Dazed and December

So. Typhoon Yolanda. It was really a nightmare come true here after the super typhoon. As I have heard from friends and family back home (I appreciate all of your concern and fb messages), the news coverage was intense, as news tends to do, it was a bit sensationalized, but completely accurate for certain areas like Leyte and Samar islands, which were hit the hardest. The rest of the country just awaited news with uneasy curiosity in dark silence, as almost the whole country was without power, water, or communication lines for a few days after. My area was lucky, and I am safe and sound but felt useless for a while because I was not allowed to leave my island in the aftermath, Peace Corps is not a relief agency and they the U.S. government is liable for our safety, leaving us consolidated and frustrated. 12 of my friends had to be airlifted out of their sites and have experienced things I cannot even imagine. Some had to walk for 3 hours to get to an airport in total blackness surrounded by countless dead blue and bloated bodies… All of the Peace Corps volunteers survived, but the amount of deaths in Tacloban and coastal areas is atrocious, and the devastation and destruction is equally unbelievable. If you are interested in donating online, Red Cross Philippines and UNICEF have been the most helpful here; just 5 dollars can buy 16 pounds of rice or 21 liters of water! In the following weeks, we have helped out at a giant relief-packing event in Dumaguete and a few other fundraisers. Things are now completely back to normal here in Dauin, and the rest of the country is recovering day by day. People always talk about the resiliency and optimism of Filipino people, which could not be truer. They have to deal with these tragedies constantly… then they pick up their heads and start the rebuilding process, never complaining or asking “why?” A true source of admiration for the rest of us…

There was actually another typhoon heading my way the following week, so all of the PCVs in my area, Negros, got consolidated just to be safe, but it turned out to be just a day of rain. It was the first time we were all together with the newbies. There is an astounding 14 of us in Negros Oriental now! Cooped up in a hotel for 2 nights, we drank a lot of rum, made fun of Chris in his full Santa suit, played a lot of “Magic the Gathering,” a nerd adult sort of skilled version of Pokémon cards… and never ceased to be amused that the wall to the bathroom was clear class with just a tiny curtain that could be pulled down…or forgotten to be pulled down. To save money, we stayed 4 to a room, which made this even more entertaining. Jen, Chris, Larry, and I stayed together, the usual party bed crew… Larry putting up with our obnoxiousness, like our nightly WWE matches… Chris actually gave me an elbow to the black eye that night! The next weeks rolled on. Me getting a little more discouraged and annoyed by everything every day, but then a random spectacular day would surprise me. I am trying to teach verb tenses to my seniors at the moment… it is actual hell come to life in my classroom... for everyone….. I hope that does not make me Satan. Do you even know that there are 12 English verb tenses? Ya. Who decided that? And of course most rules have unexplainable exceptions to the rule. I will spend hours and hours trying to think up a creative activity that will engage all students and make sense. It is impossible when the students are at so many different levels, some not understanding anything I say in English… but my first class is advanced, so I have to basically create 2 different lesson plans, and it is a never-ending experiment. Not to mention the power goes out almost every day after lunch, leaving the one fan powerless, the room extremely sweltering, sleepy students, and one very sweaty grump of a teacher...me.

The Sissies

The Australians in Dumaguete are heading home, their contract is only 6 months. They had a fun “house cooling” party. The next day was a waste of time of the best kind, nothing beats a lazy Sunday, escaping the scorching sun by sitting in a dark videoke room singing my heart out for hours with my best friends. The next weekend, a lot of my friends were celebrating Thanksgiving up in the cooler north, but I went to a foam party with my Filipino friends instead… is that integration? Another side-note preventing my integration, I stayed up til 3 am the other morning binge watching 5 straight episodes of my new show addiction, “Orange is the New Black.” It is a both amusing and depressing comedy/drama about a typical WASP dealing with 15 months of prison, for having a brush with international drug trafficking in her youth. It is almost terrifying how many similarities I find here with prison and Peace Corps…(animal organs for food, speedy spreading gossip, lack of human affection, isolation, having to hide your snacks, forced friendships out of necessity, going crazy, outsiders not understanding the experience, limited outside communication, I could go on and on….haha) Of course, I am kidding because I choose this experience and it is way more rewarding daily than the small struggles. There are no adorable children or mangos in prison…

