Thursday April 20, 2006

Today was a great day—Erin said it best this evening as we sat down to journal and write about our day. She said that today was a perfect Peace Corps type of day. I have to agree with her; it was a perfect Peace Corps day. The three goals of Peace Corps are basically to promote understanding among Americans about foreign cultures, promote understanding among foreigners about American culture and to provide a needed service to a requesting host country. We had a great language and culture session this morning where the 5 of us just blazed through the 4 hours and really showcased what we had learned so far. After that, Erin and I successfully navigated our way to the nearest town, mailed some postcards, bought some fresh milk, stopped at the local market and made it back to our house without getting ripped off too much from anybody in between. While we were studying for class, some young girls that were watching us from outside our window finally agreed to play with us, and we had a ball! We played hide and seek in the sweltering afternoon heat, a game where we first threw our flip-flops at a can then at the person who knocks the can over, another flip-flop game of some kind, Erin and I sang some songs in English, the girls answered with some in Kinary-a and we finished with some mixed Kinaray-a/English Simon-Says. We had so much fun, we scheduled another play date for tomorrow with everyone. Later in the evening we went with one of the other Americans’ host family to their 98-year old grandmother’s birthday party. 98 years old. It was amazing to think about how much life she has seen since being born in 1908. Of course our plates were heaped high with rice, pork and more rice. A meal is not a meal here without rice. Actually, one evening during training a few weeks ago we had tacos (which were great!) but there wasn’t any rice with dinner. All of our Filipino Language Instructors went back to the kitchen to get some rice, because for them it couldn’t be considered a real meal unless there was rice involved. After dinner we taught some of the women mingling outside some fun games that we played with the kids at Eagle Village and Quarry Lane a lot. It was hilarious. All of these middle aged women were cracking up watching us teach them and their kids how to play. What a great day! Things are going well (knock on wood!!) and we are learning a lot.