happy post

Hello world.  It’s me.  just balancing my computer very skillfully on my knees, and strategically/painfully sitting my butt on the bottom left corner of my bed post, while simultaneously angling my computer at about a 37 degree angle.  I always hated talent shows because I had nothing to show.  Now, things have changed.  A true talent to say the least.  If you ever need to find an internet signal just call on me and I’ll retrieve it for whether it means sitting inside a cockroach friendly closet with a poster of a half naked white women on the side or holding the computer one handedly above my head.  This may sound fake, but it’s not.  It’s pretty humorous.  Actually, I was just laughing to myself. 

Here’s the story:

Today, some other peace corps trainees had the brilliant idea that it would end up being cheaper over 2 and a half years if we buy these little gizmos called “smart bros.”  Yebo, smart bros.  Anyways, you take this little thing that looks like a USB and you put a SIM card inside of it.  You can buy credit for it like you buy credit for a cell phone that takes SIM cards.  Here they have these little shops called Sari Sari shops that sell load/credit.  It seems eay enough.  One grand investment of Pp1,495, or about $30, and you should have internet anywhere you go.  Anywhere, turns out to be not so much any and more so no.  Keep in mind that amount of money spent on this magical device is about half of my money for the month of Septemeber.  An investment I thought.  But now I see I have jumped the gun yet again in my travels.  Sort of like shark diving in South Africa or Tiger safari going in India.  You would think I would get smarter as time goes on, but really I never change.  The good part is everytime I just laugh.  Although, I’m sure someday I will be greatly frustrated by this bro.  Give me a few months.  But, for now I laugh.

I laugh a lot here in the Philippines.  For instance, right now, outside my window, there is a basketball game going on. Filippinos love basketball.  Unfortunately I haven’t seen any girls playing or else I’d jump in because as many of you know, I have superb basketball skills (for those of you who don’t know me that’s a little bit of sarcasm…but just a bit).  So, these basketball games happen every night.  From 7 to 9.  Typically, here, I got ot bed around 8:30 so I go to bed to the sound of a man on the loudspeaker announcing the names of players on team “Cherry Blossom” and the like.  Every now and then there is an English or Spanish word and it just makes me laugh.  I can’t explain why.  It’s just something charming about the basketball announcer. 

***actually I could go into why this makes me sad with the whole imperial, colonial, and military legacies left behind by my favorite historical groups…the conquesting Spanish and the ever ambitious Americans BUT I’m in a pretty good mood right now so I’m going to focus on the good stuff.  Hopefully, it will cheer you up cause it certainly cheers me up. 

7 seconds remaining…7 seconds…5 seconds…hajkfjafhk de los santos…first quarter shshsahfjkdaf…

okay, so here I am.  In Olongapo.  Doing my Peace Corps Training.  It hits me at some point every day that this is real and that this is going to be real for the next 27 months, which seems like an incredibly daunting amount of time.  Sometimes I panic knowing I’ve never done anything in one place for that long.  Sometimes I panic knowing I’ve never been a teacher.  Sometimes I panic knowing I don’t know how to read or speak English properly so it will be nearly impossible for me to teach.  Sometimes I panic because I really struffle with learning languages, especially when I know I need to be able to speak it in 11 weeks cause I’ll then be on my own.  Sometimes I panic knowing that I’ll be on my own in 11 weeks.  Sometimes I just panic because who knows.  I guess I’m a panicker (proof that my vocabulary is far under par and my grammar isn’t too far behind). 

But, BUT, then I see a group of kids playing in the rain and everything is better.  Or, I successfully get un-lost.  Or, a lady from the market I met the day before sees me on the street to tell me about a good deal on rain boots she saw at some store some place I’ll never be able to find.  Or the man who makes Sate outside my homestay house gets super excited to see me when I get back from class.  OR, the best part is I come back to homestay and feel relief from the stress of trying to figure out where to go or how to buy something or how to communicate to someone. 

