See it Swim it Save it

A lot of my working time here is spent teaching students in school about biology, or integrated science. I sit in the library and grade papers, talk to teachers, and throw baseball with students in the afternoons. However, the main purpose of my work here is to conserve marine resources, to work with the local community to realize the inherent worth of their marine fisheries, and the integral relationship with the overall livelihood of the coastal villages.

As part of my work to improve fisheries, either directly by reducing fishing pressure, or indirectly by educating about responsible use of the marine resources, I decided I would combine my interests here and take my students out and teach them about the coral reefs here in Babatngon. To get snorkels for us to see the coral, seagrass, and fishes underwater, I filled out a grant for financial assistance from World Connect, Kids to Kids. Kids to kids is an organization that awards small grants to kids groups all over the world in order for them to learn about their world. What is really neat is that its actual kids who read proposals, decide which ones are worthwhile, and are involved in doling out $500 project grans to the different worldwide communities. It's really neat.

A few weeks back, while in Manila, I spent the bulk of the grant for snorkels at a Peace Corps-friendly dive shop downtown and then toted all 22 of them back down to Leyte. Ever since, I've just been waiting for the rain to stop long enough for me to tell the students that the gig is on and get them out in the water. You might be surprised, but most kids here don't know how to swim despite living in the middle of a 7000-island archipelago, so I had some anxiety about having them all out in the water at one time, flailing around, giving reef sharks a target and parents hypertension, but figured that I should rely on trust and just get them to fill out some permission slips in case anything (or anyone) went down.

Since the teachers got tired of teaching and decided to end school a week early, I thought that I should probably tell the students about the snorkel day while I still had a captive audience in the classroom and bite the bullet. So, last Monday, I went to Tacloban, found an internet cafe with Ink and Printer (harder than you might think), got a bunch of permission slips, and ran the idea by the students in class that afternoon. They were all about it, already talking about what they would wear, how their fathers' fishing areas are close to the area of Kilangawan Island where we would be going, and some students even ran around in the rain outside, telling me how they were already getting prepared to bathe in the ocean. The excitement level was quite high.

Throughout the week, I kept on reminding students, telling them to make sure and attend, and to get their permission slips signed. The students here are unfortunately accustomed to adults not coming through on promises, of events not happening, and especially accustomed to a lot of waiting without much return. As the weather continued to be gloomy and rain continued to pour during the week, my hopes of a sucessful event were waning, and I was afraid that the other participating volunteers may be coming to Babatngon for nothing.

On saturday morning, the supposed event day, I decided to ride the pedicab to town and see if the boatman was ready and if any kids were going to show. Other volunteers who had stayed over at our house the night before were just getting up and around and I told them to take it easy, that we might not be doing anything. It was gloomy, a heavy fog on the near side of the mountains, and roads were still flooded with the nights rain that hadn't soaked in to the inundated soil. I was also afraid that I wouldn't be able to report on the activity in time to close out the grant since this was really my last chance to get the school group to come out in any numbers.

When I got to the boat port, expecting to find 2 or 3 students waiting, and a nonexistant boat, I instead was met by a boatman wanting to know when to start, and 42 excited students faces behind him, asking about the visitors and when they would be coming. I was choked up, because, for one thing, it was 8:30 and the event was supposed to start at 9:00 a.m. That means that 43 Philipinos were early to my event. Philipinos are never early. I couldn't believe it, and so I started texting Selena and the other volunteers frantically to come to town, that despite a cloudy day and uncertainty, we were going to go learn about marine resources. We were going to snorkel!

For the rest of the day, 43 of my high school students, 8 Peace Corps Volunteers, 1 JICA volunteer and a boatman, Edwin, hung out. We went to the dilapidated municipal fish sanctuary in 2 waves, since the boat couldn't hold us all. Kilangawan island is about an acre and a half of rocky outcroppings, thick mangroves, and coral sand. We had snacks for the kids a couple hours into the event, but for the most part, the kids woudn't get out of the water, they were so excited to be seeing all of the corals and sea grasses and fishes underwater. I would like to think that the students were proud to see the beauty that lies in the waters of their community.

One thing that sticks out to me from the day that doesn't have to do with snorkeling or education, was when I heard two of the other Peace Corps volunteers call the students by name. The american culture takes it for granted that when someone wants to talk to you, they will call you by name, or when a teacher calls on you to answer a question in class, they will call on you by name. However, that's not the case here. Most teachers never know students' names, and just call them Edoi (boy), Edai (girl) , Bayot (gay one), or some other random word, but kids don't get called by name. Even at home, children are known as Ate, Kuya, Edai, or Edoi, but very seldom does someone call a kid by name. This may be an attribute of the culture that isn't degrading at all, that is endearing in some ways, but from my american perspective, I would have to assume that in some way, to be called by name by one of these american people, to be given some sort of individual identity, would be thrilling.

So that's why, after a day of snorkeling and hanging out with the kids on the island while the rain squalls were threatening, I was really happy to hear Mark (volunteer from Tacloban) say "Wilmar, lets go check out the corals ever here.." or Holly (Volunteer from Palo) say "Mikey is really swimming against the current. He's gonna be worn out." I think that the students will remember our outing for quite some time, but being called by name, recognized as an individual, I don't imagine that feeling ever goes away.