Wednesday morning was our school program, and it went well! My class was so good, stepping up to the microphone holding their posters that were almost as big as they are, and for the most part as far as I could tell, reciting their parts perfectly. I can take no credit for that, because their parts were in Tagalog and Jhing was the one that prepared them so well!
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| School program |
Thursday was a busy day. I taught all of my subjects, which includes the Bible curriculum, English and Math. I think it went pretty well. I only hope that were able to understand me well enough! I went from there to the Barn, ate lunch, and soon after that took my laundry to the laundromat. I helped Olivia at a feeding site and so I made the copies for the coloring sheets and got the candy to give out for the dessert treat because she wasn't feeling very well. We later headed to the feeding site and had a good time with the kids! Straight from there, we went to our "foreigner" Bible study. We all get together every Thursday. It's fun to have fellowship with everyone! I often see the "singles" throughout the week, but it's nice to be able to spend time with the families as well and have the mom/dad types to talk to :)
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| Feeding site |
At Bible study, I found out that Friday was sporadically decided to be a national holiday, which isn't too uncommon here. No school! So on Friday, Elizabeth, Olivia, and I set out to Punta Bunga Beach. As we were seeing people that morning before we left, Elizabeth would tell them we were going on an adventure. We didn't know exactly how to get there or what it would be like, but we had heard it was nice. It's a private beach in front of a resort, so only the people in the resort go to it. You can also spend time on the beach if you eat lunch there, which is what we did. So, we headed on our adventure in a van owned by First Love (the organization Dan and Tori are affiliated with). Elizabeth had gotten permission from Dan to drive us there, so we found Isidro to ask for the keys. In his broken English, we weren't entirely sure why he seemed reluctant to give them to us. I think he was saying policemen would be suspicious of white women driving on the island. We went back and forth a while and finally got the keys. Elizabeth told him we would be careful, so we finally left and found our destination fairly easily.
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| Punta Bunga with Olivia (middle) and Elizabeth (right) |
It literally looked like no one was at the resort, so we felt like we were treated like princesses. The waiters were there completely for us, the beach was there just for us. It was great! We planned to leave at about 2:30 so Olivia could make it to her feeding site. When we headed up to the van and started pulling out, a Filipino man waved us down and pointed out a completely flat tire. Filipinos are so hospitable and every one of them anywhere nearby rushed to the scene to take it off. It had a big gash in it. We called Isidro and Aileen (husband and wife that work at the Jungle Barn, grounds-keeping and chef for when teams are here) and they came to get the tire. Olivia set off to find a trike so she could get to her feeding site. Isidro and Aileen left on their motorbike to find a new tire...and apparently had to search the whole island. Aileen said she was about ready to go to a different island to look for one!
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| Working on the tire. You can see how flat it is! |
While they were gone, Elizabeth and I sat by the resort's pool. I read for a while. Then I fell asleep for a while. Then I swam for a little while. Then I read again. It sure was a nice place to be stuck, but there did come a point when we were just ready to go! Aileen finally called us around 5:30 saying they had put on the new tire and we could go, so we headed up to the van, thanked everyone, and took off! It was still a really great day.
Later that night as I was finally back at the Barn and on facebook, a church friend from home messaged me and asked if I was okay because she had heard about the earthquake and tsunami. Huh??? Apparently there was an earthquake somewhere in the Philippines and a tsunami warning as well, but I later found out the earthquake was offshore (although I think one death was reported) and the tsunami warning was quickly taken away, plus I think it was in a different part of the Philippines. It's so funny to me, though, how I find out about things happening here from people at home. When flying here, I heard about flooding in Manila from my friend the day I was supposed to leave. Manila was my initial landing within the Philippines, and I hadn't heard anything about that. Now this happened, and I heard about it from someone at home! Thanks for looking out for me, everyone! I obviously need it! :)
After a sound tsunami-less sleep, I woke up and felt like my cheek was a little...heavy. I thought maybe I had drool sitting there in my cheek (ew) but could soon tell that it was swollen. I'm not a morning person, so instead of hopping out of bed to check it out, I laid there for a couple minutes imagining what it would look like and wondering why it was swollen. I finally got up and, yep, there it was! And not only my cheek, but my forehead a little bit, too. I got ready and went next door to the girls' house to see what they thought. Elizabeth gave me an ice pack and they said the same thing had happened to another girl that was here previously and it went down after about three days. Maybe it's a spider bite or something, but it's a mystery! It doesn't hurt, and now that the day has passed I hardly notice it because I think it's gotten a little better. My sister's friend who is an RN must have seen the picture I posted on facebook and gave my her hypothesis (parotitis), but none of the symptoms matched other than the swelling. It's a mystery!
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| A swollen cheek! |
I continued about my day and ran some errands before my little weekly volleyball clinic/game time I informally run. I had fun with that, then ate out and ended my night with a four-way skype call with some friends!
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| At the end of the volleyball clinic (and after a few kids had left). Sic 'em from the Philippines! |
A flat tire, tsunami warning, and swollen cheek meets the protocol for adventure, in my book. I guess I got what I asked for!
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