Summer Summer, Not a Bummer!

Well, hi there! I have just about hit the 1-year mark of living in the Philippines…It feels like it has gone by in a flash, but other times it feels like the hours of the day drag on like a snail trying to slosh up a tree. I am feeling a little down now with my parents gone and Daniel and I tangling on and off of the jagged rocks, but I am so happy my brother is sticking around for a bit to keep me company and sane.

When I was in Bicol, Daniel’s host uncle took us out to his farm. Goats galore, which of course I chased around. Toto, his uncle, joked around and told me if I could catch a goat, I could keep it. He also kept talking about how they have one horse, but all of the farmers are afraid of it and it can’t be tamed. I was terrified walking up to it in the middle of the rice fields, but I walked really slow and sweet talked quietly, and it accepted my friendship! It let me pet it and it playfully bit my shirt. Tito joked that I did not catch any goats, but I caught the most difficult of them all, the horse! It was quite lovely moment that Daniel caught on his little phone cam. 2 weeks after that, and it was FINALLY time for Mom, Dad, and Matthew to arrive!

Lovely Horsey 

We stayed at swanky Hotel H2O in Manila for a couple of days. We had an aquarium as one wall of the room, trippy. This place was very cool, but still very Filipino…it was like a bubble of trendy calmness in a snow globe filled with chaos, deranged cats, honking jeepneys, and street kids outside…but no snow. The hotel was located inside a giant mall and basically Filipino Sea World outside. We saw a Fountain show that cannot be appreciated for it’s hilarious amazingness with just words, and I won’t even bother trying because it would not be portrayed as it should. In short, it was all in English, but nothing made sense, and it included live mascot scaly evil dancing men fish, chefs, Nemo, one octopus, and 5 stars. We also saw a cute seal show, where a gun was thrown into the pool as a prop for the seal to retrieve…only in the Philippines… The family finally got to try the num nummy Ube purple yam flavor in the form of shake. It got mixed reviews. Next, we all sat together and did that thing where the fish eat off the dead skin on your feet. I don’t know if I have ever laughed so hard before. I had done this before in Scotland, but the fish here were in a fattened up league of their own, chomping on hundreds of curious visitors each day. My dad and brother could not even keep their feet in the water for more than 2 seconds, which might have been the funniest thing I have ever seen, it is so rare to see my father’s face of fear and the high pitch sound of terror that goes along with it. Sad to think that the times when this happens, it leads me into a hiccupping heaving fit of laughter cry. Brings me back to the times of Dr. Doom’s Drop ride at Universal Studios. My mom was creepily unaffected by the extreme crawly slimy slippery tickles, which was almost equally as amusing in its own right... she is a badass.

Bizzare.

The next day, we took the 4-hour ride to visit my old host family from training in Subic, and boy, what a treat that was! They had another custom made tarp with our faces on it, cake, gifts, and a feast waiting for us. They are the cutest! My family was also happy to see where it all began for me in the Philippines. Just the other day, my brother mentioned something so sweet. He said that I was literally leaving my mark all over the Philippines. There are countless photos of me still in my old Subic family’s house, a poster, my mom’s book, my gifts, even after 9 months. There are other framed photos with the new family in here Dauin, islands away. My name is now permanently on the wall along with the World Map at my high school. After he made the comment, I thought of how these things will last long after I am gone and so many stories shared along with them. It amazes me how my host families treated my Texan family just as their very own flesh and blood, when they really had nothing in common but me. It is really touching, and I am so blessed to have gotten to be a part of their lives and so happy that all of my families got to meet.

My Shadow and I

Just the Kiddos

Next, we were of to my home site and stomping ground, Dauin! My family got to experience the Filipino fiesta tradition when a teacher friend in Zamboaguita, the next town over, invited us over. This was their first lechon, whole roasted pig, experience and everyone took a taste…even my former vegetarian little bro, who went all out and pulled out a few of the ribs, the best part. We all stayed at a resort very close to my actual house, and one day, we snuck my little host sisters over to come swim in our pool. One time when the touristy parts of Dauin came in handy for me! My Dauin host family also prepared a lovely dinner with crabs, fried fish, and the works! We took a boat to Apo Island to snorkel, and we all spotted the giant sea turtles! We also ran into the infamous Harold and his boat; he threw my bro over a mango.

