Dinagyang/My Decline (into Plants Vs. Zombies)

So it's been over a month since I last updated this thing.  I'm sitting in almost exactly the same place as last time, probably drinking the same thing at the same Starbucks.  But a few things have changed since then! For one, my school got internet! But it doesn't work most of the time.  For another, I've had a hacking cough the past three weeks! But it's getting better and I can mostly sleep through the night now.  I changed the keypad on my PC-issued cell phone because the other one made my thumbs hurt.  I've started playing Plants Vs. Zombies since then.  I discovered a few Now! compilations on my iTunes.  I found the fifth unopened tube of Burt's Bees at the bottom of my cabinet.  I now really don't have running water in my house because the pipes are getting fixed indefinitely.  I now know the location of another coffee shop in town that's much closer to my house.  But the internet there doesn't work, either. I saw Date Night, Season of the Witch, Invictus, and She's out of my League.  I went to the Dinagyang festival in Iloilo last weekend, sang karaoke at a Korean grill last night, and found my favorite kimchi instant noodles that got me through cold winter nights in China.  I've taught maybe 10 classes in the past month.  I've heard "She Wolf" by Shakira at least 3 times in public in the last week.  And I've finished at least one Terry Goodkind book in the past month.  Oh, and I had diarrhea for two weeks straight.

                       Sean and his host (sister? daughter? adopted granddaughter in-law?) in Iloilo 

So that's just about my January.  How was yours? I hope everyone in America (at least in the South) reading this is enjoying the winter.  It's actually been raining a lot lot lot here so it's been cool at night and even a little bit during the days.  I think at least once in the past month I've taken a cardigan to work.  I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts.  March until June will be rough.

So I really have been thinking about taking pictures of my school and community for you to see.  Thinking about being the key phrase.  I'm turning slightly Filipino, I think. By that I mean I am losing all sense of timing and expectations for things to get done by a certain time.  I also have stopped showering as often as I used to.  Since it's been coolish here lately and I haven't been sweating much, I just don't feel like dumping cold water all over myself each day.  Every other day is enough.  If that.

At least until work picks up and I feel like I'm making any kind of impact upon my school, I am living for the weekends.  After going to Iloilo on the weekends, I am usually really drained and slightly nauseous from the boat ride.  It's good for me to have a routine of doing something every other weekend and resting on the in-betweens.  I'm really excited for next weekend, though. Sean, Janelle, and Danny are coming into town so I'm hoping to be able to show them a few good places to hang out or find something fun to do for the Chinese New Year festival that's going on here.  Meaning we'll probably wind up at Starbucks playing Rummy.  I can't wait.

                                           Dingleanons' status: liberated from the Spanish

So I guess for this picture to make more sense, you should know that Dingleanons are people from Dingle, Iloilo.  The Spanish here represent the Spanish who ruled the Philippines for how ever many hundreds of years.  From what I gathered while I was at the Dinagyang festival in Iloilo last week, the celebration commemorates baby Jesus and the different "tribes" all around the province.  On Saturday, municipalities in the province performed elaborate dance/theater numbers three times a day outdoors in the Philippines between the hours of 9am and 12pm.  AKA God bless those young people, amen? This picture is one of the only good ones I got from Dingle's performance, which in my opinion was one of the best of the day.  The story behind the performance tells about the Filipinos' triumph over the Spanish oppressors.  The performance ended with lots of veggies.

                                    I think we're getting pretty good at fostering friendship.

Here's a happy thought that I'll leave you with.  I hate Filipino food.  I can't pretend I love everything about being here.  The food here sucks for vegetarians.  I'm sure a lot of it really is good but the options at restaurants are beyond limited for me.  I miss broccoli.  And American Chinese food.  The good news is that my host family is so good to me and is always coming up with new things for me to eat.  I feel better now. 

I'm doing...boobs.

So I haven't updated in a long time but I'm not going to apologize.  I don't feel like I have that much interesting stuff to share with you, which is probably why I haven't felt the need to find decent internet to tell you. I've already been at my permanent site for 5 weeks but there isn't too much to say about my work so far.  For whatever reason I haven't actually taken a picture of my school, but I do have a few of my students.  