My Fab Four Videoke Survivor Besties = Me,  Chris, Jen, & Larry

One of the new batch volunteers, Rocky, the one who proposed to me on the first day we met, and who has still not ceased with his unreciprocated affections (no matter how pretend annoyed I act on the outside…I am truly flattered, and being told that someone “adores” me and thinks I am “perfect” (right…) brings me up on my bad days, no matter how anti-feminist it may be to say that I need that. Maybe because I did not get that from my last year-long relationship. Anyways, he put on this big Thanksgiving shin dig for all of the Negros Oriental Vols, and almost everyone from hours away, came! I wanted to bake a delicious dessert, but like most Filipino families, mine does not have an oven. So I splurged mula on some fancy cheese and crackers from the city. A few of the girls made cake and cookies using some hotel’s oven, and Rocky made chicken fajitas, mashed potatoes, and pulled pork with homemade barbecue sauce (he is overly proudly from Kansas City.) It was the best food any of us had eaten in a long time, not the traditional Thanksgiving, but as we played drinking games with a dradle under the countless clear stars from another power outage, talking about how lucky and thankful we are in life, I reflected on how these people have become my family here. Knowing that I get to be with my family at home in Texas for this Christmas, made me even more appreciative of that unique and magical Thanksgiving… even if Jen and I had to wait 3 hours on the dark street for a bus to get back home. Then run down some old ladies to get on it. Worth it.

The mosquitos are on a feasting frenzy rampage now here. The worst is when I am teaching, they somehow fly into my pants just to specifically bite my plump butt. Sending me into an awkward attempt to be sneaky itching frenzy. Even after a year and a half here, I am not used to or happy being sweaty 24/7 and at constant war with insects. The small pleasure of colder weather, carpet, no bugs in food, and no dog barks or rooster howls at 4 am may be the greatest gifts this Christmas. A Christmas Miracle! 3 more DAYS! I am repeatedly having dreams about the grocery store and the many foods I want to stuff in my face. It is a good thing that I am so busy before leaving. I have started teaching yoga classes twice a week after school for the teachers, they absolutely love it. I did so much during college in Boulder, that I am totally comfortable leading in the Philippines Bikram like air, and most of the teacher are so good at it! (My guess is their strong legs from growing up with only squat toilets) We also just finished our speech choir performance from my best class in response to the typhoon, it is entitled “Filipino is Resilient,” and they will perform next week. Next week is Education Week, so we have a big culmination event on Friday, that I am MC-ing, which is stressful. All of us teachers are practicing this big rehearsed dance number too…so Filipino… and my Glee Club has a big performance. I am a little nervous it is too ambitious of an idea. It is a mash-up up of students dressed as teachers singing “I’ll Stand by You,” alongside the students singing “I Believe I can fly,” with an incorporated drama. It is cheesy, I know, but the Philippines loves cheesy tear-jerking performances…if they don’t blow up in smoke of embarrassment, but our practices have been going superbly…wish us luck! I also got a wonderful surprise post-card from a volunteer in Mongolia (I think they were told to send us something inspiring since the typhoon and all) Mine said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

Sayaw Sayaw Teacher Dance

Our First make shift Yoga in the Library

Jen planned a photo scavenger hunt in the city for her birthday. Things included were a jump shot with strangers in front of Jollibee, pictures with landmarks, a picture of us with a mango, to find someone with the same birthday as Jen (our opponents cheated again by skyping in Larry’s cousin) and many many more. Rocky, Chris and I, were teamed up against Larry and our Filipino friends, Ivory and Noel. We should have won…I am still a wee bit bitter because the Filipinos rode their motorcycle around the city to get the pics while we were stuck on foot… then they made fun of how sweaty we were by the end… Well yea… but it was really fun nevertheless, and we ended the night with more hours and hours of videoke. How does videoke never get old? Ok well, This will be my last post until I get back to the Philippines after my vacation home in Texas. I have never been more excited about anything in my life… very strange feelings of elation mixed with intense anxiety. SO CLOSE I CAN TASTE THE EGGNOG!!! Happy Holidays to one and all!

Howdy Half-Way Hysteria!

