rallies and islands and housemates, oh my!

It occurs to me that my promise last blog to not leave you so long was false and this time I have left you even longer. There is no excuse for my behaviour. aside from ofcourse living. But, having said that it does not take back the wrong doing of going back on a promise. I am ashamed of my behaviour and I will sit in the corner and think about what I have done. my head will hang with shame and i will have to live out my punishment in silence.
....or i could just say, suck it up people, i will write you one now, and you will love it, because i said so. yep, that's right. I think we shall go with option 'B'. So suck on that. :)


Now, to the stories, quit pouting and enjoy :)

So after my last blog post the week obviously consisted of going to class and doing all the assignments that were necessary for the classes. go figure. I bet you would never have figured that out on your own if it wasnt for me as your informit. You're welcome.

My teacher came in to tell us that we needed to do some story telling for one of our classes and when I asked her where I would find these stories, she promptly told me that they were on the class's yahoo group. THE CLASS HAS A YAHOO GROUP?? yep, apparently it's been going all semester and that is where al the vital information is kept for students to find out. I am pretty sure they gathered around in a pow wow type format and said "wouldn't it be funny if we didn't invite the whitey into the group and watch her get confused as to why she can't figure shit out. Pretty sure that is how it went down. Or possibly nothing like that at all. Actually it probably was just a lack in communication, however if i told it to you that way you wouldn't pay attention. So it turns out I have learnt the big lessons in life from Steph. Always embelish :).

So anyhoo, part of the week was spent trying to be invited to this yahoo group which the teacher kept forgetting to do which meant i couldn't do m assignments. Such. A. Shame. NOT!

Having dropped one of my classes (hells yeah!!) I found I have quite a bit more time on my hand so I began cleaning and mopping the house whilst listening to spanish tapes, and pretending that I was a naturally fluent spanish speaker. I may have also listened to music and had a dance with the mop. I guess we will never get to the bottom of that one.
So after scrubbing the floors down nice and shinily, I walked bare feet across the ground and by the end of the day the bottoms of my feet were black from dirt. Turned out clean floors do not last in a city with so much air pollution. Doh.

Saturday rocked around and Tania and I went to another Salinlahi volunteer day. Today they had a group of kids that had been practising a performance/play about the eneds of kids and the inflation of the cost of groceries and how this affects them. This was to go hand in hand with a petition needing to be signed to let the government know that people weren't ok with the high prices.

So we arrived at the salinlahi office and watched the kids practising their performance. They would cheekily look over and both Tania and I and shout "Black beauty, White beauty" which ofcourse led tania to whisper in her best ghetto voice "Why can't it just be beauty, why do they have to bring colour into it??" For all of you who know Tania, it's always about the colour ;)

The day was pretty amazing, we jumped into the Jeepney with the kids and drove for about an hour or so to gt into the heart of the city markets. We would set up at random venues out front of the stalls where the kids would put on their performance as the other workers would try to get vendors and customers to sign the petition. The kids did amazing performances. Tan and I felt a little useless for most of the day as for legal reasons we were not allowed to be involved with holding the pamphlets or getting people to sign forms (due to international affairs and such) and therefore were the designated prop holders for the performances for the kids, and got to spend the better part of the day just mucking around with them, and keeping an eye on them while the workers searched for people to sign the petitions.

We took the kids back to the jeepney and while waiting for the other workers, we began a jam session with them. It's amazing how talented every Filipino I have met is when it comes to musicality. I am pretty sure its some kind of genetic thing. If you are Filipino, you rock at music. Now excuse me while I go meet my contact at the black market, perhaps he can arranged this gene for me.

So after our long day in the sun (and boy oh boy was it hot) we set off in the evening to head to B-side, which is a warehouse club to meet up with some friends. Cathy had made a friend who is an amazing artist and had alot of his work there, so we listened to the music and chilled a bit.

We then headed out to 'The Fort' to experience possibly one of the best nights I have had here in Manila. We went to a venue surrounded by talented artists and performerr. There was fire poi, and hoolah hoops and juggling and amazingly talented musicians and tap dancers and there was fire and lights everywhere. Did i mention that there was also free booze?
We chilled and watched the performers (one amazing fire poi/eater from Argentina was there too.....:D ) and took in the entire evening. I am pretty sure I fell in love with the entire scene. Words can't describe how good it was.
I may have also gotten into a conversation with a Filipino guy about how I was utterly sure he was aprt of the mafia, and nothing he said or did could prove me otherwise. Pretty sure he is in the mafia....just saying...possibly the head of it...I think that is my decision :P Also pretty sure he was thinking ' who the heck is this crazy white chick telling me that I am in the mafia??? since when did i join the mafia???'

So sunday night rocked around and with not alot to do I decided to check out the church with Tania, as it is such a part of the Filipino culture, and it would be silly of me to not explore as much as I can about the culture before I leave here. So i did. It was interesting, but establishes exactly for me that church and the christian faith doesn't reside within me personally. But a Filipino experience none the less.

Tan and I headed out to the movies after that, however while we were getting dinner a friend of ours rang to ask us if we were ok. Turns out from her apartment she can see our subdivision and informed us of about 6 different fire trucks parked outside and smoke everywhere. We scurried home to find that it was a commune nearby our house that had experienced a gas tank explosion. There were so many families all huddled out on the streets, it was insane, but thankfully no one was hurt.

Monday night we went as a housemate group to see the movie 'This means War', which by the way was FREAKING HILARIOUS!!! we couldn't stop laughing and it was good to hang out all together as it had been a while.

Wednesday night Tania and I invited our German friends over for dinner and we cooked delicious fajitas. om nom nom nom. We had such an amazing night hanging out together and I decided that I would detour in Europe to stop over in Germany to all hang out. So exciting. Once they left we had the arrival of our new housemate, Alex, who is one of Tania's friends from Australia coming to volunteer around south east asia.

We all joined in on the community organising class on the Thursday (Alex included) and had to act out role plays of how we would intervene and join in communities to create positive changes. My group hadn't had a chance to rehearse ours so we just winged it, only problem was that they did it all in tagalog, and would then look to me for input into the conversation. I think I gave the best smiling and nodding anyone has ever seen. I don't think i portrayed a person in poverty at all, and on occasion someone would whisper tagalog words in my ear which i would pipe up and say. Pretty sure I can now say 'planting is no joke'. That's right, you heard me, I am a master of languages!!
That night we went out for mexican with Cath, me, Tan, Christine, Alex and one of Cath's friends from Aus. It was just a good relax night of chillin, eating and jamming when we returned home. I went to bed pretty late and woke up earlier the next day to find that Tania and Alex had spent the entire night talking and catching up on things back home that neither of them had slept a wink. Pretty sure they made a bit of a fort out of couches also.

So sleep deprived Tania, Alex and wide awake me, headed off into Makati with Cath to visit our previous housemate Erin after her trip in Palawan. We got to meet some of ehr friends (which we had heard so many stories about) however didn't get to stay long as we had to head off to the airport to stay in Boracay for the weekend (woo woo!!!)

So we arrived at the airport and as we were waiting in the departures area Tania turns to Alex and I to ask what seat number we were sitting in. She happily exclaims that she is in row 25. Alex answers saying that he is in row 17, and catching on quickly I do the same. Poor Tan was so confused as to why she was sitting by herself. She makes a few remarks about racism (as she does) and she makes her way to enter from the back of the plane as we board from the front. We got on the plane before Tania and quickly scurried to row 25 and hid down low in our seats. Tania was excited about making new friends and was curious as to who she was going to be sitting next to. She saw two whiteys and it took her a few seconds to realise the joke we had played on her, and that we were in fact all sitting together and the airline wasn't racist at all. Pretty sure we found it HILARIOUSLY funny.

We arrived into Kalibo airport and jumped on a van to drive us to Caticlan. The van had it's tinted windows with cut outs of batmans symbol which provided much amusement, and we drove for a good hour and a half before arriving to the port. We were told that the price we paid would cover all of our boat fares, however, as always happens in the Philippines, additional costs end up sneaking their way in.

After our short boat trip then trike trip we arrived on Boracay beach.
We hadn't exactly made any plans about where we were going to stay once we arrived on boracay, but we thought we would wander around and find a hostel or resort. Unfortunately we arrived at 10:30 when all the resorts admin areas closed at 10pm, so we decided the best option was to lay out sarongs on the sand, cuddle our backpacks and sleep on the sand and drift to sleep listening to the live acoustic bands that line the beach front of Boracay.

