Siaton Vacation

I've been in Siaton about a week now, and it's definitely starting to feel like home. My house is a beautiful assortment of buildings with the main house where my nanay, lola, and cousin live, the kitchen building, and the patio area with my room and bathroom underneath. I have my own area of the house, which is pretty nice because it gives me an escape when I need it. The courtyard has 2 tilapia aquaculture ponds (one of them literally being on the opposite side of my bedroom wall) and an area for washing clothes. The first weekend here I did the laundry I had been gathering during my week in Manila, and it took me an hour and a half to wash everything by hand. My knuckles were raw afterward and I still have battle wounds 4 days later, it's pathetic, I know. My house is about 1 mile from the beach, which makes for a nice run there and back with a little running on the beach. Sadly the beach has none of the dunes of Lake Michigan, but it's a beach in the frickin' Philippines. I can't really complain.

Arriving in Siaton last Thursday I was welcomed with a huge tarpaulin with my name in big, bold, beautiful letters, and a surprise courtesy call with the vice mayor of Siaton. It wasn't totally awful and I was decently dressed to make a good impression, but this was before I even got to see my house! Talk about throwing me into it.

This first week my counterpart has been out of town at a training exercise so I've pretty much had the week off, and it's been pretty nice. Apart from the courtesy call right off the bat, I haven't done much work-wise this week and I'm okay with that. It's been nice to relax into this new life and get comfortable with my family. The first weekend I went to the beach with my nanay and the kids in her bible study class, and we had s'mores on a bonfire. It was pretty awesome. My nanay just came back from America in May this year, where she'd been living for the past 15 years. She actually lived in Chicago and has driven through Valparaiso (my hometown) on a number of occasions for work. She actually knows more of my hometown than the other volunteers here that are actually from America...crazy.

Story time: So one evening I was feeling the need for some American-ness and decided opening my hidden jar of peanut butter and a couple epsidoes of Friends was the way to go. So I pulled out my swiss army style spoon-fork-knife and went for the peanut butter, only to find ants everywhere! Around the jar, inside the jar, climbing on me and my bed coming from the jar; it was crazy! So I sadly put my jar away and started smashing ants, thinking it wasn't worth the effort and Friends would have to be enough for the night. But then I started watching and kept staring at my jar of peanut butter across my room, desperately wanting it, and finally decided it was worth the effort. I opened the jar, smashed as many ants that I could and just accepted that I would be getting some extra protein. And it was totally worth it! The lesson I took away from this: ants are everywhere, there's nothing I can do about it, and I can always use a little extra protein, it's always worth it.

A couple of things I've grown used to:

• Being the only American or non-Filipino person around. Whenever I see another Caucasian (which does happen on occasion) I actually stop and stare at them. For an embarrassing amount of time. The other day in the store I saw a pale red head (pale by American standards even) and I literally did a double-take and followed her into the next aisle. It's a problem, I know, but it's so weird to see them here.
• Always being offered a seat. Even if I'm only in a room for 2 minutes I am offered a seat and practically forced to sit down.
• Eating food I don't really like. And I'm not talking about the weird delicacies like chicken liver and intestines and pig's blood (even though I have eaten that), I'm talking about chocolate, pop, and spicy food. And if you know me, this is a big deal. I eat chocolate with a smile on my face and say it's the most delicious thing I've eaten (this is actually super difficult for me to do, no joke). But hey, it's all for integration sake, right?
• T9. The old form of texting? The phone I have is less advanced than my very first phone, but it works, and it's my lifeline to the other volunteers. But T9 has become second nature once again, it's so weird.

Well that's all I have for now. My next blog should have more details on what I'm actually doing here in the Philippines instead of living a dream. Internet is still not consistent, but letters are always there!!!! So please write me!!!!  

The Next Chapter

I actually wrote this a week ago so it's a little out of date, but bear with me.

I'm finally an official Peace Corps Volunteer!!!  Tomorrow morning I will be leaving Manila and traveling to Negros Oriental with 6 other volunteers who I'm sure will become my lifelines for these next 2 years.  I'm completely stoked but also super nervous.  My host family in Mabayo was practice for this, and that was comforting because I knew that I'd be leaving in 2 months so if I messed something up completely it wasn't the end of the world.  Well now that's not an option.  I will be in the same community the rest of my time in the Philippines, so I've gotta make this good.

