Trip to Liki

Creek crossing



Liki Elementary School

Truck trailing streamers

Friday, January 06, 2006

Elder Lowry and Elder Crespo and I left just after six. I brought some snacks and water, and the papers to be completed for the humanitarian projects. They had the wooden bed frames tied securely in the truck. After I did a last minute office chore (and took with me the number to order toner for the copier later in the morning) we had a prayer and took off. Fortunately, it was not raining as the road in to the first school is reported to be not passable in the rain – too much mud. We had only gone a few miles up the hills when we saw ahead of us a man holding a rope with banners across it stretching across the road. I thought they were hanging them up for an upcoming fiesta and that he was holding it up so the cars could pass; apparently Elder Crespo, who was driving, thought so too. We went ahead, but he dropped it just as we passed. He ran to climb in the truck in front of us – apparently he had hopped out and lifted it for them to pass (it must have come down in the night). We snagged it on the back window of the truck and it streamed along behind us flying in the breeze. We had to stop so I could get out and take a picture. I got a fine shot of the ‘streamers.’ Then we disengaged it and set it beside the road so it could be put back up.

We arrived at the Balamban meeting house and Sister Tijap, who was supposed to meet us and guide us in to the Liki Elementary School, was not yet there. I called her on her cell phone and she said she would be right over; she lives nearby with another teacher. They arrived on the back of a bright red motorbike and after a brief greeting and a word to the driver of the bike to ‘not lose us’ we took off. We went about 2 kilometers on paved road and then turned off and up into the mountains on a rocky dirt road. The two teachers on the motor bike had a very rough ride. It was beautiful, very green, many little streams, two rivers that we crossed on sturdy bridges, one wide shallow creek that we forded – and of course, stopped to take pictures of Elder Crespo driving through the water. He told us of an off-road experience he had just before his mission, so I relaxed, thinking, “he is an experienced off-road driver.” We drove in about 8 kilometers. We had two steep hills – and there was plenty of mud from rain the day before – on both of them Elder Lowry and I had to get out to walk so the truck could make it up the hills. The road was basically for motorbikes – had one packed, good track. The road was wide enough for the truck, but two of the truck wheels on one side were often in a muddy ditch while the other two were up higher on firmer ground. I was very glad Bob and I had not tried to make it in the car – we would have hit bottom too much – as it was the truck hit a couple of times.

We made it safely to Liki (pronounced leaky) Elementary School and very excited children greeted us. The school consists of three small buildings on a hillside (and an outhouse). Everything was very clean and orderly; two of the buildings were newly-painted, and I was especially impressed by the colorful posters on the walls of each classroom. Sister Tijap, the newest teacher at the school, member of the Church, and Primary President in the Toledo Second Branch, told me the teachers had bought or made the posters and had them laminated at their own expense.

140 children attend this school with four teachers. A head teacher is in charge as well as teaching the third and fourth grades. Sister Tijap teaches grades 2-3; there is a k-1 class and a 5-6 class. The children are put in the classes based on achievement, not age. The 2-3 and 3-4 classes teach basic reading and math and the children must pass tests to move out of those and on to the next. Many of these children do not continue on past grade 6. Transportation and school uniforms, books and supplies would be too expensive for their families. Many of the parents are subsistence farmers; no uniforms are required at this school; many of the families have no cash to go out the 10 kilometers to the nearest store where pencils and notebooks can be purchased. The teachers provide some and then the children share, sometimes with a brother and sister in different classes sharing a ball point pen and running back and forth to pass it to one another as needed. Some of the children had not seen a white person before and they were fascinated/fearful of us. Elders Lowry and Crespo played and talked to the children and all were delighted. One boy had a yo yo – his Christmas gift and the children thronged around Elder Crespo in amazement when he played with it.

I talked to the head teacher and gathered the necessary information, explaining – I hope she understood – that I would just write a proposal and then we would have to wait and see if it was approved.

Then we left to much waving and headed back down the road – much easier going out than going in, although Elder Creso had to be quite careful not to slide off the road in the mud. Someone had thoughtfully planted a row of strong trees just off the edge of the road on the downhill side and a couple of times I wondered if we were going to slide over into them, but we didn’t and made it safely out on to the paved road and down the hill to Toledo. As we went, Elder Crespo said that this was the first time in his life he had driven on a road like that. Apparently the story he told us about ‘off roading’ on the way in, was the only other time he had done it – and he had been a passenger!