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Final Day

Ramen.

That was the first thing that popped into my head when I woke up this morning. And it felt odd, not because I was craving for instant noodles, but because for the first time in two weeks, I wasn’t thinking about the morning call for the team.

Project Philippines 2013-Leyte was ending.

I stumbled groggily across the room to commence packing. Though it was scheduled to be a mild day, I wanted to finish packing so that I could see Karen off at 9 AM. She was slated to fly at 11, the first of the group to depart. PSHS had so graciously offered to bring each of us (!) to the airport, a gesture that unbelievably lightened our load. I was to be part of the next group to depart the hotel at 1:30, along with Hikaru, Audrey, Angela, Alex, Emily, Abby, Yun Chen, Parit, and Peeraya.

In the 4 hour lull between Karen’s departure and ours, we went to the school to take care of a few things. First on the agenda was the framed picture of appreciation for the school. We had meant to present it during the closing ceremonies, but due to a misunderstanding with the printing shop, we weren’t able to pick it up on time. We were glad however, that we still had this extra day to be able to give it to the school.

Second was the (attempted) recovery of a number of lost items – Ly’s laptop charger and Hikaru’s phone to name a few. We lost SO MANY items during the project that it really felt like there was somehow a portal to another dimension that these items kept being sucked into. Mrs. Gozon was not available at the time of our visit however, so we were resigned to the fact that these items were our souvenirs to Leyte.

Last, and probably the first on Hikaru’s list of things to do, was a mandatory buko drinking session at MacArthur Park. It was my third time for buko in MacArthur Park, so I begged off, but it was my first time actually seeing the statue of General MacArthur.

To digress somewhat from the project, I have to admit I was rather starstruck being in the General MacArthur Park. Having been colonized by the Spaniards, Americans, and Japanese, the Philippines and her history books aren’t particularly profuse in their praise for foreigners, if any at all. General MacArthur is the exception. I remember quite clearly how romanticized his landing in Palo, Leyte was. His ever-famous quote, “I shall return,” is the only one I can remember from my history lessons, and standing only a meter away from the statue, I could faintly hear history whispering in my ears.

From MacArthur Park, we got off the tricycles at the school, and who should we find waiting for us but some of our mentees! Another round of goodbyes were said, and the Angela Park gave Linette (and not Erica) her scarf. The past two weeks, it’s been such a pleasure seeing our mentees grow so much, and I could feel pieces of my heart slowly melting as the multicab revved up its engine and drove away.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by Robinsons to pick up some lunch from, drumroll please, Jollibee! Nothing beats Philippine fastfood, and I say that without any bias whatsoever :)

Now upon arriving at the hotel, it seems as if the door to the dimension of lost items opens, and they are regurgitated one by one. I receive a text from Mrs. Gozon saying that Ly’s charger has been found, and that Hikaru’s phone is in the bus. The mango jam that Hikaru bought that mysteriously disappeared a week and a half ago revealed its existence in the guys’ room (this is important take note of this hehe). The biggest surprise of all was Karen, who was back at the hotel! Apparently, her flight had been delayed for 6 hours, so she decided to reschedule her flight to the next day and spend one more night in Leyte. This worried me; I hurriedly checked the Philippine Airlines website and found my suspicions confirmed – our flight was also delayed by 2 hours. It seemed as if Tacloban didn’t want us to leave!

Despite the delay, we decided to push through and head for the airport. Mrs. Gozon saw us off, and we bade farewell to Karen, Ly, and Binh, who were staying one more night. It was a strange feeling, that goodbye. 16 days before, we had only corresponded largely by email; most of us hadn’t even met each other yet. Now, I had come to trust the members as a team that I could face challenges with, and as people I could grow with. And as we had our final hugs, I said with all sincerity, “I hope we see each other again.”

And after all that, Hikaru realizes that she left the mango jam in the bus. Lolololol.

Finally, after 5 hours of waiting (and feeding the mosquitos), we closed our chapter of Project Philippines 2013-Leyte.

Shall we return? Stay tuned and find out.

Thank you for following us on this year’s journey! Keep dreaming, and engineer inspiration!

Community Service Day

It’s the last day of the project. I didn’t have the courage to write about it as if the project would literally end until now. I still couldn’t believe that our Media Committee leader assigned the poorest English writer on the community service day. Anyway, let me talk about this magical day.

There were 4 community service projects proposed and conducted by 4 groups of high school students in Project Philippines-Leyte 2013. Two projects were already finished on Tuesday. The other two were going to have orientations on trash and mosquito in the afternoon, which made us fight for the Multiple Media Center for a while. I was one of the mentors of the team NRG, whose project was about trash and recycles.

Our group planned to meet in school at nine in the morning to prepare for the orientation, but students showed up late over 30 min as usual. We played some games to wait for others and put the powerpoint slides together. The orientation targeted to the residents in the local community where we visited three times for field research, survey and invitation. We wanted to raise the awareness of trash disposal in order to prevent diseases and flood as much as possible because the students observed there was trash everywhere on the ground even near the dwells and few trash cans which made they just burn all the trash themselves. For this reason, all the slides and presentation were in Tagalog. Nevertheless, we mentors asked students to rehearsal in the Multiple Media Center to other mentees and learn from others. The presentation was really funny and touching for me, even I didn’t understand any words. I was so confident on them.

