Dear Tyler..

Back in 2007, I went on a two week service trip to rural Fiji. I spent time living with a local family, eating local foods, and bonding with my fellow volunteers. I can confidently say that it was one of the experiences that was the strongest push for me to apply for the Peace Corps. I saw recently on my News Feed that one of my fellow volunteers in Fiji, Tyler, was recently accepted for Peace Corps. He then sent me a message asking me for a few tips on packing. Instead of simply sending a brief packing list, I spent this morning writing 7 pages of packing tips and my reflections on my service (slow day at work.. and there was no internet this morning).
This past Monday, July 08, was my one year anniversary in country. Can you believe it/1 One full year. To celebrate, I shared a beer with my site-mate Dave and watched some Seinfeld.  But this momentous day plus a few recent ETs (Early Terminations, fellow volunteers who have ended their service and gone back to America) made me really think about the past year and the next 14 months. Unfortunately for Tyler, these reflections all come pouring out of me as I was replying to his message. The result is a few brief packing lists that I hope will come in handy for any future-PCVs browsing through blogs and some insight on my experience for my family and friends. Enjoy.
(The packing list will be in blue text, so skip that if you're not interested)

Hey Tyler11

Sorry about the late reply.. the past few weeks I've been a combination of super busy and without internet. But I'll try and share some useful things with you1 And FYI my shift button is broken so 1s are exclamation points and / are question marks haha.

First of all, congrats11111 I'm so excited for you11 I know the application process is not fun, so good job sticking it out. 

I actually just celebrated my one year anniversary in country on Monday1 I kind of refuse to believe its been a year.. sometimes it feels like I've been here for a few weeks and sometimes it feels like I've never lived anywhere else, depending on the day haha.

I'm in the Education sector, teaching English in a high school. My focus at work has actually less focus on teaching English in the classroom and I'm focusing on some clubs and camps and extra curricular activities for my students.. I have a girls empowerment and education camp coming up and am starting an English Film and Conversation club. I'm also starting a remedial reading class in the next few weeks. No matter what your sector is, you will have some freedom in your work and can decide what kind of projects you want to do.

So lets talk packing first. I'll try and give you some helpful tips but packing is often job/country/gender specific. As a teacher, I had to pack a lot of professional clothes. I am expected to look nice during the day, which is harder than it sounds considering I'm constantly covered in sweat and dirt haha. But for your more formal clothes, I would recommend some light weight pants, light weight button down shirts or cotton polos. You want to make sure you clothes are breathable.. anything to try and beat the heat. In the Philippines, jeans are considered nice or formal wear. So I wear jeans at least a few times a week. I can't remember where you are going but I'm assuming its somewhere hot. When I first got in country I was kicking myself for packing any jeans at all because I thought it was so hot that I couldn't imagine ever wearing pants.. but obviously you adjust slightly to the weather. Although I have to say that I don't think I'll ever get totally used to the heat. But yeah. Pack a pair of jeans or two. Otherwise you'll probably be wearing lots of shorts and polos or cotton t-shirts.  Bring some sturdy sandals and possibly some sort of rubber shoes or shoes that are good in the rain.. assuming you'll live somewhere with a rainy season.  Outside of work you'll want to be comfortable, so bring your favorite gym shorts or t-shirts just to hang out in. One point that I can't emphasize enough is bring clothes you like to wear at home. A lot of people, including myself, make the mistake of going out and buying clothes they think will be necessary.. so I bought a bunch of polos and longs skirts and hiking sandals - I hate polos and long skirts and hiking sandals. So naturally I never wear them here. I live two hours from the capital of my area where they have a mall so my wardrobe has completely changed in the past year and now I'm buying and wearing clothes that I would wear back home, just slightly more conservative. So just bring whatever you will be comfortable in.  Packing light is definitely a good idea but it helps to have some extra clothes..if you really like a pair of shorts or a type of t-shirt, bring multiples. You'll almost definitely be hand washing your laundry and it could take a few days to dry. I know I go through periods where I feel like I have nothing to wear because everything is drying. And oh my god underwear. Bring so much underwear. Like.. when you reach that point when you say to yourself, 'this is way too much underwear'.. throw in like 5 more. They get destroyed really easily with hand washing. I've already had two care packages sent to me just full of underwear.

Another important thing for clothes and absolutely anything - electronics, shoes, clothes, anything - is that it will probably not last the two years. A combination of moving around and the elements - weather, bugs, moisture, etc. - will likely destroy most of what you own haha. So don't bring anything if you can't stand the thought of it not coming back with you in 27 months.

It obviously varies by country and assignment, but I could buy most/all of my household stuff here in country. So I know sheets were on my packing list.. I didn't bring any and was fine. Then my mom sent me some in a care package just because sheets here aren't as high quality. But you'll spend your first 6 months with a host family and they should have everything you need - bedding and pillows. If you have the space, you can throw some sheets in but don't go through special effort. I also can buy my umbrella, flip flops, rain boots in country. A lot of people ask about bringing hiking boots and generally the answer is don't bother.. they are heavy, take up space, and will most likely just sit in your closet collecting mold. Just bring good tennis shoes and you'll most likely be doing any sort of hiking along side locals who are either barefoot or wearing plastic flip flops haha.

For electronics... definitely bring - laptop, camera, iPod/mp 3 player, hard drive. Those are the four I would say you can't live without. I would also strongly recommend a Kindle.. I don't have one but I wish I did. You'll do A LOT of reading in your free time and sometimes its hard to find books/a pain to lug them around.

Laptop - I had a mac book back in the states but I knew it didn't have very long to live so I went out and bought a new, kind of cheap PC. Keep in mind that there is like an 85 percent chance of your laptop being destroyed. Mine was brand new and is already starting to have some problems.. hello, no shift key. There is probably an ant family or dead cockroach living under my shift key. Who knows. I bought a larger laptop.. I think 13 or 15 inch screen, I'm not sure, and its nice for work and watching shows and movies but I hate traveling with it. I hate it so much. I have other friends who brought smaller laptops, like net books, that are super easy to travel with, but they wish they had a larger screen for watching stuff. If I could go back in time, I probably would have sacrificed the screen size for something more convenient. But its up to you, obviously.

Camera - I brought two cameras, my little point and shoot and my larger dslr. It depends how into photography you are but I would recommend only bring a good quality point and shoot. One thing to always keep in mind with electronics is that they will bring attention to you, often in negative ways. They might make you more vulnerable to robbery or mugging, which rarely happens here in the Philippines but might be more common in your site. The attention I got though was of the rich American with all her gadgets. A huge part of peace corps is integrating into your community and living on our small allowance, so it doesn't look good to walk around town with fancy gadgets. Especially when you will be constantly fighting against the stereotype of the being a rich white person. I found that my larger camera just brought way to much attention to me so now I never use it. Plus, again, its harder to travel with. But.. again... I have friends who use their larger dslr and love it and get great shots. If you're going to buy a new camera I'd look into some waterproof/dust proof types.

iPod/mp 3 - Obvious. You'll want music to listen to on endless bus rides.

Hard drive - you will have a looot of free time in the Peace Corps. During training you will feel like the energizer bunny on smack with so much to do and so much going on but then you'll go to your permanent site and get free-time whiplash because things will slow down so much. It will take a while to start projects at work and making friends/establishing a social life will also take time. In the meantime, you'll watch a lot, a lot, a lot of tv and movies. Whenever I get together with a group of PCVs we all bring our hard drives so we can swap movies, tv shows, and music. It is also essential for backing up your laptop. I brought a terabyte and that is already almost full.

You could also bring...

