A Not-So-White Christmas…..Sunshine and Santas

Travelling into Agusan marsh to deliver Christmas goodies !

Christmas time has arrived !

Time to spread a little Christmas cheer as we go along our way!

So, in that spirit this week began with a group of my VSO colleagues, the Save Mindanao Volunteers and me travelling into the Agusan marsh to deliver Christmas gifts to the people there.  

 

We are greeted by the children all singing welcome songs to us at the new Literacy Centre built by the Save Mindanao Volunteers. 

Our destination was a Sitio (small settlement) called Kilobeaden where the Save Mindanao Volunteers (SMV) have been doing a lot f work to help the community. 

Kilobeaden.  The house in the foreground is typical of the houses there, each of which can be home to ten or more people. 

Amongst the things that SMV have been doing is constructing a Literacy Centre for the teaching of children and adults alike.  

We arrived late afternoon, since it is a long journey to get there, first by car, then by big boat, then by little canoe !  As a result by the time we laid out our sleeping mats etc. it was dark.  Nevertheless, we were given a tour of the village and told who lived in each house (and how many !). 

 

A Kilobeaden household at dusk. 

There were seventeen houses in all.  Amongst the occupants was a 42 year old woman who had a 5-day old baby – her tenth child.  She wasn’t the only one with a big family either. 

We planned to stay overnight, so in some ways it would have made sense to distribute the gifts in the morning once we had daylight again, but the intended recipients were too excited to wait that long.  Consequently we battered on by the light of a single gas-lamp and the odd improvised kerosene lamp made from an old bottle and a rag (there is no electricity here !).

 

Families wait barefoot in the mud for the distribution of gifts to begin.

So in spite of the darkness and some very heavy rain showers I donned my Santa Hat and we got on with it !

It was all very organised as the Save Mindanao Volunteers produced a list of all the households, along with details of how many children each family had and any other special circumstances (such as “this lady is a widow with six children”).  We were therefore able to adjust the size of the pack each family got to the number in the household etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A happy lady receives a bag of children’s clothes and toys

The gifts included a load of soft toys donated by folk in Newton Mearns, and transported out from Glasgow on Bill’s last trip out here.  As the bags were carried away into the darkness we all retired to bed – sleeping on the floor of the Literacy Centre.  The following morning we woke to find the various new toys being played with and the new clothes being worn aleady by some of the children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amongst the toys were little “tooting party horns”, so that following morning we woke to the sound not of birdsong but of children running around going “toot toot”.  I could just hear my sister’s voice from back in Scotland saying “that’s the kind of thing Aunties give, not parents !” 

Ah well. 

I have done my bit for the peace and tranquility of the marsh !

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left : Nice new t-shirt, nice new kite… but something missing.

Above : The boy in the centre is wearing his new t-shirt and shorts.

The final items distributed the following morning were some chinese kites.  I had been unsure if these would work as there is limited space to run about to get the kite launched, but they seemed to manage and had a really good time with them. As did the adults !

 

Even during Christmas celebrations normal life goes on, and a little person still needs to wash behind their ears ! I hope they don’t wring her out like the laundry !

The following day at dawn we went for a trip round a nearby lake, and got some fresh fish straight from the fisherman’s net, which was then cooked for our breakast.  Delicious !

It was then time to be on our way, so we took to the canoes once again, and headed out of the marsh. 

However, a Santa’s work is never done, so more tasks lay ahead.  On returning to San Franz (where I live) I had to immediately head out to the shops to finish shopping for the Pinagalaan School Party the following day.

Pinagala-an Elementary School Christmas Party ! 

Pinagala-an School’s Christmas programme started at 10 am with all of the classes taking it in turns to give a little performance ( a song, dance, or both !).  I arrived just in time for the start of this, and was treated like a guest of honour !  I also had to join in the dancing to Christmas songs, much to the amusement of the kids who were in fits of laughter at this funny white woman doing all the actions to the songs !

At lunchtime we had a mass feeding again, with a few extras like cakes and sweeties since it was the Christmas party ! I then started distibuting gifts to the schoolchildren with the help of the teachers.

 

Toy cars are handed out to the Grade 1 and Grade 2 boys. 

