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School Goodbyes

3rd April 2006
The 2nd of April was my last day at Pulao Elementary School. The school also celebrated it's graduation, put on a farewell program for me and some rich benefactor provided the dough for the graduation disco.

Graduation Prep
There was nothing much for me to day in the week or so prior to graduation. I said I was going to help out with some of the other volunteer projects, but in the end I just couldn't face the thought of leaving the school, so I hung out with the kids and helped the teachers prepare for the graduation.

One of the big things I helped with was the graduation booklet. A spiffy little Word document if I do say so myself. It automatically prints into a cool double sided folding booklet. Neat! Have a look at it here if you are so inclined.

Graduation Day
Graduation day and my last day at Pulao finally rolled around. A lot of the kids got dressed up for the event. I was unsure if the dress was traditional, or just formal. Michelle in particular looked very cool. A special mention goes to Renalyn and Lorren Joy as well.

The graduation kicked off with a formal procession. It must of traveled all of 100 meters. They asked me to join the formal folks at the start of the parade, which was nice. They made me sit with the official group as well. I would of preferred to sit with the kids, but that would of looked a little bit of place.

There were the usual formal speeches and acknowledgement of people before the awards were given out. They awards were a lot more sensible than the silliness of the preschool graduation I attended. Awards were given for: Most Neat and Clean, Most Well Behaved and Most Industrious. There were also some special awards for the grade six graduation class.

I recommended Angelito for the Most Improved Student award. He was most deserving. This was his third attempt at grade six. He was a real problem student but really had a good attitude this year and finished eighth overall. Good for him.

Angelito's is a sad story. His fathered buggered off when he was young and the remaining family has struggled ever since. It is nigh on impossible for a single mother to raise a family here. He was upset that he didn't have a button shirt for the graduation. He couldn't borrow one from his classmates because he is so much bigger than them. I gave him one of my shirts as a graduation gift.

Joseph Marachado was the grade six valedictorian. His first duty was to give the valedictory address. He gave thanks to me at one point during his address. It gave me my first teary eyed moment of the day. He also lead his class in a pledge of loyalty, words for which can be found here.

Joseph won a scholarship to the St. Augustine Private School, which I was very glad about as Joseph comes from a dirt-poor family and could never afford it otherwise. St. Augustine came second overall in the Philippines last year.

The graduates sang a song called Glowing Inside as their commencement song. Lyrics can be found here. Despite its saccharine sweetness, it still made me teary eyed again.

Selected students also performed a traditional Filipino dance called the Tinikling dance. The dance involved jumping in and out of bamboo poles that banged together.

One of the nicest moment in the ceremony came for me when Janica asked me to pin her 2nd Place in Grade IV ribbon onto her. This is normally reserved for parents. Janica's father was most supportive though and even took the picture for me. Very nice.

I also received a certificate of appreciation for my time at Pulao. It was presented to me by Sir Jolo - the headmaster of the school.

A lot of the kids wanted to have their photos taken with me after the official ceremony had finished, which was nice. What was not nice though were the stoopid people who insisted I attend the official post-ceremony snack in the staff room. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. I wanted to stay and have my photo taken but they all but physically dragged me away.

Lunch at the Marchados
Janica and Joseph's dad invited me around the their home for lunch. It was a fifteen minute walk through rice fields to get to their home from the school, which is quite close. Some kids have ninety minute long walks to school.

The father works as an artist at the nearby Katamnan Resort. Filipinos wages are quite low. Making a living as an artist anywhere in the world is hard. I'd hate to think how much the father is earning as a Filipino Artist. Can't be much.

The Marchado home is very basic. A simple bamboo hut divided into three rooms. Joseph and Janica share one of the rooms. I assume the rest of the family sleep in the other.

The meal they gave me was great. Lotsa pineapple, watermelon, chicken, pork and an abundance of rice. The also splashed out and got me some coke. Every time my glass threatened to drop below halfway, it would be instantly refilled. They insisted that I go first and finish my meal before anybody else even started. This happens to me quite a lot in the Philippines, but it is always a little strange nevertheless.

After lunch we sat outside and ate watermelon.

I thank the family for the meal before heading back to school with several pupils of Pulao in tow.

My lunch with the Marchado family was an unexpected highlight of my time here. They are a great family who are obviously doing something right as both Janica and Joseph are very responsible and mature young kids. They are a dirt-poor family though. Their generosity and kindness was truly humbling.

Janica sent me the following texts the next day:

TNX VERY MUCH SIR YOU KNOW MY PARENTS TOLD ME EVN F THEIR 1ST TIME 2 MEET U? UR VRY CLOSE 2 US & THEY FEL HAPPY WHEN THEY SEEN OF U UR SO POLITE AND GOOD MAN

THANK U SIR FRND MALCOLM LASTLY GOOD NIGHT & VERY2 SWEET DREAMS, WE WILL U. LOVE & PRAYERS IS D ONLY GREAT GIFT WE CAN GIVE 4 U. WALA NKO LOAD. JANICA. TSUPPPPPPP!

Farewell Party
The part of the day that I had most looked forward to and most dreaded had arrived. The Farewell Party. It was supposed to be a Surprise Farewell Party, but since they needed me to type up the program, any element of surprise was lost. The program can be found here.

The program kicked off with official speeches by official people. The Captain of Pulao was first. I didn't really know the captain very well, I doubt he knew me very well so his speech just sounded a little forced and clichéd. Nice sentiments nevertheless.

Speeches were also given by the top pupils in grades four through six. Joseph's (from grade 6) and Renalyn's (from grade 4) were really nice and touched me greatly.