We were meeting friends on Boracay beach and they managed to find us lying on the beach at about 12pm, and assured us that we could not sleep on the beach and that they would re-arrange their cabins so that we could stay with them for the night. Nawww, aren't they lovely. So after chatting on the sand for a while we headed back to their resort and stayed in their cabins.

The next morning we woke up and all went to get breakfast together. mmm eggs on toast.

The group split up for the day and I went with Alex and Micky (a new German friend of ours) to suss out some snorkelling while Tania, Mara, Hanna, Thomas and Mike headed to do some relaxing on the beach.

Alex, Micky and I headed to the back beaches where we were told that you could do some cheap and good snorkelling, however when we got there the water was exceptionally choppy and the shore line was overtaken by kite surfers and snorkelling didn't appear to be an option today. So instead we went for a walk along the sand watching the kite surfers (thought about joining in until we heard the price!) and just got to know each other better.
We stopped off for lunch at a small cafe and headed back to the main beach for a swim.
The water on Boracay is almost clear and has a beautiful light blue glow to it during the day, it is truly amazing, and the water wasn't cold in the slightest, infact it was perfect for swimming.

We then wandered up the beach to find the others sitting in a small hut having a few drinks, we joined them for some food and drinks and good conversation (or atleast i deem it fabulous conversation when harry potter comes up!) and the tv under the bar was playing the final harry potter movie. Where do i look??? at harry or at the sunset??? ohhhh the choices and hard decisions in life!! hehe.

The sunset won out and there was a beautiful golden glow that covered the beach for a few short minutes. We had a few more drinks to cover the tab and then headed back to the main beach to chill.

Tania, Alex and I headed up the beach further and stopped outside a bar that had a fire poi show on. It was incredible how talented people are, and the show even turned into a syncronised dance. Alex got a lovely personal show from his 'fire-poi-fairy-boy' who gave him an extra special wink.

We ended up sitting outside of Boom-Boom bar (brilliant acoustic musicians on the foreshore) having a few rum and cokes. I headed with Thomas and Mike to check out a few of the dance bars. We had a few drinks and giggled at each other and other patrons, watching them try to exude sexuality to land themselves a foreigner. I tried to explain the pout face to Thomas which ended in hilarious conversations and the night also resulted in him having a shimmy and asking randoms about their thoughts on lady boys. as you do.

So after Mike went home, Thomas and I headed back to the resort as well, we went into our room to see if Tania and Alex were still awake which they were. We continued to try and teach Thomas about the pouty face calling it the 'come hither' face. With translation difficulties our lovely Austrian Thomas turns to look at us and says "what? come hitler? who is hitler?" which ofcourse through giggles you had Tania trying to say, 'no Thomas, you can't say that!'

Anyhoo, after much giggling we went to bed. The next day we all decided that we would attempt snorkelling a second time except this time hire a boat to take us to the good snorkelling spots. We went out on the boat and the first place we found was far to choppy to get off the boat to snorkel, so we headed for a new destination.
This time we jumped off the boat and swam around with the fishies :)
The fish and coral wasn't as impressive as I had seen it in Puerto Galera or other places, but it was still of course lots of fun and beautiful.

We headed then to a secluded beach where we found kids jumping off the side of a rock/cliff. So naturally, we wanted to join in on that too. We docked the boat on the shore and went and started talking to the kids. They were wonderful and lead us up to the cliff where we proceeded to take turns in jumping off. The kids would yell words of encouragement, as would we for them and each other, and just having so much fun.

We headed out onto the beach and Tania had started up a game with the kids of them running around on the sand. They loved it so much and it was so much fun to watch them go.




Unfortunately then we had to leave and go to our final snorkelling destination. Which was deeper than the first, and I thought much more pretty. In general I love to be in the water. I can't wait to do some scuba diving around some of the reefs on Palawan (and ship wrecks!!)

We headed back for the night and said goodbye to our lovely German, Austrian and token Filipino friends as the made their way to their long bus home (their ferry got cancelled at the last minute) and proceeded to spend the rest of the evening lying on the sand and stargazing listening to the acoustic music once again.
We also decided it would be a great opportunity to go get a massage, so we headed in to a massage parlour.
The massages were amazing, as we were made into human pretzels. Pretty sure that is the first time someone has managed to crack my back. The girls in there were very lovely and we had a good old chat to them about their studies (one was earning money to complete her studies in criminology!) and during the massage they proceeded to take an interest in alex. I also got questioned as to whether he was my boyfriend. I think when they see two white people within the same vicinity, they assume that they must be together. They didn't even ask Tania (RACIST!). It was pretty amusing.

The next day we rose early to say our goodbyes to Boracay and make our way back to the airport, and then back home. All pretty exhausted we predominantly bummed for the rest of the day.

And that brings us to yesterday, Tuesday. I headed to my classes in the morning as per usual and of course my teacher didn't show up again (she has missed 15 classes out of 30..) and went in the afternoon with Alex to get a phone at the shopping center and to get my computer fixed.
On the train ride home we took bumped into some other westerners who appeared to be lost, so we struck up conversation with them. I recognised the Canadian guy as someone who lived in our subdivision so we all made the journey home together, and thus made new friends with a Canadian guy, an Austrian guy (whose mission in the Philippines was to grow a wicked moustache) and an American girl. We exchanged numbers and will probably catch up with them this week.

THE END!

Now i must go scurry off to do some assignment work. sigh.

I hope that my tales are enough to keep you happy for the time being, next installment I will have information for you on working with children in conflict with the law, and also swimming with whale sharks ;)

Peace love and mung beans duuuuuuude

Love B xoxo

broken hearts and goodbyes

And with the deepest apologies of having neglected you for longer than I normally do.
In my defense I have been epic busy of late, not that it justifies ignoring you lovely people. How about I give you a giant gingerbread cookie, smile sweetly at you and bat my eyelashes and you forgive my abandonment?

Excellent, now that my exceptionally sincere apologies are out of the way, I can explain to you the stories that have kept me busy for the past 10 or so days.

So Thursday I had my class for Community Organising which was taken by who used to be the head of the Social Work department at the university. I had ALOT of frustrations with this class. The first of which was that it was taken in tagalog, and not english. However two students very nicely decided to translate for Tania and I. The only problem was I feel really awkward with them feeling like they need to translate, because it means they are trying to listen to his information and then transform it into another language, then catch up on what they missed him saying while they were busy translating for us. It's alot of work for a 3 hour class, but they are such wonderful people and I always really appreciate it when they do this for us.

So the general jist of the conversation was about how to adapt in new communities, to identify leaders and aid the community to become self sustainable. Which obviously to me this made a lot of sense. However the frustrating thing was the teachers approach to the topic. He began preaching about how we should become the community organisors that Jesus intended us to be, and to be exactly like Jesus, and then talked ALOT about the bible and the plans God has for us.
...Oh I am sorry, I thought this was a university class and not a church sermon, my bad, let me scoot on out of here feeling exceptionally uncomfortable that people are judging my hethen ways.
Church talk aside, there was alot in the rest of what he was saying that resonated with me. That information was about adaptation into a new community, which is ultimately what I have been doing for the past 4 months living here in the Philippines. It's incredibly interesting to hear someone break it down into steps and finding those parallels in your own existence.

Saturday I went with Tania and another girl from our classes to another volunteer day with the children's organisation that I have been with previously. This workshop was to teach children about their rights and of course incorporating the teachings into games and creativity.
We got in there and i spied one little girl staring at us with a cheeky smirk, immediately I knew that I liked her. We tried to converse with her (with the help of a translator) and she had this face full of attitude when our conversation fell flat after our skills of interpretive dance let us down. She was so freaking cute!
Her and her friends would ask me to participate in their group with them, and I would follow and work with them on the tasks. When they weren't paying attention to the speaker and instead staring at tania and I, I would employ charades to tell them to turn around and listen. about the 4th time of doing that, she giggled and repeated my charades moves back at me, haha, cheeky.

I had so much fun playing games with these kids, they were incredible. The next task for them was to write down on pieces of paper what they identified as problems for them. My friend from Uni read out what the kids wrote as indentified problems. Here is what a few of them said
* always hungry
* sleeping on the street
* no money to pay out debts
* no money to buy food
* can't afford to get to school
etc etc. It broke my heart completely. With all the hardship that these kids are going through I realised it didn't matter how resilient they were, because what was happening to these kids was not OK, no matter how resilient they are to still remain kids. What set me over the edge was when they used pictionary to draw what they had written down, and to see a picture portraying violence that they suffer made me want to sit in the corner and weep. I wanted to grab all the kids and hug them. What made me feel even worse was when one of the kids asked me if I was rich. The answer is no, I am a student, but the cold reality is that in comparison to them, I am rich. And in my life I have been incredibly fortunate and it really put a giant perspective on life for me.

