Challenges of teaching in Leyte’s most isolated village

BURAUEN, Leyte, Aug. 10  -- For teachers assigned in Leyte’s most remote community, educating a child means walking for more than two hours, carrying bags filled with week-long provisions, and crossing streams and rivers.

Multi-grade teacher Ediliza Decina said she has to endure hours of energy-draining hikes passing through some slippery and sharp rocks every Sunday afternoon to ensure that she’s ready for class Monday morning in the town’s Kagbana village.

Decina and fellow teacher Ruschel Corañes carry heavy backpacks filled with week-long food supply, clothes, teaching materials, and personal items.

Both are new teachers, having been hired just this school year, for the 69 students in the village.

“We’re away from our family for six days, get out of our comfort zones, live with villagers away from the town center because we accepted the challenge to teach in Kagbana,” said Decina who handles Grades 5 and 6 classes.

Kagbana is the most remote among the 77 villages of Burauen, the biggest town in Leyte province. The settlement, located in the mountain range of central Leyte, is about 40 kilometers away from the town center.

To get to Kagbana, one has to take an hour of motorcycle ride to San Vicente village in nearby Macarthur town and walk for more than two hours across mountains and rivers.  The fare is PHP120 per person from Burauen town to San Vicente.

“For us to get to the village, we have to cross six streams and a chest-deep river. We have to lift up our bags high so it won’t get wet. One wrong step in narrow cliff pathways is dangerous. We have to do this to help children fulfill their dreams of a better future,” shared Decina, a mother of two.

Corañes, who’s in charge of Grades 3 and 4 classes, said the ordeal is worst during rainy days due to the surge of water at Marabong River.  During flooding, residents get stranded and wait for the next day until the water subsides.

“Teaching in Kagbana is very challenging from rough road motorcycle ride, hiking, crossing rivers to managing the classroom, but knowing that these children aspire for a better tomorrow, gives us countless reasons not to quit,” Corañes said.

The village is home to 500 dwellers with 60 households, including the five families of Mamanwa tribe.

Tribe members survive from hunting in the forest and planting root crops. (SQM/PNA)