- a tablet.. I brought my iPad but only use it every once in a while. When I'm not traveling for work but just on short trips, I'll take my tablet so I can get internet without bringing my heavy laptop. But if I knew how little I would use it, I would probably have left it at home.

- smartphone.. some people brought their smartphones. PC gives you a phone to use in country, usually a basic little thing. People with smart phones usually just use it to get wifi when they can and take pictures, listen to music. It can be convenient but you can survive without it. 

I think that covers most gadgets.. but just remember - mo' gadgets mo' problems.

Bring your favorite book or two if you want, but don't overload your bag with books. I brought a paperback copy of two of my favorite comfort books and read them every once in a while.

Bring things from your home town to share with the people you meet, specifically your host family. You'll make a really great impression if you come with little gifts for them - magnets/key chains/stickers of your hometown or america in general, some small toys, UNO1 bring at least two or three packs of uno.. its an easy game to play without language haha, jenga if you have room for it.. I recently bought jenga and my neighbor kids love coming over to play that. and American candy.. something that won't melt on the way over. Maps - bring a few maps of america. Most people here only know New York or LA when they think of America, so it helps to have something to show them that a. there is more to america and b. where exactly you are from. and most importantly, bring pictures11 the pictures i brought were the best ice breakers with my host family. pictures of family are best then some of your friends and your hometown or college. I personally don't think its a great idea to bring pictures of your house or your car or anything.. again, you will constantly be fighting the stereotype of being a rich white man so showing pictures of anything that indicates wealth is a bad idea. even modest houses in the U.S. can be much more than people you're working with can imagine. then the pictures are nice to hang on the wall throughout your service.

Um. that's kind of all I can think of right now. Let me know if you have any specific packing questions that weren't covered in the past three pages of my babbling haha. its a slow day at work, if you can't tell...

I know you'll be frenzied with packing and getting your life in order, but the best advice I can give you is to spend LOTS AND LOTS of time with your family and friends. Go to your favorite restaurants and bars. Take the time to say a personal goodbye over coffee with people who are important to you. Have a little going away party with your favorite people and foods. you. will. miss. food. so much. Are you dating someone right now/ If so, have lots of sex. Even if you aren't, have lots of sex hahah. If you're into that. Because you WILL go through dry spells here. Probably more dry spells than not. Try to prepare yourself for the reality of being away for 27 months - friends will move on with their lives, people will get married, classmates will have babies, family members may die. Give your grandparents huge hugs if they are up there in age. 

Find the people who will be the best support for you during your service and prepare them to be supportive. I'm sure now they are praising your decision to go for Peace Corps and are very encouraging, but for those closest to you it will be a huge challenge for them. One problem I deal with is going to my mom for support when I'm having hard time - whenever I try to tell her about whats going on her immediate response is, 'just come home. you don't have to be there. you can leave anytime.' and that is so true that sometimes it feels like a kick in the gut when you hear it on a bad day. There is nothing keeping you in Peace Corps other than your desire to be in Peace Corps and do the type of challenging work you'll be doing. but you have to find those people who you can call or email on a tough day and they will be there to say.. remember why you applied, remember how excited you were when you got your invitation, remember how important your work is there even if it doesn't always feel important. Tell your friends and family that this is what you'll want to hear when you're tired and sick and dirty and hungry and lonely and bored and frustrated - all regular emotions in the Peace Corps experience. (also I've informed my mom that her insistence that I should just come home doesn't help and she is trying to be more supportive, but you have to understand how hard it will be for your family). You'll miss Christmases and Easters and Birthdays and Fourth of Julys.

I'm sure you've heard this before but nothing is higher than a Peace Corps high and nothing is lower than a Peace Corps low.

At your lowest, you will feel that you are not doing anything productive or sustainable at work, that you can't communicate with the people around you, that you are missing too much from home, a constant feeling of being sweaty and dirty and uncomfortable, being stared at 24/7 to the point that you'll spend weekends in your house without leaving, the border-line violent craving for some personal space and privacy, exhaustion - just the rawest type of exhaustion - from making so much effort on a daily basis just to live in a community that can seem so strange on some days, intense cravings for anything familiar - food, places, weather, friends, family.

On the flip side, you will have days when you walk through town and everyone knows your name and you can actually physically feel the warmth of your neighbors and the kids in town who are genuinely excited to see you walk by and wave good morning or escort you back to your house after a long day at work, you have the chance to be accepted as a true member of the family with your host family. My host family from training is one of my greatest support systems here.  They genuinely care for me and think of me as a daughter. You will make unbelievable, once in a lifetime friendships with other PCVs. You'll see a part of the world that you never would have the chance to see and most people will never get close to. You'll learn the local language and feel that immense pride in realizing you spent a whole day using only the local language and didn't accidentally buy a chicken head or anything. You'll have times at work when you know - not just know in your mind, but deep, deep in your bones you'll know - that you are making a difference, that you being in your community is changing lives, even if it is just one at a time. You'll be swept up in the idea of true, grassroots education and development and, despite setbacks and arguments against the efficiency of such small efforts, you will be confident that someday the kid sitting in one of your hot, overcrowded classrooms will think of something you said or did and will make a decision that will change their life for the better. 

Peace Corps is a huge sacrifice and people will recognize that. Your local co-workers will be stunned that you are giving up two years of your life, leaving the 'promised land' of America, just to live and work with them. That will fill them with a feeling of significance they may have never felt before. People at home with see your pictures and Facebook posts and be inspired to make small changes in their lives to help others or educate themselves on different issues.

But Peace Corps is not just a sacrifice, it is hugely selfish.  You will change and grow so much as a person in ways that only Peace Corps Volunteers can. I'm not even halfway done with my service and I already have changed so much and learned so much about myself. I was talking about this will a fellow-PCV recently and we thought of the quote, 'wherever you go, there you are.'  Meaning no matter how far you travel, how deeply you invest all of yourself in your community, you will always be you and have to face yourself in situations you never imagined. You will be pushed to your absolute edge and have to find a way to bring yourself back to center.  You will constantly be under a spotlight at your site - your appearance, your lifestyle, your actions. Everything will be examined under a microscope by those around you. They will find you absolutely fascinating. To survive in Peace Corps, you have to find a way to be happy with whatever shows up under that microscope. You will be more comfortable with yourself than you ever have been - with your strengths and your shortcomings.  

Your Peace Corps service will be an entirely unique, entirely indescribable experience that is as challenging as it is rewarding. Your main objective is to face these challenges and turn them into rewards. It takes a certain type of person to thrive, let alone survive, in Peace Corps.  Many of your fellow PCVs will drop out throughout service and the 1 year mark is a really common time to leave. People just realize that they are making a huge sacrifice for something that just isn't for them. And that's fine. My sister, who recently finished two years teaching in rural Mississippi with Teach for America, told me before I left that it is often takes a stronger person to admit that something isn't for them and bow out than it does to stick it through just for the sake of not giving up. 

