It's time for Tudlo Mindanao again this year. I did it last year, and agreed to do it again. Each year, some 100 teachers are chosen from areas in Mindanao, which is the large southern part of the Philippines, to participate in a 2-week language camp in Cebu city. Volunteers are not allowed to go to Mindanao, because of violence in the region, but it is one area that really needs help. So these teachers come to Cebu, and 7-10 volunteers come and we have English Language Camp for 2
weeks.
This year was quite the experience. Most of us volunteers will be finishing our service and leaving the country within a few weeks, so it was our last big thing. We were happy to be
together, but a bit anxious to be going home.
The place we stayed was less than ideal. There was constant construction going on outside, which made it hard to conduct classes, or sleep. It was very hot, and there were lots of mosquitoes. But we enjoyed ourselves, and our participants had good things to say about the two weeks. They spend class times learning English in hands-on, participative ways. One picture here is when they were doing an activity where blindfolded people had to cross a minefield of plastic cups, and their teammates shouted directions at them. I was on one of the teams that was short a person, and I did worse than anyone else, I even earned a 30 second time penalty and had to go back to the start 3 times!
Some things that happened outside of class were a beauty pageant for participants, and a cultural night and graduation. At cultural night, participants from different regions perform native dances or songs. Everyone enjoys the cultural night. The pageant had costumes made from classroom materials, and a talent portion. They also had three scenes from Les Mis that some of the participants had been rehearsing, and they performed during intermissions of the pageant.
The volunteers also decided to have a 'geek day' where we would dress nerdy. I know, how is that different from how I normally dress? Not much different, really.