The toys handed out included soft toys collected by the people of Newton Mearns. In all, over 60 soft toys from Glasgow were distibuted at the school, and that was not counting the ones distributed in the marsh the day before.  There were also a load of balloons which came out from Scotland, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two young girs display their new soft toys.  In the background of the left hand picture, bags of donated clothing from Newton Mearns await distribution.

I had also bought a load more toys out here including lots of toy cars, word games, puzzles, spiderman toys, power rangers, yoyos, water pistols and ….you guessed it… .. more tooting horns and kites ! 

Happy faces as the children of Pinagala-an Elementary School receive their gifts !

Once again the process was very orderly thanks to the help of the teachers who called the pupils up one class at a time. 

Having handed out a Christmas present to every child in the school, we then turned our attention to handing out the donated clothes which had been brought from Scotland.  There weren’t quite enough to kit out all 209 pupils in the school, so the teachers decided the indigenous students (those from the Manobo tribe) should have priority as these families tend to be the poorest and most disadvantaged.  

 

A Manobo boy gets fitted out with a new ‘St Cadoc’s’ polo shirt and a pair of shorts by the teachers.

Once again the teachers set to, checking all the clothes against the pupils to make sure they fitted okay.  They really worked hard.  However I had bought a great big gooey chocolate cake for the teachers to share as a thanks for all their hard work over the previous year !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left : A Manobo boy gets fitted with a Mearns Primary School polo shirt.  Right : A boy in desparate need of a new t-shirt (wearing a t-shirt full of holes) clutches his new Mearns Primary polo shirt.

Having completed our task it was time to return to the Barangay (village) Hall for the  afternoon part of the programme. 

However, I may have contributed to things degenerating into chaos, as the floor of the hall was by this time covered with kids playing with their new toy cars and there were balloons bouncing about everywhere !

 

Playing with the new toy cars !

Nonetheless, the programme eventually got under way again with community singing and dancing.  I was dragged up to sit on the stage, but had a constant stream of children bringing me the baloons out their gift packs for me to blow up for them. 

All in alll, a good time as had by all, and all the goodies and presents really seemed to make the day for the children. Indeed one or two of them couldn’t wait to put on their new clothes and appeared at the afternoon session sporting new t-shirts !

A Manobo boy sports his new St Cadoc’s polo shirt 

A final thought at Christmas time ……

It occurred to me that the money I spent on cakes sweets and toys for the whole school was similar to what could be easily spent on one festive meal back in the UK over this Christmas period. 

And for that you can make a whole school happy !

No contest really, is it ?

So thanks again to all those who donated money, toys and clothes.  You all helped make it a very special day for the children.

May your own Christmas be as happy as you made the children and their families that day.  

Science Lab Revamp at Pinagala-an

Birthday presents for Pinagala-an ! The head teacher Ferdinand Buque and volunteer teacher  Mr Tambili with some maps, watercolour paints, and educational posters we donated to the school.

This year on my birthday (6th December) Bill and I went to Pinagala-an to deliver some science equipment and other goodies to the children.  Bill and I had spent the previous weekend in Davao, which is about six hours away down in the south of Mindanao, in order to source and buy the more specialist items the school teachers had requested. 

One of the tougher things to find was a microscope.  The school’s existing microscope had been unusable for at least two years, a source of great concern to the head teacher as he is also the science teacher for the school.

An excited head teacher assembles the new school microscope. 

We are really keen to promote the teaching of science as you will probably have seen on the TV the devastating effects that deforestation are having in the Philippines, with whole villages being swept away by landslides and all the ocupants of those villages being killed.  Even in the area where I work there are regular landslips.  So quite apart from the environmental reasons, there is an urgent need to raise children’s awareness of the importance of managing thier environment in a more sustainable (and safer) way to prevent loss of life as well as destruction of the environment. 

Anyway, after a lot of hunting we eventually sourced a suitable microscope from a medical supplies shop within the Davao Doctor’s Hospital.  To this we added a pack of glass microscope slides, a box of coverplates and half a dozen magnets (another request from the teachers !) – including bar magnets and horseshoe magnets.  Not sure why magnets are available in a medical supplies shop, but they were ! Later on we even found educational posters about microscopes and about magnetism, to create a complete set !  The head teacher Mr Burqe was really impressed by that, and kept saying how complete it all was !

