Two more weeks of left training!
We are nearing the end of training and on our way to becoming official volunteers. There hasn’t been many events happening lately, so sorry if I haven’t been posting lately. I found out that my host dad, Caloy is an avid gardener. He gave me a tour of some of the plants that he has growing in his yard, including this pepper plant. After being washed it can be eaten as is, and tastes the same as prepackaged pepper.

We finished our student teaching at City High School and were given a going away celebration by the whole school. There were many dances by the students and the teachers. The principal requested for us to perform a dance so after much debate between “Thriller” and Shakira’s “Waka Waka” dance, we decided on Shakira. The dance was a hit and we were asked to perform it again for the students. After performing the dance twice, we had worked up a huge appetite. To our surprise there was a huge feast waiting for us with roast pig, Chop Suey, Salad, Chicken, Egg Rolls and more. As in true Filippino style after the paper was ripped off the pig the skin of the pig was gone within five minutes, leaving just meat. Even the Catholic Priest who just performed the Mass, did not hesitate at all to jump in the mad grab for pig skin.

Lechon skin rush...notice that they are all different hands.

There is a huge festival called “Buglason” that has been happening this past week (yes, it’s a week long). I was able to attend the Folk dance competiton where each city creates and performs a dance. It was an amazing production with hundreds of dancers in each group, fancy props and great drumming. The best was the little kids who were dressed in bee outfits (maybe next year’s Halloween costume for Malia?) The bees were on these long poles that were supposed to be corn they were pollinating. They would ride the corn to the middle of the stage and wiggle their little tails the whole time.

Check out the cool costumes.

For a thank you project for our training High School we decided to paint a world map mural on the inside gate of the entrance. With a few of the schools artistic students on board we have officially begun painting with great results despite Oceania not being included in the map (we ran out of wall space).

One of the great things about my site here in Dumaguete is that I am sheltered from the Typhoons that come through here every winter. The only effects that we got here were a few days of rain at night, which were nice and cooling. Thanks to those who were concerned.

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Nuni, Josh and Malia to Dumaguete this Christmas. My door is open if anybody wants to come to these beautiful islands!

Negros sweet Negros

Weeks five and six of training-

This Past week brought me my first ever win in a running race. Coming in third place running ten minute miles, I was ushered to the winner’s lounge at the 34th National Milo Marathon. Funny thing is that I was chatting away with another runner not trying to race at all. I crossed the finish line and thought that I was one of the last ones, just happy to not have been cut off for time. As I cross the line before even walking ten steps I get a card put on me, my thumb painted a fluorescent color and I am ushered to the results tent. I had no idea what they were doing with me and I was dying of thirst so I walked away to go pick up my bag and head home. After finding me and guarding me so that I wouldn’t walk away again, I am told that I was the third place winner of the women’s 10k. I about dropped on the ground with laughter. After confirmation I am ushered onto stage with the top ten where I am handed a large plaque and get to stand on a podium like the Olympics.



One of our cluster mates, John is back in Dumaguete after having Dengue for the past two weeks. We are all excited to see him come back! Heres a picture of the people that I spend 44+ hours a week with. Clockwise from Left to right are: Myles (our technical teacher), David (he's staying in Dumaguete with me), Dan, Claire, Sarah and Fe (our language teacher).

My cluster mates and I have been volunteering at Little Children of The Philippines and orphanage where we have been tutoring kids in English. I worked with the girls and had a blast! The last two nights of tutoring we took a break from reading books and played charades, did dances and laughed a lot. Here are two of the girls showing off their dance moves.


There is a thing in the PC called Resource Volunteer where a volunteer from a previous batch flies in for the week to answer questions and be a resource to new volunteers. Ema arrives from Samar today and really has been a light to what these two years might be like.



The next weekend brought an adventure to a local waterfall which is the tallest that I have ever seen. It was beautiful and goes on my list of things that I can stare at for hours and not get tired of.
The following day a bunch of volunteers went to Apo Island, which is a top destination for diving in The Philippines. It is about a thirty minute drive and a forty-five minute boat ride from where I live. So consider that an incentive for you all to come and visit me here in Dumagute. Snorkeling revealed some cool varieties of coral, purple starfish, and Sea Turtles.

