So, the roller coaster of elation and sorrow continues… I am
very disappointed to announce that my school is getting a new principal. It
just so happens to be the sleazy male school head from the next town, who has
verbally harassed me already. This will mean that he is projected to be my new
boss. I am trying to keep an open mind, but it is so difficult when my former principal
was the one who requested a volunteer, and was so excited, we also got along so
well. She was a graduate of DNHS herself, and her heart was really invested in
the school. It is also frustrating here, because whenever there are transitions
of power, even with presidents, the new replacement usually overturns all of
the current projects and focuses on their own, no matter the importance. This
even means that holidays change all of the time, nothing is set in stone here.
Another downer, my principal also made it clear that she does not want this
promotion, but has no choice but to take it, another Filipino qualm. She did
however, make sure all of the materials for my World Map project will be taken
care of by the PTA, which was very nice of her to get this sorted out ahead of
time. Ma’am Alcala has also told me that I will still be her supervisor for
Peace Corps… this has placed me in a weird limbo with no one really in charge
of me, and it is a good thing that I am not the type of volunteer who would
take advantage of that, but I do like the freedom of doing my own thang and
sneaking home for PB and J lunch instead of eating kalamungay leaf soup every
day. I have also finally narrowed my class responsibilities to 4 classes, still
all 4th year (most all will graduate in 2 months, crazy!) I am so
excited for this smaller load, because now I will have more time to focus on
lesson plans that are fitted best to each class level, work on the World Map
planning, Glee Club activities, remedial reading for grade 7, and brainstorming
up and coming innovative summer camp activities.
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| My Favorites... |
It came time last week, for my most embarrassing moment in the
Philippines so far to shame me, yes even worse than falling into a drainage
gutter in front of my love interest and the whole training town. Here is the dealio…
I had been feeling sick for a couple of days, just uncomfortable tummy
jumbling, slight fever, and fatigue. Could not have come at a worse time,
because my best co-teacher friend, Cathy, was more even sick, so I was covering
all of her classes, giving me 8 per day again with no breaks. I should have
learned my lesson from fainting a few months ago, but I was feeling guilty
because I was already going to miss 3 days of school the next week for going
back to visit Subic, so I was stubborn at the idea of staying home. The soon to
be ominous day was not going so bad to start with, just very busy and my
stomach did not seem to want food, no appetite. I had gotten through nearly the
whole day, when right in the middle of giving directions to my 2nd
to last class, I began blacking out and had to stumble out into the courtyard,
and before I knew what was going on, I had thrown up I front of half of the
school outside. Talk about being mortified. As if that was not bad enough,
Filipinos believe you should not drink cold water when you are overheated, so
all they gave me was scolding hot, undrinkable water that burnt my tongue, and
another teacher though it wise to rub Vicks vapo rub all over my back, stomach,
neck, and chest, which cooled me down for a brief moment, then turned my body
into a flame with painful burning that would not even wash off until hours
later. Of course, I was cracking up about it all to my friends that night, but
it was not my finest moment, but the only thing hurt was my pride. As I usually
say, you got to laugh to keep from crying! My students only made fun of me for
a few days after that. Oh Philippines, what a world wind of emotions and
physical ailments you bring me to!
I was touched a few days later when I assigned my students
to write about their favorite person, living or dead, fictional or real. Two of
my female students actually wrote about me! Since students don’t seem to care
about grades here, I don't think it was just sucking up. One said she “admires
my attitude and loves the way I teach class” and that I am “the most
intelligent person at Dauin National High School” (Yea right!) They also
mentioned liking my “mysterious dark eyes and light streaked hair and smile.”
It is a rare thing for a person to have a nice set of teeth around here. Giving
all of that sweetness, I was flattered, and little things like one student
believing that I am a good teacher with exciting lessons really keeps me going
and motivated here, makes all of the difference. I also have a secret admirer
that keeps leaving little construction paper cut outs of “LOVE” and candies on
my desk. Not so secret anymore actually, because Cathy told me it is all from
Glen, one of her fourth year students where my desk sits in. Even though he is
actually 25, and older than me, he has the maturity level of a 12 year-old and
it is all completely harmless. He told Cathy that he “enjoys so much just
watching my interactions with people and how I am always smiling” After my
barfing fiasco, this is also a cute self-esteem booster.
I have been spending a bit of time traveling, and now really
want to focus on getting completely immersed in my community. I learn a tiny
bit more of the language every day, and my host family and barkada of friends
around my same age really help me out with the cultural quirks, plus, they just
like to poke fun at me. I joined Peace Corps partly because I was tired of
seeing out of the American lens and wanted to try and change my mindset and suspend
past value judgments of how I have been told the world works. I think it is
only possible to gain an emic perspective of how another culture lives by of
course, living right in the grit of it for while. The dilemma is I really can’t
do that as much as I would like to until I am fluent in Visayan, and it is so
hard to get any better at it when I am so burnt out and exhausted from school
each day that I collapse into a movie watching zombie most nights. So, I really
need to push myself with it and stop holding back because of my wimpy fear of
making mistakes. I am really enjoying talking to Daniel about all of our
obstacles and aggravations, since we share so many of the same issues, both
teaching high school English, but we have such different perspective and ideas
that I think we really open each others minds. His education has shaped him
into seeing the world through an economist’s eyes where as most of mine led me
to see everything as an anthropologist would. Combing these together is very
interesting and definitely keeps us on our toes with each other and enhances
our understanding of this experience. Not to mention how nice it is to have an
occasional mutual whining session to someone who understands completely.