If it was possible to be more down and out than my last post, I was for a few days after our Mid-Service shit show, but now I have popped back up again and am slowly but surely morphing into my old cheery self…maybe just lacking a bit of my old optimism. I had a good laugh yesterday thinking about if whenever we squished something it went “nooooo” very softly. This is actually why I rarely kill bugs, because I feel guilty, but I thought about everything I do squish…definitely mosquitos…pimples…clothes into my backpack…Filipinos on a crowded jeepney…my pillow…trash in the trashcan…ketchup packets…Mariz’s cheeks…and imagining it all saying “noooo” so gently put a smile on my face and made me happy. I know I am a weirdo, and I am proud of it.

I eventually had to say goodbye to my German compadre, but we had one last adventure hoorah at Koo Koo’s Nest, the weekend before he left. This place is one of the most beautiful places I have ever stayed… with jutting cliffs coming out of crystal blue waves, coming right up to the hammocks, or “hang mats” as Martin would say, and …icing on the cake = a family of 5 gorgeous golden retrievers! Mom, dad, 2 brothers and a sister, all were stunning! They also had a small and chubby mutt named sausage, poor outcast… I miss cuddling with clean and healthy dogs very much, so this was a rare treat for me! Koo Koo’s nest is so secluded; you can only get there by motorbike for about 45 minutes on twisty turvy dirt roads with stunning views. I highly recommend it. This is also only a little over an hour away from my town, in the middle of nowhere. They only have 6 cottages, and we were the only people there besides staff the whole time. It is run by an adorably quirky older British couple, who laughed at me when I said I taught English… rebutting that I teach American, which I was a little offended by at first, but that is actually so true… We went snorkeling at the reef right off the coast, play wrestled with the dogs, body surfed (leading to a new scar from coral attacking my leg). It was a breathtaking and dreamy weekend vacation from reality. It was just so easy to talk with Martin for hours…about any and everything, this made me realize even more how unconnected I was with Daniel (who, by the way, already has a local Filipina girlfriend… so predictable, but we will get to that later). If you have ever seen “Before Sunrise,” the experience of Martin and I was a lot like that… but lasting for 3 weeks. It was hard to say goodbye, but romantic in ending on such a high, before we actually realized what each other’s flaws are. He went back home to teach in Germany, and I went back to my hut to bathe with a bucket and attempt to teach and inspire my students back in my reality. Our paths will cross again though…

Me & Martin

Me & The Pooches at Koo Koo's Nest

Hang

Mat

The Buglasan festival was in Dumaguete last weekend. I hung out with the new Peace Corps peeps and listened to a lot of live music, ate McDonald’s, and me, Jen, Chris, and new Charlie passed out in the same bed. This seems to happen a lot with us…it has been coined “party bed” and to be clear, it is always fully clothed and innocent! Probably can be psychoanalyzed by our consistent lack of any desired human friendly affection. Everyone has to smoosh on jeepneys and buses, and co-teachers will latch on and lean on us all the time, but that is uninvited… very different. Everybody likes a little snuggle and needs friendly physical contact, which is rare for us. And we are weird. I know. Masskara was the weekend after that, right before MST, it was also lots of fun, even more fun than last year. Us ladies had an afternoon of wine and cheese that really felt like we were in another place…gosh I miss cheese.

Buglasan 2013: We <3 Dumaguete

We so classyyyy

Masskara! If you couldn't have guessed...

My Bestie and I in the masks I made!

Masked Madness: Larry, Karla, Chris, Dave, Hillary, Me

On to MST, or our PC Mid-Service Training. This was a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. Karla, Hillary, and I stayed in a room together, and at some point each one of us burst into tears about some problem. I never used to burst into tears. The conference was essentially a waste of time… maybe its purpose was to raise morale, but I am not sure how effective it was. We did a lot of activities about our emotional health and how our work here is going, I was for sure one of the more upbeat and positive people at this point. I have such amazing students, that they really shine above the negative aspects, and I really am doing exactly what I cam here to do, but it was interesting to see where everyone else is at.

