So, it has come the time when I just might claim this has
been the best month yet! Needless to say… it is because I have done very
minimal work and maximum shenanigans, praise the Lord for school vacation time!
I was planning to visit my other volunteer friend in Leyte for some sun and
sand, and when Hillary’s GLOW camp fell through, I invited her along, and we
made an adventure out of it! My flight was actually cancelled due to “technical
problems” eeeeek, but tis the Philippines, and they make do, they piled a bunch
of us into a van for the 5-hour drive to our destination… my favorite city,
Cebu City. Hil and I stayed at the awesomely hipster “Henry Hotel.” One of the
coolest/most unique hotels ever. It was posh livin indeed, we bought a golden
watermelon (yes they have scrumptious yellow watermelon here) and a dragonfruit
from the market for real cheap because we wanted to eat them by the hotel pool.
We asked the guy behind the bar to borrow a knife, but instead he happily took
all the fruit and brought us out carved watermelon artwork, toothpicks and all!
Ahhhhh special treatment… and under utilized talent!
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| Us with The Henry himself |
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| Our Marilyn themed room at The Henry Hotel |
The highlight of the Cebu weekend would have to be the
strip club. Here we go. Don’t judge us too harshly, but Hillary and I thought
it would be amusing to go to one of the 2 gay male strip clubs in the city. We
were not disappointed. This began as a joke… but turns out we have been away
from good looking fellas for far too long. The place was just a tad creepy,
decorated like a jungle with weird random Japanese stuffed animals. Makes
sense? A few creepy voyeurs sitting in corners, but then our saving grace was a
big bachelorette party of girls. I don’t mean to hurt any feelings here, but I
had yet to find a single Filipino man attractive before this night… now I have
found 20 Filipino men attractive! Haha. They were all really muscular, tall,
and tattooed… I guess they try to attract foreigners? The only downfall…. They
were each wearing girls cut off daisy duke shorts with cowboy boots, that’s
right, but this was so wonderful in its own hilarious way! I really cannot
describe this whole experience to its full spectacularity, but I will try. The
guys all slow motion interpretive danced one by one to 80’s love ballads… so
Filipino. At one point 4 of them came out covered in weird solid colored
sheets… time for a special dance… I will not describe it.. but yes, surprise
penis did happen. The guys were actually escorts as well, and the word is most
of them are actually straight. It is really depressing once we thought about
their whole situation, but we were in no way going to take the bait. On the way
out one of the guys bid me farewell, “Goodbye very tall lesbian…” We almost
died laughing, he was so serious, of course, the only explanation he could
think of for me not taking him home was because I was a lesbian. Oh the male
ego… and funny ending to one of the weirdest nights of our lives.
We also saw the famous dancing inmates! This was another
phenomenal Filipino spectacle. The prison is supposedly maximum security… but
they never checked our bags, and we actually got to go down at the end and
dance with the prisoners, I even got the warden to take a photo of us. What is
going on?!?! What a weird life I live. There is a really cool history to it
all, but I am lazy. Read
here, but the dancing was actually real talent, and I think it is a great rehabilitation program.
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| Oh Hey! |
After all that madness, we were finally off on the overnight ferry
to Leyte. We went diving with Laura, who is actually a marine biologist and
dive master, what better dive companion can there be? One day our boat went
through a pod of 30 something dolphins and pilot whales. SO COOL. We are really feelin hot hot hot down
here now, summer is aggressive. Then it was time to go home, back on that
dreaded overnight ferry to Cebu, then 6 hour bus back to Dauin.
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| Me, Andrew, Hil, Laura = a bit burned in Padre Burgos, Leyte |
One of the not so pluses of being a warden, was that Rocky
and I, he is the batch 272 warden of our region, had to visit all 12 of the
Negros Oriental volunteers by only using the site maps that we all had to make
in case of emergency. Good idea in theory, but wandering around in the Filipino
sun searching for volunteers for 3 days straight and riding on standing room
only buses every time is not what I call a good time… and I got bit by a dog.
C’est la vie. We rewarded ourselves with mall slushies.
