Lindsay in the Philippines

The first phase of Peace Corps is Initial Orientation, which I have completed the first week of. The days have been filled with training, some sessions with all 80 volunteers and some by sector. For cultural training, we had a festive day of games, food, dances, rituals, holidays, and videoke. Videoke is very popular in the Philippines; essentially it is Karaoke with random video footage. It reminds me of Karaoke in China. This week we will delve deeper into learning Tagalog and continue to have sector specific training. My sector, Coastal Resource Management, will be taking an exposure trip to Calatagan, Batangas for Fisheries and Mangrove Management and Marine-based Tourism. This wont be my first trip to Batangas. Yesterday we went to Nasugbu for water safety training, which consisted of jumping out of a boat and climbing back in. We spent the rest of the day in the ocean and on the beach, it was a nice break from the long sessions. On the beach, we saw some fisherfolk arranging their nets and heading out to fish. I posted some of the pictures below.

The beach day was not the only excursion I have had from IIRR. We have been able to go to a mall that is not too far away. I haven’t done much shopping, aside from a few necessities, but I did get some awesome postcards. To get to the mall, we rode Jeepneys, see photo-below. Inside, there are two benches and people sit as many as 12 on either side. They are sort of like an enclosed, extra-long pick-up truck or like a really small bus. The PCTs are larger than the average Filipino, so we don’t fit as many people in the Jeepney. I heard our driver laughing with someone at the mall when he dropped us off. A man outside asked how many of us were in the Jeepney, and they were amused that we were only 14 all together. Anyway, they are fun to ride, cool to look at, and they get you from place to place. The bookstore in the mall had multiple racks of old postcards, some 20 years old! A few lucky friends and family will be receiving their very own vintage Philippines postcards in the coming months. 🙂

When IO is done next week, I will be going to Morang, Bataan with the CRM PCTs. We will spend our days in language classes and technical sessions and will live with host families. I am looking forward to meeting my host family and getting prepared for our permanent sites.

If you want to get in touch with me, I have updated the contact information on my contact page, including my Philippines cell phone number.