It's been more than a year since I was in the Philippines. I think around this time, we were ending our time in Los Banos.
I've read back through this scant blog, happy with the fact that I was able to record some of my feelings and ideas, but also a little sad that when I came back to the States, I didn't have time to go back and process it (on the blog anyway, at least looking at the last entry).
Rereading my entries, I feel so lucky and privileged to have had those experiences, to have been in the program. Lucky, because I know many Filipino and Filipina Americans who would love to have gone a trip like mine; lucky, because, I think I may have been in the last TOS batch; lucky, because my job as a teacher allowed me to take the whole summer; lucky, because I have seen things that most of the people in my life have never and will never see.
As a writer, (I'm going to start calling myself that now...I'm in a program; I kind of have to now) I sometimes feel guilty about exploiting my own experiences. Which, is silly. Perhaps I should begin that sentence with, "as a recovering Catholic..." instead. Despite this guilt, this sort of sheepishness on my part...I feel like lucky that this experience gave me so much to write about.
I felt guilty for a good portion of the trip; guilty for my privilege, guilty for my dumb luck at having born out of poverty, in the US; guilty, when my parts of my family, living in shanties, and in very nice houses (my family's so big, it's like a microcosm of the people of the Philippines), all asked me in bewilderment, "So, you came here to study Tagalog? You came here and you paid for this? With your own money? How much?"... guilty, that I was a lucky one who grew up speaking the golden tongue with no accent and who paid to come back to learn to speak like them...
When we went to Payatas, to the houses of the "japayukis," to the many places where we met with the very poor, the marginalized, the ostracized parts and people of an already marginalized country and people...I felt guilty. Who were we to step into their homes to ask them questions about the ways they lived their lives? I felt like I was a visitor at the Zoo of Indigent People in Exotic Lands. I felt like an asshole.
Ate Susan said, in reply to these thoughts that I expressed to her as we left Payatas, that (and I'm paraphrasing here, because she said it much more eloquently) we were doing something for the people who let us into their homes. We were bearing witness to their lives; we were bearing witness to their existence. She said, people in the Philippines don't ask these people about their lives, they don't ask about their hopes and dreams and hardships. You are asking. You are listening. You will tell other people about it. You will tell other people about them.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Saturday, August 11, 2007
I haven't posted in several weeks because I've been on the go with spotty email access.
We've been travelling all over Luzon for the past 2 weeks. The language and history class portion of the program ended the last days of June.
Really, there's too much.
I will just begin with a list of what I've been doing...I am still sorting through what it all means.
DAWN
Payatas
Ateneo University
Weekend in Makati
Lahar Trail
Clark Air Force Base
Angles
Madapdap
Target / Aeta Village
Olongopo / Subic Naval Base
PREDA
Assumption Retreat House
These are the places we've been. A small picture of what we have seen: "Japayuki" women who worked as former " Filipina entertainers" in Japan and their Japino children, the dumpsite for Quezon City's trash where people live and find their livelihood, the most elite university in the Philippines, the destruction of Mt. Pinatubo, the toxic waste victims living around US bases, the girls working in girly bars for foreign customers in the the Philippines on sex tours, the children rescued from sex trafficking and adult prisons, the indigenous Aeta....
so much.
I, of course, don't have time to write about it. More if I can later.
We've been travelling all over Luzon for the past 2 weeks. The language and history class portion of the program ended the last days of June.
Really, there's too much.
I will just begin with a list of what I've been doing...I am still sorting through what it all means.
DAWN
Payatas
Ateneo University
Weekend in Makati
Lahar Trail
Clark Air Force Base
Angles
Madapdap
Target / Aeta Village
Olongopo / Subic Naval Base
PREDA
Assumption Retreat House
These are the places we've been. A small picture of what we have seen: "Japayuki" women who worked as former " Filipina entertainers" in Japan and their Japino children, the dumpsite for Quezon City's trash where people live and find their livelihood, the most elite university in the Philippines, the destruction of Mt. Pinatubo, the toxic waste victims living around US bases, the girls working in girly bars for foreign customers in the the Philippines on sex tours, the children rescued from sex trafficking and adult prisons, the indigenous Aeta....
so much.
