Well, I have been home for a week and 5 days now. It hasn't been too difficult a transition for me. I remember coming back from Mexico when I was there for only a week a couple years ago was a very difficult transition...coming back from such extreme poverty and seeing how we live such wealthy lives while taking that for granted. I found though that after that trip I have tried to stop taking my blessings for granted! I thank God each day for my country, my family, and all that He has given me. We are truly blessed in North America.
So, in the Philippines, I have learned a lot of things that will stay with me forever! I have learned to listen more than I speak. I have learned to trust more in people and more in God. This was really necessary in the Philippines because our schedule changed almost daily. Sometimes we would go to bed at night and have no idea what we were doing the next day, but it would always fall into place! I think I have learned to love more, but it has been hard coming home because I think my younger siblings are sick of hearing about the Philippines all the time!! I learned that I am really good at adapting to new situations which I didn't think I was before. I don't really like change at home generally, but in the Philippines I really embraced it and learned to roll with it. :)
I met so many incredible people in the Philippines. My host family was a huge blessing to me. Their hospitality and kindness was amazing. They really showed me what Filipino life is like! They gave me many new experiences, especially pertaining to food! Los Banos Christian Reformed Church was also a huge blessing to me. Every Sunday and Wednesday night service (and every random day in between that I was hanging out at LBCRC), I felt so welcome and like I was a part of their congregation! The youth at LBCRC were so encouraging to me. I have never met a youth group who is so musically talented!! A different team of youth led worship each Sunday morning and Wednesday night, and it was always SO GOOD! They are so involved in the church...that was really encouraging to me. The Filipino people are so helpful and very, very hospitable. They loved answering any questions I had. Even Filipinos who weren't my specific hosts or even connected with the CRC would answer any question and were so hospitable to us!
As far as my expectations being met, I went to the Philippines trying not to have expectations because I really had no idea what to expect. I didn't know what it would look like or what the people would be like or anything, so I was just really keeping an open mind. Even day-to-day in the Philippines I had no idea what to expect because our schedule changed so much. At first, there was so much free time because we were being quarantined for the swine flu...and then at the end of the summer we were super busy, so it kind of balanced the summer out. But at first, it was difficult for me having so much free time when I just wanted to DO something! But I learned to let go and let God!
This experience increased my sensitivity to the needs of Christians in other countries. Prayer is such a great need all over the world, and (in general) we are not really people of prayer in North America. So that is something I need to work on!
This experience increased my compassion for the needs of those who live in third world countries. My heart really goes out to the poor in the Philippines who have no home or who lives in horrible conditions. Specifically the urban poor children...especially those who beg. And also, the orphans. In the future, I want to work with the urban poor and/or orphans.
This experience gave me new insights into mission work. I really loved seeing all the ministries in the Philippines...just seeing a vibrant CRC church there was really cool. I feel like if I had gone somewhere else, I would see mission work by CRWM that looks COMPLETELY different though.
Anyways, in conclusion of this blog, I had an amazing experience in the Philippines. It really confirmed my call into mission work. So now I just have to see where God is leading me and where He wants me to go!! I am really excited about the future! But for now, I have the enthusiasm and not the skills haha. So I'll just finish my schooling and see what happens from there!
I made so many amazing friends in the Philippines who I will never forget. You know who you are!!!! I miss them a lot actually. I find myself a lot of times during the day thinking about all of our good times and wishing to be back there. I know that I will see them again someday, though! I would definitely go back to the Philippines given the chance.
Thanks for reading my blog!!!!! This will be my last post on this blog, but probably not ever haha! :)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Some Pictures
Teaching at Grace Christian Community School in Calauan, Laguna. Ate Nicole and I were teaching English to this grade 3 glass. We were teaching nouns and verbs at this point. 
The view from the window of our home in Pasay City which is in Metro Manila South. We stayed here for only 4 days I believe, but it was a very poor neighbourhood. The houses were stacked on top of eachother, that's how little room there is there!
Me with J.P. and John, two of the orphans at the orphanage in Manila.
Me with J'Lou and Pat-Pat, the two kids that lived at Contilu, the guesthouse where we all stayed together when we were in Los Banos after leaving our host families.
Ate Nicole and I are on our rented motorcycles in Bohol! :)
Me planting rice :)
MY FAMILY IN THE PHILIPPINES!!!! Pastor Benjie, Ate Malu, Kuya Jai, Ate Hapi, Kuya Joshua, and I after church on my last Sunday in the Philippines.
Holding a starfish in Bohol! This was the first time I have ever seen an ocean :)
Leading the Advice station at the National High School in San Pablo.
Ate Nicole, Matt, our boat owner, and I when we went fishing for tilapia somewhere in Bicol.
Doing our drama about what happens when HIV gets into your body. Unfortunately, I was diarrhea in this drama haha.
Visiting a native Filipino tribe who are now Christians. This was probably one of my favorite parts of our trip, although it's really hard to pick a favorite . They sang us a song in Tagalog which was very moving.
I tamed every cow I met in the Philippines haha :)
Nicole and I reading to a little boy on the beach in Bohol.
At an orphanage in Manila.
MY FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE PHILIPPINES! This is at our good-bye party at LBCRC. It was very sad.
A group of us after we did our seminar with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship youth at a church in Bicol!
Doing the "Advice" Station at a high school in Bicol!
Riding a carabao!!! :) It was raining haha. Clearly I am loving it.
Visiting a mayor while in Bicol.
Doing the advice station at a high school. I think this was also in the Bicol region. Monday, August 3, 2009
Ice Skating, Teaching, and Going Home
Sorry I haven't blogged in a long time! We have been very busy. It is crazy that I will be home in 3 days. I am really not ready to leave. We are all very sad whenever we think about it. So I will start with last weekend:
We were in Pasay City in Metro Manila South from Saturday night until Tuesday morning. We stayed at Grace From Heaven CRC there. We did a presentation after church for the youth and other church leaders that went really well despite the fact that we had none of our supplies with us! We weren't expecting to do a seminar. I made a powerpoint presentation on Saturday night though, so that was really helpful. For the rest of Sunday, we hung out with the youth from that church which was really fun. On Monday, we toured around the neighbourhood where the church was. It was pretty crazy. A big group of kids followed us around because there was no school for them because the president was giving a national address. I wish I could describe the neighbourhood, but I just can't! A lot of poverty. It really made me want to work with the urban poor...the urban poor kids in particular. We saw one lady's house who attends Grace From Heaven CRC that was smaller than my living room, and she is a single mother with five children living in that house. After walking around the neighbourhood, the deacon ladies took us to Mall of Asia. We went ice skating on the skating rink there! It was pretty crazy...we were ice skating in shorts and t-shirts. Some of our new friends from that church came too. We also rode a mini ferris wheel at the mall haha and got Krispy Kreme donuts.
On Tuesday morning of last week, we were picked up by Ate Gladys and Matt and B.A. We toured around "Old Manila" for awhile, then went to the CRWRC and CRWM offices to meet some people and look around there. After that we went back to Los Banos and had a going-away party for Eric. It was really fun! We also had a campfire and made s'mores which our Filipino friends had never had before, so that was pretty cool. Ate Eena and Ate Kaygee loved cooking marshmallows.
On Wednesday, we had a tourist day with all our friends. We went to see an underground cemetary, then went to a road which sells hundreds of "slippers" which is what Filipinos call flip-flops. Afterward, we went to the Bravo's and watched Ice Age 3 and played with Maurice, a little 2-year-old who lives with them. He is very cute! We stayed up late on Wednesday night because Eric left at around 3 a.m. Thursday morning. It was so sad. We were really sad all day Thursday and anytime one of us girls would mention it, we would all get tears in our eyes at the thought of leaving the Philippines.
On Thursday, without Eric, we did two seminars at the National high school in Calamba. We went to Ate Gladys's after that and did laundry and made lasagna for dinner. Then we went to a cultural dance show at UPLB which was really, really cool! I loved it. On Friday morning, we taught at Grace Christian Community School in Calauan. We mostly taught English. It was really fun. Nicole and I were partners, and first we taught grade one's, so we read them our kids books. Mine is about a lazy boy named Juan who turned into a carabao haha, and Nicole's is about eating your ampalaya which is a bitter vegetable here, or else the ampalaya will eat you haha. They liked the books. Then we played Simon Says, did some spelling bee thing, read some English words out loud, and wrote some random sentences on the board that they had to copy to practice penmanship. The sentences were about "ipis" which are cockroaches haha. After that, we taught grade two and did much of the same thing. Then we taught grade three, and we ran out of English to teach them. We taught nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then we did some Math multiplication questions, then taught them about Canada, then taught them about photosynthesis haha! It was really fun. After that we came back to LB and shopped a bit. Then at Contilu that night, we had a really cool dinner where we didn't have any utensils or plates or anything. We ate off of large banana leaves all with our hands. It was fun! After that, Nicole and I played piano for the ladies there and we played and coloured with J'Lou, a 4-year-old adopted girl there. She is super cute.
On Saturday morning, we went to Grace Christian Community High School and coached some first-year girls in basketball and volleyball. That was really fun. Afterwards, we went to Calamba and hung out with the Bravo family. We had a meeting at LBCRC at around 6 to talk about our presentations and then I went to the Garcia's for dinner which was really great! I will really miss them! On Sunday, we went to church in the morning and had lunch there afterwards. We napped in the afternoon and played pool and had dinner with everyone at Contilu. Today we have been doing last-minute gift shopping for our families. We have a going-away party at 4 at LBCRC. It's going to be horrible leaving! Tomorrow we are going to compile pictures onto CD's and Wednesday we are doing a debrief thing with all our peer educators and us. Then our flight leaves at 6:45 a.m. on Thursday! So see you all really soon!!!
We were in Pasay City in Metro Manila South from Saturday night until Tuesday morning. We stayed at Grace From Heaven CRC there. We did a presentation after church for the youth and other church leaders that went really well despite the fact that we had none of our supplies with us! We weren't expecting to do a seminar. I made a powerpoint presentation on Saturday night though, so that was really helpful. For the rest of Sunday, we hung out with the youth from that church which was really fun. On Monday, we toured around the neighbourhood where the church was. It was pretty crazy. A big group of kids followed us around because there was no school for them because the president was giving a national address. I wish I could describe the neighbourhood, but I just can't! A lot of poverty. It really made me want to work with the urban poor...the urban poor kids in particular. We saw one lady's house who attends Grace From Heaven CRC that was smaller than my living room, and she is a single mother with five children living in that house. After walking around the neighbourhood, the deacon ladies took us to Mall of Asia. We went ice skating on the skating rink there! It was pretty crazy...we were ice skating in shorts and t-shirts. Some of our new friends from that church came too. We also rode a mini ferris wheel at the mall haha and got Krispy Kreme donuts.