Me with some of my fourth year students at our Christmas party.  They put cake on my nose.

The school itself is super small; while officially we have about 600 students enrolled I wouldn't be surprised if only 300 or so are actually there on a daily basis.  Some big problems hurt the already difficult educational situation in this country, truancy being one of them.  Lots of my students have problems with drugs and alcohol, difficult home lives, poverty forcing them out of school, having to work long hours at night for their families, and all-around lack of motivation to do well in school.  One of my favorite students has already opened up to me about how her mother doesn't give her breakfast or money to get to school in the mornings.  The living situations of some of these people are really unlike anything you'd ever see in America.  But for some reason my students still smile at me and are excited to be at school.  
Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS if you're reading this.  And God bless you for being interested in what's going on with me here.  I'm settling into a pretty good routine with my host family and I'm really hopeful that they'll let me stay with them beyond the required 3 months.  Cher, the 3-year old I live with, is absolutely adorable but a little bit of a terror sometimes.  She's the one who coined the phrase, "I'm doing...boobs."  She also likes to come into my room and directs me to draw whatever she feels like.  Such as, "Draw a long beautiful hair" (complete with tossing her hair behind her shoulder movements), "Draw the dead people in the cemetary", and "Draw the boy throwing up. BLOOD."  Oh, how sweet.

I gave her that shirt for Christmas.

At first I was a little unsure about whether or not they really welcomed me and would give me the independence I'm used to, but the past few weeks with them have been comfortable.  I was worried they wouldn't let me go running by myself, but after the first time I did it alone they stopped saying "You should have a companion with you" and just let me go.  I can now officially get to Starbucks, SM mall, the port, the grocery store, the government center where I run, and the post office all by myself.  That doesn't sound all that impressive when it fits into one sentence but I'm learning here! I did get lost trying to transfer jeepneys last week but whatever.  I don't have any interesting pictures from where I'm living now because I haven't really thought to take pictures of the city or anything.  It's basically just like a Philippine city to me, which I understand isn't very useful to you.  I do have this, though, which is just a creepy picture of one of the mannequins that used to be sitting outside my house.  My family used to own a boutique in the city and are trying to get rid of their excess shop supplies and stock.  

Other than that, some volunteers are meeting up in Boracay for New Year's, which I'm excited about.  I'll actually get to spend some time in a "tropical paradise".  You'd think it wouldn't have taken four months for that to happen, wouldn't you? I'm just glad it's finally happening and I'll get to (hopefully) relax a little bit.  My host family even gave me a huge straw hat and see-through knit dress for the trip! Well, I'm going to get offline now and head home.  I think I actually can get home without going completely out of my way and having to ask a Mang Inasal door guard how to get there.  Wish me luck!  

It's Halloween

I'm not exactly sure where to begin this post.  It seems like I've done a million things in the past few weeks and I can't believe this is our LAST week of training.  That's right...I'll be a bonafide Peace Corps Volunteer on 13 November.  Get ready, world.
I guess one notable thing about the past few weeks is that my host mother's house is a straight up mess.  Her step daughter is sending money from America to her step son who lives here to fix up the house.  Instead of tearing it down (which seems to make the most sense), workers have been literally raising the roof of this house in order to make it bigger.  Somehow.  What this means for my host mother and me is mainly just a few inconveniences.  For example, I can't walk around the house after my shower in just a towel with the workers around.  I have to lock my bedroom door when I leave the house because, as Lorna says, "They're from Negros but we don't know them...", all the kitchen appliances and furniture are now in my host mom's bedroom, so when I need water in the middle of the night I have to disturb her, I usually have to walk through a mound of wet cement when I leave the house, and of course the banging of hammers goes from about 8am-5pm, making staying at the house during the day a bit of a drag.  Last night was actually kind of fun because when I got home around 2 am from our Halloween party, there were 2 thin wooden planks running through the kitchen because--of course--they had completely re-cemented the floor.  I seriously considered taking a picture of how ridiculous it was to have to balance on the boards to get into the bathroom, but I didn't.  I also said a prayer of thanks that I wasn't intoxicated at that point because my host mom's new cement floor would definitely have some permanent Leanna marks on it.
All that's to say I'm really glad they're fixing up this house.  I don't think my host mom really wants to be living here in the first place and it will be a lot nicer for her once the house is fixed up.  I think she'll even be getting air conditioning in her bedroom once all the construction is done.  It will also be nice for her to not have cats living in her ceiling.  I'm kind of sad that I won't get to see the completed house unless I come back to visit in a few months.  Which is fine with me, because there are lots of people here in Iloilo that I want to stay close to for the rest of my time here.

