Home from the Exchange

It's hard to believe the exchange is over. The team arrived safely in Philadelphia on March 24, exactly a month after we began our adventure.  

Nicole, Stacey, and John at the Philadelphia Airport after a 24 hour trip.  They say it's time to come home when you start to resemble your passport photo. 

Except, of course, the group study exchange is not quite over.  We will be presenting our experiences and conclusions to Rotary Clubs throughout the district and then at the district conference in late April.  We will consider the needs we encountered in the Philippines and the responses we will advocate.  Every Rotary Club has a commitment to International Service.  Our goal will be to create partnerships between Rotary Clubs in District 7370 and 3860 for the benefit of the worthy schools, clinics, programs and communities we encountered.  In this sense, the exchange is just beginning.  Stay tuned for details.

We again repeat our gratitude to all the Rotarians who made the exchange possible. Special thanks go to Bob Lombard, GSE Chair for District 7370 and Dick Barba, GSE Chair for the Vasayas. We appreciate everyone who worked so selflessly to make this exchange a success. 


 

Final Filipino Days

This is Stacey writing. We spent our last few days in Cebu checking out a last few select sites. Thursday we went to Bigfoot Studios with PP Greg Curda from RC Cebu East. Greg works as a foley mixer in second design and has won an Oscar for sound design in The Hunt for Red October. He was originally from Chicago then moved to Hawaii where he got a taste of the tropics and furthered his move to Saipan and finally Cebu for his final full feel of the tropics in a developing country. Bigfoot Studios is a film studio that was behind the makins of many films. Currently they are working on a new reality fashion show, Design Genius. The studio employs about 100 people and teaches about 50 students from the International Academy of Film and Television. The academy offers several certificate and diploma programs including filmmaking, acting for the camera, sound design and professional immersion. Only about half of the students are from the Philippines and the other half are international students from around the world. We were able to tour both facilities where we were able to see stage setups, sound equipment and props. We were actually even able to go on the stage of the film they were beginning that day and experience the view from an actor’s perspective with th

Bigfoot studios

GSE team with Greg Curda (center) and Allan Limas (right)

The next stop was to The Church of Latter Day Saints Temple that was newly built in Cebu City in June of 2010. We were greeted by President Schmutz, who acts as a sort of team leader to the young missionaries that the church sends out around the world. Many young Mormon men serve as missionaries at age 19 for two years. Mormon women serve at age  21 for 18 months. During the question and answer period, the question was asked why there was a difference in length of service. Quipped a Rotarian, "Maybe because women are smarter than men."


From here we continued to another building for lunch and some conversation. We were then given a tour around the temple and given an overview of their religion and about the temple itself. We were able to enter the waiting room of the temple, but the rest of the temple is off limits to those who cannot prove their commitment to important rituals of the Mormon faith.

 

It was then a Take 2 of our camera time for the day as we went to have a television interview about our rotary experiences. We were interviewed for a public access tv program called My Rotary, hosted by PAG Baba Panopio(RC Cebu). On the panel were team members, Nicole and Stacey, team leader, John, District GSE Chair, Dick BarbaI, and PP Allan Limas.

The GSE Team in the My Rotary studio. From left to right: Stacey, John, host PAG Baba Panopian, Dick Barba, District GSE chair, Nicole and PP Allan Limas

 Our last meeting with Philippines rotary came at our Farewell dinner hosted by RC Cebu Gloria Maris and Cebu Fort San Pedro. The dinner and fellowship were wonderful and were held with the walls of Fort San Pedro with a luau theme. We were able to partake in one last night of videoke and dancing. We were also joined by a few members of our past host clubs who were there to wish us well. You will all be greatly missed, but will always be in our hearts.

For the farewell dinner, The GSE team offered a special rendition of John Denver's "Country Roads.". first line: Almost heaven, Pennsylvania . . .".

We had one day left to pack and enjoy a few relaxing sites of Cebu. We spent some time on the beach and also visited the sites of the Mactan Shrine and also the burial site of Lapu-Lapu, a tribal leader who is celebrated throughout the Philippines for resisting the Spaniards. He is credited with killing Ferdinand Magellan, a European explorer who was the first circumnavigate the globe.