On Tuesday morning of last week, we were picked up by Ate Gladys and Matt and B.A. We toured around "Old Manila" for awhile, then went to the CRWRC and CRWM offices to meet some people and look around there. After that we went back to Los Banos and had a going-away party for Eric. It was really fun! We also had a campfire and made s'mores which our Filipino friends had never had before, so that was pretty cool. Ate Eena and Ate Kaygee loved cooking marshmallows.
On Wednesday, we had a tourist day with all our friends. We went to see an underground cemetary, then went to a road which sells hundreds of "slippers" which is what Filipinos call flip-flops. Afterward, we went to the Bravo's and watched Ice Age 3 and played with Maurice, a little 2-year-old who lives with them. He is very cute! We stayed up late on Wednesday night because Eric left at around 3 a.m. Thursday morning. It was so sad. We were really sad all day Thursday and anytime one of us girls would mention it, we would all get tears in our eyes at the thought of leaving the Philippines.
On Thursday, without Eric, we did two seminars at the National high school in Calamba. We went to Ate Gladys's after that and did laundry and made lasagna for dinner. Then we went to a cultural dance show at UPLB which was really, really cool! I loved it. On Friday morning, we taught at Grace Christian Community School in Calauan. We mostly taught English. It was really fun. Nicole and I were partners, and first we taught grade one's, so we read them our kids books. Mine is about a lazy boy named Juan who turned into a carabao haha, and Nicole's is about eating your ampalaya which is a bitter vegetable here, or else the ampalaya will eat you haha. They liked the books. Then we played Simon Says, did some spelling bee thing, read some English words out loud, and wrote some random sentences on the board that they had to copy to practice penmanship. The sentences were about "ipis" which are cockroaches haha. After that, we taught grade two and did much of the same thing. Then we taught grade three, and we ran out of English to teach them. We taught nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then we did some Math multiplication questions, then taught them about Canada, then taught them about photosynthesis haha! It was really fun. After that we came back to LB and shopped a bit. Then at Contilu that night, we had a really cool dinner where we didn't have any utensils or plates or anything. We ate off of large banana leaves all with our hands. It was fun! After that, Nicole and I played piano for the ladies there and we played and coloured with J'Lou, a 4-year-old adopted girl there. She is super cute.
On Saturday morning, we went to Grace Christian Community High School and coached some first-year girls in basketball and volleyball. That was really fun. Afterwards, we went to Calamba and hung out with the Bravo family. We had a meeting at LBCRC at around 6 to talk about our presentations and then I went to the Garcia's for dinner which was really great! I will really miss them! On Sunday, we went to church in the morning and had lunch there afterwards. We napped in the afternoon and played pool and had dinner with everyone at Contilu. Today we have been doing last-minute gift shopping for our families. We have a going-away party at 4 at LBCRC. It's going to be horrible leaving! Tomorrow we are going to compile pictures onto CD's and Wednesday we are doing a debrief thing with all our peer educators and us. Then our flight leaves at 6:45 a.m. on Thursday! So see you all really soon!!!
Friday, July 24, 2009
Orphanage, Basketball, and Being Busy!
Well I am back in LB for a day and decided to come down to the internet place to blog because I will be heading back to Manila around lunchtime.
So from Tuesday until Friday we were in Manila at Kids International Ministries. It is an amazing ministry. It includes an elementary school, an orphanage, and some other outreach things that I don't really remember. We arrived later on Tuesday afternoon and got a tour of the school and orphanage, then went to our overnight lodging place. On Wednesday, Nicole, Thea, Lisa, BA, and I did some cleaning at the orphanage in the morning. We washed walls and windows basically all day, taking many breaks to play with the kids. Eric, Matt, and Karlynn were doing other stuff like construction. After lunch, Nicole, Thea, and I continued cleaning at the orphanage and playing with the kids and BA and Lisa did some painting and staining of a cabinet at the school. The kids at the orphanage were incredible. I fell in love with every one of them! It was the most beautiful orphanage ever. There was a girl's side where they had I think 12-14 girls of varying ages...up to age 14 or 15 I think. Then there was a boy's side where they had the same number of boys of varying ages. There were three rooms for the boys and three for the girls - one for the younger boys, then the middle-aged, then the older. Then there was a nursery for the kids that weren't school-aged yet. The kids were very cute. They call us all "tita" or "tito" meaning "aunt" and "uncle". I mostly played with the boys though and Nicole preferred the girls :) My favorite part was playing basketball with the older boys. They are so good! I played 2-on-2 with three of them on Wednesday, then I played 2-on-2 again on Thursday with Eric included. After dinner on Thursday, I played 1-on-1 with a boy named Benjie who was really good. It was a close game, but I still won haha. Then we played 4-on-4 later on. It was a lot of fun playing basketball with them. Seriously, they are SO GOOD at basketball.
Anyway, on Thursday we did much of the same thing. OH, I forgot, there was a group of American guys there from California and Tennessee that were doing a basketball ministry so we watched one of their games on Wednesday night. It was pretty cool. We also played bump with them. Well, only Eric, Matt, and I did and I made it to the final haha...but I think they were being easy on me. But it was hard because we started at the three-point line instead of the foul line. Anyway, on Thursday we did much of the same...mostly playing with kids. There was one little boy in the nursery named Moses who was 2 I believe. He was named Moses because when he was about a week old, he was found abandoned in a dried out river bed so that was kind of a cool story to hear. It was strange though because most of the workers there are American so the younger kids don't really know Tagalog so when BA and Thea were there, they were kind of scared of them. They were so surprised to see them and hear them speak Tagalog.
Anyway, on Friday we went to Mall of Asia in Manila which is the 3rd largest mall in the world. I pushed Lisa around in a wheelchair the whole time because in Bohol she scraped her foot on some coral and it got very infected and she even went to the hospital to get antibiotics. It was swelled up like a balloon and all red and just really gross. But it's so so much better now, so we're not worried anymore. We got back to LB at around 5 last night and then did a presentation at 5:30 for a group of youth at a church. After that, Nicole and I went to visit the LaVega's who were her host family here in Los Banos when we lived with host families. So yeah, we visited with Ate Eena and then went back to Contilu where we are staying. This morning, I came into Los Banos by myself to buy some new shampoo and exchange some more money. I walked to the UP gate and then took a jeepney to Crossing LB to exchange money, then came back by another jeep and got some shampoo and now I'm at the internet cafe. I have to go though because we are leaving at 12 for Manila and it will probably take me at least ten minutes to walk back to Contilu.
In Manila these next few days we will be visiting a slum/squatter village place tonight. Then tomorrow we are presenting at a church I believe and doing some touring on Monday. A pastor in Manila has some things planned for us I believe for tomorrow and Monday. We have a really busy schedule for the rest of our time here. So yeah, I'll be back in LB on Monday evening and Tuesday we have a day off. We are going to have a going away party for Eric I believe because he is leaving on Thursday because he has to be in school in Tennessee on Saturday. So that is all for now!! :)
So from Tuesday until Friday we were in Manila at Kids International Ministries. It is an amazing ministry. It includes an elementary school, an orphanage, and some other outreach things that I don't really remember. We arrived later on Tuesday afternoon and got a tour of the school and orphanage, then went to our overnight lodging place. On Wednesday, Nicole, Thea, Lisa, BA, and I did some cleaning at the orphanage in the morning. We washed walls and windows basically all day, taking many breaks to play with the kids. Eric, Matt, and Karlynn were doing other stuff like construction. After lunch, Nicole, Thea, and I continued cleaning at the orphanage and playing with the kids and BA and Lisa did some painting and staining of a cabinet at the school. The kids at the orphanage were incredible. I fell in love with every one of them! It was the most beautiful orphanage ever. There was a girl's side where they had I think 12-14 girls of varying ages...up to age 14 or 15 I think. Then there was a boy's side where they had the same number of boys of varying ages. There were three rooms for the boys and three for the girls - one for the younger boys, then the middle-aged, then the older. Then there was a nursery for the kids that weren't school-aged yet. The kids were very cute. They call us all "tita" or "tito" meaning "aunt" and "uncle". I mostly played with the boys though and Nicole preferred the girls :) My favorite part was playing basketball with the older boys. They are so good! I played 2-on-2 with three of them on Wednesday, then I played 2-on-2 again on Thursday with Eric included. After dinner on Thursday, I played 1-on-1 with a boy named Benjie who was really good. It was a close game, but I still won haha. Then we played 4-on-4 later on. It was a lot of fun playing basketball with them. Seriously, they are SO GOOD at basketball.
Anyway, on Thursday we did much of the same thing. OH, I forgot, there was a group of American guys there from California and Tennessee that were doing a basketball ministry so we watched one of their games on Wednesday night. It was pretty cool. We also played bump with them. Well, only Eric, Matt, and I did and I made it to the final haha...but I think they were being easy on me. But it was hard because we started at the three-point line instead of the foul line. Anyway, on Thursday we did much of the same...mostly playing with kids. There was one little boy in the nursery named Moses who was 2 I believe. He was named Moses because when he was about a week old, he was found abandoned in a dried out river bed so that was kind of a cool story to hear. It was strange though because most of the workers there are American so the younger kids don't really know Tagalog so when BA and Thea were there, they were kind of scared of them. They were so surprised to see them and hear them speak Tagalog.
Anyway, on Friday we went to Mall of Asia in Manila which is the 3rd largest mall in the world. I pushed Lisa around in a wheelchair the whole time because in Bohol she scraped her foot on some coral and it got very infected and she even went to the hospital to get antibiotics. It was swelled up like a balloon and all red and just really gross. But it's so so much better now, so we're not worried anymore. We got back to LB at around 5 last night and then did a presentation at 5:30 for a group of youth at a church. After that, Nicole and I went to visit the LaVega's who were her host family here in Los Banos when we lived with host families. So yeah, we visited with Ate Eena and then went back to Contilu where we are staying. This morning, I came into Los Banos by myself to buy some new shampoo and exchange some more money. I walked to the UP gate and then took a jeepney to Crossing LB to exchange money, then came back by another jeep and got some shampoo and now I'm at the internet cafe. I have to go though because we are leaving at 12 for Manila and it will probably take me at least ten minutes to walk back to Contilu.
