Philippines - August 2009

Hi everyone!

I'm carrying the same list from Korea over to my experiences in Kuwait.

*If you'd like to be taken off of the list, please let me know.

I've been in Kuwait for about a week after an amazing summer vacation! My flight got in around 3AM, and I was met by a woman who is originally from Palestine but has lived in Kuwait for over 40 years. We had orientation for 5 days and are going to start working at the school on Sunday. My work week is Sunday through Thursday and we'll start school September 27th as long as the H1N1 paranoia doesn't push the school start date back like it is predicted to do so. Kindergarten isn't starting until December because of the scare. We arrived at the time of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting. It is illegal at this time to drink (even water), eat, smoke, and chew gum in public between the hours of 4AM and 6PM. I'll start trying to type in my blog again. I've changed the name and address to: www.stashiwanderer.blogspot.com

This summer I spent a few days in California visiting two friends of mine, Chris Cosner and Nick Kauffman. After that, I spent 3 weeks at home with family and friends.

From there, I traveled to the Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and India. I visited friends in each of the countries for 10 days minus Malaysia. I spent only a day in Malaysia with a woman I met on Couchsurfing.com, a website that allows you to connect with people all over the world willing to house travelers that are passing through.

I'm going to break them down into three emails. Always so much to say. ^_~

PHILIPPINES
I arrived in the Philippines on August 3rd late at night. Having not booked a guest house in advance, I asked at the information desk for a recommendation. Because of that, I spent an interesting taxi ride trying to find a place to stay. I settled on a room more expensive than the "dorm" which consisted of bunk beds behind bamboo screens in what appeared to be the hallway of a building. When I realized there was A) a cockroach roaming around the community bathroom and B) there was no toilet paper, I decided to NOT go the bathroom. However, around midnight I finally gave in and decided to brave the cockroach. After getting semi-comfortable with the presence of a cockroach, I look over and there is a worm crawling on the side of the toilet tank. Ha! I didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night.

I had coffee with a family who was on vacation in Manila from another part of the Philippines in the morning. The father and daughter offered to take me to meet my friend, Malcolm - a Kiwi friend of mine who I met in Korea while volunteering at the House of Sharing together. The traffic in Manila is HORRIBLE so we transferred to the metro.

After being late to meet my friend, I found out that we couldn't take the boat to the island we were headed to because of a typhoon. It had made the water unsafe for travel. We spent the night at a dorm where volunteers are trained for my friend's organization (Meaningful Volunteer - meaningfulvolunteer.org) and an organization called CERV. They work together on projects mostly based on the island of Romblon, in the village of Sugod (pronounced "So Good").

The next day after a taxi ride, a 2 hour bus ride, a 10 hour boat ride (I slept the whole time - there were beds provided), an hour and a half jeepney ride (a vehicle extended at the back to be made into a form of public transportation by the local population after Americans abandoned a large number of jeeps after the war), and a 30 minute walk, we arrived in Sugod at 4AM.

We had crabs! Ok...just one. Literally a little crab had wandered in from the ocean which was a 2 minute walk from our front door and was chillin' with us in the dorm. We also had a few cockroaches scurrying about and tons of geckos which are absolutely adorable!

Malcolm and I stayed in a "dorm" with two volunteers, Camilla, a 22-year-old from England and Emily, an 18-year-old Korean from Canada. Just down the road, two more volunteers, Ingrid, a 26-year-old from New Zealand (whom I also met in Korea) and Rita, a 20 year old from Cali, were living with Ma'am Tess (Mom Tess) and Felix. Mom Tess and Felix cooked all of our meals for us and are absolutely incredible people!

Although I had come to the Philippines to visit Malcolm, I was lucky enough to be able to do some volunteer work while on the island.

There are many projects that Malc has been working on. 1) Building a school and bringing in volunteers to teach students English. Currently the students are taking English classes at the school that already exists in the village. 2) Computer classes for teachers. 3) Mangrove replanting because a good majority of the mangroves which help protect against typhoon damage on the island have been cut down for firewood or made into charcoal. 4) Lifecycle project working to education women in a Catholic nation on a natural birth control method. *If you want to know more information, please don't hesitate to ask me or visit the website!

