Goodbye's and Boracay

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i'm an idiot, and thought that i put this up on december 6th,... but apparently i didn't put it up, so i am officially an idiot. So i'm posting it now. This is what had happened up to december 6th! Enjoy!


Okay, so as mr. farrell so lovingly pointed out, i haven't blogged in a while... sorry!! It's been busy around here.

We said goodbye to three volunteers here who had been here for 2.5 and 3 months, respectively. It was quite sad to see them go, but they'd been here for quite a while, and were probably ready to move on. We still miss them tho.

Thinking that it might be strange for the three remaining volunteers (us), we decided that it was time to have a little getaway. So Breken, Kathryn and myself went to Borocay for 5 days. They had to renew their visa's, and i jsut went for the trip. We decided to go from Saturday to Wednesday, as it's a good trip to get there. They stayed at my host family's house on the friday night, as we had to catch the Jeepney on saturday morning at 6am. We pulled ourselves out of bed at 5am, and waited for the jeepney until about 6:30, as it was running on filipino time b/c it was raining. Filipino time can be anywhere from 1-5 hours after the original agreed upon time. 'Running late' isn't really a concept in the philippines, and it's something that i have personally found to be difficult to adjust to, seeing as we're so strict on schedules and such at home. So anyhow, we got on the jeepney that took us to Looc, about 2 hours away heading south on the island. We got to looc, and should have been able to walk to the port, but instead found ANOTHER jeepney to take us to a different port, b/c the tide was out or something? i'm not even really sure why the boat wasnt leaving from where we thought it would be. And the jeepney was PACKED, so i got to sit on the roof, and breken stood on the back with about 5 other men, just holding on. The top of a jeepney can be a scary place, especially when you are on the back, cause when it goes over bumps, you feel like you're going to fly off the side. I had a death grip on the metal bars that line the top. Thankfully i had a wooden plank to sit on, but everytime we went over a bump, i thought my feet were going to break on the metal bars... i remember a few times thinking i was in trouble as we went down a particularly big hill or something. But the ride wasn't too long, maybe half an hour, and i survived! I very happily climbed down when we reached the port to jump into our little boat that would take us to the port of Caticlan, on another island. I have done more fun things in my life... lets just say that traveling in the philippines can be difficult. 3 hours on the boat got us to caticlan, where we did not have a pier to dock at, so a little boat floated underneath ours, and we jumped from ours to the little one that holds about 10 people, hoping that a wave wouldn't move it at the last minute. Once at Caticlan, we got yet ANOTHER ferry to get us to the island of Borocay, but that one was only about 20 minutes, and very comfortable compared to the rest of our journey so far. We took a trike into White Beach in borocay, and found a good, relatively inexpensive place to stay, quite near the beach. The three of us shared one room, and it had a toilet that flushed,complete with a toilet seat(!!!!) and air conditioning. It was heaven to us!

We got there mid afternooon, so we just explored, had a very much anticipated mango shake, which did not dissapoint, and relaxed. Mango's in the philippines are one of life's wonderful pleasure's i've decided, and we can't get them on our island in San Agustin, so Breken and I were so keen to get as much mango as we possibly could while we were away. Kathryn isn't so keen, but we've decided that it's because she hasn't been here long enough yet! So we just explored the beach and all the shops eventually finding it to be 'happy hour', and we found a place to have a drink. We ended up just sitting there having a few drinks, and eating appetizers, and being so content to not move we skipped dinner. We were also so tired from our mega journey we headed to bed at about our normal time... 8pm. In the philippines, we wake up very early, 8am is a sleep in, 6:30-7ish is normal, and go to bed very early. For example, my mom called me at 9:15 last night and woke me up. There is the odd special occasion that we (the volunteers) are up later, but we're dragging ourselves around, for sure. Anyway, we were up around 7ish the next day ( i was last, b/c i still love my sleep, and hate to wake up in the morning apparently), got mango shakes, and spent the day on the beach just swimming and tanning and enjoying our holiday. Pretty sweet day, and around 4 we decided to get our acts together and shower before dinner. As we were enjoying another happy hour, we thought it would be awesome to have dinner "on" the beach that night, so we found a place (which wasnt hard, there's countless places to eat in borocay) right on the sand, with a guy playing acoustic guitar, and had a buffet dinner that beside the ocean. Have to say, life was pretty sweet. I probably could have sat there forever. But again, our sleeping pattern hit us, and we went to bed probably just after 9, although lying in bed watching english tv was also an amazing luxury we were happy to have. That's pretty much how the rest of our holiday went. Hanging out on the beach, occassionally buying the odd thing here or there, drinking at least 1 mango shake a day, usually 2 tho. We treated ourselves to a super nice buffet breakfast at one of the really fancy resorts one morning, and it was amazing. Food is a big thing for us, and a main topic of conversation here. We miss food. Fruit, vegetables, chocolate and ice cream are the big ones. We could talk for hours about those 4 things alone, and be perfectly content, so to be in a place that had all of these things in abundance, was heaven for us. On our second last night however, we decided to go for indian food for dinner. The restaurant was SWEET. Really cool atmosphere, we sat on the floor on these huge pillows, and a low little table, so cool. I had a vegetarian dish that apparently did not agree with me, as i ended up with bad food posioning and spend that night and the next day so so soooo sick. So i lost our last day cause i spent it in bed, but breken and kathryn dragged me out for dinner, where i had soup, and plain rice. Exciting, but it did make me feel better.

