Thursday, September 23rd …..

Naga is a very nice city and our host, President Hoover Ricar is a very nice man. He picked us up at the airport and has been carrying us around ever since. Nothing seems to be a trouble and he is proud to show us his town and the various projects his club is involved with.

Immediately after getting off the plane, four hours late, we suggested we go straight to the Naga SPEd Center to meet the principal Girlie Maristaza. She and her staff are certainly doing a wonderful job under severe difficulties. We saw classes for Hearing Impaired, and Vision Impaired students, and there were other classes catering for mixed groups of Cerebral Palsy, Intellectual Disability, Behaviour Difficulties and Autism. The children were delighted to see us and we had to carry out the traditional Filipino blessing – allowing the child to take our hand and touch it to his or her forehead.

In 1978, when Rotary became involved, the centre only had a handful of students. Now there are about 280 with a projected enrolment increase of 2% per year. In the early days, Rotary built a 2-classroom block and these are still effective spaces. As numbers increased, rooms were shared by two classes; currently, some classrooms have been halved again and four groups share the same tiny space. There are plans for the building of new classrooms but no funding is on the horizon.

This morning, we met two Rotarians from another club, RC Naga, Camarines Sur. Earl and Jenny Harris took us to the Center for the Blind which is one of their pet projects. We met a number of clients of the centre, who come to access the technology and other resources. One 4th year secondary student is studying Psychology and his computer had the facility of reading his books to him. Earl told us that it is one of just a few centres of this type and people from all over the region travel to use the facilities.

We seemed to have lost the morning so Hoover took us to the Camarines Sur Water Sports Centre for lunch. This was built by the provincial government (the governor is a Wake Board fanatic) and it is a wonderful resource. The cable which drags the skiers around was out of commission so there were lots of disconsolate young men hanging around waiting for some action. Hoover told us that some of them were members of the local dragon boat crew.

I hadn’t been looking forward to the afternoon when it was announced that I would be meeting parents of students with autism who would ask me questions about their particular situations. It’s not really possible to give advice for a child you’ve never met but you don’t want to be seen to be fobbing people off with platitudes. Anyway, it went alright although some of the stories were heart-wrenching.

We didn’t get away from here until about 5 and there was only time to buy some of the local delicacy, pili nuts, and a t-shirt for Rex before we were dropped off at Senor Enricos for a short break before heading off to the Rotary meeting.
The meeting was great, not unlike ours but with the usual local differences. They sang Imagine without embarrassment but didn’t have a fine session. I explained how this worked and gave them a couple of examples of the sorts of things which attract a fine, and cause a little discomfort to the person being fined.

A big day, and it was already bed-time when we got back to our room. Senor Enricos is a modern B&B establishment owned by a local dentist, who is a Rotary member. It is very plush and I highly recommend it. Senor Enrico introduced himself as dentist by day, hotelier by night, door opener, security guard and breakfast cook as well.