crazymalc.co.nz - Home Page of Malcolm Trevena

Graduations Galore

25th March 2006

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold.

Proverbs 3:13-14

Friendships and Crap Attitudes
The six students teachers assigned to Pulao Elementary School all graduated on the 20^th of March. I decided to attend their graduation as a sign of respect and friendship.

I was quite shy with the student teachers when the first arrived at Pulao Elementary. I think there were several reasons for this. Firstly, I am a naturally shy person and not sharing a common fluent language only adds to the shyness. Secondly, I have this really bad attitude to friendships that goes something like this:

I'm only here for six months, so I won't bother getting to know you.

Pretty shite really. The attitude is summed up nicely in this photo - and associated comment - that I took during the scout camp. I'm happy to report that I do know their names now and some of them are actually quite nice people!

Ever since we had our night on the town - which helped the friendships immensely - I have been making a conscious effort to try and get to know them better. It's a little odd that it has to be a conscious effort, but the end result is the same so I guess it doesn't really matter. I've gotten to know the aptly named Beauty, Ricky and Sherlyn quite well. Not in a chums-for-life type of way, but well enough to consider them as friends who I will miss when I go.

The Student Teachers Graduation
Attending their graduation was a natural extension of all this. Their graduation was at their university-type institution, the Dumangas ISCOF College. I forget what ISCOF stands for, but I know the F stands for Fisheries. This harks back to the days of Ferdinand Marcos who tried to up-skill the Filipino people in many trade orientated professions, such as fishing, by setting up colleges like the Dumangas ISCOF College.

The graduation commenced with a parade. The parade itself was quite short due to, I guess, the extreme heat here in the Philippines. The students were then lined up in rows, where they baked in the sun and subjected to endless speeches.

Ricky managed to pick up an special award for finishing in second place for the Education graduates.

Graduations are cool and it's nice to have a formal recognition of accomplishments but, sweet merciful God in heaven they can be so boring. Individually naming every one of one thousand or so graduates as they cross the stage and shake the hand of the four officials just takes too long and is not at all interesting.

The informal picture taking kicked into gear once the very formal ceremony had finished. This was a lot more fun and a tad surreal as complete strangers asked to have their photo taken with me.

I got chatting to Ricky and Sherlyn about where they wanted to teach now that their four years worth of hard slog was over. They both told me that they didn't want to teach because it was just too hard. A bit of a shame really as I think that Ricky, in particular, would make a fine teacher. I'm sure their families have put a lot of money into getting them a university level degree. They did say that the fact that they did have a professional degree would make getting a decent job just a little easier. Both of them said that they would take any job they could overseas.

A sad fact about the Philippines is that you can earn a lot more overseas than you can here. A Filipino nurse, for example, earns ten times as much working overseas than a Filipino doctor does working in the Philippines. It is no wonder that Filipino doctors are heading overseas in their droves to work as nurses. It would be nice if they could stay and help their country, but I can fully understand their reasons for leaving. All of them will be sending massive amounts of money back to their families in the Philippines.

Ricky invited me to his house for lunch after the graduation. Ricky lives in an isolated rural community and lives with about fifteen or so relatives in various Nepia Huts. His family put on a massive spread of food for me which I'm sure caused them a little financial hardship. Their generosity was phenomenal to the point of being a little uncomfortable. As I breathed between mouthfuls of food, I was urged to eat even more food and to not be shy. I was quite full by the end of the meal...

I wish I had had my camera with me to take some pictures of Ricky's house and family, but I had lent it to Beauty so she could record her big day and time spent with her family. Which, I guess, is a sign of the new found friendship between her and I.

Pre-School Graduations
Sir Jolo, the Head Teacher at Pulao Elementary School, invited me to attend the preschool graduation ceremony of his two young daughters. He specifically asked me to bring along my camera so that I could take all the family snap shots that he so obviously desired. It made me feel as if he was only inviting me for my camera, but I didn't mind too much.

It was like a normal graduation, only one eighth the size. The had their own cute little parade and cute little kids doing cute little things.

The only thing that was mini-sized was the length of the event. It started at nine o'clock in the morning and finished at about 1:30 in the afternoon. Ugh. The situation wasn't helped by the inordinate number of awards given out. Some of them were just plain silly. "Most Humble Pupil", for instance, was given out to numerous kids in each grade. Maybe the kids had an argument later on to sort out who was the most humble... Other silly awards included: "Most Attentive", "Most Prompt" and "Most Well Groomed".

Each kid got at least five awards and an appropriate ribbon. Pinning on the sixth or seventh ribbon proved difficult for some parents as there was not enough suitable space left on their child's dress. Heck, even the parents got ribbons for - as far as I could tell - turning up. I think I was the only person there who did not receive a ribbon. I think I need a hug... *sobs*

Sir Jolo did invite me to his house after the ceremony as a way of saying thank you. Once again, no complaints with the hospitality.

One More Graduation To Go
There is one more graduation that I will be attending. It will be at my school, Pulao Elementary, on April the 2nd.

The formal graduation will be be in the morning. The students and teachers decided to put on a special event for me in the afternoon. I don't know exactly what will happen, but I do know that there will be speeches from pupils from each of my grades and a each grade will perform a special dance number. Each student has also made something for me. I imagine 90% of these will be a letter of some sort.

There is also a special "big" present that will be from the school.

I have been systematically getting pictures of each student and I. I will give these to each student as a gift from me when I go. Each photo will cost me 7 pesos. I have 87 students, so it should set me back 609 pesos ($NZ 15.23).

I am also going to pay the 1,000 pesos ($NZ 25) required to hire a sound system so that we can have a disco in the evening. The school has not been able to afford a graduation disco for twenty (!) years. It will be my gift to the school.

April the 2nd is going to be an odd day. I'm sure I'll have lots of fun at the disco and get a little bored during the graduation ceremony. The "Sir Malcolm Special Event" is going to be hard. I will probably end up crying like a little girl...

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(c) 2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
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