Tania made friends with this little boy that would chat away constantly in tagalog and even though he never got a response because we never understood him, he seemed exceptionally content to continue the one sided conversation. There was also a young boy who was about 7 and his grasp on English was amazing. We played a few more games with the kids, took some photo's together and then said our goodbyes.
It is safe to say, that my heart was broken that day, kids should never be exposed to this kind of life. It really is just fate that we are born into fortunate families, or in a fortunate country like Australia. How was it decided that we would be born into this and they were born into this poverty?

That night we went to Cubao expo to hang out with two Aussie boys. It was goodbye drinks for one of them as he had enough of the Philippines. Fair enough too, he copped it harder than any of us fighting his own morals with the strict morals of the church. Well, when the catholic church is handing out pamphlets saying "Condoms spread HIV" and the general consensus in the Philippines that tampons are evil, you can see why at times it would be a struggle when everyone you work with things that you are a hethen for having differing views.

Sunday Tania, Cathy, two of her friends, and I went to Pagsanjan falls. We hopped in a boat and scooted our way over there. We arrived at a lodge and got briefed on the activities of the day and hopped into our little canoes. Having Cath, Tan and I in one little canoe sure was cozy as we were basically sitting in each others laps, and we went down the river singing ridiculous songs at the top of our lungs. We hit some beautiful jungle areas. It was absolutely breathtaking. The greens were brighter than bright, and were surrounded by lush trees, and as Cathy put it "Tarzan jungle vines". It began to rain and the rain fell hard onto the river as the boat men pulled our boat over rocks and rapids. We made it to the falls which, were honestly not the most spectacular falls I have ever seen, but none-the-less were beautiful. We jumped on a little raft and proceeded to get drenched by going under them.
We then jumped back in our canoe and headed back down the river in the rain. The day was just so beautiful that words cannot even describe it, neither can the pictures I took unfortunately.

The next day we went with our other housemate Erin to Miriam college for a photography exhibit. The exhibit was done by the girls that Erin has been working with on her placement. These girls are all victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking now living in a safe house, and they had been taught by Erin about photography. The work was amazing, as was meeting the girls. Tania jumped on her guitar so that two of the girls (aspiring singers) could have the chance to perform two numbers. I was blown away by their talent and their voices and Tan had to hold back some tears. Again, at such a young age children should not experience such a harsh reality to be traded for their bodies, and grow up learning about sex in such a volatile way.

I spent the next few days furiously studying for an exam and finally sitting it on Thursday. I was shitting myself not having a great memory for exams. Turns out nothing we studied in class or revised for was actually on the exam...always handy.

Friday night Tania and I went to the University fair. We made it out in the rain to watch some amazingly talented musicians perform on stage, devouring snow cones and getting mud all over our feet. We checked out the stalls and bought a few goodies, such as books (I bought waiting for godot :P) and other various knick knacks. It was such a fun night out.

Saturday we spent going to the movies to see 'Safe House' as a household outing. At the end of the movie Tania and Erin broke out in some epic hip hop krumping movements under the screen much to the enjoyment of all the cinema staff. It was hilariously funny and I wonder if they teach their moves in classes. Where do i sign up??

Sunday was unfortunate as we had to say goodbye to our hosuemate Erin. Her placement here in the Philippines had come to the end so she was off to spend a week or two on Palawan island to relax. lucky her!! We will definitely miss our token redhead...

and that brings us to today, Monday the 20th of Feb. Only 5 more weeks of classes until I finish the semester and find my self on an island also. Although have amazing weekend trips planned before then :) looking forward to it.

Well, I am exhausted and have a paper that isn't going to write itself (unfortunately, i tried. I asked super politely and everything!)

Much love to all, and speak soon :)

Love B xox

excursions to the urban poor.

here we are again and i am starting to feel like time is speeding past me. which is exceptionally strange given that just a few weeks ago I was counting down the minutes and seconds of every single day until I could leave.
There are a few reasons for this i believe. First is my excursion over the weekend to ZOTO. ZOTO stands for the 'Zone One Tondo Organisation', which is an organisation here in the Philippines that, and I quote "is a federation of local urban poor organizations from relocation sites and areas for demolition. It organizes urban poor communities to build and rebuild their lives, turn shanties into empowered communities." Their website is here

This basically means that they work with the urban poor communities with disaster relief amongst other things. So my community organising class and i set out in our little bus to the office of this organisation. We sat in their community school room and were given a few videos to watch about the organisation. Specifically their work with the 'Bat People' who are people whose houses hang underneath bridges because they have nowhere else to go.


The second specific group we watched video's about were those who lost their houses in this past year to Typhoon Pedring. These families are currently living on basketball courts, each court housing around 85 families in the evacuation centers. The government currently wants them to move so they can have access to the courts again for basketball season, however these families have nowhere else to go.

So we split into groups and headed out to see these communities first hand.
Our first stop was to the shanty towns by the river, and to see the 'bat people'.
My first impression was that it reminded me greatly of the favellas in Brazil that i visited this time last year. The kids here however were covered in dirt from dead to toe, some not fully clothed, but all finding amusement within the simplest of things, and every child had a smile to give as you walked past. It was endearing to see the resilience in the kids even with their extreme poverty.
It got me thinking though about how much of our happiness within western cultures is dependent on our material objects. These families still have one another and with that they certainly get by. The other parallels that i could draw from this in comparison to the short time i spent working with the homeless communities in melbourne, and the ultimate difference i can see here between the individuals is that here in the Philippines, no matter what their is alot more support from families and no matter what they stick together. It is ultimately all about family over here.




The second place we went was to several of the evacuation sites. It was honestly shocking to see the amount of families that were squeezed into such a small area, and had been living that way since september 2011. the majority of the kids are not going to school anymore because getting to school now takes too long and is too expensive for transport, and with a lot of them being fisherman, have also lost alot of their livelihood.

The kids here really enjoyed having us come visit, and we were given alot of thankyou's by people as we walked past. They saw our being there as a sign of more help coming their way. The kids taught Tania how to play a hand clapping game, and every single kid that saw me with my camera asked politely and enthusiastically if they could have their picture taken. They had no interest in seeing the picture, but they got such pleasure in thinking that they were immortalised in film. I would show them the pictures i just took and they would giggle over their poses and then jump into a new pose.

With these experiences i remembered again why i got into social work and how incredibly rewarding it would be to work in this type of area, and bringing out more hope in those families who literally have nothing, except that glimmer of hope in their eyes and the fire in their bellies that makes them want to change their lives for the better.

Monday for lunch I went with Tania to go meet up with our German friends, Mara and Hannah. It was so lovely to catch up as we hadn't seen each other since before christmas. We also decided to take some weekend trips with each other down to Boracay and to swim with the whale sharks. Woo :) I love weekend trips!!

Tuesday came around and after having a toothache and sensitive teeth for almost a week, i headed to the dentist at the UP medical center. After waiting around an hour and a half in the waiting room they let me in. I was taking into a small cubicle office where she grabbed out the little mirrors to look at my teeth. She said she couldn't see anything wrong with them, but they would take a small xray just to make sure everything was ok underneath the gums.

I got led into a small room which to me resembled a small laundry or perhaps an older bathroom. there was hand towels hanging to dry in one corner and a sink below. They put the xray film in my mouth and took the picture.

After looking at the xray she said everything was fine, it might be that i am grinding my teeth in my sleep (as i used to do often) and am making them sensitive. It's likely. So she let me keep my xray and after paying a whole 80 pesos for the xray and appointment (equivilent of around $2) i was on my way.

Tania and i then spent the rest of the day finishing writing and recording a video of a song we wrote for our uni friends and uploading it. clearly a productive day.

Now here we are, and there are several things for me to look forward to this week, volunteering again this weekend with the children victims of militarisation, going to some waterfalls, dropping a class, and monday morning we are going to see a photography exhibition taken by young girls who are in a safe house after being sexually trafficked (a workshop our housemate has been doing on her placement).


So off I go now, peace out hombre!