In Manila these next few days we will be visiting a slum/squatter village place tonight. Then tomorrow we are presenting at a church I believe and doing some touring on Monday. A pastor in Manila has some things planned for us I believe for tomorrow and Monday. We have a really busy schedule for the rest of our time here. So yeah, I'll be back in LB on Monday evening and Tuesday we have a day off. We are going to have a going away party for Eric I believe because he is leaving on Thursday because he has to be in school in Tennessee on Saturday. So that is all for now!! :)
Monday, July 20, 2009
Motorbikes, Giant Snakes, and Life.
OK, so we're back from Bohol. We were just there on a vacation type deal. So we were at a beach most of the time. We were there for four days. It was the first time I've ever been in salt water, so that was pretty cool, and we went snorkeling which I've never done before either and it was amazing.
So we got back on Saturday and now we're staying all together, not with host families anymore. We are staying at a place called Contiloo's which is owned by this really nice family which mostly consists of older ladies, like in their 70's. They are the nicest ladies ever! I want to be just like them when I'm older :) On Saturday when we got back, we went to Ate Gladys's house and then Nicole and I went with Ate Gladys to get food supplies. We also got a Toblerone. Nicole made me add that (she is reading this) because we always get a Toblerone. And they package it well enough that we could ship it to Canada if we wanted. So then Nicole & I cooked a dinner of spaghetti for everyone! It was really fun haha. We are great in the kitchen. We are becoming domestic goddesses. It is our goal.
On Sunday, we went to a city called Las Pinas and attended a CRC church there called "God's Light International Ministries". We did a short presentation during the service, including pictures, about what we're doing here in the Philippines. Then afterward, we had this huge lunch and there was a youth fellowship so we did our HIV/AIDS presentation for them which went really well then spent like 2 hours talking with them. It was pretty fun! Then we came back home and headed to LBCRC to help make more posters for our presentations which were occurring in LB National High School on Monday because we had a lot of youth from LBCRC helping so we decided to split into two groups to reach more students that way.
So today we did 5 presentations at LBNHS which went really well. It was really long though. I'm not really sure what we're doing for the rest of the week. I believe we are going to Manila tomorrow to Kids International Ministries which is an orphanage.
I don't really have many more stories to tell! Well, in Bohol then Nicole, Lisa, and I rented motorbikes one day and rode all around the island for 4 hours. Also, in Bohol we saw tarsiers which are this weird monkey thing. Google image it. We also saw in Bohol and 26 foot long python. Some person told us that it was hibernating, so we went and touched it and got pictures of us touching it and then it moved a bit and I like freaked out and ran away haha. And we asked the person how much it ate, and the person said that the last time it ate was the beginning of June and it ate 2 goats at that time! Pretty nuts. It was in captivity by the way Mom haha.
Oh, another story. Ok so on the morning that we were leaving, we were going to leave at 10:30 a.m. so then we were reading on the beach for awhile and a little boy came over who was very dirty and was only wearing a shirt haha, and he came close to us so then Nicole and I showed him our books. He was really really interested in the books, but they didn't have pictures, only the cover so he just kept looking at my cover, then at Nicole's, then back to mine over and over. So then a couple of days before this, Nicole and I had bought Tagalog children's books from a bookstore because we love Tagalog haha...so then I told Nicole to keep him occupied and I ran to my room and got my book which was called "Mahal Kita, Inay" which means "I love you, Mom" so then we read it to him 3 times and he was just enthralled, it was adorable! He loved the pictures and kept pointing, but never said a word and never smiled. He would just look really really close at the book. But he held my hand which was so cute. And then we had to leave, and so I gave him the book, and a fisherman came and told us he only had a mother, no father. So it just broke my heart!! I wanted to take him home haha. So yeah, that's my story.
Ok, we are going to go back to our place where we are staying now....I am at an internet cafe right now; I don't have internet where we are staying. I'll try to come back here soon and write again!
So we got back on Saturday and now we're staying all together, not with host families anymore. We are staying at a place called Contiloo's which is owned by this really nice family which mostly consists of older ladies, like in their 70's. They are the nicest ladies ever! I want to be just like them when I'm older :) On Saturday when we got back, we went to Ate Gladys's house and then Nicole and I went with Ate Gladys to get food supplies. We also got a Toblerone. Nicole made me add that (she is reading this) because we always get a Toblerone. And they package it well enough that we could ship it to Canada if we wanted. So then Nicole & I cooked a dinner of spaghetti for everyone! It was really fun haha. We are great in the kitchen. We are becoming domestic goddesses. It is our goal.
On Sunday, we went to a city called Las Pinas and attended a CRC church there called "God's Light International Ministries". We did a short presentation during the service, including pictures, about what we're doing here in the Philippines. Then afterward, we had this huge lunch and there was a youth fellowship so we did our HIV/AIDS presentation for them which went really well then spent like 2 hours talking with them. It was pretty fun! Then we came back home and headed to LBCRC to help make more posters for our presentations which were occurring in LB National High School on Monday because we had a lot of youth from LBCRC helping so we decided to split into two groups to reach more students that way.
So today we did 5 presentations at LBNHS which went really well. It was really long though. I'm not really sure what we're doing for the rest of the week. I believe we are going to Manila tomorrow to Kids International Ministries which is an orphanage.
I don't really have many more stories to tell! Well, in Bohol then Nicole, Lisa, and I rented motorbikes one day and rode all around the island for 4 hours. Also, in Bohol we saw tarsiers which are this weird monkey thing. Google image it. We also saw in Bohol and 26 foot long python. Some person told us that it was hibernating, so we went and touched it and got pictures of us touching it and then it moved a bit and I like freaked out and ran away haha. And we asked the person how much it ate, and the person said that the last time it ate was the beginning of June and it ate 2 goats at that time! Pretty nuts. It was in captivity by the way Mom haha.
Oh, another story. Ok so on the morning that we were leaving, we were going to leave at 10:30 a.m. so then we were reading on the beach for awhile and a little boy came over who was very dirty and was only wearing a shirt haha, and he came close to us so then Nicole and I showed him our books. He was really really interested in the books, but they didn't have pictures, only the cover so he just kept looking at my cover, then at Nicole's, then back to mine over and over. So then a couple of days before this, Nicole and I had bought Tagalog children's books from a bookstore because we love Tagalog haha...so then I told Nicole to keep him occupied and I ran to my room and got my book which was called "Mahal Kita, Inay" which means "I love you, Mom" so then we read it to him 3 times and he was just enthralled, it was adorable! He loved the pictures and kept pointing, but never said a word and never smiled. He would just look really really close at the book. But he held my hand which was so cute. And then we had to leave, and so I gave him the book, and a fisherman came and told us he only had a mother, no father. So it just broke my heart!! I wanted to take him home haha. So yeah, that's my story.
Ok, we are going to go back to our place where we are staying now....I am at an internet cafe right now; I don't have internet where we are staying. I'll try to come back here soon and write again!
Monday, July 13, 2009
A Relaxing Weekend Off!!
I am going to do a quick post here before we go to Bohol in the morning! My weekend in Los Banos was way too short. We were just kind of taking a break before our Bohol trip. It's pretty far away, we are flying there from the Manila airport. I will just tell about my weekend off in LB!
Nicole is still staying here with me at the Garcia's because Ate Eena has just gotten better today I think. So that has been fun! But she wished she could have gone to her house which is understandable. I probably wouldn't have liked to be her. On Saturday evening we went to Calamba and we watched Transformers 2 in the movie theatre there! It was pretty fun. Kuya Fred (BA's dad) drove us home so that we didn't have to travel alone at night. On Sunday, we had church in the morning and then we went to Calamba CRC for their 20th anniversary celebration of their church. It was very fun! Great music and we had food too haha :) The things I will miss the most about the Philippines are the food and the people I have met. Not the traffic! But I do love public transportation here - jeepneys and tricycles.
So yeah Sunday after church we had Sunday school which we have every week. The college-aged kids are in one class. We get assignments sometimes and when I'm not going to be there, I have to give the assignment to my ate, Hapi. So that's what I have to do this week because I won't be at LBCRC next week Sunday. I will have to do my assignment tonight! After Sunday school, Nicole and I went to Ate Gladys's house for lunch and then we went to Calamba together. After the service, we went to the Bravo's and then we were bored so we decided to go to the main road and take the first jeep we saw. The first one was to San Pablo but that was too far...the second one was to Santa Cruz but that was even farther...so then the 3rd one was to UPLB in Los Banos so we went there! We got some food - I had isau which is chicken intestines. Nicole had it too. Eric and Karlynn had adidas which is chicken feet. We hung out at Freedom Park after that and took pictures under the fertility tree haha! Then we went home and ate some squid and chicken adobo and rice. I love rice! I also love chicken adobo and pork adobo...anything adobo actually, and Hapi taught me how to cook it.
This morning I got to talk to my family on the phone! The Garcia's got a landline and they get 30 minutes of free international calling as a promo so I got ten of them :) I made my family put me on speaker and I said "ok, everyone say hi to me" and as soon as they started I just burst into tears haha. I really miss my family!! I am very excited to be back home, but I am loving it here. It will be very sad to leave but I will be incredibly happy to see my fam again! This morning we had training at LBCRC for the peer educators that are coming with us to LB National high school next week Monday. We were supposed to go today to LBNHS but the classes were cancelled due to swine flu. So we had training until lunch time then went to IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) to a rice museum. After that we did some other stuff around LB and now I am home again. It is my last dinner with the Garcia's tonight! It's very sad. They are cooking up a storm. It smells delicious.
Oh yeah, I got a package from Aunt Jeanette today! It had swedish berries, fuzzy peaches, and sour watermelons in it and I've been sharing the candy. They don't have that kind of candy here! And there were ear plugs in the package which my family thought was just hilarious! I am used to the roosters now though :)
Anyways I'm not sure if I'll have internet in Bohol so yeah, maybe I'll post next week or something.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Cockroaches, Carabao, and Bicol!
