NEWSFLASH

NATURE TRIPPING IN A CAVITE SUMMER CAMP

Silang, Cavite, April 15, 2001 - It’s called Rancho Leonor, a family ranch-retreat on Km. 47 in Silang, Cavite named after my late mother-in-law Leonor Aguinaldo Virata. My son Steven created this haven, which is also his home, and being an alumnus of a half-dozen camps in his youth and seeing how family and friends both children and adults seem to crave a place to enjoy the freedom of the outdoors, he finally built a regular campsite. Last summer he and his wife Mia inaugurated it with the first three-day Riding and Nature Camp. This summer there are to be four weekends of outdoor fun starting on April 20 at the Rancho Leonor Summer Camp.

I’d already done a sort of after-the-fact story about the camp last year. I’d written about the activities the riding lessons and trail rides, the cookouts, the arts and crafts, the nature hikes and the campfires and games. This time I thought I’d concentrate on the camp counselors. I had no idea I was going to meet four of the most interesting, dedicated people that I have met in a long time.

Raffy Reloza, the nature camping director, first discovered his skill with children as a child himself waiting for his pediatrician mother outside her office. He would play with the children and discovered he could make their visit to the doctor less of an ordeal. They would go into the office happy and thus would come out of the doctor’s office happy. The neighbors discovered his skill with children as well and their home became an open house for neighborhood kids. By the time he entered college he knew that what he wanted to do was to work with children.

"But," he said with a smile, "the focus was going to be as a pediatrician myself. It must have been fate or something."

He continued his explanation. "I took up psychology as my undergraduate pre-med degree and took a course in counseling and therapy with Dr. Villasor. Part of my work was with autistic children and I was told I was connecting with them. It made me feel good. It was then that I realized that I didn’t have to enter medicine to do the work I wanted to do. After that everything fell into place. After my undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Santo Tomas, I got my master’s degree at the Ateneo specializing in Child Psychology and I’ve been working with children ever since."

"Have you never regretted the decision?" I prodded rather pleasantly surprised that this good-looking, obviously bright young man, who would probably do well in a more lucrative profession, would opt for a teaching career. There are only 45 male pre-school teachers in the country.

"Why should I? I get rewards that are very, very intrinsic," he said. "I have to work very hard to earn a living but I enjoy everything I do and it doesn’t seem like work. I teach, I have a school, I’m a therapist, and I run camps including a camp for 250 deaf children where I had to learn to sign. I have the opportunity to look forward and say, ‘What more can we do?’ It just excites me because every year I think of something new to do and I do it like this camp with Mia. What more could I want?"

Art counselor Elmer Alforque’s background is entirely different. A product of public schools, life was a constant struggle to get the education he wanted. Yet he too discovered his talent very early in life and although his training zigged and zagged, by the time he was ready for college he knew he wanted to be an artist.

"In elementary school I realized I was different. I could visualize things and put them down on paper and my classmates couldn’t. I entered and won art contests. I heard about the Philippine High School for the Arts but I didn’t know how to get to the CCP and neither my mom, who teaches piano, nor my teachers could take me. I was told I was too short to get into the Philippine School of Arts and Trades (I couldn’t reach the machines) although they allowed me to take the exam (which I topped). This earned me a recommendation to the Magsaysay High School but all that got me was another recommendation to the Emilio Aguinaldo High School, which finally accepted me.

"‘I didn’t have much of a chance to develop my art there and eventually the school was closed for not producing students who could pass the NCEE. But there I found dedicated teachers who recognized my other talents and encouraged me to develop them. It was there I developed an interest in journalism and sciences especially astronomy. I even set up my own weather forecasting station at home. It was also there that I became a Boy Scout and where I developed camping skills (including first aid) and where I became conscious of the environment and the need to preserve it. So although my art had to take second place for a while, it was a learning experience I will never regret."

Elmer finally entered the UP College of Fine Arts, becoming a member of the select Rayadillo Unit of the UP ROTC as well. He began teaching children shortly after his graduation 10 years ago and has been teaching them ever since.

"Children these days are more advanced," he says. "They are also much more fortunate. Art materials are more available and cheaper now than when I was a boy. Also they have more opportunities to be exposed to art museums, television and the Internet. Children are not equally talented but art can be learned and I can share my skill with them. That has become my purpose in life."