Much love B xoxox


P.s. the uploading of photos on here is being incredibly annoying, so I will upload them later seperately, before i go crazy...you know more so than i already am.

volcanoes, old men and avocado!

"It may not be the party we hoped for but while we are here we might as well dance"

That is definitely a great thought (thanks for that one Cathy!), and this week there has been a lot of dancing. The turn around in the past week has been nothing short of remarkable. Last week was a place I had never wanted to go, or want to go to again. I spent a lot of time reflecting upon how to adjust the sails in this turbulent wind that is living here, and I realised that I don't want to leave here without gaining the most that I can out of this country and this experience. So first things first, looking into dropping one of my classes to release the pressure slightly to give myself more wriggle room to get out and explore what it is about this country that is testing my boundaries in such a way.
That is something I am still looking into, but it seems that it will be a possibility for me to do so, and that in itself has allowed me to shed some of the burden.

Thursday was the turning point for me. Not feeling too well and still in a state of depression I spoke to a group of my friends on skype who were together for Australia Day. I had a sense of happiness in the morning before this skype session when I woke up to find that Tania had toilet papered our house (toilet paper used as there was a lack of streamers) and Australia day Fuzzies left out for all of us. ohhh bless. However after my stomach did some turns and I had a sneaky chunder I went to class, not quite so jazzed.

I came home during my break and jumped on skype. seeing everyone together was so great, although it was the final breaking point for me. The straw that breaks the camels back, and after hanging up I finally had my first cry of being here. It only lasted about two minutes but It was enough of an emotional release that from then on, I was feeling a lot better and had a clearer head.

So Friday afternoon I went with one of my class mates to an organisation named ERDA which deals in aiding children in education that are unable to afford it. The aim is to help future generations with a better lifestyle through education. It was really interesting to go there and speak to them about their programs, and in the next few weeks, my partner and I will be going back there to spend a day or two working in their Children in Conflict with the Law department. It should definitely be a great experience. We went and met with the founder of the organisation and who is now 97 years old. He was so cute, i just wanted to wrap him up in a blanky and sit him in a basket with wesley. He still works two jobs, every day from 9-4:30 but likes to repeat stories a million times.
"I was born in 1914, and at the time the land belonged to Germany, then France, then Germany again, and then France again. And now I am Filipino!"
Every time he finished that story he would give a little chuckle to himself, before retelling it. Man, he was just so sweet!!

We then left and spent the next hour or so on public transport giggling at silly things and generally just having a good time. My partner and one of her friends are seriously lovely and innocently sweet.

Sunday morning at the bright and early time of 4am, we hopped into a van and begun our journey to visit Mt Pinatubo. It took us a little over two hours to get to where we (Tania, Cathy, two of Cathy's friends from Australia, Christine and I) headed off in separate cars to the start of the hike. Tania, Christine and I jumped in a hummer with several locals and started 4WDing our way over creeks and rocks and the most amazing scenery. The mountains began to form around us, like majestic giants framing the land. The scenery was indescribable and my heart bounced excitedly within my chest at being once again out in the natural world. My lungs breathed in with a sigh of relief with the absence of air pollution, and I remembered why i loved getting out of the city so much.
Proclamations of love were scrawled into the mountain sides and the creeks rushed under the wheels of our tires as we bounced off our seats.

We arrived at the beginning of the hiking portion of the trip, and trekked our way through the mountains. The sun blazed above, and it was incredibly hot!
After 2 hours of hiking we reached the crater of Mt Pinatubo.

It was one of the most incredible views that I have ever seen. The crater of the volcano had filled up with water of the years to create an incredibly beautiful lake surrounded by the jagged edges of the volcano. The edges were a blend of beautiful volcanic greys and whites that contrasted magnificently with the piercing blue of the water.

We got changed behind a bush into our swimwear and stepped into the water before fully immersing ourselves. We played silly games, using our bodies to form the initials of our names, and within our fun forgot the rest of the world.
It began to rain, and I was in my own personal heaven. We got changed quickly and hiked in the bucketing rain back. I felt so at peace, something that I have not felt for a long time. The rain falling on the volcanic formations was a real thing of beauty.
Even with the rain, the temperature was still warm, so the rain acted as a cooling agent on our skins and you could no longer distinguish between the sweat or the rain on our faces.

The rain subsided and we got back in our jeeps for the return home. Tania, Christine and I swapped with the others and this time were in a small open aired jeep sitting on benches in the back. We had to hold on exceptionally tight so we didn't get flung out of the back as we bounced over rocks and creeks. I have discovered that 4WDing definitely requires a sports bra, or else injury could occur (most likely a black eye).
Our jeep got stuck at one stage in the middle of the creek and our driver had to exit the vehicle to try and get us up over to the other side. However, you will be pleased to know that we made it back in one piece, and guess what was waiting for us on the other end. A massage.

I found it odd that we were given uniforms to wear during the massage, but honestly I stopped thinking about it as soon as they began kneading the knots from my back. We spent the next hour being contorted like a pretzel and stretched, and in a pure state of relaxation. My muscles were exceptionally happy that I believe I heard them sing when we were done. Muscles don't sing? Well, I am pretty sure they do. Mine sang some form of hallelujah.







We came home and I pretty much fell straight asleep as it had been a very long and brilliant day.
Sunday and Monday were spent doing assignments unfortunately, but I was still juiced on the amazingness of Sunday. I did however get an amazing care package from back home which also boosted my spirits. I was given milo, tim tams, sweet little plaques with beautiful sayings, calendars and books, and a mug. Thanks mum and dad!!!



Tuesday rocked around and both my classes were exceptionally interesting and even when I went to the supermarket I managed to find.... AVOCADO!!! I don't think my excitement over fruits and vegetables has ever been so high. I even had avocado on the non sugary tasting bread I also managed to find. Life, you are good to me.

the rollercoaster continues

I will apologise in advance. this entry will be a vision into two polar opposites of emotions. The beginning will start with my sense of grasping onto the life here and a heightened sense of happiness. Sadly this will be short lived, and as i write this I am not in any form of happy mood, so that may seep into alot of the stories.

So which do you want first? The good news, or the bad? Usually people start with the bad, so that the good seems a whole lot better. I understand that concept, however where i sit right now, starting with the bad might just upset me all the more. I think I need to start with the good to remind myself of what those things were.

The good, since last Monday (or perhaps it was Tuesday) was fairly same same for the rest of the week. Mostly just uni stuff. I finally started understanding the concepts of an assignment that was due (remember banana con yelo?) as he said there would be two assignments, one was market research, and the next was market feasibility. So FINALLY I understood the division of the assignments....until ofcourse the next class where we incorporated them together again and the line was blurred....was there now one or two assignments with meshing titles? Seriously dude, you need to figure your shit out.

The weekend was full of catching up on study, and on sunday during the day Tania and I went out to Volunteer with a children's organisation. This organisation works with child victims of Military abuse that is currently happening in the Philippines. It's highly corrupt here, and these particular children (and their families) were victims of all their houses being demolished, and some even had been tear gassed in the process. Now these children, having been forced out by the military, were homeless.

When we first got there we were asked to take photographs and document the day for the organisation. The idea was to use art as a tool for psychotherapy for the trauma they suffered. The kids observed us shyly, but once we broke away from the other adults we were swarmed by kids wanting their photo's taken, and by kids wanting to just watch us keenly. A few of the older kids had a grasp on english and would tell us we were beautiful, and one girl would even start touching my arm out of intrigue to the pale colour of my skin. She would then put hers up to compare skin tones with me. The younger kids were so cute. They didn't understand english, but the boys were quite 'gangster' and would start singing bruno Mars's "Lazy Song". They did family profiling through art, and drew the things on paper that made them feel certain emotions and after lunch Tania was asked to play a game with them. She tried to teach them one of her camp songs, but i think it had a little bit too much english in it for them, so they lost the point of it and instead started chasing each other around the courtyard. So we tried the human knot; the game where you all grab different peoples hands and have to try and untangle yourself. As soon as I put my hand in the circle, I had about 15 different little hands grab my arm. It had to be explained to them that they weren't all allowed to hold 'Ate B's' arm otherwise the game wouldn't work....nobody seemed too keen on letting go however. Again, pretty sure there was a novelty in holding the white girls hand. It was all pretty cute and fun. It's days like that one that remind me why I want to be a social worker. To see such enthusiasm in their faces and an eagerness to keep going on in life given all their hardship and the fact that they were all homeless is something amazing. They have such a resilience.

