Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Holidays in the Philippines





The holiday season in the Philippines start on September 1st. Yes you read that right, a full three months before Christmas...Not a day later. You can be sure that all of the shopping venues throughout the country will be putting up their Christmas decorations and begin playing Pasko Na Naman as soon as the doors open that day.

Last year Christmas wasn't that fantastic for me....matter of fact...it blew...hard. I spent Christmas last year by myself at a little resort in Sipalay because my host family went to their own families homes in various locations on our island. The being alone coupled with being away from my family at Christmas for the first time in my life was just a miserable experience that I never ever ever wanted to repeat. I'm glad to say that this year's Christmas was so very much better.

Leanna and I began our Christmas by coming to the island of Palawan to help our friend Krystal do a training for some of the education students from the college that she teaches at. That training went very smoothly and was a rewarding experience unto itself; but the trip continues to get better.

The next day we went to house sit for friends of Matt and Krystal's in the city where they live. It made me feel "in the holiday spirit". I'm to sure if it was the house or just being surrounded by other Americans. Either way, it was nice. We went to the beach (Nagtabon) one day and just spent it relaxing in the crystal waters. And when I say crystal, I mean crystal. You could see through ten feet of water to the bottom from the beach.

Christmas Eve we all banded together to make as close to a dinner from home as we could. Here was the menu:

Appetizers:
Baba gnoush with Pita Chips made from scratch
Crispy Pata - A Filipino dish

Main Dishes:
Ham
Mashed Potatoes
Pasta Salad
Salad
Rolls
Green Bean Casserole

Dessert:
Apple Pies ( I made those :) ALSO FROM SCRATCH)
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Rum Balls
Mango Float ( Another Filipino Favorite. It consists of fresh mango with graham crackers, pudding, and dulce de leche layered together and frozen)

It was all fantastic.

Tomorrow we're heading up to El Nido to meet up with some more people to celebrate New Year's Eve.

As always, I'll try to be more diligent with my posting. Maybe I'll make the posts shorter but more frequent. Would you like that one person who follows my blog?

In other other news! My mom is coming to visit me in February! And I got a puppy! Her name is Gaya!

To all others..... Merry Christmas! Happy New Years! See you all before the next one comes around!


Pictures Below:

Gaya @ 3 months old





Our Christmas Dinner

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

You Can't Get This in America

Yes I know it's been forever since my last post, but I believe that if you were really all that interested in what I've been up to then you'd already know. So there!

I'm not going to give ya'll a play by play of what has been going on here because frankly that would take too long and be pretty impossible.

The bottom line: I'm fine, Peace Corps volunteers are dropping like flys, and school is almost over for the year. In fact, graduation is tomorrow. So my days are mostly filled with two protein shakes from GNC and a lunch meal, broken up by endless hours of watching TV shows on Sidereel.com and some form of exercise.

I was on my jog tonight and almost came to tears. I walked through my neighborhood to the city plaza where they have music playing for anyone who is there, mainly exercising people, and answered all of the "Good Evenings" and "Hello, Ma'am's" that I received ( Filipinos are very polite this way, everyone you pass gets a greeting, whether you know them or not) and proceeded to begin jogging.
The music that plays at the plaza is a very eclectic mixture, sometimes all Beiber all the time, sometimes AC/DC, tonight it was Big Band Era; fine by me. I jogged past the soccer field and said hello to 10-12 of my males students, and kept on going..then I reacted the basketball courts. From this standing position you can see the basketball courts and beyond to a fountain and small playground for the children. And all at once it hit me. It might of been Bing Crosby crooning in my ear, it might of been the sight of all the city coming together to play sports, or it might have been the simple elegance of the fountain...but I was instantly thrown back into 1950's American culture. I mean, you can't find this in America anymore, the simple act of being a community and enjoying company outdoors without the constant drone of cell phones or Xbox...and it's so nice to just..be.

You can't get this in America, at least, not where I'm from.