These amongst other projects are currently in the works in Sugod. Malc wanted me to interview and take pictures of students and their families to put on the Meaningful Volunteer website so that students can be sponsored in the future. In doing so, I interviewed nearly 35 students and their families and was able to take pictures of the homes of almost all of the students.

After getting 3 hours of sleep the first night, I headed home with two students, Baby Ann and Jude Ann. They were released from school to show me their home so I could interview their parents and take pictures of them with their house and family. Their home...is on the top of a mountain; it is over an hour trek up. This is the story of so many students; they hike down the mountain for school and back up after school. Many of the families living on surrounding mountains must do the same with the crops they have planted.

I also helped teach one of the computer classes for teachers. We were teaching how to use excel spreadsheets. Teachers, listen up! These teachers were spending hours upon hours calculating their grades by hand because that had no such technology to help them. By teaching them the methods of calculating standard deviation and simple multiplication, it will take HOURS off the work they have to do. The problem is is that they don't have a computer that can be left at the school to be used by the teachers. They are learning on computers that were donated to the organization and they will be transferred to the new school once it is built. A single computer will cost around $350 USD. *If you're interested in donating, especially teachers who can understand what a pain hand processing grades can be, I will be sending out an email soon about how you can help.

We had a going away party one night for a few of the volunteers who had been there for a while. We rented videoke (video karaoke)! All of the students came and we fed them each! ^_~ We sang and danced the night away. Camilla's students came down from the mountain (where she teaches) with hair cuts and their nicest clothes on. So cute!

Besides that, we swam in the ocean, climbed a waterfall, and took showers in our outside shower when we couldn't stand the heat.

Taking a shower in the outside shower with four walls and no roof was incredible! Especially early in the morning when you could barely make out the mountains and palm trees surrounding the dorm but had the sunshine on your shoulders and just before bedtime while gazing at the stars.

I am continuously amazed at how attached I can become to a place and to a people in such a short span of time. As I left the village after only a little over a week, I had tears in my eyes at the thought of leaving the incredible people who had my short stay so memorable.

I promised Camilla I'd visit her in England. You can hold me to that promise..."Inshallah".

I flew from the island to an area called Dau and met up with Malcolm's Philippino girlfriend, Sel, and one of her friends. They showed me a not so nice area of the Philippines. There was an active American Air Force Base in Angeles. And because of the base, a localized prostitution street grew around the area. Since the base was cleared in 1991, there are fewer Americans visiting the area, but the prostitution area is still thriving with men from all over the world frequenting the bars and strip clubs. I was disgusted to see the manner in which women are treated in the area. At one club, we waited for a male friend of Sel's to show up because women couldn't enter unescorted. Inside, the women who weren't dancing, were responding to men's signals to come over. After a man had "chosen" a woman, the others were dismissed with a flick of his hand.

I chose to go to this area because I believe it's important to experience different sides of a country; to see the beauty but also understand where the problems of a nation lie. I hope to return to the beauty of Sugod someday and see how the children have grown.

MALAYSIA
I flew from Clark airport to Malaysia. I spent a very short time in this country and don't have more to report. I made a rookie traveling mistake and paid WAY too much for a taxi to the apartment of a woman I had met through Couchsurfing.com. Once I dropped my stuff off at the apartment building, I wandered the city of Kuala Lumpur by foot while I waited for Zurin to get off work. She, her roommate, and I spent the night talking and hanging out around the apartment. The next day, Zurin and I had breakfast together at a small Indian restaurant and she dropped me off at the metro. I ventured out to find the towers of Kuala Lumpur before heading to the airport by bus (which cost 1/8th of what the taxi ride cost). I flew out from Kuala Lumpur to Bangladesh...

*I've been slowly trying to upload pics from my camera to my computer to PhotoBucket. I finally got my pics recovered from my memory card that isn't working. There are some pics from the Philippines up on PhotoBucket now but not all.

Peace and Love from the Middle East,
Stacey