I, of course, don't have time to write about it. More if I can later.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Things of Note
Friday, July 27, 2007
Things of note:
--Sari-sari stores. These are basically Filipino bodegas. “Sari-sari” means “variety-variety.” You can buy everything there: teeny packages of laundry detergent powder, little plastic baggies of toyo (soy sauce), packets of Dove whitening cream and shampoo, little baggies of fresh caught and chopped fish, and shelves and shelves crammed with tiny packets of everything. Most household items, packaged food products, and personal care items are sold in the smallest increments possible with only a few “full-sized” containers (what we see in the US). At first, I found this a little odd. But, I figured it out my first week here. People are poor; they can’t afford to buy an entire bottle of toyo or shampoo, so they buy enough for a meal, for one shower, for a week, for whatever they can afford for that day. Another thing: I went into a sari-sari store to buy some toilet paper (which, you must bring everyone in the Philippines if you want to use any) and saw a fridge containing glass coke bottles—the small, old school kind. I love Coke in glass bottles. I was so excited. And I was hoping there was Tagalog on the bottle so I could save it as a keepsake. I brought my toilet paper and bottle of Coke to the counter. The man behind the counter put my TP (one roll of course) into a plastic bag and then poured the entire contents of my Coke bottle into a smaller clear plastic sack.
I found out when I got back to the house and relayed my story that all sari-sari stores do that; the glass bottles are expensive and given back to the company (in this case Coke) to be recycled and sent back with filled with Coke.
While the details of a seemingly rundown Filipino bodega may seem mundane, I thought about what all of this meant. I thought about all I’ve been learning of Filipino History and it means for a people and a nation. Every history lecture, all of us reflect a Homeresque “D’oh!”—not at our own or anyone else’s stupidity—but at the seeming 29375865 times the Philippines and the Filipinos almost gained its independence or almost ousted an oppressive colonial and/or imperial power. There are so many stark ironies as well. Agoncillo, the first international affairs type of representative for the Philippines, sailed to the US and to Spain in an attempt to secure Filipino Independence. There was a crowd awaiting him when he arrived, but he disembarked completely unnoticed as those expecting to see him were waiting for a man in a loincloth. Agoncillo failed to garner any support abroad (really how could one lone man metaphorically clothed in loincloth defeat the McKinley’s White Male Burden and America’s burgeoning imperialism?) and sailed back to the Philippines on a ship called The Liberator, which consequently sank around the same time the US “fought and won” the Philippines from Spain.
D’oh!
See what I mean? There are so many moments like this.
Anyway, what does this have to do with the sari-sari store?
Filipinos, as seen through their history, culture, and what I have witnessed living here for the past 5 weeks, are intrepid, resilient, and resourceful. Filipinos, despite extreme poverty and lack of resources, will manage to feed visitors the best they have, will remain with smiles on their faces, will manage to laugh and joke. It sounds like I am “othering” or maybe generalizing to create this romantic idea, but no—Filipinos, I think, are much like Dolly Parton, y'know in Steel Magnolias—laughter through tears is their favorite emotion. We had an entire lecture (presented by my Tito Rofel) on theme of suffering and glory. In the Philippines, happiness hinges upon what is doled out by fate, natural disasters, famine, poverty, and oppressive governments--it comes in tiny increments, little packets; people take what they can get and make it work.
The whole time I’ve been here, I’ve had so many reflections like this; any cultural experience tells me something about my family and myself and this country. I don’t know if I am allowed to call it mine.
--Halaman (Plants)
Everywhere I look, I see plants that my parents had in my house during my childhood. I always assumed that they went to Home Depot or Lowe’s and picked out what they liked, or what was one sale. No. They picked out plants that reminded them of home.
The plants that my mother, father, and I planted in our backyard were all over Mt. Banahaw and are almost everywhere I look in Los Banos.
Every orchid, fern, non-flowering water lily, and bougainvillea I see makes me miss my father.
--Skin Whitening
…makes me so incredibly sad. I also saw a “nose elongating” contraption in the drugstore the other day.
--Koreano? O kalahati lang?
There are a lot of Koreans in the Philippines. They come to study English and live cheaply in the Philippines. They have much more money than the average Filipino. There a lot of Koreans in Los Banos. Many of the Filipino locals that I have spoken to reflect resentment and annoyance at this Korea presence due to obvious condescension and a feeling that “Koreans think that they’ve already bought us because they are here.”
