Furry Friends

I am getting worse at this whole blogging thing, but here goes nothing…a.k.a. my random rambling thoughts that I guess you find amusing. My little chubby sister, Mariz, has gotten a new haircut. I really cannot stop myself from laughing every time I look at her. She is so cute and this hilarious bowl like haircut makes her look like a fat version of Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka from the newer Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. That is literally what I think of every time, no idea why. Her mom now calls her Dora the Explorer, which is also fitting. Recently, I will be having really bad days, then something random and weird will happen, and it will make me laugh uncontrollably… these are probably “had to be there” moments and quite manic depressive, but really any time Mariz walks into my hut dancing, or when the cat one time ran straight at my chair jumping, really looking like it was flying with its ears back and so fast to snag the fish bone on the floor behind me, most songs by Tiny Tim, or when a student turned in her persuasive speech on how moles are signs of beauty and youth, calling people who she was talking about “Moleys”. These weird little moments are innocent sheer pleasure for me, and really keep me going here. I made tacos for my family the other night, and spent too much money on cheese. I miss real cheese. Everyone here just uses this yucky cheese wiz spread. Mmmnnmmnm mozzarella, yea right. They were a big hit for everyone except the little girls. They pretended to like them, then took one bite and asked where the rice was.

I did have the roughest weekend here yet though. I was just sad. I stayed in bed from Friday night to Sunday night, only leaving once to retrieve a peanut butter sandwich, when my host mom planned a mall walk around outing of intervention. I am homesick, school is ending, and I am not satisfied with my time with my seniors, I wish I had done more, and if I would have known the last month of classes are just test taking and dance practice for graduation, I would have spent way more time and energy on my final lessons. I can only take so many bugs in my food, biting, and crawling on me, and the weather is getting to that unbearable, scorching, and inescapable heat. Daniel has been having a way more difficult time with school and traumatic experiences, and I feel so far away and useless in comforting him. That is the hardest struggle right now. I am also sick of seeing dead dogs on the street… very disturbing.

Valentine’s Day here was a circus. One of my students, Kevin, gave me a dead bat corpse. Since, it is culturally disrespectful to deny anything given to you, I stroked it a bit, then told him that I was afraid my puppy would eat it (we will get to the puppy later), he gladly took it back and threw it around school for the rest of the day. Ma’am Cathy and I made this big “Love Board” where students could post anonymous notes outside of my classroom. To our surprise, the whole school wanted to be a part of it, and we will make it much larger next year! It got completely covered by poems, anonymous love ballads, quotes of sorrow and loneliness, mixture of Visayan and English, very fascinating! The Glee song dedications were also a big hit. I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off all week, since they went on during recess every day and there were over 40 requests, but I was so proud that it all worked out. I like to think a few new couples formed because of it. A competition of some sort has started with the two most popular/tallest/oldest senior boys at school with attempting to “woo” me. I repeatedly tell them no one can woo me more than my loving boyfriend, but sadly they always reply with “but he is not here for you?” Cathy says it is all harmless, and I don’t really know what to do about it. One of them is actually the biggest troublemaker from my lowest level class. He used to drive me crazy by disrupting every single class, distracting students who were trying to pay attention, and doing whatever else he wanted for attention, but now he is actually trying to impress me by coming to every class and staying relatively quite. He also very shyly gave me ribboned up roses on V-day, I like this side of him much better. While Glenn, the previous anonymous love letter writer, gave me some handpicked flowers and a very sweet note about how “I am the only girl who has ever made his heart flutter this way.” However sweet, it is pretty inappropriate, but the other teachers do little to discourage it. I tried my best to hide and blend in during the JS PROM last week, but my height and nose were not on my side. Both boys requested a dance, but I had to politely refuse and joined a slow dance group-hugging circle with my favorite girls and Cathy teacher. The girls were all so cute and excited to take pictures. I need to stay on the teacher side more then a friend in order to keep their strong respect, but I sure enjoyed gushing with all the girls about their prom outfits.

The Love Board 

PROMMMMM: Prom was so much fun! Completely different from the U.S. version. The students had been rehearsing these choreographed ballroom dances all week, and of course, it was pouring down rain almost the entire time, but the dancing went on. It was adorable, and I had a special moment with myself as the rain was trickling down and I got to watch my students in such a different setting than I had ever seen before. Quite romantic too, too bad the couples were prearranged with no say from the students. They were such troopers with their fancy dresses and hair getting all soggy and crumpled. Our prom was combined with the special science school next door, with students who are a bit better off, and their attire definitely showed. A few girls had absolutely gorgeous dresses and giant trendy heals. All of my students looked so beautiful and grown up outside of their school uniforms! I really cannot reiterate enough how much I love teaching the seniors. They also had this ceremony of passing down the “key of responsibility” to the juniors, and an awesome foreshadowing speech of what all of the seniors will be doing as adults, very cute.

The A-Team Teach

My Sensi and Best Teacher Friend, Cathy

Whoa There! 

