Depends.  Fascinating, if you like variety and human foibles.  Horrifying perhaps, if you like order.  Over all, though, learning is going on, and people are engaged, and those things warm the teacher’s heart. I went along with Ami, Lyn Lyn and Jane last Wednesday to observe the afternoon reproductive health class. I was mostly there just to see a session fist hand, but I was roped in for one of the charade activities. But more on that later.

The group meets under a nipa (palm leaf) roof with no walls, and with a dirt floor. The man who erected the structure is named Pisor. He is about 60, and has a house right next to the shelter, which he shares with his wife, some of his children, and a number of grandchildren.  The house seems packed with people during the time we meet with the mothers, and the folks inside are clearly listening in – there is an occasional laugh or an out-and-out comment.  One day when the women were discussing condoms and some were saying they had never seen one, Pisor came out carrying some condoms to show to all the women, professing that he and “the misus” use them so as not to make more babies!  (Quite the danger for couples in their sixties!)  Of course everyone knows everyone in this neighborhood, so whereas this action might have seemed a bit sleazy elsewhere, here it was just good fun.  And hopefully educational.

We had eight or nine women before it was time to begin, thirteen, I think, when we ended.  Most were the regulars, the people Ami and Lyn know and I am getting to know. Several had babies or small children on their laps, and off and on during the session were breastfeeding. The children’s group meets with Jane just a short distance away, under some trees.  Some of the older children climbed off their mother’s laps and ran off, joined Jane’s group, and then came back again.  Even a 75 year old lola (grandmother) was there, and was attentive through-out.

That day the focus was pre-natal health and pregnancy, and there was a lot of discussion of how it feels to be pregnant, what happens, what’s natural, what might be problematic. Then the discussion turned to behavior – what should you do to stay healthy and give your baby a good start?  What should you not do?  (This is where I got in on the charades and pantomimed getting drunk.)  The irrepressible Arlene* pantomimed having sex – with great enthusiasm – and made some other remarks during the lesson that made us all laugh. Ami and Lyn Lyn use Filipino in this group, and have been careful not to rely on the written word at all, as at least a few of the women do not read.  Due to the subject matter there is a lot of explanation, but there are always activities to keep the women engaged. And of course, there is always room for questions.

A little later Ami pulled out eight or nine pictures of the different stages of pregnancy, passed them around, and asked the women to figure out the right order for them. They really do engage in these activities!  It always gives me the feeling that they missed out on too much schooling, that they would have enjoyed the give and take of group work in high school and college classes.

While this was going on, I did some people watching.

Sonia* is the consummate mom.  She’s 35, apparently almost always pregnant – about eight months at this point although she isn’t exactly sure when she got pregnant because there really wasn’t any lapse time between this baby and the last.  She sits, holding the most delicate little girl on her lap – a tiny child who is nearly three but the size of a one year old.  The girl has on a fancy green velvet dress and holds her tiny hands out as though she is hoping to become a dancer.  She does not cry, except late in the afternoon when her mother teases her over something, but then Sonia holds her tight and kisses her.  At one point her older brother, over in the children’s group, starts screaming, and Sonia is instantly alert.  When the boy breaks rank with the other kids and runs away crying, she gets up and goes to meet him, and brings him back to the group, defending the child in whatever was the quarrel.  Then she returns to the women’s circle and sits down.  Last week we had a nurse with us, and I asked her to take a special look into Sonia’s health.  She said that Sonia is extremely malnourished.  I was amazed that I hadn’t thought of malnutrition in relation to the women, only the children.

Then there is Lisa*, who always has a big smile, and Sheila*, who is somehow more refined than the others, and Isabel*, and Gina*, who are very young, and quite shy.   And curly haired Arlene, who is young, cute, extremely energetic, and, okay, maybe a bit loud.

And there are “The Boys”, the village teenagers, another rather irregular group, who we have gotten to know. There’s M.J. or Michael Jackson (so named for his t-shirts of the late pop star) and Kulinton – which made me wonder if he had been born during the Clinton era.  “The Boys” of course are not part of the class and tend to stand off to the side and make jokes and snide comments among themselves, as teenage boys do everywhere.  At first it seemed like they might be kind of a hostile element.  But when it developed that we had to move the chairs from the little church, they helped, and after a considerable bit of hanging around, they apparently decided the program was ‘okay’.  The snacks no doubt contributed.  Now they are friends.

After class we served merienda – this time champorado, the famous ‘chocolate porridge”.  The moms are served first, as this is their class, their time.  Jane lines up the kids from smallest to biggest, and they are more orderly than I can believe.  And they say, “Thank you”, or “Salamat”.  Then we serve Mang Pisor and his family, and then “The Boys”.

After everyone was done eating, we stacked up all the bowls, put the chairs away, and left – feeling very content with how the lesson was received.

*All workshop participant names have been changed