Sinulog!

Sinulog is the name of the biggest festival in the Philippines which took place two weekends ago on the neighboring island of Cebu. Mackenzie and I thought it would be fun to see a Filipino festival, so we went with a group from Volunteer for the Visayans. Little did we know that this weekend would prove to be a trip of minor disasters.

When we were talking about planning this trip with Eugene and Niki (the director of the Sponsor a Child program) we thought that everything would be pretty easy because they were taking care of the arrangements for transportation and lodging. All we had to do was show up, pay them back for everything, and enjoy the festival. We soon learned that "taking care of the arrangements" meant that they would call some friends when we arrived and make things work. We left at about 9:00 on Friday morning, took a van to Ormoc (a city on the other side of Leyte, across from Cebu) and arrived just after lunch. Our van ride cost $2. Our plan was to take the overnight ferry to Cebu which would get us there about 6 the next morning. Sadly, however, that ferry was full so we got tickets leaving the next day at 1:30 pm.

We met up with some of Niki’s friends including 2 more Filipina girls, 2 German guys, and Ton-Ton (I don’t know how to spell that) one of the regular native volunteers at the center. We spent our afternoon exploring Ormoc, taking naps, watching Wall-E, and then going out after dinner. We had a fabulous time, as this totally diverse group wandering around a city none of us lived in acting like we were 16 and carefree again. The evening was quickly over and we went to bed.

The next morning we woke up in great anticipation of getting to the festival. Little did we know that the first real disaster was quickly approaching. As Mackenzie and I were getting ready we decided to try to mix our bug sprays. I had brought several cans of aerosol bug spray that refuse to work here, so I had one bottle of regular Off (7% deet) that we were going to mix with Mackenzie’s very small bottle of 100% deet to make a decent sized bottle of fairly strong bug spray. This seemed like a really great plan until we couldn’t get the cap off of Mackenzie’s bottle. We tried in vain for a while and finally gave up. Then, while Mackenzie was trying to put the spray nozzle back on her bug spray it accidentally sprayed . . . right into my eye. I don’t know if you have ever experienced 100% deet in your eyes, but it is not pleasant. It started burning immediately and I ran to the bathroom to start flushing it out. This was made more complicated by the fact that the local water has bacteria in it, so I could only flush my eye with bottled water. While I flushed it with my nalgene of water, Mackenzie ran to the front desk and bought several more bottles. For the next fifteen minutes we flushed my eye, with Mackenzie running back to the front desk every 5 minutes for more water because she kept buying only 3 bottles at a time. The front desk lady probably thought she was insane and really really thirsty. I called my dad, who called poison control, and found out that deet can blind you, so we flushed my eye again (and made one of the German guys go buy us more water this time), chilled it with a cold washcloth, and tried to decide if we should rush me to a hospital.

After much deliberation, we came to the conclusion that there were better hospitals in Cebu if my eye felt irritated again, so we would still take the ferry and try to enjoy the festival. The ferry only took 2 hours (and only cost $10) and looked exactly like an airplane on the inside except the chairs were more comfortable and the air conditioning was on so high that I had to wear a skirt around my shoulders to keep warm because I didn’t bring a jacket. (Only in the Philippines!) When we got to Cebu I decided I still wanted to go to the hospital to make sure that my eye was alright. Eugene decided to come with us and the rest of the group went to find our hotel (haha, we thought it would be a hotel).

At the hospital, the doctor flushed my eye again while it was clamped open (super creepy and uncomfortable) and it felt very relieved afterward, so I thought everything would get better from there. We left the hospital, treated ourselves to a very nice dinner at Pizza Hut after the stress of the day and went in search of the hotel and everyone else. We had to be lead to the “hotel” because we never would have been able to follow the directions to it, which would have read something like this:

Take a right, go past 4 dark buildings

Turn left, go through the very large dark alley with no lights

Turn right, walk a while and on your left go through a creaky door into a rather dilapidated building. Walk past the gate with the fighting dogs and the bathroom with the cockroach into your bedroom where there is a bunk-bed (with no sheets) and the smallest lock you have ever seen. (Literally the kind of lock you put on your luggage bag)

My jaw almost dropped but I was trying really hard to hold it together and figure out how we were going to get a real hotel room somewhere when every hotel in the city was booked solid for the festival. Most of the group decided to go join the massive party that was happening in town but Mackenzie and I decided to stay with Eugene (to try to find another place) and half an hour later Eugene got a-hold of a friend who had reserved two hotel rooms for him (sigh of relief). We got our things together and walked to our new hotel, which was small and smelled a little funny, but it was clean, had 3 locks on the door, and a security guard downstairs. I have never loved a hotel room as much as that tiny safe room. By then we were tired enough to go straight to bed, so we watched a little Filipino t.v. and fell asleep.

