Last day of orientation!

Here are the jeepneys! They're like city buses and all painted differently. We are taking them to our  praxis sites.

These two cute kids performed a song for us today when we visited their community!

These guys were watching from the corner and every couple minutes they would burst out giggling. 

This is me and some of the kids at a community today. They were so friendly and really excited to take pictures.  As soon as the picture was taken they had to inspect it on the camera screen to make sure they looked good. This one passed the test!

Relaxation day

So we took a relaxing day today and some of us went to our friend Kyla's grandma's house who lives near by. It was great! There are these gated communities around with huge nice houses and the homes are all so open to the outside with palm trees and lanterns hanging in the trees. Her grandma had lots of food waiting for us and some frozen margaritas! Such a relaxing day.

We visited an indigenous community today up in the mountains. This is a view from the top of the mountains.

Heidi Kyla and Grace with a woman from the community and her house in the background completely constructed out of Bamboo!

The community got a big box of ice creams as a special treat today and this little guy was really enjoying it!

A hut on the camp at the base of the community that we visited. They are working to educate people about the importance of indigenous communities. 

Another bamboo hut at the camp!

It's more fun in the Philippines

"Its more fun in the Philippines" that's the slogan for the Philippines tourism department so you all should come visit me =]

I’ve done and seen so much these past view days it’s impossible talk about everything but I’ll give you some of the highlights and I took some more pictures to try to show you what my neighborhood is like.  Yesterday I did aerobics in the morning with the all of the ladies in the neighborhood and a couple of the other students. It was so fun, so much energy and all of the women were really welcoming! It was really hard though! It’s at an open air basketball court in the community and a young guy leads it. There’s great music.  We do kind of a dance portion at the end but they’re WAY better at dancing then me. The instructor had to come over and help me, he told me to bend more and not be so stiff.  After the aerobics class all of the men come and play basketball together. It’s a really great way to start the day! I’ve been waking up at like 630 which is way different than my usual 11… But people get up earlier here and go to bed earlier so it’s really nice to start the day with everyone in the community.

 I visited my Praxis site today. It’s the site I’ll be visiting two days a week this semester and also staying overnight in for a weekend. It’s called Sitio Payong and is a community of about 200 families and they live on land owned by the government.  The government isn’t using the land but doesn’t want the settlement to thrive or expand so they make it really hard for them to survive there. They aren’t allowed to bring in any materials to build new homes or repair their existing ones and they have no running water or electricity. The guards actually have pictures taken of all of their homes and they come in and inspect them twice daily to make sure they haven’t repaired anything.  Despite all of these obstacles the communities is so full of joy for life and each other.  They made us a huge lunch today when we came. It was so delicious and we had this really sweet sticky rice for dessert. Then me and the two other students who will be there with me this semester talked with the community members and took a picture together (Heidi took it but I’ll probably be able to get it for you to see soon).  They were so welcoming and excited to have us so I’m really looking forward to accompanying them there and learning from them this semester. Here are some pictures I took today!

This is the door to our house! We live in the house called Santo Nino there is another student house, a community house, and a house for the coordinators all in the same neighborhood.

This is our dining room/kitchen and one of our wonderful cooks! 

Our living room! 

View from our front door.

The park to the right of our house that you can see from the balcony.

Another view from the balcony. I love waking up and being able to see palm trees out the window! 

View down our street.

Jillian next to the stairs up to the university Ateneo de Manila ... Similar to the million dollar staircase at BC but no elevator option....

One of the trikes! We took one to the university the other day. They're so fun and only cost about 50 cents for a ride!

Another view down a main street of our neighborhood!

Hi everyone!! I've finally arrived in Manila after 20 hours in the air! Its so beautiful here. The people are so welcoming. I can't walk down my street without everyone smiling and saying hi. I will try to give more photos of my neighborhood and stuff soon but its seen as rude to take tons of pictures at once so I have to be discreet! We had a talk today by two Filipinos who live in our neighborhood. They sort of gave us the do's and don't's of the culture.  One thing that was really interesting that they told us was that Filipinos are always smiling. He said through all of the natural disasters and poverty in this country the people are amazingly resilient. They do not feel that they have time to be depressed. Everything that happens to them they attribute to God. He has burdened them with misfortunes because they can bear it, they can bounce back from it.  I thought it was a really interesting insight into the culture and I hope some of it rubs off on me! I'm so excited to learn from everyone here.  It's such a different place from home yet there are signs of America everywhere. There were Harvard t-shirts in a shop in the mall, they have payless shoe stores, and nba Suns jerseys for 5 dollars! Here's some pictures so far from my flight and first day.

This is my flight path!! I was about 6 hours in at the time out of 14....

I took this out of my plane window as we were flying over Russia.

This was the view flying into Tokyo.

One of the buildings at our school where we'll be having our classes, everything is so open, its like living outside , the weather is hot but beautiful.

This is the larger street that our house is off of!

My bedroom! I'm on the top. I'm in a room with four other girls in a house of  4 girls and 3 boys. 

Getting Ready

Hi everyone! Thanks for taking an interest in my upcoming journey to Manila in the Philippines. I am participating in the Casa Bayanihan program through the University of San Francisco. I will be living, serving, and taking classes in the Philippines for the next four months. I am flying out of the States in a couple of days and will begin my program in Manila next week.  I cannot wait to begin this new adventure and share my stories and photos with all of you! I am not sure how my internet situation will be there but I will try to update as frequently as I can. I'm sad to leave snowy Boston behind but am looking forward to a semester of sun, warmth, new friends, and new experiences in the Philippines!