Shrine to Ferdinand Magellan (his final resting place)

Lapu-Lapu monument

 We boarded a boat taxi that took us to a small island. From the dock we hopped on a motorized tricycle to reach our destination at the bird sanctuary. We relaxed with a picnic lunch and our last fresh coconuts. After our bellies settled we took a long walk out to a lookout point where we were able to see a variety of migratory birds and wade around in the water with the starfish, crabs and little fish.

Our taxi boat to the island

Walking out to the observation tower

Stacey finds a starfish

The afternoon was relaxing, just what we needed to prepare for our long trip back home. We spent the evening with our host families enjoying a last few hours before they transported us to the airport. The same big welcoming crew we met just one month ago were all there to give us all their "See ya soons" as we walked through the airport security gates and waved our sincere thanks. We could not have asked for anything more from our hosts. I think I speak for all of us when I say, thank you for all that you have done for us and all that you have been to us. We will never forget all the friends that we have made. You have all made our experience absolutely AMAZING! You will forever be in our hearts! Thank you for everything.





At the airport we are awaiting our flight home with our brains and hearts full of Philippine culture and love. Excited to share all we learned, the next destination we aim for....Pennsylvania.


The Superheroes of Pardo

Although Stacey has already posted a review of all of today's activities, my individual vocational visit to Pardo National High School and Elementary school moved me so much that I felt the need to make my own post. I hope that many will take the time to read this.

By the time we got to Pardo National High School (a public school in one of Cebu’s six school districts) it was pouring rain and my Rotarian guide, Butch Tayactac, hopped out of the car to get an umbrella in the trunk to bring around to me so I wouldn’t get wet. Inside, I met his wife, Principal Eileen Irina O. Tayactac, Ed.D. She accompanied us over to the elementary school (where the special education program is housed) to have a sit down meeting with her, the elementary school principal, Mr. Ronald Llerin, the guidance counselor, and special education teacher, Gina P. Villapez.

Just to give you some context, Pardo’s district has ten schools, 4 of which are in the city (the others in the mountains). Pardo Elementary has 4,700 students and Pardo high school has 3,300 students (in both their day and night school programs). There are an average of 60 students in each Elementary classroom (with 1 teacher per class) and 50-55 students in each high school class (again, 1 teacher).


While the government in the Philippines supports the public schools, the support is basic and only covers the essentials for regular education. There are no government mandates or funds for special education programs, and until this year there was no specific special education classroom at Pardo. Children in need were sent to other schools in or outside the district. However, in its inaugural year, teacher Gina has been working with 20 Autism spectrum/developmentally delayed students ages 4 to 16 years old. She has them separated into groups based on functioning level and works with these groups in 1-2 hours blocks throughout the day. She has no aide, but does ask parents to help or accompany their child when they can. If that wasn't enough work, she serves as the Special Education teacher for the pull out students who need extra help in certain subjects in the afternoon. After her training, Gina spent two years in California as a special education teacher before returning to Cebu. While this gave her hands-on training in how things run in the US (which she is clearly applying to guide her work here with the students – remember there are no government mandates about what to do, no IEPs to follow, etc).  It also gave her direct experience with how things could be, and how much is lacking where she is now.

Gina opens up her classroom (a former storage room) for me.

In talking to Gina and the other Pardo personnel, it is clear that teachers in the Philippines—especially special education teachers—need to be superheroes and jacks-of-all-trades. With no funding, they must be interior designers adapting often inappropriate spaces to be functional (Gina’s class was previously a storage closet), inventive engineers who can make learning materials and manipulatives out of whatever they can get their hands on, curriculum developers, and, if they are to get the things they need, fundraising directors. Gina is clearly all of these, and I left then in awe of what she has to work with and what she is doing with it. She has her classroom decorated from floor to ceiling with poster and items meant to teach, direct, and guide the children (ABCs, days of the week, classroom rules, and a daily picture schedule).

Gina in her classroom

Because there is poor draining there, when it rains hard and water pours down the walls some of these things get damaged on a regular basis, so she makes new ones.

The drainage pipe that leaks into her classroom

Every day she sets up tables in make-shift learning stations so children can work for a bit on each one, earn a reward, and then move on to the next task (she calls it her “if then” system, so children know if they do this, then they can do that). There is no speech therapy, OT, or psychologist at the school, so she must be all things rolled into one. She works with the children on basic academic skills as well as their ADLs and life skills and assesses when each is ready to move to the next level and/or be mainstreamed. She notes proudly that in the program’s first year, two students earned awards at a city wide special education program.


