Hello from the Philippines from me! Finally getting round to posting up something on here, sorry for the long wait! It has been a very busy few days for us, it feels like we have been here so much longer than 2 and a bit days...we have crammed so much in already. So, today we have had our first walk around the community of New Buswang, which is the Baranguay that the Eco-park is right in the heart of. Escorted by Avit, one of the people looking after us, we met a few of the people that will be involved in our project and we are starting to get a good picture of the make-up of the community here and the important groups within it. They seem very interested in what we are doing over here and especially Esther's community-based project. We will hopefully be able to achieve some really good results and give something back to the local people that they can use to develop the Eco-park and the community in general.
From a personal point of view it is really interesting to be involved with the local people and I am beginning to get an understanding of how society operates over here, the community-led projects of which the Eco-Park is one of, are so important for developing the area. From an education point of view the ideas of citizenship and community based learning that are so relevant back at home can benefit a lot from the approaches taken here. I am really looking forward to developing my own understanding of these factors and gaining a lot of insight that I can take back into the classroom and beyond in Scotland.
I am really enjoying my time here so far, it has already begun to feel like home, with the cafe being used as our base of operations. The people are so friendly and eager to help us! Speaking of which, Annie (who is our surrogate mum over here) has just made us lunch, so I had better go eat :) As you can see from the pictures (more of which will be coming soon) the place is amazing too, its my first time in the tropics and the weather is just awesome, we are slowly getting used to the heat and humidity. The scenery is fantastic too, the mangroves just take your breath away I can tell you. So much effort and time has gone into this project and the changes from how this area looked 20 years ago are just staggering, the variety of wildlife that the mangroves have encouraged are mindblowing.
Anyway, that is enough of my gushing about how amazing this place is just now, it is time for me to eat some lunch (breakfast time for you at home?). Keep a look out for photos and more posts very soon!
Thanks Joe, sounds like you have got a lot of v good people round you. For both teams I hope the planning for the project comes easily through all the adjustments you are making.
ReplyDeleteThinking of you all, Grace xxxx
Nice Blog there Joey and lovely pics too. With all the blogs, getting a good sense of what life is like over there in the tropics. Keep us updated with more stories and experiences so we can share it with you. Sounds like a very interesting project you've all taken on and hopefully beneficial for the community there and for your own personal insight to teaching back home. Good luck with it all :D xxx
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