School Stuff and Superstitions

Today is Friday, June 17, 2005. Last Friday was my first day at my new school, so you might think that I have a week’s worth of school under my belt. Well, not quite. You see Sunday was Independence Day so we didn’t have school on Monday. Understandable. And one of the teacher’s mother died, so classes were cancelled Wednesday afternoon for the funeral. Then Thursday the teachers needed to go to Baguio and register online for their government benefits. No school. And today we only had classes half a day because there was a PTCA (Parent Teacher Community Association) meeting. So, it’s not quite like back home. Oh well. It’s good to just go with the flow . . .

Now about that PTCA meeting, it was surprising on many levels. First of all, the attendance was amazing. The enrollment at our school is 389 students. The meeting was at 1:00 today and there were 176 parents present. Incredible. Another amazing thing was that four different languages were spoken during the meeting, and I’m pretty certain that I’m the only person there who didn’t understand at least three of the four. They spoke Kenkane-ay, Ibaloi, Ilokano, and English (actually, I’m the one who spoke in English whenever I gave my schpeel). And finally, the most amazing part of the meeting was that it lasted until 4:45 – almost four hours – and the people stayed until it was over! Wow. My buns were falling asleep.

Okay, so superstitions. Everyday I learn more about the superstitions of these mountain people and how much they believe them. Today in the faculty room one of the teachers started squealing. We asked her what was wrong and she said that a lizard just jumped out of her shirt. We walked over to her desk and sure enough, there was a lizard on her desk. It didn’t scurry off; it just sat there like it wanted to hang around. The teacher was freaked. She shooed the lizard away and then went to class. While she was gone, I noticed that the lizard returned to her desk and stayed there for a long time. The other teachers said that since the lizard was black that she should go see the witch doctor and that she might need to kill a pig. This evening when I told my host sister the story, she said that it was probably Mila’s mother (the lady who died) coming to visit and if you ever see an insect or small creature acting peculiar, it’s probably a dead person’s spirit so you should never kill it.

Then, she told me about when the newest building at the school was being built. She said that several of the students started acting funny, like they saw something in the sky, and then they fainted. One after another, they were dropping like flies. So, the tribal priest was consulted. He said that it was because they were building the school on the house of some dwarves and that in order to appease the dwarves they would have to make a sacrifice of porcelain plates (because dwarves are very rich and they like very nice things). So, in December they made the offering and after that no more students fainted. “So”, she told me, “it must be true”. Absolutely.

Alright, that’s all for now. Have a good week. Enjoy your American dreams. And don’t step on any bugs. You never know who you may be squashing!