So what should we do next? Was it lunch? No, we had group photos together in our lovely project T-shirts in front of the school. I bet it’s hard to distinguish all the mentors from the mentees.

And you know once people get the cameras, they just want to take many photos with everyone. Who was the most popular mentor? It was the Angela Park! She just stood there and students waited in line. Mentees loved her because she was so smart and beautiful!

OK, let’s be back to the orientation.

Mentees brought the kids and their parents from the community into the school.(It was Wednesday but it was a holiday.) Niña tried to talk with the kids and showed appreciation to the parents. The orientation started with NRG’s awesome team’s cheer.

After the introduction of the disease caused by trash, we prepared a game with multiple choice questions with really cute gesture.

We even prepared the snack and trash cans to demonstrate the right trash disposal and how to recycle.

The kids highly involved in the orientation, for example, willing to answer the questions. The kids even prepared a dance, Gentleman, at the end of the orientation. Then, they asked to use the mike to sing some songs. Think that they barely had chance to use the audio equipment, we let them go on stage. Before that, I tried to text to our co-leader that the orientation here was almost done, where is the media? Well, the media showed up at the worst time that one girl holding the mike singing so sharp and loud that I had to tune the volume. At least, the kids had the good time.

After the orientation, we sat in a circle to have group reflection, in which we appreciated everyone’s work and personality and thought through what we learned in the education program. That was a really long but meaningful reflection. However, that made us mentors late for closing ceremony registration started from 5:30. I talked to Peeraya that we might not have time for make up on the bus school arranged. We picked up teachers and students along the way to Hotel Alejandro.

The closing ceremony was on the roof dining room. The teachers and parents were invited. Every mentee got one survey form and wrote down some words to the donors at the registration desk. For me, I jumped out the bus and ran to the 4th floor to change. I tried to get the dress, hair and make-up down in 10 min. You know girls. Everyone looked so pretty and handsome at that night. We had Binh and Parit as emcees and Karen’s wonderful videos, which showed the students’ work and dreams, to open the ceremony.

What makes a good closing ceremony? They are good food, good shows and rituals. Starting from the most boring one, we mentors had the certification and gifts from the high school. Our foreign name caused some troubles to pronounce. Mentees presented their projects and got certification. The officers of SEALNet club were sworn in. The club president, Donna, gave an inspiring speech. Then SEALNet donated 3 laptops to the club. Mentees and mentors shared their experience and what they learned in the project. Erica spent all her time thanking Angela Park. The school principal said something which I forgot, but he had been really supportive.

As for the show, mentees amused everyone by mimicking every mentor. They did have talents. Then the music started, and people sang and danced together. We even had the teachers and the school principle danced with us. They danced so cool. I think music and dance are in every Filipino. Those who don’t like dancing and singing were busy taking photos and leaving messages on the back of their certification.

At 9:30, we took the last photo for everyone still there. Ly promised to the mentees that she would come back next year. People hugged, cried and waved goodbye.

For the mentors, we had our final time as a team in the small hotel room. We had the last meeting and showed appreciation to each other. After that, we talked about what we had learned, the impacts of the project, what we were going to do next and so on till we were too tired.

Project Page By Page Delivers Notebooks to Students!

For the past week, my mentees have been working on a project, transforming used notebooks with blank pages into new notebooks for elementary school students in their community, many of whom don't have the money to buy their own. My mentees have been working really hard collecting pages and putting the notebooks together, which, though it may seem simple, actually becomes a tedious and arduous task in bulk. Over three days we created over 200 notebooks to give to the elementary school students.

The group working on making notebooks.

We stitch the new notebooks together with yarn.

Mylyn working on whole punching the recycled papers. This was the most challenging step, it turned out. At one point we had to take break for "quality control" to make sure the pages weren't falling out of the new notebooks.

This project was done by a 2012 SEALnet group as well, and had great potential to be sustainable in their community, but after running into some communication problems with the elementary school administration, the Philippines Science students had become frustrated. They decided to take on the project again this year, and to work specifically on making it sustainable, so that they might continue recycling and delivering notebooks to the elementary school students throughout the year.

Finally today all our work paid off! At 2:45 we walked over to Pawing Elementary School with over 300 notebooks and got to hand the notebooks to the elementary school students. When we arrived at the school we watched the fourth, fifth and sixth graders carry their worn-looking school desks out over their heads onto the central green, all gathering in front of an outdoor stage, waiting to receive their notebooks.

I could tell my mentees were almost intimidated by how many students piled out onto the lawn. Parit, Audrey, and I (the mentors for our project group) nudged out mentees to start the event. They had planned some fun activities and games to play while distributing the notebooks. With a little nudging, Mylyn, one of the older, more mature, but quieter mentees walked up on stage and took the microphone, taking control of the whole distribution event. She was amazing! She had kids come up on stage and perform talents, and had them talk about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Other mentees walked around distributing the notebooks and talking with the students. All of the students drew pictures of what they wanted to be when they grew up on the first pages of their notebooks. Walking around and looking at the pictures was such a wonderful and adorable sight.

Pauline hands out notebooks to students.

Mylyn had students talk about what they want to be when they grow up and show their talents. The boy on the stage in this photo sang a Filipino song for us!