My family were really troopers while over here, no complaining about the heat, mosquitos, or being squished in between sweaty Filipinos. For the most part, we had delicious resort food and air conditioning. However, one night, we had to take the bus from Dumaguete back to Dauin and it was soooo hot, over full squishing as many people as possible, and standing room only! They mentioned that as a low point of the trip, but not a single whimper was heard! Almost everyone in my town got to meet the fam at some point too. My former principal even ambushed us at our hotel with mango pasalubong when I did not answer my phone a few times. Then, when we went to my favorite restaurant in Dumaguete, we ran into 3 other Peace Corps volunteers who were traveling from different areas, and all of the Australian volunteers from Duma, they were not even together! Whiteys flock together… Matt tried the duck embryo, Balut. It was pretty dark, so he said it wasn’t too bad at all! The last night in Dauin, my parents took my friends Jen, Chris, and I out to a fancy buffet dinner at the nicest resort. It was good living for us, we really did not know how to handle ourselves and ate way over our limit. I hadn’t seen deviled eggs in ages! Not to mention way too many forks and knives to know what to do with. I haven’t eaten with anything but a spoon and my hands for a long time now. Rocked our world, thanks parentals!

Remember my Glee Club was going to put on a show for my family? Well, we had a few summer meetings of planning it, and then they decided they wanted to surprise me. IT WAS SO SWEET AND AMAZING. I will remember it forever. I am trying to get the video up on YouTube or something. They portrayed a whole life cycle of love from childhood friends/sweethearts to them as an elderly couple, with a song for each stage and never a dull moment for over 2 hours. Besides the drama with songs, they also had wonderful individual numbers, a couple of speeches (they surprised me and asked me to speak…everything was going so well until I started talking about my family, then the tears came), a group dance number, and ended with “We are The World.” Cathy also shed a tear during my speech and told me after that we need to save all our tears for when I have to leave. She then started telling my family that she always thought I was so tough…but I guess when it comes to family…then she started crying again, haha. They worked so hard on it, and the other teachers told me they had practiced every afternoon for the whole month of May. One of the members also presented a direct message to me that made me cry AGAIN and was adorable, talking about how Glee would have never started without me and then just threw out compliment after compliment. I was so much more than proud, and I cannot wait to continue and expand Glee for this year!

GLEE Club and Family

A few days later we were off to the Philippines “final frontier,” Palawan. This was also the Daniel meets the other 3 most important people in my life moment. After one game of my family’s crazy rummy at the airport, he had become one of us. Everybody got along swimmingly. Our first hotel had giant statues of animals all over the place, I was in love, why is weird so wonderful? We went on the touristy Underground River Tour, which was actually really cool. Thousand of birdy bats and kooky formations. On the forest walk after, we hung out with tons of monkeys of all ages and a giant monitor lizard that looked like a dinosaur. Next, we were off to one of the most beautiful places in the world, El Nido. This cluster of jutting limestone formations and islands is home to the Philippine’s largest marine archipelago and does not have electricity from 6 AM to 4 PM. The reason for this is to of course conserve energy, save money, and the fact that most everyone is playing in the gorgeous marine creature filled water at this time. I had the best scuba adventure of my life thus far. On the last dive, I saw turtles, a giant clam actually shivering, a humongous cabbage coral garden, trumpet fish (my new favorite), a poisonous hiding stonefish, and a puffer fish as big as my own body. It was actually quite terrifying. I have never ever seen such giant fish or soooo many fish of all shapes, colors, and sizes surrounding at all times. Another really phenomenal moment was when it was just the dive master and myself and we saw a school of thousands of triggerfish, he motioned for us to swim through, and as we did, they formed a magical circle all around us, indescribably beautiful. It still boggles me mind that it was real life. Later in the day, an angelfish bit my leg. The bite mark had two layers of teeth, yucky, like a Beldar Conehead fish. My parents celebrated their 30^th Wedding Anniversary while in El Nido, and Matt’s birthday was a couple days later…too bad he spent it having the tummy shames…

Into the Underground River we go!

INSIDE

MoNkEys 

We are cool.

Us

Cutest of the Cute

<3 30 years

So soooo sad saying bye to my parents, but lucky that my brother is staying with me for another 2 months! He is volunteering every weekday at LCP or Little Children of the Philippines. They have an orphanage, soup kitchen, health center and more. All of that, and me busy at school, but we still make time to explore, poke fun at primitive skills expert and hater of shoes, Cody Lundin, and our new obsession of absurdity, RuPaul’s DragRace. Also, secret, I reinstalled The SIMS on my laptop… hey hey, I am sure you are thinking “Oh no she didn’tttt,” but I promise, I can handle balancing my SIMS life with my Filipino real life this time around. In real life, my neighbors are in the process of building an ugly cement block fortress. It amazes me at what Filipinos spend all their money on.