Sunday night, my housemates and I put on our brightest attire, and hit the road for the Katy Perry concert. Yes, I wouldn't count myself as an avid Katy Perry fan by any measure. I like some of her songs, i think she has quirk, however you won't find me flailing myself off a building in her honour, screaming at the top of my lungs how she has completed my life with her music.
The night was actually really fun, we only pad the equivalent of about $20 AUD for the tickets, and we were right up the back of an open aired festival ground. We were exceptionally far from the stage, but the projections screens meant we could see everything. It was her final show for her 18 month long tour, and she gave it her all. Tan had to be hoisted onto Erin's shoulders at one point in the night because she wasn't able to see even the board through the sea of heads, and even a small Filipino girl got to sit on Erin's shoulders to watch Katy Perry perform "Last Friday Night".

The night was so much fun, and we fell right asleep when we got home (or maybe that was just me...)

Monday was Chinese New year! The idea was to go out and celebrate, although we find out later that the celebrations happened the previous night...doh. So instead we did assignment work. I decided to mark Chinese new year as being the beginning of a new outlook of being here in Manila. It was my chance to start fresh and Tuesday at uni would be my test.

So Tuesday for uni rocks around and I walk into my shakespeare class, head held high ready to learn!
.....aaaaand everyone was sitting in there already, heads bowed down over little blue books. I had been told what the little blue books meant, they meant exams. I just walked into my own midterm exam. It was like walking into my own nightmares. The nightmares you have where you are standing naked in a room and you realise that there is an exam you haven't studied for. This was no nightmare. I was, thankfully, fully clothed, but i froze and my stomach dropped and I felt physically sick, confused and panicked. Nobody told me we had an exam! I did not know there was an exam and therefore wasn't mentally prepared for it. My teacher realised that I wasn't aware of an exam, tried to reassure me that I would do just fine. So i sit in the classroom, reading over the exam.
I failed. There is no way around it. with their 75% passing grade, and the fact that all the books we had read, I hadn't memorised every line and my panicked state had made it impossible to remember character names, even if I knew them well. I was screwed.
I waiting around outside the building after class to spear tackle my teacher into the ground, and rip my exam from her hands.
Although instead of doing that, I told myself I wouldn't cry and walked over to her. She informed me that my face when i entered the room said everything. I asked if there was anything else I could do for extra credit, because I knew I had failed, and she said she would figure it out and get back to me on what extra work I could do. I was relieved. However I decided that this was a perfect time to have my first cry being here in Manila.
Surprised? There have been so many instances where I have wanted to cry, and yet the tears have not come. My only conclusion is that Manila is turning me into a robot, and my emotions are becoming way too internalised and one day I will snap and kill you all, or just never get out of bed.
So, after my day today, I really wanted to cry, I came home, sat on my bed, hugged my pillow and....nothing. I think I am a robot.

Now Wednesday has rocked around and I am sitting here on my bed still. I went to class this morning, and got even more lost when the professor started teaching us mathematical equations... WE ARE SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS, WE DON'T NEED TO SPEND AN ENTIRE SEMESTER STUDYING THE MARKET OF SELLING T-SHIRTS AND THE MATH EQUATIONS TO FIGURE OUT MARKET TRENDS!!!! GET A LIFE YOU SNIVELLING KNOBJOCKEY! I apologise for my outburst, but this is the most pointless class in the history of social work. I am currently looking into what would happen if i dropped it, because it will not help my career choice in anyway shape or form.

AAAAND for the best news of all. Yes. that was sarcasm. My place of sanity; that is the place I go to study, or use the internet, or just go to to get out of the house and into airconditioning has been taken from me. Technically it is still there, but their wifi is no longer free, and is actually ridiculously expensive for here. Sure, that place is starbucks, but you really shouldn't judge the one place that I have found comfort here. It's where I will sit for hours, checking my emails, and contacting home, or being able to do my assignments somewhere comfortable. There is no way I can afford to do that anymore the way I have been. It's blasphemy. Is it sad that that was almost the straw that broke the camels back for me today? And yet, it appears I am still a robot, just a robot going more and more numb every day.

My state of mind being here is not something I like. Not by far. I hate that being here has made me numb, and in amongst the amazing experiences I have no passion or drive, something that usually keeps me going. The only thing at the moment that is keeping me going is the countdown until I go away and travel. I have lost my sense of freedom and self. A harsh thing to admit, but it's true. The bad seems to outweigh the good at the moment. I had such an amazing day with the kids on Sunday and I wonder whether 1 day of good every few weeks is worth all the bad days. I keep trying to change my mindset, and to change the way I see things, but right now it feels hopeless.

Depressing right? I like to think it's not because I am a Westerner trying to adapt to a different culture, because I love new cultures. I love so much about the Filipino culture and find it very interesting, but it's not very stimulating in the area we live. Well, tomorrow is a new day, so the roller coaster may be due for an up. Here's to hoping and to keeping moving...

Love B xo

P.s. I won't be uploading any photos of the kids on here, It would be a violation of their rights being that they were there for traumatic experiences and it wouldn't be right to plaster them all over the internet.

did somebody order a crazed taxi driver?

greetings and salutations out there to you bloggers who are still following with my adventures here in the Philippines.

I was speaking to someone just several days ago where they asked me for any big stories that had happened in the past week, and I responded with a simple 'no, nothing exciting except uni stuff', and that was apparently enough to jinx me two nights later when my housemates and I got into a cab. I will continue that story shortly, once i have detailed the stress in the pit of my stomach that was the rest of the week in Manila. Obviously Monday and Tuesday was spent doing university assignments, and what not, as always. Alas nothing exciting there to be told, however this was the beginning of my internal stress meter hitting an all time high.

It all began with a housemates excitement over finding out that doing placement here in the Philippines is actually possible, staying on for an extra 3-4 months after our semester of study. Hearing this, made me realise that it was probably a possibility for me also, and hearing her passionate excitement over doing so gave me a pang of guilt that maybe i should be more excited about the prospect of doing one, and maybe it would be a great opportunity to do so, and whether or not I would be a complete idiot to not take up that opportunity. I mean doing a placement in a social work setting here in the Philippines, that would be a great thing to put on a resume, wouldn't it?

However, then the big internal questions kept snowballing - do I really want to stay here for another 3-4 months on top of the already 3 I have left? Can I hack longer here? If it was out of the city, could I hack it? Is this something I want? If i said no, would I regret it later in life?
Ofcourse as a general rule, i don't believe in regrets. At least not in the conventional sense. I believe we do stupid things, we learn and should move on. The word regret leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But would passing up an opportunity as such leave a bad taste in my mouth as well?
The stress was beginning at boiling point that I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. For those who know me well, know that i prefer my spot on the fence rather than being swayed either way. At times it is a curse to be able to sit in the middle and see both sides of an argument or a decision with clear precision, making it exceptionally difficult to be swayed. Other times it has kept me out of the argument.
I am a fence sitter, and for the most part, i like it there. Sure you get the occasionally stab in the butt cheek if it's a picket fence, but usually it's a great place to be.
I don't like making decisions.

So this would constitute as a huge decision to make.
Another thought that occurred to me and played on my mind was whether or not I have spent so much time exploring other corners of the globe that I am not balancing that time out with spending time around those things important to me at home. This experience here has me thinking about that a lot. Whilst I have a wild heart that needs and yearns so passionately to explore, I also have very close ties to home.

The internal battle between my heart and my head raged on for several days. If I was offered a placement in South America, I would without hesitation, accept it in a second. But do I hold that same passion for the Philippines? On deeper questioning, I realised that I didn't have as many ties to this country as my housemate did, not the same as i do for South America or somewhere else.

In amongst questioning these things, university work seemed to kick up a notch. One of our professors gave us a days notice to write a huge assignment. This is our teacher who originally being an economics teacher now teaches social work. To say the least, we already have huge issues with his teaching methods and focuses. As Social Workers we should be primarily focused on the community aspect of project development and not solely focused on economic markets as he believes we should.
So with the instructions on 'go write a market feasibility paper', we questioned him on what that detailed or needed and what on earth we were writing a market feasibility study for? Our own imaginary study? an existing study? for the love of Buddah, give us SOME form of direction. and of course a week later he still hasn't responded. He also gave us 5 minutes notice to tell us our 8:30am class was cancelled, when we were already for the most part at uni. Thanks dude.