Two of the students with their notebooks. I love the words one of them wrote down on the back of her notebook.

This group of boys all wanted red notebooks! It was so funny. The book that's open in the middle shows a very impressive drawing of a soldier that one of them drew to represent what he wanted to be when he grows up.

We were able to give over 300 students notebooks.

Many of the students were very shy around me, and would cover their faces with their notebooks when i asked them their names or what they were drawing. But they all smiled!

Once the festivities were over, we still had notebooks remaining, and were swarmed by a group of first, second, and third graders. We did not have enough notebooks for all of them, unfortunately, so we did not distribute any more. But it was a reminder that out work was valuable and that we should keep doing it.

After walking back to the school, the project mentor Angela treated our whole group to Buko (fresh coconut) and we all relaxed.

But!! Our work is not over! As I said, a big part of the Page by Page project this year is trying to build sustainability and to spread the project to other schools. Tomorrow my mentees will work on a website that documents their project, and gives interested readers information on how they can execute the project in their own communities. We hope that the website will help spread the project to communities all over the world. We also plan to have the link posted on the SEALnet website, and the Philippine Science High School website.

Check out our website at this link!: http://pbp2project.wordpress.com/

Our mentee, Sean, begins work on the website and shows Parit is progress. Sean has been the mastermind behind designing and implementing the website.

The website has been entirely created by the High School students in our group. Their skills on a computer have truly impressed me. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow, but I think it looks great already!

Maybe you can even do the Page by Page project yourself!

Love, Emily!

photos courtesy of "the" Angela Park

August 19th

The last Monday snuck up on us. The 19th: only a few more days until Community Service Day on the 21st (and for some groups, on the 20th). Both mentors and mentees alike seemed tired from the hectic week before, but we pushed ourselves to do our best. The mentees had their project waiting for them to breathe some life into it, after all, and as mentors, we would stop at nothing to help them pursue their goals.

I am part of the one and only Team Nawong! If you haven't read the other posts yet, Team Nawong wanted to target the pest problem in their school by making a biopesticide trap to catch mosquitos and similarly annoying bugs. In short, it's called T.R.A.P. S.A.M.: To Raze and Attract Pests Such as Mosquitos.

One of the things that I love about my mentees is their sense of humor. Because our project title, Sam is now a mosquito who is our project's mascots of sorts. He makes an official appearance in our presentations and we're even planning to dress up Angelo as a giant mosquito for our final workshop.

Anyways, yesterday, they wanted to test out two different trap ideas they had discovered through their research. One was the chili pepper solution that could supposedly kill mosquitos, and the other was a trap that used carbon dioxide produced by yeast to attract mosquitos into a trap that they cannot escape from. Today, we were scrambling to get traps done and eventually to test both of them against each other to find out what would work better for our project. The entire day was devoted to the making of our project, and although at times it got tedious with no breaks, both mentors and mentees pulled through to get things done.

And to our surprise, we did end up finishing our project early! Some of our group members split off to distribute the traps around the school so they can eventually be tested. But afterwards, we did have a few extra time, so we started playing a few games to reward ourselves for a job well done. One of them was called "Johnson Johnson," a game that was basically another way of playing "Concentration" or "Categories." Each person that lost had to answer to Truth or Dare, and well...the results got quite interesting at times.

Still, the lesson of today? Work hard and play hard. Doing a community service project, of course, takes a ton of work and coordination to make it happen. But that doesn't mean that a time to enjoy one of our last few days together is out of the question.

August 17th: After the sun, here comes the run!

Today was the first day we officially backed to the school after two days at Kuting Reef. Fun Day was just too good to be true that I couldn’t believe it was all gone. Anyway, we all had a really good time together. Watching the sunset, telling jokes, laughing like crazy, chatting until midnight, etc. they were really sweet memories that made us so much closer to each other.

As for today, we had office hours in the morning, and then our first session started at 1:30 in the afternoon. The session today was an NGO talk, which we invited a representative from SOS Children’s Village to come and share experiences in working on community service projects with the mentees. The rest of the time was for each group to prepare for their project’s execution on the 21st.

As usual, we started our session with a fun ice-breaker game from Ly. I really appreciate Ly’s hard work on this because all the mentees enjoyed the game so much. I mean not only today but every single day of the project. It made us, as mentors, so much easier to communicate with the mentees later on.

After that, we had a presentation from two representatives of SOS Children’s Village. They were all really nice and dedicated to the community, which inspired us a lot on volunteerism and our upcoming community service project as well. The Mother also presented to us the history of the SOS Organization and their “one Mother, one house” structure.

I, as always, was so busy running around taking pictures of everyone.

Students being active in the Q&A session.

Next, mentees and mentors were back to their groups for the project’s preparation. Actually, we could all feel the rush as we only had a few days left. I didn’t know if it was me being over-worried or else, but I was definitely freaked out during the team discussion. My mentees were so vague about what they were going to do and moreover, the reason why they had to do this. I, Ninh and Carmela – the three mentors – we had to try our best to talk to them and lead them back to the right track. One thing that I also realized was that all the mentees were trying so hard to do something sounded “big” (and by saying big, I mean the scale and the beneficiaries of their project), which made me have to constantly remind them to be realistic and keep their feet on the ground. At the end of the day, luckily, all the mentees reached an agreement about what we were going to do. It was a pretty uneasy day, but satisfying in the end. J

At 5pm, we headed back home, Hotel Consuelo, to rest a bit before dinner. Tonight, our team was invited to Sean (one of our mentees)’s house. I, once again, was impressed by the hospitality of the Filipino. Sean’s parents were all so nice and treated us with great home-cooked dishes.