I laughed very hard today when my class was presenting their interpretations of a story. One of the girls started off by laying down, then “ Oh hi, I have been looking for you all, didn’t see you there, I am here to present our class dramatization of the story.” It was not in that correct English, and not supposed to be funny, but I was laughing loudly and alone like a crazy person… which I have been doing a lot lately. Like when I found erotica in the 60 year-old librarians desk, and another time when Cathy told me she bathed with a glass since they didn’t have a tabo at our fancy conference hotel, and it took forever.

So my classes… I have 4 fourth year classes, the seniors again. I love it, but I have the superstar highest-level class first, and then the levels progress downward as the day goes on, to my last class that has to have a completely different lesson plan. It makes me leaving every day feeling a little defeated and useless. My counterpart, Cathy, and I are also in charge of completely making over the library. We have about a thousand books (after we condemned over a thousand that had rat bite holes, no covers, and falling apart) Anyways; no one went into our old “library” ever. The door was kept locked and dust had been accumulating for who knows how long. So this epic project was put on our plate the first week of school, which has been the most frustrating thing ever, but we are making it work. I could list all aspects of my infuriation with this whole process here, but what good would that do? We will get it done eventually, and the students will enjoy it, and it will be legend…wait for it…DARY! Every day is still an emotional rollercoaster. Of course, the worst times happen at the worst times, like being pulled out of my own class by a teacher to pull me into the office and force feed me all the while every teacher at school is staring at me and joking around making comments about my appearance and making fun of my accent when speaking Visayan. There is only so much I can take before snapping and body slamming everyone to the ground. I know, I know, there is nothing really wrong with any of this; it is a huge part of the culture. The more time I spend here, the more I realize how much our values are a product of our home cultures and environments. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are forced to respect our local societies not in an abstract, rhetorical fashion, but through the accountability that comes with living embedded in those societies for over 2 years. It makes us leave even weirder than we came in, but hopefully learning something profound about the human race as well.

Whew! That was a lot of info, not much else coming up except for my mundane 24^th birthday in a couple of weeks, then my mental breakdown when my brother leaves on July 10^th. My door is open to anyone who is bored, wants a change in their life, and to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate, come stay with me and take over my brothers work and play with the kiddos!!! THE PHILIPPINES NEEDS YOUUU!!!

Sweltering.

I apologize for the delay, I have had to muster up quite a bit of drive to write another blog, and things have been beyond hot and hectic here. Starting from last month, I finally smushed up some homemade guacamole for the family! Mariz and Nicole helped out and chowed down on the non-spicy one. The spicy one however, was the best guac I have ever concocted! My Boulder amigas will be jealous. I used the sili peppers that grow in my yard and a spritz of calamansi, that magnificent lemon/lime/orange/ Filipino hybrid wonder fruit. Yum Yum Yum, it was quite a treat. Funny how little things here like some tasty guac can boost my morale and make me so incredibly happy. If only I could find Tostitos Hint of Lime chips…

Mariz

Nicole

Photo Credits to Mariz

Our Peace Corps Project Development Training went very well. It was oodles of fun having our entire batch of volunteers together again, and my counterpart, Cathy, was so excited she got to come! She had never been on plane before, and Peace Corps paid for everything for each of our counterparts for the three days. Cathy and I created a great remedial reading program to be integrated into the grade 7 curriculum once school starts up again. We had people from U.S. AID and the State Department come to critic our plans and give feedback. Also, of course, always nice having showers and toilet seats again. It was fun to see how much more scraggly we have all gotten, will be even more interesting at Mid Service Training in 5 months.

I got scuba certified last weekend! It is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Right in my Dauin backyard, we spotted a spiny seahorse (one of my favorite creatures), several turtles, and crazy camophlaging cephalopod cuttlefish. Seriously, YouTube these things. They are unreal. We jam packed 6 quizzes, 5 dives, and a final exam all into 2 ½ days. Quite exhausting, but it is now very much worth it. It is an indescribable feeling being weightless swimming about in the deep blue sea. I can’t wait to see where it takes me.

