Chocolate Hills

On Monday we took a trip to the Chocolate Hills which have been described as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I will have to send pictures, but we also started to see lots of foreign visitors from China and Germany so I tried to teach Sterling and Flor to say to them with a Texas accent, "Where Y'all from Strangers?" Sterling actually sounded a bit like George Bush.

On the way home we stopped to get pictures with some tarsiers which are world's smallest primate, and then on a whim we took a boat ride down the Loboc River. That was fantastic. I am so glad my parents taught me to enjoy nature. It was incredibly beautiful. The ride ended at a wonderful waterfalls, and on the way back we heard a rondalla group siging Anak, my favorite Tagalog folk song. They have just started performing in April and they were perfect in this setting. Well, I have to go now. We are going to a memorial service now, and I don't want to be late.

Seasickness

I woke up the next morning with a headache. NO, I did not drink any tuba which is a kind of wine made from coconuts. But I was on a boat from South Leyte to Cebu, and the rocking of the ship was not what I needed. I think it is the closest I have come to being sea sick! Well, maybe I actually was sea sick. I had planned to see Elmo Siap who invited me to come visit two years ago when he was in Chicago listening to Ester Hana sing. I was about to give up on the plan, but decided I would just call anyway. Elmo was a wonderful host and gave us a tour of downtown Cebu. It is the oldest city in the Philippines and has a cross that was brought here by Magellan. Elmo then took us to the country club where he is a member. I was still not feeling great, but when we went into the lounge there was a wonderful performer named Elly Calinawan. Because there was a wedding at the club, we had him all to ourselves! We started doing requests and ended up singing along with him on several songs although Elmo was doing most of the singing. I was swearing at myself for not bringing my flute. When we were about to finish, I asked Elly if he had written anything himself and he sang a beautiful song in Visayan. I hope you are reading this Danny! Next summer we have to get together with Elmo and Elly.
Bohol

The next morning Glory and Jay Ar got me to the fast craft that goes from Cebu to Bohol. Glory, Jay Ar and Christian were truly great hosts, and I can not say Daghan Salamat enough!

I was still feeling a little sick when I got to Bohol, but seeing Sterling's two sisters Belit and Clar and their mother helped so much. They are a great family, and Bohol is a wonderful island. After taking a nap I felt so much better and juggling, playing music and running with Sterling's many nieces and nephews was magical. Where they live is way out in the country, it is a simple but really beautiful place! BJ at eight is the oldest of the relatives, and they spent their time teaching me Cebuano. The next morning at 4:30 a.m. the roosters wake me up and the little kids followed half an hour later.

By 8:30 Sterling, Flor and Kaye were there, and we set off for a jeepney ride to the white sand beaches in Tagbilarin. It must sound like am wealthy to say that I rented a jeepney for a day for all the relatives, but it wasn't. The beaches here are just incredibly beautiful, and after an afternoon in the sun I looked brown except for my right arm. I had forgotten to put sun block on it so I had one sun burned arm. Ha ha.

A Quick Note from Bill

Look! Zeus isn't the only one garnering attention by playing the flute in public! I took this picture of a talented gent in Central Park. He was entertaining folks waiting in line to get free tickets to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" produced by the wonderful Shakespeare in the Park series in Central Park. :O)

-Bill

Fiesta

One of the events that Filipinos look forward to is Fiesta, and today I went to four fiesta parties that were held in a barangay in Sogod, South Leyte. Fiestas are intended to honor saints, and they are the occasion for parties where anyone who comes off the street is fed. I went with my friends Glory and Ella, and at the three of the parties there was lechon baboy. This means roast pig, and it is not intended to be healthy. ha ha. There are all sorts of food, but the emphasis is on meat and fish. I loved it, but by the third full plate I was stuffed which you can inform people of by saying, "Busog na ko". There was a disco and a karaoke party. Everyone loved it. At one of the parties the family was starting two businesses--and internet cafe and a bus service--so the priest was there to bless both of them. We were all there with candles. It seemed like a perfect thing to do, but I realized how different it was from anything I had ever experienced in America.

Habal-Habals

My favorite means of travel in the Philippines is riding habal-habal. Americans may not realize it, but most motorcycles can easily hold three people and sometimes four. I actually have seen six people on a motorcycle and was told that the record was seven. ha ha. But what I enjoy is not going for a record, but simply being able to see the scenery. And the scenery in South Leyte is spectacular. It is hard for me to notice much of anything in a tricycle or a jeepney because my legs really do hurt when I am crammed into them. I don't think you could ever get me on a motorcycle in America, but here the motorcycles are going a little faster than a bike so at least they feel safe.

Travel here is much slower than in America. The speed limit is rarely shown, but when I have seen it, it is posted at 80 kilometers an hour which is a little less than 50 miles an hour. And 80 really feels fast. The roads are rarely straight and there are tricycles, motorcycles, pedestrians, and dogs that one has to watch for. The dogs often sleep near the road, and when a bus comes barreling toward them, they take their time moving out of the way timing it so that they get off the road with a few tenths of a second to spare.