I've been in Manila the past week and a half for target language (Cebuano) lessons and some last minute sessions on dealing with our allowance and how to get to site and stuff.  I have to say, Manila is very different from Mabayo.  For one thing, it's the most densely populated city in the world, which means it's super crowded, busy all the time, and everything else that goes along with crowded cities.  Also, the driving here is crazy. We've learned how to use the public jeepneys, and that is definitely an adventure.  There are no actual stops the jeepney is supposed to make, the driver just stops when you wave him down, you climb in the back during the 10 seconds that he stops, and away he goes. These drivers are pros at multitasking too. Once you get on the jeepney you have to pass your money up to the driver, and he will find your change while driving through the crazy street of Manila (where street signs and lights are more of a suggestion than a law) while looking out for other people on the street who want to jump on the jeepney, or just looking out for the jaywalkers in general, while listening for passengers telling him to stop because he's arrived at their stop. And one of the jeepney drivers was actually texting while doing all this. It's no wonder why Peace Corps won't let volunteers drive here. When I was riding in a jeepney the other night I swear I was riding the Muggle version of the Night Bus from Harry Potter, complete with practically smashing my face on the windshield (if it had actually been in reaching distance I would have hit it). Public transportation is definitely an adventure here.

This whole week in Manila has been very bittersweet. We get to spend time with everyone in our batch, but at the same time, we have to say good bye to everyone for a few months. It's just like graduation all over again, but slightly worse because we're not leaving each other to go back home with our families, but to go to a completely new place with new people and slightly different cultures than we've been living in for the past 2 ½ months. It's a weird feeling. This group has become really close and it'll be weird going from being completely surrounded by them, to having no one around. But I'm hoping people at my site will help fill the void and welcome me with open arms, which I'm sure they will.

My Mabayo host family threw me an early birthday party before I left.  I'm gonna miss them.

The front of my Mabayo house.

Permanent Address

I now know my new permanent address!  Both packages and letters can be sent here.

Sarah Colton
DA, LGU-Siaton
Negros Oriental, Philippines 6219

So pleeeeeeeease write!!!!!!

On a side note, we went diving for the first time yesterday and it was completely awesome!  I've never seen so many fish before!  And they weren't scared of us or anything; many times I was within 3 feet of fish and they were as interested in us and we were in them.  It actually reminded me of the animals on the Galapagos Islands.  Anyway, the definite highlight for me was when we swam with a school of about 200 jack (a type of fish).  They were huge fish; at least 2-3 feet long!!  I got within a foot of them multiple times.  I would just swim right at the school and go slowly through them and they would form around me and just encompass me; I could then turn in circles and see jacks on almost all sides of me!  It was crazy awesome.  There are pictures, but they'll come later.

But ya, just had to add in that little story real quick.

Adapting

I am currently in the province of Batangas for the Supervisor's Conference. And I just learned that I will be moving to Siaton, Negros Oriental on the island of Negros on September 19^th, and I just met my counterpart for the first time!!!! I'll also have to learn a new dialect (Cibuano/Vasayan), which is only slightly similar to Tagalog. Ya, this is getting real.

My counterpart, Nick-Nick!!

The hotel they have us in is probably equal to a 4 star hotel in the US (so pretty nice), but this feels like complete luxury compared to the last month and a half! I got to take my first actual shower with actual hot water since I got to the Philippines (it's been all bucket showers with cold water)!! I honestly am kind of resenting the shower though because the water is too hot (even with barely any hot water on) and I'm wasting so much water! I've never been so conscious of how much water I use, but with bucket showers, I use maybe 2 gallons of water per shower, and I definitely use way more than that in regular showers. It's interesting to notice. But...the hotel also gives us cotton towels!!!!! I've been using my quick dry towel that barely covers half my body and is super thin; the cotton towel feels like a dream! And another crazy thing about this hotel.....the bathrooms have TOILET PAPER!!!!!!! AND PAPER TOWELS!!!!!! AND SOAP (like soap that actually foams, not that watery substitute stuff)!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't seen paper towels since being in country and tp is also super rare to come by. To give you an idea, I went to a hospital and the bathrooms didn't have toilet paper OR paper towels (they did have soap though)....but a hospital!! I was definitely shocked.

I have now been in the Philippines for more than a month! There are some things that I just don't really feel like putting in paragraph form, and I'm very fond of lists, so here comes one of the little differences in everyday life here.