The next morning we got up pretty early and got ready for Mass. Sinulog is the festival in honor of Santo Nino and therefore, Mass is an extremely important part of the celebration. When we arrived at Mass there was standing room only and the alter was not even visible, so we watched what was happening on one of the several screens. At that time I couldn’t even begin to count the number of people there. Mass was held in an outdoor theater with stadium seating on two sides and a giant mob at the back (where we were) watching on the screens. After the homily, hundreds of members of the congregation released balloons with prayers tied to them, dotting the sky with vibrant reds and oranges. Then, during communion, there were so many people that no logical order could be established, so the priests walked through the crowd holding Jesus aloft and the people raised their hands if they still needed to receive communion. During this time I estimated that there were over 10,000 people at that Mass. It was just so incredible to be celebrating Mass with so many people who had made the journey to another island for a festival and Mass was one of the most important parts!

After Mass we went to the parade, which sadly did not start for several hours. Therefore, we waited with the seemingly millions of other people scrunched together close enough that you could feel the person next to you’s sweat. This was probably the hottest day I have experienced here in the Philippines and it just happened to be the one day I was trying to stand outside with the rest of the country beside me. However, the wait was worth it as the dancers in beautiful costumes began to go by. Mackenzie and I admired everything for about 2 hours until we had to leave because we needed to catch our ferry ride back to Leyte. We almost got lost, but eventually asked a very nice middle aged couple where to go and they smiled as they gave us directions. We successfully navigated ourselves back to our bags and onto the pier. After another 2 hours of freezing cold air conditioning which led directly to a bumpy 2 hour bus ride back to Tacloban (with no break for a bathroom stop!) we were home. I knew I loved our homestay before I left, but I had no idea how much I appreciated how well we are taken care of there or how perfect Tacloban is for us.

Cebu had been heartbreaking. During the biggest celebration of the year we saw countless children sleeping on the streets, most of who were trying to get money from anyone walking by and a fairly old man tried to steal the tissues out of my back pocket. This was the kind of poverty I had expected to see on this trip but I had been sheltered from it in the community and love of Tacloban. While the trip had turned out to be nothing like the exciting weekend I had hoped for, it gave me something far more precious than a few pictures. It made me realize, once again, how perfectly God picked my placement for me. That same poverty is in Tacloban but there are organizations to help and people are willing to try. I am in a place where there is so much love, so much caring, and so much work that people still want to do. I feel so blessed to be exactly where I am.

Volunteer for the Visayans Projects

Now that you know what I do during the week, I feel like I should write about some of the adventures we have gotten to have on the weekends.

Our first Saturday here we had an excursion through Volunteer for the Visayans, so everyone met at the center at 9:00 am. (Everyone includes Mackenzie and I; Albert, a medical student volunteer from the UK who is Chinese with a British accent which really threw Mackenzie and I off for a while; Tanya, a volunteer in the orphanage from the UK who is one of those people you just look at and say "wow". She's a dancer; Nicki, also a volunteer at the orphanage, but from Australia who was pretty quiet; Gabby, Nicki's friend from Australia, who is also working in the orphanage, but who is the most easy going, fun loving, go with the flow person. I really liked her; Eugene, the volunteer coordinator who is pretty much our go-to guy whenever we need anything, and DaVina, Eugene's assistant in training who used to be really quiet, but we are getting her to open up.)

