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'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.
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