July 14th: The Loboc Children's Choir

Janrey and Gerry doing push-ups. The Loboc Children's Choir and the IP Rondalla jamming to no music. What a group.

My friends and I traveled to the Loboc Elementary School to visit the Loboc Children's Choir after our boat ride. We arrived at the children's choir for an exchange of cultural performances. First, we performed a few songs for them, like "Pobreng Alindahaw," "Just Give Me a Reason," and "Manang Juaning" or also more popularly known as "Mag-Exercise Tayo Tuwing Umaga" by Yoyoy Villame, a famous local singer/entertainer. We learned that Yoyoy grew up in Bohol, so we had to include his composition in our repertoire. We played and danced while they sang along to our songs.

Then, they performed for us. I thought their performance was really great because they were energized and they knew what they were doing all of the time. Sometimes I wish we looked like that. They sang for us songs like their version of "Pobreng Alindahaw" and a medley that started as a gospel then led into the song "Shout" from the movie, "Sister Act." Their song and dance rendition of the local song, "Kalesa," was simply awesome! They also performed a song that only had the word "Meow." The children of Loboc have amazing talents and can actually harmonize. (I can't...) Some of them were so young! One was only 11 years old. The oldest was 16. Of course, they're world-class performers, so I don't doubt their abilities.

Later, we got to talk to the people in the choir and ask them if their schedule is as hectic as ours. We found out that they were a notch more stringent. For one, they weren't allowed to drink any cold drinks or soda and they couldn't even eat junk food! But besides the eating restrictions, I felt like we could connect with a lot of them because we both are pretty musical, we go on tours, and we practice for long hours.

Marisa Pena