But I think there are a few things that have kept me going for the past year and will hopefully carry me through the next 14 and a half months.. You have to build a strong foundation during training. You have to constantly remind yourself why you're here and soak up the energy of your fellow PCVs. Get to know each other and build strong friendships. Work hard to learn the language, it will make integration easier once you get to your permanent site. Keep expectations as low as possible. There is no, zero, absolutely noo way to predict what your service will look like. Everyone has a different experience. I live with a 5 km radius of two other volunteers and their experiences are still drastically different from mine. Take everything one day at a time. Your job will be very, very loosely defined which can be a blessing and a curse. You can have the freedom to determine what kind of projects you want to do that would work well in your community but you can also easily become lost in the shuffle of your work place and not have a clearly defined role. You need to be really assertive and determined to get work done. Celebrate your victories.  Recognize what went right and what happened on a day when you felt really, really good and always keep that in mind. I know that even during my bad days, the ingredients for a good day are always out there - I just gotta keep working to make them all mix. Your attitude is entirely on you. I have never had so much control of my attitude and outlook and have never needed to. Your attitude is what will determine most of your service. Learn how to change it in any situation. Figure out early on what you need to feel like yourself. There are some Sundays when I know that I need to just lay in bed and text a friend and watch episode after episode after episode of my favorite season of Scrubs. That is what I need to get out of bed again on Monday. Don't punish yourself for your weak moments, but learn from them. You will have breakdowns.. that is ok. Find what brings you out of those weak moments and puts you right again. Find humor in everything. Connect with people at your site any way that you can. It is these relationships that will give you the most satisfaction and will keep you going. Be open minded as hell. Learn as much as you can. Change your mind on anything and everything. When you're confronted with culture shock, always always always remind yourself  - its not better, its not worse, its just different. A hard lesson to learn is that you will not change the culture. As another PCV friend put it in his blog, 'you're in their country, you play by their rules.' In the Philippines, that means that you run on 'Filipino time', food is more important than work, if there is fiesta there is no work, if there is rain there is no work, if it is Christmas time (September - December) there is no work, if it is someones birthday there is no work. You get the idea. But I can't force them to arrive on time and I can't make them skip snack time even though I haven't finished a presentation, I can only work around these things.

So. Consider all of this but this is strictly based on my experience. Who knows what lessons you'll learn and what types of shoes will come in handy for you. All I can say for certain is that you are about to have the biggest adventure of your life and you will come out of it a completely different person. 

And for a real, true insiders look into Peace Corps, I direct you to..... http://howapcvputsitgently.tumblr.com/  PCVs could never survive if we can't laugh at ourselves. 

“Life on earth is a whole, yet it expresses itself in unique time-bound bodies, microscopic or visible, plant or animal, extinct or living. So there can be no one place to be. There can be no one way to be, no one way to practice, no one way to learn, no one way to love, no one way to grow or to heal, no one way to live, no one way to feel, no one thing to know or be known. The particulars count.” 

― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

Adlaw-adlaw : Day to Day

 The more I keep putting off this update the more daunting it becomes.  I just did some yoga and meditation to calm myself down and pump myself up. I'm going to break this terrifyingly huge update into smaller, manageable sections. Enjoy, loyal readers.

My Day Today

Part of my inability to keep all of my friends, family, and secret admirers updated on my life is because sometimes I feel like I just don't have updates. It's a weird realization to come to but I think I have reached a level of normalcy and routine in life here.  I have a set schedule at school (though I may be picking up more classes soon) and do all of my own lesson planning, so I rarely have surprises at school. With the exception of sporadic weekend trips and get togethers (more on that later), my weekends are relatively tame and consist mostly of relaxing with a book (just finished the last Game of Thrones book, need book recommendations!), doing my laundry, or catching up on sleep.  Very domestic! So.. it is often hard for me to give updates because everything seems pretty normal and routine to me now. But I also realize that these normal days are still totally foreign to you, you curious cats. So! Here is my day today, a relatively average day for me.

I woke up at 6:15 this morning. Until last week, I would always wake up at 6:00.  That was before I realized the undeniable benefits of taking my bucket baths at night instead of the morning. Not only do I avoid the soul-crushing, nerve-numbing impact of that first bucket of freezing cold water I pour over my head in the morning, but I get an extra 15 minutes to sleep.  Instead, I almost (allllllmost...) enjoy the cold-as-death shock to my system in the evening as it washes off the dirt, grime, and sweat of my day.  As my fellow volunteer friend observed in his Facebook status this week, there is just NO getting used to a cold bucket bath. Each time is like the first time all over again. 

So.. back to this morning. I wake up at 6:15 and spend a good 5-8 minutes cuddling with my new kitten, Lucille (Lucy/Lucifer/Luce/Lulu/YADHDHEgetoutfromundermyfeet!)  She purred her way into my life when my site mate Ashley and our visiting friend Sam found her crying in a puddle in our city's public garden.  They picked her up, wrapped her in Ashley's scarf, and brought her straight to me.  She looked pretty gross, I'll be honest. First thing we did was try to dry her off and get her to stop shivering. After that, we had our first true love connection - I offered her some canned tuna and she ate it faster than I would have. I finally found someone who shares my love of canned tuna! After her little belly pudged out with tuna and her fur dried enough to fluff out everywhere, she laid down in bed with me (lazy Saturday watching Friends in front of the electric fan) and just purred and purred and purred and cuddled and purred and cuddled and purred.  She has Olympic purr powers and can, and will, squeeze herself into the smallest space to curl up and sleep. Her favorite is sleeping between my neck and the pillow so I have been falling asleep lately to the sound of her purring right up against my ear. A little like a lawn mower, but still comforting. By the time I wake up she has inevitably moved to some other awkwardly squished space (between my bent knees, in my elbow, INSIDE the pillow case up against my face, on my chest, under my chin, etc.) and I have to cuddle her for a few minutes before getting up.

First thing I do is brush my teeth and wash my face (not a full bucket bath, but still not fun) and put some water in my ancient electric kettle.  This electric kettle came with my apartment, a loaner from my landlord, and is basically a metal cylinder with a lid, a little handle, and a chord that you can pull out.  The chord actually doesn't go all the way in, so I have to find the perfect balance to make the little red light pop on (more like an ominous red glow that comes from inside of the cylinder).  So this little guy is definitely low-tech, but gets the job done. But... the situation turned deadly last week. The handle just popped off somehow so now it's just a hot metal cylinder of boiling water with no safe contact point. Luckily, I splurged on some pot holders during my last trip to the capital and I can use both of those to hold the sides and pour the hot water. But... its deadly potential was realized when I was trying to adjust the chord to get that red light to pop on when I put my hand on the top of the metal and a GIANT shock went through my body. So now I have to boil water in an ungraspable, electrocuting metal death cylinder. These are the kind of daily struggles I have.

So while my water is boiling I get dressed. I recently finally built myself some shelves! The apartment I'm in now (again, more later) is supposed to be temporary so I don't want to spend any (annny) money on furnishing it. So, from December - last week I was sort of just living out of my suitcase. Well.. there was a giant pile of clothes and my suitcase was somewhere underneath that pile. But I decided that its time I get real and get some shelves (this decision was actually motivated not by any sort of personal growth but by the fact that my Peace Corps managers were coming to visit my apartment). So, being the resourceful PCV that I have been trained to be, I went into my front yard (which is a junk yard...later..) and evaluated my resources. I found lots of empty litro bottles (big beer bottles) and some not-tooooo-shabby wood! So I built myself some shelves - two layers! - using bottles as sort of legs and these wooden boards as the shelves! Obviously I cleaned everything really well before putting my clothes on it.  So since today was Valentine's Day, I wore some red pants, a white t-shirt, and a black cardigan to cover the holes in the back of my white t-shirt (because of rough soap and hand washing, all of my clothes have holes in them - but it's still extremely sloppy to show up to school with holes in my clothes).  And some bright pink and orange rubber sandals that my mom sent me - because the pink was festive and because it was raining this morning. The rubber is great because when they get muddy on my walk to school, I can just dump some water over them once I get to school. Something that constantly blows my mind is that fact that Filipinos live in not-so-clean conditions - mud, heat, dust, rain, etc. - but they always look impeccable, especially teachers. Then I come lumbering in, a foot and a half too tall for this country, covered in mud and sweat by 7:30 AM and celebrating the small victory that is my rubber shoes.