Gina is also clearly dedicated. Despite being on maternity leave (she gave birth 2 weeks ago) and despite it being summer break already for her students, she came in today just to meet with me AND contacted all her students’ parents to let them know so they could come with their children to meet me and I could meet them. I was humbled. She is also resourceful and very outspoken about the needs of her school and was not shy about being clear that they need resources—badly—and she inquired as to what assistance my visit might bring from people or groups back home that care about the needs of children with special needs.  She would welcome anything I could offer (though space, materials, and a working computer would be most needed - all of which require money).


I wanted to promise her (and her students) the world there on the spot, but I couldn’t, and I was clear with her on this. But what I could promise that I would take what I saw, and their requests, back home to anyone who would listen and see what comes of that. She also asked if she could email me occasionally if she was stuck with behavioral management issues (as there are no psychologists to consult) and if I could offer direction or guidance on where she might find ideas on what to do. I was glad I could say ‘yes’ to that on the spot. After I was done meeting with them and touring the classroom, and many photos were taken, Dr. Tayactac presented me with a beautiful handcrafted wooden necklace and thanked me profusely for my visit and getting the word out about they are doing.


So here I am blogging about it, the first step to me getting the word out about Pardo.  Who will read this, and whether they will have the inclination or ability to do anything about it, I do not know.  I wish there was a website I could post for you to visit, but Pardo is not quite there yet.  They do have an email address, however, which Principal Tayactac would encourage me to share: pardonationalhighschool@yahoo.com

Thanks for reading this.  At the very least, I hope that it will make you more appreciative of what we have here.

Three days 'til liftoff

Today was a day of vocational visits for our team. Nicole and I made our first observation of the day at Perpetual Succour Hospital. This is a private hospital that was opened in 1936, just recently celebrating their 75th anniversary. The first impression I got was that it was a very well-kept hospital and in the end I was proved to be right. We toured the radiology area to start with technologists, Alex Justimbaste and Quincmer Canoy. A lot of the processes here matched those of Geisinger, but there were some differences. The most obvious and not so surprising for a developing country was not as advanced technology. One thing that they do have is an MRI machine, which is one of only three in Cebu City. They are not as common to hospitals because of the costs of the machines including the electricity needed to power them and to keep them cool. They are quite sufficient in other modalities though with two cat scan machines, one fluoroscopy, one mammography, two portables, one c-arm, two ultrasound and three x-ray machines. Since they just started using digital CR imaging they are still limited with computers to allow viewing the images throughout the hospital, but improving quickly. They use a common identification technique by identifying the patients name and birthday before imaging, but do not require any written confirmation unless the patient is pregnant then a signature is required to confirm the patient is aware of the risks. Two shocking differences I found were the use of restraints with pediatric patients if needed and the lack of use of shielding of pediatric patients. At a look overall though, it was a very nice visit and the imaging facility had a very friendly staff and was also very well equipped for great treatments. Unfortunately, due to a busy physician schedule, our tour guide was unable to give us a tour of the rest of the hospital, but from the looks of the areas we did see, I have no doubt the rest of the hospital care followed suit with the imaging area.

Since we had some extra time from our change in schedule, we went to visit the Philippine Taoist Temple. Though we didn’t take a structured tour we did walk around the temples to see the sites. There was a very strict no picture policy in or facing the temple area, but we were able to get some pictures so you get an idea of what we saw.

Then we took a run by a golf course in the city where a few Rotarians were celebrating a birthday and playing some golf with lechon and beef awaiting them after completing the course, which didn't take long. The course was small, but it had added obstacles not present at most courses back home--goats. I'm sure it makes for a unique game to say the least.

