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Published: December 10th 2007
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On stage
The children wishing you a Merry Christmas The last blog of 2007! That means its best wishes for Christmas and New Year all round. I hope your festive season is good and hope to see some good / embarrassing photos soon.
I will be spending Christmas and New Year in Sabah (the Malaysian part of Borneo) with Maria. If we are lucky there will be Orangutans in the next blog. Sabah used to be joined to the southern Philippines in a joint kingdom before the British got into creating colonies so its not that far away geographically or culturally but ecologically very different.
The main feature of this blog is my successful visit to Ibuan school to record their Christmas greetings to you. For everyone who has donated or is going to - Many thanks! - I won’t try and name you all, you know who you are. The teachers, parents and children are very touched and appreciative of the attention and assistance especially because it’s focused on what they identified they needed.
One year 4 class in Bolton sent a personal message to the children here which was an amazing novelty for them. It also adds the personal touch and will help make sure
Bolton greetings
Trying to understand how far away the UK is is a challenge when your world is about 20km radius from the village with no radio, TV or internet. the books are properly valued. An atlas will help explain where the UK is! Daghan Salamat to everyone who was involved in that!
Fact file:
• The school was opened in 2001 and got its first building in 2003. (so where were lessons for the first couple of years?)
• There are 4 classes with about 80 children in school on any one day (there at least twice that many kids of school age in the village)
• Malnutrition in the under fives is as high as 60%
• There is no mains electricity in the village, they have a diesel generator but no fuel to run it with. The logging company sometimes provides fuel but the last time was 6 months ago.
• 5 languages are spoken in the school - English, Filipino, Visayan, Jaon-Jaon and Manobo. Teaching is in English and Filipino.
• Half of the teachers are voluntary (its almost impossible to get a teaching job without working voluntarily for a few years first)
• The students are almost all from indigenous tribes the Manobo and Mamanwa.
• Its one of the friendliest places that I have visited in the Philippines!
So what happens next?
Teachers
From left to right Marife Pagaduan, Teresita Gardigo, Frenchy Egpit and Roldan Ramos. Mid January I will add up all of the donations and convert into Philippine Peso. Then I will take the head teacher on a weekend shopping trip to one of the big cities where we can purchase books and other supplies. We will work down the teachers wish list as far as possible until all the money is used up. This whole project will then be wrapped up with a handover / acceptance ceremony and of course pictures and a blog entry.
The other pictures this month are from a city called Vigan. With Maria I got up there for a weekend after the workshop in Manila. It was a good choice, the town is very pretty with colonial architecture - a blend of Spanish, Chinese and Asian - good enough to get it on the UNESCO world heritage list. The eating is good leaving crazy sweetness behind in the south and testing real savoury food. Freshly fried empanadas with vegetables, meat and egg were the street food of choice. There are also a few nice beaches around and some handicrafts like pottery and weaving. It seemed much closer to Vietnam than the southern Philippines where I am based.
If anyone is going that way this is a great place to enjoy for a day or 2. The B&B we used was excellent like staying in a well kept museum and with the best service I have experienced anywhere in the Philippines (even beating Palawan the previous best).
That’s all for now. I am starting to pack for the Christmas trip, fingers crossed for some fantastic experiences and a few nice pictures to remember it by.
Everyone have a great Christmas and New Year
Cheers
Matt
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Fi and Archie
non-member comment
Seasons Greetings
Hi Matt, have just caught up on the last 6 blogs and loved it. Amazing pics, great stories. Do e-mail us your bank info and i'll send a school donation. Have a lovely christmas and new year. Fi xx