Yesterday I walked from Bontoc to Sogod. The distance was less than four miles, but it was one of those days that I dread. The sun was out. When the sun is out, everything may look great, but the weather is as hot and humid as Chicago in August. Oh, those poor people in Chicago who have to live through that weather. On the way, I got the usual number of "Hi, Joe" and "Morning, Sir" comments. One of the people here told me, "For many people here, you are the first white person they have ever seen." This may be true, but the difference between Korea and the Philippines is amazing. The amount of eye contact that Filipinos establish is much, much greater than what I saw in Korea. I wonder if anthropologists ever study such things.

Saturday I am off to Bohol. I will stay with the Calope family in Balilihan, but I will get there a full day before Sterling and Flor and Kaye arrive. Sterling's sister, Belit, will meet me at the port in Tagbilarin. This should be a lot of fun because Belit is as confident or her English as I am of my Cebuano. I told her in a text that I was practicing my Cebuano and she answered with "pag-praktis jod kay arn magkacnabot ta." I think this is a combination of Cebuano and text-speak that means you means "You better practice if you are coming here." Ha ha. The problem is that although more people speak Cebuano than Tagalog in the Philippines there are practically no dictionaries that I can find that go from Cebuano to English. Oh, well, I will keep you posted.

The Dalaguete Music Foundation

I travelled to Dalaguete on Saturday. It is a beautiful town on the coast of Cebu. Unlike the big cities, it is nice and peaceful and quiet. There are some tricycles on the streets, but there are more pedicabs, and the houses retain more of the old styles before cinder block and tin roofs became so omnipresent. Vilma who is the sister of Emmy and the sister in law of Danny had us over to her house. It is a small but wonderful home. There is a nipa roof with bamboo flooring and woven mats for walls. I wish more houses were like this. Her place reminds me of the book "Wind in the Willows." I don't usually use the word cozy, but it fits.

We stayed at Ester Hana's house which is truly beautiful and distinctive. Her sister Edna was a perfect host and her brother Iyvar was there with his daughter. I had once been told by Alice Murzyn that their cook Inday was the best in the world, and she was right!

I spent Saturday afternoon at Nester's place near the seashore. When we got there a brass band of nearly twenty musicians practicing. They were mainly of high school age, and they were good. Another group who had practiced earlier was playing Takyan, one of the games I keep seeing here where kids bounce a washer off their biceps and feet. By the way I apologize if I did not spell everyone's name correctly. After the practice, Nester and three other musicians "jammed" with me. Nester has performed on the tenor sax for twenty seven years throughout Asia so I had reason to feel a little overwhelmed. It was a lot of fun, and I made yet another resolution to learn more jazz pieces. I am so dependent on reading music that it takes a lot of practice to just play a piece after hearing it.

The next day we went to mass where the Rondalla group was performing. Dalaguete is not a huge town so I was amazed to see a huge cathedral with about a thousand worshippers! The Rondalla group looked to be nearly fifty kids! Ma'am Judith was conducting, and I marvelled at the cathedral itself. I must admit that my Cebuano has to improve a lot. Much of the time during the mass, I spent my time looking at the pictures on the wall and noticing the two birds flying around the cathedral. The cathedral was built in the 1800's during the time of the Spanish, and it showed that kind of ornate style. The Spanish presence for three hundred years is found in Spanish cognates, Spanish last names, Rondalla instruments and Catholicism. Ha ha. And Catholicism is no small matter in the Philippines! But apparently a lot of colleges stopped teaching the language in the 1960's, and I believe that the Spanish themselves did not encourage Filipinos to learn Spanish. There is a saying that the Philippines had three hundred years of rule by the Spanish and one hundred years of rule by Hollywood, and it sounds right. The Philippines has probably the best entertainers throughout Asia, and Dalaguete is one of those places that produces the best of the best.

After the mass we went to a rehearsal of the Rondalla groups. They were wonderful kids and really fine musicians. I played two of the pieces that Danny and I have written, and after the rehearsal I gave them some juggling lessons. I really wished that Elliot and Asa could have been there too. We all miss them here.

Before leaving there was a wonderful dinner that Edna had for us. The dinner should have been about music, but there was a series of six boxing matches between Mexico and the Philippines, and I have it on good authority that the whole country shut down for this event!!!!!!!! I have become a fan of Boom Boom Bautista because he is from Bohol, and unfortunately although the Philippines won five of the six bouts, Boom Boom got knocked out in the first round. You could see that the board of the Dalaguete Music Foundation included some serious boxing fans, and I was not the only one unhappy. I left, and I assured everyone that Danny would be back with me next summer along with my students so I am holding all of you to that promise. Dalaguete is a beautiful place to visit, and the Dalaguete Music Foundation is really a marvelous organization.

High Seas and High School

Elliot and Asa have left for Manila while I am remaining here in Cebu. Elliot has described our trip as an Ancona field trip. Ha ha.. They promise to write more in the next few days before they leave the Philippines and Korea. I will be here for two more weeks. Jay Ar told me that he loved seeing the two boys here in South Leyte. He felt like they were brothers to him and Christian.