After lunch we all split up with our respective RC host club members from Banilad Metro who took us to our related vocational locations. I went with RC President Dr. Desiree Jo C Gahi to Vincente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC), which is a public hospital, where she resides as an aspiring anesthesiologist. Public hospitals are more commonly for those patients who need treatment and don’t have a lot of resources and most even lack insurance. My main focus was on the radiology department and to my surprise this hospital just switched to a digital imaging system also. The procedures and technology was only maybe slightly under that of Perpetual Succour Hospital I visited earlier. My biggest issue in this hospital was dealing with the lack of privacy. Patients don't seem concerned with this, but for how many times the HIPPA privacy regulations at home have been reiterated to me, I found this tour difficult to deal with. There were cases of patients standing in hallways waiting, but that only intensified when I continued my tour around the hospital where patients were lying in beds that lined the hallways. As I mentioned from previous hospital visits here in the Philippines, wards are very common, more so in public hospitals, for those who can't afford to pay more for a public room or see no reason to pay more. In this case, the wards were overflowing with people. For example, Dr. Gahi informed me about the labor ward, where it is not uncommon to see three women in one bed that are in labor. As I was walking around the hospital I was just in shock. There were so many people that needed help and it seems the hospital does everything it can to help everyone, but the limited space and resources limits them to an extreme. This is only one of two public hospitals in Cebu City and both are full beyond capacity. The images of the conditions are burned in my head, but just can't be explained to truly understand the challenges these hospitals face with trying to care for all their patients. I was able to experience one thing while I was touring the hospital that was soothing yet surprising to me--twice a day a prayer is said over the loudspeaker for all to hear in hopes of cures and peace for all. I could not help but join in with hopes that somehow someone will make the situation here all better.

Meanwhile, team leader John had a busy day visiting a number of small businesses in Cebu City. Rotarian Pablito (Lito) Aquino is board secretary and manager of Filipinas Organic Coconut Products Corp. The main export of the company is virgin coconut oil for food, cosmetic, and industrial uses. Lito is an expert on the many applications of coconut oil for health benefits. Among the challenges he sees is the rampant conversion of arable land suitable for coconut cultivation into non-agricultural uses such as residential.

Pablito Aquino displays the kosher certification for the coconut oil he exports.

John also interviewed Melanie C. Ng, Executive VP of Ng Khai Development Corporation, an information technology company that partners with such firms as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard to provide support to Filipino customers. The biggest challenge, according to Melanie Ng, is talent acquisition. It's hard to find and retain superstar developers when they are being poached by companies from China and elsewhere.


He was then briefed on the Filipino fair trade movement by Father Aladdin Luzon, OSA, of the Southern Partners & Fair Trade Center. The goal of the fair trade movement is to eliminate the middle man to give local craftspeople more of the value they create. The tools of the movement are greater transparency, more fairness, and increased equity for those who create the crafts. The firm has a website at http://www.fairtradecebu.com/

The Southern Partners & Fair Trade Center has a showroom of locally-produced crafts on Osmena Boulevard in Cebu. Left to right: Father Aladdin Luzon, John, Allan Limas, past president of the Rotary Club of Banilad Metro

Nicole’s afternoon vocational visit was to a school, which she will be posting about separately (stay tuned!).




We all joined back together for an authentic Chinese dinner with RC Banilad Metro for their meeting. We had lots of laughs and of course some singing and guitar playing. More fellowship followed with some music and drinks before we called it a night and prepared for our last few days in the Philippines.

The Cultural Practice of Cockfighti​ng

This is John. One of my goals in this GSE program is to experience as much of Filipino culture as possible, and not just the practices that are comfortable to me. Cockfighting is an important tradition in the Philippines. My Rotary hosts inform me that over a million cocks are fought every day throughout the nation. A number of Rotarians are involved in the construction and operation of cockpits.



Cockfighting is illegal in the US and from what I saw, I believe it should be. But I'm not going to criticize the practice here. I indicated an interest in seeing a cockfight and two Rotarians volunteered to escort me. I appreciate their interest in my cultural education. This is their culture and it's not fair for a visitor to judge after one visit Let me just describe some of what I saw.


Here I am with one of the actual contestants. This handsome fowl fought well, vanquished his foe, and will live to fight again or maybe he'll be lucky and will be selected to breed other champions.

The cockpit is much like a boxing ring, except that the cockpit is hexagonal and a wall of glass separates the ring from the crowd. Razor sharp blades are affixed to one or both of the cock's legs and serious injuries might ensue if a cock got into the crowd. There is a Byzantine method of placing bets. It's on the honor system. People pay or get paid after every fight. The fights are surprisingly short. Most last about 20 seconds. Usually there is little or no blood. The crowd is orderly if loud. I've been to professional sporting events in the US where I felt more menace.


The vanquished cocks are made into stew. Nothing is wasted in the Philippines.

