My time in the Philippines is never spent in a typical way. The only thing that 
does not change is the fact that I go to the CCC(Cuatro Community Center) to help Teacher Mariam. I get to spend 2 hours at the CCC from 8:30 to 10:30 every day.
The day starts by going to the children’s home. Colleen and I head up there at 8:00 to get the children ready for school. The job has been easy, until recently. On Saturday everyone at the children’s home got new shoes. Before this point, anything the children wore to school was fine. Now we need to make sure that they have their new shoes and socks on before they can leave the gated area. This has been a problem. The new shoes are great, but no one wants to get socks to put on and the boys really liked wearing sandals to school. It has been a struggle to get going on time this week.
Once the shoes are on with some help on the tying part, we head out the gate for our 3 minute walk to school. On days that it has not rained, we get to walk down a trash/sewer smelling path to school. The other days we take the road, which is much cleaner. The path consists of climbing a wall at the end and getting to walk through some mud, I think the water comes from the houses. Again, I hope it is just water.
Once at school, the day starts. Teacher Mariam says, “Good morning, students”. The students respond with “Good morning Teacher Mariam”, “Good morning Teacher Jackie”, and “Good morning, classmates.” The day is started after the morning prayer by one of the students. Some days, the first part is in Tagalong, which I just sit and try to pay attention. The students are trying to memorize a bible verse a week. I get to sit there as Teacher Mariam has the students go to the front and say it.
After the memory verse is done, I get to help the students. This is truly when my day starts. I get to walk around and help. The students are doing language arts or math during this time. This is the English part of the day. I get to sit there as students read me a list of words, I help them decide which verb is correct, or show them a math concept. I try to keep the students going. The curriculum they use is a home school program called LIFEPAC. The students have to copy down everything in the book in order to do the work. The reason for the copying is that the school cannot afford to buy new books each year. In order to cut down costs, the students have to copy that pages themselves. Sometimes I feel bad for the children and copy a page, so they don’t spend the whole class time copying.
At 10:30, the students get to have a snack. Sometimes, the students get to have lice treatment at this time. The school is set up to be a community center. Water is available for the public, a dentist is available, and the local people can play basketball at night there. As I go back to the house, I walk back down my path and sometimes say hi to a local person. I am thankful for another day to just be there to help out at the school.
