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

Sige bybye Luzon! Maayong aga, Negros!

I made it to Sagay.. let us start at the beginning, shall we?

The beginning is the end of Subic. When I last left you, I had a few days left. These last few days were difficult but fun. We ended up pulling off our PACA project with a presentation to the teachers as well as giving them binders, USBs, and 14 tarpaulins.  It wasn’t as satisfying as 8 hour training would have been, and I could tell the teachers felt we were throwing a lot of information at them in a brief hour, but I’m optimistic that they will realize the potential of the binders and tarps.  Then we ate, obviously, which made them happy, obviously.

Saturday was our very last day in Subic and last day with our host families.  We had our handog – goodbye party – and it was a really good time. We got everyone together in the morning at the covered basketball court. We had each made a sign/banner for our family and had them hung around the edge and my DJ cousin was there playing music. Dan and Chris were our emcees – complete with funny hats, ridiculous glasses, and cheeesseeeeball jokes that completely went over all of the Filipino’s heads.  We played a few games.. three-legged race that was really fun (and left Allie with a questionable-when-out-of-context bruise) followed by musical chairs (or Walk to Jerusalem as its known in the Pines).  My family totally rocked it – the final two were my mom and my niece, with my niece winning. Next we played Knockout – well, we tried to play knockout. Filipinos love basketball but not so much an organized game of it. It was surprisingly hard to explain so we kind of just shot the ball in a line and gave a prize to whoever wanted it. Finally, we did a water balloon toss that everyone loved.  My cousin Raymond and I got pretty far in one of the tosses until the balloon exploded in my hands when I caught it.  After that, we had everyone sit down so we could hand out Peace Corps certificates to the host families.  Allie and I were in charge of making a short speech to thank the families – we talked about how our families were there for us through our “Filipino Firsts” – like our first brownout, first typhoon, first flood, and first balut.  We thanked them for introducing us to cultural game-changers like Filipino soap operas – namely Luna Blanca.  We told them how hard it would be to leave and that we would always have family is Subic (all of this at first in English, followed by Tagalog).  We then gave out certificates and each one of us gave a little thank you.  I was near the end and when there were only about 2 people in front of me, I looked out and saw my mom sobbing in the crowd, so I immediately lost it.  I tried to collect myself before my speech but ended up just squeaking a few noises into the microphone before my mom nearly bowled me over with a bear hug. My dad, the captain, came up crying to give me a hug and my kids were sitting in the front row all crying together. It was heart breaking!

After the sob fest we all had some delicious food and slowly dispersed. I spent the rest of the day doing all my last minute packing before having a going away dinner of delicious, delicious pizza (almost American tasting!) and spaghetti.  After dinner, we all went into my mom’s bedroom and my family gave me some presents – I got a cute shirt and really nice purse from my mom and my ate gave me a pretty blue dress, this really funky cool necklace, a little purse from Bohol, and my new favourite thing – a coffee mug with a picture of me and my entire family on the outside. It’s so cute and I’m sure I’ll bring it to school with me every day! After the presents we again just all sat in the room and cried together hahah. I said goobye/good night to everyone before going to bed. It was especially hard with Raen and Zoe (my youngest) because I don’t think they really understood that I was really leaving and why I wouldn’t be coming back – I felt really guilty.  I woke up the next morning at 4 AM to take a shower and, even though I had said goodnight to them the night before, I found my oldest niece (Que-Anne) and her friend curled up on the couch in the living room.  They had gone to their own houses but woken up at 3 to come back to my house and wait for me to wake up so they could walk me to the bus. I got all of my stuff together and made it to the bus by 5 where I said one final goodbye to my niece and my dad before boarding with everyone else.

I mostly slept on the way to Manila, so it was pretty uneventful. Getting to the hotel and seeing everyone again was really fun! I was roommates with Ashley (new site mate) and another CYF volunteer Amelia (who I love). The hotel was okay – we can’t really complain with showers, flush toilets, and WiFi but outside of those luxuries, it was pretty gross. There were a number of mystery elevators that would randomly kidnap you, all of the floors were like a maze, and each room had a distinctly foul smell. The food was truly, truly awful.  We got there on Sunday and had sessions most of the day on Monday and Tuesday – everyone was so cranky because the food was borderline inedible and everyone was starving. But outside of sessions was really fun.. On Sunday, Peace Corps paid for us to go on this really interesting tour of Intramuros, the historic part of Manila. It was a walking tour, and we walked there from the hotel (about 1.6 km) and that part was miserable. It was pouring down rain and none of us were prepared.. I was wearing my tsinelas (flip flops) and cut my toe pretty badly about 5 minutes into the walk through a mildly flooded Manila. I wasn't a very happy camper.