Today as we took a ship from South Leyte to Cebu Elliot and I had another great experience. We were getting tired of sitting in the passenger section, and as we passed the pilots' cabin, one of the people there asked us if we would like to see how the ship navigation took place. After determining that we were from America and more exactly Chicago ("Oh, Chicago Bullls, Michael Jordan"), they started to show us how the maps were used. We had to head in a 275 degree angle they pointed out, and because the ocean was about as calm as one could ever imagine, they asked us if we would like to steer the ship. Both Elliot and I did, and as you can see we did not sink it. The pictures will hopefully come in the next couple days.

Yesterday we had a tour of Bontoc National High School. Elliot and Asa were beginning to feel a bit like they were in a zoo with all the staring they got. Most of it was from girls. They would stare and then when we looked back they would hide behind a friend. ha ha. I finally got one of our friends, Aura, who teaches at the school to ask the students if they would like to meet us. And they did. School was out but at least forty students came to Aura's classroom, and we introduced ourselves. We had been watching several boys play a game called Takyan which involves bouncing a small lead weight off their biceps. It reminded us a bit of a juggling trick, and we had not brought our tennis balls so we felt a little out of our element. But with a little imagination we remedied the problem and started juggling chalk and erasers. The students were impressed I think. We told them about snow and started to try to learn a few more Cebuano phrases, and when we told them that we would put theiir pictures on the internet they all raced to the front (giggling all the way). Most of the kids told us that they had definite ideas about what they wanted to be--accountant, computer technician, nurse (pronounced nars), business woman, one cosmotologist and one professional basketball player. I told this basketball player who was a little over five feet tall that I had never played basketball because I was always too short. ha ha.

In the next two days I will be visiting Dalaguete which is the home of my friend Danny and Ester Hana. Hopefully I will get a chance to practice with the members of the Dalaguete Music Foundation there.

-Zeus

Camille Gloria

We are back in Bontoc and tomorrow the boys will leave for Manila. The visit to Libas was great fun. It was a forty five minute trip on motorcycles down a rocky road. We took two motorcycles with three people on each motorcycle. This is called riding Habel-Habel, and since the vehicles are going about the speed of a bicycle, it is relatively safe. Libas is a place way out in the country, and the green mountains and rice paddies are truly beautiful. There are no internet cafes or cellphone connections in Libas, and there are just a very few televisions in the town so people really interact in way you might have remembered if you lived in America in the 1950's. Asa would try to tell me that everyone was staring at me because I was the tall American, but actually all the girls were staring at him and at Elliot. And they were really staring. We stayed with Judith who teaches at Libas National High School. She is Glory's niece, and I had given some money to build a teacher's store room at her high school. Ha ha. Well, someone had to build that store room. I am glad it has no plaque with my name on it.

As soon as we arrived, the kids started to gather around Judith's house and look at us. So we juggled for them and then I played the flute for them and then we practiced Cebuano with them, and after it was clear that we were tired about twenty of the kids came in the house and watched a television program. Hey, they were not idly watching television. They were glued to it and really listening.

The next day I taught in a couple of classes, and the main one was Judith's classroom where they were studying biodiversity. This was a major success because that is what I had talked about with students two years ago, and Judith was really implementing some of the ideas of the Haribon Foundation which has big environmental education component. I even told them I would contribute some money so that they could continue with their project of planting epiphytes on the trees outside the classroom.

It was after class that everything became really fun. Asa and I showed the kids how to juggle, and then everyone crowded around asking for pictures and our autographs. A couple asked for Asa and Elliot's e-mail addresses, but since the nearest internet cafe is in Bontoc, this will not be frequent chatting.

One of the class leaders was a girl named Camille Glory. She and her friend would come up to me and laugh and say, "Picture with Daddy" and then while posing for the picture the other twenty or thirty kids would crowd around to be in the picture. Camille gave me a map of the Philippines and said that this was a "remembrance" so that we would not forget her.

Just like Queenie in Montalban or Caren in Payatas, it is easy to pick out some of the kids who are leaders. Everyone would follow what Camille said, and if it became too quiet she would point it out so that there were no uncormfortable pauses.

As I was walking down the path she told me that she really had never seen her father. Her mother worked in Manila so she lived with her aunt here in Libas. My friend Mike once came back from doing some volunteer dentistry (in Guatamela I believe), and he said that poverty is when you see a beautiful woman with two of her front teeth missing. This was the case with Camille Glory. She is a truly beautiful young girl, but you notice that she always keeps her mouth closed when she smiles. Maybe it is the lack of medical care here or maybe it is the success of Coca Cola or maybe it is both. poverty is when you see a beautiful woman with two of her front teeth missing.

-Zeus

Ikoy and Imelda

Yesterday morning we left Manila for Tacloban where we met up with the Niez family--Glory, Jay-Ar, and Christian. Before we left Manila airport one of the security guards asked me if I realized I looked like Chuck Norris, and I laughed since the day before someone had yelled out, "Jesus". I don't want Asa's parents to know who he is really traveling with so I won't say anymore.

