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.....
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