Book and a Buck!
First, thanks to all of you who have already shown interest in our BOOK AND A BUCK DRIVE! I know you will all help me make it a big success, and that in the process, we'll enrich the lives of a lot of kids in Donsol.
The kids here don't get much in the way of literature. The teachers are used to teaching grammar, not reading, and there really isn't much in the way of resources, even if the teachers wanted to teach about things like poetry and all those great books we read as kids. It's hard to imagine a life without those things, without Shakespeare, for example. ("Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me
From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom" -- The Tempest) Or how can a kid go through life without reading The Diary of Anne Frank? These are the things we take for granted.
I sometimes wonder whether introducing kids to great literature is worth it. But then I think of the doors it opens for them...a chance to see a place, a sense of hope and a sense of belonging to something bigger out there.
There is a bigger world outside of Donsol, right? Sometimes I forget. World news is hard to get here. The paper comes a day late, and well, the little international news on television is in Tagalog and too fast right now for me to catch the full meaning. I am vowing to pull out that emergency world radio I got for Christmas and listen to the BBC every now and then.
I saw some of the kids in the library the other day looking at a recently donated world map and pointing out a place in China. The old map was literally unreadable! And now, presto, they can see the world in front of them. This is so important in my world here, where I have had many adults ask me if England is on the same continent as the United States. (Sorry, Tony B!) It is really amazing to be living in such a sheltered place...at the end of a road, literally. It really turns your sense of self baligtad (upside-down, inside-out)!
In other news...for those of you keeping up with my hut construction, things are moving along rather mabilis (quickly). I should be able to move in by the end of the month. In the Chinese tradition, we will place coins -- American and Filipino -- in the doorways for good luck!
Signing off for now.
Ingat kayo.
The kids here don't get much in the way of literature. The teachers are used to teaching grammar, not reading, and there really isn't much in the way of resources, even if the teachers wanted to teach about things like poetry and all those great books we read as kids. It's hard to imagine a life without those things, without Shakespeare, for example. ("Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me
From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom" -- The Tempest) Or how can a kid go through life without reading The Diary of Anne Frank? These are the things we take for granted.
I sometimes wonder whether introducing kids to great literature is worth it. But then I think of the doors it opens for them...a chance to see a place, a sense of hope and a sense of belonging to something bigger out there.
There is a bigger world outside of Donsol, right? Sometimes I forget. World news is hard to get here. The paper comes a day late, and well, the little international news on television is in Tagalog and too fast right now for me to catch the full meaning. I am vowing to pull out that emergency world radio I got for Christmas and listen to the BBC every now and then.
I saw some of the kids in the library the other day looking at a recently donated world map and pointing out a place in China. The old map was literally unreadable! And now, presto, they can see the world in front of them. This is so important in my world here, where I have had many adults ask me if England is on the same continent as the United States. (Sorry, Tony B!) It is really amazing to be living in such a sheltered place...at the end of a road, literally. It really turns your sense of self baligtad (upside-down, inside-out)!
In other news...for those of you keeping up with my hut construction, things are moving along rather mabilis (quickly). I should be able to move in by the end of the month. In the Chinese tradition, we will place coins -- American and Filipino -- in the doorways for good luck!
Signing off for now.
Ingat kayo.
posted by Julia at 9:22 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Miss Julia. I'm sorry I didn't ask you before emailing the PCV people about your blog. Anyways, I hope you don't mind.
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