Tacloban is a really nice city. Hey, everything looks nice when you have been in the streets of Payatas. The air is clean and there are more pedicabs and more people riding habel-habel which means you have three or four people on a motorcycle. The houses are much more spacious. The provinces are beautifully green and scenic.

This area of Leyte is noted for being the place where Imelda Marcos was born, and we saw evidence of her everywhere. We walked half the length of the San Juacinto Bridge which is the longest bridge in Asia (2 kilometers), we stayed in the Leyte Hotel, and we visited a museum where Imelda had once lived. All of these have plaques showing how Imelda had taken a part in their construction. You may have to wait to see the picture of Elliot playing the piano in Imelda's ballroom, or Asa sitting in Imelda's bath, or Jay-Ar sitting in Ferdinand Marco's place at the head of the table in the banquet hall. The immense wealth that went into this "palace" is obvious, and it takes a while to realize how this extravagance exists at the same time the great kids we taught are living in tiny cinder block homes. The kids we taught were poor materially, but they were so creative and talented and interesting that it is hard to think of them as poor.

Ikoy, a kid we met at the spot where MaCarthur returned, really did seem poor. He was selling balot which is duck eggs with the duck about to hatch. I had taken a picture of him with Christian while Christian ate some balot. The balot sells for 12 pesos and Ikoy had his container of eggs with him. He looked pretty sad, and when we talked to him he had a sort of glazed look about him. I guessed that he was about eight. After buying several cups of mango shakes, I decided that Ikoy needed more sales so I decided to buy some balot myself. Well, the balot tasted pretty much like a hard boiled egg with vinegar and salt. Everyone is impressed if a foreigner can eat balot so I did my best to impress people. Ha ha. We started to talk to Ikoy. Although he was in fourth grade, he was not eight but twelve, "dose" he said. I gave him a large bill and told him to keep the change, and although I didn't notice it, Glory pointed out that he was very happy.

The kids we have been teaching are poor, but they realize the importance of education, and most of them look like they have a chance. Ikoy looks like a kid who doesn't have much of a chance. I wonder what will become of him and if there is a chance he will happy in life.

By the way, I hear that Chicago is up in the mid 90's. We have nice cool weather here with light rainfall each day. Everyone should come to the Philippines in August for relief from the hot humid conditions of the midwest.

Thank You Letters

We went to Payatas and to Montalban today, and the students said Goodbye to Elliot and Asa. Elly Yoot is how they pronounce it, and Asa is pronounced Ah sa. The kids there were terrific. When they sing, they choreograph it with hand motions. It was really amazing to watch. We told them how much we appreciated it, and we gave more juggling performances. I finished off with a song called Metamorphosis which seemed appropriate for kids who live in an environmnet that is so harsh.

There are many kids we will remember. It girl named Caren was really an outstanding student, but she had had to drop out of school for two years and was only now returning. There was no money to allow her to continue her schooling in the provinces. We received many thank you letters including one from Loujesa Becarra. I will include it here:

Dear Sir Zues
First of all I would like to say, Thank you. Because you are very kind for me and you can teach me how to solve the problem in math. Do you know Im so happy because if you cannot come inour place I don't know what I can do in my assignment, Because it is so very hard. Sir if you are in Chicago dont forget me, Im Loujesa Bacarra the funny girl who meet you and pls. you will always pray me, because I want to come in your place. And I want to graduate in college, but I don['t know if I can study, because our parents have no money to support me. And I pray you also that you can give God always a strenth and a long life. Do you know you are so very big-big help for me. Thank you very much!!! Miss you!!! Always take care! God bless you!!
From: Loujesa Bacorra

In the afternoon we took tricycles to Montalban which is in the provinces. We served food for 140 kids. Elliot scooped that much rice. It wasn't much money to feed them all, and we could see they appreciated it. Elliot taught the younger kids and I taught the high school kids including one called Asa. Afterwards the girls taught us Tagalog and gave Elliot and Asa many "remembrances". Elliot was told that he looked like a famous movie star except he was better looking. Ha ha He is so modest now.

Taglish

This is another story written by one of the students. As you can see, it is in English and Tagalog or what Sterling calls Taglish not to be confused with Cebuanish. We have left mispellings in.