The tour itself was really great – and pretty controversial, as we were warned.  Manila has a crazy history – with the Spanish presence, American presence, and WWII. The city has just seen so many changes and so much destruction.  When the Spanish were here, they considered the Philippines as essentially another state of Mexico.  When the American’s came, they introduced/imposed their culture very heavily on the Filipino people. The tour guide was extremely dramatic, bordering on manic.  He would randomly yell words and act out certain things and slam his book and throw confetti and use heavy sarcasm when talking about the power of the church or the influence of Americans but was still strangely ambiguous on his true feelings towards their influences. So we walked around the old centre, which is quite small as most of the city was destroyed when Americans dropped a bomb on Manila during WWII to get the Japanese out (simultaneously killing over 10,000 Filipinos and making Manila the second most destroyed city after WIII, second to Warsaw, in what was summed up as “collateral damage”).  Included in the tour was a short horse and buggy ride to the oldest stone church in the Philippines, which was probably the most fun/terrifying part.  My friend Justin and I jumped in this rickety – like.. riiiickety – buggy that was being pulled by a horse that was barely bigger than a big dog (slight exaggeration, but they were tiny and obviously malnourished) with 5 Filipino strangers and set out, not entirely sure as to what was going on.  We wove around streets in Manila and every bump/turn made the entire buggy creak.. we were convinced it was just going to collapse under us.  The rain was still torrential and we soon found ourselves death-buggying through a good handful of inches of water. We questioned whether we were being kidnapped at a few points and mostly just huddled together to avoid the rain coming in the open buggy while a little Filipino girl in front of my kept shrieking “Masaya! Masaya!” (Fun! Fun!).  We finally navigated the flooded streets and made it to this really cool church where the entire group met up and the tour guide finished his speech, explaining that through all of the Philippines different influences – Islam, Spanish Catholicism, American – they have created for themselves a unique mix of all the desirable qualities from these influences, creating a halo-halo, or mix-mix, which is the name of a popular Filipino dessert that consists on condensed milk, ice, and a random mix of jello, beans, corn flakes.. Basically anything! We then got free halo-halo.. woo! So after about 3 or 3.5 hours spent soaking wet and drenching our brains is good ole’ knowledge, we all got on a bus back to the hotel.

Other than sessions, I spent a lot of time just hanging out with people I hadn’t seen in a while and people I won’t be seeing in a while. We had a few really good nights just hanging out with some Red Horse or coconut rum in the hotel – mostly with people popping in and out of our room, which was really fun.  It was tempting to go out out in Manila but everyone was pretty pooped every night and we had a lot going on, but I did manage to make it out one night.  The night before my swearing in ceremony I went with a bunch of people to a bar nearby that had actually been started by an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, although he didn’t serve in the Philippines). This guy had an extreme passion for the Lord of the Rings, so he wanted to open a themed bar. So he did… and he called it the Hobbit House… and he staffed it entirely with dwarves. So of course we had to check it out.  The place was cool, it had a big round door, some LOTR memorabilia all over with live music, and a huge selection of beers, but it was mostly just a tourist spot with over-priced drinks. I was with Justin, Allie and Daniel so the four of us stayed for a drink before meeting up with the rest of the group at another bar with cheap beer and videoke – more our style. So we stayed there for a while with everyone.