PRIME Time in Mandaue

Our day was hosted by RC Mandaue North today, with a first stop at P.R.I.M.E. Center Foundation, Inc. a program that serves children diagnosed with a variety of cognitive, developmental and learning issues (Autism, Dyslexia, ADHD, Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, etc). PRIME stands for Pediatric Rehabilitation through Integrated Intensive Interactive program for Multiple Intelligence and Emotion Quotient and is a holistic program developed by Roni Ocubillo, an OT, in 2001. PRIME serves children ages 4-24 years old and currently has 54 children (47 males) in their morning and afternoon sessions. Children progress through different treatment stages based on their skills, including a reverse inclusion program (‘regular’ children are enrolled in these classrooms with the PRIME students), with the goal (for some) of eventually transitioning to a regular school setting. As part of the PRIME program, parents and caregivers (Ya-yas, or nannies, in the Philippines) receive seminar instruction on how to work with children on their skills at home. They are even encouraged to maintain a healthy diet free of sugar and processed foods to aid in optimal development, regular exercise, and reducing TV/computer time to 1 hour a day (though the staff admits this is a challenge to convince families to do). I (Nicole), for one, was thrilled to hear these recommendations as they would be appropriate for any child and family!



PRIME OT Mapeth Masion discussed the program with us and showed us around the facilities, which were bright, cheerful, and clearly full of programming and education. PRIME is a nonprofit organization and parents are only the charged the bare minimum in tuition to support the cost of their child’s involvement (3,500 pesos/month). The rest of the center’s operating budget is funded by groups and NGOs including the Rotary Club. Ms. Masion reports that in addition to being developed based on research reviewed by the founder, the staff of PRIME continues to stay abreast developments in their field by maintaining communication with colleagues in the U.S. Mapeth notes that the greatest difference she sees in the programming here and in the US, is that in the US there is much government support in educating and providing services for exceptional children, whereas here there is none and it is a constant struggle for funds. From our tour of the center, and comparing (informally) the facilities/resources at PRIME to other locations we have visited, PRIME appears to be faring better than others. But once again, it was a wake-up call to how much we in the US have. Yes, there should always be more money funding the education of our children (special needs and regular), but taking a step back and looking around at our neighbors (albeit distant neighbors) shows me that we should be careful not to take what we have for granted. Perhaps we could learn about doing more with less, as these school have so much less here than we do, but manage to make it stretch even farther. Another informative and humbling vocational day.

Listening intently to a description of the program

Mapeth Masion (far left) showing the GSE team and RC Mandaue North around the facilities

Following our trip to PRIME, we visited the jewelry design and wholesale business of a RC member. This thrilled the artist in me, and I think my eyes were as wide as saucers as we were shown around the design showroom. Unfortunately all items in the showroom were one-offs of new designs and not available for us to take home (darn) but we were let loose in the Filipino Hands retails section of the business, which helped make up for having to leave the beautiful new works behind.


After a wonderful lunch hosted by RC Mandaue North at Bigby’s at Ayala Center, it was off to tour the eco-friendly home of PP Nestor Archival. All items in his home are made of recycled and reclaimed materials, he has a purely organic water filtration system for all the water used for non-drinking purposes, raises free range chickens, and even hosts a music school for local children. It was quite an interesting and fun place to wander about, with uniquities around every turn! John has the pleasure of staying with Nestor for this final leg of the journey, and may update with more information about what it means to live this lifestyle (even if just for a few days).

Can you spot the reclaimed/recycled items?

Free range chicks feasting on dinner (so cute, and apparently so tasty)

One of Nestor's goats also feasting on dinner

A Long Weekend in the Mountains of Balamban

Our trip started with a little repetitive car trouble while climbing the steep mountains of Balamban, but it gave us time to get out and stretch our legs, take pictures of the beautiful mountains and also check out some little fruit and vegetable stands along the way. At one stop John bought a piece of sweet corn that was steamed in a huge bag. He reported that it was very good; it just needs a little salt! It was an interesting adventure to say the least, but we had beautiful scenery along the way.

We arrived at the site of the Magsaysay 2012 Trek-Run-Bike-Party on Mount Manunggal, where we ate some lunch. We were unsure of where we were and why we were, where we were. Dave Binghay, city councilor, informed us that we were on the mountain where the Philippines President, Ramon Magsaysay, and 26 passengers were killed by a plane crash on March 17, 1957 and this event was a memorial celebration in memory of them. The event brought people from all over including a large group of bikers from Cebu City that were transported by big dump trucks. The trek and running event took place on Saturday and the biking event took place on Sunday, at which, Nicole was able to blow the official starting whistle.