People here, store clerks, dyip (jeepney) drivers, the man who cut my hair—think I am Korean. Or only half-Filipino. They are dubious when I tell them that my both my parents are indeed Filipino. I say, Taga-San Pablo ang tatay ko atsaka taga-Malolos ang nanay ko and then their eyebrows lift and the look a little happier to be speaking to me.
People don’t know what I am here as much as they don’t know in the States.
-------
There are many more things of notice, but as per usual: I’m beat. I have a massive exam on Monday, we’re preparing a big program for our teachers and our host families in Tadlak (a fishing community that we have been visiting since we’ve been in Laguna), and I am going to say good bye to my dad’s family here in Laguna because after Monday we begin our travel around the Philippines section of the trip. I don’t know how much more spotty my internet will be, but I will try.
To those of you I have been meaning to call: please be patient. I’m so busy and swamped and internet is so spotty.
love, love, love.
Things of note:
--Sari-sari stores. These are basically Filipino bodegas. “Sari-sari” means “variety-variety.” You can buy everything there: teeny packages of laundry detergent powder, little plastic baggies of toyo (soy sauce), packets of Dove whitening cream and shampoo, little baggies of fresh caught and chopped fish, and shelves and shelves crammed with tiny packets of everything. Most household items, packaged food products, and personal care items are sold in the smallest increments possible with only a few “full-sized” containers (what we see in the US). At first, I found this a little odd. But, I figured it out my first week here. People are poor; they can’t afford to buy an entire bottle of toyo or shampoo, so they buy enough for a meal, for one shower, for a week, for whatever they can afford for that day. Another thing: I went into a sari-sari store to buy some toilet paper (which, you must bring everyone in the Philippines if you want to use any) and saw a fridge containing glass coke bottles—the small, old school kind. I love Coke in glass bottles. I was so excited. And I was hoping there was Tagalog on the bottle so I could save it as a keepsake. I brought my toilet paper and bottle of Coke to the counter. The man behind the counter put my TP (one roll of course) into a plastic bag and then poured the entire contents of my Coke bottle into a smaller clear plastic sack.
I found out when I got back to the house and relayed my story that all sari-sari stores do that; the glass bottles are expensive and given back to the company (in this case Coke) to be recycled and sent back with filled with Coke.
While the details of a seemingly rundown Filipino bodega may seem mundane, I thought about what all of this meant. I thought about all I’ve been learning of Filipino History and it means for a people and a nation. Every history lecture, all of us reflect a Homeresque “D’oh!”—not at our own or anyone else’s stupidity—but at the seeming 29375865 times the Philippines and the Filipinos almost gained its independence or almost ousted an oppressive colonial and/or imperial power. There are so many stark ironies as well. Agoncillo, the first international affairs type of representative for the Philippines, sailed to the US and to Spain in an attempt to secure Filipino Independence. There was a crowd awaiting him when he arrived, but he disembarked completely unnoticed as those expecting to see him were waiting for a man in a loincloth. Agoncillo failed to garner any support abroad (really how could one lone man metaphorically clothed in loincloth defeat the McKinley’s White Male Burden and America’s burgeoning imperialism?) and sailed back to the Philippines on a ship called The Liberator, which consequently sank around the same time the US “fought and won” the Philippines from Spain.
D’oh!
See what I mean? There are so many moments like this.
Anyway, what does this have to do with the sari-sari store?
Filipinos, as seen through their history, culture, and what I have witnessed living here for the past 5 weeks, are intrepid, resilient, and resourceful. Filipinos, despite extreme poverty and lack of resources, will manage to feed visitors the best they have, will remain with smiles on their faces, will manage to laugh and joke. It sounds like I am “othering” or maybe generalizing to create this romantic idea, but no—Filipinos, I think, are much like Dolly Parton, y'know in Steel Magnolias—laughter through tears is their favorite emotion. We had an entire lecture (presented by my Tito Rofel) on theme of suffering and glory. In the Philippines, happiness hinges upon what is doled out by fate, natural disasters, famine, poverty, and oppressive governments--it comes in tiny increments, little packets; people take what they can get and make it work.
The whole time I’ve been here, I’ve had so many reflections like this; any cultural experience tells me something about my family and myself and this country. I don’t know if I am allowed to call it mine.