Finally, we backed for team de-briefing and “Spotlight” (woohoo!!!). It was a long day, but as long as I felt satisfied, I didn’t really mind. :)

August 16th

How many times in your life do you get to wake up on the second floor of a bunk bed, at one of the most beautiful beach resorts in the Philippines?

just a little something to listen to while reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZD6-UJrSY

Waking up to the sound of the alarm going off crazily from my phone, I immediately looked out to the window to check for the sky. I told Binh last night that we would wake up at five in the morning to watch sunrise. The sunset that I saw yesterday while kayaking with her was magically breathtaking, and I thought sunrise would be no different. Disappointment clouded my mind though, as the image of the gloomy sky hit my eyes constantly. Going out to watch sunrise was no longer an option. I turned back and covered myself with the thin white blanket again. Like a little child, I curled up into a little shrimp, and with my heavy eyelids closing slowly, I fell back into a deep slumber again.

When I woke up two hours later, a group of people in the room was getting ready to go scuba diving. I wanted to go as well, but being sick, and having to cough nonstop make the whole idea of going deep down into the ocean not very attractive. At least I still had Binh, Ninh, Karen, Emily, Carmela, Audrey, and Abby with me at the resort. With hungry stomachs, all of us decided to head out for breakfast. We even planned to go kayaking again after eating.

Even though the day looked so gloomy with the missing sun and clumps of grey clouds covering up the whole sky, this did not pull my mood down. I was so sick while staying in Tacloban, and now that I am getting better at the resort, I have to make my time here worthwhile.

Breakfast was set up on the table where we had dinner yesterday. I have always been fascinated with how people organize things on the table, to me, it is like a work of art. Like a simple painting, white round plates sitting so gently on the wooden table, silver utensils reflecting off the huge scenery of the beach, tall glass standing so elegantly next to the green bottle of cold water… It was as if they were all silently harmonizing together, charmingly inviting people in to enjoy our breakfast. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Sitting down at the end of the table, the wind was getting stronger than expected, and I could definitely hear the waves coming in louder than yesterday. It was a strange but sensational feeling though, to have the cold breeze swept through your hair, the sound of waves easing your ears, the sweet voices of your friends giggling and talking about the most random thing you could ever think of. It has been a while since I have had a breakfast like this.

The group decided to cancel kayaking since it did not look that safe to go out into the water. We stayed back at the breakfast table and talked about work, love life, friendship, and everything that we could think of. I am sure from far away the hotel staffs could still hear our crazy laughs.

After breakfast, everyone broke off into smaller groups and went to do our own things. Binh, Ninh, Karen, Audrey, and I decided to walk towards the rocky area. Feeling like ‘adventurists,’ we climbed the rocks to discover many species of fish. The waves were hitting off the shores hard, making the water splashing against our clothes. At that moment, I turned to Binh and said that I wish I could dive into the water and just let my body flow freely with it. I wanted to clear everything off my mind, and let the wonder that I am seeing imprint my mind.

Ninh, like a little active boy who could not control his excitement, decided to climb to another area that looked so much more dangerous. The image of the thin guy standing so confidently on the highest point of the rock, trying to look far into the ocean made me think of Peter Pan. Too bad, Jane, her siblings, and the mermaids were not there to fool around with him.

Bored of the rocks, Emily, Karen, and Ninh decided to go swimming at the pool. Binh and Audrey went back to the sitting area to talk. I stayed back near the rocky area to find seashells. I want to bring something back to Viet Nam with me that would remind me of the Kuting Reef. If I could, I would bring back the whole beach with me already.

The sun was finally coming out. Rays of light bouncing off my skin so lightly, and it felt so good to have the warmth caressing your body again. Nature always fascinates me so much; I could not help but squeal like a little fan girl at every single piece of seashells that I found. They all came in different colors, with different shapes and designs. Some just caught my eyes right away while a few took more time to dig up. Like another sea painting, the elements and compositional design of the rocks and the shells fuse together so perfectly. I could not really see any patterns of rocks at all, and that was why I liked what I was seeing so much. It reflected the way that I look at my life, as in I do not want it to follow any specific pattern either. Sometimes you have no problem in finding the things that you want, and sometimes you have to work really hard, and really try to open up your eyes and mind to obtain your goals.

I wonder, the shells – little creatures of life without wings, how does it feel like to be on the ground, to be taken away so easily by the ocean to somewhere unknown?

Tired from collecting so many shells (that I had to put them all into a dried coconut and bring it back to the hotel room), I decided to go to the swimming pool to join Emily, Karen, and Ninh. Since I was still sick, I did not want to go swimming, and instead just put my legs into the pool.

Sometimes having a short moment of quietness to yourself is actually a great antidote to the struggles that you are going through in life. SEALNet has been way to kind to me, besides meeting new people and learning so many new things from each other, going to Kuting Reef really allowed me to give myself some rest. I should definitely take my family here someday.