I am really lacking in my blog posts. Sorry! I was in Bicol for 10 days so that is my excuse. Well, in Bicol we did some amazing stuff! I will try to summarize it because I don't have much time. Basically, we were there to develop more partners in our for our RedHAT team. Red is the international colour for AIDS and HAT stands for HIV AIDS Team. It is the organization that we go around with to all the schools and stuff. So while in Bicol we did two presentations for various church pastors and leaders in which we were equipping them with information and stuff about HIV and AIDS. RedHAT is going to be partnering with some of them...people from our team (not us North Americans) will be going back in October to lead another training seminar for them. We did one school seminar for 3rd and 4th year high schoolers in which we only had one hour to do it when usually we do it in 90 minutes. It was pretty crazy that we finished in our allotted time! On another day, one of our seminars got moved to the evening of the next day so we prayed about what we should do, and then we stopped randomly at this national high school and asked the principal if we could come back the next day and he said sure! It was pretty crazy actually that he let us because for all the schools in Laguna that we presented at when we were here a few weeks ago were such a hassle for us to go to. We had to get letters signed by like the mayors and then the principals and stuff like that. So we came back the next day and did a 2 hour and 15 minute seminar for 140 4th year high school students!! It was the most we've ever had and it was so great. It was difficult because when we did the stations part, we usually just have around 10 kids in each group, but this time we had close to 30 in each separate group at the 5 stations, so it was pretty nuts. But we did it! We also did a presentation for college-aged students which went really well too and some of them want to join RedHAT when the team goes back in October and we had some really good discussions with them also.
I'll just talk about some other things we did in Bicol! When you go to a new city, you usually should make a "courtesy call" to the mayor, so we did that when we got to Legazpi City which is a pretty big city in Bicol. It is on the list for one of the places that an HIV/AIDS epidemic is likely to happen because there are a lot of illegal sex businesses there. So we went to visit the mayor, but he wasn't there so we just met with the next highest guy and then went on our way. Later in the evening, we got a call from the mayor saying he wanted to meet with us in the morning which apparently never happens according to Ate Myra, one of our guide people. So we went back and we met with the mayor for almost an hour I think and also with the Officer of Health of the city who has been really promoting HIV/AIDS awareness. Ate Myra said this was just incredible that we had the opportunity to talk with the mayor and the health official about what we were doing because that never happens apparently. Courtesy calls are just like ten minute things! So that was pretty amazing.
We went to another city called Naga City and our guide there was Ate Aisha. She organized so many great things for us to do on a day off! We planted rice in rice fields which is pretty nuts. Rice fields are like filled with water and you sink in the hot mud and water almost to your knees then are bending over and shoving these little rice plants in the ground. It's pretty hard work. We also rode a carabao! You can google image search a carabao to see what that looks like. Eric fell off it! It is hard to ride because the skin is really loose so you move around a lot. We also climbed a pili tree. We went to a black sand beach on the Pacific Ocean which was cool. It was the first time I've been in salt water. We also went fishing on a freshwater lake for tilapia which was really fun. We rode a boat to the middle of the lake to this fishing hut that is floating and then rode a smaller boat to one of the nets which was holding 5000 fish! Then you catch them with your hands out of the net. Nicole and I were very brave and held the fish haha. We also asked the fisherman how he killed them and he showed us. After that, we tried to kill one also by bopping it on the head like he did but it didn't work and only caused him to laugh at us.
Another amazing thing in Bicol was when we visited a tribal community way in the middle of nowhere sort of. It was really cool! Ate Aisha works with this particular tribe and they sang us a song in their language which BA was translating for me, and their singing was incredible. I think it was my favorite part of the whole trip. It moved me to tears, it was so good. It was awesome to see how God can reach the most remote people groups and they have such great faith. They gave us a lot of fruit to take home as a gift.
Another thing I did was pick pineapple! I was the only one in the group that did it. I think they basically let me because I talked to one Filipino man and he didn't understand English and I was asking him if he lived in the place that we were, so I was like "is this your bahay?" which means house in English and they were all laughing at me and then he let me pick a pineapple haha!
Another crazy thing was that we were hiking in this jungle area and this huge thunderstorm hit and we were there in the middle of the jungle! And I had the only umbrella! The others had gone ahead, so Lisa, Nicole, and I were huddled under this little umbrella getting soaked to the skin. It was horrible. Rains here are nuts...and the thunder and lightning was very very close. We screamed everytime there was thunder because it was so incredibly loud and close to us. I almost burst into tears at one point. Quite terrifying. But we were ok! Eric eventually came down the mountainous jungle and told us there was shelter a big farther up so we ran up there in the mud and pouring rain and thunder and lightning...it was like an Indiana Jones movie.
Ok, last thing and then I have to go! On Thursday night of this week, we started the long drive back to Laguna. We left around 10:30 after our last seminar and drove until about 2:30 a.m. when we were just exhausted so we stopped at this kind of sketchy hotel place. So we get in there, and Nicole is brushing her teeth then runs out of the bathroom (the rooms are really really small, so not really runs...) and is like "ahh there's a cockroach in there" so then we just stay out of the bathroom haha. But then we were kind of scared and we had been sleeping with three of us in a double bed the whole week (Lisa, Nicole, and I) because there were never enough beds, so we decided to push our beds together. When we moved Nicole's, there were two cockroaches sitting there! So there was a lot of screaming and Lisa grabbed my sandal and killed one and Nicole swept it out the door, but the other got away. We then sprayed bug spray all over the room and made a bug spray perimeter around our beds that were pushed together then went to sleep haha. It was quite an adventure! Definitely our most memorable hotel...three in the morning and fighting the cockroaches!
Anyway, Nicole and I are going to go to LBCRC now for awhile to hang out with some youth and then we are going to Calamba later to hang out with other people. Should be fun. We are doing presentations this week at Los Banos National High School which is a HUGE school so that should be interesting. There is lots of H1N1 in LB right now though so lots of schools are shut down. We'll see what happens!
I'll just talk about some other things we did in Bicol! When you go to a new city, you usually should make a "courtesy call" to the mayor, so we did that when we got to Legazpi City which is a pretty big city in Bicol. It is on the list for one of the places that an HIV/AIDS epidemic is likely to happen because there are a lot of illegal sex businesses there. So we went to visit the mayor, but he wasn't there so we just met with the next highest guy and then went on our way. Later in the evening, we got a call from the mayor saying he wanted to meet with us in the morning which apparently never happens according to Ate Myra, one of our guide people. So we went back and we met with the mayor for almost an hour I think and also with the Officer of Health of the city who has been really promoting HIV/AIDS awareness. Ate Myra said this was just incredible that we had the opportunity to talk with the mayor and the health official about what we were doing because that never happens apparently. Courtesy calls are just like ten minute things! So that was pretty amazing.
We went to another city called Naga City and our guide there was Ate Aisha. She organized so many great things for us to do on a day off! We planted rice in rice fields which is pretty nuts. Rice fields are like filled with water and you sink in the hot mud and water almost to your knees then are bending over and shoving these little rice plants in the ground. It's pretty hard work. We also rode a carabao! You can google image search a carabao to see what that looks like. Eric fell off it! It is hard to ride because the skin is really loose so you move around a lot. We also climbed a pili tree. We went to a black sand beach on the Pacific Ocean which was cool. It was the first time I've been in salt water. We also went fishing on a freshwater lake for tilapia which was really fun. We rode a boat to the middle of the lake to this fishing hut that is floating and then rode a smaller boat to one of the nets which was holding 5000 fish! Then you catch them with your hands out of the net. Nicole and I were very brave and held the fish haha. We also asked the fisherman how he killed them and he showed us. After that, we tried to kill one also by bopping it on the head like he did but it didn't work and only caused him to laugh at us.
Another amazing thing in Bicol was when we visited a tribal community way in the middle of nowhere sort of. It was really cool! Ate Aisha works with this particular tribe and they sang us a song in their language which BA was translating for me, and their singing was incredible. I think it was my favorite part of the whole trip. It moved me to tears, it was so good. It was awesome to see how God can reach the most remote people groups and they have such great faith. They gave us a lot of fruit to take home as a gift.
Another thing I did was pick pineapple! I was the only one in the group that did it. I think they basically let me because I talked to one Filipino man and he didn't understand English and I was asking him if he lived in the place that we were, so I was like "is this your bahay?" which means house in English and they were all laughing at me and then he let me pick a pineapple haha!
Another crazy thing was that we were hiking in this jungle area and this huge thunderstorm hit and we were there in the middle of the jungle! And I had the only umbrella! The others had gone ahead, so Lisa, Nicole, and I were huddled under this little umbrella getting soaked to the skin. It was horrible. Rains here are nuts...and the thunder and lightning was very very close. We screamed everytime there was thunder because it was so incredibly loud and close to us. I almost burst into tears at one point. Quite terrifying. But we were ok! Eric eventually came down the mountainous jungle and told us there was shelter a big farther up so we ran up there in the mud and pouring rain and thunder and lightning...it was like an Indiana Jones movie.
Ok, last thing and then I have to go! On Thursday night of this week, we started the long drive back to Laguna. We left around 10:30 after our last seminar and drove until about 2:30 a.m. when we were just exhausted so we stopped at this kind of sketchy hotel place. So we get in there, and Nicole is brushing her teeth then runs out of the bathroom (the rooms are really really small, so not really runs...) and is like "ahh there's a cockroach in there" so then we just stay out of the bathroom haha. But then we were kind of scared and we had been sleeping with three of us in a double bed the whole week (Lisa, Nicole, and I) because there were never enough beds, so we decided to push our beds together. When we moved Nicole's, there were two cockroaches sitting there! So there was a lot of screaming and Lisa grabbed my sandal and killed one and Nicole swept it out the door, but the other got away. We then sprayed bug spray all over the room and made a bug spray perimeter around our beds that were pushed together then went to sleep haha. It was quite an adventure! Definitely our most memorable hotel...three in the morning and fighting the cockroaches!
Anyway, Nicole and I are going to go to LBCRC now for awhile to hang out with some youth and then we are going to Calamba later to hang out with other people. Should be fun. We are doing presentations this week at Los Banos National High School which is a HUGE school so that should be interesting. There is lots of H1N1 in LB right now though so lots of schools are shut down. We'll see what happens!
