HI!

Hello fans!

Being here has had a strange effect on my semi-bilingualism. Why do I suddenly feel the inspiration to constantly use Tagalog at every opportunity? In Manila, I ask directions in English. I talk to random people in English. Here, I try my Tagalog out at every opportunity. Maybe it’s because the Visayans aren’t native Tagalog speakers and probably won’t care that I sound like a terrible Tagalog speaker. I have also discovered that Tagalog gets me around really well… compared to in Cebu. Oh well. The point is: my Tagalog has improved. (Yeah right.) I like to pretend my knowledge of Tagalog and Visayan is overwhelming. Too bad the only thing I can say is “Pila?” for “How much?”. Fail.

So today… we went to a different mall. This is the oldest mall in Davao (I think). I was busy talking to my co-op and Jenn came by and said that her co-op and family were going to McDonalds and Victoria Mall and wanted to know if we wanted to come. We decided it was something to do and why not visit another mall? I mean come on… having 5 malls within 10 miles (or something) is a novelty. (Whatever) Anyway, apparently tsinelas are out and my one pair of sandals is kind of sad looking so I ended up getting a pair of really cheap shoes that I’m not a huge fan of but hey, they work. They’re also white which means by the end of the first day teaching, they’ll be black.

Apparently there’s a big handicraft store somewhere around here named Aldenico. I have yet to find it. It was supposedly nearby Victoria Mall but Jenn’s co-op didn’t know where. I asked the guard in terrible Tagalog if he knew where it was and he didn’t and neither did anyone else I asked. Oh well. One of these days we’ll find it.

So… today the teacher we live with was supposed to fly in. We went with the principal to pick her up and she wasn’t on the plane. She had missed the plane in Korea or something. I don’t really know where she is, but I got meat for dinner just in case. Oh well. We needed to eat too anyway.

Oh and in case any of you are interested in my culinary endeavors, it’s not that interesting. Hahaha! Ok, Jenn and I took the tricycle down the road to the market a couple days ago and we got a lot of vegetables for stirfry. Vegetables and fruit are relatively cheap here, which is great. My marketing skills aren’t great, but I just picked a couple places that looked good. Who knows if I got a real bargain or not… Mrs. Farlin said that she doesn’t really bargain because most of the prices are pretty good. I also don’t know how to bargain in Visayan or Tagalog. So we had stirfry (with chicken mixed in it) and rice last night. The chicken breasts I found at one grocery store weren’t deboned (it was cheaper that way I think) so I mutilated—I mean—deboned them myself. Then for dinner tonight I made adobo (PS – I think I like cooking the pork before adding the sauce) and steamed vegetables (cabbage, sayote, and carrots). So even if you think I’m an unimaginative cook – we aren’t starving! Oh, and for breakfast I got inspired to go all out. I found some luncheon meat (reminiscent of Spam, processed stuff that probably clogs your arteries) and chopped it up and fried it with cubes of potatoes, salt, and pepper. We had it with eggs and rice… ok, I had the rice. We also had fruit salad (pineapple – which is really cheap here – mangos, and bananas). I really enjoy having a kitchen to play in… and a market to discover.

My chief entertainment right now is killing ants. We have a bad ant problem in the kitchen. They tend to find the TINIEST piece of food and all congregate around it. They’re pretty annoying little things, although I do enjoy spraying them with Raid. It’s like a deadly version of hide and seek – find where they’re coming from and BANG! Spray them down. At least they’re not roaches. I think if they were roaches I would freak out. Ants, however, I can handle.

Tomorrow, which will be today by the time I post this, is new teacher orientation. We are going to, you know, get oriented! Should be loads of fun. Word just told me that the previous sentence is a sentence fragment. I know.

I talked to my co-op a bit today. She grew up in Nasuli. Interestingly enough, she went to Faith in Manila for 9^th and 10^th grade and her flute teacher was MY flute teacher! Cool! I am realizing that this American missionary world is really small. Who knew! At least now I feel cooler because I can say “Oh yeah, I met that person…” It makes me feel “in.” Hahaha! Joke lang. Oh yeah, the point of this paragraph was to say that my co-op said that her two strengths are math and science and her weakness is English and Language arts. PERFECTO! There are only 8 kids in the class, but is apparently a very challenging bunch. This should be fun!

And that would be my update for the night. As you can see, I can write a lot about nothing.