The view of Negros Oriental from Apo Island

We also ventured to the other side of the island called Negros Occidental to meet our supervisors and find out our sites for the next two years. Turns out I am staying in Dumaguete for the next two years. There are five others staying in the city and three on the outskirts of the city so I am surrounded by a number of volunteers. I am psyched about this because I will not only have a great social network around me but also the possibility to collaborate with other volunteers on communit projects. I will be working at Negros Oriental High School a Provincial High School which means there are about four thousand students. I am excited to start my new post in November!

Jacque and Alanna, two of my favorite volunteers who I get to spend the next two years with!

Moo is the password

This past week’s highlights are nothing short of anything I would ever have encountered in Massachusetts. Starting off with a trike ride home after sunset to a dark road and a questionable lump in the road. As I walk by the hump lets out an angry moo and I realize that the hump is a cow announcing its prescence and demanding that I announce mine. It was so funny to me that I had to go back and try to get a picture.

Thanks to my host mother and father’s involvement with the Dumaguete Rotary club I got to partake in two great events this week. Starting off at 5:30am in the morning the Rotary club and pretty much all of Dumaguete showed up to walk in a procession whose proceeds benefited underprivileged college students. There was a variety of groups ranging from High Schools to Government offices to Senior clubs.

After the walk and posing for pictures, the Amasura’s and I were off to the Valencia Farmer’s market for some seasonal fruit. We scored Marongs, Lansones, and Bananas and a variety of freshly picked veggies. The town of Valencia is the next town up from Dumaguete heading towards the mountains. It is where the electricity (geothermal and hydro) of the whole province comes from, so those living in the town get free electricity.

Filipino fruit going from left to right clockwise: Marong (tastes like pudding), bananas and Rambutan (red fruits that have a jelly like consistency and taste like tapioca balls or Lychee fruit), the rest are veggies.

Then I headed to the beach where I encountered probably the only Bassett Hound in all of The Republic of the Philippines. It was porcelin and hard but thanks Malias love for her hound, I had to give it a hug!

Hi Malia!

Here is another picture of my host family, The Amasulas.

On the left is my host father Caloy, the Architect, in front of him is his granddaughter Ella, my host mother Babie, Ella’s father, Ella’s mother Gloria (B and C’s eldest daughter), and Nicole the youngest of B and C.

The next weekend I got to tag along with Sarah's Peace Corps host family to the mountains of Valencia called Red Rock. There were beautiful waterfalls and pools for swimming. There were also trees bearing lots and lots of yummy Lansones fruits. The cool climate fostered the abundance. The price was just right also and so I bought 4kg worth, and we feasted on this fruit from the gods!Lansones fruit tree.

After the waterfalls a few of us headed to Sarah's host families house for a Videoke (Karaoke) session, where we all got many songs in. Sarah's host mother Lut-lut has four kids including this beauty who towards the end of the evening was singing also. This family was sooo generous, and fed us two meals drove four volunteers up to the waterfalls and then kept juicing us with yummy drinks.

Bam-bam (good friend of Lut-lut) and Lut-lut (Sarah's host mom)

Fellow Peace Corps members Sarah and Claire and Bam-bam.

I also discovered that I have been saying our dogs name wrong since I got here. I thought his name was Gutom which in Cebuano translates to hungry. It turns out that everytime I come in the gate to where I live, I have been greeting the dog saying "Hello Gutom Gutom". When I get inside the house my host mother is always trying to feed me. The dogs real name is Goton, which translates to cotton, named after the consistency of its fur. My host mother has been thinking that I have been saying that I’m hungry when I come home, but really I have been just trying to say hello to the dog.

This week we start co-teaching with our counterparts so stay tuned for lots of stories.

Second Week of training

So we have officially started our second week of training here in Dumagete. We have 9 more to go, mid-November we will officially be sworn is as Peace Corps Volunteers. The day's schedule looks like this: at 7:45, myself and three other volunteers take a trike from our neighborhood named Junob to our classroom, a rented out first floor of a house.

Here is one of the Trikes that helps me get around daily. It cost about 5 cents to ride one way.

We have four hours of language learning in the morning from 8-12pm break for an hour lunch at the local air-conditioned mall and then have four hours of Technical training (how to be teacher). Tuesday and Thursday we go to Dumagete Highschool to co-teach with an English teacher. The students are very polite and as a group say hello to me every class. Class size is around forty students and I am teaching second and third year students. There are no middle school grades in The Philippines so after gradeschool students go right to highschool. College begins at 16 or 17 and by 21 most students have graduated from college. Classrooms are hot because there are no air-conditioners, they cope with electric fans and home made fans when electricity goes out. Here they call black-outs, brown-outs. There is not enough electricity produced to supply the island so many times a week they turn off the electricity in certain areas so others might have.