By the time I'm dressed with a thick layer of deodorant and run a brush through my hair, my water is boiling. Usually for breakfast I just have coffee and oatmeal - cheap and easy. Sometimes I'll go through the effort of making some eggs or I'll have bread with some peanutbutter. But I didn't go to the market this week and all I have in my house is coffee and oatmeal (and I finished the oatmeal this morning.. tomorrow is gonna suck).  Also, I do get a morning dose of protein: ants. Ants are just omnipresent here.  They are absolutely everywhere. Small, medium, large, extra-small, extra-large - my apartments got the entire line.  Now - I don't really like tomatoes. And back in the States, I would always pick tomatoes out of my salads and off of my sandwiches. I would go through serious effort to get those little red bastards out of there. But.. here... I don't even bother picking the ants out of my sugar bowl. It's just.. a losing battle.  If I'm particularly awake, I will make an effort to scoop the sugar around the ants but that's mostly impossible anyways.  They are small, tasteless, harmless, and extra protein so - I allow them. 

I usually finish breakfast by 7:00 or 7:05, giving me about 10 minutes to get my stuff together, maybe throw on some makeup, and get out of the door by 7:15.  I walk to school every morning which takes a little under 15 minutes. From my apartment, I have to go down three dirt roads and are more often than not just mud rivers.  It actually should probably only take 8 minutes to get to school, but navigating these mud roads are always a little interesting. Once I get to the paved road, it's just a straight shot to the side gate of my school.  The highlight of leaving my apartment and coming home are the kids who living in the neighbouring houses.  Whenever I walk down the street they run out of their house to say hi to me and give me a high five. They are super cute. And! They have puppies! Fat little puppies – sho cute.

Today actually I was a little late for school.  I had to make a visual aid for an activity in my class today and was too tired last night.  Then none of my markers were working this morning for some reason. After my struggle with some giant paper and dried out markers, I made it to school right as my class started at 7:45 (usually I make it by flag ceremony - at 7:30 - so I have a few minutes to put some of my things at my desk before going to my classroom) and went straight to my classroom.

With my schedule right now, I teach a few first year (7th grade) classes in the mornings and have afternoons off to work on my other projects.  My classes have very mixed levels with an average of 50 kids.  I'm working with a counterpart who is the sweetest lady - really supportive and complimentary of my teaching, but sort of uninvolved in the lesson planning. It's hard to work out a good working balance - part of the reason I am working with her classes is because she has such a huge class load, but that means that she is rarely to never around to lesson plan with me, which is what we are supposed to do. But she does come to my classes and then basically teaches my lessons, a day later. Soooo.. I'm sort of doing the lesson planning for her, which isn't ideal, but she is definitely learning from the different activities I'm doing (just more interactive than most Filipino teachers are used to) and using those in her other classes, so I think that is an achievement (hopefully sustainable!)!  We just finished a big project about essay structure yesterday (I explained how the structure of an essay is like the structure of a house and had them build their own Essay Houses - a really fun project, but I can't do anything like it again soon because I had to buy supplies for them myself and I just don't have the money for that) so I basically just planned a couple of activities for Valentine's today. (Or, as they call it here, Hearts Day). We started off with a little ice breaker/energizer - I had them get in groups of 3 or 4 and see how many words they could make using the letters in HAPPY VALENTINES DAY. And I was really impressed! They are usually really motivated by competition and even the kids in the back who don't always participate had their heads together and were coming up with words.  I think the winning team had 42 or 45.. not bad! After that, we did a listening exercise (with my terrible visual aid.. you could barely see the marker.. but it worked).  I had them listen to a love song (My Endless Love a la Diana Ross & Lionel Richie... soooogooood) and fill in the missing lyrics.  This is something I've done in language classes a few times and they love it here - this country is super musical.  Their favorite part is checking the answers when I replay the song and let them sing along, as loud as they like. The hard part is that I have so few resources here and don't have the money to provide them myself - so something that is so simple and common in the States as a handout is something they don't have here. Sometimes teachers will use them and the students will all give 1 peso to one student who goes and makes the copies, but it's complicated and not everyone gets one.. and it's generally just unreliable.  Also there are no projectors for Powerpoints or those clear sheets that you put on that big white/grey thing with the light and the arm kind of thing and the magnifying glass and it shows it up on the wall but upside down - what is that? Is that called a projector too? Do you know what I'm talking about? Anyways - we don't have that. So what all the teachers do is use manila paper - big paper that is a little better quality than tissue paper and they just write everything - lecture notes, tests, quizzes, assignments, activities - on these papers and hang them up on the board. There are chalk boards but most of them have big holes in them and there usually isn't enough time to write everything up during a class.  This is super frustrating for me because cheating is widely accepted here and there is little you can do considering kids don’t have their own papers and there are so many students squeezed into a classroom, sitting basically on top of each other, and there is constant noise coming from outside.  After the listening activity, I asked them to write a love letter - giannntt groan goes through the class - to their favorite object, not to a person! - groan turns to confused laughter?. So basically they can write a love letter to anything, just not a person. So my counterpart and I were giving some examples - Dear Fried Chicken, you are my endless love. Or Dear Spaghetti, thank you for being there for all of my birthdays and keeping my life long. (In the Philippines, you're supposed to eat long spaghetti noodles for you birthday so you'll have a long life). After we gave some examples the kids got really into it and wrote until the end of class! I gave them till Monday to finish the letter so I'm hoping for some amusing responses. Homework is really never given here, but some of the more eager kids will do work outside of the class.  If I give them a few days to do something it means that the eager students will hand in something totally complete and extra decorated on fancy paper but the less-than-eager students will just turn in whatever they happened to finish during class.

After my fist class I actually had the rest of the day free - students only have English class 4 times a week and a free period instead on one of the days. So Thursdays are their free periods. So, like I always do when I have no class, I returned to my desk to lesson plan/Facebook/project plan.  Lesson planning usually comes first so I can get it out of the way. My principal has asked all of the first year teachers to focus on remedial reading so every Friday they take a break from their usual lessons to do reading comprehension classes, so that's what I was planning today. I'm kind of excited for my lesson. I found a bunch of Valentine's Day traditions from other countries so I'm having them get in groups to read a short reading on their assigned country (I have England, Scotland, Korea, Romania, Brazil, Taiwan, a few more) then explain how their country is different from and the same as Filipino celebrations and explain whether or not they would like to go to their country to celebrate Valentine's Day.

That took the rest of my morning and finally it was noon! Lunch time! I have an hour for lunch, but since I have no classes in the afternoon but usually have class right before lunch (meaning I don't get out of school until 12:15) I sometimes take till 1:30 so I can go home and make lunch. Lunch is usually left overs from dinner or tuna salad or something basic.  Today I actually went to meet my site-mate Dave for lunch, since we both didn’t have much going on at work.  We met at our usual spot in town – a “pizza” place called Area 51.  It’s a small little corner of a restaurant that is pretty much fully supported financially by our business.  It has hamburgers and pizza and beer and soda and other Filipino foods.  The hamburgers and pizza are decent.. only decent.. by Filipino standards.  So by American standards, pretttty awful. But we’ll take what we can get! And we’ve gotten to know the owners and employees, so it’s always fun to stop by.  So Dave and I had lunch together and talked about some crazy German man Dave met the other day.

After lunch, I went back to school and did more Facebooking/work. I’ll give you more details on what I’ve been working on in a minute!

At 5:00, I packed up my laptop and coffee thermos and set out for home. I'm usually wiped by the end of the day.  Waking up at 6:15 then being at school until 5:00 just kills me.  So when I get home by 5:15 I try to work out and meditate for a little bit (difficult with so much noise and dirt and distractions in my apartment, but relatively necessary for my mental health haha).