Other than the housing situation, which is more ridiculous than irritating, things here have been crazy.  This past week has been filled with some of my favorite days since being in this country.  Kesley, Andrew, Sharon, Carlos, and I went back to Lambunao last weekend to visit the family farm again.  We played with the children (I would just like to say that Andrew's super shy host sister loves me now), which took the forms of a sack race, blindfolded Marco Polo, and hair styling, ventured out in a deluge to ride Karbaw, waited 30 minutes in the deluge for the Karbaw, and rode the Karbaw.  It was a really good day.
This past week has been devoted to review in our language class, which basically means we took trips instead of having class.  The first trip we took this week was to an Ati village north of Iloilo City.  It was about a 2 hour van ride, which put me in a good mood more than anything.  I will not say whether the air conditioning in the van or the company of my fellow PCTs contributed more to my good mood.  A small group of us went to a courtesy call with the mayor of Barotac Viejo (I think).  He was really young-looking and jacked and told us his child was conceived in America.  Cool.  Then we went back to the Ati village and listened to the history of how they got their land from the government and saw a short traditional dance.  That was interesting, from what I understood of it, but the highlight of that day was definitely climbing up the river there.  We walked up the river for about 30 minutes until we couldn't go any farther.  In the rain.  Then the river started flooding and we almost didn't make it across because the current was so strong.  I got scraped and bruised in a few places but it was all very worth it.  














On Friday, we all took a trip to Allan's family's private island.  I can't really put into words how much fun that day was for me, or how I won't ever forget how great of an opportunity it was for me to be able to go to such a beautiful place with such wonderful people.  It was about a 3 hour drive to Concepcion, then we took a 20 minute pump boat ride to the island itself.  We drank and ate on the beach, swam in the clear water, took facebook pictures, swam to another island (I know...), and in general enjoyed how ridiculous of a place we are living in for the next 2 years.  When we swam to the other island, a few things happened.  For one thing, Sean and I were pretty far behind the other 3 who had started swimming a few minutes earlier.  So it was just the two of us in this deep water.  It took us probably about 20 minutes to swim as far as we got, and then Carlos had the pump boat drivers come pick us up.  So we hitched a ride on the outrigger for a few minutes, which was really fun.  While we were swimming, I swear I saw a manta ray or something in the water below me (it was probably a plastic bag).  Then I started thinking about sharks and got scared.  Having Sean there was a little bit of a comfort, even though I just knew in my heart that I would be the only one to die if a great white got to us.  It was not until afterwards that he told me he couldn't see a thing because he wasn't wearing contacts.  So, if there had been something in the water, he would have been completely useless.  Great.  Once the water was shallow enough to walk, I swear I was also bitten by a sea snake or eel or something.  Luckily, I was wearing shoes.  So that was fun.


Then we found some starfish on the other island and played with them.  All that was so much fun that I really feel bad for the PCTs who decided not to come.  It was honestly one of the best days of my life.
Rounding out this past week was our Halloween party at the staff house.  Our theme was "Ukai-ukai Halloween", which meant we had to buy our costumes from the bargain piles of clothes donated from America.  I unfortunately didn't take any pictures, but I can say we played cards, took care of the intoxicated amongst us, and stayed out until way past my bedtime.  I'm really eager to get to my permanent site, but I'll definitely miss the friends I've made in the past few months.  This past week has definitely been the best of my time here in Iloilo Province.  Our language exam is on Thursday of this next week but I'm more concerned about spending time with my friends than studying.  More parties are coming up this week, and then we're all back to Bacolod for another few days...and then swearing in! Ahhh.....