     

Bill and Head teacher Mr Buque with the microscope, magnets and posters. 

These were not the only educational posters we bought – there were a whole heap of them, as well as which every classroom got a world map and a map of the Philippines. 

Finally, we added loads of trays of watercolour paints since this is something the school has trouble affording to buy for themselves, and there is no way the individual children could provide their own – they just couldn’t afford to do so.   So or the time being art classes can take on a new lease of life !

We handed over the stuff and were about to leave for Butuan (as Bill had to fly home the next day) when all  the children appeared in front of me and started singing me really lovely birthday tunes. 

 

The children singing birthday songs to me !

It was not just a simple ”Happy Birthday to You” but several lovely and quite complicated birthday songs which were obviously well rehearsed, and all about ‘ your can hear all your sons and daughters are singing to you’ and ‘ today must be so much happier than yesterday since its your birthday‘  and ‘we are so happy god has given you one more year’.    Lovely, and very touching !

 

I am suddenly innundated by flowers – which are locally grown by the parents of the children for sale in local markets.

During the singing I noticed some of the children holding flowers, and was a bit suspicious about this, and sure enough at the end of the singing I was swamped in flowers.  Cut flowers are one of the major things grown by local farmers (but in a very subsistence-farming type way), so although the local people are so poor they have very little which they can give, they gave me the one thing they had – flowers.  And they gave them in abundance – a veritable tidal wave of flowers ! Very generous and moving. 

I certainly went home with a little tear of emotion in my eye after all their efforts to mark my birthday (and so did Bill – he was about to tease me when he realised he also had a tear in his eye !). 

A truly memorable birthday indeed. 

Datus and Doctors : Agusan Marsh Gets a Floating Clinic

A new floating clinic funded by the Philippine Australian Community Assistance Programme (PACAP) navigates its way into one of the channels of the Marsh while local residents hitch a ride on the outriggers and tow their dugout canoes behind.

I am trying to catch up with some of the updates from Bill’s visit which I have so far not got round to putting on the blog site. 

Amongst the trips we undertook was to join the celebrations of the 20th aniversary of PACAP – the Philippine-Australian Community Assistance Programme.  PACAP does a lot of work with the indigenous peoples, and in the Agusan Marsh, including recently launching a Floating Clinic to serve the people who live in remote areas of the Marsh.

 

A local Marsh woman from the Manobo Tribe gets treatment from the Save Mindano Volunteers, who operate the Floating Clinic.  A young manobo dancer in traditional costume looks on. 

The Floating Clinic is operated by the Save Mindano Volunteers – a locally based volunteering agency here in the southern Philippines, with Philippino volunteers from here in Mindano.  Without the floating clinic many of the indigenous people living in the marsh would find it very hard to access medical help without very long travelling times.

Because it was the 20th Anniversary of PACAP providing aid to the Philippines there were great celebrations of the achievements of their ‘first’ 20 years !  Inevitably when you are in Manobo tribal areas, large celebrations begin with a ritual during which offerings are made to the spirits, including the ritual slaughter of a pig (a ‘baboy’) with a traditional spear by the Datu (the Tribal Chief).

 The baboy (pig) ritual – the Datu (Tribal Chief) arries out a ritual of offerings to the spirits during which a pig is slaughtered using a traditional spear.

This was followed by lots of events to celebrate the PACAP Anniversary, including lots of traditional dancing, by adults and children alike, singing, and games involving the members of the local Community.

 

Manobo dancers dance barefoot on the rough gravel ground used for community events. It is common for the indigenous peoples not to use any shoes.

A few days after the celebrations in the heart of the Marshland we visited another community at Sitio Palibu, on the edge of the Marsh, which has also been a focus of assistance from PACAP. 

PACAP have been helping the local indigenous peoples (IPs) to secure a Certificate of Ancestral Domain for the lands they occupy, to safeguard their future rights to the area.  Within a recognised Ancestral Domain the rights of the indigenous peoples to continue their traditional ways of life are protected, including their rights to continue their traditional hunting practices.  Many IPs still hunt wild birds and monkeys for their food.

Bill and I with Datu Palibu, the Tribal Chief (Datu) of Sitio Palibu.