My name is Mariel A. Padigos
Ang Pangalan ko ay si mariel Padigos.
I am 13 years old
Labing tatlong taong gulang
I live in Lansones St. Payatas Quezon City.
I am in grade six
ako ay nasa ika anim na baitang sa Paaralan
I have two little sisters
ako ay may dalawang nakababatang kapatid.
Their name is Emarie and Emarsil
Ang Pangalan nila ay sina Emarie at Emarsil
My Father's name is Mario Padigos
Ang pangalan ng tatay ko ay si Mario Padigos
He is a carpenter
Siya ay isang Karpentiro
My mother's name is Elsie Padigos she is full time house wife
Ang pangalan ng nanay ko ay si Elsie Padigos isang maybahay
Our House is near the creck
Ang bahay namin ay malapit sa creck
Our house is two story with one room up stair
ang bahay namin ay dalawang palapag na may isang kwarto sa itaas.
We have one electric fan up stair and one sailing fan down stair.
Mayroon kaming isang electric fan sa itaas at isa sailing fan sa ibaba.
My favorite activities are playing badminton,reading books, watching TV, walking,
Ang mga paborito kong gawain ay mag laro ng badminton, magbasa ng libro, manood ng TV at mag lakad.
I always do this activities with my friends,namely, Princess Lyka,, Carla and Mary Jane.
Palagi ko itong ginagawa kasama ng mga kaibigan ko na sina Princess, Lyka, Carla And Mary Jane.
My favorite songs are Through it all and With all I am.
Ang mga paborito kong kanta ay ang Through it all at With all I am.


Many of the kids that come to see us live near the creek. It is a pretty messy creek and there is a lot of standing water and garbage in it. Most of the kids live in houses with two rooms, and although they come dressed nicely they have lots of problems with tooth decay. One of the people here told me that his aunt died of asthma yesterday at the age of 51. It is not surprising because the air is very polluted from burning material at the dump and from exhaust from jeepneys and tricycles.

A note to Danny. I have been performing our songs for the kids each day. They clap so they think the like our music. Yesterday they followed my playing with an extended song which had about ten verses. Kids here really seem to like to sing.

Sirens

We went to the Manila Hotel last night to see Diane Sison sing. Diane has a really nice voice, and I know that if I lived in Manila I would go see her every Wednesday night. Everyone in our group loved her, and when she heard that Asa was not here with his parents she offered to be his nanny although she admitted her fees as a nanny would be rather high. When I told everyone that Asa was here looking for a wife in the Philippines, she offered that she was available, but I don't think her boyfriend knows this. Diane sang a lot of the songs that we requested, and my favorites were Route 66 and Freddie Aquilar's Anak. I wish she would record a CD!!!!!!!!!!!!! In the meantime I will have to listen to Ester Hana's CD until it wears out.

The Manila Hotel is a very historical place. It is the spot where General McArthur stayed when he was in Manila. By the way, we will be going to Tacloban Sunday. That is where McArthur returned when he said, "I have returned." For those who are interested in knowing why he chose that strategic military spot, I have it on good authority that he came there because his Filipino girlfriend lived in Tacloban!

Before we saw Diane we had dinner at the Hotel. The food looked nice, and tasted good, but my favorite food in the whole world is what I buy on the streets. Remember to put that on my tombstone when I die of gastroenteritis. ha ha

"HEY JOE!"

The Many Names of a Tall American Tourist in the Philippines

After just a few hours of being in the Philippines two things became very clear to me. First of all when Zeus told me that we would be giants here he wasn't kidding. Secondly even if we spoke fluent tagalog we would still stick out. Not only are we tall, we also have extremely light skin compared to them. The main reason that we stick out is because of Zeus. Many times we will be walking down the street just like everyone else and someone will shout, "Hey Joe." which is the name for all Americans here. Overall Zeus is always the one to atract the attention because, "The audiences here are great." Zeus has been called everything, Santa Claus, Chuck Norris, Charles Braunson, Lolo (Grandpa) One name that we have been given more recently is The Jugglers. One of the first things we do when we arrive in a new place is look for an audience to juggle for. Many of the times I will be teaching students and I will turn around and see Zeus pulling out his tennis balls and teaching a group of high schoolers to juggle. Most of the time there is really no reason to stare at us other than the fact that we're American but as we found out after a couple of hours that is a good enough reason.

-Asa

Observations

Every day in the Philippines we get rain. It usually lasts for half an hour or so and last night the internet connection went out so we couldn't tell more about what we are doing.

So here are just a few observations.

It is wonderful teaching here. The kids are really really poor, but they are so eager to learn and they are wonderfully polite. When I meet the younger ones, they take my hand and put it to their forehead. This is a kind of blessing called Mano. I usually work with about six kids at a time, and Elliot and Asa take the same number. When Sterling is here, she helps a fourth group. We start with their school lessons which are usually very abstract, and then we develop some of our own lessons. Yesterday, I asked them all to describe the two largest cities in the Philippines and most did not know. Then I asked them if they knew where I came from and they just said America. Most had never heard of New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, but several boys did know who Michael Jordan was. The kids here have long attention spans, it is amazing to see anyone every cry or whine. One day we went to the mall and saw a kid crying, and I told Sterling and Elliot that he must be an American. ha ha

The textbooks are so abstract that I had Elliot come up to me one day and ask me what an indefinite pronoun was. I know I should know what that is, but it eluded me and all the adults I asked afterwards. I am sure it is a good thing to know about, but I am not sure if it helped the fourth grade student learn to write better in English or Tagalog. However, I should point out that many of the kids can write very well in both English and Tagalog. So we are spending a lot of time trying to get the students to write stories or descriptions. I am also doing my best to get them to understand what some of the applications of math concepts are.

