Not sure what to write..

Blah. I feel like we need to update this page because I get bored with it not having anything new on it. I had a whole article (is that what these things are called?) written about how daunting our impact as individuals is for us as Volunteers, but upon re-reading it, it seemed too melodramatic and contrived. Not that I’m not daunted (can that word be used in the past tense?) by the idea of everyone around me scrutinizing my every word or movement, I just couldn’t get my feeling down on paper (or keyboard, I guess) without sounding like a jaded hypocrite.
So I started writing about how our library is opening at school and how tiring it’s been the last few weeks preparing everything, but that just sounded whiny. Just what people want to hear is how tired I am. Right. I'll write more about the library after it's done.
Then I was going to write about how one of our friends from college who is teaching in Korea came over and visited us and how great it was to see our community through her eyes, but it was one of those things where you just had to be there. Great fun for us, but probably not much fun for anyone who would read it.
I’ve got really long hair right now and am struggling with whether to get a hair cut or to continue the facade that I am a hippie Peace Corps Volunteer. I thought for about 2 seconds that I would write about that. Oh, the drama.
Erin and I are awaiting word on our post-Peace Corps life. We’re not sure where we’re going to end up, so I can’t really write about that yet, either.
I think that people think that our life is exotic and exciting and I know that I think sometimes that it’s not. I thought there was nothing exiting about what we were doing. Every once in a while I forget about the magic that is living here and every once in a while when I forget about the magic that is living here, something happens to remind me of it. For example:

I was riding a tricycle home last night from an awarding ceremony in a nearby town with my supervisor and principal at around dusk. They were sitting in the front and I was in the back. Usually when I travel between towns, I’m contorted inside of a Jeepney, my head forced to tilt at a 70 degree angle with no real view of the outside world passing by. In my tricycle last night, the view was unobstructed and my head fit comfortably under the roof. As we were traveling back to our town, I found myself in awe of my surroundings. Everything seemed so beautiful, it was as if I was a tourist visiting for the first time. The rice fields glimmered under the setting sun and the mountains in the distance, while not Himalayan in size, took on an impressive stance just the same. Carabao were being led in from the field, people were busily cooking food at roadside stands, and the air, which had been baked by the 100+ degree heat of the day, felt unbelievably refreshing as we slowly sliced our way through it. My busy-ness of the past few weeks had made me forget that I live on a tropical island in Asia. It made me forget how different that is to the life I was leading in California or Michigan. So I smiled, clicked a few pictures, and tried to imprint the scene in my memory.

Kasadyahan and Dinagyang 2008

Festival Season continues. . .
This time it was the Dinagyang Festival in Iloilo City, which looks A LOT like the Ati-Atihan Festival in Kalibo, only this time, Erin is in the parade! Save the Children marched (not only marched, but performed a choreographed dance routine over and over again for nearly 5 hours straight while marching 4 kilometers in 100 degree temperatures)in the Kasadyahan Parade along with many other community groups, businesses and tribal dancers. Save the Children joined in the festivities as an advocacy activity to promote maternal and child health. Let's just say we lined up at 5:30am and the parade finally wrapped up around 1:30pm. What a day! Yes, we really had a choreographed dance routine and matching neon green and white clothes. The TV cameras loved our group because we had 3 foreign volunteers marching among our ranks. Of course, being my camera shy self, I danced like crazy and hammed it right up for the crowd. It was a great day for a great cause.



Naira, Tita Norms, Naomi(Australian volunteer, also with Save the Children, but in a different city) and Erin showing our enthusiasm for maternal health and Dinagyang.


Check out those moves!



Healthy Mothers! Healthy Families!


Erin, Naomi and Star already posing for the camera at 6am



The main highlight of the Dinagyang is the tribal street dancing competition on the last day of the festival. Twenty different tribes (or performing High School/Community groups) from the island of Panay perform an elaborate dance routine at 4 different judging stations around the city. It is a sight to behold and one of my favorite traditions in the Philippines














And finally, no party is complete without chicken on a stick!