The Palarong Pambansa or National Games were pretty cool. All sorts of competitions going on in Dumaguete, table tennis, badminton, archery, and all the other sports. A lot of students running around. I have been meeting with the Glee kids this summer, and they have decided to perform a surprise show for me and my American family, who will be here in ONE WEEK!

Daniel's Remedial Reading Camp

I rode a bus 8 hours to meet up with Daniel, but some sketchy airline sold his ticket, so he had no way of getting on the plane. So I had lunch with Karla, we strolled around the Bacolod Art District, which actually has awesome murals, and then took the 6 hour ride back home and alone. His journey was even more stressful. I am at his site in Bicol now to help with what I can for his summer reading camp. It is going really well besides a few miner disciplinary issues. For some reason, I though that this would feel like a vacation, but is just as hot and sweaty without A/C here, and the food is just as much goat and pork fat. It is hard for me to imagine a relationship with Daniel in the posh U.S., when we are so often here drenched in sweaty repulsiveness and having fiery diarrhea with no door to the bathroom. We could not be closer in terms of feeling comfortable with each other and our grossness… mind me, this is not by choice! I cannot wait for my family to arrive and for our Palawan vacation. Of course, on the way here, the A/C was broken at the biggest Manila airport = feeling like death and failing at life with too many bags. Then get this; my seat was 1D on this airplane fitting about 60 people. So, for some reason seat 1C and 1D were facing the opposite direction in the front. As if people are not staring at me all the time already, I was basically on stage the whole flight in an interrogating seat about why I like the Philippines… in Tagalog, which I haven’t spoken in forever. A giant group on the plane were all travelling together, they were the ones talking to me, and they were so happy because I was also wearing a yellow shirt, so I looked like part of their group. Again of course, many pictures were taken together on the gangway once we landed. Things like this are staring to annoy me now, which makes me so sad because these weird cultural interactions are a huge part of Peace Corps and what I wanted!

 

Art District

Awkward.

Double Awkward.

More Playing with Daniel's Fancy Camera

Double Weirdos

Nice.

<3

I had yet another near death experience. Have you ever seen the gentle swing rides at amusement parks? Image that… but in a demented fit of rage and on steroids. I could not believe how fast this thing was going… so of course, I had to ride it. I went to this makeshift sketchy carnival with my Filipino barkada from Dauin. A couple of them were brave enough to join me. I have never felt such an awesome sensation of flying or more terrified of shooting straight out into the sky. My feet started to hit a tree at one point, which was the most scary, I should have known they don’t test for gargantuan of my stature. We also went into the “Horror House,” which was not really even amusing, but what did we expect. That night hanging out with my Filipino group of friends, has probably been the most integrated that I have felt yet. Granted, they were still throwing in a lot of English along with Visayan, but I finally felt a bit at home and not like the foreigner for once.

Another frightening life event yesterday… Filipino monkey attack… We went out to Daniel’s family beach nipa huts, and his uncle has a monkey tied up there. Poor thing is tied up right at the men’s drinking circle and gets constantly tormented. Daniel and I were just standing looking at it, and all of the sudden the mangy beast pounces down on me and bites the back of my hand! I had not even been even trying to pet the thing or any provocation for such a pounce of fury! My life flashed before my eyes for a moment, and some scenes from Dead Alive, along with all of the traumatic Peace Corps rabies trainings on how we needed to cut off the head of the animal to test it. It has now turned into a yucky bruise with some tiny scabs…I think I will survive. Yet, another thing to add to the list… bitten by a monkey in the Philippines. What a life I live. On the way back from the beach, we rode standing up in one of the less chic modes of Filipino transportation… garbage truck. The garbage trucks are sans garbage though, and packed full of drunk Filipinos travelling about in the summertime, wish I could show you a picture, amusing sight, probably even crazier than you are imagining. Luckily, I don’t speak much Bicol or Tagalog, so Daniel did all the talking, and I get my Visayan as a much appreciated cop-out. Transportation just gets more and more unbelievable here. Daniel and I took a different bus back once that was insanely full and we had to stand, but we were too tall to even stand up straight on the bus! So we crouched like gargoyles with our backpacks for an hour. This is what I came here for right? Sure makes me not take things for granted anymore.