• For instance, seeing geckos on the walls of the house no longer causes me to raise an eyebrow, and the cockroach who lives in our bathroom (who I've named Alfred) is more of a comfort now.
• I've become very used to always being wet in some way; either from sweat, rain, showers, or just humidity.
• Roosters cock-a-doodle-doo at all hours of the day and night...nonstop. I can now give first-hand knowledge that it is only a myth that they only call out when the sun rises (sadly).
• I eat my food with my hands 70% of the time now. That wouldn't be weird in the US, except this includes eating rice with vegetables and sauces. I'm definitely not pro quality, but I'm getting there.
• Bringing my umbrella wherever I go. I can rain here at anytime.
• Meriyenda (snacks) have become a daily routine and my stomach is on the schedule of being hungry at 7:30am, 10am, 12pm, 3pm, and 7pm.
• Bringing TP everywhere. It's guaranteed no where.  And then throw it away in the trash can...never the toilet.
• Accepting there are no mirrors and there's nothing I can do about it. It's always a surprise when I see pictures of myself now.
• Stray dogs and cats are everywhere and they are not to be touched. They actually don't even want attention since that's the way they've grown up.
• Eating fish bones is unavoidable.
• Having regular, unsweetened peanut butter is a delicacy.

Some things I've gotten to experience here so far/some stories:

• Videoke. I'd say this is by far the favored past time of Filipinos. It's exactly the same as karaoke in the States, except it's called videoke. I've lost count of how many times I've done it so far. At least a couple nights every week involve videoke in one way or another. Almost every home has a videoke machine here, and it's become a thing among us trainees to compare different components of the videoke experience between the different places. We've identified the microphone that makes you sound the best, the best location mood-wise, the most high-tech machine, the most organized song book (it's unbearably annoying when you have to flip through thousands of songs in both English and Tagalog and the songs aren't even in alphabetical order), the location where we also get free snacks out of it, and I could probably go on forever. Basically, it's the thing to do. It's also necessary to have a few “go-to” songs as back-ups just in case the locals force you to sing before you've been able to sort through the songs. Mine have become “Mamma Mia” (or really anything from ABBA) and anything by Shania Twain. These are plenty others of course, but those are my go-tos. I've also learned the Tagalog song “Pusong Bato.” You should look it up. As a presentation for the Supervisor's Conference, we CRMers made a music video for Pusong Bato, and it is crazy good, if I do say so myself. I'll add a link to that eventually if it ever gets put up on youtube.
  
  
• Opening coconuts with a machete. I wouldn't call myself an expert by any means, but I would definitely put myself in the intermediate level of ability. A couple nights ago we made pina coladas with freshly poured coconut milk and meat, drank them from the coconut while watching the sunset on our beach. It was definitely a textbook perfect tropical evening. I do have one interesting story I have with opening coconuts, though, and I would like to start out the story by saying that everything is fine now and I'm perfectly okay. So Jess, another trainee, and I were learning how to open coconuts for the first time together. It was really hard work and frustrating, but we finally got it! Jess cracked open the coconut and the milk started pouring out, so she held it up so it would drip into her mouth. Well it was dripping from multiple parts along the crack so I wanted to get in on it too. I got under the coconut to get my drink (unbeknownst to Jess) just as she decided she'd had enough and brought the coconut down right on my nose! And I'll tell you, those things are as hard as rock!! I've been hit plenty of times in the face/nose with volleyballs and such over the years, but never has my nose bled because of it...and this caused a full fountain of blood. And to make matters worse, there were about 20 children around watching this unfold along with the other trainees, so there was a full audience present for my graceful performance. To cut to the chase, the bleeding eventually stopped and I was left with a little scrape and slight bruise on my nose for a few days. Nothing more exciting though :( I would have liked to have a better battle wound, but alas.
  
  

  

  Before the accident

  
  
• Local transportation. I've been able to experience trike rides (motorized tricyles), jeepneys, and buses so far. I have yet to experience a ferry, but I'll get my chance. A group of us took a public bus and jeepney to get to a nearby mall for our weekly internet access a few weeks ago. It was definitely an experience. We waited for 30 minutes at the bus stop outside Mabayo and the bus that arrived had standing room only (the mall is 40 minutes away) with a roof that was only 6 ft high (there was a guy that was 6'4” and a guy that was 6'1” with us). We got on the bus and the entire bus started laughing at our tall entourage. I wasn't too uncomfortable during the bus ride, but I can't say the same for my companions. On the way back from the mall we ended up walking in circles for 20 minutes trying to find the right jeepney and finally found it just as it was about to pull away. We squished the 5 of us into an already full jeepney and ended up having 25 people total in there, which I thought was a pretty impressive feat. I was actually sitting on someone's lap for a little bit of the ride.
  