Here is the highschool where I am doing my training.

Here is a picture of my Host mother whom I call Ate (a term of respect for grandmothers and older women) Bebe.

Here is a picture of a beach about 30 minutes away. This island is full of beautiful places and I am excited to get the chance to explore these next two years.

Manila to Dumagete

After a week of waiting and guessing we found out our new islands for the next three months. Despite my survey request to be in a city and live with kids, I ended up being sent to a small less populated island in the South with a host family of two retired adults, a servant, and two grown but single daughters (which means that they are living at home until married). Staying with the Amasula’s and being on this island ended up being a blessings in disguise. Mrs. Amasula is a retired teacher who worked in the Philippine education system for forty something years and Mr. Amasula is a retired Architect. They both have lived in Dumagete (my city for now) all of their lives and raised six children here. They speak fluent English and are both highly educated, which means that I am getting to know Dumagete very personally.


The city is known as a University town and has the only Protestant University (Siliman) in the Republic. It is also used to diversity because of this, so the stares and the “Hey Joes” (how Americans are addressed in other Filippino towns) are limited. There are animals everywhere including dogs without leashes, goats on the side of the road, cows agrazing anywhere there is grass and cats. The ants are out of control but luckily are the non-biting kind (so far). Geckos help to check the nasty mosquito population which transmits not only Malaria but Dengue fever. There is also a bigger small crocodile lizard pronounced shukshuk that is about half a foot long and consumes even more bugs that geckos.

The traffic here is like nothing that I have ever seen. There are no traffic lights so when you approach an intersection you just work your way across the road, it is quite efficient. People take turns and no one crashes. It is a great lesson in collaboration and being in the present while driving. Dumagete is also known for its roomy trikes, which is my main form of transportation. A Trike is a motorbike with a canopy and platform attached to it so that four people can sit inside, two people cal fit on the motorcycle and four can sit on the outside of the carriage. Today we had seven fit on our ride home, but another volunteer has seen as many as thirteen people on one. The more people ride, the more money the drivers make and the less money the passengers pay so as long as the bike can take the weight it ends up working. These buses are another form of public transportation.





The fruits here are delectably delicious! I arrived right in time for Galong (a big round fruit which has dessert like insides), Rhambutom (tastes like Lychee), Durang (Stinky cheese like fruit which is an acquired taste), Mango, and Dragon Fruit season! I eat rice for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner and have never eaten more meat in my life. You know what they say about Rome though....."When in Rome...."

We have a huge mall here called Robinsons where a wierd mix of globalization and non-globalization occurs. There are traditional Nipa huts five minutes away from an airconditioned mall with a movie theater and ice cream that is "Fresh not Frozen".
Stay p0sted for more Chica Chica (gossip here from the Philippines).

Home to Manila

After a successful staging in Philadelphia, myself and 80 other Education Volunteers (new funding through congress allowed us this opportunity) boarded our planes headed to Tokyo. The excitement was buzzing at our gate as we waited for our twenty hour flight to Manila.


Twelve hours and three meals later we arrived in Tokyo for an hour lay-over. The airport was one of the cleanest I have ever seen. It also had a few cool things that caught my eye. An Origami store with huge scenes of different things like Japanese Gardens and Japanese Dancers. There were Cherry Blossom trees and and Fireworks that were just a piece of a whole scene but individually really cool to visually study.



Five hours later we arrived in Manila to an amazing welcoming party of Peace Corps staff and helpers. From the time that we walked through the gate we were taken care of. Our luggage was loaded onto buses and we were driven through Manila to our little resort about a half hour from the airport. As stated in the guidebooks, the poverty is quite visible to a passer-by. Tightly packed houses built higher and higher because of limited land space.

After a good nights sleep my roommate Tracy and I headed out to check out our home for the next week at daylight.
The river outside of our hotel was filled with trash including what Tracy thought at first to be a human body floating in the water. It turned out to be a deflated Santa doll.

There were also wooden boat racks coming out of the water which were pretty cool looking.
We find out where our homes for the next three months will be on Thursday. In the meantime it is a bunch of introductions and preparation sessions for the next two years. The weather is much more humid than Hawaii but not too uncomfortable. The people are incredibly hospitable and friendly, we are definitely being spoiled for our short stay here in Manila.