Hillary, Daniel, and I, made our way back to our training
site, Subic, to stay with our host families and experience the Anti-Atihan Festival to honor Santo Niño (infant Jesus) last weekend. Chris was a wet blanket and did
not want to shell out the money or spend too much more time away from site, so
he was odd man out, leaving Daniel to explain to his family why he did not come
back for a visit too. This whole weekend was another one of those events that
is so crazy amusing that it probably does not make sense unless you were
actually there. Basically, every family dresses up their Santo Niño statue,
which is kept in most Roman Catholic houses here. Then, they carry them up above
their heads, making them dance throughout the parade, all the while throwing
charcoal on each other. My family surprised me again with another welcome home
tarp…they are way too sweet and good to me. Most everyone around town
remembered us and shouted welcome back and such. Chloe, my little shadow, is
cuter now more than ever, with a voice and mindset of Marcel the Shell, and
such adorably weird stories and statements. Her English is getting fantastic,
and the family says it is because she wants to talk just like me even with my
accent, and she actually does! She is such a dweeb and I love her dearly. A
couple of her “kids say the darndest things” moments, I took a picture of her,
then she asked if when I missed her, I would just sit around and stare at the
picture all day crying. Then also, when Daniel pointed out a sparrow on the
roof stating that is was his favorite bird, Chloe said, “because it is brown
like Ate Allie’s eyes!” Precious.
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| They always make me feel like a star :) |
My family also made me my favorite Chicken Curry (gets
better every time) and torta talong (fried eggplant.) There were so many events
going on since it was fiesta time, the first night was a cultural show that had
a lot of surprisingly awesome dance performances. A highlight was when Daniel
was tugged on stage by the Bakla drag queen singing “Starships” by Nicki Minaj.
Poor thing was essentially molested, and then she pounced into his arms, but he
was such a great sport about it, and of course, the crowd went crazy. The next
night was the crowning of king and queens of the fiesta. The queen had to be in
her upper teens, when her king literally came up to her waist and was
significantly younger, they looked quite silly sitting next to each other, not to
mention the ridiculous get ups they were dressed in. Think Big Fat Gypsy
Wedding meets Willy Wonka Oompa Loompas with sequins. See pictures below, gosh
was it entertaining. I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES! SO WONDERFULY WEIRD!
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| Mini King and Big Queen |
Another highlight of the trip was discovering that the main fast-food
place in the Philippines, Jollibee, has a “hash brown burger.” A burger with 2
hash browns for the bun, available any time and the one of the most delectably
greasy scrumptious disasters I have ever eaten. The next night was “Mrs. Gay” pageant. The gay
culture here is fascinating and consists probably 80% of “Baklas” or guys that
dress and act like girls, and there are many of them in every town. Some
families actually raise their youngest son to be a Bakla if they have no
daughter…a little disturbing. These Baklas are completely accepted by society,
but really only for humor and comic relief from boring normal life. It is also
interesting that the Catholic Church here does not talk at all about
homosexuality as far as we volunteers have seen, when they are so serious and
hold power regarding other issues like the RH Bill (which was finally passed,
hooray!), which works towards solving the extreme overpopulation issue in the
Philippines. In my opinion, that is the only thing holding this country back in
the developing nation status, people in poverty have too many children they
cannot afford, leading to a vicious continual cycle and trap of growing poverty
numbers, but that is a whole nother more serious can of worms. This pageant was
for Baklas, and some had actually had plastic surgery and looked amazing, but
best part was the winner most likely won because she stripped off her wig and
all of her clothes down to boxer briefs and sang this is the real me. We
enjoyed these performances all the more since we made spiked lychee/blue
raspberry slushies from 7-11. The last day of Subic fiesta was the parade
procession with the giant float with Santo Nino, that my Tita Flor, family, and
I created and decorated with flowers the night before. We had matching fiesta T-shirts,
and strutted, shimmied, and danced for miles with the parade band and masses of
black-faced revelers (where else would this be acceptable!?!) The black,
charcoal faces are actually intended to represent the Aeta Indigenous Tribe..
so it is blatant racial blackface…but not malicious and some Aeta participate
and dress up. Children got a kick out of smacking us in the faces with charcoal
as our initiation. Just such a weirdddd event, imagine all of this and every
other person holding a strangely dressed in tiny children’s clothed porcelain
stature of Santo Niño and making them dance…I really was loosing my mind with delight.
It was soooo nice to be with our families once again, these were the people who
introduced us to most of our Philippines firsts, and we are all very close with
them. Super trip and so much fun with my best friend, boyfriend, and Filipino
family, nothing could have been better! Hopefully, we can plan another
excursion soon.
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| All Charcoaled Up |
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| Dancing Kiddos |
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| Brother James, Sister Jasnah, Nanay Alma, & Tatay Ricky |