If you are wondering, I suppose I should add that Daniel and I avoided each other the best we could throughout MST… not easy when our batch has dwindled from 71 to 50 something volunteers. I was happy though that he did not show up to most of the big group fun activities…maybe because his “friends” invited me instead of him, or maybe because I can act normal in a group, when he can’t. I have never had this awkwardness with a person, and I hate it, so I had the idea of trying to talk things out civilly the last night. Bad idea. Started out fine and fake with small talk, he mentioned his new large back tattoo and Filipina girlfriend… then as soon as we started talking about our issues and both of our mistakes towards the end, he blew up and walked away, proving again his immaturity and failure to accept any responsibility for wrong doing…but at least him running away gave me closure. I did feel a little bad for him, it was obvious to everyone at the conference that he has lost most of his friends, and the people he does still hang out with were overly nice and complimentary to me... which was strange…kinda made me wonder what else I didn’t know about…and of course, I am sure his isolation and need for someone to be constantly reassuring him lead him to jumping into a relationship with a local. Good luck with that. It only upsets me because he treated me so poorly in the end, and I feel bad for the most likely naïve and innocent girl (or maybe she is very clever and only really wants a ticket to America…says my Dauin Filipina friend) Not my business either way…and I need to stop being childish and wasting my time even thinking about it. I will be indifferent soon enough, but it is hard when I still feel so strongly that he is an inherently evil person with many screws lose in his head. Anywayssss, he won’t be mentioned here again, and wish me luck with that indifference thing…

So “Stache Bash” is a Peace Corps tradition. The men grow out their beards as full as possible, then sculpt them into amusing shapes and create characters. It then turns into a somewhat beauty contest with these crazy characters. We had it on the first night of MST, Hillary and Jen were the MCs and it was quite amusing. I think there were 10 or so contestants and Chris ended up taking the title of Stache Bash 2013 King as his Stanley Kowalski character, a Chicago born asshole, loosely based on Hunter S. Thompson’s Raoul from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It’s funny that everyone used to think Chris was shy… everybody was chanting his name after this performance. He was also named MST MVP after his Talent show stand-up as the same character. Proud of my buddy! The talent show was actually full of some real PCV talent. We had a Balinese dancer, beautiful Russian hymn, step team, magic show, lullaby, and more, I am proud to say Negros had by far the most participants. Obviously, our island is the best. The volunteer in Manila, Bex, was brave and read her moving poem that shows the realness of Peace Corps life that is not seen in the happy Facebook photos. Here it is titled… “My Rose-Colored Glasses”

“I arise to a world which is not mine to claim. I put on my disguise.

My Rose Colored Glasses.

The smell of burning rats transforms into stretched silicon, much like the smells from a red balloon animal, sounding like the friction of skin to rubber.

A frame of a sick child squatting and hovering over her uncontrollable bowl movements quickly is replaced by a game of leapfrog.

She plays in her defecation, creating finger paintings of her hopes dreams.

My smile shall remain as radical as the environment. My fear will be covered by tightened facial muscles and of course my Rose Colored Glasses will remain in place.

A young boy with special needs has not been given the time to be taught to clean himself, he’s been given a lonely confused life…but with my Rose Colored Glasses, his kisses and hugs are sweet and longed for. My Rose Colored Glasses allow me see his wrist watch. My hand is his to hold and so is my time.

The clinging sound of pesos being bet on two small children surrounded by a crowd of adults. The last one standing will win.

My eyes refuse to see such ludicrous.

My Rose Colored Glasses see a team of supportive adults cheering for a bright future.

I seek refuge from the human baha in a neighbor’s house only to find the epicenter of the earthquake.

My fear at night turns into the weight of the ocean. Air supply is limited. Breaths become fast. Inhaling toxins and exhaling insecurities. This ocean has become my safe place thanks to My Rose Colored Glasses.

My Rose Colored Glasses see my acquired weight as strength and courage. My ocean has become fluid and warm.

Gun Shots become celebration sounds of fireworks.

Shabu crystals become gems.

Battered wives become battered cookies.

Drunken men become colorful clowns.

Rows of caskets become windmills.

Dead bodies are given second chances.

TB & HIV are just apart of the alphabet.

A simple fever is not a death sentence-only a hot fire of passion burning from within.

People are people, not 1,2,OR 3.

A hold up victim is held up to reach higher.

a crying child is crying out of joy from love and not hunger.

When I am brave. I remove my Rose Colored Glasses. I look down at that crying child and I am surprised to see no other than myself staring back at me.

I hand her My Rose Colored Glasses.”

