Saturday, December 24, 2016

PASKOOKUM 2016 - Mt. Pulag Elementary School; Duacan Primary School; Tinaleb Elementary School

"Happiness is not so much in having as sharing.
We make a living by what we get,
But we make a life by what we give."

                                                                -Norman Macewan-

As mentioned in my previous posts, while our initial plan for PASKOokum 2016 is to just return to Duacan Primary School for us to be able to reach out again to the kids that we bonded with last year, the unexpected surge of donations/sponsors, would be participants, and personal requests made by our contacts from other schools that sustained damage from the onslaught of Typhoon Lawin, made us decide to include all the students of Mt. Pulag Elementary School and Tinaleb Elementary School as recipients.

A daunting task as it may seem to do an outreach climb in three different schools who are located on the different sides of Mt. Pulag National Park, we gamely took this challenge so long as we can reach out and bring happiness to kids in the far flung areas. And this is our story.

Jump Shot with the cultural dancers of Mt. Pulag Elementary School

Duacan Primary School

The next-day morning at Tinaleb Elementary School with our kiddo friends.

While it was really a challenge at first, as we had to spend additional time collecting/picking up donations, buying additional stuff, revising the itinerary, coordinating with our contacts, and packing a lot of stuff, the thought of seeing more smiles and touching the lives of more people made the work look and feel easier.

A week before PASKOokum, donations poured in droves. Hence, our first dilemma was how to bring all these stuff (at least 4 huge balikbayan boxes, 12 sacks, a number of boxes, plastic, and eco bags, 2 guitars, books, among others) up in the Cordillera. So, here is how did we did it.

Thank you Sir for helping us transport some of the stuff to the bus stations. May you be blessed a thousandfold.
More or less half of the goodies were transported to Baguio City through a van. We then dividd ourselves into three (3) groups. The 1st group will leave for the City Pines the earliest, through the Joybus of the Genesis Bus. The 2nd group took the 11:00PM bus at Victory Liner Cubao Terminal. And the 3rd group were booked to take the 11:30 bus at the Victory Liner Pasay Terminal.

Ready to go!

Baguio City Market
Just to cut the winding story short, we ultimately left Baguio City for Kabayan, Benguet a shade before 0600H. After an hour, we had breakfast at Danao Rest Stop. Here, we also took the time to celebrate Jaime's birthday. Luckily, they brought a cake for us to dig in. As we went on, we decided to again made a brief courtesy call at the DENR Station. After a brief chat with Sir Roy and a few minutes of photo ops, we continued higher into the clouds, towards our 1st stop.

Happy Birthday Mam Jaime!

At Banao's

Kasya pa ang sampu...sa taas hehe.

Courtesy Call at the DENR
Astig nung shirt...ang ganda tingnan. :)



Mt. Pulag Elementary School - "The School Above the Clouds"

Located in Babalak (also Babadak), Bashoy, Kabayan, Benguet, Mt. Pulag Elementary School is touted to be "The Highest School in the Philippines". In this so-called "School Above the Clouds", we were welcomed by the excited smiles and curious stares of the students, some of whom have tagged along their parents just to be able to attend the Paskookum2016.



Let's get it started!

Ibaba na yan! Aryaa!

They were so excited

Welcoming smiles

Nestea...#taketheplunge

No less than the District Supervisor of all the schools in Kabayan, Benguet welcomed us. He even noted that we were actually "hitting three birds with one stone". Some students who were in full cultural costumes performed a traditional dance. Some of us even joined in the merrymaking and we really had fun.

They wanted to entertain us in return

Welcome to the Cordillera!

Cultural Dance


Nood ng performance.

With the Skookum Dancers!

Brrr...it really is cold up here.
Gwapo Sir!
We then finally had the kids lined-up for the gift-giving. Each one of the students, including a number of toddlers and kids that were present (they were to have their Clan Reunion at the school grounds at that time), received a plastic bag of goodies. Christmas indeed came early for the kids in Babalak. And we were all very happy to see how happy the kids were so appreciative of the gifts that they have received.

Isa-isa lang ha.

Buti pa ang mga kids, marunong pumila.

Yipee! Excited to receive their goodies!

Happiness is when you unknowingly smile while sharing goodness with a stranger.

Masaya kaming masaya kayo.

The next generation. Welcome friends...pay it forward.

Salamat po mga Kuya at Ate!

Wwhhoooooaaa!

Duacan Primary School - "The School along Pulag's Killer Trail"

From Babalak, it took us another 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to Duacan. Upon arrrival, we immediately negotiated the steep trail up to the school, where the kids were patiently waiting for us.It was so heartwarming to again mingle with the kids who played with us during our last Paskookum. We saw familiar faces and warmer smiles as they visibly were able to recognize us. It was such an emotional experience to finally see again the student whose face was used in the design of our Paskookum Shirt.

Welcome to Duacan

The little girl in our shirt design

She was so happy to know that her face graced our shirt for this year.
While some of us started to oversee the games with the kids, the others were busy preparing our lunch. Again, as they say, the boys ruled the market and the kitchen (Harharhar).