 So I will keep this one rather short and sweet. That is pretty much all that is going on, I am sure I will have many more entertaining stories once my parents arrive in ONE WEEK, and my brother arrives and stays for 2 MONTHS! We have a barangay fiesta right when they arrive in my town, complete with the famous lechon roasted pig, then the Glee kids performance, some snorkeling, then Palawan adventure with Daniel included. I am a little nervous for the big Daniel and biological family introductions, this will be the first merging of my two worlds! He has already won over my two host families, so there should be no worries there, and we both are in desperate need of a vacation with air conditioning and decent eats. Words cannot express how excited I am to see my family again, it has been almost a year! The longest we have ever been apart. I can’t wait to introduce them to my Filipino home and loved ones, and I only need to wait

 6 more days! YAHOOOOO!!!

Intrepids Take Siquijor's Healing Festival by Storm

WOW. So much has happened already, this summer is going to swing by faster than I can swat away a giant flying Philippines cockroach! Yes, they exist… and yes, they are pissed. All of my students are graduated, even the ones who just scrounged by in English. The way my school sees it, if you hold a student back they will just drop out instead of attending school the next year. This year’s class was around 200, and when I asked what they wore on graduation day, everyone told me togas. I found this very amusing, and I was looking forward to this sight, but turns out they just call caps and gowns togas…The ceremony was similar to ours in the U.S., except for a choral singing of “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, which they had spent weeks before memorizing the words. I got to go to many of the school graduations around my town, included the little one on Apo Island! The smaller ones were a bit more emotional, but most all of these kids have grown up together from birth and share everything. After, the ceremony on Apo Island, I got to snorkel around for a while, and I spotted 7 total giant turtles that I could have touched if I was a meanie. Magical moments are always hiding around the other corner in the Philippines.

My Ruby Class with Homeroom Teacher and Principal

My students finished our world map mural! I knew I wanted to create this after realizing in the first week here that my students thought Los Angles and London are countries and that the U.S. and Canada are bigger than everything else. I finally made time for it since 4^th year classes basically end a week early. The teachers were busy with end of year paperwork, so I handled all of this completely on my own. Super stressful, but I ended up blowing the minds of the other teachers and parents. In the end, I was elated, and the parents couldn’t believe that their own kids had created such a beauty. I had talked with students who were interested in helping grid, paint, outline, or label, and it was so great that almost every senior student helped contribute is some small way. I decided the theme should be “The World is Ours,” since it turned into a somewhat graduation project. Since we were on a graduation time crunch, I went into school one night and painted the ocean background, I had never used a roller before and I made a splatter mess of my face and clothing, but since I nicely scotch taped the border (thanks to what I have seen in movies), it turned out not half bad! The next day we measured out the grid of 1,568 3-inch squares, then started painting that very afternoon. 3 paint colors (mixing colors was a confusing mess, but we did it), 3 whole days (nap times excluded), 18 gridded sections (I had created a world map grid and made photocopies, so students would only need to focus on a small easily detailed part and know exactly what needs to go in each square), countless spills/paint fights, spelling errors to edit, confused onlookers, shenanigans/goofing off/having a blast, gallons of sweat from intense Filipino summer sun, about 60 hard working senior students, one extremely frazzled volunteer teacher, and one lovely 8 ft. by 16 ft. final product and rain-proof Allie Nunes legacy. SO WORTH IT! Besides the map, Cathy gave me such sweet compliments at the end of the year, making me tear up a little bit. Just mentioning how happy she is that I am here, and she does not know what she would have done without me this year (since I took 3 of her classes). She also told me that I really made a difference in the students’ lives and inspired them to go for what they want out of life, she had talked to a few. Hearing that genuine appreciation and redemption made all of the mistakes and difficult times so worth it. I am really going to miss my students from this year, but most live right around me, so I will still see them strolling about, very sadly because most cannot afford college.

I am still not used to the freedom of going where I please being gone. One of the main downsides of still living with a family, because I try to be considerate, I need to tell the family where I am or going at all times. Quite an annoyance after living by myself and no one’s schedule but my own for 5 years, but I suppose it is worth it for feeling loved and getting fed. I went to the “Miss Amazing Beauty” pageant in my town a few weeks ago, my host brother, Adonis, was working it. All of the contestants were men, who are in the process of becoming women, a few more plastic surgery done than others, a few more terrifying than others with bad butt and boob jobs. The winner was gorgeous of course. They had costume changes and talents, just like the “Miss Gay” we saw back in Subic.

