pwede ko hambal sa ilonggo maayo gid subong!!!!!

so for the past week i have been in cebu city for a conference on HIV/AIDS awareness in the philippines. it was a really productive week, i learned alot, met some really active people in my community, and made a project plan. so been feeling pretty good this week. well, i can't say the starbucks and bagels hurt my week either -- cebu is great!!!!! so the trip back home is an overnight boat ride, about 14 hours. so nicole and i hung out and sang videoke and chatted up some local guys -- who really couldn't speak english. so as we sat there talking, i realized, holy crap, i'm speaking and understanding ilonggo -- and doing it fairly well. see, on my island most people speak understandable english, so when i get confused with ilonggo, they just switch to english and we go from there. it was a great feeling to see that i was totally able to use the language and have a native ilonggo speaker tell me that i was "maayo gid" (very good). so it was a good ending to a good week, until i got back to my island -- and went to the trike stand to catch a trike to my house, and everyone was laughing at me. i have no idea why-- there were no holes in my clothes, nothing on my face, but something about me was terribly funny. so now i am back on my island where the only othere white person is erin, unlike cebu. cebu is filled with foriegners -- i found myself starring at them, like wow, they are tall and white like me. amazing.

projects ... at last!!!!

so i finally had a really productive week here!!! i had a meeting with TESDA, which is the local vo-tech school. they offer classes in specialized area's (mostly welding and automotive classes) and then the students recieve a certificate of completion -- and can hopefully obtain a job. so i went to TESDA on tuesday for a routine meeting, which usually consists of me sitting there having no idea what's going on, drinking horrible coffee, and leaving having done or learned nothing. so, as you can tell, i was really looking forward to it. but to my surprise, they actually had some problems that i was qualified to help with. they are offering a food and beverage class that starts next week -- but they have no training materials, no teachers, and more importantly they haven't got a clue -- about anything. i asked them how they were going to have a class without materials or teachers???? they looked at me confused like and told me people had signed up and paid, so they had to go on with the program. but i explained that they had no program, but i guess that's just my american way of thinking. no program + no teachers = the F & B class at TESDA. hmmmm. so i offered my help in developing materials for the class, which they jumped on. so for the next couple of weeks, i am developing a working curriculum for the F & B class. I also have a new bartending class that i am teaching in my barangay of Sta. Teresa, so i have also donated all of the materials that i have created to TESDA -- just so they have something to work with. Gheez!!! Whoever would have thought that 7 years of working at the outback steakhouse would have helped me in real life. crazy how things have a way of working out.

3rd world hospitals ... not all they're cracked up to be!!

hi everyone -- hope everyone is well. i am doing alot better, i had my first hospital stay last week. i was feeling sick on thursday, so i didn't go into work, and friday was worse so i stayed home in bed hoping to sleep it off -- didn't quite work. saturday morning i woke up and felt like my gutts were twisting, and had had a fever of 39-40C. When i finally figured out how to convert that to farenheit, i realized i just might need to go to the hospital. conversion -- multiply the temp in celcius by 1.8 and then add 32. so 40*1.8=72 + 32=104F = go to the hospital. so saturday morning i went to the hospital and they checked me in. so when i say hospital, i mean i had a plywood bed with a rubber mat on it, a bucket in the bathroom, and an iv stand that i had to carry around with me whenever i moved. they had no medicine, ihad to go get my own and my own thermometer. no towels or blankets, but they did have a mini fridge for me to store the rice that i was supposed to have brought with me. seriously, what would we have done without the rice fridge. erin stayed with me for the 3 days i was there, thank GOD. neither of us had any money, so we ate crackers and water. so next time any of you have to go to the hospital, and you think it sucks -- just look around at the blankets, towels, beds, call buttons, tv's, ready supply of medicine, and english speaking nurses and doctors and think of this blog. and consider yourselves very lucky. oh, the best part -- we had the private, deluxe room. my supervisor came to visit me, and was like, wow what a nice room. ha. they never figured out what i had -- the best guess was ecoli or an amoeba, they wanted to do a colonoscopy, but i regretfully declined and promptly checked myself out of this place of healing. i'm better now, and it makes for a fun story -- but you can belive when i say i'm NEVER going back!!!