Kananga National High School

Seated for the Kananga National High School Program.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Though I never worked on the Kananga National High School projects, I was invited, along with the rest of our group, to be a part of an appreciation ceremony that the school put on in honor of All Hands Volunteers. We all raced home from our work sites at the end of the day, cleaned up the best we could, put on our finest wrinkled clothes, clamored up onto our jeepneys again, and rushed off to the festivities.

Brett signing autographs for his screaming fan base of girls at Kananga
High School.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

The high school is located up a hill in Kananga and is a large high school campus. Many of their classrooms right now are temporary rooms donated by a Buddhist organization and set up on a playing field below their main buildings. Among other things, All Hands had teams at the high school to tarp some roofs, demolish some classrooms, and separate materials for reuse.

The students stayed late on this particular day so that they could put on a program after we finished our work day and could manage to arrive for the dinner. The program was fantastic - an hour or more of student and teacher performances put on for our Team's enjoyment. They started the evening with the Philippines' national anthem and followed that with a violin solo, dancing, and even a skit about Yolanda blowing through the Philippines and how the people (including All Hands) have come along behind her to restore the Island of Leyte.

Full pig roast at Kananga National High School.
© Andrea Rip

For the people who did work on the high school projects, there was a ceremony where they received a certificate for their work and a Philippines key chain. It was clear from the beginning of the evening that the KNHS community was grateful for the work that All Hands did for them. The generosity and gratitude that we received from the school seemed like a huge extravagance next to the work that our teams happily did for them.

After the performances, dinner was served including a full pig with all the Filipino fixings including fruit, potatoes, a salad, and a stir fry. Many of the students and nearly all the teachers stayed to socialize and enjoy the meal. Many of the girls treated Brett like a pop star and he started signing shirts after dinner. It did not take too long before everyone in our group was autographing tshirts and hats. An impromptu dance party started and some of those who had performed led everyone in the Philippines version of line dancing to songs like Gangnam...

Due to most of the students being under 18, the party broke up pretty early for our group of volunteers. We left the school looking for our jeepneys and quickly realized that the drivers had headed home for the night. At least the 5km walk back to base was mostly downhill. And, it was a beautiful night for star gazing and grabbing a little mango smoothie in town.