At noon, we all checked out of the hotel and put our bags onto the bus, ready to go back to Tacloban. The four-hour ride back to Hotel Consuelo was much shorter than I imagined it to be. I did not know if I was ready to be back in town, but I was starting to miss my mentees, and I guess that that was enough to make me feel excited about the day after.

Pure oxygen: Fun day

Road Trip! The back part of the van plays a little game to pass the time during the 4-hour + drive to Kuting Reef.

It's a long way down. More than halfway to Kuting Reef, the team stops by Agas-Agas Bridge, the highest bridge in the Philippines.

Road kill. Karen, Alex and Yun-Chen let loose in the middle of the Agas-Agas bridge.

Hanging by a moment. Angela, our mentor, leans over the bridge to get a shot of the team.

Stop and dive a while. Since our tire went flat, the whole team got down at Peter's Dive Resort, about 5 mins from Kuting Reef.

Dive at your own risk. Unlike experienced fishes Angela and Alex, Emily, Ninh, Karen and I don't have licenses to scuba dive, so we had to sign waiver forms before diving at Peter's Dive Resort.

Testing the waters. The scuba dive instructor teaches us the 5 basic scuba diving techniques in the swimming pool.

Never come up, breathing underwater. I experiment with breathing with my regulator and make sure to not panic.

The sea is my song. Angela, Emily, Ninh, Karen and I saw a sea turtle, a bat fish, lion fishes and other sea creatures as we explored the marine wildlife up to 7 m deep.

Up from the sea we rise! Pleased with our wrinkly fingers (or at least I was), we pose with our patient diving instructor and our diving certificates from PADI.

Paddling to the sunset. We caught up with the rest of the team who went kayaking in Kuting Reef.

Palm trees swaying in the wind. Meanwhile, the scuba-diving team basked in the natural beauty of the resort.

Drenched in vanilla twilight. The sunset was the perfect backdrop to our photos by the infinity pool.

In his own world. Ninh makes a beeline for the chair and wallows in his newfound scuba diving serenity.

Blazing through the clouds. The sun sets the sky on fire as it descends from view.

Capture the way we were. Angela gets a good angle of the magnificent view of the horizon.

Silent sanctuary. I had a chance to drink in the surroundings and for the first time since coming here, I finally felt peace within myself.

Dinner by the beach. The team dries off to eat dinner prepared by the resort.

- Audrey :)

Manila, Philippines

Photos by Angela Park, Karen Chu and Audrey Lao

It's the team defense day!

After the past 4 days of an intensive schedule, we finally have a morning with no sessions! We took this opportunity to rest more and departed a bit later fully charged. On the way to school, we dropped by Robinson’s to grab an early lunch at the food court on the second floor. The food court looked a lot like what we had from where I came from, an open space with tables and chairs surrounded with food stalls selling local specialties and drinks. We combined tables together to make enough space for a large team like ours and dispersed to hunt for food. I got myself this awesome chicken meal from Tiktilaok for the second day in a row. The roasted chicken glazed with honey and chili sauce, and topped with crispy garlic gave a variety of bold flavors which very well described the characteristics of Filipino cuisine.

Tiktilaok's signature honey glazed roasted chicken. Oh nom nom.

After we finished the meal, it’s the time to head to school for another exciting day. We naturally jumped into a multi-cab and called ‘para’ which is a local Waray word for ‘stop’ when we reached the destination. All mentees in my team showed up after their morning classes and immediately we dived into the preparation of the team defense. Considering the amount of work to be done, I know that these 2.5 hours had to be really intense but everyone seemed to be very energetic and enjoying their work in such dynamic and fast-paced environment. We started by looking through the executive summary prepared by Sean the day before. A few comments were discussed and changes were made. We got the summary done and moved on to work on the presentation.

We had a good laugh together when we came up with a character, Sam the mosquito and had Angelo act it to introduce the problem we hoped to tackle. It was hilarious! Loved their creativity and a sense of humor. By the time we had around 20 minutes of the preparation time left, we finished our presentation slides and were ready for a dry run. We took the last 10 minutes of the preparation time to edit the slides and the speeches and we were ready for the show!

Judges and teams getting ready for the team defense.

We were the third team to hit the stage. Before the presentation, some of the mentees were unsure about what to say, while some of them were nervous of speaking to the public. However, when the first person started to talk, I didn’t observe that nervousness anymore. Everyone put on their best smile and began telling the plan they have for the community.

Ric from Team Nawong giving his speech.

Diane was one of the people who told me she was nervous before she went in front of the class. She joined the program last year but didn’t get the chance to present during the defense. When I saw her this year stepping out of her comfort zone and being confident in giving her speech, as a mentor I couldn’t help but felt proud of her growth.

The judges had given a lot of valid comments mainly concerning the sustainability of the project and we knew a lot of hard work would have to be done the day after. Overall, I felt great about the team today and I’m confident that we will continue the awesome teamwork we have till the end of the project yay!

