Thanksgiving Day… or something like that

So today I spent my first Thanksgiving in the Philippines…. It mostly seemed like any other day. It was my second time to spend the holiday away from my family, but the first time in another country. The 1^st time I was in Sacramento, where the rest of the people still celebrate, and Shon, Sarah, Claire, and James were there with me. Today I didn’t see another American. At school we have flag raising ceremony every morning. The kids sing the national anthem and sing some songs. Then there is a thought of the day from a teacher.  I was in charge of the thought of the day and talking about Thanksgiving. It’s a hard holiday to explain and I was telling the kids about it in English, so not sure how much was understood. I did take it upon myself to enjoy my day! I didn’t teach at all : ) haha. I spent the morning in the office doing a little bit of work, just hanging out, and I got to talk to Claire on the phone! Then this afternoon I spent on the internet. The connection was really slow so I didn’t even get all my email read, but I got to catch up some on what’s going on in America. I had thought I might try and cook something for the teachers at school, but then I got discouraged by only having a gas burner to work with and didn’t do anything. Maybe next year! Sunday 6 of us celebrated Thanksgiving together in Calamba at a Chinese restaurant. The food was really good, just not Thanksgiving good : ) We had a nice time together though.

My host family is tiling the bathroom right now. It was just cement, but they are putting tile in it. They first said they would be doing work for 2-3 days. It’s been 2 days and now they say 2-3 more. The first day they put down the floor so we had to go next door to use their bathroom. Now it’s set I guess so we can use it, but it’s still under construction. There is a separate room with the shower and the toilet. They both have like a little area connecting the two and a curtain covering that part. Hard to explain. But the point is, they don’t have doors on the rooms, but there is a curtain over the entrance. For those of you that know my well, know that I don’t really like using public bathrooms. This is getting pretty close to being too much for me! Haha. It’s really been ok, but a bit awkward for me.

Yesterday after school I went with another teacher to buy a Christmas tree for the office! That was fun getting to go shopping for the tree. Today we put the tree up in the office and decorated it. Made it really feel like the holidays. Then we went to go home. There were no jeeps going to San Francisco, so we had to wait forever! Took about an hour and a half to make it home.

Right now it’s “Cold” outside and they will have their jackets on and sweaters. I think it feels perfect! They will ask me if I’m cold and I say no it feels great! Most of the time I’m already sweating by the time school starts. And sometimes I feel like I never can cool down. Sometimes in the office I’ll just sit right in front of the fan and finally stop sweating.

This weekend I’m going to Taal Volcano! Really looking forward to it and hoping to take some awesome pics! And be able to post some pics online soon…

A collection of thoughts…

It is a shock to me to realize how much Filipinos don’t know about American’s and what they think America is like. I explain to people that yes you are American even though your ethnicity is Hispanic, Asian, or African, or whatever it is. They think all American’s should be white like me. I’ve been told I’m a true American.  I mentioned working in a battered women’s shelter. A co-teacher says, there are battered women in America? They think it is a perfect place and nothing could be wrong. It can be so hard to explain. And how do you explain that no I’m not rich in America, when compared to what most people have here, I have everything.

At my school we have about 12 computers. Which is a lot for around here, but only 3 of them actually work, and two have viruses. I haven’t looked at all of them all that well. The computer room looks nice with all the computers displayed, they just don’t work. I know a lot about computers but need to figure out more to get them to work! Normally I’d just search google for the answers, but with little internet access it makes that option a little harder.

At school the children pray. They pray at the beginning of the day, before they leave for lunch, and before they leave for the end of the day. I guess that’s part of being in a Catholic country. It would never happen in the US. Once a month my school has Mass. A priest from Lipa City will come to our school and hold an hour long mass. It was all the grades, but he complained that they were not listening for the hour, so now it’s just intermediate 4,5,and 6. My town has a church, but it is being repaired right now. They tell me that mass is held once a month at their church, but since I’ve been here I don’t think it has happened yet. If people want to go to church they have to go into the city.

Thanksgiving has been a big topic lately with it coming up and all. The people here know nothing about it, but I’ve tried to explain it to them. The teachers at school want me to cook for them… we will see what I do. Maybe I’ll cook something, but not the whole meal! We just have a gas burner to cook on. Only rich people or a bakery has an oven. I guess my days back in Americorps at Stelzer County Park might come in handy!  Some of us, I think 6, are getting together for lunch on Sunday to celebrate. We are just doing lunch at a restaurant in Calamba, Laguna. It’s maybe an hour or hour and a half away from here. Have to take a jeep there so just depends on how long we have to wait on the jeep and how bad the traffic is.