From the center we got in a private Jeepeney that Eugene had rented for the day (and the driver was the dad of one of the sponsor kids) and we visited several of the projects that Volunteer for the Visayans works with as well as the touristy parts of Tacloban. First we went to the home of one of their build-a-home projects where they take an extremely run down house and remodel it for about $1000 so that it has a solid floor, roof, and walls, is raised to prevent flooding, and has electricity. As we were walking through the mud up to the house, 5 kids from another very run down house posed for pictures and we all kind of realized the circumstances some people have to live with here. Up until then we hadn't seen a really poor area. This place made our neighborhood look fancy. The gentleman who owned the remolded house welcomed us inside and told us about his 3 children and 2 grandchildren who live with him. He is a pedicab driver (basically a bicycle with a sidecar attached) and he makes about 200 pisos a day (roughly 4 dollars) but has to pay 50 pisos a day to rent his pedicab. Therefore, he makes roughly 3 dollars a day and his wife has sporadic work when she can get jobs washing clothes. It just amazes me how welcoming and loving these people are when they have so little. When we left his kids smiled and waved as if we weren't people who throw away the amount of money their dad makes in a day on coffee or a candy bar.

From there we went to the site of the new headquarters of Volunteer for the Visayans because their organization is getting too big for the current site. Right now they only have the money to buy the land, but they are very optimistic that they will be able to begin building soon. It was supposed to cost 6,000,000 pisos ($120,000) to build the new center, but they got an architect to agree to build it for 2,000,000 pisos ($40,000). Right now the site just looks like more of the tropical jungle with tons of coconut trees and giant flowers, but everyone is so excited for the new center.

After that we went to the two tourist spots in Tacloban, the Santo Nino Shire/Marcos Museum, and the San Juanico Bridge. When you walk into the shrine you see a cross made of tiny lights and everything else is dark. The rest of the building (around the shrine) is a museum dedicated to Ferdinand Marcos, the 10th president of the Philippines who is known partially for how much money his wife spent. Her 3,000 pairs of shoes are now on display in a museum in Manila. We walked through each of their guest bedrooms, their bedrooms (separate because males and females couldn't share rooms), their children's rooms, the kitchen, the ballroom, and my personal favorite, the Alitaptap room (firefly room). In this room there were tiny twinkling lights is swirling patterns across the ceiling. I could only think that this would be a wonderful way to decorate any little girls room. While everything in the museum was absolutely beautiful it didn't fit with anything else we had seen or witnessed in the Philippines. Therefore, it was probably my least favorite stop of the day.

From there we drove to the San Juanico bridge, the longest bridge in the Philippines, that connects the islands of Leyte and Samar. Because we had a private Jeepeney we could stop in the middle of the bridge to get off and take pictures while he crossed the bridge to turn around. We probably looked ridiculously silly taking a million pictures of ourselves and the landscape and the bridge, but the landscapes are so beautiful that we couldn't help ourselves. We also got some really great pictures of our group.

Our last stop of the day was Rafael's Farm, probably the nicest restaurant in Tacloban. The restaurant is an open air, very quiet restaurant with fountains and aquariums like you would see in a resort in Hawaii. It is also surrounded my acres of beautifully landscaped gardens and ponds. If this place was in the US, its where I would get married. We took a million pictures because it was so beautiful and I know that I keep saying everything was beautiful, but I can't even begin to describe how everything looks. I need to get some pictures up so that you can see the perfect green color of everything, the giant flowers, and the millions of palm trees. Lunch there was also amazing because I had ribs (but they still didn't compare to yours Mom!)

On our way back home, the Jeepeney driver let the girls ride on the back of the Jeepeney (which is normally not something that girls are allowed to do because men are supposed to give up their seats in the Jeepeney for women if it is full). However, we were all so excited that he let us. So there we were, 4 white girls (two from the US, one from the UK, and one from Australia) smiling like crazy as we rode down the street. Everyone who saw us either smiled, laughed, and waved, or looked at us with that very confused, tilt-of-the-head look that means this is something they have never seen before. It was probably the most fun ride I've had in the Philippines, especially with how many people we made smile.

Even though we only got to visit a few of the projects of Volunteer for the Visayans, Eugene got to tell us about the others as well. In addition to the volunteers, the build-a-home project, and the center (where they hold tutoring, dance classes, assistance for single moms, and feedings for local kids), they also have the adopt-a-school project where they provide school supplies to poor schools (because the government only provides a small stipend for supplies and teachers have to pay for everything else), a Home for Girls and Home for Boys where children who have had trouble at home, are homeless, or who have gotten in trouble with the law can live, and the Sponsor a Child project which is very similar to WorldVision where for $25 a month ($300 per year) they can provide food, a stipend to help with housing payments, uniforms for school, and annual dental and medical checkups for a child. Many of the students in our class and kids we tutor at the center are sponsor kids. It still amazes me just how much this organization helps its community. I feel so blessed to get to be a small part of it.