The assignment system reminds me of the time we were at a restaurant in Puerto Galera, when we asked the Waiter what 'Banana con yelo' was. His response was simply "its banana....con yelo m'am".
Repeating the title of something doesn't actually explain anything, except that we can spell and speak correctly. It's not helpful in any way shape or form to knowing what something is.
And that's how the assignments work here.
What is this feasibility assignment on sir? It's on feasibility. Oh wow, my mind has been blown. Now that you have said that I suddenly understand everything. It's like in a clap of thunder and the droning monotonous tones of your thick accented voice, the universe has spoken to me with that explanation and the meaning of life along with the assignment criteria is so clear to me. It's completely crystal! Thankyou for your genious input, i can now die happy.

Excuse me while i go smack my head against a brick wall. turns out i don't need my brain cells at all. Not after that response. Life. So much sense. Oh look, oncoming traffic, let's go play.

All the classes are like this. And voila, exams in the next two weeks. Did we know there was going to be exams? nope, not mid term ones. I am not even sure that we have learnt anything, or what the exams are supposed to be on. I dearly hope that it will all come to me in a dream, or that i can work on my telepathy with the teachers. I think that is the only way that anyone would know anything around here. Even the students in the class don't know...unless they are giving the information to us via telepathy also....
Are Filipino's adept in the realm of telepathy? Maybe I should spend more of my time focusing on that instead of Community organising. I might get more out of it. For the most part I may be able to find interesting stories about people who i pass on the street.

Now that I have had that little banter, you can imagine how much that with the notion of placement has worked up my stress levels to boiling points, and how I have felt physically sickened. The fetal position is my friend. I like it. It's comfy, how about we just stay as we are?

SO we spent a bit more time at the gym this week taking our minds off the upcoming studious deaths and more time dancing with flamboyant dance instructors and taking time out for yoga.

Saturday night, Erin Tania and I caught up with Erin's long time friend Katie at my favourite Makati Vegetarian restaurant, and had lovely food and conversation.

We jumped in a cab to go home and realised that the taxi driver was falling asleep at the wheel. trying our hardest to keep him awake for the hour long drive home, we realised he was taking us further into the darker alleyways of Makati, instead of the direction of our home. So we talked about it quietly in the back in hushed voices, and decided that we would ask him to drop us off at a close by expensive hotel, so we could get another cab who was awake, and the security guards at hotels always take down the taxi numbers and the destination of travel for security purposes. That and we didn't want to ask him to pull over in dodgy areas of town.

We told him that our plans had changed because we just got a text from a friend. He didn't seem pleased about this at all. He drove us around the block several times before pulling in to get petrol. He then seemed to sense our want to get out of the taxi and it was at that point he started to get aggressive in his talk and his driving. He started to speed and swerve vigorously through the traffic, almost running down several pedestrians and overtaking into oncoming jeepneys.
When we asked him to slow down, he just laughed at us, and told us that he was a taxi not a jeepney and he will drive how he wants to. We told him immediately to pull over and let us out of the taxi. He did that, and left with a snide comment.

Our hearts still pounded we realised, we were able to speak freely without him overhearing us, and the conclusion was drawn that he looked and smelt drunk or drugged. or possibly even both. And of course due to him actually falling asleep in traffic earlier with us in the car, he was definitely tired.
Luckily at this point he had pulled over on a busy street, so we were opposite a hotel. We walked up to the security guards there and asked politely if they could find a taxi for us. They did, and it was a nice clean taxi, and the taxi driver appeared to not be drunk, drugged or tired to the point of falling asleep. Needless to say we were relieved.

When we got home, Erin knowing the streets of Makati better than us, told us that he was taking us the wrong way through the town, and deeper into the dodgy areas. On reflection, we are not sure where he was taking us, but it certainly wasn't where we asked, and with his apparent aggressive behaviour later on, who knows what would have happened if we hadn't of said something. Either way, we knew after changing plans he was driving like that purely to be a bastard and to scare us senseless. He definitely succeeded with that.

With the decision of placement still looming on the horizon, I sent an email out to RMIT, and to the Australian Government asking about the terms of my overseas loan. As it turns out, due to me getting the loan, I have to complete my final semester of study back on Australian soil (not staying in the philippines for placement).
This is the first amount of relief I have felt all week.
The decision was out of my hands. It's not up to me at all.
One stress factor is gone. I don't have to choose.

Reflecting upon this week the things I have learnt is number one, things will happen as they are meant to happen. I do believe in signs, whether that's corny or not. It's what i believe. I also believe things will unfold as they are meant to, depending on the paths we take.
I am not meant to do placement here in the Philippines, and the incident with the taxi driver reminds me to never be complacement about my safety here, or to get too comfortable with my surroundings. The truth is, Manila is not a safe place, and I can't let myself forget that. There is an organ trade here for goodness sake.

Also, that I cannot wait for this study to be over. I just need to pass (the equivilent of a distinction back home), and work out how to calm my stress levels. Perhaps I should add that to my new years resolutions. Minimise stress, it's not healthy for you. Trust in life, and trust in yourself.

Possibley not the happiest of blog posts, but it's all part of the self learning.

As Tania said to me last week. There are alot of things about this place that we hate or dislike, but we have to balance that with the small things. We can't just like those small things, we need to love them, because they are the symbols that keep us afloat.
Here they are.
I love our security guards, they are always so happy to see us, and always have the biggest smiles on their faces.
I love the kid that sits near our street always excitedly waving as we go passed.
I love the Body Jam instructor at the gym. He is so flamboyant and is always in his own world. I think he thinks he is in a night club.
As embarrassing as it is, I love the people at starbucks who greet you with your name. Even if it is your coffee name, not your real name.
I love the students in our classes, and their enthusiasm towards life and each other.
And Finally I love the time spent with my housemates lounging around the living room playing guitar, singing, and dancing like nobody is watching.

These are the symbols here in Quezon city that I love, the things that keep me afloat while I am here.






also :) all the amazing people i have met in my life (and got photos with!) and
Love to everyone back home

Love B xo

a kiss goodbye to 2011, and a big hello to 2012

I should preface this blog with a warning. no nudity this time (or minimal at least) however, this may have a fair amount of information in it. it's been 3 weeks since my last update and, boy has it been a jam packed 3 weeks. I will try of course to limit how much i write so that i will not kill you with complete and utter boredom, however it appears that when i begin talking, it becomes harder and harder to stop me. oh well, suck it up princesses, i say! you will sit and read my blog, and you will enjoy it whether you like it or not!

I had a beautifully relaxing Christmas at home in Melbourne surrounded by family and friends, and i could not have asked for a better one. It was a lovely break to get away from Manila into some form of familiarity. I was very glad to have this break as it was becoming more and more apparent to me how much i was struggling to be in Manila. Coming back gave me a deep sense of appreciation for what I had in Australia, and how much comfort there was. Having said that, I also had a deep sense of upset that I was becoming increasingly frustrated with my life in Manila, and within that becoming frustrated with myself for not making the most out of it. This break gave me a great chance to reflect away from the center of my annoyance.

In Melbourne i was able to indulge in my yearly ritual of going to the Botanical gardens to watch a shakespeare play with Emmah, and the new additions this year of Alex and Steph, and what great additions they were, and it was amazing to be able to see some of my friends again. Needless to say, as always, the performance was hilarious and it turned into a brilliant night for me.

Then, it was time to put on our sailor hats, blow up our floaties and board the Endeavour for a week of drinking, swimming and more drinking along the Murray River with some fabulous people for New Years Eve mayhem.
One thing I can tell you about that boat is that there was ALOT of man love happening. I don't believe I have EVER seen so much heterosexual man love in all my life (except perhaps between the aussie and kiwi boys in South America!). Having said that, it is amazing to see a group of guys, have such an intense friendship that has lasted over a decade as strong as our friendship group with Emma, Emmah, Steph and I (who were also shipmates aboard our houseboat).

We spent our days lazily floating along the river drinking beer and cider, followed by interesting "Which would you prefer" games and the occasional mud fight. Being immersed in the Australian bush meant a lot to me, and occasionally i would find myself wandering through it to sit on a tree trunk by myself and reflect upon my time in the Philippines and the contrasts between Manila and Australia. I was also able to have amazing D&M conversations with my girls, one on one, something i have sorely missed. Turns out being away from my family and friends is possibly the hardest thing about being so far from home. It's those small moments together that you miss the most; those inside jokes, the hugs, and the comfort of loved ones that can make big adventures such as this at times unbearable, because no matter where you are, if you don't have the most important things with you or the ability to talk to them, you begin to question is it worth it?







