It’s my last day at my training site. I took my LPI (language profiecieny interview) yesterday morning; I don’t think I did as well as I could have, but oh well, I won’t need the language at my permanent site anyway. This morning we, the PCTs, threw a despedida (a goodbye party) for all of our host families here to say thank you.
I took most of my belongings to my permanent site on a day trip last Saturday. It was a long day, but worth it to get most of my stuff there, so that I do not have to deal with it this week during our counterparts’ conference/ Swear-In.
It’s been a crazy week for my language cluster, which is a bummer because I feel like it tainted my last week here in Banate. But I am really excited to just get to permanent site and start being a volunteer. I’ve been ready since I got to the Philippines, and it’s been rather frustrating to have to go through training again. But now its over, yeah!, and I can finally go back to being a PCV.
The baptism a couple of weeks was interesting. It was not at all what I was expecting. When I got to the church, only the godparents were present for the baptism, of which there were about twenty for both babies being baptized that day. Ernie Dave’s mother held him for the ceremony, while we all crowded behind, and then we simply blessed the baby. The whole ceremony lasted only about ten minutes. After the baptism, it was back to the family’s house for a feast. And it really was a feast- including a whole roasted pig (lechon).
Halloween here is celebrated on November 1st, in conjunction with All Soul’s Day. After I had language class in the morning, I went with my family to the cemetery. At the cemetery we lit candles at the family graves, watched some people play mahjongg, eat some snacks, and enjoyed a cold beverage. The cemetery was packed with other families doing the same things.
That evening, Trisha, a fellow PCV, dressed me up in costume and the two of us, and her family, went to the Barangay Capitan’s house for a Halloween party/ costume contest. There were a lot of kids wearing ridiculous face make-up, and a few adults dressed up as various ghouls or dead people.
Spirits are taken very seriously here. Most people believe that they exist. On such spirit is the White Lady (my costume for Halloween). The White Lady is a ghost that can frequently be found haunting the roadside. Another that people commonly believe in is the aswang. An aswang seems to be a cross between a zombie and a vampire, but with more emphasis on the zombie. A person is infected by another aswang spitting into his/her ear. There’s actually a verb in the language for this action- yanggaw. A capri is a large man that smokes a fat cigar. Apparently capris hide in objects in your house, such a in a post, and upset the general order/ health of your household. My language facilitator told us that when he was little, his grandmother’s house had three Capri living in the posts in the living room, and this was the cause of recent illness in the house. A ‘shaman’ had to come to the house to exorcise the spirits.
Christmas has really picked up around here. On the news every night, there is a countdown until Christmas. And everywhere I go, there is Christmas music playing. I feel like there’s going to be this great build-up to Christmas and then on the actual day, it won’t really be a big deal.
Our English camp, which we did as our community project, was last week. It went amazingly well! We had more students the second day than on the first day because so many students had gone home and told their friends how much fun it was. Each session of the day was devoted to a different macro-skill (listening/speaking, reading, and writing), and there was also a session of mural painting. The mural turned out beautifully and now the school has something to always remind them of us. On the second day we made all the students do a scavenger hunt, and that was probably my favorite part. Watching the kids run around and make human pyramids, sing a song, or tell a joke was adorable. I really love all the elementary students- so smart, and so cute!