Oh and P.S. Mackenzie finally started her blog today, so if you would like even more info about our lives here, visit her blog Adventures in Cangumbang.

Its amazing what you can get used to in a week!

So now that I've been here a week, I feel like I can accurately describe my life here. So here is a typical day. . .

5:30 a.m. Mackenzie's and my alarm clock goes off at 5:30 (and the next sound I usually hear is a roosters crowing) so that we have enough time to get out of bed, eat breakfast with Nanay Pipay (breakfast is always ready when we wake up, no matter what time it is), get our school stuff ready to go (and probably finish planning our lessons for the day), layer on the sunscreen and bug spray so that we feel delightfully sticky, and go back to the house once or twice for things we forgot.

7:00 a.m. Mackenzie and I leave our house and Mama (the grandmother) hugs us and tells us to be careful and that she loves us and good luck (because we need it!) Then Mackenzie and I get on a Jeepney going to Palo (the next town). A Jeepney is not really like any creation in the US. It is a vehicle that has a long bed that has benches on either side and an opening in the back where you can jump in and out. You hail them like cabs and you tap on the roof if you want off. They are also decorated in crazy colors and have a platform on the back where people can hold on and ride on the back. A Jeepney holds probably 15-20 people comfortably, but I have been on one with about 30 people on it. Filipinos don't have much of a personal bubble when on a Jeepney. We pay our 6 pisos each (about 12 cents) and get off in the Palo market. From there we go to our school which is a 4 room schoolhouse with 75 students from grades 1-3 and 2 teachers.

8:00 a.m. Mackenzie and I are teaching second grade all by ourselves. We had one day where we observed Mum Maricar (their teacher) and after that we have been on our own. We teach English from 8:15 to 10:00 and math from 10:30 to 11:30. English is really hard because the students have only been learning English for about a year and a half. They can read anything, but their vocabulary is very limited so our day consists mostly of charades and pictionary while we're trying to get them to understand the stories they are reading. However, things have gotten a whole lot better in the 3 days we have been teaching. I think we are learning a lot about what they know and they are picking up on some basic English (like directions) that make things a lot easier. Math is easier because their numbers are the same. In fact, I am rather proud of Mackenzie and I because our first day teaching we were supposed to introduce division. While the students haven't quite grasped what division really is yet, they have 3 ways to solve division problems, and I think that is pretty good. In-between English and math the students have recess, but instead of running around a playground for half an hour, they go down to the Baranguy office (a baranguy is the smallest organizational unit of the government, somewhat like a parish or neighborhood system of government) where they are fed a mixture of rice, carrots, and meat. For some of our students that is probably the most substantial meal they get all day.

11:30 a.m. Mackenzie and I leave our school with about 5 kids on each arm where they walk us to get picked up and taken back to Tacloban. We have to say goodbye to them about 20 times each and give them just as many hi-fives before they will let us go. On our way home we often stop downtown or at Robinsons (the mall) to go shopping or go to an internet cafe. If we just go home we usually have lunch and read or lesson plan or nap until it is time to go to tutorial.

4:30 p.m. Mackenzie and I head down to the Volunteer for the Visayans center where the staff and some local volunteers hold a tutorial for 1st-4th grade students. Usually Mackenzie and I do math with 5 or 6 first and second graders for an hour. Sometimes we read or do spelling or, for the really young ones, just drawing for part of it. On Friday I was working with a first grader one-on-one and at the end she drew a picture of me as a princess and titled it "My friend" It is amazing how open and loving these kids are. You can be there one day and they will all learn your name and give you hugs even if you didn't work with them. Every day when I'm just walking around at least 1 kid I don't know says "hello Ate Stephanie!" (Ate is a term that you use for older girls you respect like an older sister or cousin).