And all of the teachers are shocked by the fact that I cook my own dinner and do my own housework – because with a schedule like that, all the teachers (the vast majority of who have kids and a husband/wife) have house helpers who stay home during the day to go to the market, clean the house, and have dinner ready for them when they come home. But I do have to cook for myself, which is usually the last thing I want to do in the evening. So my dinners here are pretty simple.  I generally only have time to go to the market on Sundays, so I’ll buy a weeks worth of fruit, vegetables, and fish.  I’m almost completely vegetarian (pescetarian?) here because I don’t really trust myself to buy meat here and preparing/cleaning it is new to me.  Fish is way easier to prepare and cook. I will eat meat sometimes if I’m eating out or at someone else’s house.  But it’s just too stressful to walk through the market with meat hanging everywhere and no idea how long it’s been out there, how to prepare it, etc.  So for dinner I usually have fish and vegetables, sometimes some pasta, and some fruit. (I eat like 11 mangos a day).  All I have here is a two-burner gas stove and my death kettle to cook with – no oven, no microwave. 

After dinner, if I’m not dead, I’ll finish any visual aids I need for the next day, take my bucket bath (BRR!), and get in bed! Usually I’ll read for a little bit or watch something on my laptop and try to fall asleep by about 10pm.

Then the next day my alarm goes off at 6:15 am and I do it all again!

Work!

The bulk of my weekly work is obviously lesson planning and teaching my classes, which I talked about a bit.  I’m teaching the first year (most are around 12-13 but some of my older students can be 16-17) which is actually called the 7^th grade this year, because the Philippines is switching to a K-12 curriculum...  Meaning my students will be the first students to go through 6 years of high school (basically like our jr. high and high school).  This is all intended to better prepare them for the work place and is modelled after the American curriculum that is more student-centered and less lecturing from the teacher (which sounds like a really good plan but is just SO hard when you don’t have resources!).  Some of the big problems that schools are already starting to worry about is classroom space and hiring more teachers.  4 years from now, when my 7^th grade students come back to school for their 5^th year as 11^th graders, my school will have 5 grade levels at the school for the first time.  This means that, like schools across the country, their super limited resources will be stretched even thinner to accommodate so many extra students – there will be a shortage of class space, desks, money, etc. And they also have to hire another grade-worth of teachers, meaning less money.  The government has made promises to schools to help deal with the space and resource issue but every principal I’ve talked to about this has been very pessimistic on the government following through on any of these promises.  So – you can see that the Department of Education has a lot to figure out in the next few years.  Buuuuut they are already screwing things up pretty badly, even in the first year of the program.  The K-12 is supposed to be an entirely new curriculum but.... they haven’t published that curriculum.  In the past, teachers have been given explicit objectives for each lesson and even sample lesson plans but these haven’t been published for the 3^rd and 4^th quarter of the new 7^th grade curriculum. So basically teachers have no idea what they are supposed to be teaching. And the NAT (National Achievement Test – a standardized test students take at the end of the school year) is supposed to be based on this curriculum – and school rankings and how much money they receive is based on the results of this test – but with no curriculum, teachers don’t know what will be on the test.  So I started teaching my classes at the beginning of the 4^th quarter and all my counterpart teacher could tell me that this quarter will be spent learning about essays. Just.. essays. I had no idea what experience they had with essays, what exactly they were to learn, were they to write an essay? Read essays? All of this? So basically I’ve just been planning lessons (as well as all 7^th grade teachers around the country) around the extremely broad guideline of “essay”.  I've heard that the reason the curriculum isn't released is because DepEd ran into some last minute copyright issues. So hopefully by next year the curriculum will be out - but, looking at the old curriculum, it will still definitely need some work.

Other than teaching, I am planning my secondary projects - which are basically any projects that will help my school/teachers/students/community.  The one I'm working on the most right now, and one that I'm really excited about, is going to be a GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Camp.  It's a girls empowerment and leadership camp that will take place at my school in May.  Other female PCVs, all my really good friends, are all helping with the planning and facilitating of the camp and we're working with teachers at my school.  I also have a few things in the works for next year - a peer tutoring program, a high school 101 program for first years (sort of intro to high school life, study tips, anti-bullying, anti-drugs, so.. anti-fun! Am I right?!), and an English film and conversation club! Just to name a few. So when I'm at school but have no class my time is spent making proposals and budgets and schedules and collecting resources for all of these projects.  I'm also pumped because Ashley, Dave and I came up with the idea of visiting the island barangays around Sagay and doing weekend workshops on Environmental Leadership.  We're at the very, very beginning of the planning stages but we're going to coordinate with the schools and barangay captains on the islands and see what we can do!  Everything is in the planning stages but I'm really excited about all of the projects - though I know to be realistic about the probability of some failed projects.

Also stay tuned because I might be bugging you guys for some donations or input on projects :)

Social Life?!

So, I have somewhat of a social life here! As I've said before, I have been incredibly lucky to be placed with two awesome, awesome site mates. Ashley, Dave and I hang out at least once or twice a week.  Now that we all live in our own places we can hang out there or one of our favorite things is going to the city plaza and having some beer and bbq or popcorn. It's super chill and after a full week of work we need to unload and laugh until we're slightly delirious - we usually have a beer or two lang (only), but always end up a little hysterical and drunk on English conversation.  I've also managed to make a few local friends! They are great and sometime join Ashley, Dave and I for drinks or I'll join them. It's great for language practice and integration. There is also a really cool Japanese volunteer here who we hang out with from time to time! He actually lives right across the way from me - across the field of fighting cock. And that is a good introduction tooooo...

My apartment!

At the end of December, after three months at site, I moved out of the host family nest and out on my own! It was a little bit complicated when it all went down.. So for a few weeks I was house hunting, which is very difficult here because everything is via word of mouth and who I know on top of the fact that it is quite unusual for a single female to live on her own, so most of the options were houses for family.  With the amazing, immense help of my co-teacher we walked around the barangay for hours, multiple nights, and finally found something perfect! I found a small, one bedroom house that is close to where my host family was - right next to the market mall and a 10 minute walk to school - that is fully furnished! The owners are an older couple who now live in Canada and since they usually don't rent the house, the rent is pretty low for such a nice place.  I met with the niece of the owners and was working through the details with her.  Before making any moves, all PCVs have to have their houses approved by a Peace Corps manager. The night before my lease with my host family ended and the day my PC manager was coming to visit I went to check in with the niece and confirm our visit the next day..... only to find out.. that the owners of the house actually decided to spend the spring here in Sagay and the house won't be available until April. So, after a solid month of searching and finding the perfect place, I was left with nothing.  Luckily, my PC manager is a champ and helped me do a double check of the whole barangay and found an open apartment! So, as it was my only real option, I took it!

It's not ideal, but its ideally temporary.  The apartment is sort of on the other side of town from my host family but still only about 15 minutes from school, like I said. So after going down the dirt roads, my apartment is in the same building as 3 other apartments that share a gate.  Once in the gate, there is kind of a big pile of junk.. like a junk yard. In the other apartments there are two little families who are very sweet and, in the apartment right next to mine, there were some younger girls working as sales girls for a publishing company.  Those girls recently moved out and back to the capital, which is a shame, so we'll see who my new neighbours will be!  The apartment is a one bedroom with a little living room/kitchen space and a bathroom. It really isn't that bad, relatively big for a one bedroom, but the only serious problem is the floors.  They aren't finished so they are sort of like a dirty, clay floor that has red dust that gets on EVERRRYTHING.  Plus with the junk yard in the front, I have issues with a little new mouse roommate and bugs.  Actually yesterday I saw the rat KING climb out of the biggest pile of junk. He was the size of a regular house cat. It was terrifying. I'm hoping he is happy and healthy in the junk pile and never tries to move in to my place.  The landlord let me borrow all the furniture so, like I said, I don't have to spend money on the temporary place, and it has gotten pretty homey. 

