This is our second outreach
in the province of Aurora and the adventure just got better. Thanks
to Aurora Off-roaders Club!
TREK San Luis is our 2nd outreach in Aurora and we extended aid to the students Kalapnit Neighborhood Pre-School and Kalapnit Elementary School.
Our group is called TREK or TRails to Empower Kids.
Our 4x4 adventure was rough, bumpy and
totally exhilarating. I am not a
fan of fast thrills so my heart was racing
as we crossed rivers and big bumps on the road.
It only settled when we got down and started on a short but very
relaxing river trek, with very clear waters, colorful river rocks, and lush greens.
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| Aurora Offroaders in Action |
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Members of the Aurora Offroaders Club
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The community is nestled in
a valley and is only accessible by foot.
It is one of those places where I could imagine myself waking up early,
sipping a cup of coffee and looking at the mountains surrounding me.
It is a small community and
they only have around 50 students.
The sad thing about the
schools, which is one of the reasons we chose this as a project site, is the
low performance of the students there.
We decided to bring each
student their own backpacks, complete with school supplies and toys. For the
school, we gave them reading corners each, complete with shelves, educational
toys and books and one comfort room.
We had our usual program –
speeches, games, and turn-over of donations.
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Happy to receive her shirt |
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Distribution of donations
While this was ongoing, we couldn't help but peek at this really long table covered with banana leaves with rice arranged in the middle topped with freshwater shrimps, eel, and vegetables cooked in coconut milk.
Our hosts offered us a few
times but we were shy and told them we wanted to finish the program first.
So, by the time we were
done, immediately after saying our prayers, it poured. Well, not even the rains stopped us from
enjoying the feast.
After the outreach, the team
camped at Digisit Beach.
When we got to the site our
friends from Maria Aurora Outdoors Club were already there and done with
preparing our dinner.
Digisit is another good
beach camp. The beach is filled with
coconut trees and there are bamboo cottages available. Fresh water
flows from the nearby waterfalls. The best, of course, are the corals forming a reef
in front of the beach.
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| Digisit, our beach camp view |
We spent the whole night bonding with friends from MAOC and new friends from the Off-roaders club. We celebrated our second-year anniversary, which also was my second birthday celebrated with TREK.
The following day, the waves were a bit too strong so we opted to just stay in the waters near the beach. Some of the participants left that afternoon while the rest stayed for a tour of Aurora's PAG-ASA Station, Ermita Hill and the famous surfing beach of Baler.
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