People always say I eat too little rice and I try to explain, you’ve been eating rice since you were born, I’ve just been eating rice since July. Everyone here says American’s eat a lot of bread. I think I might eat more bread here than I do in America. Or it might be a tie, it’s close. I do eat a sandwich for lunch every day at home. People here are always asking, well then what do you eat in America? I find it hard to explain. We definitely eat more potatoes. And the cuts of meat just seem to be so different. One teacher was looking at some pics on my computer and I was showing her a picture of my family sitting around the dinner table. She asked what that was in those glasses. What’s inside it? The Ice! She laughed about it and thought it was so funny that we’d have so much ice in our glass. The ice here is water frozen in a bag, so it’s just a big chunk of ice. Something I’ve never thought about looking funny to someone else.

I’m still adjusting some to what exactly I’m doing at school, but it’s getting a little more routine. I teach 6^th grade English 7:30-8:30, then 5^th grade English 9-10, and 4^th grade English 10:40-11:40. Classes always run over or I find something to do. I never really have gaps in my morning. The afternoon is a lot more flexible. I’m supposed to co-teach math in grade 5. Sometimes I’m there, but if I’m not working on the computer or doing something else. I always seem to find something to occupy my time.

I typically eat dinner at 6 and then sit in the living room the rest of the night. The tv is on, but it’s all in Tagalog so it’s rather boring. I don’t get much out of it. I’ll text on my cellphone or work on Sudoku. Lately I’ve been going to bed around 8. I take a shower and then go to my room. In my room I’ve been typing things on my laptop or watching movies I have on here. I’d much rather watch something in English! Pretty soon I’m going to run out of things to watch! But every time I see Peace Corps people I try to get some more from them.

Hard to believe that Friday makes two months here in San Francisco!

Life in Manila... for the weekend

Just wrapping up my weekend in Manila.... While here I have spent many hours on the internet :) I've actually ran out of things to do on the internet, but my mom tells me that I have to write a blogpost. It's gotten to the part in my adventure where it's not all new anymore and I struggle to find things to write about. So I think my posts are going to turn into random comments and things. The hard part is remembering funny/interesting things that have happened to me.

Karen and I left for Manila on Thursday. Friday there was a big Peace Corps 50th anniversary at the Mall of Asia. They had a big opening and then lots of activities and performances all throughout the day. We just hung out at the mall all day and walked around some, ate some good food, and watched some of the performances. I've already got pics posted! But don't expect pictures on facebook again for a while... Since in Manila I really haven't done that much... but EAT! I have spent so much money on eating some good food around here. Tomorrow is some kind of school holiday and we don't have classes. All the volunteers in Batangas, 8 of us, have lunch together tomorrow in Lipa with the director of Peace Corps. He is in town from DC for the big event on Friday and then making visit to different sites. The lunch is at some big fancy golf course that's actually kinda close to my house. Should be interesting...

The last couple of weeks have been the end of the semester and then the beginning of a new semester. So the last week was spent doing end of the semester testing and then the next week was beginning of the semester pretesting. So I haven't done much teaching at school, but I still seem to keep myself busy. One project I did was make student ID's for the school. We have about 200 students so that project took a little while. We have about 15 computers at my school and only like 2 work. One of my goals is to get more of the computers up and running, but I don't exactly know how to do it, so that might take some work. Wish I knew more about computers... and the way I figure computers out is by googling it... wish I had internet.

A little girl named Sunday Joy, guess that’s how it’s spelled, calls me Mayme. She’s 2 years old, so even in the Philippines little kids can't say the A! She rubs my legs and says “Puti” which means white. It's pretty funny. She’s pretty cute, but she cried and was scared the first time she saw me. The whiteness can be intimidating.

I've been worrying some lately about where I'm going to live for the next two years. That has been something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I mean living for I'm living with a host family now and my contract is through December 18th. After that I can move out on my own. In San Francisco there is no where to move out on my own to. Just too small of a place. So I'm looking into moving to the next barangay over. One teacher mentioned to me last week about living with her. Might be pretty cool. I have like a month to figure it out. So no need to stress right?!? Just where I'll be living for the next two years! No I can move anytime if I want/need to. But still a big decision.

Well need to go check out of my room and then I guess I'm headed back to Lipa!