--Halaman (Plants)
Everywhere I look, I see plants that my parents had in my house during my childhood. I always assumed that they went to Home Depot or Lowe’s and picked out what they liked, or what was one sale. No. They picked out plants that reminded them of home.
The plants that my mother, father, and I planted in our backyard were all over Mt. Banahaw and are almost everywhere I look in Los Banos.
Every orchid, fern, non-flowering water lily, and bougainvillea I see makes me miss my father.
--Skin Whitening
…makes me so incredibly sad. I also saw a “nose elongating” contraption in the drugstore the other day.
--Koreano? O kalahati lang?
There are a lot of Koreans in the Philippines. They come to study English and live cheaply in the Philippines. They have much more money than the average Filipino. There a lot of Koreans in Los Banos. Many of the Filipino locals that I have spoken to reflect resentment and annoyance at this Korea presence due to obvious condescension and a feeling that “Koreans think that they’ve already bought us because they are here.”
People here, store clerks, dyip (jeepney) drivers, the man who cut my hair—think I am Korean. Or only half-Filipino. They are dubious when I tell them that my both my parents are indeed Filipino. I say, Taga-San Pablo ang tatay ko atsaka taga-Malolos ang nanay ko and then their eyebrows lift and the look a little happier to be speaking to me.
People don’t know what I am here as much as they don’t know in the States.
-------
There are many more things of notice, but as per usual: I’m beat. I have a massive exam on Monday, we’re preparing a big program for our teachers and our host families in Tadlak (a fishing community that we have been visiting since we’ve been in Laguna), and I am going to say good bye to my dad’s family here in Laguna because after Monday we begin our travel around the Philippines section of the trip. I don’t know how much more spotty my internet will be, but I will try.
To those of you I have been meaning to call: please be patient. I’m so busy and swamped and internet is so spotty.
love, love, love.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
1934046734 years later...
It's been so long because 1) I have been super busy because of classes and day trips 2) the internet has not been letting me log onto my blog and sometimes when it finally does I don't have time to write anymore 3) Harry Potter.
Hmmm. Where to even begin?
Tagalog class has become increasingly difficult. We have learned about 7 different verb groups this past week. I have my final exam next Monday and then on Tuesday we're leaving Los Banos (I think) to head back to Quezon City.
I will miss Los Banos. It's beautiful here; our "house" is in the foothills of Mt. Makiling and there are many trees. Also, because it's a 2 floor house with high ceilings you hear the rain before you see it. I love that. It's great for naps and introspection.
Really, I will miss the staff and the teachers the most. The Tagalog teachers are hilarious and they do all kinds of things to make class fun. I have played bingo in Tagalog (for the numbers), performed in several skits and gone to the palengke (market) to tawad (bargain) for fruit. Lots of other stuff too. Really, I am too tired to remember.
After we leave Los Banos we'll be done with Tagalog class and traveling to new places every couple of days around the country. I'm excited about that. Ahhhhh. And my computer is stalling so....
I'll try to write more interesting things asap.
Hmmm. Where to even begin?
Tagalog class has become increasingly difficult. We have learned about 7 different verb groups this past week. I have my final exam next Monday and then on Tuesday we're leaving Los Banos (I think) to head back to Quezon City.
I will miss Los Banos. It's beautiful here; our "house" is in the foothills of Mt. Makiling and there are many trees. Also, because it's a 2 floor house with high ceilings you hear the rain before you see it. I love that. It's great for naps and introspection.
Really, I will miss the staff and the teachers the most. The Tagalog teachers are hilarious and they do all kinds of things to make class fun. I have played bingo in Tagalog (for the numbers), performed in several skits and gone to the palengke (market) to tawad (bargain) for fruit. Lots of other stuff too. Really, I am too tired to remember.
After we leave Los Banos we'll be done with Tagalog class and traveling to new places every couple of days around the country. I'm excited about that. Ahhhhh. And my computer is stalling so....