Monday, June 29, 2009
PICTURES!
This is on a street of the University of the Philippines where we often hang out. It's a beautiful campus. Nicole lives on campus so we were walking from her house to downtown Los Banos when we took this. 
This is Eric and Karlynn at one of the schools we were presenting at. Just so you know who I'm here with haha!
Our very dirty feet after we walked up the volcanoe at Tagaytay! We were soooo dirtyyy....
Lanie and I standing on the back of our boat as we went across the lake to the island where the volcanoe was in Tagaytay on one of our days off. It was super fun!
Nicole took a picture of me digging through my bag as we walked through UPLB (University of the Philippines in Los Banos). This is in front of the library. That is a statue of a carabao with wings haha!
This is myself and my friends Kaygee and B.A. We are watching everyone else play ultimate frisbee and we were supposed to be cheer-ers but apparently I'm the only one cheering haha. I think B.A. has that face in every picture he has ever been in.
This is us doing a drama in one of the schools. It's really funny and really gets the message across about how HIV and AIDS work in the body.
The mountain that we live near :)
Myself, B.A., and Eric at the University of the Philippines where we drank carabao milk at this store.
Ate Gladys, myself, Edward, Arnold, Faith, and Eena in Calauan where they are famous for their pineapples!Nicole came over today for the afternoon and we put her pictures on Kuya Jai's computer so here are some pictures from her camera!!!
I have had a very busy day/week and I will write about it sometime but now we are going to the Bravo's for dinner. The Bravos are Eric's host family and we hang out with them basically everyday - B.A. and Thea and sometimes JaJa but he has school. Tomorrow we are heading to a new location called Bicol so pray for safe travels! I think it is a ten-hour drive. We presented our campaign in 5 high schools this week and the response was overwhelming. God is doing incredible things here in the Philippines! It was so great to be able to touch the lives of the students here and teach them about such meaningful things like HIV/AIDS. I will write more about it later on...hopefully I will have internet in Bicol!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Eating, Stray Dogs, and FUN!
Well, my blog posts are getting closer together :) Today we were supposed to go to two schools for presentations, but there is a typhoon coming so classes were cancelled! I am excited to see what a typhoon is like haha. I got permission from Pastor Benjie, my "father" to come to this internet cafe. I met Nicole here, and afterwards we are going to take a jeepney to Calauan, the next town over, to hang out with everyone else. I have strict instructions though that if the winds pick up and it starts raining hard, I need to go straight home. It's so funny because whenever Nicole and I want to do something, we literally like beg our parents here to get permission. They are very protective of us!! We have never been allowed to go anywhere alone yet, so we are excited about today :)
I will start again with where I left off last time. Sunday evening we went to Pastor Dwayne and Ate Gladys's house for dinner. It was cooked by the youth of Los Banos CRC where I go to church and the "young professionals" from LBCRC joined us. It was a lot of fun! Very good food and good fellowship also. I played Uno afterwards with 7 of the "young professionals" (they are college graduates who now have jobs and just shared about their lives) which was really fun. They made the loser drink a litre of water, but the loser never actually drank a whole litre haha.
Oh yes, and I forgot to put in my blog last time about some of the things I have eaten! There are I had buko juice right from the buko which is a young coconut. You just chop a hole in the top and stick a straw in and drink it. Then you cut the buko in half and scoop out the buko fruit with a spoon and eat it. It's very good. They also make it into buko pie which I have had as well. Also, one morning for breakfast I had choco-rice which is literally chocolate rice haha. It was interesting...not really a breakfast food, but we always eat rice and other random things like fish and chicken for breakfast. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant for dinner and I ordered squid which was quite good. The head was not good though. It had a crunchy part which I believe was the teeth or maybe the skull and I didn't like it haha. I also had this dish which is basically a soup of pig's blood. I am eating anything put in front of me now because I have discovered that I have a stomach of steel haha :)
On Monday, we did our first school presentations at a school in Calauan. Our presentations go like this: we do a quiz at the beginning that tests the students on if they know the way HIV/AIDS is transmitted and stuff like that. Then we take up the quiz using pictures, posting them on a board under either "Safe" or "Risky" - for example, a mosquito bite is "safe" because you can't get HIV/AIDS from a mosquito bite. Stuff like that. Then we do a really funny drama demonstrating how HIV kills the immune system and allows for things like a cough, fever, and diarrhea to stay in the body and eventually kill it. The drama is a big hit haha. Then we have a speaker who is HIV positive come. We have had 2 different ones so far and their stories are very compelling. After that, we do a talk about God's perfect plan for sex involving the Right Person, Right Time, Right Attitude. Then we do 5 "refusal stations" and each of us leads one with a Filipino young person with us also if we need translation. There is "Activities" in which the students list and post activities they could do to help them not to think about sex. There is "Abstain" where they talk about knowing your date, knowing yourself, and knowing your limits. There is "Avoid" where they talk about avoiding things such as secluded places, drinking, drugs, being with your date when no one is home, etc. There is another A-word which I can't remember in which they talk about saying no when the opposite sex pressures you with lines such as "If you really love me you'll do this with me" and "Waiting for marriage is old-fashioned". Then there is my station, "Advice" where the boys and girls separate and write advice to eachother about avoiding sexual temptations and then read it to eachother. There are some very interesting pieces of advice that they come up with! It's really fun. After that, we do a closing and a prayer. We have only done it in a Christian school so far, so it will be interesting to see the response in a secular school or in a Catholic school which we are doing later this week.
After our presentations on Monday, we all decided to go back to Los Banos to hang out (that's where I live in case you forgot). There wasn't enough room in Ate Gladys's car again so Eric, B.A., and I took a tricycle, then a jeepney, then another jeepney to get there. I just love the public transportation here! It's super fun. We played frisbee in the park at the University again but Nicole, Kaygee, and I walked over to the "fertility tree" which is the humongous magical tree. It is gorgeous. It's like a dome of branches and it is just really cool. We also got "zagu" which is this delicious drink thing. I can't really explain it. It's kind of like a slushee but not really. I also talked to this little boy on the street who was trying to sell us flowers that he had picked. I asked him questions about where he lived and why he was selling the flowers. He was selling them in order to get food and to have money to go to school apparently. Actually, I asked the questions and B.A. translated because the boy didn't seem to understand English. I love talking to the little street children haha. :) When I got home Monday night, we had adobo chicken which is the most delicious meal ever. Hapi is going to teach me to cook it sometime.
Yesterday we had the day off, so we went to Tagaytay which is about a 45 minute drive away. We took two vehicles because there were a lot of us. Pastor Dwayne drove one with Eric, B.A., Thea, Kaygee, Lanie, Nicole, and Matt in it. Ate Gladys drove the other with myself, Lisa, Karlynn, and Kuya Jairus (my "brother" - Kuya means brother). We got to Tagaytay, ate lunch, and then took boats across to the volcano island which was super fun. We then hiked up a long, dusty, winding, difficult trail to the top of this place which had the most incredible view ever. We were dying of heat though haha. And we were SO dirty and dusty by the time we got to the top. But it was fun. It was a lot cooler at the top and the view was totally worth it. On the way back to the mainland, we asked our drivers to stop the boats and people jumped into the water. I did not though. I had no desire to be wet for the rest of the day haha. On the way back, I rode in the van and we played cards. We taught our Filipino friends President and they taught us a fun new game called Monkey Monkey haha.
Anyways, that's really all I have to say for now. Not really any funny stories, sorry family! I haven't been at home much...this week has been very busy so far and it will continue to be busy. Tonight we have Bible study and prayer meeting, and tomorrow we are doing presentations at schools in Pila. Friday we are presenting in Calamba, and then there is a retreat thing with the youth from the 5 churches. I believe we are singing karaoke :) I will try to come on the Internet again next week!
OH, I forgot to talk about the stray dogs! They are everywhere and are very noisy at night and in the morning and stuff. But funny story, the other day Ate Gladys was driving me home and there was a tricycle in front of us (those are the little motorcycle things with the sidecars) and the tricycle ran over one of the stray dogs! It was pretty funny. The dog didn't die though, just was yelping. Then later, Kuya Jai told me that one time Pastor Benjie was driving to the next province to visit his mother and he ran over 3 stray dogs. They said that the street kids love it when people run over the dogs...they laugh and think it's fun!
I will start again with where I left off last time. Sunday evening we went to Pastor Dwayne and Ate Gladys's house for dinner. It was cooked by the youth of Los Banos CRC where I go to church and the "young professionals" from LBCRC joined us. It was a lot of fun! Very good food and good fellowship also. I played Uno afterwards with 7 of the "young professionals" (they are college graduates who now have jobs and just shared about their lives) which was really fun. They made the loser drink a litre of water, but the loser never actually drank a whole litre haha.
Oh yes, and I forgot to put in my blog last time about some of the things I have eaten! There are I had buko juice right from the buko which is a young coconut. You just chop a hole in the top and stick a straw in and drink it. Then you cut the buko in half and scoop out the buko fruit with a spoon and eat it. It's very good. They also make it into buko pie which I have had as well. Also, one morning for breakfast I had choco-rice which is literally chocolate rice haha. It was interesting...not really a breakfast food, but we always eat rice and other random things like fish and chicken for breakfast. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant for dinner and I ordered squid which was quite good. The head was not good though. It had a crunchy part which I believe was the teeth or maybe the skull and I didn't like it haha. I also had this dish which is basically a soup of pig's blood. I am eating anything put in front of me now because I have discovered that I have a stomach of steel haha :)
On Monday, we did our first school presentations at a school in Calauan. Our presentations go like this: we do a quiz at the beginning that tests the students on if they know the way HIV/AIDS is transmitted and stuff like that. Then we take up the quiz using pictures, posting them on a board under either "Safe" or "Risky" - for example, a mosquito bite is "safe" because you can't get HIV/AIDS from a mosquito bite. Stuff like that. Then we do a really funny drama demonstrating how HIV kills the immune system and allows for things like a cough, fever, and diarrhea to stay in the body and eventually kill it. The drama is a big hit haha. Then we have a speaker who is HIV positive come. We have had 2 different ones so far and their stories are very compelling. After that, we do a talk about God's perfect plan for sex involving the Right Person, Right Time, Right Attitude. Then we do 5 "refusal stations" and each of us leads one with a Filipino young person with us also if we need translation. There is "Activities" in which the students list and post activities they could do to help them not to think about sex. There is "Abstain" where they talk about knowing your date, knowing yourself, and knowing your limits. There is "Avoid" where they talk about avoiding things such as secluded places, drinking, drugs, being with your date when no one is home, etc. There is another A-word which I can't remember in which they talk about saying no when the opposite sex pressures you with lines such as "If you really love me you'll do this with me" and "Waiting for marriage is old-fashioned". Then there is my station, "Advice" where the boys and girls separate and write advice to eachother about avoiding sexual temptations and then read it to eachother. There are some very interesting pieces of advice that they come up with! It's really fun. After that, we do a closing and a prayer. We have only done it in a Christian school so far, so it will be interesting to see the response in a secular school or in a Catholic school which we are doing later this week.