  

  

  My first trike ride with my host family and all my luggage!

  
  
• Dreaming in Tagalog. This was more comical than impressive. Earlier in the day I had seen a kane spider for the first time (a relatively big and creeping looking spider) and then preceded to dream about one being in my room. In my dream I was with 2 other trainees and they were very casually informing me that this terrifyingly creepy spider was “right over there.” I was having a little dream confusion where I wasn't sure if “here” was talking about at school where I had seen the spider earlier in the day or if it was in my room currently. So in my sleep I spoke aloud “nandito o dyan lang?” (here or over there). There was complete confusion on my part linked with fear of having a huge spider right in my room, and this led to a very restless rest of my night.

After this supervisor's conference I will have 10 more days in Mabayo before leaving it for good and moving to Siaton! We'll be finishing our technical training and taking our language proficiency interview (LPI), basically the Tagalog language exam, and doing our community projects. I realize I haven't said much about what we're learning for technical training, so here it goes.

The first half of PST (pre-service training) we were learning how to survey and assess seagrass beds, mangroves, and coral reef ecosystems. This was pretty awesome because it meant we were actually snorkeling around these reefs and had the great Philippines outdoors as our office for the day...a pretty hard life if you ask me. Below is a picture of the little cove we went to for seagrass and coral surveys for class on a Saturday (I would complain about class on a Saturday at 7am, but I really don't have much to complain about). The fishermen that boated us out there caught fish while we did our surveys and then cooked it right there on the beach and served it to us as a snack! They also found spider conchs from the reefs there, cooked those, and taught us how to crack open the shells and eat the muscle right there on the beach! Definitely the freshest sea food I've ever eaten.

Our office for the day....ya....life is hard.

 The second half of PST we've been learning how to do community assessments and collect socio-economic data to help us get a better idea of our community's profile. It's been really interesting because we had to interview community members like fishermen and barangay council members to get first-hand accounts of the community. We're also going to be doing a youth camp next weekend where we will teach kids about the importance of environmental conservation and everything. I'm pretty stoked for it.

Well, this is all I have to report now! Below are some pictures of Mabayo that I meant to put up a month ago...

My room, complete with mosquito net.

Our school/pavilion where we have our sessions

The Mabayo cove and the view right outside our pavilion gate

And at sunset....GORGEOUS!!!!

Host Family Transitioning

Well I've survived my two weeks with a Filipino host family! There are 9 of us Trainees in this baranguy and we live no more than a 6 minute walk from each other. It's really nice. I am in the barangay of Mabayo, which is in the municipal of Morong, in the province of Bataan. For those of you too lazy to look it up on a map, it's located on the southwestern coast of Luzon (the biggest island in the Philippines). And when I say on the coast, I mean literally on the coast. Like I'm looking at the ocean through the houses I pass on the main street with gorgeous mountains just inland. Ya, be jealous. And Mabayo is the cutest little Filipino village around! The barangay (village) consists of one main road with thin, little dirt paths leading off the main road acting as extended driveways for the houses lying behind the houses on the main drag. Oh, and the length of the main road is less than a mile! If you're walking really slow you might be able to stretch a walk from one end of town to the other to 10 minutes. It's that small!! I love it!!!! My host sister says she knows everyone that lives here. It's crazy to think that this whole village is maybe a quarter of the size of my neighborhood back in Indiana (granted, I do have a really big neighborhood, but still). I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the closeness here.

Of course, it's not all fun and games. I'm in language lessons from 8-12 Monday thru Friday and technical training (like how to survey seagrass, mangrove, coral reef sites, etc.) from 1-5ish and on Saturday from 8-2ish. They are very long days. But our “school room” is a pavilion literally on the beach with a stone fence about 5ft high surrounding us and a little gate leading to the cove that Mabayo encompasses. It is, without a doubt, the most amazing school room I could have never imagined! And we always have an audience of kids watching us from the gate or climbing the trees outside the fence to look over and call to us every now and then. The kids are all obsessed with the visiting Americans and follow us everywhere whenever we're walking in groups. The thing is though, they were really hard to get close to at first. Or at least they would always run away whenever we approached them. They actually remind me of little isda (the Tagalog word for fish). They're really curious and all crowd around to look at you from a distance, but as soon as you start approaching them, they dart away in every direction. Then if you stay still once you've made your advance, they'll slowly start trickling back, curious and interested, but very cautious. But if you make another sudden movement or advance toward them before they reach you, they'll dart away again and you'll lose any progress you may have already made. It's a very slow process to get near them. I did find that showing them my camera helped speed up the process, though. I would take pictures of them and then show them what the picture looked like. And then I let them take pictures of themselves. My observations have shown that this refined technique significantly speeds up the process of getting in with the kids.