Masskara! and Typhoon Juan

The past week has been a little crazy.  We spent Tuesday through friday at City High, mostly observing and pretending to be useful in our classrooms.  I spent Thursday and Friday being sung to and danced for by about a hundred high school students.  My favorite act of them all, however, was the rendition of "Reflection" from Mulan, sung by a boy in a silky pink bathrobe and lipstick.  I was also asked for my autograph, took about 38,000,089 pictures, and was asked by 15-year olds to send regards to my single brother in America.  I will miss those kids.  Even though I only visited some of their classes for 3 sessions, they still told me they loved me and that I will always be remembered in their hearts.  

Who is that girl I see?

On Friday, three of our co-teachers took Meg and me out to dinner at the mall.  They are very nice people and told us about how they view their role as a teacher.  I know that the poverty of my students is going to define my position as their friend first, then teacher.  These kids face challenges few in America have to deal with (like working all night as tricycle drivers, leaving school to help their families grow sugarcane, and having to work long hours to get food).  Teaching here will be way different from teaching in America, and it really seems like the teachers here have no choice but to accomodate their students' lack of focus, time, and ability.  It will be interesting and challenging to see where this job takes me...
But on a lighter note, Masskara.  This is the Philippine version of Mardi Gras that takes place annually in Bacolod City (my permanent site, as it so happens).  We were invited to attend the festival overnight by my supervisor, who got us second-row seats on the VIP stage.  We watched 5 hours of children dancing to the same Masskara theme song.  The dances were really impressive and the song will be forever in my heart and mind.  Diri sa Bacolod...

These are elementary school students...

After the dancing--which, I should note, interferred heavily with my dinnertime and constitutes the only event to supercede any meal I've had in the Philippines--we went out on the town.  A bunch of PCVs were there and we wound up at a ridiculous place that had firebreathers and Filipino men asking us to dance.  We ate dinner at an outdoor tent which reminded me a lot of the dingy places I used to eat in China.  We got back to our hostel around 2am and slept until about 10:30 on Sunday.  
To top this week off, we have an "extremely catastrophic" storm headed our way.  Evidence of this can be found in the foot-deep water that surrounded my host mother's house when we got back to Iloilo.  

The walkway in front of my house

Hopefully I won't get leptospirosis.  Walking to school tomorrow is going to be a dang mess.  To make matters more interesting, apparently my room flooded a little bit while I was gone and got into a few of my books.  Topping off the interestingness of my return home is a rat poop that was found on top of my mosquito net.  On top.  
We only have 3 more weeks in Iloilo, which is both a good and bad thing for me.  It's good because I am looking forward to moving to a more comfortable house and starting my life for the next 2 years.  It's bad because I will really miss the people I have come to care about here.  My fellow PCTs here in Iloilo will be scattered accross 3 islands.  My host mother and the children around here will also be sorely missed.  And perhaps worst of all is the uncertainty of if or when we will see our Peace Corps staff again.  They have really made this experience so far worth remembering.  
Sharon: best known for her incredible cuteness and good nature in any situation.  "It's still warm!"
Carlos: food eating legend and one of the most generous people I've ever met.  "Unicorn."
Hanna: who smiles always, our kasama queen
Roli: I have only had class with him a few times but he seems to be able to make anything funny, such as warning us that a turkey wearing slippers is probably a Filipino demon called an aswang
Allen: who always keeps the van freezing cold and whose son sings about dirty underwear with little hair (no joke)