Either way, the Houseboat juiced me up on friendship that I believe I will be able to sustain myself for a while longer. And alas, we said our goodbyes and headed back home to pack my bags for an early morning flight back to Manila.

At the airport, i opened up a written document from a very special friend of mine, Sally, who wrote me the most wonderful story as a send off for my adventures. This is the first time I have ever gotten on a plane with tears in my eyes. This is the first time that the prospect of leaving to go over seas and leaving behind people has caused me to cry. Sally my dear, your story was so amazing and really touched me. I love you and i will get you back for making me blubber in public. Mark my words :P. Actually whilst I am speaking of the amazing writing that is my Sally, I urge you to buy this e-book in which she has a short story published. you won't regret it, it is amazing. Her story is called "Shards of Love". Check it out here

Anyhoo, so i arrived in Manila, parentals in tow (they came to visit and see where i live and study) and ofcourse spent the next day and a half stuck in classes whilst they explored the city. The Friday night i took them for a tour around the UP campus and showed them which buildings i study in, where 'rape alley' is, and where to avoid if you want to keep your kidneys. We went for a jeepney ride, and finally headed back to their hotel for the weekend (a bit of luxury from where i live. buffet breakfast - hello!) We did a bit of shopping for the afternoon and collected some bits and pieces to furnish the house (thats right - you are now looking at the proud owner of bath mats and a table cloth...jealous?)

We went into Manila bay to go for a wander and watch as the sun went down, then hopped on a horse and buggy around the city. needless to say the tour guide ripped us off in the cover of darkness, but it is one of those situations where you need to toss up whether you argue with them for blatantly stealing your money in the cover of darkness, or do you accept it and move on and wait for karma to do it's thing. The latter prevailed and after searching ages for a taxi (the security guard helping u find one told me that if i gave him my calling card, he would be my prince. oh boy oh boy, lucky me! :P) we headed home, now in tow with an epicly awesome Angry birds hat, haha.

After an early night we began our tour the next morning to visit the Taal volcano near Batangas. We took a small boat ride across the water to the volcano. Our tour guide told us that the volcano is due to erupt every 25 years, and it last erupted in 1977. If you do the math, that makes it due to explode its load this year. So, does that make it a slight bit suicidal to be trekking to a volcano that is due to kill us all? well, we did anyway. We took little donkey/pony-like hybrids up the mountain led by some locals, and had amazing views from the top of the volcano. It had accumulated a lake inside over the last 25 years, but you could still see the water below boiling and bubbling on the surface. We drank coconut water straight from the coconuts and took it all in. It was beautiful, and I can't tell you how great it was to get out of the city.
We took our weird hybrid animals back down the mountain, and i swear the local leading my horse-thing spent more time watching my boobs bounce when running rather than looking at where he is going. needless to say i tried to hold onto the horse one handed while strategically and stealthily cover and hold and twins in place.

The next day we went to the island of Corregidor which was a huge military base in WW2. The island was full of ruins of buildings and so much interesting history that i couldn't possibly be able to retell it with any justice. All i can say is that it has some really interesting history of the war from the Filipino perspective with the Americans joining forces to fight against Japan. It was a pretty amazing day, and the last day I had to spend time with my parents before their flight the following day. We went out to dinner at my favourite vegetarian restaurant here, and stuffed ourselves silly.
needless to say I have been spoilt over the last few days, and i have loved every minute of it.

We got up early the next day to enjoy the last of the buffet breakfast (think of a bear hibernating and filling up on enough food to last them a whole winter...that was me filling up for the next 3 months so as i don't have to live off mi-goreng again.)

We took a taxi back to my house and said our farewells. Thank you so much mum and dad for coming to visit me and taking me out of the city. I have loved every minute of it, and I have loved seeing you guys. I will miss you both.

Ok, sap aside, this brings me to where we are today. Sitting in starbucks as per usual typing this message to you all.

I hope you have stuck through me in this, and hopefully I haven't bored you all senseless.

I have been given a new appreciation of the country I am in after having a break to reflect and getting out of the city. It has even been proposed that i stay an extra 3 months on top of the 3 i still have to go to do placement. Time will tell I suppose.

Miss you all, and love you all..

Happy new year and I hope 2012 treats you all well.

Love B xoxo

oblation oblation oblation

Let me preface this blog entry with a rating. M15+. May contain nudity and or other forms of adult content. Some of you will now be hooked on this blog out of intrigue, or perhaps a few of you have run away from fear of any genitalia related topics. Those of you who have stayed have braved the world of adult content, perhaps because you are in fact adults, or alternatively a perverse sicko. Either way, those of you who have stuck by me, I promise to give you vast amounts of said nudity.


Before I get to that however, I will start as always, at the beginning of the week, and run you through what some people might see as a monotonous and uninteresting life, or what some might see as a little glimpse into my wonderful (and yes, sometimes monotonous and uninteresting) life.


Actually scratch that, I will ignore the boring stuff, and just share with you a few little nuggets of gold that was my week.
Unfortunately I managed to get a nasty little cold for the earlier part of the week, which kept me a little bed ridden for the majority of the week, however I was determined to get better so that I may enjoy the end of the week, which I could experience the UP Oblation Run, Social Work department Christmas party, and of course my flight home to Australia for Christmas.


The start of the week, my housemates and I decided to bring some humble Christmas cheer into our house by having our own little Christmas celebration. We went out to dinner in this gorgeous little treasure of a find (feeling very pirate right now) in this little organic café. And to my immense surprise, HELLO TO VEGETABLE STIRFRY! Even better, the stir fry had copious amounts of different vegetables, and possibly the first time in the last 6 weeks that I have had so much vegies (bad vegetarian, bad! *whacks nose with newspaper*)
We came home to exchange our secret Santa presents – Thanks to miss Cathy I got some lovely necklaces (I believe the angry birds one was the best, haha) as well as some sealing wax, a miniature red top hat (jealous much? It’s amazing) and a masquerade t-shirt. Needless to say Miss Cathy, you did a terrific job of figuring me out :P.
We sang some Christmas carols together (some may say in a loser-like manner, but I prefer to think of it as setting the trends for the cool kids to follow).

Then of course I managed to get a cold, and watching many episodes of ‘The Office’ became my thing, aside from doing assignments at Starbucks. It sadly occurred to me that I might be frequenting the lovely air-conditioned Starbucks near our house for their free Wi-Fi a little too much, when the workers greeted me by my name. What is worse is that they greeted me by my fake Philippines use only, coffee name. Having a name that is difficult for people to grasp in Melbourne sometimes, and even a coffee name that some Melbournites have difficulty with too (hello- ‘BRubee’ incident anyone??) I decided to go with a name that was easy to pronounce; Emma. So when they are greeting you with “Good Morning Emma” you know it’s time to start splitting your time between Starbucks and Coffee bean & Tea Leaf.


Friday came around and it was time for the famous UP fraternity oblation run. Hold onto your seats ladies and gentlemen, this is where the nudity comes!
We made our way to the front of Palma Hall, where once a year, one of the university’s fraternities takes part in, what is basically, a nudie run. However the ‘oblation’ run serves as a form of political protest, with a new cause being picked each year. It is about giving their all, in a raw form. This started back in the 1970’s and continues to this day. Of course each of their identities are kept secret with brightly coloured masks. I suppose to stop the locals playing a big game of ‘match that wang’ with people they may know and also to keep the focus solely on the political issue at hand. Although I have been told that a lot of the local girls who have come from far off provinces and conservative families go along, because they have never been exposed to the naked male form, and curiousity gets the better of them. Either way, it serves for an interesting afternoon.




The cause they chose this year was conservation of the Philippine rivers. About 20 boys marched out in all their glory and fought their way through the crowd. We could barely see them as we were up the back, but it sure caused a commotion. Suddenly the crowd parted ways, much like the red sea in biblical references, and we realized they were headed our way. So we backed up until we were stopped by a fence. Next thing you know, the boys were right in front of us by about a quarter of a meter and posing for the media. Meanwhile, three Australian students (that’s us!) could be found behind them giggling like little school girls. Actually, the funniest thing of all would have been Tania’s complete look of shock at finding around 20 naked bums right in front of her. Not sure how we managed to get stuck behind all of this, but, they do say that you should throw yourself into the thick of the cultural experiences!