5:30 p.m. Mackenzie and I go home and have dinner with Nanay Pipay. Again, it is always ready when we get home. Usually dinner consists of one fish dish, one chicken or pork dish, and something made from vegetables. I usually try to eat a little of everything because whatever is left over is what Nanay Lucy and Mama eat. Usually Nanay Pipay spends most of dinner laughing at Mackenzie and I while we try to eat our fish. I am also rather proud of myself for eating so many kinds of fish, including shrimp (with its head and antennas still attached) and fish that was looking at me.

6:00 p.m. After dinner, Mackenzie and I usually hang out with our family. Sometimes we play Uno or Jenga, sometimes some of Chabel's cousins come over and try to teach us how to dance or we sit and sing on the porch while Nanay Pipay plays the guitar, and sometimes we fall asleep right after dinner because we are so tired. On Friday nights the volunteers usually go to the astrodome for dinner or drinks, but other than that, we usually stay with our family.

9:00 p.m. By 9, Mackenzie and I have usually fallen asleep in the livingroom, so we get up, take quick showers to wash off the sunscreen, bugspray, and sweat from the day, pray together, crawl into our mosquito netting, and go to bed. I know it doesn't sound like that exhausting of a day, but for some reason, by the end of it I am ridiculously tired and sleep so soundly that I don't even wake up to the roosters the next morning.

What A Journey

When I left the Denver airport last Saturday, I thought the hardest part of getting to Tacloban would be the 16 hour flight from LA to Manila. However, I was wrong. Even though we had a 3 hour layover and sat next to a pilot on our flight from Denver to LA who explained the airport to us, we still would never have made it to our flight in time if we hadn't met a crazy couple who were moving to New Zealand who got us to the front of the security line. When we arrived in LA we had to get our bags, take a bus to another building, check into our new flight, reorganize our luggage because you're only allowed one carry-on, take our bags to be loaded, go back to the ticket counter to get Mackenzie's ticket for our connecting flight because it wouldn't print, and find security. By the time we found the extremely long security line, I was crying because I didn't think we were going to make it. This probably doesn't even begin to tell how overwhelmed I felt at this point. I was even questioning whether or not I should be going. That's when God stepped in.
He sent us this crazy couple who wanted to move to New Zealand for a year so they decided to pack some bags and go. The guy's name was Joe and I realized too late that I didn't even ask the girl her name. All I know is that she had as much energy as my nephew (which is saying something) and she had a matching nose ring, scarf, shirt, earrings and shoes. Overall, she was just one of those people you can't forget easily. Anyways, they were getting on an airplane and their only plan was to go to a hostel when they got there and then get a car and eventually find a place to live. WHAT?!?! I couldn't believe it. And they were incredibly excited about our trip. In the 10 minutes we spent with them, she asked a million questions and worked really hard to ensure me that it was going to be amazing. I'm not sure if I believed her, but at the pace she was going, I couldn't turn back. They were also very late for their flight and managed to get all of us to the front of the security line. We waved goodbye to them as we ran different directions to our gates. It was only after I sat down on the airplane that I realized what a blessing they had been. Just when I couldn't handle everything anymore, God sent me someone who not only distracted me from my worries, but got me where I needed to go. Someday I'll learn to just trust Him from the beginning, but I'm glad he's still willing to step in and fix things when I fall apart.
After that, things calmed down. I slept for most of the 16 hour flight, we had no problems in the Manila airport and Eugene, the volunteer coordinator in Tacloban, met us at the airport. From there he took us straight to our homestay where we met Nanay Pipay (Pee-Pie) our host mom; mama, the grandmother in our house, and Nanay Lucy, mama's other daughter. Probably the best part of the greeting was when mama walked straight up to me, hugged me, and said "I love you. You are my daughter and I will take care of you and love you." It was so simple and so genuine. To her, I am her daughter now and she has proven already that she will take care of me. Today it rained and she wouldn't even let me out of the house without my umbrella. Since then, I have met the 4th member of our household (and probably my favorite), Chabel, Nanay Lucy's 11 year old daughter. I have also realized just how lucky I am to be in this household. Not only do we have an adorable child to play with all the time who adores us, but we also have a host mom who gets up before 5 to make us breakfast, goes to the market every day to get us fresh food, and cooks the most amazing meals the probably cost a ton just because she wants us to feel at home. So that's my journey here. From there, the story doesn't slow down, (Mackenzie and I are already teaching 2nd grade alone) but it doesn't feel so new and crazy anymore and I'm loving every minute of it.