| Room Enough for Learning | ||||||||||||
| By Li Wei-huang Translated by Tang Yau-yang Photos by Huang Xiao-zhe | ||||||||||||
December 9, 2013, was a beautiful, sunny day. It was exactly one month since Typhoon Haiyan had devastated the Philippines. At three o’clock in the afternoon, Tzu Chi volunteers, who had worked hard to help assemble nine prefabricated classrooms, turned them over to the students and staff of Tunga Central School, which is located about an hour’s drive from Tacloban. Students had made cards and written down their thoughts and feelings for the dedication ceremony. They gave the cards to the Tzu Chi volunteers on this special day to thank them for their help. Su Wen-he (蘇文禾) burst into tears when he received the cards and a wreath from the children. He had come from Taiwan and helped assemble the classrooms. “Many parents have been so busy rebuilding their homes that they have not had the time to care for their children, who just run around unsupervised,” Su said. “I have children and grandchildren of my own, and it hurts me to see children like that.”
When the schoolchildren saw the volunteers moved to tears, they began to cry along with them. Volunteer Wang Shun-xiang (王舜湘) of Manila could not hold back her tears either. How could she? She described a warm encounter with a student at the school a few days before: “A small girl handed me two pesos [about four American cents] that she had saved from her allowance. She asked me to give one peso to children who had nothing to eat and the other peso to disaster victims.” Being around loving children like that, how could Wang not have been moved? Wang had gone to the disaster zone with the idea that she would be the one providing help. She had not expected to witness a child, herself a survivor of the disaster, trying to help others.
New classrooms In terms of both area and population, Tunga is the smallest municipality in the central Philippine province of Leyte. About 6,500 people live there. Though severely damaged by Haiyan, it received little attention from most international aid organizations. Of the 36 classrooms in Tunga Central School, 28 were damaged by Haiyan. With only eight rooms still functional, the school was shut down. Principal Amalia Lausin said that the government sent some construction experts to assess the damage at the school, but they left after just taking a look at the damaged roofs. Tzu Chi volunteers went to the school to evaluate the situation on November 21, less than two weeks after the disaster. They returned on the 25th and 27th for more detailed examinations. They wanted to ascertain if the school was a suitable site to assemble some temporary classrooms. Before they could start the work, however, Principal Lausin reopened the school. That was on December 2. To do so, she let four classes take turns using one room. She didn’t want to keep her students out of school for too long. It was imperative that their education continue as soon as possible, even after a disaster like Typhoon Haiyan. The principal was only too happy to receive assistance from Tzu Chi in the aftermath of the disaster, especially when things were scarce. At first, she thought that the temporary classrooms that Tzu Chi volunteers had intended were simple canvas tents. When the work started, she was quite surprised and pleased to see that the volunteers had something more durable in mind. On December 4, the volunteers started to assemble the materials—strengthened plastic sheets and light-duty steel frames—that had arrived by that time from Taiwan. They worked from seven in the morning to five in the afternoon, taking little time to rest under the hot sun. Five days later they turned nine new classrooms over to the school. “I didn’t expect to receive such nice classrooms!” exclaimed the principal.
When we walked into the principal’s office, we saw kindergarteners crammed inside having their lessons. Lausin said that the addition of these structures would greatly ease the pressure that she was facing in providing more space for instruction. Two classes shared each of the new rooms that the foundation provided. Elena Balida, a grateful third-grade teacher, said that was “more than enough.” She stressed that the students would be able to attend school every day now and the teachers would be able to keep a normal schedule. She knew that many schools had not yet reopened because they could not afford to repair their damage, and that some of the schools had lost teaching materials and equipment. Balida considered herself and her school extremely fortunate. “Even if you had built us only one classroom, we’d be very happy,” she said.
