Paranaque Revisited

August 9

It was somewhere between this week and last week that I realized I wanted to come home. Luckily, this realization came when I only had a couple weeks left. This time next week I will be home.  I'm literally counting down the days.

I want to be honest with everyone. I'm having a bad week. It's really hard to motivate myself to the end. Certain things keep happening that have kept me down. I've spent too much time feeling angry and frustrated in my situation. It is in no way the fault of the program. This is a great program. I would recommend it to anyone who is between the ages of 18 and 30. But it's time for me to come home.

I think a lot of people may equate this with a vacation. I mean I'm in the Philippines with gorgeous beaches and tons of tourism. But it's not. It's work. And it's often hard work. And like any job it has it's ups an downs.

Today I'm going to try to share the ups because they are much more interesting and inspiring than the downs. But I want you to know that this isn't always rainbows and butterflies.

This week Nicole and I chose to stay behind from the trip to Cagayan to help fix up the building that is used for a weekend teaching program in
Paranaque. Unfortunately instead of building and fixing we were relegated to cleaning. But we were able to convince them to also let us decorate the place. I'm unable to add photos from here but when I get home I promise to try to upload lots of pictures.

We spent the first day getting supplies. We got poster board, markers and paper. Then that night we stayed up until 2 in the morning making the posters for the rooms. There were two rooms so each of us made a welcome poster, a Lord's Prayer poster, a shapes poster and a bible story poster. I did the story of feeding 5,000 and Nicole did the story of Daniel and the lions' den. By staying up that late, it allowed us to have a free day the next day to hang with friends, a much needed escape from our week.
On Thursday, we traveled 3 hours to Paranaque to clean the place. After a quick sweeping and clearing of the bookshelf, we scrubbed the walls of dirt. I can't tell the difference from the before and after pictures of the walls. But I saw a lot of dirt come off so I guess that counts. We were helped by about 5 or 6 of the children in the community. They were the best helpers! And we had a little fun doing it even though I ended up sweating buckets and being soaked with soapy water. After a 2.5 hour ride home, it was definitely time for some rest.

Friday was also a rest day. We started the morning with a workout. I forgot to mention I started working out with Nicole here about every other day. It makes me sore but it relieves stress and ultimately makes me feel better about myself. Hopefully I can continue the routine into the school year. We followed that up with a trip to the mall where I picked up some yummy souvenirs for friends and family. We attempted to sun bathe on the driveway but it didn't last too long. However I'm pretty sure it was long enough to get at least some color. Everyone thinks we are crazy because we want to be darker. People in the US pay for tanning salons all the time. But here paleness is valued. Every lotion, body cream, and even deodorant come with "whitening" properties. If I have to listen to one more Filipino commercial advertising for a beautiful white rosy glow I might have to throw something. Of course I feel the same way about tanning but that's a different story. This day has a lot of side stories. I finished the day by reading the rest of my Nicholas Sparks novel Message in a Bottle. I mean I was only 30% of the way through when I started but I finished it that night. It was just the type of relaxing day I needed.

Today started a lot later than expected so I got up, showered, ate breakfast, and went back to bed. :) After another long trip to Paranaque, which included a train ride on the national railway system, we started to decorate. The girls who helped with the cleaning also helped with the decorating. It looks so much more inviting and just fun. We followed that up with teaching for an hour and a half. That may not seem like much but when you are dealing with 3-7 year olds who don't speak English you kind of have to go with the flow. They understood some things and other ideas we had to scratch. We did a lot of singing and dancing and looking ridiculous for the sake of the amusement of the kids. But I don't mind. I'm good at that.

Our day finished with an interesting train ride back. Remember me mentioning the national railroad system? Yeah this is like old fashioned in many senses. They look a bit like prison cars and I'm pretty sure the engine car ran on coal or something else like that. And Filipinos love to squish. They have an all female car which makes the guys to girl ratio in the other cars much greater. Plus more guys take it anyway. But we were with Anthony so we went in the regular car. After following the crowd we finally found a spot to hold the rail conveniently provided by some really nice Filipino guys. Actually this was some refreshing kindness and friendliness that was sincerely appreciated. They created casual conversation that only slightly verged on invasive (but that's the culture so this was more moderate than usual). Eventually, one of the men even gave his seat up for me to sit. It might have been my bright red face or the gallon of sweat on me but it was still really nice. The train was like a sauna and it smelled of, well, sweat. One guy told us he takes it everyday. I could not imagine. I am definitely not destined to be a city girl.

While it was hard to get through the week, looking back I was able to do some really great things. This upcoming week is mostly free so touristy Manila here I come!