Saturday 15th May 2010

Today is the first day of construction and teaching. Joanne, Maoying and I were in-charge of teaching today because we were suppose to assess the children’s command of English and alter our teaching plans accordingly. Tita Jean had to gather the children one by one and while waiting for the class to be full, we took the chance to explore the Sibol School. I was surprised that it is well-equipped and very clean. Not long after, the class was full. There were 13 students aged between 10 – 12 years old. After introducing ourselves, we got each and every student to give a self-introduction which included their name, age and hobby. They were shy (but this is so not true from the second day of teaching onwards..haha!) and the most outspoken student with the best command of English was Jessel. Thus, she was appointed as the class monitor. Since it was a Saturday and the teaching plans needed to be revised, we dismissed the class after we briefed them on what to bring to class and the class timetable. The three of us returned to the community hall to work on the teaching plans. We had to revamp the teaching plans because they were originally designed for pre-school children and it took us the entire day to do so.

Buddy buddy Zur and I went home in the afternoon to maglaba! Doing laundry with a friend at the backyard of a place that we had just called our second home is a totally refreshing experience. We had our share of laughter but I have to admit that it was tiring. The place where we were doing laundry was where our Tito had shifted in to sleep at night in order to accommodate us. I really feel bad that Tito had to sleep there, Tita had to sleep in the shop front and Anna Rose had to sleep in the living room in order to accommodate us.

During dinner, Zur and I brought some food from the community hall back home to share with our host family. Only Tita and Anna Rose were home because Tito went out for his weekly bible study class. We had a chat over dinner and we learnt that their current house was given to them only about a year ago and yet they have already hosted several times. I feel that even though they may not be well-off, they continue to host because this may be their way of giving back to the society. They are very grateful for the house. Using just a pair of hands, Tito has done up the interior of the house beautifully. However, due to financial difficulties, Tito had to halt his renovation plans and do up his house in several phases. Just as they are proud of their house, I feel the same too! I guess that buddy would feel the same way too, if not we wouldn’t be bringing everyone over to view our house!







Michelle