Monday was the first official day when the foreign teachers and foreign principals (us :-)) started working full time in the school. We have been here for almost a month meeting with the teachers, staff, learning our way around, organizing, planning and finding out how best we could help. The system here is a little different than home and although we would have liked to start earlier we had to wait for the completion of three days of examinations, two days of practicing for a national celebration, the day of celebration and then a few days of school being closed while everyone rested from the celebration :-)

So, two days ago, we started the new schedule with the foreign teachers working along side the Filipino teachers. It went off really really well. Although we are implementing some ideas that are a little different than they are used to here, different discipline techniques, different delivery style, different organizational strategies and so on, everyone seems very enthusiastic to try them out and though I cannot say the first three days have gone off without a hitch or two, I can say that the staff and teachers have been fabulous as we work through the glitches!

The funniest/oddest opening day glitch was getting the kindergartens to class. Lining up and walking quietly into class was a new concept but it was explained very well to the children. The teachers and staff got them organized, lined up, quiet and ready to go....then it started to rain, not a little shower, I'm talking monsoon, torrential and lasting downpour! I didn't get a picture this time, but I will try next time. The concrete stairs beside the school where the children enter was literally a waterfall, you could not see the concrete beneath the water! Once "inside" the school, they still needed to walk outside to get to their classrooms, (some pictures have been posted of that) and that path was at least 3 cm deep with water.

Now you have to understand, often when it rains, parents keep their children at home, they don't go to school and they don't go to church for the very real fear of getting a sickness. Picture all these brave little 3 and 4 year olds, that made it to school, just before the rain, and now they can't get into class without getting soaked! So we formed an assembly line of teachers, staff and parents, armed with umbrellas that were handed over the fence by watching mothers, one-by-one, (in a quiet orderly fashion :-)) carrying each child through the river that had formed and into the classroom so that they all arrived safely and all stayed dry. Everyone just jumped in and helped, it was amazing! We got our feet wet, but the kids stayed dry. Half an hour later the rain stopped and the path was clear again.

Tomorrow we are being inspected by the Department of Education, they do surprise inspections, our surprise was that they were to come today but ran out of time, so it will be tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes :-)

One final thing, if anyone reading this has any connections to any companies or school boards that are upgrading their computer systems and throwing out outdated laptops, the school sure could use 5-6 old working laptops. We are required to teach computers to the kids and if I hadn't brought my laptop to school, I don't think the kids would ever have even seen a computer. Even the bookkeeper for the school does everything manually on paper. Can you imagine teaching about the "start" button and drop-down menus, from a work book to grade 3 students? Working laptops, even if they are only running windows98, would make a world of difference. For security reasons, laptops are better than computers. That's my pitch :-)

Hopefully more pictures to come, I haven't got the spider or lizard on film yet, but I am hopeful! This really is a neat place to be! :-)

p.s. did you see the crocodile they caught this week? google "giant crocodile captured"...that was not near here :-)