I wish people could see Boracay for themselves! It’s hard to put everything into words or even pictures. There are times when I’m slightly (very slightly) tempted to take pictures of the little children on the beach road begging for money at night, and those same children and their mothers sleeping during the day on the sand, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t think I would like to have my picture taken in that situation. Or sometimes I even just want to take pictures of the vendors lined up on the side of the road with their jewelry displayed on tables, but again, that just seems awkward to me. Funny thing is, they’re probably used to it. I see tourists snapping pictures of anything and everything all the time, but I don’t want to intrude on people’s personal lives. I actually don’t even care to have those pictures for my own sake, but only want them so I could share what it is like here!
Even at feeding sites, if you’ve seen those pictures, I try to snap a
quick candid shot when no one is looking.
Maybe later on once I get to know the kids better I can have them look
at the camera or be in the picture myself, but at this point I’m still pretty
much a stranger to them since I’ve only seen them once or twice.
Okay, so that’s two facts. There
are vendors lined up alongside the road.
And there are children holding out their sweet little hands asking for
money on the road.
Now for the actual FUN facts!
When I say “beach road,” that’s the road that is right off the beach
and is lined with restaurants and vendors.
When I say “main road,” That’s
the road that runs down the middle of the length of the island. Remember, this island is small. Six miles long and about a mile wide.
It’s impossible to walk the beach road without hearing:
-
“Sailing, ma’am?
Scuba diving?”
-
“Massage, ma’am?”
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“Hats, ma’am?
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“Sunglasses, ma’am?”
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…or people who work at restaurants trying to get
you to come in.
-
…or people trying to sell DVD’s (I hear the DVDs
never work) or pearls (which are fake)
-
And my favorite, as people look at me and forget
to advertise whatever they’re selling: “Basketball? Volleyball?” (asking me if/what I play), or
“Russian?” I’ve gotten that a few
times. I guess I look Russian.
-
Another favorite: Many people advertising
massages are advertising to passer-bys as a whole, and say, “Massage ma’am
sir?” It comes out sounding like
“mamser.” I hope to never personally be
called a ma’am-sir!
-
Also, I put a question mark after all of these,
but in reality it’s more of a statement that they’re making.
There are
tons of stray dogs and cats. TONS. And let me put it this way: the female dogs
look like they’ve given birth to lots and lots of hungry puppies in their
lifetime. So if anyone wants to save a
stray dog and give me money to transport it home, I could easily find one! Ha…but really, it’s pretty sad. Some dogs and cats are well taken care of
pets, though.
Pesos is the
form of currency here; about 41 pesos is a dollar. Restaurants are relatively cheap, but the
portions are usually small, so for this hungry girl, I probably end up spending
more than any Filipino would. I probably
spend about $6 or $7 eating out. Still
not too bad.
Tagalog is
the national language, but most people also speak English. I’m really ashamed to say that I still know
basically no Tagalog.
At school,
parents bring their children hot lunches for lunch time. They don’t have cafeterias at all here as far
as I know, so you would think they could bring a PB&J or something,
right? Nope! That’s just not the way things are. I think Agape’s previous Canadian missionary
principal tried to change it last year so that the kids would bring their own
lunch, but the parents were appalled at this.
So, hot rice and chicken (or whatever) it is!
I’m not sure
if I’ve said this in a previous blog, but everyone rides trikes or motorbikes
for transportation. They don’t really
run on the beach road, but you can definitely catch one on the main road and
sometimes on a side road. A trike is a
motorbike with a metal seating thing attached to the side of it, with a little
front seat that can sit two people, and two little benches facing each other in
the back that can fit, oh, maybe two Americans or four Filipinos :) You can also sit on the back of the
bike. For a normal trip up the road, it
costs 10 pesos (25 cents) during the daytime or 15 pesos at night. If you are going far, it will be more
expensive. To ride a motorbike (which is
quicker because there are no stops and it’s easier to pass the slower trikes),
it’s about 20 pesos (50 cents). And
walking is free! I usually try to walk
unless I’m carrying groceries, am going really far, or am with a group that
doesn’t want to walk. You rarely see
vehicles, but when you do it’s probably a van that belongs to some school or
business, transporting people by the van-load.
Drivers have
the right-of-way, so stay out of the way!
That can be kind of difficult to do seeing as there are places with no
sidewalks at times.
Most
restaurants and stores here don’t have air conditioning. The school I teach at also doesn’t have
AC. We have a couple of fans in the classroom
and I don’t feel bad about standing right in front of it whenever I can, even
if it means stealing it from the kids.
Oops.
I don’t know
if they’re all from a specific country where it’s fashionable, but a lot of
white tourists wear Speedos. It’s pretty
normal to see people in their bathing suits in restaurants. Today, I saw quite a heavy-set man sitting at
a bar in a Speedo. Yikes.
Some stores
here are so jam packed that you have to squeeze through isles and step over
things.
I’m in my
room typing, and it sounded like an animal just went running across the other
side of the ceiling in the attic type deal.
I’m going to tell myself that someone just did something noisy in the
room next to mine. On that note, I think
I’ll keep this blog a work in progress and add to it as I think of things. If anyone read this, I hope you have gotten
to know Boracay a little better!
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