After our presentations on Monday, we all decided to go back to Los Banos to hang out (that's where I live in case you forgot). There wasn't enough room in Ate Gladys's car again so Eric, B.A., and I took a tricycle, then a jeepney, then another jeepney to get there. I just love the public transportation here! It's super fun. We played frisbee in the park at the University again but Nicole, Kaygee, and I walked over to the "fertility tree" which is the humongous magical tree. It is gorgeous. It's like a dome of branches and it is just really cool. We also got "zagu" which is this delicious drink thing. I can't really explain it. It's kind of like a slushee but not really. I also talked to this little boy on the street who was trying to sell us flowers that he had picked. I asked him questions about where he lived and why he was selling the flowers. He was selling them in order to get food and to have money to go to school apparently. Actually, I asked the questions and B.A. translated because the boy didn't seem to understand English. I love talking to the little street children haha. :) When I got home Monday night, we had adobo chicken which is the most delicious meal ever. Hapi is going to teach me to cook it sometime.
Yesterday we had the day off, so we went to Tagaytay which is about a 45 minute drive away. We took two vehicles because there were a lot of us. Pastor Dwayne drove one with Eric, B.A., Thea, Kaygee, Lanie, Nicole, and Matt in it. Ate Gladys drove the other with myself, Lisa, Karlynn, and Kuya Jairus (my "brother" - Kuya means brother). We got to Tagaytay, ate lunch, and then took boats across to the volcano island which was super fun. We then hiked up a long, dusty, winding, difficult trail to the top of this place which had the most incredible view ever. We were dying of heat though haha. And we were SO dirty and dusty by the time we got to the top. But it was fun. It was a lot cooler at the top and the view was totally worth it. On the way back to the mainland, we asked our drivers to stop the boats and people jumped into the water. I did not though. I had no desire to be wet for the rest of the day haha. On the way back, I rode in the van and we played cards. We taught our Filipino friends President and they taught us a fun new game called Monkey Monkey haha.
Anyways, that's really all I have to say for now. Not really any funny stories, sorry family! I haven't been at home much...this week has been very busy so far and it will continue to be busy. Tonight we have Bible study and prayer meeting, and tomorrow we are doing presentations at schools in Pila. Friday we are presenting in Calamba, and then there is a retreat thing with the youth from the 5 churches. I believe we are singing karaoke :) I will try to come on the Internet again next week!
OH, I forgot to talk about the stray dogs! They are everywhere and are very noisy at night and in the morning and stuff. But funny story, the other day Ate Gladys was driving me home and there was a tricycle in front of us (those are the little motorcycle things with the sidecars) and the tricycle ran over one of the stray dogs! It was pretty funny. The dog didn't die though, just was yelping. Then later, Kuya Jai told me that one time Pastor Benjie was driving to the next province to visit his mother and he ran over 3 stray dogs. They said that the street kids love it when people run over the dogs...they laugh and think it's fun!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Market, Hiking, and Practices
Well it is Sunday afternoon here. It is crazy to think that at home, it is 1 in the morning last night haha. I will just keep telling about what I'm doing everyday...I wish I could add pictures but unfortunately I have taken probably only 5 haha. I don't want to see really tourist-y taking pictures all the time! Plus, I don't have a cord to hook up to a computer...so yeah, that's my excuse. Ok, I will start where I left off last time, after Nicole and I were on the Internet:
Well, first I will tell about the people I am here with. Nicole Weesjes is going into her 3rd year at Calvin in Speech Pathology and French. She was initially going to Niger, Africa but there was political unrest there so she came to the Philippines, and I'm sure glad she did!! She lives in Los Banos but goes to church at Pila CRC which is 45 minutes away. We see eachother every day which is fun! Lisa Kaastra goes to Kings University in Edmonton and is becoming an elementary school teacher. She also was supposed to go to Niger. She lives far away from us in San Pablo which is probably an hour away so that's a bummer. She also is going into her 3rd year. Eric Steyhouwer lives in Calamba which is probably 20 minutes away or so. He graduated from Calvin this year and is going to a seminary next year for some sort of youth ministry thing. Karlynn Vis lives in Calauan and she graduated from Dordt in Iowa this past year and is going to be teaching in Louisiana a week after we get back! So those are my new friends :)
Ok, so last week after Nicole and I went on the Internet, we decided to explore on our own! So we just started walking down the street and then Lanie found us! Which was great. And then we went to the market and bought pai-pais which are these fan things. After awhile, Pastor Benjie picked us up and we went to the Bernardino's where Karlynn is staying because it was Karlynn's birthday. Pastor Ver Bernardino is the pastor of Calauan CRC. We had lots of fun there...all 5 of us were there so it was fun. It's really nice getting together with them because then we can speak English for once haha :) It is difficult just listening to Tagalog all the time and not understand people. ALSO, we ate BALUT! I'm not sure if that's how it is spelled, but basically it is an egg that is boiled that has a chick in it that hasn't hatched yet. They take it away from the mother before incubation period is up. Sounds disgusting, but it wasn't that bad. It was hard to eat though because you could see the head and feathers and beak.
On Wednesday, I didn't really do much. Mostly relaxed and read in my room. Played card with Hapi and Ate Malu. Then we had Bible study and prayer meeting at the church which was fun because Nicole was there. The kids at LBCRC are so incredibly musical. It's crazy. They don't have any music and they are just SO GOOD! I can't even describe it haha. They're also very very good singers.
On Thursday, we started our practices for our HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in schools. We couldn't start them this week because of Swine Flu, we had to wait until we had been in the country for 10 days. We practiced in Calamba first. We will be going to a school there this Friday. We practice in all the different cities because Filipino youth are also doing the presentations with us. After our Calamba practice, some of the Calamba youth took us to the house of Jose Rizel, a national hero. It was Rizel day on Friday, a holiday for everyone. We then had practice in Calauan. After that, Nicole and I went to the surprise birthday party of Rigel, a girl from LBCRC. She turned 18. It was pretty fun. Also, Nicole and I bought pineapples in Calauan :) It is the pineapple city around here. There is a giant pineapple in the square there!
On Friday, it was a holiday, so some of the youth from LBCRC "kidnapped" me and took me on a huge hike. It was Hapi, Cecille, Edward, Mon, Lik-Lik, Bryan, Ruwena, Wren, and myself hiking. We hiked up a mountain (around 4 km I think) to the "mud springs" which are craters formed by the volcanoe that have boiling mud in them. We had a lot of fun there. There is a little river beside the mud springs that has cold water which is crazy. The high school boys swam and so did Ruwena, but the rest of us just waded. Later that afternoon, the high schools boys (who are Wren, Bryan, and Lik-Lik) wanted to play basketball with me but I fell asleep at home and Hapi didn't want to wake me up! So I was pretty disappointed. But we will play some other time I'm sure. On the hike, we saw a HUGE wasp. Honestly, it was ginormous. And Hapi said that if it stings you, you are sick in bed with a fever. Then the boys started throwing rocks at it and I like freaked out haha!
Also, one morning I squished a little lizard in the shower with my shampoo bottle by accident! :( It was so sad because the little lizards are very cute haha. I felt really bad. I also learned to cut a pineapple the "proper" way haha, I will have to show my family when I get home.
On Saturday, Ate Gladys (the missionary) picked me up early and we went to Pila CRC for the HIV/AIDS presentation practice there. After that, we chilled in Pila for awhile then headed to San Pablo which is about half an hour from there. There wasn't enough room in the car for everyone, so Nicole, B.A. (that stands for Bon Alfred I think but everyone calls him BA, he's from Calamba), and I took a jeepney to San Pablo and then a tricycle to the San Pablo CRC for the practice there. It's funny because last week Saturday when we were doing our HIV/AIDS orientation thing, we had to act out scenarios where someone was hitting on us but we rejected them haha, so my partner was this boy named James from San Pablo CRC...and I was like "you're really good looking, let's hook up later" because that's what we were supposed to do, and then he's like "no" or whatever, and then after, he asked Lisa for my e-mail! hahahaha because Lisa is from San Pablo CRC. So that was kind of awkward but really funny. Anyways yeah, we all have cell phones now because every Filipino has a cell phone, and often they have 2! They all think it's crazy that none of us 5 "foreigners" had cell phones. Nicole and I were supposed to go to Rigel's "debut" on Saturday..a debut is when a girl turns 18 they make a huge deal about it and have a big party. So yeah, but we were done our practices too late so we didn't get to go :( But when I got home, I went to the market with Pastor Benji and Hapi. Ate Malu is in the US right now for a week. Then Joshua and Jairus found us at the market which was funny. I watched fish being killed with a mallet and then scaled and gutted haha. FUN!
Oh yeah, and the other day I had this huge pink lizard thing in my room! It was nuts. It just like crawled up the wall right beside my bed and scared the crap out of me haha. Then I tried to chase it out the window because I have no screens on my window.
This brings me to today. Today is Father's Day. This morning at church, they had all the fathers stand up and they were giving them all a gift, and I just started blubbering! I miss my Dad!!!!!!!! It was embarassing haha. And Lanie was sitting with me and was like "you miss your father?" and I'm just like *sniff sniff * "yeahh" :( So Daddy, I miss you!!! And I hope you're having a great Father's Day without me! After church, we went to a resort and got together with Pastor Benji's family. We swam in a pool that was naturally very warm from the hot springs around here because we are right near a volcanoe. It was basically a hot tub.