I'll try to write more interesting things asap.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
More from the mountain...and crap I haven't studied in 3 years
Other stuff from the Mt. Banahaw trip that I didn't have time to mention in the last post:
--one particular kuwheba (cave) that is called the "birth canal" because, well, I think you can figure it out. It was very small. I had to wiggle on my back and then crawl on my forearms like a Marine. Good times. That one was fun and not so traumatic. The guides were pretty funny about it; every time someone would come out of the cave they'd yell, in Tagalog, "It's a boy/girls/twins/caesarean (if you were having a rough time getting out)" etc.
--The last place we went was a beautiful waterfall swimming hole. Around the time of the first cave we went to that day there were 4 little boys that started following us around. They were about 10 to 13 years old and they just hopped and jumped on these intense rocks and along the river like it was their front lawn. Well, it really IS their front lawn. Anyway. They were cute. We gave them snacks and they swam with us at our last stop. I have pictures. They were doing some crazy cliff jumping. I kept thinking,"Oh god! Please don't get hurt. The closest hospital is probably in Manila..."
There's more but I'm tired. I am also procrastinating right now. I have my midterm Tagalog exam tomorrow. I have made about 3957845720975 flash cards. I know a lot of vocab (I am in the "advanced class [brushing shoulders]" but there is still so much vocab AND I have to memorize the Philippine National Anthem. I haven't really studied for anything in about 3 years...I am having a bit of trouble with motivation and with even going about trying to go through such an enormous amount of material. There are two people here who have taken a semester of college Tagalog and they said that in the first 3 weeks we've done what they did in a whole semester. It's pretty intense.
I really love the language. It's beautiful. It's so incredibly specific. It's mellifluous.
I should go study it now. The internet is super mega ultra slow so I can't promise any pictures soon. But I will try. And probably use that as an excuse for procrastinating.
--one particular kuwheba (cave) that is called the "birth canal" because, well, I think you can figure it out. It was very small. I had to wiggle on my back and then crawl on my forearms like a Marine. Good times. That one was fun and not so traumatic. The guides were pretty funny about it; every time someone would come out of the cave they'd yell, in Tagalog, "It's a boy/girls/twins/caesarean (if you were having a rough time getting out)" etc.
--The last place we went was a beautiful waterfall swimming hole. Around the time of the first cave we went to that day there were 4 little boys that started following us around. They were about 10 to 13 years old and they just hopped and jumped on these intense rocks and along the river like it was their front lawn. Well, it really IS their front lawn. Anyway. They were cute. We gave them snacks and they swam with us at our last stop. I have pictures. They were doing some crazy cliff jumping. I kept thinking,"Oh god! Please don't get hurt. The closest hospital is probably in Manila..."
There's more but I'm tired. I am also procrastinating right now. I have my midterm Tagalog exam tomorrow. I have made about 3957845720975 flash cards. I know a lot of vocab (I am in the "advanced class [brushing shoulders]" but there is still so much vocab AND I have to memorize the Philippine National Anthem. I haven't really studied for anything in about 3 years...I am having a bit of trouble with motivation and with even going about trying to go through such an enormous amount of material. There are two people here who have taken a semester of college Tagalog and they said that in the first 3 weeks we've done what they did in a whole semester. It's pretty intense.
I really love the language. It's beautiful. It's so incredibly specific. It's mellifluous.
I should go study it now. The internet is super mega ultra slow so I can't promise any pictures soon. But I will try. And probably use that as an excuse for procrastinating.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Excerpt from email to Clay
Ok. So, I am cheating, but I don't have time to rewrite this and I am exhausted and I did a good job summarizing some of my weekend for Clay-->
---------
So. This weekend was amazing. I am so out of shape but it was such a great experience. I have been spelunking before, in TN and in New Zealand, but this shit was CRAZY. First, Mt. Banahaw is a "power mountain" --it is considered holy and it's where the Katipunan (wiki it, too long to explain, but basically the most famous and well known Filipino resistance to the Spanish) hid out from the Spanish and performed rituals to cleanse themselves before battle (in the caves where I spelunked! CRAZY!). There are some 100 or so churches and religious compounds on and around the foothills of the moutain and on the trails and in the caves there are all of these religious shrines. Dude. It was freaking crazy. It was like holy spelunking. Seriously. Y'know I am not spiritual and that I am a skeptic but I really felt something good and something significant that was greater than myself on this trip.