-Peeraya

August 12th

We started off our day with early departure to a Monday PSHS-EVC school flag ceremony. It was very interesting to me to see what's our mentees’ daily normal school life is like. The biggest different I noticed from the high school I attended is the oath-taking of students and teachers (apparently, it is something that Filipino people often do in school). We got to introduce our project briefly and our team members in front of the whole students body. I really appreciate PSHS-EVC for being supportive to our project and giving us opportunities like this to promote our project to more people. The most memorable moments in the flag ceremony was during the announcement time, when Emily went to encourage one of our mentees went up to the stage to made an announcement about the donation to the page-by-page 2.0 project. It was the greatest joy for me to see our mentees stepping out of their comfort zone and working hard on their project.

@ Flag ceremony. We lined in the order of height. :p

@Flag Ceremony

We also got to receive the science school newspaper from last year where the last year project articles were posted. Though I personally was not the part of the Project Philippines Leyte last year in 2012, it still made me very happy to see how students published the articles to the wider community.

PP12-Leyte was on the School newspaper!!

The activity director Ms. Isagan and Mrs. Gozon in the end of the ceremony invited us to a trip to Samar Island. It is an island right north from Leyte and is connected with Leyte with the Philippine’s longest bridge. Again I cannot thank them enough for their generosity in organizing the trip for us and I cannot wait to explore different side of Philippines on Wednesday!

The afternoon was our first Office Hours sessions. Despite our (at least my) concern about the low attendance rates based on the participation yesterday, most of the team members were present in the Office Hours to prepare for the team defense and finalize their plans. Considering that it is already 3 days before the actual exam dates, I really appreciated the students’ participation and passions. I feel that a lot of the problems that was arising in the past days (mainly concerning the numbers of mentees) were also solved today.

Today was also a special day for one of our members, Abby. Yes it is her 20th birthday!! We all went to Leyte Park for a karaoke night together to cerebrate Abby and Yun Chen (also just turned 20yesterday)! It took a bit of time for us to pick up the excitement, but towards the end, everyone was singing together dancing together with Party Rock Anthem etc. Thanks everyone for the fun night! and Happy birthday Yun Chen and Abby!!

Happy birthday Yun Chen! (From Aug. 11th)

Happy birthday Abby!

Since the mentors have been in such high stress environment for the past few days, I hope everyone was able to relax a little. Tomorrow is team defense. I cannot wait to listen to all four projects pitches!

~ Hikaru ~

Planning the Project - Budget and Timeline

Hi! I’m Emily from Philadelphia! On Sunday our groups dove into the details of their projects, planning the timelines and rough budgets that they will use to complete their projects. Peeraya and Ninh held great workshops working with the students on how to think through the risks of their projects, the specific tasks they need to complete, and what materials and funds they need in order to carry out the project.

Watching the students work through their budgets and timelines practically on their own was an incredible sight for me. In my group, the students were about to come up with all of the materials they would need and tasks to complete without much help or guidance. They showed real enthusiasm for their project!

During Ninh’s “Budget and Timeline” workshop, he introduced the students to a nutritious type of Thai candy made from milk, generously donated by Parit. He used the delicious and nutritious candy to motivate students to work hard on their timelines and to learn the method of how to build a Gantt Chart. Not only did the candy motivate the students, but it helped loosen them up and made it easier for them to speak in front of the whole group. It was great to see each of the students become more confident in their voices and ideas.

During Peeraya’s workshop, the students practiced presenting in front of each other and the project mentors. Each group presented their ideas about the potential risks of their project, and back-up plans for those risks. Watching the students present was very impressive. I was so excited to watch two of my mentees, both of whom are rather shy, stand up in front of everyone and speak so eloquently about their ideas. They did so well! I’m excited to watch them give their project defense in front of faculty of the school and other judges. I believe that with all the practice presenting they have had they’re going to do a great job!

Most of all, I love talking to their mentees about their lives at home and at school. One of the mentees is very talented in computer science and has already taught me so much about creative thinking, persistence, and ambition. Another of my mentees, a seventh grader, brightens my day every day with her enthusiasm, bright ideas, and bravery sharing her ideas with her teammates, who are all older than she is. Today was no exception.

Overall, we had a really great and energetic day with the mentees. I believe everyone learned from each other and we made great progress towards an exciting project.

Another Start

The second day of our project was packed with a queer fusion of thrill and jitteriness. We kicked off the day with a workshop on Brainstorming. Since the night before, I had been feeling a little apprehensive about it being the first workshop of all. Our mentees just got to know each other the day before and I could not help but notice a sense timidity and uneasiness circulating around us all. Remember those college lectures we somehow managed to get through despite dozing off and drooling in lecture halls? Could leadership workshops be any more painfully tedious and unduly clichéd? Would our workshops be able to elude such convention? What if we exceeded our time limit? What if the field research we had done the day before was insufficient for the mentees to attain inspiration for a service project? - Such questions clouded my mind until the very second our first workshop began.

Emily introduced us all to two mini games, followed by her presentation on the brainstorming process, its caveats, and the use of mind maps as a simple means to facilitate brainstorming. We practiced mind-mapping a bit to identify some possible solutions to the problems of ‘Cold Weather.’ The second my mentees started, they just completely blew my mind! It was a pleasant outburst of ideas! Among all the branches we created, I loved that our group had a branch for the benefits of cold weather and how we could make the most of it.

