BACK IN THE USA!!!!!!!

so alot has happened since my last post. i am back in the USA for christmas, and it's great. i left my house on tuesday morning dec 13 around 7 am and went to iloilo city and caught a plane to manila. my flight to the states left wednesday morning at 6:50, whew was that an early one. another volunteer eric was on my same flight, so we hung out in manila and pulled an all nighter of videoke. we got to the airport around 4am, and thank goodness we did, because our plane was packed and the lines were huge. we had a stopover in japan, then straight to detroit -- which total was about 19 hours -- in coach. that was the longest 19 hours of my life, the people sitting next to me didn't speak english, so there wasnt even any chit chat on the plane. in japan we picked up a new flight crew, and 2 of them were american women, mid 40's. they were standing 5 rows ahead of me and having a conversation in english, and laughing. it was the first conversation that i have been able to understand in 9 months, i cried into my pillow for 20 minutes. even though i have made many filippino friends, i felt more connected to those 2 strange women than anyone i have known in the philippines. i realized that what i really was missing was a sense of belonging to something or someone familiar. so that was my big culture shock. when we landed in detroit it was snowing, and me, just coming from the tropics was wearing a t-shirt, capri pants and flipflops--i had to buy a sweat shirt in one of the shops. i got stuck in customs, so i missed my 1205 flight to memphis, so i got to hang out until 5. but it was amazing, because i was in america, and everyone spoke english and the food was all good. so i wandered around the detroit airport with a dumbass permagrin on my face for like 5 hours, going this is the greatest place on earth. everything here is HUGE!!! and our bathrooms, even the gross ones are sooooo nice. the automatic flush kinda scared me at first. america has everything, and as americans we have so much more than anyone else. it makes our problems seem so trivial, i mean when was the last time that we didn't have food, potable water or shelter. it only took 2 1/2 days to get home and 30 hours of flying, so i don't think i'll be making this trip again any time soon. so i have been here for a week now, and have been eating everything i can fit into my mouth. food here is sooo good, wow, if everyone else here knew just how good they have it!!! so i fly back to the philippines on dec 29th, and i'm actually excited to get back to my house, friends and work. i miss how cheap everything is there -- i am out of dollars and noone will take my peso's, even the bank -- so i gotta go back and spend them. so everyone have a very merry christmas and a happy new year. love you ~ lindsey

finished nipa -- finally!!!!

My nipa is finally finished and i moved in on monday nov 28th. it's the most amazing little house -- it feels like pretend. it's 6 meters wide x 7 1/2 meters long, that includes my front porch. i love it. i had the week to get settled, then on friday december 2, we had my house blessing/birthday party. i can't believe i built my own house and turned 26 in the philippines -- it doesn't seem real. the house blessing was cool, i got a local pastor to do the blessing, which consisted of praying, singing, throwing flowers, rice and coins for beauty, plenty and prosperity. it was definately interesting to have 25 - 30 people hanging out in my house praying for the walls and doors. and it was all in ilonggo, so i have to hope they were saying good things. the blessing was supposed to start at 2, at 2:30 when no one was there i started to get a little sad, but in true filippino tradition, they all showed up at 3. i cooked a bunch of food and everyone filled their plates high and ate until the food was gone. they hung out and asked me how much everything cost (it's not rude here) and had several offers for people to stay with me. they still don't understand why i would want to be alone. it was a good birthday and blessing. i had alot of fun.