Listening to the laughter of the students while playing games is music to our ears. One could definitely learn from their innocence, and their eagerness to learn something new. To act as an Ate/Kuya to someone you do not really know. At first we thought that it was us giving and sharing our blessings but in the end we realized that it was us who were actually more on the receiving end.

Animated faces.

Galante si Sir Jay!

The Boat is Sinking!
We also prepared pansit for the kids which they really enjoyed. We were in awe on how the kids washed the plates and utensils that they personally used and returned them one by one. It was such an admirable behavior that you seldom see from kids (especially from the city...no pun intended) nowadays.

The children were also so happy to receive their own set of school supplies. The smiles that we saw were very infectious that we felt euphoric ourselves. We also gave them a bagful of candies, chocolates, and other goodies.


Magic Sarap pa more!

This is it pansit!

With the Skookum Masterchef
Too bad, we had to go that day (As there are still more than 150 students waiting for us in Tinaleb). If only we can spend more time playing with these kids like last year, we will surely do so. Hopefully, we can still go back to Duacan for another Paskookum.


Tinaleb Elementary School - "The School in the House of Rain"

On to our third and final stop. It was just unfortunate that we already reach Sitio Tinaleb an hour after our supposed ETA. From Duacan, we again went higher into the clouds. Though we only had limited time to do all the activities that we had in store for them, we made sure that the kids in Tinaleb (most of whom waited for us for seven hours...sorry kids) had fun that day.

Kaway-kaway

The students in Tinaleb

Cargador Man? Outreach Man?

Hiho...Hiho
In Tinaleb, it was the parents who performed and welcomed us with their customary tribal dance. A good number of us even joined in the revelry. The students even made a welcome banner. Each of our Hellos were countered with a Hi by the kids and vice-versa.(WTH...some of us were even on the verge of tears...of joy and amazement perhaps).

After a brief program and as rain threatened to pour, we immediately had the students lined-up for the gift-giving. We provided them school supplies, candies, chocolates, Nestea, boots, slippers, vitamins, medicine, food items, and other goodies. We also had something in store (sacks of pre-loved clothes) for the parents. Other gifts that we shared to the kids were guitars and other musical instruments, books (both old and new), references and school materials, We were informed by one of the school teachers, Mam Edilberta Butangen (who gamely spent overnight in the school to take care of us) that even the high school books and references that we brought will be put into good use and shared with the community.

Slippers...sorry kids maliit ang sizes ng nabili namin.

Happy Kiddos...holding their boots

Basa na sila sa ulan pero sige pa rin>

Excited to have their own toys!

Ayos!

May bago ng playmate si Ernie.

Maliit pa sila pero kayang-kaya nila umakyat ng bundok hehe.
Too bad we were not able to prepare the chicken noodle soup that we intended to share with the kids because most of them will have to walk an hour to go back home. As Tinaleb is known as the "House of Rain", harsh weather conditions persists even if the weather is good in other parts of Kabayan. It also can be reached through a steep rough road from Ballay proper that needs extraordinary skill to negotiate.

When morning came, a number of kids who lived nearby returned to the school. We continued to have fun by playing games with them and listening to their stories and answering their probing questions.We shared additional chocolates, candies, and even had breakfast with them. They actually enjoyed the hotdogs, longganisa and noodles.

Tuloy ang saya!

Wacky!

Thank you...thank you..

Andun ang pot of gold!

In the end, (as we ought to go to Lake Tabeo for those who went hiking up Mt. Tabayoc) we left everything (including all the food that we could have shared with the kids) to the care of Mam Edilberta. She kept on repeating that we brought so much blessings to the school. Our only reply to this is that we were only the means to bring the blessings that all of our sponsors had shared.

We also want to take this opportunity to again say thanks to the students, teachers, parents, and community in Tinaleb who gave us a lot of vegetables as pasalubong. May you be blessed with a bountiful harvest for years to come.

Fresh vegetables courtesy of the Tinaleb Students


Epilogue

It was so fulfilling to see warm smiles and sparkling eyes. A lot has happened since we first decided to do an outreach climb. But PASKOokum 2016 is something that all of us participants will never forget. It is such a blessing for us that we were able to reach out to our Kalanguya brothers/sisters. We can truly say that we have not lost the art of sharing and caring; that faith in humanity can be restored with every good deed that we sow. We hope that this advocacy will continue to touch more lives and make more smiles. Until next year everyone!

For now, we leave you with some of the snapshots that we had during our outreach climb. Happy Paskookum!


Eto ang iced tea....pang-chaser...heehee.

7748 FASL...The Highest School in the Philippines!

Top Load na!

Curious!

Happy po ako!


With the District Supervisor of Schools in Kabayan, Benguet and the teachers of Mt. Pulag Elementary School
Gift-giving

Happy Paskookum!

With Mam Jolina

Making Happy Faces....Wweeehhh!

All smiles


Toploading

Angas mo kid!

Rainbow

#Paskookum2016


***Credit goes to the owners of the pictures in this post.

PASKOOKUM - Maraming Salamat Po!

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