After every group had taken turns to present their mind-maps, my group came together to brainstorm for our community service project. This time ideas gushed out with the force of water just unleashed rushing out of a faucet. Oh boy! Look at their mind maps:

In the afternoon, all the groups got to build a Rube Goldberg Machine as a team-building exercise. There were many stumbling blocks in the preparation process, especially when we decided to change the format of the activity at midnight the night before. We even exceeded the time limit for our activity, which put me in a state just a little short of agony. However, as one of organizers of this activity, I got to work more closely with Alex and Parit, two aficionados of the field of physical engineering even though neither of them is pursuing the discipline. :) As we tackled the details of the exercise, they introduced me to the different types of mechanisms and contraptions that we could utilize for any set of materials. It was a fun learning experience! But even more exciting were the products of the students themselves. By the time the two hours were up, as judges, we journeyed through all the systems of the five teams (yes, a team of four mentors included!). It was quite eye opening to see what one can make out of all the random pieces of school supplies and toys, and gratifying to see everyone in the team actively engaged.

Following the team-building activity was Peeraya’s workshop on Good Idea vs. Bad Idea. We watched an animated video clip on the topic. Then each group would pick three out of all the ideas we have brainstormed in the morning session and discussed their pros and cons in detail. During the following team presentation, the debate got heated as the students were fired up with insightful observations and challenging yet constructive questions for the presenters.

It was a long day for all of us. At the end of the day, a mentee in my group, Raizsa, commended the Brainstorming section. “It was very exciting to learn from the ideas of other members of the group,” she said.

As we rode the multicab home, the breeze crept into the vehicle, and slashed on our backs. From the back entry of the multicab, we could see the headlights of the cars tailing us drive away the silhouette of houses and of people on both sides of the street. A liberating moment, I thought.

I couldn’t wait for even more excitement and anxieties of the next day.

Binh

First Day at school

Last night, there were an extra 5 applications which I had to sort through, leaving me with only a few hours of sleep. The sun once again woke me up ridiculously early at 5 am, blazing through my room’s inadequate curtains. The day started with breakfast cereal and milk bought from yesterday’s shopping trip. After a day of buying materials, preparing lectures/exercises/presentations, I was finally ready to meet the mentees we would be working within the next 2 weeks. So we packed our gadgets and set off.

The bus trip was still as confusing as before, looking through the multi-cab’s slits was like squinting through an eye hole (basically absurdly confusing and neck-straining). I was sitting there with an huge pile of materials, with other strangers whispering random comments all around. Definitely wasn’t the most comfortable bus ride.

Eventually we made our way to the school, and started to set up shop. I was in charge of registration, which was quite the straightforward feature. Basically, I had to take their name, emergency contact and wavier form while handing them a t-shirt and book. Pretty simple right? But what I didn’t realize was that it was normal for Filipinos to come half an hour late, which then makes registration a much more time consuming task. It took me 2 hours to finally confirm everybody’s attendance, which sadly means that I missed most of the introductions and icebreaking.

But when I walked into the room, I could feel a refreshing amount of energy radiating out of the room. Even though many of them were late, they were still beaming with energy. The number of parents who showed up on the day was also quite surprising; many seemed a lot more interested in the project than we expected.

Food was still good, maybe because I haven’t gotten bored of chicken and rice just yet. Sisig at dinner was the best thing ever; I’m hoping to try out more Filipino food in the future.

Registration Table

Our mentees all lined up

Alex showing off his rhetorical skills

Field trip to the surrounding community

TOUCHDOWN IN TACLOBAN: On August 7, 2013, we had our first gathering of the team of Project Philippines: Leyte 2013. While project preparations were still underway and would fill the next days to come, one of our main objectives was to get to know each other. We had our first few icebreaking games as a team and I would say these activities (and some light conversation over a seafood dinner) helped me to memorize everyone's names already! It is much preferable to Facebook stalking (not that I do that).

The most significant part of our meeting was establishing expectations, building from the self to our fellow team members to the project as a whole. With all of us cramped in a hotel room with the air conditioner on full blast, some of us still feeling the noxious effects of jet lag, we worked together to establish our own rules and expectations. Because we came up with them ourselves, we had to hold our own selves accountable. In order to achieve one’s goals, one needs discipline after all! The common association with ambition is selfishness; just look at all the famous Slytherins in the Harry Potter series. But I would argue that you need this far-reaching vision, optimism, and drive when it comes to altruistic ventures to have the greatest impact. It’s this kind of mindset that I want to help instill in our future mentees. We need to look up and look down: look down to help those less fortunate, then with them, look up towards a brighter future.

--Abby

#abby

PP13 TEAM Arrives to Leyte!!

Today was finally the day the whole team for Project Philippines ’13-Leyte arrived! Carmela, Alex, and Audrey went out early in the morning to pick up Lorra and Emily from the airport. As the front desk was closed then, they rested in room 403 until breakfast.

Breakfast was held in Zilog, a restaurant right across the Robbinson’s mall. I got tapsilog again. It reminded me of last year when I came here to eat breakfast once. It was interesting to note that I would come again a year from then with a different group of people. I also learned to dislike seats close to the streets. The restaurant was an open space area, and so the eating area was divided by the road solely by a wooden fence. There was a young boy who leaned against the fence, extending his hand out to beg for money. I felt uncomfortable ignoring the asking hand and felt selfish for not giving a little for what he asked. However, when I saw Binh digging through her bag, I panicked. I mistook her for giving money and I felt my heart momentarily skipping a beat. I understand her feeling sympathy, but providing money for the syndicates was wrong. I had no option but to pretend I did not hear anything and feel guilty of rejecting an asking hand.