Bacolod

So first off I'd just like to say that I ran a 5K the day after I got out of the hospital.  Here's a picture of me with some of the other PCTs who made it through.
The next day, we were off to our Supervisor's Conference in Bacolod City.  Bacolod is the capitol of Negros Occidental, the next province over on the island of Negros.  We had to take a boat to get there, which took a little over an hour.  Note that at this point in time, all the PCTs in this area of the Philippines know that their fate for the next 2 years is about to be revealed to them.  So we get to our hotel and of course have to endure 2 hours of anticipation before actually finding out our sites.  And I got...Bacolod City! I'm not quite sure how this happened since I told PC that I had no real preference on going to an urban or rural place and some of my friends who wanted an urban site were assigned to the boonies.  
Anyway, we met our school principals/head teachers and spent the next few days doing seminars and training on how to not be sexually harrassed during our service.  The next 3 days we spent at our actual sites.  Some people had to travel all day to get to their sites, while Andrew and I had to travel all of 20 minutes to get to our homes.  I'm not complaining about that. 
Let's just say my time with my supervisor (who is actually the head teacher at my school and not my counterpart or principal) was interesting.  Very, very interesting.

I pretty much love my school and location and host family.  I will be living about 15 minutes by jeep outside the city.  My neighborhood is very quiet and, if you go along the road that leads into the city away from the city, you drive straight toward mountains. 
 I'm really glad my school is only 2 minutes walking distance from my house and only has 500 students.  I met almost all the teachers in about 10 minutes and visited every classroom.  The students held banners, played drums, and danced as I walked on campus.  It was really moving and I'm excited to start getting to know the students.  The campus is pretty clean, most of the rooms have functioning air conditioners, and there's a fish pond!  And it's also kind of in the jungle.
My host family is really nice and I felt comfortable there quickly.  My host mother, her son, daughter, and granddaughter live together in 2 bedrooms.  I have been given the master suite of the house, on the complete opposite side of the building.  I have a huge bed and a bathroom to myself.  The house is so big that they have at least 4 extra bedrooms right now.  This house is much bigger than my mom's in America.  I think I can get used to living there.
Food wise,  I also couldn't be happier.  My mom made me veggie lumpia (for me the memory is still too near), stir-fried veggies with rice, and fried bananas.  I felt bad that she might be going through way too much trouble for me until she said she might just start feeding her children (who are in their 30s) the same things she gives me.  That made me feel terrible.  But I don't think she'll go to that much of an extreme unless she really wants to.  She seemed shocked that I said I can eat leftovers.  She also doesn't want me to take my lunch to school like I have been doing here in Iloilo because it's bad for my appetite.  Instead, she wants me to come home at lunch time.  I'm fine with that since the school is so close to her house.  
Her son and daughter seem really nice.  Yen, the daughter, talked to me and watched TV with me for a few hours on Thursday.  John G, the son, used to manage one of their uncle's bars in Manila.  I'm glad he lives in Bacolod now because he makes me feel safe.  And the best part is Cher, Yen's 3-year old.  I'm so glad I get to live with a child because she's my instant friend.  We watched Spongebob together last night and she drained the battery on my camera.  Oh, and she only speaks English. 

The Cher

So now I'm back in Iloilo for my last few weeks of language training.  I don't think I could be happier with my site and most of my sitemates seem to have gotten equally great placements.  Also Carlos bought us a 3 course meal at Pizza Hut today.  All that stress I had before getting sick is pretty much gone now that I have some idea of what I'll be doing for the next 2 years.