Chris, Jen, and Larry, came down to snorkel and hang in Dauin before we all headed to the island of Siquijor for the mystical Healing Festival. We had lots of silly fun, playing with Pepper in the sun, and watching horror movies at night. Too bad I got attacked by a dog… remember the dog that was kicked out of her house and now sits outside our gate and follows me everywhere? Well, seems she got jealous when I was walking Pepper with everyone and tried to eat Pepper! I snatched my pup up, and the other dog jumped on my back growling and biting at me, luckily I got those 3 rabies shots! She still followed us all the way home, lurking around corners like the villain of scary movie. Ironically, her name is Sweetie. Not to mention her incessant barking for hours at some point every single night.

Siquijor was spectacular! On the tiny one-hour boat ride there, we saw dolphins swimming right alongside the boat, one very up close, and we got to see the whole body slip up out and into the water so gracefully. Like I said before…more surprise and undeserved magical moments. 4 days of Healing Festival, waterfalls, and cliff diving during the days, and beer drinking bonfires on the beach at night. Siquijor loses power from 5 PM to 10 PM every night, but J.J.s, where we posted up our tents and ate food, had a few solar lights. The majority of our group was Batch 270 volunteers, from the year before us, who are about to be finished with their service soon. Good gracious, they are a rowdy bunch, but oh so much fun. They are all up in the north of the Philippines and pretty jealous of our Visayan lifestyle, but they had so many awesome cultural stories from their land. Most all of them also have the tribal Filipino hand-tapped tattoos. There were almost 30 of us total, sleeping in tents and sharing one bathroom…most of us didn't bring pillows or sheets, J.J.s gave us a few sleepy time amenities, but we were definitely roughing it. Another reason why Peace Corps volunteers get along with each other so well, you will rarely find a whiney one. 

Our Digs

The actual “Healing Festival” was not as cool as it sounds, but not too shabby at all. We all squeezed into and on top of a jeepney to drive the hour up into the jungly high up community where the festival was. If I was going to break a Peace Corps rule, I might say that riding on top feels like flying and leads to an amazing to be alive sensation… but I am not saying any of that am I. The festival was in a tiny mountain town that was very crowded, a few more white people than we are used to seeing, but still many many more Filipinos, and I even ran into my friend Golda getting the demon spirits blown off of her! There were many elders brewing up concoctions and giving massages and healing advice. All sorts of herbs and little love potions and trinkets. We met a couple of other cool Peace Corps volunteers who just finished their service in Thailand. I also just had to go up to the first Filipino hippies I have seen yet to compliment their style, especially since we were on turf where they spoke my same language! They had such cool jewelry, outfits, and swagger. Turns out they made me a cool healers bracelet made out of the tough vine growing everywhere, and they were the band that was playing that night. Coincidentally… one of the guys knew our Dumaguete Harold and had also dated a Peace Corps volunteer himself 3 years ago, which answered my confusion of how one of the other guys got a hold of weird specially made jean/gaucho pants with a mimic Peace Corps logo! They were definitely unique characters, and it was a bummer we could not stay for their music, but we would not have a ride home, maybe our paths will cross once again sometime. After a couple hours at the festival, we were off to see the waterfalls. We did a few jumps, making a scene with no other foreigners around; there was also a pretty cool cave under the biggest waterfall. Hiking back up afterwards was the most strenuous activity I have done yet in the Philippines… I wish I got to hike more and should probably exercise at some point over these 2 years.