Now on to my host family. I love them! I have 4 new siblings, two boys 16 and 19, and two girls 14 and 2½, and a few cousins whose ages I don't really know. They're between the 2 and 14 age range though. I know that much. Everyone in the family speaks at least a little bit of English, which eased some of my anxiety upon arrival. Of course after I get comfortable I'll ask them to speak as little English as possible to help me learn Tagalog, but it's a nice comfort to have. My first day here most of the family and their cousins helped teach me different parts of the body, like a list of about 40 new terms (arm, leg, foot, face, teeth, etc.). In less than an hour. It was a little overwhelming, but really fun too, and they were so patient with me. And the little girl, Gabi, is very shy around me, like she doesn't know how to act around me, but she's very affectionate and touchy with her other siblings. Each day she warms up a little more to me, and a couple days ago we made real headway when she actually touched me! The downside to this the fact she touched my legs, which hadn't been shaved in a few days, meaning that they were pretty prickly. Well she just found that so fascinating and stood next to me for 5 minutes just running her hand up and down my prickly, unshaven legs. Greeeeeat beginning to the touchiness I think...not. Needless to say I shaved my legs that night during my bucket shower. It'll be a good 10 weeks here.

This leads me into my next topic: the CR (comfort room/bathroom)! There is no running water in the house so it all has to be brought inside from the spigot outside. This water is used for bucket showers and washing clothes and dishes. The purified mineral water, which we get in big 2 gallon jugs, is used for drinking and brushing teeth. No running water means that I am now a pro at brushing my teeth without running water (although summers in Wisconsin also got me pretty good at that), bucket showers (no hot water I might add), and flushing the toilet by pouring water in, not pulling the little handle thing. These are definitely good life skills to learn.

The food here has been really good. Every meal there's rice, of course, and then some kind of meat. I've had fish quite a few times, but it's prepared differently than in the states. Instead of cleaning the fish beforehand and removing the meat, the whole fish is cooked after gutted (I think/hope), complete with head, tail, fins, and scales. And then they take the meat off the bones as they eat it, and they eat the skin too. Sunday my host mom is going to teach me how to cook, and I'm gonna ask to cook fish, just because it's such a staple food here. And I've achieved an intermediate level skill of eating rice, fish, and soy sauce with my hands. I haven't quite mastered the technique of getting all the rice in my mouth instead of around the side of my mouth though. We'll just say that I'm glad there are no cameras at dinner.

I'm gonna try to start mentioning some interesting differences/cultural facts in each blog. So here it goes:

• To them, the finer a person's complexion, the prettier they are. I've been told this is because they have so much American television here and are being influenced by our looks. They strive to become pale like Americans, which I find totally ironic since every American's goal in the summer is to get as tan as possible. I've noticed that on every ad I see on billboards or TV or whatnot, the models are all unnaturally pale for a Filipino (or at least the Filipinos I've seen). I have yet to see a complexion on an ad that could pass for an “American tan” kind of complexion. They are all lighter, some even as pale as American pale. And you know how in America there's “dying” lotion that steadily darkens your skin? Well here they sell skin care that whitens a person's complexion. Ya, it's weird. I actually saw one girl whose face was about 6 shades lighter than her arms. I'm pretty sure she's someone who uses the whitening cream.
• And another little fun fact: they call “black outs” “brown outs”. I have no idea why we have different words for the same thing, but we do and it's weird. I experienced my first brown out last night, and it really isn't any different than in the States. It wasn't as exciting as I would have hoped. Although I did get to take a bucket shower by candle light.....great mood setting.

Well that's all for now! Pictures to come. Eventually.  It's kind of impossible for me to get internet right now and will be for the next 2 months probably...so bring on the letters!!!

First time for Everything

I'm alive!!!

