LEAD Camp, WWOOFers, a Wedding and PDM
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2006
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37
55
Trip End
Oct 05, 2008
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Manila,
Philippines
Thursday, March 6, 2008
I always seem to find myself writing entries after I have been extremely busy and my last few updates from the Philippines are going to follow in that tone. To start, it really is hard to believe how fast my last few months here are flying by. For many Peace Corps Volunteers it is rare to see a fully booked calendar in your front of our face. In my case, the last few months and the one's to follow are almost too full. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining it is wonderful to be busy and be surrounded by the excitement of my fellow PCV's being accepted into various grad schools and others figuring out what the next steps are after this incredible journey (myself included??). However, there is some anxiety around such chapters closing and unknown ones opening. Lately when talking with fellow PCV's it is reminiscent of graduation time talks. Where are you going next? Any travel plans? What school are you applying to? Questions, I have also been asking myself are, Am I ready to leave the Philippines? Where do I begin to continue to process the magnitude of the two years I have spent here? What will I do after PC? The list of question's go on and on and I will not bore you with the many internal dialogues I have been having lately.
I will say though, that I have recently been seeing my beautiful and sometime not so beautiful Philippine surrounding's as I did during my first few months here. Where else will I stay out till 1am singing videokee with friends in a semi-dingy smoke filled bar, when again will I be sounded with my beautiful host family that has welcomed me as one of their own and truly made a second home for me here? When again will I ride on jeepney's and have beautiful views of forested mountains and see the smiling faces of all the big eyed Filipino children? While there are things about the Philippines I will not miss the list of things I will is growing quickly the closer I get to the end of my service. I know that proper processing time for this journey will come as it needs to and I am glad I have made the decision to stay an extra month (in order to have more time with my family and the farm till July) but that does not make the thought of leaving any easier at this point.
Regardless, I am continuing on in my classic style filling my last months with finishing projects, attending fellow PCV's wedding's, facilitating camps and training's and soaking up the last few months I have here. Since my parent's departure the end of January, I have been very busy. I helped co-facilitate a girl's leadership camp called Girls LEAD-Leadership and Empowerment through Active Decision-Making. I co-facilitated this camp last year with fellow PCV's (Kate, Carrie and Suzie) and it was wonderful to get to be apart of it again this year. The camp was four days long and the participants where girls from various Department of Social Welfare shelters and orphanages. Many of these girls are survivors of incest, rape, and various forms of abuse. However, you would never know it in their amazing smiles, energy and growth we saw in them at the camp. As always I was the ice breaker queen and Girls LEAD 2 was another huge success!
The weekend after Girls LEAD (February 16th), one of my fellow PCV's married his Filipina girlfriend Cheng. Dustin was one of my three training site-mates when we first arrived here nearly two years ago. We are literally a family now, we call each other brother and sister, and it was very special to all be at Dustin's wedding. It was held in Tagaytay which is a quaint province south of Manila. Some people actually compare it to Baguio since it can get quite cold there and it was the weekend of the wedding. As what felt like a tropical storm moved in during the outdoor garden wedding ceremony, we shivered in our seats. But were kept entertained with the beautiful vows Dustin and Cheng wrote for each other and the southern charm of Dustin's family that flew in from Texas for the wedding. It was really fun to see all the PCV's dressed to impressed. Since most of the time we are in what we call the "uniform" typically consisting of jeans, shorts, big PC t-shirt and Chaco's. Of course the highlight of the evening was the dance party at the reception. I mean really, that is why we attend weddings, food, drinks and dancing through the decades! It was a wonderful evening we will all remember fondly when we look back on our Peace Corps service.
ENCA Farm has had two more sets of WWOOFers the last month as well. Three wonderful, spunky Spanish ladies from Barcelona were at the farm for one week, Maria, Sarai and Laura. While things were often times lost in translation, due to language barriers Auntie Olive and I both so enjoyed their company and spent our nights laughing about bad (as they called it) Spanish music, and they even taught Auntie Olive a Spanish song about a women that lives on a farm!! Being with these wonderful three Spaniards brought me back to the brief time I spent in Spain in 2004. The Spanish are so expressive and funny it was wonderful energy to be around. I think I spent more time laughing with them then actually WWOOFing! Shortly, after the wedding a married couple from Europe, Peter (Czech) and Patty (Swiss) arrived to WWOOFF at the farm for one week as well. It was wonderful timing because Tom, a fellow PCV was at the farm to continue the trail work efforts we started in October that were interrupted by typhoons. Peter and Patty had a very unique ENCA WWOOFing experience as they got to help with a bit of everything. They carried huge river rocks and helped us with trail work; they weeded in the garden and got to plant some trees on the property. They were both a huge help with the trail work and while I don't think they were anticipating such hard labor as massive rock carrying, they were a wonderful help and truly enjoyed spending their last week in the Philippines at ENCA Farm!
I arrived to Manila this morning, after being in Cebu City facilitating a Peace Corps Project Design and Management Conference the last four days. Although there are no Peace Corps Volunteers currently serving in the southern most region of the Philippines, Mindanao. Peace Corps though partnerships with USAID conducts teacher trainings and has small grants available to schools and communities in Mindanao. In order to be eligible to apply for these small grants representatives from various PTCA-Parent Teacher Community Associations mush attend a PDM conference. Sadly the last 10-15 years have been a time of great political as well as religious battles and killings in the region. Mindanao has the largest population of Muslims in the country and has sadly been a host to the "terrorist activity" here in the Philippines and elsewhere. It was wonderful to work with a diverse set of Filipinos and especially with members of the Muslim community here in the Philippines.
This update is getting quite long so I will end now. I am heading to the Bicol Region southeast of Manila this weekend to swim with the world famous whale sharks. Don't worry Mom, they are very tame, but massive and you snorkel with them. Should be a blast and I have never been to Bicol so I am excited to see a new place.
Hope this finds you well, all my love and peace!
Sherry