The plan was to move to the perfect place in April but I just found out that the owners are actually staying until July and they have a few other stipulations that I might not be able to work around - namely the fact that the house helper, who stays there while they are abroad, would want to stay on working and living at the house.  I'm hoping to maybe work out a deal with the owners because this house is seriously perfect. If I can work it out, I might might be able to stick it out in my current place or I could start looking for another temporary place. It really is just so hard to house hunt here so I have to think it through.

Vacayz & Holidayz

Now I know I've bored you with all my monotony, but to break up the day to day tedium of the biggest adventure of my life I do have a handful of excursions and white sand, blue water exploits.

I'll try to work chronologically..

All the way back at the end of the November I went with a group of volunteers to a mountain resort about 45 minutes from the capital to celebrate our friend's birthday.  The place is called Mambukal and is known for hot springs, giant bats, and waterfall hikes.  We only spent two days and one night there but it was so cool! We watched the giant bats, which look like eagles or something, fly around the trees and hang upside down.  Then we went for a hike to the seven waterfalls - as you go higher, the hike gets a little more treacherous and the waterfalls a little more badass.  That took up the whole afternoon and was so fun with the whole group. Afterwards, I jumped in the pool with a few of my friends and we all took turn playing our favorite pool games from when we were kids (mine was obviously handstand competitions).  Then we had dinner and finished the night sitting around in the hot springs and talking under the stars.  It was perfect! The weekend was short but I could definitely spend a lot more time there and I'm sure I'll be going back a few times.

After that we had Christmas, which was a strange affair, but not all-together unmerry.  Christmas here actually starts around September, but the very beginning of December is when things go in full swing.  I was pretty involved in all the city plans because, somehow, I was recruited to be the "mascot" for my school during the Christmas parade.  I ended up having to dress up as an angel with GIANT angel wings and dance on stage in the plaza and walk around to take pictures.  Everyone was fascinated by me and I realized what it felt like to be one of those characters walking around Disney.  On my out of character nights, I usually went with Ashley and Dave and some of our local friends to the plaza to watch the program and lounge around with some mango smoothie, beer, and popcorn.  Each night was hosted by a different group, including my high school, other schools, certain barangays, etc. and generally consisted of dance and song numbers and were usually hosted by one or two charismatic characters with a decent grasp of some rehearsed English lines.  On the night of Ashley's work's program, those charismatic characters were us.  Ashley, Dave and I were asked to host the program so we got all dolled up in Christmas-y clothes and had our makeup done while frantically memorizing some key Illonggo phrases and going over some potential banter we could have.  It was definitely an experience.  Now.. I've had the most stage experience out of the three of us but this was something totally different. Filipinos loove to watch shows and get really into stuff.. but they are the weirdest audience I've ever seen.  They rarely clap, which is really unsettling, and often talk through presentations or programs - but they still love them. So the three of us had to get up between each act and introduce the next act and have a little banter - all to crickets.  We talked about Christmas, about Manny Pacquiao, about Miss Universe coming down to USA and Philippines.. and it was just crickets. It was pretty awkward.  But afterwards we were assured that we did really well! So as long as Ashley's work was happy, we were happy.

Christmas Day here isn't as big of a deal as Christmas Eve, or Buena Noche. For the 24th I went to a friend's house and had lots of food and drinks and talking (mostly me listening and smiling) late into the night.  The next morning was really relaxed with most people recovering from the night before.  It was nice to be around a family but I think the fact that it was so different from Christmas at home made it easier to deal with.  I kept having to remind myself that it was Christmas even though I was sweating and eating sweet spaghetti. So overall it was an okay Christmas!

The next big event was New Years! So. Much. Fun! I had been making plans with a bunch of fellow volunteers and we ended up getting a group of 20 to all meet in Dumaguete, the capital in the south of my island, and go on a snorkel trip to two small neighbouring islands, Siquijor and Apo Island.  We all met in Dumaguete for a few days and for New Years Eve.  We stayed in a cool hostel there and spent the days exploring the city and going to the beach and the nights on the hostel's rooftop drinking and catching up, since most of us hadn't seen each other since September.  On New Years Eve we were all together for a big party on the rooftop and celebrated at midnight with fireworks going off literally all around us in the city - like a constant stream of fireworks in every direction for 30 minutes. It was amazing. The next morning we rallied early, got our stuff together, and piled in a van to the beach to set out for our snorkel/dive trip! The hostel where we stayed, owned by a guy we're now friends with and cuts us sweet deals, was taking us out on their big boat where we would spend three days and two nights.  We basically went around the two islands stopping at the good dive spots and it was unreal.  These places are known as some of the best dive places in the world! We saw so many fish, star fish, coral, sea snakes, and - everyone's favorite - sea turtles!! It was a blast.  At night, we just slept on the deck of the boat which was definitely an experience.  You could see every single star and the moon was huge and felt like it was so close.  I spent the night lying next to my friend Laura talking about the universe and existing in different dimensions... stereotypical star gazing discussions.  The coolest part was being called over to the edge by Allie and Daniel to look at the phosphorescents, the glow-in-the-dark bacteria in the water. We had this amazing sky above us then these flickering little lights in the dark blue water.. I can't even describe the feeling.  But... from there the night wasn't so magical.  We were all super sun burnt from the day so sleeping on the deck was painful while the wind was really strong and ended up being surprisingly cold.  We basically we are all sleeping in piles of whatever clothes/towels we could gather up but most of these were blown off every 30 minutes.  So the sleep wasn't very good but the experience was totally worth it.  The next night, we all stayed up late playing games and talking and singing and playing guitar with some rum. A few people had to get back to the airport early so we caught a few hours (maybe 2 tops) of uncomfortable, wet (we had a quick but torrential downpour followed by some heavy waves and absolutely, positively everything on the boat was soaked - only plus side was that Allie and I managed to stand on the deck of the boat with some soap and shampoo and get in our only shower of the trip - in the rain) sleep before leaving for the mainland at 5am.  We all got up at the sound of the engine flipping on but hoped to sleep a little more since it would be an hour until we returned to Dumaguete... but the waves had returned.  It was the saddest sight I have ever seen.  We were all sitting on the boat huddled together under soaking blankets and sheets and towels just trying to keep the spray out of our eyes.  The boat was slamming into every wave so we were all sunburnt, freezing, and trying to keep down all the rum from the night before.  By the time we reached the shore we were all pretty grumpy and just thankful to be able to go back to the hostel for a shower and some fresh clothes.  After that, we all said our goodbyes and went back to our respective sites!

My next trip was a much needed trip to visit my family! My family from training, that is.  It was time for Subic's annual, week-long fiesta so Allie, Daniel, and I all met in Manila and made our way to Subic.  It was perfect - time with Allie and Daniel, visiting everyone from training again, some fun fiesta activities, and, most of all, plenty of time with my family.  It was so nice to be back with the kids and my big sisters.  My one sister was about to burst with her third child - who was born a few days ago! So I now have a new niece that I have to get back to visit.  It was so great to see my mom and my dad again and have some of my mom's delicious cooking. It wasn't a super eventful trip but was definitely one of my favorites so far.