Decorative Arts counselor Carmen Prieto, on the other hand, laughingly admits that she went into decorative arts "in preparation for my old age." She discovered her talent quite by accident. She had never been really interested in art when she was a child. "I would rather take rondalla or the drums," she laughs. Widowed young, she spent her adult years caring for her daughters. It was while she was with her daughter who was in school in San Francisco a few years ago that she discovered her artistic talent.

"I read about Grandma Moses and I thought hey, that’s something I could do in my old age but I didn’t think I had real talent so I looked around for something related. ‘Shadow Art,’ Julia Cameron (the Artist’s Way) calls it. I’d dabble in arts and crafts and go to all the big arts and crafts stores in the States. Then one day I walked into a studio called Paint Magic run by Jocasta Hines and thought ‘Wow.’ It had everything every kind of art material you could think of. It also offered classes in all kinds of decorative art stenciling, decoupage, stressing, gilding, crackling and decorative painting. I took one class after another and finally became a house painter! I talked my friend into letting me paint bathrooms, bedrooms, furniture and anything. I’d go wild and I had a ball. My friends were pleased as well. So that’s what I am. I’m a ‘shadow artist’ and I work with paint to enhance anything!"

"And the camp?"

"First of all it gives me the opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the opportunity to do go to camp. It is not part of the Filipino lifestyle. I wish it were. Our kids are growing up in the malls experiencing nothing of nature. Secondly, I think art should be taught outdoors. Teaching in the Ayala Museum is great but I yearn to show kids the true colors of nature. There are colors all around us but we don’t appreciate them. Yet as a parent I know how frightening it is to think of letting kids go. This camp will give kids the opportunity of experiencing the freedom of the outdoors in a controlled safe environment."

The science counselor Joseph Revereza, known as Teacher Jorev to his students, was a curious child. "I drove my Mom crazy," he says. "I’d do dangerous things like sticking a wire into an outlet to find out about electricity. I’d take things apart to find out how they worked. Sometimes I could put them back together but not always. I’d try to fix things with a 50 percent chance of success.

Ironically, Jorev opted for a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Business and although his teachers at the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines, recognizing his real interest in science, tried to convince him to switch majors, he decided to stay in the course. His real interest, however, remained in science.

A quirk of fate or perhaps faith set him on the path teaching young children. Asked to help out in his church’s Sunday school to cover for a sick teacher one day, he ended up teaching Sunday school for three years. Then, midway through the school year, a teacher of the church’s regular school left and again Jorev stepped in. "I loved it," he said with a sigh. "That was my introduction to teaching children." Then one day a teacher from The Learning Child asked Jorev to take over a science class "temporarily." He ended up teaching science to kids for five years.

"I never expected teaching to be so much fun! That’s why I’m excited about the camp," he said with the enthusiasm of a child. "It’s something different. Mount Makiling was the greatest classroom for me. Now I can’t wait to turn this farm into a classroom for the kids to point out birds, insects and small mammals that they can observe in their natural habitat. This will also give me a chance to use what I learned as a Boy Scout!"

These were the four unique individuals that Mia and Steven chose to share their passions their passion for nature and the outdoors, for art, for animals and most of all for the care and nurturing of young minds and bodies.

"Last year the children complained that the three days of the camp were too short," says Mia. "They asked why they couldn’t have a week or even two weeks. But parents are not too sure about letting their kids go for so long a time." "Also," she admits with a laugh, "it was so tiring for the counselors. So this year we decided to compromise. Each weekend we will enphasize different things. The first weekend session we will emphasize riding (Mia is the only certified British Horse Society riding instructor in the country); the second session science; the third art; and the fourth nature. All camps have all the activities but it is only the time spent on each interest that differs. A child may sign up for one or for all four weekends...and in between the counselors can rest!"

I started writing this article to help out my daughter-in-law but it turned out to be a treat for me. It was great to "take five" from the daily dose of politics, graft and greed to discover purposefulness and dedication and young hearts still covered with the gentle cloak of idealism.

Inquiries about the Summer Camp at Rancho Leonor in Silang, Cavite can be directed to Mia Virata at 842-08-20. (By Joy Virata)