July updates

July so Far

Update for you all…….not a lot going on these past two weeks. It seems every time I write on my blog its boring….hope you still enjoy it. I suppose it’s different from what you all experience everyday. Even laundry day is different here – all morning hand washing clothes on a stool about 6 inches off the ground and using big bins and pumped water to rinse. HAHA!

So some of you may already know, but Adam and I broke up the end of June. He is still living in Manila (going on 3 months now) and cannot do a long distance relationship. I’m not going to get into all the details here…I could go on forever…I was willing to keep it going – enjoy the time we could be together. I guess it proved too hard for him. So now I am single again. This time I am going to stay single though. No plans to jump into something else. And this time I mean it J I plan to use this year for me and really take the time to learn how to live on my own. I joined the Peace Corps, in part, to be independent and to know how live relying only on myself and yet I found myself getting involved with someone within months of being here. I guess that was just my nature. I am used to always having someone to share my life with – best friend of boyfriend. This will be a test of my strength for sure. By no means did I enter a relationship with Adam because I was lonely but having someone to share everything with helped me get through the first year here. And I feel very lucky to have been able to meet him and share that year with him. It’s too bad that it won’t be another year.

Needless to say, the past few weeks have been rough for me. Adam around or not, it gets lonely here. After our trip to Mayoyao, Jill and her sister went on a couple of trips and then to Taiwan to visit family. They are still there so I’ve been on my lonesome here in Ifugao. It hasn’t been so bad – overall anyways!. I feel more settled in my community here. My language skills are getting better (slow but steady progress) and most of the people here now know my name. Every time I step out of my house people are saying “Hello Eva” or “Hello Madam Eva.” Teaching English and going around to all the classes talking about SPED, has helped a lot. When I am finished with my talk in all of the classes I will have met 1000 kids. No wonder I always here my name! I am hearing “Americana” or “Miss Beautiful” a lot less lately. I can’t explain what a difference that makes in my everyday life. Also, it seems when I don’t have a trip to look forward to I accept more that this is my home and instead of just making it through until the next training, meeting, or vacation, I am living my life here like it is my home. Don’t get me wrong, I have many mornings when I dread going to work and think how many more months until my service is over (less than 11!). I think that’s only natural. Also, Mama Zonia and my family have been amazingly supportive when I have been down. I can talk to them about anything and they offer me advice and company and get me out of the house.

Even with all the improvements at site and the support of my family, I decided to go see the Peace Corps counselor. I have a lot of friends that have seen her and thought it helped. I have never seen a counselor or therapist and I figured why not, Peace Corps offers the services for free so I should take advantage of them. I was also heading down to Manila anyways to meet some of the new trainees from batch 266 at their training site in Bataan.

I saw her for about 1 ½ hours. I don’t think I benefited immensely from seeing her. It was nice to talk about my feelings and problems and stresses to an unbiased listener. If nothing else, if helped to get everything off my chest. I realized that I am still a bit stressed about Julia’s death and how Peace Corps handled things afterwards. I felt that the remaining volunteers in Ifugao were ignored a bit and I really wanted to feel supported during that time. To deal with that, I decided to write a letter to the staff. Anyways, what I didn’t like about the counselor is that she assigned homework assignments that I didn’t feel could work for me. Some of her advice was helpful and gave me some relief but overall my session didn’t fulfill my expectations. I am not quite sure what I expected. I found that through most of the session I was offering my own advice and thought that was most helpful. Maybe it was good in the sense that if offered me a space and time to work through my thoughts and reflect on how I was/am coping with stress. Maybe I need to see her again. Once I establish a relationship with her, it will be more beneficial and her advice more specific to me. I have a follow up appointment next month. I’ll see how it goes and if it is better, I might start seeing her regularly (if I can stand going to Manila that often).

What I found really helped me when I went to Manila was running into some of my friends. I hadn’t seen them for a long time – since the memorial. Before that it had been over 5 months! It was really refreshing to hang out with some fellow Midwesterners. It reminded me that I have a lot of friends here in this country and that even though I don’t get to see them often, they are still there when I need them. We made plans for Thanksgiving and New Year’s so I now I have some long term trips to look forward too.
After Manila, I headed to Balanga, Bataan with training Staff, Boni. He is great and so positive! I had the chance of spending a three hour bus ride with him and talking. I met up with another volunteer who was visiting another group of trainees. I hadn’t seen her in ages either and we never had a chance to hang out one on one. I feel that I really got a chance to know her better and make a good friend. The times are rare here where you can spend time with one volunteer like that for an extended period of time. It usually happens when you are stuck in Manila for medical or rooming with one during training. When we are in big groups its hard to really focus on one person and get to know them. Having this chance this past week, reminds me how bonded we are by this experience and even though we are so incredibly unique, we all have something amazing in common and I feel that every one here has something cool to offer. I feel really lucky to have this opportunity to get to know so many different individuals.