I haven't told you much about the organization that we are working with. James Kang, Elliot's dad, hooked us up with them last year, and Flor is the person coordinating our activities. The title of the organization is Mission Ministries Philippines, and they work developing "holistic churches, that have a preschool, a drugstore cooperative and a livelihood project ot help finance the church." I have gotten interested in a goat raising project that is being started in Montalban. I am talking with Sterling about how we could integrate the financial aspects of this into the math curriculum there so the kids can see that positive and negative numbers and interest rates are not just academic topics.

Well, I have to get to work. I will write more tonight.

Ayo ayo (That means bye),

-Zeus

Juggling Tomatoes and Singing Waitor/tresses

We have been doing so much! The teaching continues to be so much fun.

Last Elliot's Dad, James, and I took everyone out to a restaurant where all the waitors sang. It was fantastic. They were great singers and performers. One of them was absolutely hilarious. He did a song where one side of his body was dressed up as a man and the other was a female, and he would turn back and forth singing in a falsetto and then in a baritone. We were the most enthusiastic people in the restaurant so they started to focus on our table. Then this performer decided he needed to dance with the tall Americans---Asa and Zeus. At another point one of the performers started juggling tomatoes so we had to join in.

Asa and I have been using every opportunity to get peoples' attention. If they have to stare at the tall Americans, we have decided to give them full reason to stare. So we start juggling as we walk down the street. They audiences here are wonderful. The place where Mary Joyce lives has lots of people who know us, and today we gave them a performance and bowed for them. Ha ha. Then we received enthusiastic applause, and since they were standing, it was standing applause. Asa is complaining that no money is following the applause. ha ha

In addition to teaching math, science, and English, we have been doing juggling games with the kids. Four adults have already learned to juggle!! The kids here really have great hand eye coordination.

Well, our English instruction is including lots of writing and here is one of today's stories. We have been having the kids write in Tagalog and English. Ha ha. They are teaching us as we go.

My name is Princess Anne L. Dacles.
Ang pangalan ko ay Princess Anne L. Dacles.
I am nine years old.
Ako ay siyam na taong gulang.
I live in Banaba Street in Payatas A. Q. C. (this means in Quezon City)
Ako ay nakatira sa Banaba Street Payatas A.Q.C.
I have a brother, father, mother.
Ako ay may kuya, tatay, nanay.
My house is two rooms.
Ang bahay namin ay may dalawarng kwarta.
I like to play badminton with Mariel.
Gusto kong makipaglaro mg badminton kay Mariel.
I have no boyfriend.
Wala akong boyfriend.

-Zeus

News from Asa!

After arriving in Manila late at night and taking a family car to the hotel where we spent the night we had many immediate ideas about Manila. We noticed right away that it was much less developed than Korea.

The next day we took the same family car into Payatas. In the car we were given a long talk about how here in Payatas the children have a much poorer education and we would be a college equivalant to their schools. We heard how people here don't have clean water and how we shouldn't eat much of anything that they give us. If we had gone by what he had said Payatas would have been a huge mound of garbage with various people living around it.

As we started to drive around coming to the school I noticed that it was very different from how it was described to us. Instead of just garbage dumps Payatas was a colorful place with many street vendors and cars. We were riding in a car owned by the family that we were staying with, it was a little bit bigger than a jeep in size but it was set up a lot like a jeepney. Payatas however had very different methods of transportation. People travel in Jeepneys which are smaller than buses and instead of seats they have two benches on each side. Other people travel in tricycles, tricycles are motorcycles with carriages attached to the side and are a little more expensive than jeepneys. Than for Zeus who can't fit into either of those without hurting his head they use cabs. When we got out of the car and saw all the high school students that Zeus was teaching, we realized how tall we were compared to them. Most adults in the Philippines are only around 5 foot 3 inches making Zeus a giant and me and Elliot tall for adults. When we met Flor and went to her house for lunch of fish, rice, and filtered water we realized that sometimes things aren't as bad as you originally think.

-Asa

Payatas

The last two days of teaching were fantastic. The kids here are great, and my co-teachers, Ellliot, Asa, and Sterling, are doing wonderful jobs. Yesterday we taught at two different sites. One was in Payatas and the other was in a site in the provinces. We have been helping students with their school work, but there textbooks are really abstract, and I am not sure how much the kids get out of them so we end up teaching them concepts related to what they are studying. In addition, they are teaching us Tagalog and we are giving them juggling lessons.

Yesterday several of the girls starting writing a description in Tagalog and English so here is one of them:

My name is Vivian Rose Abanto. I live in the province of Montalban. I am 15 years old and I like to study hard in everything. I want to become a nurse, and I want to live in a big, big house. I want to live here because it is peaceful. I will have an electric fan but no aircon. I like to drive in a jeepney. My brother has a chicken in his house, but I don't want to have a chicken in my house. I like chicken adobo, spaghetti, and salad. The names of my two friends are Jenny L. Verona and Hung Jolly Cora (Zeus's note: I am not sure if I am reading this correctly).