And the next day was swearing in! I spent the morning repacking my bags and getting ready before heading out for the ceremony at 1pm. It took place at the U.S. Embassy which was very cool but also extremely uptight – rightfully so.  It was pretty tense getting us all in there because you could tell the Peace Corps and Embassy staff was on super high alert with everything going on right now, particularly with the target of embassies and some anti-American riots already happening in the south of the Philippines.  The ceremony itself was really nice – we had our country director give some remarks, a speech in Tagalog by another trainee, and a speech from the Ambassador. Each training group also had 5 minutes for a presentation. We were told that groups usually did a little traditional dance or song, but it seems all of our groups went all out this year.  We had awesome choreographed dances and really funny songs and some cool spoken word poetry.  My group did a dramatic re-enactment of the Filipino legend of the first man and woman, complete with pretty intricate coloured paper costumes.  Finally, we all took the oath of office and officially became volunteers! Although we didn’t feel tooo different after taking the oath, it was really exciting to be together with everyone who made it through training (which not everyone does!) and feel like we were really about to take off on our next adventure as a reward for all of our hard work at training. We had a reception afterwards with the first good food of the week and plenty of picture-pictures.  We had just been served some coffee when staff members started around the reception room and told everyone that we were to head back to our hotel (which is right across the street). We weren’t really sure why is ended so suddenly until we filed out of the embassy gates and saw trucks of Manila police in riot gear being dropped off in front of the embassy. We quickly got into our hotel and found out that there was a demonstration coming our way that was in part anti-American.  So we all had to be on hotel lockdown for the next two hours.  It was kind of crazy feeling.. being sworn in and being so excited to get to work despite the myriad of challenges and conditions were going to be faced with only to have a group of people protesting our country. We were all talking about it and came to the conclusion that it’s a really important time to be a Peace Corps Volunteer and really be a representative of the United States – a role I hadn’t really given much thought to before then.

That night was really, really fun – some people (mostly those who had later departure times in the morning) went out in Manila but a big group of us stayed in and just hung out together in our room. It was pretty late night… which hit me pretty hard when I had to wake up at 5, after less than a few hours of sleep, to shower, get my bags together, and get to the airport. I had some pretty rushed goodbyes with half asleep people before leaving the hotel with the 12 other volunteers in my region to catch our flight to Negros!! I was obviously and predictably very cranky, but the airport/flight was painless. We flew from Manila to Bacolod, the capital, where we met with our supervisors. 

Lizzie, Dave, Ashley and I all met our supervisors at the airport and piled into a van with all of our stuff.  We went to this adorable shack thing with delicious organic food and had lunch.  I was pretty delirious – the lack of sleep was definitely effecting me, but not in a bad way. Its. So. Pretty. Here.   As we were landing you could see the water contrasted against the green on the land and the drive was just fields and fields of tall, luscious stalks of sugar cane against a bright blue sky.  It was breezy and not too hot and the food was delicious.. a great welcome. After lunch, we went for our courtesy call with the governor. We waited in the capital building for around an hour before we met with, not the governor, but his executive something or another – only our supervisors forgot to warn us that we were not in fact meeting the governor which made for some awkward, irrelevant questions. But it was fine! We then got back in the van, about 4 hours after landing that morning, and made the 1.5 hr drive to Sagay. Again – euphoria. There is so much green.. the highway is lined with nothing but sugar cane and palm trees and bright sky with mountains in the distance and a sea on the other side, spotted with little villages with bamboo houses.  I can’t tell you how badly I was struggling to keep my eyes open but staring out of moving windows is a passion of mine, so I made the whole trip without a little napski (bad idea).  Instead of going straight to our host family’s houses, like we thought, we stopped at city hall to pay a little visit to the mayor – also, side note, I was wearing the same clothes I had worn the night before, slept it, and then put back on in the morning…#PeaceCorpsFashion. Again, the mayor wasn’t there so we met with his executive something or another who was very cool and answered a bunch of our random questions about Sagay. Finally, we all stumbled out of his office and had our host families waiting.  My new host mom and dad, with my new little host sister, came up in a car! So I have a car in the family! We got all of my stuff in the car and drove the 10ish minutes to my house. My house is in a nice area a little away from the main town with a few houses around it. My room is small and simple so I got in my room and my family left me to unpack. After a while, I had dinner with my host mom and aunt (my dad, sister, and brother were too shy to eat dinner with me).  My family is definitely shyer than my Subic family but they are all very nice! After a quick dinner, I excused myself since I could barely keep my eyes open.  I arranged a few more things in my room and right before going to bed, my Subic mom and niece called me crying to tell me they loved me and they missed me. The call mixed with missing them mixed with sleep deprivation and being separated from friends and overwhelmed by a new place – I just lost it. I had my first big cry on the phone with my Subic mom. But, turned out the cry was much needed and I fell right to sleep after hanging up. So – Sagay Breakdown Count: 1 lang!