Ok, some of the crazy ish:
--I climbed through a cave that was probably the hardest spelunking I've ever done in my life and I did some pretty narrow shit in NZ. It had like 2 turns in it and several points I was stuck. I was just fucking stuck. And I was utterly alone since the first person that was ahead of me had already made it past the point where I was and the person behind me hadn't caught up to me yet. I wanted to cry. I kind of whimpered a little. Seriously. I panicked and forced my way through (which is now why I have so so so so so many bruises good god I have a lot) and when I was nearing the last 8 to 10 feet of the cave (or I should really say, sharped jagged TUNNEL), I heard singing. I heard people singing hymns in Tagalog. I thought I was going crazy or that I had hit my head. No. No, I climbed through into a small outdoor chapel. Seriously. The singing, the fact that I was finally out, the hard time I had had, the exhaustion from the whole day (this was almost are last thing before climbing up the rest of the mountain, of which we reached the top 30 minutes before sunset and then had to hike our way home in the dark--also CRAZY), being where I was, thinking about this tangible experience could be a metaphor for my life somehow...all of that made me CRY. I was sobbing. I felt so humbled by the whole thing.
--There was one cave where you climb in (also TINY--all of the climbing we did was CRAZY tiny and dark and we were only allowed to bring in candles since they're holy places) and then there's this little ledge and over it is a thin (widthwise) but DEEP pool of water with a giant cave wall behind it. You light a candle, climb down into the pool (SCARY) and dunk yourself under for cleansing. Then, after we got out of the cave it was raining MONSOON raining and I looked over the side of this mountain, stood and lifted my face to the rain and felt so unbelievably lucky to be in the moment of my life right then.
--So, the story with the mountain is: if you don't come with an open mind the mountain will be unkind to you; or if you are a sinful person, the mountain with purge you of your sin. I was so bruised and broken the first day. So I was the like, WTF mountain? I was super-excited and so the mountain couldn't have been unkind to me; so I figure now I am purged of all my sin. I'm just hedging my bets.
--Oh AND, all of the caving? BAREFOOT. Because they're holy places. My feet, legs, elbows are so cut up.
Ok. So much more happened, but the main gist of it: AMAZING nature, I am super lucky, I love life, ow that really hurt, wow I'm glad I am here.
-----------
More and (maybe!) pictures later.
Don't worry. I haven't turned New Age nor am I going to live in the foothills. I just had a good weekend.
---------
So. This weekend was amazing. I am so out of shape but it was such a great experience. I have been spelunking before, in TN and in New Zealand, but this shit was CRAZY. First, Mt. Banahaw is a "power mountain" --it is considered holy and it's where the Katipunan (wiki it, too long to explain, but basically the most famous and well known Filipino resistance to the Spanish) hid out from the Spanish and performed rituals to cleanse themselves before battle (in the caves where I spelunked! CRAZY!). There are some 100 or so churches and religious compounds on and around the foothills of the moutain and on the trails and in the caves there are all of these religious shrines. Dude. It was freaking crazy. It was like holy spelunking. Seriously. Y'know I am not spiritual and that I am a skeptic but I really felt something good and something significant that was greater than myself on this trip.
Ok, some of the crazy ish:
--I climbed through a cave that was probably the hardest spelunking I've ever done in my life and I did some pretty narrow shit in NZ. It had like 2 turns in it and several points I was stuck. I was just fucking stuck. And I was utterly alone since the first person that was ahead of me had already made it past the point where I was and the person behind me hadn't caught up to me yet. I wanted to cry. I kind of whimpered a little. Seriously. I panicked and forced my way through (which is now why I have so so so so so many bruises good god I have a lot) and when I was nearing the last 8 to 10 feet of the cave (or I should really say, sharped jagged TUNNEL), I heard singing. I heard people singing hymns in Tagalog. I thought I was going crazy or that I had hit my head. No. No, I climbed through into a small outdoor chapel. Seriously. The singing, the fact that I was finally out, the hard time I had had, the exhaustion from the whole day (this was almost are last thing before climbing up the rest of the mountain, of which we reached the top 30 minutes before sunset and then had to hike our way home in the dark--also CRAZY), being where I was, thinking about this tangible experience could be a metaphor for my life somehow...all of that made me CRY. I was sobbing. I felt so humbled by the whole thing.