In Tagalog this reads:

Ang pangalan ko ay Vivian Rose Abanto. Nakatira ako malapit sa probinsya. Gusto kong maging nars. Gusto kong tumira sa malaking balaking balay. Meron akong electric fan pero nalang aircon. Gusto kong namalay sa jeepney.

Ha ha there may be mistakes in my typing here

After we finished teaching in Montalban we had a tour led by a great young lady--Binibini is the word--named Queenie. She asked Elliot to teach her Korean, and she helped us out on our Tagalog. She wants to be a doctor so she can help people in the Philippines who have no doctors. There are some really great kids here, and Queenie is one of them!!

I will write more later about the organizations that are doing the work here. Next Saturday Elliot and I will provide some money so that about one hundred kids in Montalban can have lunch. Yesterday Asa and Elliot helped serve food for the kids that came. I hope to send pictures soon.

We finished off the day by going to the mall. I think Filipinos like the malll because it has aircon. Elliot and Asa took Kaye to see the Simpson movie so she could see the best that America has to offer. And Flor and Sterling took me to see a horror movie that was in Tagalog so I could see more about Filipinos live. The fact that much of the movie took place on a yacht and then on empty streets with a car that looked like a BMW gave me a picture of the Philippines that I myself have not seen here. ha ha

-Zeus

Arriving in the Philippines

Yesterday, Asa and I arrived in the Phillippines at around 10:30 pm. After about a two hour waiit through customs, we finally reallized how crude and inefficient the system was. We saw everything from people who didn't speak English being yelled at by custom officials, to a group from Africa being sent back because a friend said that they could get in easily. After a full two hours of waiting, we got picked up and dropped off by a friend of James in a car that looked like a half truck, half bus thing. We rode in the back. As we were bouncing around in the back, the crazy traffic gave me a funny and good reminder that we were truly back in the Philippines.

After that we got to the building, we went to the local Seven Eleven to get some water. That was another reminder to me that the water wasn't safe in the Phillippines like it was in Korea. We went to bed pretty quickly. When we woke up we were happy to learn that it was 8:30, probably the latest we had gotten up so far. We were especially happy because we were oriiginally supposed tto get up at around six to come to the Payatas with Zeus. After a quick breakfast of small pancakes with syrup and fried eggs, we got ready and left for the Payatas.

So far I have liked Korea better contrary to everyone els's opinion. Mabye it's because I have some connection there that I can't find here. But it's probably the food and the culture. (not to mention the subway!!) Korea also has this certain beautiful and carefree joy to it like everything there, the different technology, people, and culture all coexist perfectly with Harmony. I hope to have more fun in the Phillippines and learn a lot about teaching and myself

-Elliot

Manila

July 26th.

I woke up at 4 a.m. to make it to the airport in Seoul for a 9 a.m. departure. I really liked the visit to Seoul. The city is beautful and clean. Everyone seems very serious here, but when we have talked with people they are friendly, and they really like hearing about how Elliot and Asa are doing. The flight to Manila is about four hours and since the plane is keeping at about 550 miles an hour, it must be close to 2200 miles. That is about as far apart as Chicago and Los Angeles, but the difference between Seoul and Manila is incredible. Both cities may be the same approximate size at 12 million people, but there the similarity ends. Manila may be big and at times dirty, but I love it and its incredible life. The twenty or so miles from the airport to the place I am staying in Quezon City includes a terrible trafffic jam and with lunch it ends up taking as much time as the plane ride itself. When we entered the restaurant, I was immediately met with a "Welcome Sir" from one of the waiters and two minutes later another member of the staff exlaims, "How are you, sir?" Flor Encomio and the driver who I only know as Santos have come to give me a ride, and they are really fun to be around. Flor is organizing my teaching activities here, and she admits that she forgot all the math that she ever took after arithmetic, but I am not fooled. I know that she can speak in eight different languages, and when I ask her how much English the students know, I am a little alarmed to hear her say, "Walang." That means NONE. So she insists that we speak nothing but Visayan and Tagalog the rest of the way. Ha ha. LONG SILENCE. We finally revert to Taglish.

The place where I am staying, SEND, has raised its rates. With internet service it is now $13 a night. I don't know whether I can manage these kind of expenses, and when I have dinner, a huge plate of pancit and the most wonderful mango juice I have had since last August I am distressed to realize I have spent $2 for supper. Gone are the days when living in Manila was cheap. ha ha

At SEND we are met by Sterling Calope. She is a graduate student in math education, and she is starting her thesis writing. I go over her proposal which she is to give to a committee tomorrow. I suggested that she contact Dr. Penelope Flores, and Penelope has convinced her to do her research on ethnomathematics. I used to teach right next to Penelope, and she went on to work on the UCSMP math project at the University of Chicago and is now a professor at San Francisco State. The approach that Sterling is going to take is one I am going to practice on with the students I see tomorrow in Payatas. I look forward to meeting them. Hopefully they will learn as much English as I do Tagalog.

