Massive Update! Part 2: May

May wasn't nearly as productive as April was so this will be a much shorter post. This was the month Mom was supposed to come for her visit. When the trip was first mentioned I thought it was perfect. May is still summer vacation here in the Philippines so I wouldn't have to be at school during the visit and wouldn't feel too guilty being away from site again. But then I remembered... May meant national elections and potential travel restrictions. The trip was off.

Instead, I spent the first half of May at site listening to obnoxious election songs and slogans and roasting in the heat. According to the volunteers who were here last summer, this summer was amazingly hot! The wind just died. It was too hot to move. I live close to the water but it was too hot to walk down the beach to a spot where we could swim. I'm telling you, it was miserable! Dom and I spent hours crashed out in my living room watching movies with the fan pointed directly at us!

For two weeks of May were were on election lock down. National elections only happen once every six years here and in some areas of the Philippines they were worried about election related violence. Volunteers in areas considered "hot spots" for violence were moved away from their sites for 10 days surrounding election day. For the rest of us, we just weren't allowed to leave our sites during that time. We were able to get an exception for Carlotta, who lives just 45 minutes away. She was able to come down to Bulalacao and stay with Rebecca and I for our own mini-consolidation. We tried to get some planning done for the new school year but again, it was too hot and we spent most of our time watching House dvds.

Election day came and went without any major incidents and peace and quiet was restored to the streets. Campaigning here generally involves a truck with speakers attached to the roof driving around town blasting campaign songs. And this begins about 6am every day. The songs ranged from Achy Breaky Heart to It's a Small World with anything and everything in between (La Cucaracha, Hokey Pokey, countless Filipino songs...) It was so nice to be able to wake up on my own (or when the rooster next door decides it's time to get up).

May was also fiesta time for a couple of the barangays in Bulalacao. Campaasan is the barangay where my school is located and Nasucob is another nearby barangay. I went to fiesta events for both. For Campaasan they had a pageant to crown the King and Queen of Fiesta. The contestants were all students at my school and they were chosen to be on the court based on how much money they were able to raise for the barangay and the school. My friend Donna and my school principal served as emcees for the night and all the contestants paraded around in their fancy dresses, fireworks were shot off and the cultural dance troupe from the high school performed at least 5 intermission numbers. The Nasucob fiesta was also a coronation event but this time, the participants were all lolas (grandmothers). There were still fancy dresses and fireworks but instead of the dance troupe, the local band performed. Dom and I went with the guys in the band and had a fun night drinking and dancing (ok, so maybe I didn't dance). I finally made it home about 3am, Dom made it a little closer to 5am. This would have been fine if I had the day to sleep. I didn't. I had been invited by Donna and her family to go with them to Aslom, one of the small islands here known for the white sand beaches and gorgeous water.

With elections finally over it was time to get ready for my first big teacher training. Another volunteer organized a massive teacher training on the island of Panay (just to the east of Mindoro) that included 25 volunteers and 1500 teachers at four stops over two weeks. It was intense, but a lot of fun! I was in charge of teaching the "Grammar is Fun" class. I needed Carly. She's the only person I know who thinks grammar really is fun. Everyone seemed to enjoy the class and I was more comfortable in front of a class every day. By the end I hated grammar though. Each session was 90 minutes long and there were 4 classes a day and 2 days at each stop. After about 30 classes (Not bad math, I didn't have a full schedule every day) I was so over talking about grammar and school in general. But this training ran into June, just a week before school started, so there wasn't much time to recover/prepare for the school year. So a relaxing trip to Boracay was in order... but that's June. Coming soon!