Summer- Philippines Style

Its been a whirlwind of a summer! First I had a HIV/AIDS  workshop which was an amazing time. After, we both had a three day language camp. All of our pondering questions of phrases, verb conjugations etc were answered. By the end we were left with porridge for brains but all in all it was incredibly useful. We then had a week back at site, but it was holy week. So really, nothing was going on besides recuperating from the previous travels by house sitting at an amazing place in Puerto which really facilitated the recuperating and getting ready for another conference the following week. This conference was called PDM (Project Design, and Management), the workshop that marks your 6 months at site and when (hopefully) you develop a project that you will implement at your site. It is often hard to break a big idea down into objectives, tasks, and evaluations to show you’ve achieved your objectives. Even if the project we designed don’t work out, it was still useful to hear ideas and gain practical skills into implementing projects. These skills can really be carried forth in our future careers. But once again, our brains turned to mush with all the information we absorbed and afterward we headed off for work related travel to visit some sites in northern Luzon.

                Seeing a different side of the Philippines made me miss Palawan, but also made me excited to see more of the Philippines. We went surfing in La Union which was amazing. The waves were only about a foot (if that) high but surfing without a wetsuit was a new and fabulous experience. Also, every time I take a short hiatus from surfing I feel I start back on square one so it was great to have easy waves. After that, we went up to Baguio for a short time. That’s where I really realized how different climates can be in the Philippines. Both my training and permanent site had similar weather patterns (hot and humid), vegetation, landscape, etc. In Baguio there were PINE TREES. It really felt like summer in Maine instead of the Philippines. It made me excited to go even further up north to Sagada and other places to see this different side of the Philippines

Bus travel is also VERY different in Luzon. To get anywhere you just have to go to the nearest terminal and you’ll find plenty of buses, both aircon and not-aircon, going towards your destination. Most buses run 24 hrs a day, and often it is better to take the night bus because the travel time is less. In PALAWAN however, travelling on this island is very different. To get to one of the furthest points on the island, El Nido, its a 300 peso non-aircon 8 hour trip. You have to catch the bus between 5am-11am or you wait till the next day. I’ve been told there IS an aircon bus, but I haven’t seen it yet. To get SOUTH, its mostly by 10 passenger vans which turn into roughly 15 passenger vans. I travelled down to Aborlan this past weekend and I was thankful for three things on that ride

1.       It has aircon (kinda)

2.       The trip is only an hour

3.       I am Philipina size

I ended up sitting in the way back in the “middle seat” which was actually a bench they insert in the isle between the left and right passenger seats. I had one backpack and a yoga mat which turned to be one item too much to travel comfortably. This shuttle van trip starts early in the morning and goes until 5 or 6pm which is relatively convenient for Palawan. Compared to Luzon though, the public transportation system on Palawan is pretty prehistoric J.

However, the trade off comes with the beauty of Palawan. You don’t have to go very far to be close to nature. We are just 30 minutes from the city center and our wake-up calls are roosters and street dogs instead of basketball games and noisy trikes. White people are not as common in my town so most people know who we are. In fact, when I was walking down the hill coming from home from my weekend in Aborlan, I was instantly surrounded by the neighborhood kids asking about my trip. We have the mountain views and white sand beaches all in one. I can get nearly all the food I would want from a nearby organic farm which makes going to the market a better experience.  I can go two hours north and be in the presence of one of the new natural wonders of the world. Palawan is really a great place to be.

A really cool language experience Matt and I had involved some Korean volunteers who also have a two year contract in the Philippines. Because they have tagalog training as well, we often speak to them in a mixture of tagalog and English since both are a secondary language for them. It is really neat that two people from America, meet four people from Korea here in the Philippines, and can communicate in the Philippine language.

I’m still on summer vacation so life is a little slower than usual but I am keeping busy. 8 months in the Philippines has gone by so fast. It makes me worry since people say the first year is supposed to go the slowest! I miss everyone from home, and ingat!