Since Subic, I've stuck to my island but had a few little trips.  I've made a few day trips to the capital with Dave and Ashley but those are usually just to spend the day in the mall stocking up on things we can't find in Sagay.  I also had a really fun weekend in Cadiz, the biggest town next to us (only about a 20 minute bus ride), for their fiesta.  Two of my good friends at assigned in Cadiz so they hosted a handful of us, including friends from the south of my island, Allie, Michelle, and Chris.  Before going to Cadiz, those three spent a day in Sagay going island hopping - lots of fun snorkeling and boating and touring mangroves! In Cadiz, we spent Saturday night walking around and having some drinks, catching up, listening to the live band, but the highlight of the festival was on Sunday.  On Sunday, the streets are filled with vendors selling little cups of paint for 5 pesos that strangers will use to cover each other in paint.  Being white people, we were definitely targets during the whole thing.  The streets were packed and hands would come out of nowhere to smear paint on my face, my arms, my legs, and more awkward places.  We were all a little hesitant at first but soon were buying our own paint and giving back as good as we were getting it.  After a while we all reconvened for some lunch and a cold beer - since baking under the hot sun with your body covered in questionably-non-toxic paint can be exhausting.

I have a few exciting things coming up - next week I'll be in the capital all week for Language Camp - five straight days of language training sponsored by Peace Corps.  I've gotten a little comfortable in the limited Ilonggo I've learned.  I have enough to get around so I've sort of lost of my drive to study, on top of all the other work I'm doing.  But I'm hoping this week is the kick in the ass that I need to get back to site and really try to practice my language and find a tutor.

After language camp the mo0o0o0o0o0o0ossst exciting thing is happening - JACK IS COMING TO VISIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Jack - one of my best friends from McGill)!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is coming in on the 5th and staying for about 10 days.  I can't travel much because of school but there is plenty to do in Sagay and nearby - I'm thinking we will go to that mountain resort and maybe all the way down to Dumaguete.  We'll see!!!

After that, I only have a few more weeks of school until Holy Week and summer vacation.  

For Holy Week I'm going with a group of friends to the north! To Baguio city, which is supposed to be very, very cool. I hear rumours of pine trees and cold temperatures - a whole different world!  

I've also had some questions about care packages and my address - again, my address is posted in the other tab "Contact Information" if you just look at the top of my blog ^^ I'm also going to add a tab with care package requests if you ever want to check that out!

I'm sorry for the break in blogs and I hope this one was satisfying without being too overwhelming. Like ordering a Chipotle burrito bowl instead of a regular burrito. Mmmmmm I want Chipotle. 


<3 Hillary

P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures in this one, but my internet is particularly slow/patchy today. I might try to add some later or you can always find them on Facebook! 

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. - John Wooden

Life in Sagay

This update goes out to my Aunt Amy, who was the first to tell me to "update your damn blog" - so here is a huge update!

I've officially been at site for two months and some days - and its flown by. A PCV told us during training that in the Peace Corps the days will inch by while the months fly by, and its proven true so far.  My days here are a weird mix of routine and novelty. I'm still in the observation stage at school, so there are stretches of my days when I don't have anything to do and they can be painfully boring. I usually follow a teacher for a day and sit in on the classes, but some days I end up spending the entire day sitting at my desk.  I have to constantly remind myself that I should still be observing and planning - some days I just get sucked into the internet all day.  And school days here are long - I get up at 6:00 every morning to bucket shower, eat breakfast, and get to school by 7:30 for the flag ceremony. Then I'm in school until 5:00. Like I said, I observe a few classes but am mostly at my desk. My desk in the faculty room with the English and Science teachers and they are all really great.  I have only actually taught a handful of classes - I taught a week of film classes with the Arts students and have been helping them with their final project, including going on a field trip with them to a nearby barangay. Things will pick up at school once I've picked a counterpart (co-teacher to share classes with) and have a set schedule, which will actually be in the next week or so.  While some days at school can be ridiculously boring, others are really fun. I love the students and am working on getting to know them better.  The second week I was here we had a program for Teachers Appreciation Day and I danced Gangnam Style in front of the whole school, so I usually can't walk past students without a request for another sample of gangnam. I'm still a little overwhelmed by the size of my school and am very slowly starting to get to know all of the teachers and the students, but I think when I have my set schedule with my classes the school will start to feel a lot smaller.

Gangnam Style dance troupe for Teachers Day

Bright moon over Sagay on my walk home from school

And while trying to feel more at home at school, I'm also getting to know Sagay better.  I love my walk to and from school because I now have a pretty regular cast of characters to say hi to and chat with.  In my barangay, Sagay proper, there is a 'market mall' - a covered area with little stands selling food and household stuff, plus a few coffee stands and places to get food, and an ukay-ukay area (like a thrift store). We also have a few restaurants around town - one kind of fast food place, and a few others that have local meals to choose from.  But Sagay is a little too small for any chain places.. the closest ones are in our neighboring bigger city, Cadiz.  We also have a public plaza that is actually really fun at night - they set up tables with umbrellas and have barbeque and other street food (buuut you have to be really careful with street food...). There are always people there at night and during the weekends, kids stay out late and run around the plaza. It's a really nice place to just hang out with some friends and a beer. We also have a beach - but.. I haven't been yet, sadly. Most people here don't really go to spend the day at the beach so it's been hard to get an exact answer for where the beach is and the best way to go spend the day there - but! my sitemate Ashley recently went with her work, so we're going to hang out there a lot more!

Carbin Reef

Then there is Carbin Reef. Ahhh Carbin Reef! It's like.. paradise.  I first went with Ashley and Dave, and three other volunteers from nearby towns, on the second or third week we were in Sagay then again this weekend for my birthday! Dave has a hookup through work so we can get a free boat ride from a nearby barangay, Old Sagay, to the reef.  It takes about 15-30 minutes, depending on the water, and it is just a small island of bright white sand. It's actually just a sand bar and gets down to a pretty small sliver during high tide.  It is in the Sagay Marine Reserve, a huge and relatively well funded protected marine area.  On the beach there are a few bamboo shelters and a big watch tower.  The water is about a thousand perfect shades of clear turquoise. You can snorkel all around the sand bar and it is amazing - bright blue and green coral, sea cucumbers, schools of big and small fish, adorable clown fish poking around their anemone, huge star fish, jellyfish, and giant clams! So we go and snorkel for a little while then spend the rest of the day sitting on the beach and eating and drinking rum and talking - it's amazing.

Watch tower on Carbin Reef

Boating back home - right into a rain storm

I've had a handful of other really good weekends..

In October, I went to Bacolod (the capital of my province, about a 2 hour bus ride away) for their annual mask-themed festival, MassKara (many faces). It was the first time a big group of us got together since going to site, so I got to see a few of my good friends from the south of my island. The festival was really fun - stands selling masks, music playing in the streets, people dancing, big floats going by in the parade and met a handful of really cool volunteers in my area who aren't in my batch.