All the boys have a handful of roses that they carry with them to give to a girl they think is pretty, so little miss Cathy managed to get two roses off one boy, and another Filipino girl trapped with us got a sneaky kiss on the cheek, and a rose as well. Definitely the perfect opportunity to let rip the line “who was that masked man?” followed by a sigh…or in this case a fit of giggles.


Once the nudity disappeared we headed over to the social work department for a little festive shindig. One thing I have noticed about the Filipino’s is they absolutely love putting on ‘talent shows’ at every possible occasion. Fair enough since a lot of them are actually talented, however sucky for us because as the novelty Australian students there is an expectation that we perform at all of these events; even when you don’t want to. We tried using the excuse that as the main singer, I was sick and therefore couldn’t possibly partake, but alas we had to anyway (mostly thanks to Tania forcing it upon us… Sleep with one eye open buddy! Them mouse babies will find their way up your nose canals shortly!) We had a little boogie, played some games and finally got up to sing ‘lean on me’. It was then time for me to depart to the airport to make my way to Western Australia for a family gathering; Dad’s 50th and my sisters 21st.

It was actually a wonderful couple of days in Perth catching up with my extended family. Unfortunately living on the other side of the country as them doesn’t provide much opportunities to spend a lot of time together, and it would have been about 3 years since I was last able to see them all. We had barbecues by the river, and picnics in the park, and copious amounts of delicious wine and food. Oh how I have missed real food and greenery. Needless to say I am glad I came home for this festivity.
As for right now, I am on a plane back to Melbourne for a week or so, typing up this blog in a word document to pass the time, ready to post when I return home tonight (after greeting the dogs of course, I know my priorities!)
Perhaps I will talk to you all again before Christmas, but if not, Feliz Navidad, prospero año y felicidad.


Much love, B xoxox

renovations, naughts and crosses, and being pointed out as white

drumroll ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for has arrived!!
It is the time for another installment in my (currently not so) wacky adventures!

I wish i had more exciting things to tell you at the moment, however the week wasn't exactly filled with bungee jumping and exotic new lands. sigh. It was however filled with, wait for it.... UNIVERSITY!!...oh that was a bit of a let down. sorry for building it up so much!

So i left you on monday where i was procrastinating on assignments (nothing new there really). So I also began using my internet usage to look up flights to some more exotic places. currently in my head i am going to India for a friends wedding in January (if i can organise a visa in time) and I am completely thrilled about that. I have always wanted to go to an Indian wedding!! (congrats Hardeep!)
I am also pondering that after my time in the Philippines, I would go to thailand for a week or so, and then pondered on whether or not to continue travelling asia, or to go to the UK, Spain and maybe Greece.... yep, so i started looking up flights to Europe, haha. Wishful thinking on my behalf really because I doubt i would have the funding for these trips, but one can hope and dream!
I also began looking up weekend trips to Malaysia while I am here (and apparently i will have to leave the country end of march, just to re-enter the philippines to renew my visa. being forced to see another country, life is tough.)

So after my procrastinating i finally got on to doing my assignments (with Tania sending me to my room all night every time i tried to use her for my own distraction purposes) and voila, i finished them both!

So tuesday i got myself all ready to go print them off at uni, and scurried off to my classes. My Shakespeare teacher fell up the stairs on her way to class, so she gave us an activity sheet to do while she went to the medical center. so we got into groups and talked about each character in a Midsummer Nights dream. My next class i sat in for half an hour only to discover that the teacher wasn't going to turn up (no surprise there, having this class twice a week for the last 5 weeks i have only seen her twice...) so, i had been forced to write my essay for no reason. poop on that situation.

I then went to go shopping and get a present for our housemates Kris Kringle and pretty much became a couch potato in front of the fan for the rest of the day. i aim high in life.

Wednesday we went to class again at 8:30, still needing to do our presentation from a week and a half earlier, but our teacher hadn't been there. Turns out our teacher didn't turn up again and a sub came in. He took us up to a Human Rights forum (which we were hoping to bail on class to go see anyway). It was interesting...sort of, i think they needed to work on keeping the audience more captivated as they just spouted facts that I am pretty sure everyone knew (since the majority of people there were studying social work anyway, or were social workers) and so they lost Tania and my attention, so we doodled in my workbook playing naughts and crosses (i opened a can of whoop ass on that one!) and connect four amongst other games (pretty sure tania rigged connect four, i could not have possibly lost to her, lol)

Thursday was just as thrilling. Actually my Shakespeare class was enjoyable (as always, seriously am i starting to sound really pretentious and annoying with my love for this class???). Never before have i been pointed out in the class, but the teacher was telling everyone the difference between someone in the play having fair or dark features - I am pretty sure her words were, "so, something you need to realise is that when shakespeare's characters are described as having dark features, he doesn't mean they are dark skinned, which is something you might not realised because we are all the same colour....except B, but while B is white, she would not be classified with fair features, she would have dark features because of her eyes and hair" ........and for a good 5 minutes all eyes in the class were looking at me. yep, not awkward at all.
AAAAAAND as per usual, my next teacher didn't turn up again but left us with a 600 page book to read and analyse in 3 days. that sneaky bastard. Not sure how this is supposed to work lady, let me at her i say! No, don't hold me back - I'll scratch her eyes out!

SO - I caught up with Tan in our break and we got into a giant D&M about what we were thinking about the Philippines. pretty much my thoughts for the day were that i would rather be doing a placement here and getting involved in the community in that kind of way, rather than spending my time reading so much pointless readings and getting nothing out of my classes (except for shakespeare of course). I feel like there is so much more i could be doing with my time, and i want to get involved with organisations. It's a bit hard to explain the feeling, but maybe you understand what I am trying to say?
Either way, our teacher said we didn't have to stay in class because she wanted to go elsewhere and the other students wanted to work on their float for the Universities lantern parade. The lantern parade is apparently huge here, and all the departments in the university make a float and then..well parade it. I unfortunately won't be there to see it as i will be back on a plane to visit the wonderful world of Aus for christmas. I will however be there for the famous U.P. nudie run, where a fraternity of boys get their kit off, wear masks and run naked through the campus. apparently it's supposed to be an act of freedom every year, and I have been informed that alot of girls go to watch because being a conservative country, the majority have never seen a penis before. go figure. so, as at the start of our stay in the philippines, the Education abroad office told us it was all part of the cultural experience, so we will be watching the nudie boys run (anyone else got that quote from Juno in their head "all i see are pork swords" - sorry nanny, mum and dad, but since you raised me, you have to expect these things. this is me watching what i say :P)

ANYHOO, so Friday came around, and we went to class at 8:30am once again, and our teacher was not there...again. So we had a sub, and he spent ages talking about economics (i hate economics) and i got quite lost. We did however find out that divorce does not happen in the Philippines due to their religious ways, and they asked us if there was divorce in Australia. Cathy and I had to laugh, because of the 'HELL YES' response we would have given otherwise. Would 'hell' have been an appropriate word to use here? probably not, but we do use it often. sorry guys! :P

Friday evening we were going to go on an overnight bus to see the rice terraces up north, however thanks to the tropical rain storms happening, that was unlikely. This occured all weekend so we weren't able to go, so instead friday night we went to the gym and to see ' New Years Eve' and on saturday Cathy, Tania and I made our way to the national museum, and the national art gallery. Well, the art gallery was being renovated, so there was about three rooms, and the museum has very little also. biiiit of a let down. I had to spend the entire time stopping Tania from touching everything, and eventually had to hold her hands behind her back like a prisoner. She is like a child, so i nearly made her join the school excursion we kept passing. Sure, there was a struggle, but what ya gonna do. :P

This brings us to today, Sunday. Tan made her merry way to church while the rest of us went to the gym. I love the instructor on a sunday for body jam. He is so flamboyant, and gets into the moves like its no ones business. He even got us shaking our hips to ricky martin. yes, thats right; Ricky Martin. again our abs got a work out from the giggling. He even shimmying in my face. which made the ab workout even better, haha. The afternoon was spent singing while Cathy learned to play christmas carols on the Uke, Tan played the guitar and I tried to learn the keyboard (unsuccessfully)

And now, i am here talking to you lovely lovely people (scratch the two 'lovely's'). I will be back in Oz in 6 days time, and back in Melbourne in 10 days time ready for some christmas cheer. Hope to catch up with you all.

Lots of love, hugs and happy drugs
B xoxox



at Manila bay in the tropical rain storm.


Art in the Gallery


hanging in a park between downpours.