Before I go running we all go over to the squatter's section where Mary Joyce Palana lives. The Palanas have become great friends. Mary Joyce has epilepsy and her right hand is paralyzed, but since I gave money for medicine for her she is able to go back to school. Her older sister Kaye is Elliot and Asa's age, and we are going to take her to the Manila Hotel to see Diane Sison sing next Wednesday. We decide to buy her a new dress so she will be ready for the occasion. The six members of the Palanas household, their father, their mother Eva, the two girls, Kaye and Mary Joyce, and the two boys Moy Moy and De Dong live in a room that is about ten feet by four feet with a roof that is five feet tall. Mary Joyce has drawn a picture of me and Moy Moy has written a very nice letter to me, Uncle Zeus. Tomorrow we will take them all out to dinner and buy them books. I give them a big box of chocolates after saying the Tagalog phrase, "Pasulobong ko." which I hope means My present. For everyone here I have given a box of chocolates except for Sterling who got eight math books.
The streets here are so alive with people. Kids ask me where I am from and another voice yells out, "Amerikano." Crossing the busy road near SEND is like playing the game Chicken that teenagers used to do in the 1950's. It is a negotiation with cars to see who will give in first. ha ha. I love it. I will have to see whether I love it after tomorrow's two classes. Elliot and Asa have followed me on a later flight with James. I can't wait to see what Asa thinks of Manila. Yesterday he said he thought Seoul was a lot like New York.

-Zeus

Subways

SubWays by Elliot

If you have never expearenced Korean subways, you will be surprised. The subways in Seoul are the second most extensve in the world (second to Tokyo Japan) and you can definitely see it once you get a good look at a map. Other than being very fun to navigate, which was my job, It is good to get to know all of the different line stops and numbers along the way.

Practically anywhere you go in Seoul, you will find a subway stop, which is filled with ticket venders, ticket machines, numerous exits to various places above ground, and best of all, vending machines!! The systom was that once you paid for your ticket you would find your line (if you were at a transfer between two lines) then find the side of the station you were suposed to be on. There were no ticket collectors on board, so depending on how much you paid (which also depends on where your final destination was) you could go just about anywhere. There were about 9 or ten lines also labeled by color. Line 1 was dark blue, 2 was green 3 was orange, four was light blue, five was brown, and so on. A transfer was when two or more lines intersected. If you got off there you could either transfer to anotherline, or get off at one of the many exits from the starton that led back to the surface. The ticket prices ranged anywhere from I think 1000 to 1500 Won, a dollar being about 1000 Won.

Overall it was fun telling the ticket vender our destination, paying and recving our ticket, putting it through the various mechines, and navigating the quickest and most efficant rout with the least amout of transfers!! I was happy to see the subways of Seoul again and look forward to ride them again many times in the future!!

-Elliot

Zeus' addition: Elliot forgot to note his observation that intersections of lines were signalled by selections of classical music.

Seoul

Beyond Getting Our Bearings

Today we had a tour of the city which Elliot organized. Seoul has an amazingly clean and fast subway system, and Elliot was directing us everywhere. We saw the emperor's palace and the changing of the guards then proceeded to eat and eat and eat. When you order something here, you end up with a minimum of eight side dishes, and since getting stuffed.

There is also a wonderful river restoration project through the city, and Elliot's dad and I have been running on the path by this river every morning. Because of jet lag, we feel like it is the middle of the day at 5:30 every morning so it is easy to get out on the streets by 6 a.m.. I will have to tell the mayor that the Chicago River could look like this too. ha ha.

Two groups of girls yelled, "Hi" to us this morning, but Elliot and Asa did not pursue them. I think they are saving themselves for the girls in the Philippines. We did, however, talk with the proprietor of the tiny restaurant we went to for breakfast. Since we have seen her there everytime we've passed, we asked her how long she works every day. Well, her hours were from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Since she looks so much like my friend Ester Hana, I asked her to pose for a picture with Elliot. If Elliot and Asa can only teach me how to put our pictures on the computer, you will get to see what a giant Elliot is next to some of the people here.

-Zeus

Arriving in Korea

Asa, Elliot and I left Chicago late Saturday night, July 21st for Seoul. It was our first stop on a trip that will take us to Payatas, an area of Manila that serves as the garbage dump for that city of 12 million. We are beginning by sightseeing in Korea though, and in our first two days we have eaten wonderful Korean food and uttered our attempts at Korean. Apparently my American accent makes most of my full phrases indecipherable so I am stuck with "Anyong Aseyo," the general greeting, "Kamsahamnida," which means thanks, and "mashesayo," which means delicious. And the last applies to all the food we have eaten thusfar. Today we took a tour of the DMZ and got a few shots of North Korea. The tension surrounding the demilitarized zone is depressing. We made some good friends and had a spectacular dinner where there was live music and traditional dancers.

Now, I have to go to sleep and try to make up for jet lag.

-Zeus