I saw Vagina Monologues on Valentine’s Day night. It was actually extreme reverse culture shock. I have read the book the seen the play in Colorado… but to see it being performed by Filipinas and the crowd in the city outside of my hometown cheering and loving it…it was something else. If you have not heard of it, it is a number of women’s monologues about abuse and empowerment that are very liberal and shocking, and you should look them up! One poem actually consists of a woman acting out on stage all of the different kind of ways women have orgasms. This happened, and the Filipino audience could not have cheered louder. The Australia boys who came with us were definitely scarred for life. It was shown at Silliman University, the American run college in Dumaguete. The theater had really awesome artwork displayed, and I felt like I was back home in Boulder a little bit. I still feel a little strange about the whole thing. Many of the poems about abuse are very sad and moving, but the audience was just laughing because they heard the word vagina, another example for the generally lower maturity level. There was also a prayer over the loudspeaker beforehand… we pray before everything here “let what we are about to do be for the grace of God”… it was a very strange experience overall, but I am ecstatic that I got to attend. My friend was part of the “One Billion Rising” event on violence against women, and they performed their cool dance at the end.

Believe it or not, I got a dropkick puppy.  My brother, Adonis, asked his friends if we could have one, and we got the cutest black and white speckled one! I am slowly becoming Ace Ventura…and I love it. My compact nipa hut is now home to me, a papa cat, mama cat, another pregnant mistress cat, 3 brand new baby kittens (I watched them all pop out into this world), a tiny gecko, a medium-sized gecko, a giant Tuco spotted lizard, more then 100 spiders of various sizes, some visiting frogs, rats, bats, insects, and now a new addition to the family, the 2-month old puppy I named Pepper! IT’S ALIVE, IT’S ALIVEEEE!!!  It has actually gotten pretty rough though. I cannot sleep more than an hour without getting woken up by the noise of some creature. Pepper slept with me a few nights, but she pees all over and whines for me to wake up. My family took all the kittens out because they are starting to stink, then sure enough, in the middle of the night, the mom brings each kitten back one by one treacherously over the roof of my nipa hut and knocking over my bookshelf and more things each time. All of the animals are a nuisance, but everyone except for the cats get away with it because of cuteness. Cats just plain freak me out. Come on, they make the sounds of hell and act like they are better than everyone else, I do not see any appeal. I am also not usually a little dog person, I have always been more partial to big wrinkly faced pooches, but this little Pep is pretty durn cute. Stumpy little legs, running around out of control, I am enjoying her for the time being.

My Favorite.

PEPPER PANDA PEPPER!!!

I had the absolute best day at school today. It was “recollection” day for the seniors. Everyone kept telling me it was a religious event that makes everyone cry, so I was not exactly looking forward to it, but since all of my students were included and I was bored, I asked to sit in. A young priest was in charge, and he started out with talking about all of the different kinds of love. This whole presentation was a mixture of Tagalog and Visayan, and I feel like I understood most all of it! It was all about how high school graduation is a crucial time in life to really figure out what is most important to you and thank those who sacrifice so much for you. (around 2/3 of all seniors will not go to college because they do not have the money, and student loans do not exist in the Philippines. He went on to talk about how teenagers often take their parents, teachers, and friends for granted. He mentioned a lot of what ifs about those people not being around the next day, life is short and forgiveness is essential. Sobbing began to fill the room. Literally every single student was crying. A few stood up and crossed the room to hug friends and apologize for former wrong doings. It really was one of the most moving experiences I have ever been a part of. When he began talking about teachers, 2 of my favorite girl students got up and climbed over people to come hug me and said “thank you so much for being here and caring so much for us.” That sure did it, I began bawling along with the rest of them! That also led to others coming over and hugging me, then they played a song about how parents raise their children to climb mountains and conquer anything, and I got so homesick and teared up even more. It was such an amazing cultural experience, and I was so touched by the whole thing. It was not overly religious in any way, and I really wish I had gone to something similar when I graduated. Sadly, I think American seniors are too spoiled and arrogant to take something like this seriously, thinking of myself at that age. I absolutely adore the Filipino genuine sensitivity and protection of the feelings of others. The students are also so hardworking, they are the ones who do all of the school manual labor, cleaning, construction, ect. Always willing to help.

Coming up next week is language camp with all of us Negros kids, then right after that, I am going to visit Daniel’s site in Bicol to see how they live up north, maybe even spot a humongous whale shark! Then, before I know it, school is out, Glee Club original summer musical planning in the making, finishing of World Map Project and project planning conference in April, MOM, DAD, AND MATT VISITINGGGG, and Girls Leading Our World weeklong camp in May, then school is back in session June 1^st! My 19-year old brother, Matt is going to try and volunteer in Dumaguete for the whole summer break from college and live with me, I am so excited!!! This summer is going to fly by and will be HOT HOT HOT …literally … permanent profuse sweating.

Just for Matthew