Friday, 24 April 2009

• April Shenanigans

  

  I just got back from ten days of optional Peace Corps workshops in Cebu City, Cebu (see above map).  Almost all of the Peace Corps Volunteers from our training batch, Group 267, serially attended Language Camp, In-Service Training (IST), and a Project Design and Management Workshop (PDM) at the ALTA Resort.  The workshops were facilitated by Filipinos and Americans on the Peace Corps-Philippines staff and by Group 266 PCV's.  I enjoyed practicing my Tagalog at Language Camp (volunteers stationed in other parts of the Philippines practiced their Hiligaynon and Cebuano); I learned a lot about the two non-Education sectors of Peace Corps-Philippines (Coastal Resource Management and Children, Youth and Family Services) at IST; and I developed a feasible project plan with my counterpart at PDM.  We're going to rehabilitate the library at General Emilio Aguinaldo National High School to facilitate improved reading comprehension among GEANHS students.  There will be almost 8,000 of them when we restart school in June!

  I've added a photo album entitled "Language-IST-PDM" that shows my fellow PCV's and me working/playing at the workshops.  I've also added a "Whale Shark Trip" album because a group of us 267-ers went to the Bicol region to swim with whale sharks, or butanding, earlier this month.  Even before that, I took pictures of some fun activities with my church congregation in Bacoor and Indang, Cavite, which I added to my "Single Adults" album.  We had a Ward Outing in Bacoor (swimming at the pool), and a few dozen of us stayed a night at a coconut/mango/ampalaya plantation in Indang.  Ampalaya is a disgusting, slimy, terrible excuse for a vegetable; it's also called "bitter gourd."

  I have a lot of things I want to write about, but I'll have to finish this later!

   

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