We did our first round of shopping when the mall opened. We bought breakfast for our team and most of our materials for the activities. After busy schedule since I arrived in the Philippines, it was nice to take a break in Bo’s Coffee shop with Hikaru and Audrey.

Finally, the last group of the team arrived from the airport! We had really nice icebreakers! For punishment, we had a butt-spelling wave. I suggested a brilliant idea of making butt-spelling as punishment, but with a twist where we had to get in the order of being out and spell letters out like we are typewriters; therefore, it was funny that I ended up doing the punishment I asked.

Since we all gathered in person for the first time as a team, we had team dinner in Ocho. We took the petty-cabs in a group of three or four. I was with Emily and Parit. The drive was relatively short from the place we stay, but I got a chance to know that it was Emily’s first time in Southeast Asia. I was happy to share conversations with her, as the world full of jeepneys and petty-cabs were once so new and interesting to me.

The food was deeeeeliiiiiciousss. I tried calamansi shake for the first time there. Enjoy the pictures!

HIkaru rides the trike for the first time!

Team Dinner take #1

Team Dinner take #2

Icebreaker 2: The Hoohaa Game

Angela

An Interview with Hikaru, one of the PP13 leaders

What leads you to SEALnet and PP Leyte 13?

Hikaru: After joining PC12 (Project Cambodia 2012) last summer, I was very inspired by SEALNet's project styles and how it could really inspire local high school students as well as our partners. It also was a great opportunity for me to work with very motivating college students from all over the world. I wanted to be the one who makes this opportunity for more people. Also, the topic that PP-Leyte was addressing, and the venue it was providing to high school students in Philippines was something I wish I had when I was a high school student. I wanted to provide the venue to more people. I am thrilled to have this opportunity and am excited to make it a successful project.

Share with us some of your first impressions about the team.

Hikaru: I was very excited about the diversity of the team and passions that each member had for the project. Especially after the project preparation was started, most of the members were very responsible and taking initiative in making things going. I feel very fortunate and encouraged to have these supporting members. I am very excited to see them on ground soon!!

In what way do you think that our project could apply to the Filipino youth community? What do you expect to gain from this project?

Hikaru: I think our project mainly has two objectives, first to make Filipino youth believe that they can do something helpful or useful in the real world, and second hopefully to let them open their eyes to what is going on in their local community and be excited to do some services using their skills. I hope that it will be one of the triggers for the Filipino youths to think about their responsibility in their community as well as to start thinking about what they can do for their own community and country. Furthermore, I wish that the act of SEALNet club in PSHS will be a inspiration for more people throughout Philippines.

Hikaru: As for what I would like to gain from this project, it is my first time to lead a big project like this, so I would like to develop project management and leadership skills. I am also very excited to meet new people in our team, and get to know more about Philippines and its cultures. In the end of the project, I hope to gain the 'can do' attitude by myself just like our local high school mentees do.

3 words that best describe PP Leyte 13, what are they?

Hikaru: Hmm... difficult to come up with the ones that are different from Carmela's (especially after looking at hers. :p) If I try not to copy hers that would probably be: challenge, thrilled, nervous

#interview

An Interview with Carmela, one of the PP13 leaders

Tell us something about Leyte’s project last year that makes you proud of.

Carmela: I was lucky to be one of the mentors for a great group of students - the Mosquitheroes - whose project included raising awareness about mosquito-borne diseases. This involved going to the local communities, knocking on doors one by one, and inviting people to go to the community service day. I tagged along, and was so proud to see them immersing themselves in the local community - the shy FK and Marc being courageous enough to speak, Kim and Sam choreographing the Mosquito dance, Diane being a silent and responsible leader in collecting the surveys, and Alvek connecting with the kids. I see them being intelligent scientists and community servants at the same time, and somehow I just feel like the world is in good hands with youth like these.

In your perspective, what is the biggest challenge that you/our team is facing right now?

Carmela: Right now, it would be scheduling. There have been many times where scheduling conflicts with the school’s academic calendar have popped up unexpectedly, and they haven’t been easy to fix. This could greatly affect the willingness of the students to participate, as well as the effectiveness of the leadership program.

If there’s one thing you could change about the Philippines, what is it? And why?

Carmela: Choosing one thing is incredibly difficult; to be completely honest, what I would like to be change is not directly tied to the country’s economic progress. I would like Filipinos in general to be more accepting of different people. In my opinion, Filipinos tend to see others in black and white: for example, I’m rich and you’re poor or vice versa, I’m educated and you’re not, I’m a “pure” Filipino and you’re Chinese, I’m from the province and you’re from Manila, etc. I think that in order to move forward as a nation, we first need to achieve unity and treat each other not as a rich person or poor person, but as Filipinos.

3 words that best described PP Leyte 13, what are they?

Carmela: As of now, stress, hope, excitement.

#interview #leyte #sealnet #philippines

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