Davao City

Hope you've all had a good weekend. I feel I have had to sleep most of it to recover from Friday!!  I went to bed at 9.30pm on Thursday night but after only managing to sleep for four hours I reluctantly got up at 4am to get ready for my school trip to Davao.  I arrived at the school at 5.20am to wait for the buses to be met by 140 high school students who were far too hyper for that time in the morning! :-D  We boarded the three buses at about 6.20am and I was delighted they had air conditioning.

Teachers Joy, Grace & Head Teacher Jen had stayed the night at the school the night before so they wouldn't be late! :)

3rd & 4th year high school pupils on my bus, really nice kids.

Primary Teacher Neil also stayed the night to see the teachers off, even though he wasn't going on trip!!  My classroom is the second door on the left behind Neil & Grace.

High school pupils waiting for the bus

The trip to Davao took about 3 hours and I really enjoyed looking at all the beautiful scenery and interesting sights.  There were some fantastic photo opportunities but the bus was going so fast I missed a lot of them.  For example we passed two men on a motorbike and one of them had a huge pig lay across his lap!  There were loads of hens at the side of the road with their chicks and I saw people washing themselves and their clothes in the river!  I love sights like that, so different from home.  My Head Teacher said I'll just have to commit them to memory as I couldn't get them on camera :-D

Rice fields

Head Teacher Jen & I on the bus. This hand gesture obviously doesn't mean the same as it does at home!!

The first stop was the Nakayama factory which is a Japanese company who are based in the Philippines but export 95% of their produce to Japan.  They specialise in decorative tiles, worktops (like the ones Laurence sells!) and they have an IT department who can produce drawings of what your house will look like with their decorative tiles on them.  I was surprised at how interesting I found it all.  Maybe having been in the worktop business helped!  Some of the tiles were beautiful and there was a lot of Granite so I was able to tell the pupils I come from the 'Granite City' :)

The factory was typically Japanese with everything looking pristine and the grounds perfectly manicured.  They had Nipa Huts for the staff to sit in at break time and the owners mansion was on site, covered in the decorative tiles of course ;), as an example of their products.

Nipa hut

Mr Nakayama's house on the factory grounds.

Waiting to get into the factory with our face  masks on.  These were for the dust in the factory.

Teachers

With some of the children outside the IT block.  Most of the day felt like a photo shoot!

After the factory we had another stop at the largest SM mall in Mindanao.  I feel like a seasoned mall goer!  We had lunch in KFC which is no mean feat with 140 teens to get seated and fed. I thought we'd have a 'side room' or something we could have all fitted in but we had to squeeze them in with all the other diners so we had to have a shift system for eating!  The mall had a Chinese art festival display on which was beautiful.

The final stop of the day was the Bone Museum in Davao, run by a man from Idaho and his filippina wife.  We watched a video about ocean conservation then had a tour round the museum.  The man had collected bones from hundreds of animals, particularly whales and dolphins, it was a very interesting exhibition, particularly to see the size of some of the animals and to hear how a simple thing like a bottle cap in the ocean can kill an enormous whale! :(  I had fun with the kids here as I was giving them points (which they were collecting to go towards getting extra marks on their grades at school) for speaking in English to me.  Some of them were a bit shy but were trying very hard to get the points :)  Others were practicing speaking with a Scottish accent which was funny.  One girl pronounced 'Edinburgh' with a more Scottish accent than me! :-D  They're very nice kids.

The teachers got a tricycle from the bus to the museum while the students walked :-D

Teacher Blythe and another teacher, I can't remember her name :-/

After the Bone Museum it was time to head home. It was a really interesting but long day! I was glad to be heading home so after three hours we arrived back at the school at about 8.30pm.  Laurence came to collect me and I went straight to bed when I got in!  It was great to see a bit more of Mindanao and to get to know the teachers and students better.

I'd like to visit Davao again as although it's bigger than Gensan it has a 'villagey' feel about it.  I saw a lot more poverty there than I've seen in Gensan though, a lot of street kids and beggars.  When I was giving out the point cards to the school kids a little street girl came over for some :(  She thought I was handing out money.

I'm back at school tomorrow for three days then off for October break!  We have our International Day on Wednesday so I'll post some more pics of the international costumes that will be worn at school.  I'll have my tartan shirt on :-/