A Note per Day

As I've already mentioned before, the Philippines is very different from America. After being here for a year though, these differences are becoming less and less obvious to me as they become the norm. However, similar to not letting myself take the beautiful scenery here for granted, I'm trying not to let the differences go unnoticed. It adds humor to the day and keeps things interesting. So with that in mind, I challenged myself this past month to notice one unusual thing every day that probably wouldn't happen in the States. And here are my notes!

8/1 – A vender on the street tried to sell me underwear.

8/2 – Smoky (my cat) ate and then pooped out a plastic bag.

8/3 – I saw an older Filipino woman scrapping the kitchen floor with a kitchen knife to get the scuffs off the floor.

8/4 – As I was running around the track I had to dodge a carabao every lap that didn't understand he was supposed to stay in the grass in the center.

8/5 – I met a Filipino with a real diamond-studded tooth.

8/6 – A Filipino was wearing a plastic bag as a hat. It wasn't even raining; the weather was perfect and he was wearing a plastic bag.

8/7 – I tried to use a reusable bag at the grocery store in the city and the bagger used it as the lining of a plastic bag (I corrected him though so no worries; one less plastic bag has been used in the world!).

8/8 – I passed a woman cutting the little patch of grass on her front lawn with hair cutting scissors.

8/9 – A chicken got run over by a bus. (Why did the chicken cross the road? It wanted to die.)

8/10 – A chicken and its chicks walked freely around inside a house and kitchen because the door was left open, climbing on the table and counter searching for food scraps. This ended with a chicken chasing another one around the house for the food it had found.

8/11 – As I was running around the track I had to dodge a pregnant goat every lap.

8/12 – As I passed by a caribao lying down on the side of the road I gave it a head nod, and it replied in kind.

8/13 – Twice in two days I was asked by older men how much I weigh. One of them was asking if I was thinner than his daughter.

8/14 – A random kid I was passing ran up to bless me. (This is something children do to older family members where the back of the elder's hand is pressed to the child's forehead, but this is usually kept in the family or people you are very familiar with on a personal level. I think I'd passed this kid twice before in town.)

8/15 – Someone told me that the cure for a fever is to go swimming in the ocean at 4am for thirty minutes to an hour. (To me this sounds like how you cause a fever.)

8/16 – I passed a dog sitting pleasantly in a trash can looking for food. (The trash cans here are just open barrels so it's very easy for a dog to get in.)

8/17 – A motor with 7 people on it passed me today (one of them a one-year-old baby).

8/18 – I passed a Filipino guy that struck me as odd because he was wearing stuff that I consider to be an American college student style: ball cap, headphones, board shorts, t-shirt, and backpack. This was a very odd combination for me to see.

8/19 – As I was running around the track an older Filipino with no front teeth gave me a high five as I finished each lap.

8/20 – Apparently this is an old proverb here: The older the carabao, the harder the horns. (Not sure what it's getting at though.)

8/21 – In the States we have ice cream carts pushed by bicycles. In some areas here they have bread carts pushed by bicycles with the bread in a nice glass case on top of the cart for display.

8/22 – Another volunteer asked if I'd brought anything nice to wear for our weekend trip. My reply: “Yes! I brought a real bra (as opposed to just a sports bra) and a cute shirt!” And my definition of a cute shirt is one that fits and has somewhat of a defined shape, although all the ones I have here are horribly stretched out because of all the hand washing. My sense of style and fashion has greatly diminished during this past year.

8/23 – A Filipina changed a regular sheet into a fitted sheet by tying knots in the corners. Filipinos are very resourceful.

Ali and me after our race!

8/24 – I ran a 10k race today (got 3^rd place!!) and there was a Filipino running dressed in a Mr. Incredible costume, complete with mask and boots.

See, Mr. Incredible needs exercise too

8/25 – A motorcycle passed me today with a dog sitting behind the driver, balancing on the moving motor all on his own. Dogs here are very impressive.

8/26 – I saw a shop that was called Smile'y Market. I think they got the apostrophe wrong...

8/27 – I saw an older Filipino's manicured nails that had designs painted on them with little jewels and everything.

8/28 – I came home to find two goats tied up in the entrance to the house in the driveway. I only paused for a second at the oddity of this.

Smoky, my cat, apparently also finds them an oddity

8/29 – A chicken got run over by a motorcycle.

8/30 – Normally when people ride in the bed of a truck they just sit on the edge or on the floor. Here, though, they class it up a bit by putting plastic chairs in the bed so you can sit in an actual chair.

8/31 – My personal favorite: I was watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire Filipino version (which is a shock of its own because I didn't realize the Philippines had their version of this show) and these were some of the first few questions (disclaimer: this was all in Tagalog and I haven't spoken Tagalog in about a year, but I'm pretty confident in these translations):

• A fly swatter is used to kill what animal?
  Chicken? Fly? Goat? Hippo?

• What does this word mean in English? (It meant marble)
• Finish the title of these cartoon characters' group name: Teenage Mutant Ninja _______.

This last question was for P20,000, or almost $500. I could seriously be rich!!!

BONUS!!!!!
So this one actually just happened so it's outside of my month mark, but it's just so good I couldn't resist adding it:

I opened the fridge at home to find an eel in it. I think this is dinner?

Got eel?

Well that's everything! Thirty-one days of unusual things. Hope you enjoyed it!