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. :)