Despite it being the rainy season here, we have only seen it rain/sprinkle twice in the 4 days we've been in country.  This is boding well for me :)  The place I'm at right now is more like a camp/retreat setting than anything else.  We're staying in either cottages or dorms (I'm in a lovely dorm...no getting away from college life yet) and have a huge meeting hall, cafeteria, smaller meeting rooms, swimming pool, volleyball court (made of bamboo poles right next to the pineapple field), and basketball court. Our days are very structured with breakfast from 6-8am, meetings from 8-12, lunch from 12-1, meetings from 1-5ish, then free time the rest of the night.  I honestly feel like I'm at camp again, complete with doing the occasional camp song to get us "energized."

The purpose of putting us in this place was to ease us into the transition of moving to a foreign country.  The food they've been giving us is supposed to start easing us into Filipino food, like serving rice at every. single. meal. They've had chicken, beef, and fish options at every meal, served as local dishes.  The food is actually really good, so I'm not completely stressing about that anymore.  I am stressing about the A/C though. But I'm stressing because they have it here, and it's been my refuge from the heat, and the reason why I can stand to abide by their dress code of super modest clothing with pants.  So once they take the A/C away, I'm dead.

Our volleyball court with the pineapple field literally right next to it, along with palm trees and banana trees.

These first few days have been a whirlwind of firsts.

- I've survived my first, second, third, and fourth bucket shower!!  And I'm still clean!  Or at least, I don't think I smell any worse than anyone else here.  These really aren't as bad as I thought they'd be.  And the water isn't heated at all, but that's actually a relief with how hot/humid it is here.  Then with the bucket portion of it, it's actually like being in a waterfall!!!  Or at least that's what I tell myself.  You should try a bucket shower some time.  On a hot summer day.  When there's no sign of relief.  It will be so amazing, I promise you!

- I've become a morning person.  Not like 8am kind of morning, but a 5:30am kind of morning.  The sun sets here at 7 and there's really not much energy left to stay up past 10pm after a full day of meetings and stuff.  Also, the mornings are the coolest time of the day - not to say that I'm not sweating uncontrollably after being outside for 10 minutes, but it's better than at noon.  It's become a routine for most of the active Trainees here to get up early, 5:30 or 6, and go running, do yoga, swim, or whatever.  It's awesome that there are so many active people here.

- I've tried balut for the first time.  This is a Filipino snack of fertilized chicken eggs.  You can pick your choice of age of the embryo and then chow down!  I believe the one I had was 12 days old.  The egg was cooked so that the egg white was kind of like a white paste, once you slurped past the liquid surrounding the membrane, and then the embryo was about the size of a pencil eraser.  I thought the whole experience would be more traumatic than it was, but the whole thing really just tasted exactly like a hard-boiled egg with a softer texture.  The embryo wasn't even anything special :( Sad day.

Balut!!!

- I took my first jeepney ride!  These have the same purpose as cabs in the US, and they're even made from old US military jeeps, fancy that.  But these are awesome!!  I'm sure I'll become completely used to them soon and won't even raise an eyebrow, but at the moment, they're kind of the coolest thing around.  We had to fit 17 of us in the back to go to the mall, and half of us were sitting with half a cheek on our neighbor...very cozy.

Oh, and a side note, I had mentioned in an early post that I was going to be in CYF (Child, Youth, and Family).  Well this turned out to be a lie.  During my one-on-one meeting with the country director, he said that when he was reviewing my resume, he was slightly confused as to why I wasn't put in CRM (Coastal Resource Management) and asked if I'd like to switch....ummmm.....YES!!!!!!!  CRM is basically defined as fun in the sun/water and is filled with awesomeness!!!  So I'm completely stoked about this reassignment.  The basic job description is "managing the coastal resources" (duh) in mostly fishing communities to help them sustain their environment and livelihood.  Yay!!!!!!

So that's all for now! I'll keep you posted!

Address

Here's my address for the next 3 months (this will probably change after that time):

I've been told to use USPS and NOT FedEx to ship stuff, fyi.

Letters and packages:

Sarah Colton, PCT

c/o U.S. Peace Corps

6/F PNB Financial Center

Macapagal Blvd., Pasay City

1308 Philippines

Letters only:

Sarah Colton, PCT

U.S. Peace Corps

P.O. Box 7013, Airmail Distribution Center

NAIA, Pasay City

1301 Philippines

Wow, that's a lot of lines.  Thanks in advance for all the mail!!!!! (only a slight hint there)