Kelsey's Bro Backflipin It

The Beach was Ours

  We also made more Filipino friends who were camping out too. They actually slaughtered a pig one day and made the traditional lechon, which we took some tastes of and are way too spoiled since we eat this giant whole pig at every special occasion in the Visayas, where the volunteers from the north had never had it before! They get dog and magic mushrooms. No kidding.
We cooked fresh swordfish with stellar blue bones for dinner one night; well 2 people cooked while everyone else played in the ocean/sand and canoodled, and made our own watermelon infused vodka that night. Can you believe it is Peace Corps? At most moments, I sure can’t. I am really trying to repay all of my undeserved luck in life… I promise. In the ocean right next to our tents, there was a cool reef, uncountable snails which we played with, and we spotted the coolest jellyfish I have ever scene. Good thing it didn’t sneak up on everybody, because it was big and had really cool brownish designs. The next day, a small group of us triked to this place were we heard there was cliff diving, the rest of the posse slept in the hammock and got sunburnt playing in our ocean. I never really thought about how scary cliff diving is. It was completely safe where we did it because the water was so deep and clear, but there was one that was almost 30 feet up! Half of us actually jumped, whew! Quite a rush, brought me back to my bungee jump experience except, but this time, my feet/butt had a painful and inappropriate water slap since it was so high up. This place was gorgeous too. I might even dare say the most beautiful water I have seen yet in the Philippines. I can’t describe the radiantly captivating turquoise/green color of ocean. The last night was the most amusing, including our over 60 volunteer getting drunk, playing weird ancient sand ball games thanks to Chris, and a 270 volunteer passing out in the sand, leading us to bury him completely, add strange props we found from J.J.s (toy dinosaur, etc.) and form a big awkward family photo. These people were a hoot. The guy that passed out literally had “pound it” tattooed in big letters going down his calf. Self-explanatory, and I now understand why Peace Corps staff calls us the “Golden Batch” since we have caused much less drama than previous years. The bonfires were awesome too despite the heat already, we all definitely got used to our most natural and filthy selves cozied up in the smelly tents and counting swimming in the ocean as bathing. One afternoon, a few of the volunteers made a giant meditation circle on the beach out of stick and stones, it surprisingly looked pretty legit, and I watched those hippies stroll around in, I am not much of a meditator, but maybe I should be? Woke up the last morning to find 2 tiny worms squirming about in the little amount of water I had left in my bottle after taking a sip. No idea how they maneuvered in there or where they came from… time will tell if I make it out alive.

Meditation Circle

Awkward Family Photo

The Priceless Moment of Awakening... just to plop back down and asleep a few seconds later...

They also eat “Pinikpikan,” a popular chicken dish in the north. The preparation involves mercilessly battering the live chicken with a stick as it squawks to its slow death. The brutal process attempts to coagulate the blood onto the wings, neck, and meat to achieve a bloody flavorful chicken dish. They also joke and call it “killing them softly” or something chicken. I will take this time to share more funny/disturbing Filipino foodstuff. The most popular treat from street vendors are skewered chicken intestines called “Isaw,” derives the name from a gross similarity to the intrauterine device it resembles also called isaw. They also sell chicken feet, and they are actually called “Adidas” Day-old male chick rejects also become butt-skewered and batter-fried and sold out of these carts. I suppose I should also mention “Dinuguan” the spicy pork blood stew that was actually delicious despite it not being chocolate like my host mom in Subic told me… and the infamous “Balut” duck fetus that will never be forgotten. It really wasn’t that bad though, mine was minus the feathers and crunchy beak. Don’t let this deter you from visiting me! I promise if you come, I will feed you fresh buko coconut juice from the tree, exotic delectable fruits, your weight in mangos, and the tastiest whole fried milkfish you will ever eat, and if you are one of my favorites…you might even get a spoonful of my hidden Nutella stash.

Anyways, Siquijor was a truly spectacular and enchanting trip, much more like an awesome movie than real life. I still have sand and magic in my hair. The day after returning home to Dauin, I had found Peppers playmate, the little goat, to have been slaughtered and diced up for lunch for “Kaldereta”. Just when I think I have tasted the most nauseating thing on the planet. I get served another gem. I think goat intestine mixed with heart and liver is the most unpleasant yet. I can’t really describe the feeling of forcing yourself to swallow something so vile because there is no way to not insult or disappoint your host family by not. Integration 101 and the things us intrepid souls will do for it...

My Painting for Daniel... meant to post a while ago!

My Glee Club with our new shirts donated by the Nunes Family!

Next week we have a training and project development seminar where Peace Corps is paying for our counterparts to come too. Cathy is super excited since she has never been on a plane before, and I think it will be lots of fun and helpful for us. We really need to work out all of the many kinks in our remedial reading program. I am also meeting Daniel at the airport coming from Vietnam, and I am sure he has lots of fun stories to share, even though I wish he had joined us for the Siquijor mystical adventure. Scuba certification is coming up the next weekend, then chaotic Palarong Pambansa SportsFest at school, and before I know it, my wonderful family will be here! My brother, Matthew, is now for sure staying for 2 months! Just can’t contain my giddiness of it all. So much for devoting this summer to getting fluent in the language, ain’t nobody got time for dat! Just kidding, it is a priority, but still have 17 months of Philippines life left to work at it. I really also need to make sure I save time for my Glee kids, more than just our weekly meetings, and any more summer productive projects I can squeeze in before it flashes by and I am back to zero free time. I might just be loony enough to still attempt that musical. Time will tell…as it tends to fly by.