Last month, I introduced my school. Today, I will relate what I learned about the lives of my students. They completed a writing assignment requiring them to talk about their families, their routines, and their dreams for the future. Supplemented with conversations with various local leaders, I pieced together a vague view of the community of my new home.
A student in the Philippines experiences a routine that would be familiar to any school-going youth throughout the world: They wake up early in the morning, they go to school, they stay there most of the day, they go home, do homework, and then go to bed. However, American school children have countless luxuries, and the advantage of school busses is the most noticeable.
In my municipality of San Remigio, there are 27 barangays, which are essentially like large neighborhoods consisting of somewhere around 100 families. My high school in the municipal center barnagay of Poblacion has 1,800 students and it is one of seven high schools in the municipality. It is also the largest. Local estimation concludes that only about 40% of San Remigio's school-age children are enrolled in school. Surprisingly, the problem is in transportation. The municipality is so spread out, that parents cannot afford to pay for the tricycle or jeepny ride to school. And that is a sort of catch-22 because even if these parents could somehow afford to get their kids to one of the seven schools, they are already over-capacity anyway.
This is a problem because families are big here. My students average five siblings. The smallest family is two children, and the largest has an impressive 15 children. So every two graduates of high school produce three times that many future students. I think these impressive figures can be laid at the feet of the prevalent conservative Christianity present in the country. Most notably, the Roman Catholic Church and their preference for abstinence over contraceptives. In other words, a devotion to the ideal that married couples should not share their love physically unless they are planning on giving birth.
Talking about the way it "should be" is the common tool for ignoring reality. And while it is unclear to me whether parents have children because of a lack of contraceptives or if it is because they do not consider money to be an important reason to not have more children (the "don't worry, God will provide" attitude), these large families come with a heavy financial burden. Later, I will discuss these.
But religion effects more than reproductive practices. Most of my students pray upon waking up, most everyone prays before every meal, the school day starts with a prayer, and every class starts with a prayer, too. If you throw in a before-bed prayer, most of my students average 14 prayers a day. Many students mentioned God or their relationship with Him or Jesus in their papers, but only one mentioned potentially joining the clergy. It is a spiritual life I am incapable of understanding, so I cannot say much as to the effect of all this; however, many seem to feel that they are blessed with their families.
Most students carry a heavier burden at home than the average American student. More chores, or even participating in one the trades of the parents to increase family income. 1950's America gender roles are common, and many of my female students are required to awaken early to cook the entire family breakfast. None of my male students are required to do this. A good number of my female students answered my question about their dreams for the future by saying they want to be great mothers. Many others said they want to become teachers, and teachers are probably the only female professionals they come into contact with.
Mothers are most commonly housewives, even in families where the father's income is not enough to provide. Some of the more industrious find money in export crafts, but most could not find a job even if they wanted it. There is little work in the local area, and most young people with a decent chance at a future move to Cebu City as soon as possible. Though half of my students who mentioned a desire to attend college say that their parents cannot afford to send them. And in the Philippines, that's generally the end of it.
"Father had only a small wage being a security guard and it's not enough for our big family. even though mother had a livelihood in making a basket but still it isn't enough for us."
Some students have one of their parents working abroad to provide for their family. This is a result of the weak Philippine economy. One of the highest paying jobs for most college graduates is to work at a tech-support call center. In a standard example of neo-colonialism, western businesses, mostly American, hire out Philippine companies to man their hotlines because people here speak English and they are generally satisfied with a wage of 6,000-10,000 pesos a month. At current exchange rates, that comes out to 133$-222$ a month, or in other words, about half what I used to make washing dishes at a breakfast joint in nowhere Washington every two weeks. You know, a job a moderately competent high school dropout can be hired to do.
The lack of economic opportunity for well-educated people in the Philippines is bad enough, but there is even greater adversity waiting for all the children the education system fails. In San Remigio, there is quite literally nothing to do. Many survive off the grid well-enough through fishing or farming, though most of the farmers are share-croppers who receive only a minor fraction of their harvest. Some are not so fortunate:
"My day starts with the word GOOD MORNING and a prayer from me together with my family. And next, I am going to cook some food for breakfast if I have something to cook, but if I have nothing to cook, I am going to borrow some corn from our neighbor so that we can eat."
"I have one sister and shes graduated here last year and I'am the youngest daughter. My sister working in Cebu to help my parents. She can't studying college because my parents cannot afford her studies. As of now my parents have no work. My fathers sicking [seeking] a job. But he can't find a job because hes an old. I'm just hoping that my father have job so that we have a food to eat every day. Even if my sister find a job her salary cannot give to my parents."
And even families who do not go hungry lack the funds for other important things:
"I have 5 brothers. I'm the only girl in our family. Supposed to be, my brothers are 6 in all but sad to say, my younger brother died last Dec. 19, 2008 because of Apendesitis. We were not able to bring him to the hospital because of financial problem."
I don't know how a parent can handle watching a child die when all that would save his life is a few scraps of paper. Now this is only assumption, but I tend to think that these parents would have an easier time affording daily food and saving enough money for emergency medical care if they did not have to feed and transport five or more children at a time. That's just me. I don't know for sure.
Despite the challenging childhoods, most of my students dream of helping people.
"I really have a very big dream in my life and that is to help those street children. I wanna help them. I wanna change their miserable life into a nicer life. I will be going to build a school for them in which only those miserable and poor street children could benefit. I want to take up a good kind of course in college someday. I wanna study harder for the sake of those street children. After graduating in college, work harder and saves money for them. And by this, my wish will be finally granted!"
In terms of future plans, the boys mostly mentioned engineering, and the girls mostly wanted to be teachers. Altogether out of 400 students, only 5 different careers were mentioned: engineer, doctor/nurse, teacher, merchant marine, and mother.