The partying part of the memorial was on Saturday night where there were several food stands set up, along with a stage for acts and a concert for entertainment. The event gave everyone a chance to socialize and reminisce. Many of the individuals that took part in the event set up tents for an overnight stay at the campground while others motor biked and hiked their way to the camp just for the fun and memorial celebration. The hikers had a very tough walk up and down the steep mountains to get to the pavilion itself, and with over 700 some paver stones guiding the way down into the campsite, their hike proved their efforts.

Along the way there was a monument where the engine of the plane was mounted inside a cement block which supported a huge fluorescent lit cross. Beside this monument was the list of the names of all of the fallen passengers that were on the plane. Only one person out of the 27 passengers survived. Another monument was placed at the campsite in memory of President Magsaysay with a write up, in Cebuano, which commemorated his life in particular. The fall of the Philippine president caused great trauma to the country, but as they always seem to do here, they worked together and pulled through strong.

We were able to attend mass Sunday morning down in the town of Balamban at St. Francis of Assisi Parish. As expected, the church was completely full with people of the community. Though, the mass was given in Cebuano, we were able to tell that this Catholic mass was given very similarly to a Catholic mass in PA. One common difference that I loved in the church itself was the open windows and openings in the rafters that allowed a fresh breeze to blow through along with some birds. It had such an uplifting feel. It was a great mass. Unfortunately the rain started soon after and our afternoon trek had to be cancelled and since it was Sunday our options were limited for alternate things to do so we made use of the down time and got some rest to recharge for our final week in the Philippines.

Our last day in Balamban started with a drive into the city to be present for the flag raising ceremony held at the Balamban Municipal Building every morning. When we arrived every employee from the building was standing outside, lined up by their departments facing the front of the building. The first matter of business was any announcements that needed to be made. Then was the invocation, which is very typical for any activity in the Philippines that we have seen so far. They then sang their national anthem as the Philippine flag was raised. The national hymn was then recited while the municipal flag was raised. Each week a department is selected to host the opening ceremony and we introduced with a little bit about each member. Dave, our host, but also city councilor, presented an announcement and introduced John to give a little speech about our team. The final matter of business was to introduce and sing for anyone having a birthday this week. It seemed like such a fun business, yet personal affair.

The next stop was Tsuneishi Heavy Industries Inc., one of the two shipyards located in Balamban, Cebu that builds commercial ships. The company employs about 15,000 shipyard workers, with another 3,000 approx. employed in the business offices. A more unique part of this though is that only about 600 of those are employed directly by the company and all others are contracted out. The workers work 8 hour days, but rotate their weeks to include Saturdays. The workers and non-unionized and appear to be very happy with their jobs. This shipyard operates to turn out around one ship per month and takes around 8 months to build. We drove through the shipyard to see an amazing process of assembly from such simple parts to a massive amount of steel in one part. After assembly, the ship is ready to be in the launching area in either a graving dock where gates will be opened to fill the area with water, or a floating dock where the boat is sitting on a platform, but can slowly be lowered to allow the ship to float. At this point the ship cannot official be run yet, but can be tested with water to assure the vessel will float. The next step is a sea trial. At this point the insides of the ship are added. The final step then is the final delivery to its destination. The ship they were building at the time of our tour measured 300 yards and weighed about 180,000 deadweight tons. It was an impressive process to say the least.

Cebu is also known for its copper mining and is actually the top producer in the Philippines, so our next visit was to tour Carmen Copper Corporation. The mine opened in 1954 and has since been opened and closed depending on the price of copper, labor and accessibility. The process here involved around 46 1-ton dump trucks hauling the broken mountainside into crushing mills to be ground and later processed. The material that is being loosened contains not just copper, but also nickel, gold and iron that is also processed and separated out for revenue. The mine hauls out about 40,000 tons of material out a day. The process then is the primary crusher, the secondary crusher, the ball mill, floatation area (where chemicals are added to create bubbles and lift the copper to the surface) and then the filtering process before it is shipped out for industrial use. The pictures we took just don't the mines size justice. The equipment was huge, but the mine pits unbelievable. The one we were able to see is just one of two that they are running. With copper prices up the trucks just keep on moving. What a day.