More new classrooms The nine new prefabricated structures at Tunga Central School were among the 128 that the foundation sent to Tunga, Tacloban and Ormoc. As of December 15, 24 of them had been assembled by volunteers from Taiwan, paid Tzu Chi staff from Marikina (a city in Metro Manila), and local participants of a Tzu Chi work relief program. More than 20 construction volunteers from Taiwan taught the staff from Marikina and the local participants how to put up the new classrooms. None of the Taiwanese volunteers spoke the local language, so they could only use body language for instruction. One evening, Wang Shun-xiang, the volunteer from Manila, gave them a crash course on useful local expressions. Lin Wan-shui (林萬水), 65, a volunteer from Taiwan, had spent three years in Indonesia building bridges and roads for a Taiwanese engineering company. He used to lead 80 local workers without an interpreter, so he considered this mission in the Philippines a lot easier compared to what he had had to handle in Indonesia. Lin had volunteered in the construction of more than ten Tzu Chi Project Hope schools in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China. Those were permanent buildings. He later stayed in Shanlin, Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, for three months helping build 600 light-gauge steel residential units for victims of the 2009 Typhoon Morakot. “Almost every Tzu Chi project was a ‘mission impossible,’” he said, referring to the fact that the foundation requested that its construction projects be finished in the shortest time possible without sacrificing the quality of the work so that disaster victims could use the buildings as soon as possible. When Lin taught the Tzu Chi staffers from Marikina how to build the classrooms in Tunga, he’d point at his own temple and tell them to think, but not to feel too much pressure. An encouraging teacher, he said to his students that he was convinced they would be able to master the skills without problems. The trainees would then be expected to pass on their skills to other local residents and lead them in setting up the rest of the new buildings once the volunteers returned to Taiwan. Gefrey Besales, 21, was one of those under Lin’s tutelage. He said that being a trainee and a future seed teacher had its share of pressure, especially as they would have to undertake the responsibility of building the classrooms after the trainers returned home to Taiwan. “But we’re confident that we can do it,” he said. The young man was from Marikina, but he said that even he had some difficulties communicating with trainees from Tunga because of differences in their dialects. However, he still taught them the best he could, hoping to contribute his bit of strength to the education of the local children. George Cruz drove a pedicab in Tunga. He signed up for the work relief program to assemble classrooms. His two children attended Tunga Central School, so he was especially glad to participate in the project and do something for local kids as well as his own children. Cruz said that the old school was in very bad repair, often exposing students to the elements. Hot sun or rain came in through the faulty roofs and distracted students from their studies. The new classrooms, on the other hand, though only for temporary use, were brand new, airy, and filled with natural light. He felt much better knowing that students would be using them instead. When Cruz started the work relief program, he also ran into the language problem, but he managed to work through that initial stage. He was grateful to the volunteers who taught him how to do the job. He never imagined that some metal frames, screws, and fortified plastic sheets would make such handsome structures. When Cruz got home from work every evening, his fifth-grade daughter would show great interest and ask him how the work had progressed. Cruz confessed that he had originally signed up for the work for the daily wages that it would provide. But gradually the work began taking on a more significant meaning—providing the students and faculty with a better place for learning became the priority. “Wages are not that important now,” he said. Each morning Cruz took five neighbors to work with him. He told them again and again, “These classrooms are for our next generation, so do a good job.” Tzu Chi held many cash distributions to help victims through the hard times after Typhoon Haiyan; each family received 8,000 to 15,000 pesos (US$178-333), based on the size of the household. Cruz was one of the recipients. He had borrowed money to buy galvanized metal sheets to repair his own roof, and the money he received from Tzu Chi helped him repay those debts sooner than he could have otherwise. “I’ve never seen a nicer charitable group,” he said.
Principal Lausin grew up in Tunga. Her grandmother was a teacher, so she had always wanted to be a teacher too. Lausin was always present at her school when Tzu Chi volunteers were there, either to distribute cash or relief goods to survivors or to assemble the new classrooms. She saw that the volunteers, despite working so hard, had only instant noodles for lunch. Occasionally, over their objections, she would cook some Filipino dishes for them. Evelyn Villacorte, a school district inspector, noticed that the students were enjoying their lessons in the new classrooms, as if they were camping on the lawn. “The whole atmosphere is just different from the past,” she said. The favorable experience attracted other attention. Nearby Gregorio C. Catenza National High School (Tunga National High School) asked Tzu Chi volunteers for three classrooms. The typhoon had damaged that school too, and some teachers were forced to hold their classes in hallways. It was very uncomfortable for those teachers and students, who had to cram into small quarters and endure being constantly distracted by people walking through the hallways. Tzu Chi volunteers turned the three assembled classrooms over to the school on December 13. When they held a distribution of cash aid the next day in Tacloban, 50 teachers from both Tunga Central School and Tunga National High School showed up to volunteer. That was exactly the kind of thing that Tzu Chi volunteers wanted to see the most: people who had received help reaching out in turn to help others. In addition to providing temporary classrooms for the disaster zone, Tzu Chi is also assessing the possibility of building permanent schools for the area. After all, time waits for no one, and the education of children simply cannot wait.
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