Peace Corps life is hard. This is a third-world (I don’t like that term) or developing country. Like I have mentioned before, I rarely talk about the tragic things we see because people don’t like to read about that, and it is very personal for me. Just remember, my Facebook photo facade is not nearly the whole story. To lighten the mood… I will also include here Hillary and my original song, remade from John Lennon’s, “Give Peace a Chance”, that we performed for the first act of the talent show…

“Everybody’s talkin’ bout

Rainin’ and quakin’, floodin’ and shakin’,

Constipation, dreaming of bacon, project creating,

Plans and hearts that are breaking,

Chorus “All we are sayinggggg, is give peace a chance”

Everybody’s talkin’ bout

Projects that fall apart, trying not to lose heart,

Punchin’ your counterpart, struggling from the start,

Thought that poop was a fart, now I’m sittin' on the bus in my own shart,

Chorus “All we are sayinggggg, is give peace a chance”

Everybody’s talkin’ bout

Doing our VRF, trying to be the best,

Livin’ with no sex, but some Peace Corps incest

Joyful then depressed, bipolar like all the rest!

Chorus “All we are sayinggggg, is give peace a chance”

Everybody’s talkin’ bout

Holdin’ your tether, brave this bad weather

We may still get wetter, but it will get better

Like a big block of cheddar, we’re in this together!

Chorus “All we are sayinggggg, is give peace a chance”

Giveeee Peaceee A Chanceeeeee!"

Every act ended up winning some title, I think we got “Best original song adaptation,” and won some Hershey’s chocolate. Peace Corps Staff were our judges, so many other American treats were the prizes, including Velveeta Mac & Cheese = Gold. Besides the Stache Bash and the Talent Show, other nighttime activities included PC drinking games, a home-made power hour, a rare heart to heart with few PCVs and our PC country director, Denny, an awesome documentary called “Searching for Sugarman,” (go download music by “Rodriquez”) and a big group hotel room chika chika rant where we all mocked and complained about annoying Filipino mannerisms and culture… it would be amusing to see a group of Filipinos complaining about our American annoying mannerisms and weirdness. Our last work session was uplifting and turned into a dance party, putting all of our depressed selves away and bringing out positive and optimistic vibes to keep on keeping on! We really are a bonded pack of stone-cold weirdos. I know that I will be friends for life with many of them. Most of us are doing really amazing projects and working really hard behind our community’s love and support because of our integration.

Some Sirs of "Stache Bash 2013"

One-Year Down: Visual

MST MVP: Mr. Stanley Kowalski

So, Halloween is not really celebrated here, it is All Soul’s Day, and most of us went to the cemeteries with our host families last year, so this year we decided to dress up in the city, even if we looked ridiculous to everyone else…and we did. I was Jollibee’s girlfriend. Jollibee is the most popular fast food here, and I ate it for lunch, then made memorabilia out of the cup, bag, and napkin. We had a fun night out, party bedded again at the Australians’ house, then hiked up to the Twin Lakes the next morning. Fresh, beautiful, mountain air. Much missed and majestically lovely.

School has been busy like always… one of the requirements for this grading period is that each of the students writes a research paper. This becomes a dilemma when half of them have no idea how to type on a computer or do research, so we are starting completely from scratch. I looked at papers from past years, and almost every one was obviously copy and pasted from something on the internet…so we also talked all about plagiarism too…which they had never heard of before. A few days later now, and I am waiting patiently in my hut for the Super Typhoon Haiyan to hit, international name Yolanda, we will no doubt lose electricity and water for a few days... but my family is equipped with flashlights and 20 cans of sardines…and my lizard, moth, and cockroach companions will keep me entertained. Not even a month after the epic earthquake and now another dangerous natural disaster threat. This typhoon is projected to be worse than the one last year that killed over 1000 people. No wonder the Philippines can’t make any progress when they have to deal with so much inclement weather, shifting tectonic plates, and erupting volcanoes. I have to admit though that I am enjoying the free quiet time to update this blog, read, paint, and not be around screaming obnoxious children. As I am trying to write this blog, I am realizing how much of my previously witty vocabulary I am losing by speaking Visayan all the time. I am actually forgetting English words… it is depressing, even more so that I am supposed to be an English teacher. After braving this typhoon, I am counting down until I return to the U.S. and my family/friends for Christmas and New Years. I am really trying not to wish the days would fast-forward away, not a good way to live, still trying to cherish every day here with my students and host family, who both really do make this a rewarding experience and waking up every day with more nighttime sneaky spider bites worth it, but I am hoping the break at home will give me new inspiration and reincarnate my former deceased optimistic worldview…and not lead me into a mental breakdown. Time will tell.