Diane, me, and Allie at MassKara

I also went to the capital of the southern province of my region for a weekend a few weeks ago, which was also so so much fun. A few of my good friends live there, including Allie from training.  So I took a bus earlllllllly Friday morning all the way to the south. Buses here are.. varied. You can get in an air conditioned bus that has a TV and shows movies and usually only makes a few stops, making your trip super short.  And there are a variety of air con busses,  from nice and roomy to a little cramped, but still air con. Then there are non-aircon, which is usually super cramped with bumpy, ripped seats and windows thrown open that makes a stop every couple of minutes - usually speeding up between stops then slamming on the breaks to pick up people along the road.  There is a bus terminal right across the street from my school which is convenient, but when you can't make it to a terminal, you can literally flag down any bus going in your direction and just jump on. For this trip, I took the first bus from the terminal which happened to not be an aircon. The first 45 minutes was miserable - I had to stand in the aisle with my backpack and a big purse and try to not bump and squish all the Filipinos around me. Then some people got off and I managed to get a seat by the window - on the bench seat, meant for three but usually seating four or five, with my knees jammed up against the seat in front of me. But after I scooched all over trying to find the least-bone crushing position for my legs, it was quite pleasant. My iPod froze on song 2 so I listened to the jabber of the other passengers and the conductor tapping the metal rails to tell the driver when to stop to drop or pick someone up then tapping again when everyone was on or off - or as close to on or off as they could before the bus sped off.  The whole time I just hung out the window (which was not fun when another buses came by kicked up dirt or we drove past burning trash piles or sugar cane fields) but the scenery here is beautiful - all the bright green sugar cane fields and palm trees run right up to the bright blue water.  There are some small mountains that go right into the water and you can see the mountains of Cebu, the island next door to Negros, in the distance. It was magnificent... but after 7 hours, my legs were cramped as hell as my butt had lost all feeling, so I was happy to make it to Dumaguete.  Dumaguete is mostly a college town - home to Silliman University, one of the best in the Philippines - and has a really cool bars and restaurants. So we had dinner and drinks in Duma before Allie's host mom picked us up in the back of a little truck and we drove 20ish minutes to Dauin, Allie's site. We all cuddled up and spent the night in Allie's bamboo (nipa) hut and woke up the next day to go snorkeling! She has a really cool beach with amazing snorkeling about 10 minute walk from her house. 

Beach in Dauin

We snorkeled and hung out all morning, had lunch with her host family, then went back to Duma for the night. Another volunteer was having a going away party hosted by this guy, Harold, who is really cool and friends with all the Peace Corps volunteers in the area and owns a hostel in the city. So we went to check into the hostel - which is so nice, with a super cool rooftop hangout area with pool tables and speakers and hammocks - then went out for the best. dinner. I've. ever. had. (at least in the past 5 months).  We had three cheese macaroni (CHEESE! THREE KINDS! note: there is no cheese in the Philippines.. considering that, it is an impressive feat that happiness exists here..) followed by a bacon cheese burger with truffle oil.. .like.. WUT. and nooo rice at all. I was actually delirious while eating. 

Hamburger sent from the gods

After we were stuffed, we went to going away party. We met some other volunteers in the area as well as local friends of Harold's. Mostly just drank and videoked then went out to a disco afterwards. So much fun! It was so good to have an actual night out. The next morning we got up and had Mexican food for breakfast.. because we could.  I then took another bus back to Sagay (aircon this time, less exciting - but more leg room) and was almost back in Sagay when I got a text from my "safety warden" (one volunteer who has to relay safety messages from Peace Corps to volunteers in their area) that we were having a safety drill - in Bacolod. So I had to get off my bus from Duma, meet with Ashley, Dave and Lizzie, and jump right back on a bus for the capital. We were all pretty annoyed that we had to drop everything just to come in for a drill, but it ended up being really nice - aircon rooms at a hotel and basically a free day off of work to hang out with other volunteers.  There are 13 volunteers from my batch in my area - and a strangely disproportionate amount of cool people - so I really lucked out with the volunteers in my area! (Not that there aren't other super cool really great volunteers in other areas.. obviously)

With my students in Vito - note the umbrellas.. more often used to block sun than rain

On weekends when I'm not traveling or doing something exciting, I have been going to another barangay in Sagay (20 minutes on a bus) called Vito. I went to Vito initially with the Arts students on a  field trip - they had to study the culture of the barangay (that has one of  the oldest churches in the Philippines) for a final project. To get there, my co-teacher had to rent a little bus thing (called a cebro - kind of like a small bus/big van hybrid that runs the national highway through my province) for the students and ended up befriending the family that owns the cebro company. She then introduced me to the family and I have been spending my weekends with them.  They have a big family with a bunch of kids and have a house right on the water. With the cebros, they own some pump boats and have a little fishing business so they are really well known in the barangay.   Vito is really cute and cooler than Sagay proper (where I live) with fresh air, being right next to the ocean.  I mostly just hang out there with my co-teacher, but it is a really nice break to get away for a night to somewhere so pretty.

Church in Vito

So, as you can see, I'm having plenty of fun and there are a lot of little escapes and highlights already. But, as I've told some of you, life here can be pretty stressful on a daily basis. It's just a lot of adjusting - for me and those around me - that I'm still going through. Little things that are fine and I can easily laugh at some days push me to the verge of tears the next day.  It's obviously really difficult to be so far from friends and family and connecting with people is harder here - mostly due to language barriers plus a lot of cultural differences. I love the people here and enjoy being with them, but have very few deep bonds yet and communication is extremely difficult, which can be lonely.  But it's a weird lonely, because I am constantly surrounded by people, which is another highlight and stressor. There is no such thing as alone time here. If I tell someone that I did something by myself - like go for a walk to the plaza or just watched a movie - they always wonder why and see doing things alone as being sad.  When I do just walk to the market mall to buy some new shampoo or go to the drug store for some more baby wipes (my new best friend here), everyone sees me and talks about what I'm wearing, what I'm buying, etc. On most days, I love this and I love saying hello to everyone and stopping to chat with people and, as most of my uni friends might know, I generally dislike alone time and doing things alone.  But on some days, I just want to feel like I can walk home from school without starting a commotion.  I'm still adjusting to the food here and have had almost every craving for different foods that I just can't get here. And the constant sweating and heat with a lack of genuine showers (I use a tabo - meaning I fill a bucket with water, then use a smaller bucket thing to dump the water over me) and toilets can wear on me. BUT! Obviously these problems are not the sum of my past two months and there are so many amazing things here.. this just gives you an idea of what life is like.  And my fellow volunteers constantly prove themselves as an amazing, amazing support system and can relate on all of these. It's widely known (and laughed about but consistently proven true) that whenever volunteers get together, we talk about three things: work, food, and poop. Sometimes we made a conscious effort to not let the conversation go there, but it inevitably does. Every time. You become very open about some things when you're in our conditions.

Last week we had an area athletic and cultural meet that was hosted by my school - so participants from two other cities came and stayed at my school for three days of competitions, so we had no classes Wed - Frid.  

Opening Ceremonies for Area Meet

Sagay won the most exciting part of the Cultural Meet - the Folk Dance competition! 

Then this weekend - my birthday! - I went to Vito and the family had a very traditional Filipino birthday party for me. The whole family came over - uncles, aunts, cousins - and we had a lechon, pig roasted on a spit, spaghetti, fresh crabs, "fruit" salad (fruit in massive amounts of sweet, condensed milk) and sat around eating and singing videoke. 

Choppin' some lechon

The next morning, I went to Carbin Reef with six other volunteers and had a blast. Snorkeling, rum, food, lots of laughs. It was definitely a successful 23rd!

23rd Birthday - success! 

Now I'm back at school and back to work! I'll hopefully be deciding on a counter-part this week and getting a final schedule for the rest of the year, as well as start discussing some potential project ideas with my supervisor. So lots of work for me!

Also, not to be presumptuous, but here is my address again in case anyone wants to send some holiday greetings/treats:

Hillary Dale
Peace Corps Volunteer
c/o Ms. Vilia Tupas
Principal III
Sagay National High School
Poblacion 2
Sagay City, Negros Occidental, Philippines

Also, if you are interested in including stuff/donations for my school, we always need more supplies - of anything. Markers, crayons, paper, books! (books! books! books!), anything! would be great - I can share with my co-teachers. Students here are extremely limited and rarely have creative projects to apply their lessons to because of lack of materials.

Happy late Thanksgiving - I am thankful for each and every one of you. I am.

Thanks for reading :)

Sa sunod - until next time. xxxxxx.

When it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid. - The Secret Life of Bees