That's basically all the news I have. This week, we will be going to 5 schools, doing multiple presentations in each school. Each of our presentations takes 1.5 hours and we do a lot of interactive fun things in them. Tonight we are having dinner at Ate Gladys's house with some youth from LBCRC (that's Los Banos CRC in case I didn't say that earlier, where I go to church). I am basically dying of heat right now haha. There is no fan in here (I'm in the church office right now).
I'm trying to think of the questions people have been asking. Mom wanted to know the temperature and I have no idea what it is. There aren't thermometers here. It's definitely 30+ everyday. The rains are very welcome because they make things cool off, but only for half an hour or so. My fan is my best friend. At night, I put it on full blast and point it right on me haha. I don't really have any funny stories from this week....the kids from LBCRC wondered if I had ever entered a beauty contest haha. They think I would win. I am looking forward to seeing Nicole this afternoon and everyone else tonight...it's good that we have phones now because now we can text eachother.
Oh yeah, Nicole and I have lists of things we want to do in the Phlippines, and she has basically done her whole list but I haven't really done mine! Some of mine include riding a motorcycle (which is going to happen..Lik-Lik's dad has one so he's going to let me ride it haha), riding a caribou, learning guitar (the boys in my house are REALLY good at guitar, and so are all the youth at LBCRC so that shouldn't be hard), learn to cook some cool Filipino thing, play basketball, eat crazy stuff (like isau), and see a Filipino farm. Nicole's included planting rice which she did this week which is pretty cool.
Well that's basically all I have to say. Thanks for reading haha, this is pretty long! :) and I'm sorry I don't have pictures!
Well, first I will tell about the people I am here with. Nicole Weesjes is going into her 3rd year at Calvin in Speech Pathology and French. She was initially going to Niger, Africa but there was political unrest there so she came to the Philippines, and I'm sure glad she did!! She lives in Los Banos but goes to church at Pila CRC which is 45 minutes away. We see eachother every day which is fun! Lisa Kaastra goes to Kings University in Edmonton and is becoming an elementary school teacher. She also was supposed to go to Niger. She lives far away from us in San Pablo which is probably an hour away so that's a bummer. She also is going into her 3rd year. Eric Steyhouwer lives in Calamba which is probably 20 minutes away or so. He graduated from Calvin this year and is going to a seminary next year for some sort of youth ministry thing. Karlynn Vis lives in Calauan and she graduated from Dordt in Iowa this past year and is going to be teaching in Louisiana a week after we get back! So those are my new friends :)
Ok, so last week after Nicole and I went on the Internet, we decided to explore on our own! So we just started walking down the street and then Lanie found us! Which was great. And then we went to the market and bought pai-pais which are these fan things. After awhile, Pastor Benjie picked us up and we went to the Bernardino's where Karlynn is staying because it was Karlynn's birthday. Pastor Ver Bernardino is the pastor of Calauan CRC. We had lots of fun there...all 5 of us were there so it was fun. It's really nice getting together with them because then we can speak English for once haha :) It is difficult just listening to Tagalog all the time and not understand people. ALSO, we ate BALUT! I'm not sure if that's how it is spelled, but basically it is an egg that is boiled that has a chick in it that hasn't hatched yet. They take it away from the mother before incubation period is up. Sounds disgusting, but it wasn't that bad. It was hard to eat though because you could see the head and feathers and beak.
On Wednesday, I didn't really do much. Mostly relaxed and read in my room. Played card with Hapi and Ate Malu. Then we had Bible study and prayer meeting at the church which was fun because Nicole was there. The kids at LBCRC are so incredibly musical. It's crazy. They don't have any music and they are just SO GOOD! I can't even describe it haha. They're also very very good singers.
On Thursday, we started our practices for our HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in schools. We couldn't start them this week because of Swine Flu, we had to wait until we had been in the country for 10 days. We practiced in Calamba first. We will be going to a school there this Friday. We practice in all the different cities because Filipino youth are also doing the presentations with us. After our Calamba practice, some of the Calamba youth took us to the house of Jose Rizel, a national hero. It was Rizel day on Friday, a holiday for everyone. We then had practice in Calauan. After that, Nicole and I went to the surprise birthday party of Rigel, a girl from LBCRC. She turned 18. It was pretty fun. Also, Nicole and I bought pineapples in Calauan :) It is the pineapple city around here. There is a giant pineapple in the square there!
On Friday, it was a holiday, so some of the youth from LBCRC "kidnapped" me and took me on a huge hike. It was Hapi, Cecille, Edward, Mon, Lik-Lik, Bryan, Ruwena, Wren, and myself hiking. We hiked up a mountain (around 4 km I think) to the "mud springs" which are craters formed by the volcanoe that have boiling mud in them. We had a lot of fun there. There is a little river beside the mud springs that has cold water which is crazy. The high school boys swam and so did Ruwena, but the rest of us just waded. Later that afternoon, the high schools boys (who are Wren, Bryan, and Lik-Lik) wanted to play basketball with me but I fell asleep at home and Hapi didn't want to wake me up! So I was pretty disappointed. But we will play some other time I'm sure. On the hike, we saw a HUGE wasp. Honestly, it was ginormous. And Hapi said that if it stings you, you are sick in bed with a fever. Then the boys started throwing rocks at it and I like freaked out haha!
Also, one morning I squished a little lizard in the shower with my shampoo bottle by accident! :( It was so sad because the little lizards are very cute haha. I felt really bad. I also learned to cut a pineapple the "proper" way haha, I will have to show my family when I get home.
On Saturday, Ate Gladys (the missionary) picked me up early and we went to Pila CRC for the HIV/AIDS presentation practice there. After that, we chilled in Pila for awhile then headed to San Pablo which is about half an hour from there. There wasn't enough room in the car for everyone, so Nicole, B.A. (that stands for Bon Alfred I think but everyone calls him BA, he's from Calamba), and I took a jeepney to San Pablo and then a tricycle to the San Pablo CRC for the practice there. It's funny because last week Saturday when we were doing our HIV/AIDS orientation thing, we had to act out scenarios where someone was hitting on us but we rejected them haha, so my partner was this boy named James from San Pablo CRC...and I was like "you're really good looking, let's hook up later" because that's what we were supposed to do, and then he's like "no" or whatever, and then after, he asked Lisa for my e-mail! hahahaha because Lisa is from San Pablo CRC. So that was kind of awkward but really funny. Anyways yeah, we all have cell phones now because every Filipino has a cell phone, and often they have 2! They all think it's crazy that none of us 5 "foreigners" had cell phones. Nicole and I were supposed to go to Rigel's "debut" on Saturday..a debut is when a girl turns 18 they make a huge deal about it and have a big party. So yeah, but we were done our practices too late so we didn't get to go :( But when I got home, I went to the market with Pastor Benji and Hapi. Ate Malu is in the US right now for a week. Then Joshua and Jairus found us at the market which was funny. I watched fish being killed with a mallet and then scaled and gutted haha. FUN!
Oh yeah, and the other day I had this huge pink lizard thing in my room! It was nuts. It just like crawled up the wall right beside my bed and scared the crap out of me haha. Then I tried to chase it out the window because I have no screens on my window.
This brings me to today. Today is Father's Day. This morning at church, they had all the fathers stand up and they were giving them all a gift, and I just started blubbering! I miss my Dad!!!!!!!! It was embarassing haha. And Lanie was sitting with me and was like "you miss your father?" and I'm just like *sniff sniff * "yeahh" :( So Daddy, I miss you!!! And I hope you're having a great Father's Day without me! After church, we went to a resort and got together with Pastor Benji's family. We swam in a pool that was naturally very warm from the hot springs around here because we are right near a volcanoe. It was basically a hot tub.
That's basically all the news I have. This week, we will be going to 5 schools, doing multiple presentations in each school. Each of our presentations takes 1.5 hours and we do a lot of interactive fun things in them. Tonight we are having dinner at Ate Gladys's house with some youth from LBCRC (that's Los Banos CRC in case I didn't say that earlier, where I go to church). I am basically dying of heat right now haha. There is no fan in here (I'm in the church office right now).
I'm trying to think of the questions people have been asking. Mom wanted to know the temperature and I have no idea what it is. There aren't thermometers here. It's definitely 30+ everyday. The rains are very welcome because they make things cool off, but only for half an hour or so. My fan is my best friend. At night, I put it on full blast and point it right on me haha. I don't really have any funny stories from this week....the kids from LBCRC wondered if I had ever entered a beauty contest haha. They think I would win. I am looking forward to seeing Nicole this afternoon and everyone else tonight...it's good that we have phones now because now we can text eachother.
Oh yeah, Nicole and I have lists of things we want to do in the Phlippines, and she has basically done her whole list but I haven't really done mine! Some of mine include riding a motorcycle (which is going to happen..Lik-Lik's dad has one so he's going to let me ride it haha), riding a caribou, learning guitar (the boys in my house are REALLY good at guitar, and so are all the youth at LBCRC so that shouldn't be hard), learn to cook some cool Filipino thing, play basketball, eat crazy stuff (like isau), and see a Filipino farm. Nicole's included planting rice which she did this week which is pretty cool.
Well that's basically all I have to say. Thanks for reading haha, this is pretty long! :) and I'm sorry I don't have pictures!
Monday, June 15, 2009
Roosters & Rain
I forgot to mention two very important things in my last post!
First of all, I live beside a rooster farm. I am woken up every morning at 4 a.m. by the crowing of probably 30 roosters or more. It is ridiculous! I go to bed early though because it gets dark around 6:30 here and we don't go out at night, so I still get enough sleep. But the crowing is crazy. I took a sound clip of it on my camera and you all will be amazed to hear it. SO LOUD. Also what contributes to me waking up so early is the bread boys. They have loud bells which they ring round 5. Super annoying. The other thing that wakes me up is the tricycles. They're motorcycles with sidecar things attached, but not like you would think. They're like scrap metal and really crappy haha. They are our only form of transportation to the main road where we take jeepneys everywhere.
Second thing is RAIN! It rains like crazy here. Like major rainstorms. I can't even explain it...but it's nuts. ok that's all!