Friday I felt 10,000,000% better after sleeping like a rock and woke up early for my first day at school! My host mom is also a teacher at the school so we had our breakfast and set out together in my host dad’s trike.  It’s only about 8 minutes in the trike so I’m definitely planning on getting my hands on a bike and using that every morning. So with my host mom, I saw my school for the first time and… it’s incredible! Unlike most schools in the Philippines, it actually has a loooot of land and a lot of open space (but still lacking in classroom space, with 60 kids per class). It was built right up into this forest and the school has been replanting the trees throughout the campus so it’s all green and leafy and shaded and cool and I literally feel like I work at Jurassic Park High School.  There are the main buildings that are mostly covered in these cool trees with stone paths that go between them with cool roots that despite their coolness will inevitably trip me many, many times in the coming years. Then there is a big, open soccer field with a dirt track around it and some bleachers on the side as well as one volleyball court, one basketball court, and a sepak court (google it). Thursday and Friday were area competition days – the three cities in my area all got together for sports, singing, and literary competitions – so all of the students were gathered around the sports fields. My mom showed me around a little before passing me off to three teachers from the English department who gave me a full tour of the school. Everyone I met from my department was so nice, but it was definitely overwhelming meeting so many new people! After returning to the faculty lounge from the tour, I had a balloon bouquet with a sign that said “Welcome, Hilary!” with a note signed by all the teachers and a paper under the top of my new desk that said, “Welcome to your new home, Hilary!” (yeah, one L, but I’ll let it slide). It was so sweet! So I officially have a desk in my faculty room.. it made the whole thing very real! Since seeing it, my mind has been a flurry of ideas as to what I’m going to put in the drawers. SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES!

Anyways. After that cute welcome I went with an English teacher to the nearby Elementary school where they were hosting the literary and singing competition. I spent the whole day at the competition – going out to lunch with my host mom at noon to this cute little bamboo restaurant in town that I’m sure I’ll frequent often – and saw dramatic readings (in Tagalog and English), pop and traditional Tagalog songs, and, the most anticipated category, the folk dances. At the end of the day, they read out the winners and Sagay division won most of them! It was really exciting. As I sat there all day, I was continually introduced to everyone and was given a few shout outs from the emcee, even though they had no idea who I really was or what I was doing there. Ashley stopped by with her counterpart for a little bit to say hello and Lizzie showed up with her counterpart in the afternoon, so it was nice to see them briefly. After school I came home and rested before dinner with the family, followed by some TV and sharing a glass of wine with my mom and aunt and talking about boys. My two host siblings – 5 year old girl and 12 year old boy – are very shy around me but my mom, aunt and host dad are already opening up and I can tell we are going to get along really well.  The only concern I really have about my house at this point is my next door neighbour… an entire field full of fighting cocks. Like roosters. Like deadly roosters. They crow all the time but I’ve already started to adjust to them, so I’m sure before long I’ll forget they’re even there… right?

Saturday was a pretty lazy day – I got up at 7 to eat breakfast with my family followed by a nap hahah. So I didn’t actually get out of bed until about 930 or 10.  My host dad has a small fish business near the beach and I was supposed to go help him empty out his traps and meet some of his family that is over there, but there was some problem at the business so my host parents went on their own. I slept and organized my room a little bit more and took a shower before going with my aunt to meet Ashley in town.  We went to see her house, which is right by the market and only 10 minutes away from me walking!  I came home and had lunch then Ashley came to my place for some Illongo practice.  My aunt, who is 35, single, and a teacher at a nearby elementary school, graciously sat down with us and did some translations of key phrases and words.  There were certain words or phrases that we had to ask in Tagalog to get the Ilonggo translation... so were basically learning a third language through our second language. I have to say… we felt a pretty cool when we noticed what we were doing. Also, my friend Justin told me today that he saw on a TV show that these group of people in America who are preparing for the end of the world in December decided to learn Tagalog so they could talk with each other without anyone else understanding. So… that’s cool. Can we talk about how extremely employable I’m going to be when I come back to North America? Arts degree and fluent in Tagalog and Ilonggo?! Get in line, major corporations.