This is a giant jackfruit we plucked from a tree... not a dinosaur egg...

Roll On

Remember all of that talk about losing it? Well… I finally lost it. I was especially irritable one day, and my students were being especially obnoxious. Bad combination. So background to this story, one of my favorite and sweetest students, also a Glee Club member, got jumped and beat up over the weekend by a group of other high school boys, 2 of whom were my other students. The student victim, who would come and chat to practice English with me almost every other day at lunchtime, actually came to me personally and told me the story, and I realized that the bullies were the same students who infuriate me on a daily basis. So Monday comes, class begins, and a few of the boys grab the library newspapers and start cutting them up for some other class project… that was the beginning of the downward spiral. Usually the kids are so responsible and scared of touching the property of other people, and everyone knows the newspapers are for reading in the library only, so I was shocked by these selfish acts, and reprimanded them then. Next, as others are working productively on their group project, one of the trouble-making bully boys starts throwing paper balls and another boy, I continually ask them to stop, repeat it in Visayan, then eventually say “if I see one more paper in the air, I will go get the principal.” The evil bullyboy looks directly at me and throws another paper at his friend. The whole class nervously gasps, then I burst out of the room angrily… then immediately break down outside of their view. The vast majority of Filipino students are so polite, I had never experienced anything like this blatant disrespect before, and I felt completely powerless. I start crying uncontrollably, and the worst part of this is there is NOWHERE to be alone at my school. People even look into the bathroom stall holes. Not a proud moment… but I knew this teaching thing would be hard sometimes. I brought in my intimidating counterpart, who gave them a good and terrifying scolding. She also gave me some wise seasoned teacher advice; to next time make him eat the paper ball… seriously. Haha, but really, she made me feel a lot better and talked about how all teachers have that moment at some point. I had those boys teach the class for the next couple of days to see what it feels like… they also had to clean the bathrooms. I was having a good hard cry after school that, when Tiny Tim came on my iTunes party shuffle...and made me chuckle... that is precisely why party shuffle is the bomb diggity. Those students are acting a bit better now in class, but they still get me pretty riled up daily. It is hard for me to be so angry with them though, when I know they are having problems at home and only acting out for attention because of that. Although, I know of other students who have horrifying home life and are angels in school, so I don’t know if it is an excuse to misbehave so.

To continue with my whining, I went to a 3 hour and 45 minute mass last weekend. Seemed like I would never get a break. This was a mass of “Youth for Peace,” with many different schools involved to touch on the war in Zamboanga of Mindanao, Philippines, and the other turmoil around the world. This was a good idea in theory, but 4 hours of sitting and standing and singing outside in the Filipino sun was actually a form of disgustingly smelly torture… but not a single student complained.

Some cool stuff is also happening of course. We had the giant Girl Scout and Boy Scout encampments and parades last weekend, I got to finally spend some time with the Elementary school cuties and do some crafts. This is all similar to the Girl Scouts of the U.S., except everyone buys their patches here instead of earning them and actually being able to perform skills… so the rich kids have all the patches and fancy uniforms… so messed up and pointless, I know. Philippines…you are killing me. One fun day though, I got to take some of my seniors on a fieldtrip to Asian college in the city. This is a trade school, so it was interesting to see their campus with rooms for practicing bartending, elderly and childcare, and hotel management. The other teachers and I had a photo-shoot in every room when the students were on the tour…so beautifully Filipino.

The Wee Girl Scouts!

Something I have always feared finally happened last weekend. I stepped on a spiny sea urchin. It hurt soooo much initially for a few seconds, but then was not too bad except that the spikes broke off deep inside my foot, and there was no earthly way to retrieve them… but I was semi productive with my bedridden day and designed/painted two original masks for Hillary and I to wear at the Masskara Festival this year. I was pretty proud of myself. Tiny pieces of the spikes are still way up there, but I figure they will work themselves out eventually, and it does not hurt anymore. I even went running the other day with my chubby sissies. Nicole did really well, and I only had to give Mariz a 5 minute piggy back ride on the way home… once we get home, I turn my head for a moment, and look back to see Mariz hand deep in a jar of pure chocolate and finger feeding herself… what a waste.

