7am earthquake!!!!!

so i woke up this morning to rattling windows and my bed shaking. what!!!! i ran out of my room and was like, what's going on??? my nanay was in the shower and she came out all soapy with a towel, and was like "Jesus, Lord help us, it's an earthquake". earthquake, cool, never been in an earthquake before. apparently it was pretty small and only lasted for about 30 seconds, but wow, an earthquake. all i could think about was that earthquake that spawned the tsunami in indonesia and sri lanka, only a few hundred miles south west of where i am. but it's ok, and there was only 1, so i went back to sleep. there is alot going on here in the philippines, with our government. it's all anyone can talk about right now. the president, gloria macapagal arroyo, who has been pres for about 2 years now has been proven to have rigged the election, and she may not have won. there are rallies and protests in manila(the capital) right now and have been going on for weeks. Peace Corp Volunteers are not allowed to travel to or around manila right now. Her opponent has paid P4,000,000 to have a recount of the votes, but we have also just found out that there is a plan to assasinate pres. arroyo. so now pres. arroyo has fired all of her staff, and replaced them with military officers -- because a coup is sure to come, and she wants to be prepared. there are alot of people asking arroyo to step down, but she won't and people are afraid that she will declare marshall law, like in the marco's administration. that means the PI would be under a totalitarian govt. what does that mean for me, hmmm, good question. we are watching the news closely, hoping for a peaceful settlement, but the PI has the 2nd most corrupt govt system in the world -- so that is not so likely to happen. if anything serious happens, peace corp will evacuate us back to the US and my peace corp service will be over. what, i just got here -- i am supposed to start building my nipa soon -- and i have trips with friends planned. i can't go home yet. if anyone sees anything about the PI on the news, please let me know. The news here is in tagolog and i have to get in translated by people who don't really speak english too well. so most of my info comes from my town and some stuff that PC Wahington DC tells us. on a lighter note...yesterday i went to this little island off of the south coast of guimaras. there is no electricity or running water. there are about 50 households, and the chickens out number the people. they are all fishermen and rice farmers, and are so poor. they are trying to find other forms of sustainable livelihood projects to make money for their families. i went with erin and her supervisor oliver, we took a boat over. when we got there they were stringing up nets in bamboo frames, so they could grow seaweed and sell it to cebu (the 2nd largest city in the PI). i asked, what do the people do with the seaweed? i had to have an interpreter, because noone on the island goes to school or speaks english -- so they said that they process it and use it to make plastic and they put it in food, like icecream. that's disgusting i thought -- but thought back to the time i was served icecream at a fiesta. i was so excited to hear about icecream, i mean it was so hot and i was sweating -- so i take a bite of wonderful, cold, delicious icecream... wait, why is it chewy and what are these yellow chunks???? yeah, they call it seasonal icecream. which means whatever the seasonal "crop" is, that's what they put in the icecream. yeah, my icecream was filled with corn, chunks of cheese and coconut. i almost threw up. it really sucked too because since i was their foriegn guest, they gave me the biggest portion. i really couln't eat it, i had to tell them i was "busog" (full), and then i walked around and fed it to a dog. i know that was probably rude and culturally insensitive -- but it was probably better than eating it. oh well.

planning a trip to the PI????

ok, so all of you who have said that you're gonna visit; well here's your chance to prove it. my nipa hutt will be finished sometime in october and the rainy season will be ending, so it's the perfect time to visit. make those arrangements, check online for tickets -- and save $174, you can live like a king here for a month. i am also planning trips to indonesia in january and thailand in june-july, so if anyone wants to tag-along -- you're more than welcome.

pretty boring week

i wish i had something cool to write about this week, but i don't. not much is happening. saturday erin and i came into the city to hang out. it was raining, we took the boat in the rain -- it's covered by a tarp, but we still got wet. we watched a movie, the fantastic 4 -- i give it 2 thumbs down, but it was the only movie in english and we got to sit in air con for a couple of hours. movies here are cheap. they cost about 50-60pesos, approx $1.00. it is amazing how cheaply you can live here, in US dollars. $1.00 = P54, so my living allowance of P9400 is roughly $174 per month. and i live pretty well and get to travel and go to the city alot. sunday we went to the beach and swam to the deep parts for some coral. it's illegal to remove coral from the water -- and erin works for the aggriculture office that is supposed to educate and inforce that law. Except for the funny fact that everyone in her office, who is working to protect the reef, has "illegal" coral on their desks and at home. people here are employed to care about the environment, but really they could care less, and understand even less than they care. so of course we dove down and got some coral too. monday i went into my office -- hmmm-- they have moved my desk back behind a big wall, where i can't be seen. what do you think that means???? so now i have to talk really loud and make sure to walk around to be seen. it gets lonely behind the big wall. so i left and went to iloilo to use the internet and hang out with some other volunteers that went awol too. so now it's tuesday and erin and i are back in iloilo. noone here does anything, so when i try to get something going, they just walk away and look confused. you would think that people who have 7 different words for work, would actually do some work. it's the rainy season now, until october, so people don't do anything -- most of the time they don't even show up to work. so now i have alot of time to come to iloilo and talk to all of you reading this page. i get pretty bored, so all of your emails are really appreciated!!!