I really enjoyed meeting some of the volunteers too. One girl is from Iowa City. She went to Lucas Elementary as a kid – the school I taught at! And she worked at the study abroad office so I am sure we have some friends in common – we didn’t dig too deep. I found that the new trainees have things a lot tougher. They are already co-teaching classes all week and only have one day off. I think they have a lot less time to relax and enjoy the culture. They are too busy with work that they don’t have time to sit and observe. I know that most of our training time was spent wandering around our little barangay chatting with people or laying around Jill’s backyard eating merienda listening to band practice and waiting til it cooled off so we could go back out and walk around. They have no time for things like that. I feel bad for them. Many of them seemed stressed and discouraged. I really hope that once they get to site they will realize that they have a lot of flexibility and that they are ultimately the ones that make it what they want it to be. I gave them so much advice when I was there. I hope it helped and I hope my being there helped them see how great it can be. I prepared a handout covering nearly every topic I could think of about the culture, work ,family, gender stereotypes, etc. My best advice to them was to always air on the side of caution – don’t come off as super anything. Sit back and observe and see where you can fit in. There is no rush. I know I spent at least six months doing courtesy calls, going to birthday parties, weddings, and visiting volunteers close by. I dressed super conservatively. I didn’t come off as a work-aholic or lazy. I tried hard not to be pushy. I respected my host family’s concerns – walking alone, going out at night, etc. After awhile I realized where I could push them and where I couldn’t. I found out what I was willing to give up – drinking, tank tops, and certain foods, and things I was not willing to give up – not eating rice in the morning, jogging at the school, and hiding out in my room watching episodes.
Seeing the new trainees reminded me of how hard the first year is. It’s amazing how fast it has gone by but also how much happened during that time. Training seems like so long ago – it’s hard to remember back when I was nervous to get on a tricycle or buy something at the market. There are still times I feel a bit awkward but I have to say I am no longer shy. You can’t be here. We are always called up on the spot to lead a prayer, introduce ourselves, sing videoke, dance the native dance – okay I’m still shy to do that!

That first year is so much trial and error with the culture and with work. This second year I have set goals and I know that I can make them. I have established relationships with my colleagues. I have a reputation and people are used to me here. I have also had so much self-discovery this past year. I have learned so much about myself. I know my limits, my flaws, and what I am good at (though that is easier to forget when things are tough).

It’s strange for me to talk about all this now. I have had a rough time since I came back from the states. I thought that when I came back I would be re-energized and focused. And I was for awhile. Then the initial happy stage died down and I was really bummed out. One year more seemed like forever! This was the first time that I ever considered going home – I mean really considering it. I had days where I was like what’s the point of staying here if I’m miserable. Those feelings really surprised me. Talking with the new batch helped. They have already had some people go home and recently we had someone go home from our batch (we are hoping he gets to come back). I felt so bad for them and then I had a change of heart and realized that I could never leave this and that I really don’t want to. Making connections with my friends in Manila and at the training site helped a lot. I also took a short side trip to visit my friend Caty in Zambales and met a couple of other newbies. She is awesome and helped me feel tons better. And she is a lot of fun! We went to the beach one day and were being harassed by drunk Filipino men. Usually I am polite and chat with them, especially if it was at my site. That day, I had no desire at all. So Caty did all the talking. She told them my name was Latifah, that I was Hindi, and from Morroco. Her name? Shaquita I think? She told them I was 12 and she was 50. Her attempts didn’t help to get them to stop talking but I got a good laugh. I also borrowed the first Harry Potter book from her. I still haven’t read them. I figured its time to join the world and read em all. I have access to them and plenty of free time so why not.

This past week I’ve been busy with my English class. They were so naughty (still are) so I had to come up with some new reward system. I’m starting with candy – not sure how well it will work. Next week is the test run. I may have to come up with plan B. Also, I met the new mayor and had an Engineer from the Municipio come to the school and made estimates on all the repairs we need for the new library. There aren’t a lot of repairs but we need furniture built that is going to cost a fortune. I also had a meeting with Liza about new behavior management strategies that I hope to implement in the next two weeks. She seemed receptive. It’s going to be hard but it really is necessary if she is going to have any success in that class. Right now the kids wander around the room, leave the class, pound on the desks, yell, it’s a mess and a big test on our patience.
At home, things are a bit quieter. Mae has duty now on the weekends so is gone until Sundays. However, my host cousin Baby (Rio is her real name) is staying with us and she is really entertaining. She is in grade six, very talkative, and very silly. She makes the house a lot warmer and it’s nice to have company every day. Last night we played chess and I found out that I am terrible and need to work on increasing my attention span (those games take forever!)

That’s all for now. Hope things are going well on that side of the world. I miss you all. Send me some letters or post cards if you get a chance. I always check the post just in case :)

Oh and I haven’t bitten my nails in weeks!!! I hope it sticks this time! A very gross habit to have over here – you never know what you have been touching all day.