Tuesday, October 26, 2010

I Warned You All I Was Bad At Blogging

Since it has been so long since my last blog post I figured that I needed to give ya'll an update. Things have been quiet busy here in the past few weeks so this is a highly condensed version.

Masskara:

The Filipino version of Mardi Gras. This a huge festival that our clusters attended through the kind invitation of the DepED department in Bacolud. The festival itself dates back to the "Filipino Depression" times when the sugarcane industry was in tatters, so the people put on smiling masks in defiance and went out and party'd it up in the streets. All of the schools in the area create elaborate dance routines and masks in hopes of joining in the final dance performance, alas only 11 schools were chosen, 7 elementary schools and 4 high schools.

Because we were invited guests, and we're American, we were given awesome seats to watch the performances from, and the performances were equally as awesome. I don't think I've ever seen a dance that well choreographed from 6-15 year olds, or ever for that matter. The costumes were beautiful and the enthusiasm the dancers had for the festival was blatantly obvious. The only downside to this whole experience was that the judges wanted to rule out the chance that the music choices for the dance might affect their scores, so we listened to the same song being played for 6 hours straight. Now don't get me wrong, the song was catchy the first or second time you heard it, maybe even the third, but after the 50th time it started to grate on my nerves.

After the dancing ended we ate at a street restaurant and enjoyed some truly spectacular chicken inasal and spent the remainder of the night visiting with our own cluster mates, and all of the current volunteers who came for the festival. It was an event that I look forward to coming to again in the future.

Mail:

My cluster mate Andrew recently received a package from back home, in this magical box of wonders was miniature electric fans for everyone in our cluster..with Florida Gator logos on them; thus (even if I don't watch football) he has made me a Gator Fan, score a point for Andrew!

I Also received a letter from my old roommate in college, Leslie, shout out to Leslie everyone, she's the only letter I've received so far!

Also, I found out that my parents sent me two packages containing much needed supplies...what could those be I wonder......books and yarn! duh! Very much looking forward to those!


I want to take a moment to encourage everyone reading this to send their Peace Corps volunteer a letter from home, emails and Facebook are nice, but there's nothing quiet like opening a handwritten letter from home, and boy does it notch the enthusiasm and happiness over here up a few levels!
Our training is starting to come to a close now with our LPI ( Language Test) next week, and then our counterparts conference the week after that. So with that we're starting to pack our things and say goodbye to our current host families. I will really miss my family here, they have been nothing but kind and generous by having me here. I know without a doubt that I will be visiting them in the future and hope to repay their kindness in anyway that I can.

That's all for now folks!

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