Sea Urchin = Ouch.

MASSKARA 2013 uniquely made by me

So with the giant spiders, freezing cold bucket baths, pesky mosquitos, constant smelly sweatiness, snarky students, and so much more that terrorize me all the time, many things make me laugh here… very hard. For example, the way Filipinos look like they are having a silent seizure when they laugh really hard (a distinguishing Filipino lovable trait), or my sweet and quiet, homosexual host brother wearing a shirt that has a male outline holding a rooster and a female outline holding a cat with the lines, “Nice cock,” and “Nice pussy,” and family dance parties, student high school awkwardness, and my student writing “suck” for every time she meant stab in her murder mystery story, and the story about Shakira’s army fighting evil with their secret weapon……..the Hulk, which were both turned into their plays later on. I am actually in a constant state of amusement/joy/horror.

A bunch of volunteer agencies in Dumaguete planned a big beach cleanup for International Coastal Clean-Up Day. It went really well, besides all of the human feces and giant dead rat with a puncture wound actually oozing out some nuclear bright green goop… not a pleasant sight. The part of the beach where my group went was a squatter area, and there were a bunch of cute kids who started watching then helping us clean! They just started throwing all the seaweed in the bag, but we taught them that just plastics and trash are harmful to the ocean, so we take them out. I was in charge of 5 boys and 2 girls from the “Little Children of the Philippines” orphanage. It was also nice to see all of the LCP boys again, who my brother worked with. They were as cutely affectionate and crazy rambunctious as usual.

International Coastal Clean Up Day @ Dumaguete Beach

Shaberry, the CRAB, and us

The next week of classes ended with our district sports competition. Cathy and I were in charge of table tennis…my neck is still sore. I am having my students write their own dramas in groups. I lovedddd the creative ideas they had, edited all of the grammar, and then they memorized and performed. They were so charming! I almost peed my pants at certain moments. Like when one group had made this giant tree prop and you could see it entering behind the curtains and hitting people every time it was brought in… and when a stick was thrown out looking like a snake…and so many other times when things did not make sense, like a random throwing of shoes… so many weird creative things they used for props since they can’t afford much…and mostly just the funny “deer in headlights” faces of my students when they made a mistake or forgot their lines. I love them so.

This past weekend was an AMAZINGLY entertaining time and finally some freedom and fun from my never ending 50+ hour work weeks. The new batch of PCVs just got to their permanent sites, and I am pretty sure, our Negros Island has all of the cool ones, well that is what they tell me, haha. It was super cool surfer Bayawan Charlie’s birthday, so it was a good excuse for our first big group-get together. Harold fed us yummy snacks of fish kinilaw and chicken feet, then drinks at Hayahay, ending with videoke of course. There are no new education volunteers near us, most all are coastal resource management, and Chris was so excited we finally got a few more boys to even out our ratio… you should have seen all the football talk at our first family dinner…until the beers started flowing then Chris proposed to Larry, the newbie named Rocky publically proposed to me, and the sloppiness only increased until the survivors (Me, Vicki, Michelle, our Filipino friends, Ivory and Noel, and my new adorable German tourist friend) continued singing videoke early into the morning while the newbs, initially who were offended by my calling them newbs, then proved my point by all passing out in the videoke room… but honestly, I am very fond of them, and I am so excited for this next year! Since my newfound foreign friend, Martin, is a sports and economics teacher at home in Germany, I decided to bring him to my school to teach my classes for a day, so he could get more cultural experience than just the touristy stuff. He is 6 ft. 7 in, and was a big hit with the students and a terror to my little sisters. We then headed to Siquijor with friends for a weekend of cliff diving, typhooning, and no power… leading to cooking over the fire, hours of intellectual conversations, and my face actually being physically sore from smiling so much. We may or may not have traversed almost the whole island by motorcycle. The whole weekend flashed by like a dream with a soundtrack by Avicii, then it was back to school to celebrate World Teacher’s Day with many presentations, flowers, and delightful homemade cards.

Rowdiness.

Martin, Me, and class JADE

So, once again, and as always, my days are riddled with euphoria next to calamity. I am learning how to deal. The best coping method to be found so far has to be magical weekend getaways (make up for every bad moment) or venting with other volunteers who share the same frustrations. Seeing their bright and shining excited faces put a new inspiration in me… Let the good times roll…