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!