DAKU, TAAS, GAHI !!!

Many things are sweeter the second time around. Perhaps I felt more comfortable on this return trip to Mindanao as I had three other companions. Perhaps I felt more secure knowing some of the people there. Perhaps I had resigned myself to thinking that this was God's mission for me. Then again, perhaps I had just grown to love this second home.

The people here were as generous as ever. Our training team had dinner with Ms. Loi at Bigby's Cafe. Nice cozy place, with an interesting menu. Ostrich steak at Top of the Citi had left a good impression on me so I decided to take OSTRICH SKEWERS.

















OSTRICH SKEWERS. Yum yum!

WORKSHOP - DAY 1 (Thursday)
The first workshop discussed learning objectives. Mr. Valentin Berdera, our current Faculty Association President, facilitated the workshop. Val's connection with the audience was deep: he attended school in Mindanao several decades back. His use of the local dialect had a positive effect on the teachers: they remained in good spirits despite the rigor of the workshop.

DINNER - DAY 1 (Thursday)
We had dinner at Tita Fannies. We got really addicted to the special chicken there. Wala na lang bilangan ng kanin. Hahaha...

WORKSHOP - DAY 2 (Friday)
The second workship discussed backward design and rubrics. Angelo Anthony Agujo (that's me!) facilitated the workshop. Creating rubrics involves defining criteria and performance levels. To make the topic a bit more interesting, I gave the teachers instructions to define their criteria in looking for their life partner. These were the top answers by number of responses:

God-Fearing 7
Good Provider 7
Responsible 6
Family-Oriented 6

The teachers dedicated themselves to this task with much enthusiasm. One group stated that their criteria for finding their life partner were: DAKU, TAAS, GAHI. Daku means large, Taas means long, Gahi means hard. I almost passed out from laughing.

They would therefore look for someone who was DAKU - someone with a large heart; someone who was TAAS - someone with long patience; and someone who was GAHI - someone with firm resolve.

I then discussed about two types of rubrics: holistic and analytic. We made these two types of rubrics together, before I gave instructions that each of the seven subject areas would present.

We encountered some difficulty with the outputs by some of the groups, but succeeded in giving all of these groups feedback regarding their work.

DINNER - DAY 2 (Friday)
We had dinner at Timuga. As usual, we tended to forget our diets. We feasted on lechon, chicken, squid, and panga. Marissa, Val, and Dary had durian for dessert. I was completely LAMI (full/busog).

TOUR - DAY 3 (Saturday)
This was a very exciting day as we visited the Agus Powerplant, an underground tunnel, and Tinago Falls. We had lunch in Timuga again. This time we had lechon, papaitan, and kilawin. Tsk Tsk... Bye bye diet!

































JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH: In an Underground Tunnel of Agus Powerplant
















WORTH THE WAIT AND WALK: Beautiful Tinago Falls Takes Your Breath Away (In more ways than one!)

After lunch, we were brought to Cheddings and Jolo to buy our pasalubong. We bought about a ton of the famous Cheddings peanuts, Pastel, cashew nuts, candies, malongs, and ethnic bags. :) We had a special dinner made by Sir Bert, a SHRIM trained cook. Grabe talaga, these people know how to make you feel VERY SPECIAL.

RETURN TO MANILA (Sunday)
P.S. My colleagues had to send back their Pinakurat Vinegar. Note to self: Make sure to have styro packaging for this stuff. :)

P.P.S. They were recruiting one of our team members to become a Lasalle Brother. Hindi po ako yun. :)