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| SLUUUURP |
The next night was one of the coolest/scariest ever. There
was a big thunderstorm, but highlight on the lightning. It was like a light
show, every second and everywhere you looked the sky would light up. Then the
power went out, and the thunder was sooo loud, I was just a little terrified,
felt like God was angry with me for going to a strip club. I got up to light a
candle, and stood at my doorway for just a few minutes watching the storm. Candle
lit, I get back into bed and notice it has gotten very smelly, and I think
about all the stray dogs that are probably soaked and scared to death. I fall
asleep for like 5 minutes, then a swear I hear a whining sound and I wake up.
The candle has gone out and I might be more scared then than I have ever been.
I am freaking out wondering what is in my house in the pitch blackness... then a dog barks right in
front of my face! I nearly had a heart attack, but instead went into this crying
panic searching for light hoping it was a dog I knew. I can’t see anything with
just my phone light, and I am scarred to flee the safety of my mosquito net,
but I need to get this thing outta here, I just run to my door open it and the
neighbor old dog, Budoy, runs out. Whew! How did he get in there?!?! He must
have snuck in right past me when I was standing by the open door, anyhow, that
was an altogether traumatizing middle of the night tired heat haze experience,
but now a funny story.
I went to a co-teachers wedding… I did not faint this
time. Sadly, I am looking forward to never attending a Philippines special
occasion again. It is always pig and goat parts that have been siting outside
in the heat for hours and are covered by flies, then the flies cover you while
eating and everyone stuffs their faces like animals. I am not being very
culturally sensitive, but I am setting the honest scene. This is when I think it is about time to head home, when I turn negative about everything, and I feel like one more day at school will be torture. I am ready for America. 2 Years & 3 months is a longgg time.
I really have been living in a dream this month though,
such strange things happening. I hopped in my bed the other night ready to
watch me some House of Cards, when I hear creepy noises then look around and
realized my mosquito net is fullll of termites flying around, like they were
everywhere, all over me all of the sudden. What the what? I flew out of my bed
and tried to life up the net and release them, then even more swarmed the
ceiling. Laura was actually just telling me how she was having termite swarming
problems… but then I shooed them outside, and I never saw them again. Do I
dream this stuff?
Up next is my escape to the mountainsss, technically called the Ifugao Region. Hillary, Karla,
and I had planned this trip a long time ago, but Hil’s Padayon Mindanao teacher’s
camp dates were moved, she had to bail, so just the initial PC roomies, Karla
and I! I LOVE THESE MOUNTAINSSS! We went to Baguio, or the “summer capital,” or
so they call it since its cooler, but way too crowded. We went to museums, went
strawberry picking, ate ice cream, saw the independent movie Ilo Ilo and cried,
it was great. Then, we were on the 6-hour bus to Sagada, the place I was most
excited for. We saw the famous hanging coffins, burial caves, and we went on
the 3 hour cave-connection, which was the most intense full body workout of my
life! At certain points we had to contort our bodies just to fit down a hole,
other times we hade to wade through waste deep water, and other times we had to
pull our whole body weight up by a rope. Karla was not lovin it at times and
pretty scared, but I thought it was so awesome! After the intensity, we found
the most adorable café that turned out to be vegan and so delicious. Mountain
Love! Our last stop was Banaue, or what we liked to call zombieland since
everyoneeee chewed this tobacco like stuff called “momah,” that turned their
mouths blood red! It was actually repulsive, but the rice terraces there were
stunning! But goodness getting to those was another full body workout! The trip
overall was WONDERFULLL, and Sagada is probably my favorite place in the
Philippines. It only took us a miserable 10 hour overnight bus, and 5 hours of
sleeping by a pizza place at the airport to get to our flights back to flat,
hot, land.
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| Strawberry Fields Forever |
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| Jeepneys Never Get Old. |
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| Burial Caves |
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| Feel the burn! |
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| Cuteness Overload at Vegan Cafe GAIA |
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| #Walking Dead? |
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| Stunning - 2,000 year old Batad Terraces |
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| BenCab Museum, Baguio City |
NOW, I am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to
BALI to meet my brother and mother, yahooooo!!!! Let the good times roll… until
I have to go back to work at school the day after returning. Ah, I suppose it
had to happen eventually, and it is about time I be productive, but where did
the summer run off to? I was actually chosen from 48 applications to be one of
the “resource volunteers,” for the incoming batch training, which means a lot
more work heading my way! I probably could have and should have made this blog
more detailed because of all the juicy content, but I am going to try to get
some shut-eye instead of burning my retinas more by this computer. Ta ta for
now!