After some study time Ashley and I walked around to find our way to the market and to the plaza – an open space where they have food stands and people hang out at night. We sat and chatted about how overwhelmed we are and ran into her older host brother and chatted with him. Afterwards, I walked Ashley back to her house and visited her host mom before heading home. Since then I just hung out at my house – watched some TV with my aunt and studied Ilonggo. I was warned about the shock of going from training to service and it was one of the major things I was worried about. In training, you’re constantly overworked and over busy then all the sudden BAM you’re in a new place with little to no familiar things – a different language! – and you have to figure out how you’re going to work your way into this new place for the next two years.  I feel antsy and like I definitely want to get to work soon… Friday wasn’t really a school day so I’m excited to get an idea of what teachers I will shadow, what my schedule will be like, and what projects my fellow teachers have in mind. I think having some work to think about and plan for, even if it is just class observations, will get me out of this kind of limbo I feel like I’m in.  I also need to spend a good amount of time just walking and around and familiarizing myself with everything – I think that will make me feel much more comfortable. Since Thursday I have only really been to school, my house, and into town but Ashley and I were talking about how excited we are to start exploring the areas around the town – the beach (only about 5 km from town), the reef and white sand island, and the hills where there are supposedly good hiking spots.  I think being able to remove ourselves from the stress of work and living in a strange culture and go to these places where we can have time to ourselves will be a huge, huge help.  It’s exhausting just going around town and being stared at and unsure of where I’m going… but it’s also exciting! It’s a really strange sensation to look at this completely foreign place and tell myself that this is my new home.  During swearing in, the director of training gave some closing remarks and she mentioned that during Peace Corps, you never really leave your home, you simply expand your concept of home (or something like that, it was more eloquent but made the same point).  It’s simultaneously one of the most rewarding and one of the most difficult things to do I think, making these new homes.  All of the homes I have loved felt impossible to leave – Cincinnati, Montreal, Subic family – and I can tell you that sometimes it physically hurts to think of the people and places that I’ve left, but it’s also amazing to think of all of the experiences I’ve been lucky enough to have and how every single home has changed me in some way.

So – here’s to my new home!

I’m at school now and my first day is going really well! Just observing classes but the teachers and the students are all really great – I still feel like I’m in a jungle. It’s also Dave’s birthday so I just went for lunch with Ashley, Dave and their supervisors.  It’s at this cute restaurant in town – made from all bamboo – and I got there a little early and got to sit in this bamboo hut, sweating, and listening to Christmas carols. So the mayor had called ahead and ordered enough food for 10 of us on his tab – Filipino hospitality! Tonight we will all probably get together at Dave’s house for a beer and some birthday celebrations.

I love and miss you all! It’s really so great to hear from you and I’m sorry for all my excuses and apologies about not keeping in touch.. but it’s tough! My schedule will be different every week for the next few weeks, but I will have some free time to use the internet at MY desk in MY faculty lounge (I’m like.. a teacher now..) so I’ll slowly work on getting back to everyone!

Until next time xxxxxx

Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Site Placement and End of Subic!

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So I got my big news!! 
SupsCon was really fun - when it wasn't painfully dull. It was so great to be back together with everyone and was SOO great to have air conditioned rooms with wifi.  Everyone was a bundle of nerves before the big announcement.  The bus ride was loong and everyone was grumpy after waking up at 4 AM.  
 We settled in to our rooms (I roomed with Allie and a CYF volunteer) and went to the big ballroom for our first session.  It. Was. Awful. We had to sit through an hour long talk on reporting allegations and Peace Corps liability talk while everyone was dying to get to the site placement part. Finally, the wheeled out this big map of the Philippines with different color pins stuck all over it. They had a painfully long introduction (which, in retrospect, was interesting - they described the way their chose our sites based on need) before the started reading off names.  We were also warned that people have burst out crying during the announcements, so we wouldn't be the first.. but we should still try to avoid that.  The way they placed us this year is different from previous years - they tried to put us all in "cross-sectoral clusters"... meaning they want to have volunteers from different sectors (education, children youth and family, coastal resource management) living relatively close to each other so we can collaborate on projects more often. So most of us are in these clusters and they started calling out the names of people who would  be living close to each other.  My heart was in my throat the entire time. I really, really convinced myself that I had no expectations going into the announcement but as I was sitting there waiting for them to call my name and politely clapping for others I started to think of all of the things I did or didn't want for my site.  When they finally called me name, I had no idea what they had said because I started to forget to listen to the sites. So I stood up and went to get my little picture to post on the map and when I got there I saw that my site is right on the coast and with three other volunteers! After posting my picture, they gave me a little packet of information on my site and asked me to wait until the end of the site annoucnements to go through it (hahahh yyyeah okay..). So i got back to my seat and immediately opened my packet
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So here are the details!