The next morning we were out of our hotel by 7, and ready to make the whole trip back again. I was still not feeling well, so the fact that the sea was pretty rough that day didn't do me any favours. We got to Looc around 1pm to find out that the jeepney back to San Agustin was broken, and the next one wasn't until 6am the next morning. Traveling in the philippines... anything can happen. So we took a far more expensive, and far less comfortable tricycle back to our town. I was very sad that our holiday was over, but i was so so happy to see San agustin again at that point. We relaxed that evening, and then it was back to painting the next day.

I am actually really enjoying painting. We are painting the roofs of Sugod elementary school right now, and it's pretty great. They're all rusted and in pretty bad shape, so we're putting a rust protectant down first, then painting them blue. The teachers are all so nice, and sometimes bring us snacks and coke, which is very sweet of them. There's this one kid there, named Van Van (his nickname) who is just such an amazing kid. He's 14, and had a MASSIVE tumour removed from his face a couple years ago. He is very behind in school, as he was kind of just dismissed as a lost cause, and is at the level of a 6 year old, but is just the world's most cheerful guy. Denise, one of the volunteers that just left was tutoring him, and i really hope another tutor comes along for him soon, because she said that he was making improvements, he just needs that kind of attention all the time, because he learns nothing when he is put in a class with 30 6 year olds. I can't say enough though just how awesome he is. He's always laughing, and as Breken put it, "that kid's laugh could cure cancer". I dont know him very well at all, but i really think that he's one person that i will think of in the philippines and wonder how he is doing. He's always playing with us, and loves to sneak up on us and yell "hey!" and make us jump, which i of course always do, and then he laughs, which makes the rest of us laugh too. He is someone i'm sure that i will think back to when i leave here, and hope that he's doing well.

I think that's about it for now, as this is a super long entry. I'm hoping that i can still head to thailand for christmas, even though my parents are definitely not thrilled with the idea. I have always wanted to go to thailand, and one never knows when the opportunity will present itself again, i might as well take advantage of it if i can. Plus, spending christmas and new years with shannon will be awesome. Im sure she has so many amazing stories about her travels that i cant wait to hear.

On the home front, my mother tells me that she has been asked to be the voice and face of the Weekend to End Breast Cancer this year, which is so awesome!! They apparently think her story will inspire people to take part in the walk, of which i have no doubt that it will. She will be filming a tv commercial later this week, and after that, a radio segment that is to be broadcast nationally. I wish i was there to see that, but i'm sure it will still be airing in march when i get home. So if you see a cute little lady on tv that kinda looks like me, now you know why!

I'm still doing great, and can't believe that i only have about a week left here. Time flies by so quickly i can't even believe it. I'm about ready to move on and head to the next part of this adventure thought, so i'm looking forward to what's ahead. For those of you i have on facebook, i have posted pictures there, cause i can't do it here in San Agustin, and just didn't get around to blogging in Borocay.

Love and miss you all.

xoxo

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