Gastroenteritis

AKA diarrhea and vomiting for 8 hours.  I guess it's really just a stomach flu, but I've never had diarrhea and vomiting at the same time before.  UNTIL NOW!!!!
So Tuesday night I ate dinner (nothing too weird; some coleslaw, pizza, a mango, and flan) and about an hour later I was rolling on my bed waiting for myself to vomit.  It happened while I was already on the toilet.  I let the PCMO know and she told me to let her know if it happened again.  I took some immodium, pepto, and tums (a valiant effort, I'd say) which came up another hour later.  I was taken to a hospital here in Iloilo, which couldn't give me a room.  I stayed the night there, on a bench, in the hallway, with an IV.  Huge props to Hannah and Sharon, who stayed with me the entire night.
Also, I can officially say I know what it's like to wear an adult diaper now!!  Hannah had the idea that I should wear one on the plane ride to Manila, in case I couldn't get to the bathroom.  It was huge.  
So, Hannah took me to Manila since I didn't think I could go by myself.  I feel so bad for her but am really grateful that she was there.  Probably the worst part about the night wasn't the throwing up or constant diarrhea but my thirst.  I couldn't drink anything because it would all come up anyway, but I knew I was dehydrated and it was scary.  The first time the nurse tried to put an IV in my wrist he couldn't because my veins were so jacked up.  This also made it hurt way worse.  I started crying when Sharon told me I was almost dehydrated because I seriously thought I was going to die there.  It wasn't really all that bad though.
So I got to Manila on Wednesday morning and Dr. Eloi took me from there.  She sat with me as I got another IV, a failed attempt at getting my blood, and finally a successful blood getting.  My nurse asked me where I was from and he told me he'd been to the Charlotte airport.  He was so sweet.
I spent 3 nights at Makati Medical Center, where the staff took good care of me and pumped me full of antibiotics, antacids, and IV fluid.  It was actually a really nice room: I had my own bathroom, shower with running water, toilet paper, a framed picture on the wall, a TV with cable, a minifridge, air conditioning, and a bed with 2 huge pillows.  It was a really big room, too.  I was almost sad to leave it.  Almost. I would have given up those three days of air conditioning for not getting sick in the first place.  It would have been nice to go hiking and cook out with my cluster and other PCTs, but I know getting sick wasn't really a choice.  
That's what's kind of puzzling me.  I feel like it wasn't my dinner that made me sick, unless the bacteria or whatever that made me sick could get through my entire system in the course of an hour or so.  
Anyway, I got to watch a lot of TV during those 3 days in Manila.  For example, I watched the end of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Promotion, Law and Order, Australia's Next Top Model, America's Next Top Model (THE NEWEST EPISODE), Asia's Biggest Loser, the beginning of The Biggest Loser from 2 years ago, National Geographic shows about Haerbin and the Yangtze River, the health benefits of Kimchi, and low-budget documentaries on the ethnic groups of China and the Philippines.  It may not sound like a lot, but it was.  I didn't have a book to read and I couldn't draw or write because of the IV.  I'm really glad that I got treated and am feeling better though.  Also, one million thanks to Jessica for calling me and making me feel better!  It was also really nice to see a fellow PCT, Britt, who happened to be in Manila for an appointment at the same time as me.  Also, thanks to the male nurses in the Philippines for all being cute.

A nice anecdote: last night, I went to sleep around 8 pm.  I was woken up by my new nurse introducing herself and giving me my last dose of antacid.  She said, "So are you leaving tomorrow, ma'am?" and I said, "Today, I thought."  She and my night nurse looked at each other and said, "It's 10:30 pm, ma'am."  I think they thought I was an idiot. 

Drowings

Today, I made some drawings during class and after dinner.  It made me feel a lot better to be making things I'm proud of, especially since I haven't really felt much accomplishment here yet.  Although, I am proud that I know my way around Mandurriao a little, can successfully shower, and have figured out how to rig my pillows so that I can't feel the metal bars underneath the 'mattress'.  
In other good news, my headphones broke today.  In other news, I have about $4 left to get me through the rest of the month.  I will probably wind up changing money at SM when I go to send off my postcards.  Hopefully we won't have to spend much money at the supervisor's conference next week.  
Right now, I'm listening to Illinois through the left earphone.  It's kind of cheery music, even though every single song on "Kid Catastrophe" is about a breakup.  
My host mother keeps giving me more and more food for lunch.  Today I got a whole container of rice (which, contrary to the views of some of my clustermates, is not difficult for me to eat) in addition to a container of vegetables (normal), mango (favorable but not daily), AND a 340-calorie block of cake from Goldilocks.  Let's not go into details, but I ate almost all of that.  The only reason I had some leftover is because I felt a little awkward being the only person in our class eating lunch at 10:45AM and I figured I might want the rest later.  
Anyway, today wasn't too exciting except Sharon told me my language checkup went well and that I was "spontaneous" in my questions.  She's so kind. Also, we got to hear from some current PCVs about their experiences here and what they wish they had known before they started service.  
It's been another pretty lazy evening for me and I am hoping to go to bed early tonight.  I also want to wish KATIE MCLAIN a very happy birthday.  

And the best part of the day is