I'm going to be living in Sagay City, Negros Occidental, Western Visayas (,Philippines, Earth, Universe, etc.) and teaching at Sagay National High School. There are 3005 students at my school with an average of 50 students per class. There are 117 staff members, 105 are teachers.  There are a total of 14 English teachers and I'll be given time to shadow a few of them and decide who I want to officially co-teach with. The oldest teacher is early 50s, most are in early 30s.  Most are married and 80% are from Sagay. The PTA is active and give financial support for students to attend seminars or competitions.  Whoever did my site assessment (PC staff who goes to check out my site) listed the things available to do in my free time.. barbecue stall in the plaza at night time (yumyumyum! Barbecue is so good here.. but watch out for intestine!), lawn tennis, videoke (duh), billiards, badminton group (might have to be my new thing), outing of teachers per department, swimming in two resorts, and snorkeling at the sanctuary. The school has a faculty room for the English staff (and I get my own desk! big girl, right?). Fiesta (the city wide, week long celebration that each city has) is in March and I only have 14 days of school in December.  

For my host family! My host mom's name is Sally, 44 years old, and she is a Home Ec teacher at Sagay National HS.  Her husband, Winston, is a seafarer so is usually away on long trips.  They have two kids - Sailwin, 12 years old, and Hope, 5 years old. In my housing description they also listed Nece, sister of Sally, 35 years old and teacher - so maybe she lives with us as well? Its not really clear. But I'm excited to have kids again! I got a nice little picture of the family and when I showed the picture to my host family right now, my two oldest kids acted out the fist fight they would have with my new kids... they are a little possessive of me. I'm excited to live with another teacher so we can swap war stories and go to and from school together. Its weird actually know something about them before I go.  I'm really excited to meet them but I honestly just don't know how any family could be better than the family I have right now, but I guess we'll see! 

And as for the three other volunteers I'll be with - one is another education, one CYF, and one CRM. The other education volunteer is Lizzie, who I was roommates with back at 11RR! We get along really, really well and she is a lot of fun so I'm really excited.  Then the CYF volunteer is Ashley who was my roommate at staging in San Fran! Weird, right? Or planned out. Who knows. But Ashley has been in Subic for training (but in a different barangay) so I have seen a fair amount of her as well and I also really, really like her! She is working with youth a non-profit (I kind of forget the details..) but I'm sure there will be a lot of opportunity to collaborate with her! Then the final volunteer is Dave, who is in CRM, and is working at the sanctuary I mentioned before. So the beach is about 6 km from my school/house and there is this amazing reef (with five different species of giant clams!), crystal clear water, and white sand beaches. JEALOUS? I'm really excited to work with Dave and possibly have field trips to the reef for some environmental education event or something. Also I'm just excited to chill on the beach as often as possible.

After of the excitement of finding out and comparing sites with everyone, the next day was a day full of pretty boring sessions.  Then that evening we all got together and met our supervisors! My supervisor is my pincipal, Vilia. Annnnnnd she is awesome. We spent the next few days together in sessions and I really could not be happier/more excited to work with her.  She is really excited to have me there and we talked about some exciting and realistic ideas for projects throughout my two years. We have really similar interests and she is super open to any of my suggestions.  She was really excited that I want to get involved in theater and possibly start up something to do with film (watching, making, we'll see what materializes!). The school has been trying to start a remedial reading program for a while so I think I'm going to make that my number one priority when I get there. She is looking to start a girls soccer team (the school has a field! what! yeah! I'm so pumped!) and I definitely want to get involved in their school paper and "book lovers" club. 

One thing that I've been warned (by whoever did my site assessment) will be a challenge is the fact that the school seems to have a lot of resources already.  My assessment says.. "the volunteer must be active in seeking out new and interesting opportunities for secondary projects, different from what may be happening with the rest of their former PST cluster mates" and that I "may feel a little lost or questioning why they're there...so the choice of volunteer for this placement is important." And.. I had mixed feelings when I saw this. At first, I felt a little cheated from being able to help a school that has the bare minimum, but the more I talked to my supervisor and thought about it, the more excited I am.  At a school with extremely limited resources, projects such as english clubs and libraries take first priority. My school has a fairly functional library and an established english club and, while I would have been more than happy to work on those projects, I'm realizing that I'll be able to do secondary projects that are more personal and passionate.  I'll be able to work more with the theatre group and do something with my interest in film.  I'm realizing that PC didn't place me here because they didn't think I could handle a school is worse condition, but they are trusting me to be creative and recognize the less obvious needs of the school and its students. But I know I am going to have to work hard to see opportunities for projects and remind myself of this because I'm definitely afraid of feeling like I'm not needed at the school.

