The fruit here is delicious. Every night after dinner, I eat heaps of it. Some nights I will eat a mango. On other nights I will eat rombutan, a small reddish spiny fruit, that has a sweet flesh. These last few nights, and usually mornings and afternoons, I have been eating lansones.

Lansones are amazing; I eat close to a kilo everyday. They grow in bunches, kind of like grapes, but each fruit is about the size of a golf ball. After peeling the skin off, there are wedges of tart yet sweet deliciousness. However, peeling and eating the fruit has the unfortunate side effect of staining the fingers a dark orange-brown. Oftentimes I will look down at my orange tinged fingertips, and my mind instantly wanders to Kyrgyzstan. Suddenly I am standing in my classroom in Bazarkorgon with fifteen expectant sixth graders looking up at me, their similarly stained fingers clutching a pencil.

How different fall is here, if I could even call it fall. Most of the time I am sticky with sweat, my bangs clinging to my forehead. Families are not out in the fields harvesting cotton or picking walnuts (the latter being the reason for stained fingers in Kyrgyzstan). Leaves are not falling from the trees, and the temperature is not slowly dipping towards freezing (however much I may wish for it). I have never really lived anywhere with such a lack of distinction between the seasons.

It feels like summer- I listen to the calming swoosh of the water outside my window, with the quiet yet incessant buzz of the fan near my bed. It is rare for the temperature in my room to drop below 84, and just the thought of wearing pants makes me shudder.

These past two weeks I have been more frustrated than I have been in a long time. I had forgotten what it was like to feel uneasy and unsure of myself in a new culture. My integration into Kyrgyz culture was so gradual that I never noticed when it happened, and I took for granted the ease and comfort with which I existed in that culture. So here I am, having forgotten the process, and I find myself frustrated at myself with not knowing how to handle certain events, circumstances, or even just daily life.

I have been especially frustrated with my host family situation. I know that they are extremely nice and hospitable people; I know that in ordinary circumstances I would feel like I was somehow part of the family, that I would have the chance to eat and converse with them, but these are not ordinary circumstances. I have been torn between being understanding and being frustrated. Intellectually I know that my family has more important things to worry about than me. However, I still find myself faulting them for their cursory acknowledgement of my existence in their house.

I am frustrated that I eat by myself; I am frustrated that I do not really get a chance to practice speaking in Hiligaynon, and I am frustrated that I feel like I am a burden to them at this profoundly personal time of their lives. Various people keep reassuring me that once the burial happens, things will be different. I am trying to trust their assurances, and I guess only time will tell.

This coming week the trainees from the Visayas region (the middle collection of islands in the Philippines) are headed to Bacolod, a city on the island of Negros Oriental, for our site-announcement. On Monday, we find out where our permanent site is going to be for the next two years, and in the latter half of the week, we are actually going to go visit our permanent site. I am super excited for the mini-vacation although I cannot believe that I am already finding out where I will be living and working for my service.

View from my window.

My room.

The trisikad driver, my luggage and new host family.

People are really into signs here.

Week 3

Wow; it’s been an interesting week. So much has happened and I don’t really know where to start, so I’ll go chronologically. Last weekend started out with my first videoke experience. There was one other PCT with me. Soon after our arrival it became apparent that the only people who would be singing was the two of us. Five hours later and many many songs of videoke, we headed home.

Sunday was another first; I had my first experience with dating. A fellow PCT is dating another PCT and he had come to our town to hang out. When he arrived he had two members of his host family accompanying him, soon after I was picked up to be yet another chaperone. So with his host family, her host family, and the two of them we headed to a local beach resort. We walked around and then we, the chaperones, headed over to another area to give the two of them time to get to know each other.

While we were watching from afar, I met a member who had worked with a PC volunteer from the first batch of volunteers to the Philippines in 1961. It was crazy to think that not only had Peace Corps been in the Philippines for almost 50 years, but also that a volunteer had been in this exact village so long ago.

Monday was unnecessarily dramatic, to begin with at least. A few of us were invited to the vice-mayor’s birthday party. But before we could go, we heard from Peace Corps that we needed to stay home. So after much phone tagging, I stopped by with some PC staff for only a few minutes.

I had only been home for about ten minutes when my host mother rushed in, hurriedly told me that she was taking her husband to the hospital, and was out the door before I could ask any questions. I went to bed and awoke around 3:15 to someone wailing. At this point I had no idea what was going on, and so stayed in my room listening for the next few hours. By the time I got up no one was left in the house and so I went off to language class.

But the chikka-chikka system was in already in full swing. I heard from another trainee that my host father had died at the hospital in the wee hours of the morning. Clearly my host family is devastated, especially since it was so sudden and out of the blue. He was only 50, and he died of a stroke.

So now I’m really getting a cultural experience. Family and friends have been around all week. They’ve set up this covered outdoor area outside the house where people congregate. Gambling is apparently quite common during a wake, and so every night there are people playing bingo, or mah-jongg. The coffin is set up in the front room, with candles surrounding, and there is some sort of vigil every night. It’s not uncommon for there to be two weeks between death and burial here. The burial will be the week after next, after the daughter arrives from Singapore.

It’s been strange for me because I’m not entirely sure how to act or what’s expected of me. I’ve only known these people for a little over a week, and now I’m suddenly thrust into this incredibly personal event. I wouldn’t really know how to act in my own culture, let alone in an entirely new and foreign culture.

I’ve been trying to give my family some space, so I’ve been spending time with the other trainees in my area, and doing a few things with their families. Today I went to a birthday party at the beach. We sang videoke, ate spaghetti and went swimming. It was a nice respite from the heat and from some very intense cultural integration.

This next week I start observing at the local elementary school, and soon after will actually start teaching there. I met my counterpart this past week. It was her father that actually worked with the first volunteer here. She’s quite awesome, and seems very excited to work with me, and is very enthusiastic about her students’ learning. I’m excited to start working with her.

Greetings from the Philippines!

Maayong aga sa tanan! (Good morning to you all!) So I’ve finally settled down a bit here and started training. I spent my first week at a resort, an hour outside of Manila, with the other 144 trainees. The week was spent mostly going over various Peace Corps policies and goals. Mostly information I already knew. But that’s ok. And then on the very last day of that week I found out where I was going to go for training.

So on Friday of last week, I took my bag and headed to the airport to fly south. I flew to Iloilo City, on the island of Panay, before driving about an hour northward to the town of Banate! The town is fairly small, right on the beach, and mostly a fishing town. I’m learning Hiligaynon, also known as Ilonggo.

We’ve had about a week of training classes here at site. I have language in the morning and then stuff about the education system here in the afternoon. Thus far I’m finding the language much easier to learn than Kyrgyz. But it’s only been one week, so we’ll see.

My host family is nice; there are a couple of kids that are living there, and many more that live in the surrounding area. The house is right on the beach and I have an excellent view from my bedroom. The kids’ neighborhood hangout spot is a basketball hoop on the beach directly in front of my house, so there’s always a bunch of kids running around.

The kids here are all obsessed with what they call ‘spider gambling.’ Most kids walk around with a matchbox that contains some spider they’ve caught. Apparently they starve them for five days, and then they have their spider fight other spiders on a stick. It’s very interesting to watch how into it they all get.

Ok, well that’s it for now! I hope everyone enjoys their Labor Day weekend!