I have an amazing homestay family.  I don’t know how to describe them other than by simply saying there was something going on in the universe that brought me to them and I am eternally grateful to that thing.  I live with a woman, my mama, named Lisa and her there daughters who are between the ages of 9 and 6.  Zaira is the oldest, then there is Francine, and finally Kikay.  Also, Lisa’s sister, Early and her two daughters who are 16 and 15 Kamille and Kutch live in the room next to mine.  They have all taken me in and put up with my bizarre ways.  They have introduced me to Filippino hospitality and family love.  Sundays are my days off from training, so yesterday we went to the store and bought beads to make bracelets.  I also had my first Filippino make over (I don’t think the look really works for me) and am beginning to learn the choreography of a few dances.  Uno, or some sort of inconsistent game we play with uno cards, has become a pretty entertaining activity as well. 

I’m definitely in the honeymoon phase of culture shock, but it’s encouraging to know that this feeling exists so when my mood plummets (probably next week haha) I can know that this feeling will come back and that the Philippines does have the potential to feel like home from time to time. 

It’s already 8:30 and my eyes are barely staying open, so I need to wrap this up, but basically…blast, I forgot.  I guess, just we’ll see what this place and these wonderful people do to me.  We’ll see who I become and what life brings me through all of this.  We’ll see if I ever like dried fish skin (doubtful but we’ll see) and if I ever dare to find out what makes the hot dogs pink and what the white things inside the hot dogs are (also doubtful). 

That reminds me…I hope all of you don’t mind if I gain about 20 pounds.  Literally.  That’s not an exaggeration or sarcasm.  The diet here consists of tons of meat, tons of sugar, tons of fried things (including fried chicken skin and fried shrimp some how stuck to this orange food colored sauce…I can’t explain.  I’ll take a picture) and tons of carbs.  Mama always asks if I’m okay cause she doesn’t think I eat that much.  My body can only handle so much food throughout five meals a day.  Even so, you can expect a much plumper Kaitlin when I return. 

And one funny story just for you before I go to bed.  Tonight at dinner I was told I have a pregnant nose.  Yebo, a pregnant nose.  This means a large nose.  It’s true.  And that’s probably a good way to describe it.  I never thought of that adjective when describing my nose. 

I’m closing this up.  It will probably be a few days before I can hold the internet connection long enough to get this posted but I’ll work on perfecting my skills.  Also, after literally an hour (7:02-7:53…so pretty close to an hour) my gmail opened enough that I could see I had a few emails and messages from some people.  I hope you are the ones reading this because I don’t have enough internet to respond to them but I did get enough to open them and copy the words, so I’ll read them and respond either in hand written letter form or online whenever I get the patience to sit here more than a dew hours trying to open my email.  Just know that I love you.  A lot.  And I miss you.  And you are all here.  Which reminds me, my walls are decorated with pictures of all of you.  My family comes in to ask about each picture and each person from time to time.  I tell them regularly about how wonderful you are and what an impact you have had on my life.  this sounds sappy, but its true.  Maybe that’s what happens to me when I realize how long I’m gone. I become sappy/ an emotional mess hahaha.  Some things never change no matter where you are. 

What I’ve observed about the Philippines so far (disclaimer: some good, some sad):

• Cheese wiz
• Chika-Chika (aka gossip and the spreading of news quite rampantly)
• Strong family respect, love and care for each other
• Meat (some of which you don’t want to identify)
• Videoke in the morning
• Videoke in the afternoon
• Videoke at night
• Videoke in the middle of the night
• Basketball and more basketball
• Generosity and hospitality
• Soap operas (not only on television but literally some people are living soap opera-like lives…see also chika chika)
• Jeepneys
• Fried food and jelly food and sweet food (even pasta sauce is sweet and sugary)
• Pet dogs are put in cages and appear to never be let out…and by cages I mean just big enough to stand and depending on the dog sometimes turn around)
• Gambling
• Happy birthday singing at all hours of the night
• Importance of being social
• Whitening soap
• Fried food
• Ohoy (sp? See also shrimp and orange sauce fried together)
• Catholicism
• Church
• More Catholicism
• Videoke
• Hotdogs
• Dancing…lots of dancing
• Great humor
• Trikes
• lots of water
• Lots of dirty water
• Naps 
• Laughing