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
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