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!!!