we can fix without too much trouble financial or otherwise.

Thank you so much for all your continued thoughts and prayers, I could not do this without them. Please feel free to email me or even send me some real post, It’s so encouraging to hear from friends. Alright think i’d better bounce, this has been way too long!! Catch ya later kids

Photos

The front of the schoolThe elementary playgroundThe School pool (I know!!)Our loungeOur dining room Our KitchenMy very stripey bedroomThis was on our car this morning!

Jeepney's, squatters and Pearls

The last week has been pretty crazy.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in school first having an induction. The way the timetable will work is for the first half term up until October break I will be working as a TA supporting in classes from year 1 all the way to year 6. I move to many different classes each day but I think this is a good thing as I'll get to work in a range of different classes with different aged children. The class teacher will give me something they want me to do. As there does not seem to be the same level of special needs here as there is in my UK school I think my role is general classroom support. The idea is that after I have got used to the American education system I then work as a supply or substitute teacher after the October break until I finish my time here. I'm really looking forward to this as I've only been TAing for 2 days so far and already am itching to have a go teaching myself. As far as I can work out the US system seems to be a bit less creative than teaching back home and there is more emphasis on things like tests and assignments. However the school is so well resourced that equipt that they have the capacity to do some things we could not back home (except they don't have an interactive whiteboard which breaks my heart!).

So after my 2 days in school I went to stay in the OMF centre over the other side of the city for 2 nights so that I could visit some of the squatter areas (this is what they call a slum where the urban poor live). This was really interesting and heart breaking at the same time. I visited a feeding programme run by a Church in one area, i'm not sure if this was supposed to happen but it felt like they fed me as much as the kids who came for the food (I had 5 meals that day). Then I went to a Muslim squatter area, the Muslims here in the north of the Philippines are a minority group and are not popular among the Catholics and so they keep themselves to themselves. I helped for the day at a school there, when they found out that I was a teacher they gave me this group of children, told me they were year 3 and said teach them spelling! This was kind of crazy, I had to make a spelling list up from the top of my head. We visited a lady in her home and then walked around the community which was really strange as everyone just came out of their homes to stare at me, I'm not loving that part of being here, it's kind of annoying being constantly watched.

After my short stay at OMF I came back to my home and this weekend I spent time with Jen (a lady who works for OMF) and Helena a German girl who is here for 9 months working with the urban poor. We went down town to look at Manila's main tourist site which is a centre for their national hero Rizal. We also visited this amazing pearl shop where you can buy loads of different real fresh water pearls for like 2 pounds a necklace, it was unbelievable!! We rode on public transport and so I finally experienced the Jeepney. A Jeepney is a US army Jeep pimped up the max with monster sound system and crazy art on the sides (a kind of Chav's dream if they wanted a mini bus).There are all sorts of rules you have to follow when riding on a Jeepney, it's a lot like driving around in a noisy tin can literally squashed against the person next to you. You have to know where and when to get off because you can't see properly out the front, this can be quite a challenge!!

Now i've visited the squatter areas I'm working in school full time. It will be nice to get stuck in with all the kids because I still feel quite on the fringe here. I think because I'm not teaching and just assisting at the moment I have more time on my hands than I would if I was teaching full time so I have time to write this very long blog!! I think this is plenty for now, catch you all soon