A visit to Notre Dame of Banga

 

During our tuesday road trip, our drive brought us to Banga, South Cotabato.  We had been to Banga a few times in past years, as one of my wife’s sisters and her husband have a farm here where they grow corn.  But our previous trips just took us straight to the farm, and straight back home.  In the days when we made these visits, I had yet to be really curious about Mindanao and open myself to travel and learning of the places that I visited.

As we approached Banga, I told my wife, “let’s stop at Notre Dame of Banga”.  You see, there were two reasons I wanted to visit.  First, my wife is a graduate of Notre Dame of Lagao, and secondly, our niece, “Love” is a teacher at Notre Dame of Banga.  I knew that Love would never expect to see us in Banga, let alone at the school where she is teaching.  It would be a neat surprise.  So, we entered the school and were greeted by a gentleman who worked there, we explained that we wanted to visit our niece, a teacher at the school.  He brought us to her right away, and it was clear that she was really shocked to see us!  Just seeing the look on Love’s face really made me day and made me feel happy that we made the stop along the way.  We went on to meet the students in Love’s class, and some other high school classes as well.  The kids were quite talkative and not as shy as I expected.  It was fun to talk with the kids, learn about their plans for the future, and get to know them, even for a few minutes.  We went on to meet the other teachers from the school too, which was also a pleasure.

After talking with Love for a while, we decided to depart.  Love mentioned that the elementary school was at the other side of the grounds, and I immediately asked if we could visit!  The young kids in preschool and the early elementary grades really interest me, and I enjoy seeing and talking with them.  Of course, Love agreed and took us over to meet a few classes of these kids.  It was a lot of fun, and something I’ll remember for a long time.

Tonight, after we returned to General Santos, I was texting to Love and telling her that I was proud of her after seeing her in her place of work.  She told me that her many of the kids in her class (4th year high school) had already gone and visited my website and were really impressed with my Mindanao Blog.  It sure made me happy to hear that.  I told Love that I promised that I’d be posting some photos of the kids here on the Blog, so I am doing so now.  If you students read this, I want to thank you for making my visit a really enjoyable one.  I hope that each and every one of you go on to College next year and really enjoy success in life!

My visit to Banga was complete, but I will always remember being at Notre Dame of Banga.  I consider it one of the highlights of my road trip!

improvised school bell

This photo was taken in Panglima Jamalman Elementary School in Panglima Sugala, Tawi-Tawi.   The principal impresses us with her improvised school bell out of rusty oxygen tank.  How resourceful is that?   Despite their lack of school learning materials, the school administration and faculty tries to make ends meet by being resourceful.  In this case, there’s no need to wait for a school bell from the Department of Education! 

First day of our road trip was great!

As I told you on Monday morning (Philippine Time), I was taking off an another road trip to places both known and unknown.  It was quite an unplanned and unexpected trip.  Feyma and I had a little chore to take care of, and although it could be done in Davao where we live, it was quicker and easier to take care of it in General Santos City.  So, on Monday morning we made the quick decision to go on a road trip to not only take care of our task, but also work in a few little extras and spend an extra day or two on the trip.  Normally, if we take a trip to General Santos, we go down early in the morning, and come home that afternoon.  This time I felt like doing a few other things, so we came down Monday morning, and we expect to go home on Wednesday.

On Monday, we got a later start than usual on the drive to General Santos, we didn’t leave Davao until about 1pm.  We rolled into General Santos City at 3pm, almost exactly.  The thing that we needed to take care of, we accomplished in only about 20 minutes, and then we were free to do whatever we wished to do.

First plan of business was to go to Alabel, the capital of Sarangani Province.  I had a kind of special reason to make this stop, because I wanted to meet somebody whom I had known over the Internet for many years, but had yet to meet.  The plan was to meet my long lost brother (joke), Romy Martin.  Romy is a native of Sarangani Province, and a really wonderful person.  He is intelligent, and most of all a very caring person.  It has always been my experience that Romy will go out of his way to be helpful anytime that he can do so.  I appreciate that, Romy, as I am sure you are reading this.

Romy works at the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) in Sarangani.  When we stopped at the office he was expecting us, and he treated Feyma and I to a cup of coffee, and a great conversation about a wide range of topics.  Romy would not let me leave the place until I took a tour of the Environmental Conservation and Protection Center of Sarangani Province (ECPC).  I am glad that I didn’t leave before the tour, because it was quite nice, and a big surprise to see such a place there.

The ECPC is about 4 years old now, and it is a combination of scientific labratories and a museum devoted to ocean life from Sarangani Bay and the surroundings.  In the museum you can see everything from sea turtles to corals, frogs to dugong.  One thing that was quite interesting was that they had a dugong (sea cow) there that had been found dead on Samal Island a short time ago.  They were in the middle of doing taxidermy work on it, and we got to go in and observe.  Quite interesting.

Also at the ECPC, as I mentioned are scientific labs.  They test everything from water quality of the bay to animal health and such.  They really have the latest scientific equipment at their disposal there.  Feyma and I already pledged to each other that we would have to come back with Aaron, our middle son, because he is very interested in science, nature and such, and he would have a blast checking this place out.

While at the ECPC, I got a pleasant surprise, a girl came out from the office and I instantly recognized her.  A few months ago, Romy had posted a story on my blog about his trekking in New La Union, Sarangani.  This young lady was one of those that treked with him on the journey, and her photo was featured on the blog.  I told her that I recognized her from her photo, and we hit it off like old friends!  I was so impressed with the staff at the ECPC, these folks are not just run of the mill people.  We are talking marine biologists, and other well trained staff there.  They really know what they are doing, and I am quite sure that if anybody can help save Sarangani Bay and protect the ocean life there, these are the folks who can do it!

Romy, I want to thank you for your hospitality during my visit!  I really did come away liking you even more than I had before, and I really liked you a lot before we even met.  You are a great guy, and I hope we can get together again soon.  If you and your wife Vickie are in Davao, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

That’s leg 1 of the road trip.  Today we had some really great adventures, and I’ll be posting about those tomorrow!

Map of Panglima Sugala

At the heart of the town, there’s a map displayed about the municipality of Panglima Sugala.  I just learned that it has 17 barangays and it was formerly called “Balimbing”. 

Since Tawi-Tawi’s considered the “back door” to Malaysia, I’ve met a handful of people from that province who have been to Malaysia via ferryboat.  And I must admit that’s the ultimate ‘backpackers’ dream adventure’.  Like what they always say, “there’s always a reason to go back to Tawi-Tawi”, then maybe this is a good reason to plan for my next trip

Kids Are Special People

This photo was taken during my trip to Sulu last month.  The signage was painted on one of the wall murals in a public school in Jolo town proper.  The DepEd office is situated right across it.

I was just wondering if I should be happy with the statement “Kids Are Special People” or I should get worried? What’s wrong with this statement?