It’s the middle of the afternoon, and the students are asleep, totally at ease with the world around them, secure and undisturbed.
Maybe they’re waiting for their next class, or for their friends, or maybe they just have nothing better to do. Anyway, it’s hot outside.
Sleep is a favorite hobby for people of all ages in hot countries. The hours between 11 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon are to be avoided. The sun burns in the air like a death ray, the light is blinding to the eyes, and the windless air is like an oven.
If air conditioning is available, some activity is possible but without it, the slightest movement produces fatigue. To walk even a few hundred meters outside in the sun leaves one dizzy and soaked with sweat; to run that distance might produce collapse from heat stroke.
For these students, even to turn the pages of a book is too much effort in the heat.
In these conditions, sleep is a positive pleasure and relief; at these times, unconsciousness is the only alternative to serious discomfort. 
In countries to the north — Canada, North America, Northern Europe — this kind of heat is a rare event, and bitterly complained of when it happens. “Heat waves” in these countries usually occur only in July and August, and then only for a few days at a time, followed by a change to cool wind and rain. Even “global warming” hasn’t changed this much, at least not yet.
In those northern countries, only little children and old people take naps. For most adults, unless they’re very sick, sleeping is only what they do at night. They view sleep as a necessary waste of time, no more of a pleasure than charging an empty battery. After all, they think, there is little enough time to be alive; an hour of sleep is an hour less of life.
They certainly wouldn’t fall asleep in public, in the middle of the afternoon. They would find it shameful, a sign of weakness. If these students were found sleeping like this at a school in New York, the people around them might think they’re drunk or drugged, and might call for help.
But here in Dumaguete, in the heat of the afternoon, no one would find this scene unusual. If there’s nothing else to do for a while, why not sleep?
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