happy 4th of july

i hope everyone had a happy 4th of july!!! i sure did, the best weekend ever. Erin and I left Guimaras around noon on the 1st. We went to iloilo to have lunch and use the internet before we left for boracay. We went to the grocery store, and stocked up on food -- american food--everything we always took for granted. I know i talk about american food alot, but when we get to eat it, wow, so exciting--especially when all i see all week is pinoy food, like blood soup. Yes it is curdled blood with pork fat -- and that's just one of the more appetizing dishes. So we were in iloilo hanging out, because our bus did not leave until 3am. we watched 2 movies, war of the worlds and a lot like love, just to pass the time. finally around 10pm we went to find some dinner. around 12am we headed to the bus station, thinking back it probably wasn't the smartest idea. there were 5 of us, nicole, erin, karen, lloyd and me, so we felt relatively safe -- besides we can all speak ilonggo fairly well now. we waited there for almost 4 hours, yeah, the bus was on philippine time -- always late. we rode the bust from iloilo to caticlan, which is at the northern part of the island of panay, it took about 4 1/2 hours. then we rode a boat from the caticlan wharf to boracay -- wow -- boracay is amazing. it has white sand beaches and crystal clear water as far as you can see. there are reef's, which we snorkled on all day the 1st day. and there were westerners there, mostly europeans -- so for once i wasn't the only white person on the island, and noone really stared or yelled at us. Some guys in our group met this woman venus, she has a 7.5 million peso house ontop of a hill overlooking the ocean. We got to stay in this huge house all weekend. i haven't seen a real house since i left the US. it had showers and flush toilets. they had plush couches and cable tv with a remote -- all sitting on the most beautiful island i have ever seen. it was a great weekend to celebrate the 4th and just hang out with friends. we swam all day, then at night after a real shower, we went out. boracay looks like a movie set -- all of the restaurants, bars and music stands with live bands are made of bamboo -- with table and chairs set up on the beach made of drift wood. i woke up every morning looking out over the ocean, thinking wow, i can't believe i live here. it was kind of sad to end the best weekend i've had since coming to the PI. we left at 5:30am tuesday the 5th to catch a boat to caticlan-- rode the bus 4 1/2 hours back to iloilo, then hopped the boat to guimaras. so,yeah -- on the way back to guimaras our boat broke down in the middle of the iloilo straight. we sat in this boat with 45 other people, waves crashing up on us for about 30 minutes befor another boat came to tow us in. i should have known not to get on a boat named "the burt and marge". i finally got home around 4:00 pm. such a long day -- i fell asleep around 6:00 and woke up at 8am the next morning. now i am just trying to figure out how to start working -- they still don't know what to do with me here yet. so i just go into my office for a couple of hours each day and take a book or sometimes i just hang out. the value system is very different here. you don't prove yourself on how hard you work or how much you get accomplished -- it's all about making personal relationships. it's so backwards, so i have to force myself to go into this office every day and just hang out -- even if there is nothing to do. i mean theyre not doing anything either -- they are govt workers, why would they need to do work???

just another week in the PI

Yeah, so just another week in the PI. my supervisor was out of town for monday and tuesday, so i had no work to do, which was good, because i wasn't feeling well. So monday i went to the beach with Erin -- we swam and laid out. I'll never get used to how we have to swim; shirt and shorts -- no bathing suits, they are uber conservative. So needless to say, my farmers tan is kickin. I came down with hives this week, i don't know where i got them or what they are from. I have a medical book with all of the diseases they have here, i went through all of them. At one point i was convinced that i had typhoid, giardia, scabies, or denghae fever. but turns out it was just an allergic reaction to something, no cool diseases yet. so the rest of the week was pretty slow, i only had one day of work. erin and i have language class together every wednesday -- it's great we get to make cookies, out teacher has an oven, not many people do here -- it's a total luxury item. Ovens here are really small, probably half the size of an oven in the states. So this weeks class was us learning how to yell at people when they are trying to rip us off -- which happens alot, because they think that we are ignorant tourists. the trike drivers are the worst, a trip that only costs 7 pesos, they try to charge 40. Yeah, until i break out my ilonggo -- indi, syiete ka pesos sa st theresa, kamahal bastos ka!!! nagaestar ako upod si ti viol para duha ka tuig, ko kabalou tagpila ang plete, syiete ka pesos !!! You should see their faces in confusion, why is this white kana speaking to me in ilonggo, and how does she know the fare. they have stopped trying to rip me off, and they all know where i live now, so they drop me off right at my doorstep with out me even having to tell them. but when other kana's come to visit me, they still try to rip them off. they suck. i am in iloilo city now, its a little after 3pm on friday. we are catching a 3am bus to caticlan -- the northern part of panay island -- takes about 4 hours. then we are taking a boat over to boracay island for the 4th of july. it's a total tourist destination, so lots of westerners -- we can wear our bathing suits and not eat rice. well i may still wear my tank top, i still have hives. YUK!!!