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I actually wrote this a week ago so it's a little out of date, but bear with me.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