Iloilo- Panay Island

Sorry for the delay in posts, I have been working setting up, piloting and starting the data collection process in the second area West Visayas. Panay Island
More specifically, we are collecting data in the Antique Province, Sibalom Muncipality and Egana and Igpanolong (has taken me at least of constant practice to say the second one:) barangays. So for the last two weeks, the West Visayas research team, which is composed of myself, Joy (Technical ECD Coordinator), Arve (Research Assistant), and Michelle (Notetaker, Transcriber) have been working hard (to be honest they have been working harder the me) at translating, piloting, and setting up the data collection schedules!
For one of our pilots we conducted it with parents in a small village in Valderamana (Boroc-Boroc Barangay) where no vehicle could get to in the Monsoon season (see picture to give you an idea what it is like 5 out of 7 days during Monsoon season:). Hmm... you may wonder how did we get the the village. Well as so many people do in this world, we walked to the village:) One river in particular was about knee deep, with quite a strong current. So when crossing it was a good idea to have a few people linked together to stablize oneself while crossing. See pictures of us crossing the river! It wasn't so so hot that day, but still getting a little wet definitely helped keep up cool.

The village was about 2 km walk, no hills or mountains so it was a very pleasant and a beautiful walk. When we arrived at around 11 in the morning, we were greeted by many women and children! Many quite curious as to who this strange looking person was and what she was doing here. The main purpose of the visit was to celebrate the children's summer learning program. The program is designed for children who have not had any experience in an early childhood program. It is a six week transition/ preparatory for 1st grade program.
Of course since we were very close to the ocean (well on the ocean), I was itching to go for a swim. But unfortunately, the rain did not cooperate this time and I was not able to go:(