But, man, Pamela's (from grade 5) absolutely slayed me. Her words were similar to what Joseph and Renalyn said, but she broke down several times in her speech. Which made several people in the audience cry, which made several people on stage cry, which made me cry as well. Was one of the more emotional moments for me.

Pamela, by the way, has the very cool nickname of Pam-Pam. Way better than Yum Yum and infinitely better than Juicy (what were their parents thinking...? ). Pamela also kicked butt in the final exam. She topped the class with a combined score of 258. Second place got a measly 220.

Each class also performed a dance for me.

The Sir Malcolm Energetic Dancers (yes, that's their actual name) from grade six performed a dance for me set to the music of My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas. They invited me to join them during their dance. I knew some of their moves - I had watch them practice during the week - but I had to resort to freestyle so as not to look stoopid. Or was it that my freestyle itself looked stoopid? Dunno. They gave me some flowers as the dance finished.

The same group of girls also sang me a song. Well, I'm pretty sure they sang it for me. They had their backs to me the whole time. Maybe I should of brushed my teeth that morning. Dunno. I can't for the life of me remember what the title of the song was.

Grade four performed a traditional Filipino dance for me. It was the same dance they did at the Pulao Fiesta.

Grade five did a dance for me set to the song Don't Push Me So Hard by God knows who.

Thercy Ferrer gave a speech on behalf of the teachers. She was the teacher that was closest to me and I will miss her dearly when I am gone. Thercy is single. The other teachers took great delight in teasing both Thercy and I that we will get married. In Ilongo when you're teasing someone about romantic things you say Yudi (ewe-dee). It is best accompanied by the rolling of the shoulders.

The student teachers speech was given by the very beautiful Mary Jane. She was another one that broke down just a little during her speech. I managed to snag a copy of her speech and it is reproduced here.

Mayor Distura was invited to give a speech, but didn't turn up.

The final speech was given by yours truly. It is reproduced here. I thought it would be nice if I said a line in English, and then the same line in Ilongo. While my Ilongo is okay and I can sometimes stumble through a conversation, it was not really up to this task. So I had Eden, Amay and Vincent help me with the translation.

Doing the speech in Ilongo was a nice idea. Was a good idea to connect not only to the students, but also to the parents in attendance. I got several compliments on my Ilongo afterwards.

Giving the speech was an emotional moment. I tried to encourage them to never stop learning, even if you don't get the chance go to high school.

High school is technically free, but it practically costs 2,000 pesos a year in "voluntary" donations. 25% of the grade six will not be able to afford to start high school.

I think school life shelters you from the real world. You have somewhere to go each day, friends to hang out with and teachers doing a song a dance for you to keep you amused. Once you leave school though, this all ends. This is what will happen for those 25%. They will all of a sudden find themselves in a very small job market. Some of the lucky ones will get a job peddling around tri-cycles. The unlucky ones will be forever doing the occasional manual labor job.

During my speech, I mentioned what my three wishes for the Philippines would be:

No More Corruption
30% of the tax take goes to bloated government officials
No More Foreign Debt
40% of the tax take goes to paying the interest on foreign debt. There is no practical way the Philippines can pay this off. They need some help. *Waves at President Bush*
Education
Every man, women and child deserves an education.

One and two would fix most of the problems in the Philippines.

What I most wanted to say was at the end of my speech. I don't think I can say it any better than what I said in my speech.

In closing let me say that I will miss you guys.
Sa pag ka tapos, pa ha no go tea neen-you ako sa pag hambal nga ma-mee-miss ko gid kamu tanan

You are not only my students.
Indi la mang kamu akon e-stoo-jant-te

You are not only my fellow teachers.
Indi la mang kamu akon parehas nga maesta or maestro

You are my friends.
Kundi akon kamu tanan a-bee-yan

I will miss you my friends.
Ma-mee-miss ko kamu a-kuun manga a-bee-yan

It got hard to read the Ilongo with the tears in my eyes.

After the farewell party finished, I posed for a million pictures. Nice.

Graduation Disco
The Graduation Disco occurred in the evening. It was the first one for twenty years. The 1,000 pesos ($NZ 25) to hire the speakers, lights and music is just too high. I paid for this years disco.

I danced. I danced a lot. I sweated a lot. Fortunately, the student teachers had given me a t-shirt as a farewell present so I was able to change a rather smelly shirt half way through the evening.

In some ways though, "Disco" isn't quite the right word. "Family Get Together" is a better description. The disco was open to grade four, five and six students and their respective parents. Most families brought along a plate of food which was used in the perpetual feast in one of the classrooms.

The night was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I had great fun playing silly buggers with the kids as I danced with them. Every so often though, a kid would come up to me and say goodbye. It made for some very sad moments. One girl I said goodbye to, Jamaica, didn't actually say anything. She looked at me and the tears well up in her eyes. One fell out and rolled down her left cheek. I gave her a hug and then she turned and left. I wall almost certainly never see her again.

The disco wrapped up at about one in the morning. I was among the last to leave

Pulao Wrap-up
When I've said goodbye to people in New Zealand, I've known that I can get in contact with them if I really want to. Email and the telephone are both wonderful inventions.

It is a bit different here. It will be very difficult to have any meaningful contact with the teachers and students. I've given them my postal address in New Zealand but I doubt if I'll get many letters. Sending a letter to New Zealand is expensive.

I've promised to send some photos of me in Africa to them.

Seeing any of the students again is doubtful. Even if I do come back in a number of years most of the kids would of moved on and be attending high school. The teachers will still be there though. Most of them seemed resigned to the fact that they will teaching until the day they retire.

Sucks to go. No doubt about it. I will miss the kids and the teachers terribly.

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(c) 2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena.
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