Other than the offical shiz, we had alot of fun being back together again! We had a few chill Red Horse nights, a dance party, and lots of swimming in the hotel pool.  It was exciting to find out who was near each other and discuss future visit plans.  My group here has been kind of strangely split.. so most people are either going to Visayas (like me) or Bicol, which is an area in southern Luzon (the big island on the top). Most of my group (including Daniel) is going to be spread throughout Bicol. One girl I'm here with now will be about 30 minutes away from me in Negros Occi. Then Chris and Allie are about two hours away from each other in Negros Oriental (right below Negros Occi).  Its a bummer I'm not closer to them but there will definitely be visits. Daniel is the further in Bicol, but to get to Allie and Chris I only have to take a 6 hr bus ride. Not too bad! Sagay is about two hours from the capital of Occi (Bacolod) which is where I will fly out of whenever I travel. And Bacolod is only an hour flight from Manila. I'm obviously telling you all of this so that you can plan your visit.

So that was SupsCon! Overall, a success. Could not be happier with my placement! But, yeah know, I'm staying level headed so I won't be disappointed with anything when I get there.... in about 10 dayyys! Waah!

After SupsCon, we spent about 48 hours in Manila for a field trip. We got to visit the Peace Corps office (where they have a really cool library including a big wall of books for exchanging between volunteers) then we went around Manila to see a few examples of the DepEds Alternative Learning System (ALS) which is basically accredited education programs outside of the formal school setting. We saw a school house that is only for ALS classes so students who can't attend daily school (maybe because of home life or working in fields) can show up to classes when they can make it. The most interesting was a visit to a prison ALS class. The prison was depressing and harsh but the class they had was so inspiring. Its likely that these men were on good behaviour for us, but it was awesome to see them working away at high school and elementary material. And really cool to chat with the teachers who give time from their already crazy schedules to teach these classes on Saturday.  There are an astounding number of out of school youths and adults without an elementary or high school education and mostly for reasons out of their hands.  I have to see what ALS programs are available at my site - if there are some, I definitely want to get involved and if not, I'm going to try to set one up! So it was cool to see a little (very little) bit of Manila and the ALS programs, but by the end of the two days everyone was exhausted and ready to get back home. On the bus ride back, I came I think the closest I've ever come in my short adult life to peeing my pants. While everyone else on the bus was fast asleep, I had to sit with my legs painfully crossed and console myself that people in the Peace Corps pee their pants all the time. I ended up texting my TCF from about 5 rows back and asking for a CR break. Luckily he got the message and asked the bus driver to pull over.. crisis averted
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Back in Subic its been work work work work work and then we might work more. We've been putting together our community project and, as usual, keep running into problems. But we're doing it! We are printing our tarpaulins right now and I know our teachers will be really excited to get those. The binders we are putting together are roughly 120 pages so now we just need to get them printed and bound.  We're also making a narrated powerpoint/video that Daniel has been working on tirelessly.  Then we need to plan out our two hour session with the teachers (on Friday) then.. were done! We had a youth camp on Saturday that also took up a lot of planning time last week.  We had to plan two 1 hr sessions for in and out of school youth, ages 14 - 19. We split our group into two shifts - morning and afternoon - and there was some miscommunication so the morning group ended up making our 1 hr sessions into 30 minutes sessions and using them both in the morning. So when we arrived in the afternoon, we had to quickly plan a 1 hr session.  It was stressful at first but we pulled it together and learned that Filipino kids think the game Telephone is hilarious
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We decided to do shifts because we wanted to take turns going to Subic National HS's intramural meet that was happening this Friday and Saturday (its kind of like Spirit Week at UA, but with a bunch of sports).  On Friday morning, we "accidentally" missed language class to go to the opening ceremonies and they were so fun! Well.. most of it was a beauty pageant between four 14 year old girls which was.. creepy. But the rest was awesome! There was a cheer competition that was SICK. Each year had a 10 minute cheer/dance thing with 20-25 students and all of them were awesome.  The dancing was really good and the routines were cool and original. We came to just chill in the back and observe but when the head teacher saw us she pulled us up on stage so we got front row seats of the show. On Saturday morning, I woke up early to watch my niece, whose in 6th grade, play basketball. It was hilarious. They only played half court and the whole game was just one giant beehive with a basketball occasionally popping up towards the general direction of the basket. The final school, after maybe 40 minutes of half court play, was like 12 - 16. But! My niece got 10 of those points!! She's awesome. Actually, my entire family is so good at basketball.  I play with them at night and my one nephew is maybe juuuust about twice the weight of the basketball and has to use all of his strength to heave the ball in the air, but he usually makes it! And my 16 year old brother is better than all of the other kids he plays with. Basically, my family runs this barangay
