gung hay fat choy! happy chinese new year. we celebrated the year of the fire pig in manila, with lots of fireworks, dragon dances, and rowdy revelers...

mood swings

I've been grumpy lately. Nothing specific happened; things are pretty much the same here. I'm just so tired. Tired of not getting a good night's sleep because of the roosters 10 feet from my bedroom window, tired of being stared at, laughed at, asked way-too-personal questions (why aren't you married? why don't you have kids? how much does this/that cost? how much do you weigh?)I am tired of things breaking, brownouts, sweating constantly, being covered in bug bites constantly, having an audience for things like hanging up my laundry to dry and pumping air into my bike tires, being ogled by men with no teeth, terrible music, nosy neighbors, instant coffee, pork fat, rats and roaches. The novelty has worn off. This is home now. Cultural differences are no longer fascinating, they are just annoying. Earlier today at work a goat wandered through the kitchen. I shooed him out and went back to what I was doing before i realized: I'm not laughing anymore. Six months ago, that goat would have made me giggle. Little things like this would amuse me, keep me going, keep me excited about living in a place where water buffalo hold up traffic and I fall asleep at night to the sound of my house lizards chirping. I have to get back to that...to laughing at these little things. I already don't notice anymore. It's amazing how quickly we acclimate.
One of my favorite quotes has always been something Douglas Macarthur said..."Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul." (and how ironic, his involvement here in PI during WW2...)Anyway, I would never consider leaving PC early. Because I also agree that quitting wrinkles the soul. To leave early, to throw in the towel now, would be to walk away from 11 months of hard work. Hard work just to get here, hard work being here. There is too much left I want to do. I am fully committed to the programmatic plans we have made at my center for the next year and a half that i will be here. I'm just in a funk. They say that most PCV's experience this at about the one year mark. I know it will pass. Kim is coming to visit in early April. If there was ever a time I needed a dose of humor in my life it's now, and if there's one person in my life who could provide that, it's her. The timing couldn't be better. Maybe she'll help me remember how funny it is to eat lunch with your hands, with a baggie over it (like you're cleaning up dog poo), or that its hilarious when there are pig hairs in your pork ulam. Maybe.
It feels good to vent. Thanks for listening. Namiss ko kayo. I miss you all.

Lake Taal

Last week several of us were in Tagaytay, 50 km south of Manila, for a Project Design Management conference with our supervisors. When it ended, Abby, Owen, and I decided to stay for a couple days to check out Lake Taal, which is in Tagaytay, close to where we had been staying for the conference. Taal is an active volcano within Lake Taal, and within the volcano there is another lake. All this is on the island of Luzon. SO, its a lake within a volcano within a lake within an island. Kinda cool. You take a boat across Lake Taal to get to the volcano. Once there, we were attacked left and right by locals hawking various things we could not live without for this hike to the top, where you could look in and see the other lake. Sumbreros, surgical masks, water, and horses were all for sale to us stupid foreigners that looked like easy targets. But we've been here for almost a year, so we knew better. They tried to convince us several times that we wouldnt be able to make it to the top without riding a horse ("malayo!") or purchasing snacks and a hat ("mainit!"). We werent sure about the surgical masks. They were making this sound like a Mt. Everest expedition, when, in fact, it is about a 45 minute hike at a leisurely pace. We thought we could probably handle it. As it turns out, we were three of only a very few that were actually walking to the top. Most people were on horses, many of them Korean businessmen with suits, nice leather shoes, and laptop bags (?). Turns out the surgical masks would have been a wise investment, as there is only one very narrow dirt trail, and there is a constant stream of people going past you, in both directions on horses. Lots of dust. Lots of nearly getting run off the trail by fat tourists on horses, not knowing what they were doing. It was hilarious. But once you get to the top, the sight of it all is quite worth it. It's magnificent. Just try to ignore all the stalls of snacks, drinks, and cheap souvenirs, and don't be alarmed at the idiot tourists leaving their trash all over this natural wonder.