confusion lang

My English has gotten progressively worse over the last few months. Not that it was ever too good to begin with.  But now it’s just plain bad.  I would like to blame it on my impressive tagalog skills, but, let’s just say the word “skills” is but a dream for the future. Actually, speaking of that, I had my language proficiency interview today.  I was nervous. So nervous that before my interviewer asked me anything I gave a long monologue.  Here’s how it started. “magandang umaga po.  Pagod na ako kasi gumising ako alas tres ng umaga. Hindi ko alam…siguro kasi nerbiyos ako para sa LPI.  Pero bumasa ng magaling libro tungkol ng Muslim lalake sa New Orleans.  Matapang at pinuno siya kasi tumulong siya maraming ibang mga tao….” (for those of you who have never read Zeitoun, you should.  It’s a great book. It’s what I was talking about). And It carried on like this for a while.  Then I finished and the interview started and the interview finished and it was all over.  She asked me what I would do after the interview.  All I could say was “magtutuolg ako.” Or, “I’m going to sleep.” Unfortunately the sleep has yet to come but tonight I will be asleep by 7:45 if I’m lucky.  Or maybe i’ll watch some tv shows.  I’ve become a tv addict.  I bought a hard drive and maraming people have given me their hardrives filled with tv shows that inspire morality for our future generations (aka gossip girl…although when I watched an episode of this I sort of had a breakdown). But I did get planet earth!

So, as I was supposed to be studying for my LPI my procrastination skills (and this time the word “skills” is accurately used) gave me plenty of time to live it up on facbeook.  Basically, I saw so many photo albums of weddings and proposals and talked to so many people who have found their careers or are on the way to their careers or are getting their masters.  I realized I’m in such a different place in life than so many people I know.  It’s not a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just a thing.  It’s just a weird realization.  For the past 22 years I’ve been on the same track doing the same thing everyone else around me was doing. The school thing.  But now it’s different.  I’m going to come back in a few years and be so…I don’t know what word cause I want to say behind, but I realize there is no behind or forward as life is a cycle and every persons journey is a series of different paths.  But, really, I think I feel it might be behind.  Not in a bad way, just meaning it will be such a different place than society has tried to convince me I should be in at this point in my life.  I don’t know if that makes sense.  I guess it’s almost like time is frozen over here, while it’s still moving very fast for everyone else.  That’s weird to say because i’ve been here about three months and it feels like a day, but people are having babies and spouses and looking for houses and jobs and I have no idea who I am or what I want to be or what I want to do or where I want to be.  I feel like my wandering is just beginning.  It’s just strange.  I enjoy where I’m at but it is weird to hear about all these things going on back in the states when I feel I’m so far from it all…I feel so young and immature still.  I guess everything is a process.

This week has been a really good week. I had a rough week last week.  Just a lot of things were piling on top of each other, and really it’s not important what those things are.  I gave myself some pep-talks telling myself to get more positive again etc etc etc.  I also prayed a lot that I would have a mood change and see the good things again.  Amazingly, as always seems to happen when it needs to, the universe came together to encourage me and reconnect me to the positivity spread and shared throughout humanity. 

There is a beautiful woman who spends her days sitting on a bridge I frequently pass and her nights in this ally cove behind the pirated dvd store.  She has come to recognize me now and smiled at me earlier this week.  It’s amazing the power of a smile, especially from someone who rarely makes eye contact with those who pass her.  Then another day she said “magandang umage” to me and since then every time I pass her we exchange greetings and she smiles and the world is right.  In those moments, her physical transformation from a person who refuses to hold her head up to a person greeting a confused lost white girl reminds me the value of simple human interactions.  If we all were to simply see (the “sawubona” see….the see where you are looking at a person and seeing their core…seeing that they are you and you are them) each other imagine the pain that could be dissolved.  Imagine the hope that could be spread.  She has given me a great amount of hope and strengthened me at a time when I really needed to believe in the goodness of people. 

My host dad was wearing a shirt I complimented.  The Philippines is all about nationalistic t-shirts, and the one he was wearing was nothing short of such a shirt.  The next night as I was washing my clothes he threw it into the bucket of water.  He told me he was giving it to me as a rememberance.  It was such a nice gift. I almost cried. I don’t know why it seemed so amazing, but it just reminded me of the immense kindness and hospitality I’ve been shown by my family here.

My host sisters like to draw in my tagalog notebooks.  Sometimes they rip out pages I need or color on things I’d prefer not to be colored, but the other day I opened up in my notebook to study and I saw a picture of four girls and the top of it said “4 wonderful girls,” with each of our names under one of the people. I’m going to miss them. 

Okay it’s the next day/the day after I wrote everything up to this point.  I’m heading out to my permanent site on Saturday and I leave my training site tomorrow at 6:30 in the morning.  I’m exhausted and excited and nervous all at the same time.  I feel when you combine all those emotions in me at one time I just become a real boring person with no real ability to do much. For instance I want to write about All Soul’s Day, but I can’t right now because I don’t have the energy to do it.  But, at the same time all I want to do right now is write, so you are getting this rambling of nothingness. 

Oh yeah, so I just started packing and I was getting way more help packing than anyone could ever want. Somehow in the middle of the chaos that engulfed my room Francine found my American cell phone, which I had completely forgotten about. I plugged it in to the charger and listened to a bunch of saved messages.  it was so nice to hear everyone’s voices. I resaved them all in the hopes that a few months from now, I will again stumble upon my phone and listen to the messages again as a reminder of home.

It’s been three months. In the past I’ve never spent more than 4 or 4.5 months abroad.  As I’m packing my room up now I feel as if I should be moving back to someplace comfortable, someplace I know with people I know who I can again talk to about the things going on in the world or the new things challenging my mind and heart. 

I’m really glad that I get to have an extended time here, but I’m nervously anticipating this next step as I’ve just spent three months taking in every new sight, sound, smell, feeling and way of interacting with people.  Trying to adapt to a new culture full of both things I like and don’t like, without loosing myself and my own identity and culture.  It’s an exhausting experience.  Just being so conscious of everything all the time.  That’s part of why I like being abroad, it’s a challenge and it makes you question just about everything you know and believe, but I already know that this next step is going to be a repeat of these last few months. Another new place, another new family, another new school, another new supervisor and co-teachers, another new language, another new system of beliefs, another new daily routine…another new culture and lifestyle.  Obviously, this is very exciting, but it is also daunting.  I think it’s partially daunting because I’ll be alone. I’ll of course be surrounded by people, probably more people than I will often times want to be with, but the isolation of the experience is bound to be a challenge.  Just processing everything on my own and having to explain everything I am time after time on my own. 

Okay, it’s now a different day.  The day that I left olongapo.  While I’m intimidated and nervous about these next two years, at this moment, I can’t wait to be more on my own. While I think it will be a great challenge being the only volunteer on my island, I’m excited to be separated from some of the “American” characteristics, comments and assumptions.  I have this romanticized vision in my head of me leaving Anda two years from now adapted to small island life, able to build a fishing net and successfully catch a mornings load of fish off my three bamboo pole width boat, able to harvest rice and maybe build a few things out of bamboo.  It’s a great image of success.  Success not meaning wealth or status or recognition, rather success meaning I’m able to cope with the extended amount of time I have to contemplate myself and this world we share.  Success meaning I haven’t gone crazy.  Success meaning it will be hard for me to adapt back to American society.  Success meaning I have built relationships with my neighbors. 

These next two years will be quite the ride.  I think I’m almost ready.