“The sun has set, and another day has begun…”

Chinh struggles as he finds a plug to connect his MacBook Pro. Christian hugs the pillows on the bed that we’ve fashioned out of a bare mattress. Angel rejoices as he finds wireless amongst a sea of useless signals surrounding our room. Here we are, in our second night in Cebu, exhausted after a day of working with high school students and being ferried around in a sketchy bus that still refuses to break down after what seems like decades of service.

The first surprise came this morning when we first boarded our bus, a blue, spray-painted affair with a rickety engine, seats that had given up all hope and had disintegrated, and a roof that leaked profusely whenever it rained. Our driver struggled to control the bus as it careered down the streets of Cebu, much like that rusty old spacecraft they find in The Clone Wars. (If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a great movie to watch.)

Today we steamed over to the University of Cebu, where we first got around to organizing the day’s events (of course, the highlight of the morning proper was Andrew’s awe-inspiring guitar performance in the hotel lounge, thanks to the bus’s delay, watched over by countless Asian tourists who stopped to admire, smile, and take pictures). At UC, we all made preparations for the afternoon welcoming of the high schoolers, getting the schedule ready and thinking of funn activities for them to do.

Then came lunch — Jollibee (fried chicken and rice or pasta). With gravy! Mmmm, yummy.

After lunch came the afternoon. The afternoon brought with it the high school students, who arrived at 2pm. (We sat around for about an hour playing games and having funn; I’m still curious about Melissa’s “German Porn Star” though…)

Then the high schoolers arrived… and our afternoon took off! We got into mentorship groups and we introduced each other, and disussed their stake in the project. The students were really enthusiastic, and very friendly. Each of them seemed to want to improve their leadership skills, not to mention to serve their community.

In the Learning Leadership team, the students came up with some interesting plans for the booths and games for the Worm Day fair and in-class visit. Each seemed to have certain expectations about the students (especially, for example, making the distinction between younger students and older students), and made plans accordingly. I was pleasantly surprised at their maturity and experience in handling such issues.

At 5pm, after we bid farewell to the high school students, we strolled over for dinner, and we tasted some delectable Filipino dishes: Sinigang, pork belly, and Adobong. Yumm. kku

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