(8/12 - 8/15)
Just like the ice cream that we ate outside, our internship is evaporating just as quickly.
(no, seriously, it looked like the ice cream was steaming but it really just went from a freezer to the intense heat outside and it started sweating wisps of smoky evaporation)
(8/8 - 8/11)
The world’s oldest and largest bamboo organ in the world, that is.
(awwwwww yeah~)
Look at this glorious instrument made of bamboo. Look at this combination of Filipino culture and Spanish musical influence. Look at it. LOOK AT IT.
(8/05 - 8/07)
And the days tick by, thoughts of the 27 hour trip home dancing in our heads like sugar plum fairies…
Amidst final preparations and projects, Carly and I were invited to attend an event hosted by the St. Scholastica high school unit. Every student was required to dress up in Pilipiñana*** (traditional dress), each class wearing clothes of a different region. Even the guest German students were wearing their dirndl and lederhosen! The St. Scho high school students (and even some teachers) sang, danced, played music, and acted out major characters from Filipino literature.
(8/02 - 8/04)
So my favorite thing of actual work I have done on this internship was presenting a leadership training to a group of Scholasticans. I never realized how much I actually knew about leadership until I had to teach it to others. I guess all those leadership camps and programs actually paid off. Who knew, right?
(cue all the teachers of those leadership camps rolling their eyes and saying to me “I told you so”)
So now it is basically a race to the finish. There’s not much time left until Carly and I return to our homeland and start our own classes at university.
But there is still some things we need to see before then! Our advisor took us to the National Museum on the 4th, so it was a day of viewing some great Filipino artwork.
My favorite things from the Museum were…
(8/01)
I got to plant rice today! So now I actually understand where the food that I eat it three times a day comes from~
Carly and I rolled up our pants, put on our rainboots, and sloshed through the marshy mud of a rice paddy to stick the rice grass plant things into the mud in a slightly shoddy attempt at straight lines. The sun was hot, the mud was thick, I almost lost both of my shoes, but it was worth it!
(later I saw the actual farm workers fixing what we and the students planted but hey, we tried our best)
(7/30 - 7/31)
On the 30th, Carly and I joined one of the classes at St. Scho for a morning trip to a place called the St. Hannibal Empowerment Center (SHEC). Whereas I was a zombie at 7:30am, it seemed like everyone else was perfectly put together and talking excitedly with their friends.
(oh if only I were a morning person)
Since we took jeepneys on our way to this place, I finally got to experience what riding in the front of the jeepney is like. And what it involved was holding onto the side mirror and hoping that the driver didn’t make too sharp a left turn that would cause me to fall out. It was nice and breezy up there, though, I have to admit.
(7/26 - 7/29)
So apparently a lot of restaurants and cafes are closed on Sunday and it took us this long to figure out…
(wow Kelsey)
In other news, Carly and I had to make a trip to the Bureau of Immigration to get our visas extended since they expire 4 days before our flight home. Unfortunately, you can’t just extend it for 4 days, so I can technically stay here until mid-September now. And I have this fancy orange ID card that says so! It even sparkles just a little~
(Thank goodness our university will cover the cost of it, though. P7000 is about $150. So I joked that we just bought a P7000 souvenir…)
Also, that night there was a car crash outside our place of residence.
(parents, don’t freak out, I’m not dead yet)
I’m not sure what happened because by the time Carly and I got to look outside, there wasn’t anything there. Though I think it was our first bonding moment with the rest of the residents at Nursia as we all leaned over the balcony together :)
The next day, we had another surprise when we spotted a group of tall, white people inside of St. Scho. I’m pretty sure Carly and I were staring just as much as the Filipino students were. It turns out the high school unit in St. Scho is hosting students from a high school in Germany. Filipino students were hosted there last year, and now it is St. Scho’s turn to host students from Germany.
This also caused many more children to start saying hello to Carly and I, probably assuming that we were the German students.
…
Ya, ich bin Deutsch.
(7/25)
Today was our southern exposure to Laguna, the region below the city of Manila. The main point of the trip was to visit several historical churches from the Spanish colonization that are still being used today. And of course, we got to eat some yummy food along the way :)
- First stop: Los Baños -
No, this area is not famous for their toilets. Baños does not only mean bathrooms like Kelsey thought from her limited knowledge left over from high school Spanish class. The Spanish named it Los Baños since the place has great hot springs – baños, in this case, meaning “baths.”
There, we were driven through the University of the Philippines campus there in order to stop at the Museum of Natural History. The museum has collections on animals, insects, bamboo, rocks, and even human fetuses.
One of the professors that accompanied us used to live in the area, so he knew the best place to buy the famous buko pie. Basically, this is a Filipino take on the classic American apple pie by using coconut instead of apple. I enjoyed eating it very much~
(7/21 - 7/24)
I think small children in general scare me, but when thirty of them turn to me and say in perfect unison, “Good morning, Ate Kelsey! Benedicite!” I probably had one of the most panicked and awkward smiles on my face out of sheer terror.
I was soooooo not prepared for that.
(I think I’m okay now…maybe…)
Other than that moment, it was very interesting sitting in on the grade school music classes at St. Scho. Plus, they have a complete collection of traditional Filipino instruments that Kelsey went CRAAAAAZY over because music is awesome and oh my gosh traditional instruments from other cultures are so cool and I took waaaaay too many pictures. A kid in a candy store is nothing compared to a Kelsey in a room full of traditional instruments. Carly and I even learned how to play a couple of them!
(7/20)
I read all about it. I read about how to deal with it when it happens. I read all about the warning signs, what happens when it attacks, and the aftermath of the shock. I tried to be prepared.
Though when it hit, I felt totally unprepared.