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Oh! I almost forgot.. we went on an awesome adventure! On Wednesday, for our technical session, we all got in a jeepney and went about 30 minutes up into the mountains with two little Filipina nuns as our guide and went to a remote Aeta school that is another example of DepEd's ALS program - because the Aeta children generally can't make it to a school every day and there is a big problem with discrimination between the Filipino and Aeta kids.  After our off road jeepney drive, we had about 20 minutes or so to hike - in the rain, across a giant, old hanging bridge. It was terrifying and awesome. At the school, the kids ranged from grades 1 - 6 (allll different ages). We split into three and played games with the kids for about an hour and half and they were so cute. I already picked out a few that I'm going to go back and steal.  After the first school, we hiked back down the mountain and went to a sister school more in town that had elementary and high school classes.  Most of the kids were from small villages all over the province so they boarded at the school. For our visit, they all dressed in their traditional outfits and preformed traditional songs and dances for us. It was definitely one of my favourite days
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So I'm here in Subic for less than a week!! I'm actually freaking out. I had the best day today with my family.  We all went to the beach with a big picnic.  The weather could not have been better and I spent the whole morning swimming with my kids and two of their friends.  After our big lunch, the rest of my family got in the water with us (mom, dad, my three siblings, two cousins, aunt and uncle) and we played a giant game of tag. It was hilarious - I ended up chasing my dad down the beach and we would all try to trick each other and outswim each other.  None of my kids know how to swim so they were hanging on me the whole time and loved it when I would spin them around or throw them up and catch them just as they hit the water. They keep asking me not to leave and to come back for Christmas and New Years and Fiesta in January. Today, after we got back from the beach, Zoe (my 3 year old niece) was taking a nap and called my name out in her sleep ("Ate Hillallee!").  I have already gotten choked up at the thought of leaving them.. its going to be really hard! But as of right now I'm going to plan on coming back in January for Fiesta.. hopefully I can pull it off! Also I have one of the worst sunburns I've ever had and my family finds it hilarrriouuuus
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So now we have another week of planning.  On Wednesday or Thursday, I have my language exam.  I have to be at a level of high intermediate - which I thiiiink I can pull off.  Having language 4 hours a day and living with a host family (although I speak more English at home than I should.. I mostly use my Tagalog with my younger kids) has been an awesome way to learn. So high intermediate, here I come. BUT THEN! I forgot to mention.. they don't speak Tagalog in my permanent site hahah. Soo I have to learn another, if not two more, languages! They most speak Cebuano in the Visayas but my city is on the border of the areas that speak Cebuano and an area that speaks Ilonggo.. so they speak both. And sometimes Tagalog. My supervisor told me they mostly speak Ilonggo so my plan is to find someone to tutor me in Ilonggo when I get to my site as well as someone to keep working with my on my Tagalog. I would hate to give up on Tagalog now and it will be extremely useful when I'm travelling but I'll definitely have to learn Ilonggo. Hopefully I can pull off studying two languages at once! Sorry, brain
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Another thing we have to plan this week is our goodbye party on Saturday for all of our host families.  We are all going to get together for a big lunch and to play some games (balloon toss, three legged race, etc) to say thank you for hosting us. I'm really looking forward to the party so this should be fun to plan for. We already decided were having lechon - which is the entire pig roasted on a spit. While we were discussing this, Chris leaned over and goes, "hey.. you know they put the pig on the spit while its still alive.." I shrieked and my face when totally white while everyone was cracking up. So.. they don't do that actually. But I did have some the other night with my family and my dad tried to make me eat the nipple. Food here is still sometimes a struggle for me.
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Alright, time to pass out! Frying in the Filipino sun all day really takes it out of you.

P.S.. I wrote this on Sunday and it is now Wednesday.. rapid update: our community project is almost over! after unbelievable stress this week we finally got the tarps made (they look so good!) and got our binders bound yesterday. I also had my language exam today! It was tougghhh but it went really well! At the end there is a role play and I learned that if you got a yellow card with your role play situation, it means its the more challenging one - so I definitely passed! We'll see what level of fluency they give me. Woowoo! Too bad I'll be speaking an entirely different language in about 10 days.. ohhh Pilipinas. Mahal kita.

“You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.”

 Azar Nafisi