--There was one cave where you climb in (also TINY--all of the climbing we did was CRAZY tiny and dark and we were only allowed to bring in candles since they're holy places) and then there's this little ledge and over it is a thin (widthwise) but DEEP pool of water with a giant cave wall behind it. You light a candle, climb down into the pool (SCARY) and dunk yourself under for cleansing. Then, after we got out of the cave it was raining MONSOON raining and I looked over the side of this mountain, stood and lifted my face to the rain and felt so unbelievably lucky to be in the moment of my life right then.
--So, the story with the mountain is: if you don't come with an open mind the mountain will be unkind to you; or if you are a sinful person, the mountain with purge you of your sin. I was so bruised and broken the first day. So I was the like, WTF mountain? I was super-excited and so the mountain couldn't have been unkind to me; so I figure now I am purged of all my sin. I'm just hedging my bets.
--Oh AND, all of the caving? BAREFOOT. Because they're holy places. My feet, legs, elbows are so cut up.
Ok. So much more happened, but the main gist of it: AMAZING nature, I am super lucky, I love life, ow that really hurt, wow I'm glad I am here.
-----------
More and (maybe!) pictures later.
Don't worry. I haven't turned New Age nor am I going to live in the foothills. I just had a good weekend.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Imelda "I'm Evil" Marcos
(I tried posting this a couple of days ago, but the internet was being mean)
July 4, 2007
I met Imelda. The internet is being incredibly slow right now, so I can't really put up the picture or video (it's CRAZY), but I will try later. If you want to see one of the pictures, check out my facebook profile. If you don't have facebook, you'll just have to wait.
It was pretty surreal. The first week I was here, I bought a documentary made by a Filipina-American entitled Imelda. Her speech at this concert (she's the one who founded the Philippine High School of the Arts) was verbatim some of the things she said in the interviews in the doc. She had some new gems, however; here are some of my favs:
"I am allergic to pangit" -- "pangit" means "ugly"
"You can't be 32% beautiful..."
"If you have 1,000 bullets in a gun, then you have only 999 bullets. Marcos never killed anyone. He never used his power; he just made his power felt." (or something like that, but for her to say that Marcos never killed or had anyone killed is just FUCKING CRAZY).
"Marcos was the father of the Philippines. He was going to rule with the firm hand of a father over a house. I asked Marcos, what, my role, as First Lady would be. He told me, 'Imelda, you will make it a home.'" UGH.
She went on for a while about truth, beauty and love. I would just say she was delusional and insane but then that would excuse her in some way from all of the horrible things she has done in her life.
She's known for having a huge shoe collection, but she was really part of an evil partnership that ruined an entire country. AND there are still tons of people who love her. It's complicated.
Anyway. I am glad I got to meet her. I didn't clap or stand up after her speech. I was in the 2nd row. BUT. I did ask to be in picture with her. I wanted to prove she was real.
July 4, 2007
I met Imelda. The internet is being incredibly slow right now, so I can't really put up the picture or video (it's CRAZY), but I will try later. If you want to see one of the pictures, check out my facebook profile. If you don't have facebook, you'll just have to wait.
It was pretty surreal. The first week I was here, I bought a documentary made by a Filipina-American entitled Imelda. Her speech at this concert (she's the one who founded the Philippine High School of the Arts) was verbatim some of the things she said in the interviews in the doc. She had some new gems, however; here are some of my favs:
"I am allergic to pangit" -- "pangit" means "ugly"
"You can't be 32% beautiful..."
"If you have 1,000 bullets in a gun, then you have only 999 bullets. Marcos never killed anyone. He never used his power; he just made his power felt." (or something like that, but for her to say that Marcos never killed or had anyone killed is just FUCKING CRAZY).
"Marcos was the father of the Philippines. He was going to rule with the firm hand of a father over a house. I asked Marcos, what, my role, as First Lady would be. He told me, 'Imelda, you will make it a home.'" UGH.
She went on for a while about truth, beauty and love. I would just say she was delusional and insane but then that would excuse her in some way from all of the horrible things she has done in her life.
She's known for having a huge shoe collection, but she was really part of an evil partnership that ruined an entire country. AND there are still tons of people who love her. It's complicated.
Anyway. I am glad I got to meet her. I didn't clap or stand up after her speech. I was in the 2nd row. BUT. I did ask to be in picture with her. I wanted to prove she was real.
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