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Pulao GraduationTo forget you, Anngee Dubos - Grade Six Pupil 9th April 2007  A year ago - almost to the day - I attended my first Pulao Graduation. It was one of the best days of my life. Much of my planning around this trip revolved around attending a second one. I was keen for more lifetime highlights! After a rather arduous trip from Brunei, I found myself on the back of Captain Audy's motorbike and zooming my way to Pulao. I found myself constantly glancing ahead to spot Pulao, even though I knew where it was and when it would arrive. When I finally did arrive, the graduation had already started, so I wasn't swamped by kids as I had expected. A couple of them did break ranks and came over to give me a hug. Very nice. Mam Thercy was manning the microphone and let the masses know I was there: "I would like to acknowledge the presence of Sir Malcolm Roy Trevena." I was ushered to my Special Seat and the graduation rumbled along. I was invited up on stage to shake hands of various students as they received their awards. It was nice to have a brief few moments with the students. I said a quick hello to them and gave a few words of encouragement. Once again, the irrepressible Pam-Pam cleaned up. I ran out of things to say to her as she collected reward after reward. Pam-Pam is not only clever, but a very mature young lady. Her parents want to send her to St. Augustine - a private school in Dumangas - for the princely sum of 10,000 pesos ($NZ 285). Pam-Pam has said "No" though. She wants to go to the normal public school. I am unsure why she is doing this. It may be that she wants to be with her friends, or it might be that she doesn't want her parents spending that much money on her. I do want to sit down with both Pam-Pam and her parents and find out what the reason is. If it is that Pam-Pam doesn't want her parents spending that much money, then I know of a handsome New Zealander who would gladly pick up the bill. On a slight aside, I also discovered that Joseph is attending the public school even though he won a scholarship to the private school last year. I am interested in finding out the reasons behind this as well. Joseph and his sister Janica are also two mature and clever young adults. I became quite close to the them and their family during my first stay. The graduation ceremony rattled on in the way that graduation ceremonies generally do. i.e. slow but nice. It eventually ended and I was swamped by kids. I managed to get one picture in before I was all but dragged to the lunch with the official people. Ugh. I do not like these official lunches. I would of much rather been with the kids. I stayed for as long as was polite and then headed off to catch up with the kids. I had expected them to all of shot up in height and changed a whole heap, but the hadn't really. They were all more or less the same size. The only person I took a second glance at was the adorable Janica. She had chopped off most of her locks and had managed to - unbelievably - become even more adorable Some of the kids had obviously missed me a whole heap. Reegine in particular seemed glad that I was back. She stuck to me like glue. Anngee was also stoked that I was back. Anngee - and many of the other kids - gave me photos of themselves. The will all become part of my most treasured photos collection. Welcome Back Sir Malcolm Pam-Pam and Anngee were the MCs. After a brief introductory speech by Pam-Pam, student after student (including some of the old grade six) came up on stage and gave a short speech about what it meant to them that I had came back and what effect I had on them as a teacher. It was all just a little humbling. Ricky, one of the old student teachers, also gave a speech. I caught up with what all the old student teachers were doing and it was all a bit sad really. Beauty had worked briefly at SM City but was too embarrassed to tell me exactly what. Ditto for Rems. All the others were unemployed and struggling. A couple of students also performed songs for me. The first was Anjo (not Leo). He performed a Corny-By-New-Zealand-Standards-But-Sweet-Filipino's-Standard version of Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On from the Titanic soundtrack. He's a good little singer and his performance came from the heart. I have no idea who the second singer was. I think she was just using the opportunity to sing to a crowd. There was, of course, a dance or two. The Sir Malcolm Energetic Dancers (real name!) had reformed and gave a sterling performance. The overall standard of dancing took a big dip when they invited me to join them. Disco! Meghan - an ex-volunteer from Dumangas who I met up with in New Zealand - was kind enough to give me some money which was used to pay for the sound system. Much boogying was done. I had a fantastic day at Pulao Elementary School. While it was quite on the same par as my first graduation (what could be?), it was still very memorable. The only problem was that it was too short. The kids are on holiday now and won't be at the school so it is going to be hard to see them again. Rather cunningly though, I have arranged some craft days in the coming days, so I will get to spend some more time with them.
(c)
2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena.
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