First of all, I live beside a rooster farm. I am woken up every morning at 4 a.m. by the crowing of probably 30 roosters or more. It is ridiculous! I go to bed early though because it gets dark around 6:30 here and we don't go out at night, so I still get enough sleep. But the crowing is crazy. I took a sound clip of it on my camera and you all will be amazed to hear it. SO LOUD. Also what contributes to me waking up so early is the bread boys. They have loud bells which they ring round 5. Super annoying. The other thing that wakes me up is the tricycles. They're motorcycles with sidecar things attached, but not like you would think. They're like scrap metal and really crappy haha. They are our only form of transportation to the main road where we take jeepneys everywhere.
Second thing is RAIN! It rains like crazy here. Like major rainstorms. I can't even explain it...but it's nuts. ok that's all!
Laundry, Music, & Rice.
so this is the first time i've had internet since last time. I'm so happy! I'm in an internet cafe place. Anyways I'm going to try to make this a good blog haha. Kristin sent me a pretty mean e-mail saying how my blog was super boring sooo yeah! k here goes
So I got to the Garcia's home last week on Thursday. There is no air conditioning. The heat is basically unbearable...fans are my new favourite thing. They are so necessary. All I do is sweat all day long. I have yet to meet a Filipino who is taller than me. I am like a celebrity though haha, people honk and stare and wave at me. It's a little awkward but I'm getting used to it. The transportation is crazy also. I can't even explain it. It's so hard to put everything into words! Kristin says I need to make paragraphs, so now I will start a new paragraph:
So yeah last Thursday I went to the music practice at the church with Hapi, my "sister". They were sooo good! They were all high school-aged kids and yeah it was really fun.
On Friday, we had a Classis Sportsfest where the 5 churches in the classis met for a day of sports. It was Filipino Independence Day so everyone had the day off work and school. I am with the Los Banos CRC, Lisa is living in San Pablo with that CRC, Nicole is in Pila, Eric is in Calamba, and Karlynn is in Calauan. So we don't see eachother very much. I basically just chill with my family. There is poverty everywhere here, so much so that I don't even notice it anymore. It's just normal. But I think that if my family came here, they would be shocked that I'm living here! I haven't taken any pictures because I don't want to seem tourist-y but maybe I'll start taking some sometime....
On another note, I will never complain about laundry again! Laundry machines are incredible things. I took me 2 hours to do one load of my laundry. They have a machine, but it is not the same as at home. Wringing out clothes is very difficult; I had blisters haha. They were like "haven't you ever done your own laundry before?" and I'm like..."umm..it's very different at home" haha.
But yeah on Saturday, we did some training for the HIV/AIDS thing that we are doing. It was
pretty fun. It lasted most of the day. The kids in the Los Banos CRC just love me. The high school boys are so great. They think my eyes are beautiful, and they fan me and hold an umbrella for me when it rains! Here, the kids finish high school at age 16 and go to college, so they are younger in high school than at home. They were disappointed to hear I had a boyfriend. They were amazed when I showed them my contacts. And they call me "Ate Kelly" which is "Sister Kelly". Ate is pronounced A-tay.
Funny story, one day Ate Malou (my "mother") made too much rice and she was complaining that we didn't eat it all, and then one of the kids suggested we give it to their dog named Chestnut. She replied, very seriously "Chestnut doesn't like rice" in her Filipino accent and I burst out laughing because it was hilarious. Everyone else was just looking at me, wondering why I was laughing so hard haha. Kind of awkward, but really funny.
On Sunday, we went to church which was mostly in Tagalog, but I knew the songs (some of which were in English) because I went to 2 of their music practices. They tried to make me sing a few times but I refused haha. After church, we went to Calamba for "fellowship" with the youth from all the other churches which was really fun. The Los Banos youth are the most fun! Lisa said the youth from San Pablo were all asking her for my e-mail so I had to give it to her yesterday ahha.
Yesterday, we toured around the University of the Phlippines (UP) campus with Eena as our main tourguide. She is the "sister" of Nicole. We went to the High School of the Arts which was a gorgeous campus on top of a mountain, then we walked part-way down the mountain to see something else. We had to walk up which was like a 45 degree angle, I swear. It was killer. And on the way up, Lik-Lik, a boy from LBCRC creeped up behind me and grabbed my leg and growled and I actually thought it was a wild animal. I screamed super loud and everyone started laughing haha. It was pretty funny.
The kids from LBCRC are always trying to make me eat gross things, mainly "isau" which is chicken intestines on a stick. They ask me 5 times a day if I want to have isau. I've eaten some really strange things though. I can't even think of them right now....and I can never remember their Tagalog names. ummm one was bamboo shoots. Another was like all the leftover parts of a pig - ears, cheek, nose, etc. A lot of other stuff too that's not really unidentifiable..but nothing's been gross so far, although I wouldn't eat this type of food every day.
Tonight we are going to Pastor Ver's house where Karlynn lives for a party because it is Karlynn's birthday, so that should be fun.
Nicole, Eena, and I are together at this internet cafe place and we are probably leaving soon. I want to go read all the other SMPer's blogs so this is all I'm going to type! But I'm having tons of fun in this crazy new culture. It's great. :)
So I got to the Garcia's home last week on Thursday. There is no air conditioning. The heat is basically unbearable...fans are my new favourite thing. They are so necessary. All I do is sweat all day long. I have yet to meet a Filipino who is taller than me. I am like a celebrity though haha, people honk and stare and wave at me. It's a little awkward but I'm getting used to it. The transportation is crazy also. I can't even explain it. It's so hard to put everything into words! Kristin says I need to make paragraphs, so now I will start a new paragraph:
So yeah last Thursday I went to the music practice at the church with Hapi, my "sister". They were sooo good! They were all high school-aged kids and yeah it was really fun.
On Friday, we had a Classis Sportsfest where the 5 churches in the classis met for a day of sports. It was Filipino Independence Day so everyone had the day off work and school. I am with the Los Banos CRC, Lisa is living in San Pablo with that CRC, Nicole is in Pila, Eric is in Calamba, and Karlynn is in Calauan. So we don't see eachother very much. I basically just chill with my family. There is poverty everywhere here, so much so that I don't even notice it anymore. It's just normal. But I think that if my family came here, they would be shocked that I'm living here! I haven't taken any pictures because I don't want to seem tourist-y but maybe I'll start taking some sometime....
On another note, I will never complain about laundry again! Laundry machines are incredible things. I took me 2 hours to do one load of my laundry. They have a machine, but it is not the same as at home. Wringing out clothes is very difficult; I had blisters haha. They were like "haven't you ever done your own laundry before?" and I'm like..."umm..it's very different at home" haha.
But yeah on Saturday, we did some training for the HIV/AIDS thing that we are doing. It was
pretty fun. It lasted most of the day. The kids in the Los Banos CRC just love me. The high school boys are so great. They think my eyes are beautiful, and they fan me and hold an umbrella for me when it rains! Here, the kids finish high school at age 16 and go to college, so they are younger in high school than at home. They were disappointed to hear I had a boyfriend. They were amazed when I showed them my contacts. And they call me "Ate Kelly" which is "Sister Kelly". Ate is pronounced A-tay.
Funny story, one day Ate Malou (my "mother") made too much rice and she was complaining that we didn't eat it all, and then one of the kids suggested we give it to their dog named Chestnut. She replied, very seriously "Chestnut doesn't like rice" in her Filipino accent and I burst out laughing because it was hilarious. Everyone else was just looking at me, wondering why I was laughing so hard haha. Kind of awkward, but really funny.
On Sunday, we went to church which was mostly in Tagalog, but I knew the songs (some of which were in English) because I went to 2 of their music practices. They tried to make me sing a few times but I refused haha. After church, we went to Calamba for "fellowship" with the youth from all the other churches which was really fun. The Los Banos youth are the most fun! Lisa said the youth from San Pablo were all asking her for my e-mail so I had to give it to her yesterday ahha.
Yesterday, we toured around the University of the Phlippines (UP) campus with Eena as our main tourguide. She is the "sister" of Nicole. We went to the High School of the Arts which was a gorgeous campus on top of a mountain, then we walked part-way down the mountain to see something else. We had to walk up which was like a 45 degree angle, I swear. It was killer. And on the way up, Lik-Lik, a boy from LBCRC creeped up behind me and grabbed my leg and growled and I actually thought it was a wild animal. I screamed super loud and everyone started laughing haha. It was pretty funny.
The kids from LBCRC are always trying to make me eat gross things, mainly "isau" which is chicken intestines on a stick. They ask me 5 times a day if I want to have isau. I've eaten some really strange things though. I can't even think of them right now....and I can never remember their Tagalog names. ummm one was bamboo shoots. Another was like all the leftover parts of a pig - ears, cheek, nose, etc. A lot of other stuff too that's not really unidentifiable..but nothing's been gross so far, although I wouldn't eat this type of food every day.
Tonight we are going to Pastor Ver's house where Karlynn lives for a party because it is Karlynn's birthday, so that should be fun.
Nicole, Eena, and I are together at this internet cafe place and we are probably leaving soon. I want to go read all the other SMPer's blogs so this is all I'm going to type! But I'm having tons of fun in this crazy new culture. It's great. :)
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
my first day!
ok so kristin (my oldest sister for those of you who don't know) really wants me to blog so here goes. It's hard because I'm just on an iPod touch so it's slow going. Our first day here was super fun though! We got to los banos at 2 this morning. It was about 1.5 hours from the airport. We are in a hotel place on the campus of the university of the Philippines which is beautiful. Not as beautiful as Calvin though(ps mom and dad, I want to go there) so yeah we woke up around 12 and met up with a girl named Lem and her husband and went to Lem's family's restaurant for lunch then went on some jeepneys which are these super cool vehicles where you just jump in the back... And yeah then we went on this trolley thing on an old railroad that was pushed by some guys. The land around the tracks is government land so there are lots of homes along the track and the only way to get there is the trolleys. Then we toured this rice farm place. The people here are so incredibly friendly and they treat us like celebrities. On the main street every jeepney honks its horn at us and they're all waving and saying hello. They all stare a lot too. So yeah then we left Lem and decided to play frisbee in the big park called freedom park and while we were playing some guys invited us to play ultimate frisbee with them which was really fun. Then some of them showed us this local restaurant type place which was really yummy and cheap. THEN we got CHEESE ice cream for dessert!!! It was crazy haha. So that was my first day here! Tomorrow our host families are picking us up at around 10 I think. Hopefully they will have Internet. So this has taken me a really long time and I am exhausted so I'm going to bed!
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