Here Comes the Sun: 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.