Philippines trip

I ended my 3 weeks stay in the Philippines on Tuesday. It's been a great adventure and a one in a lifetime experience but at the end of the day, I'm still glad to be back in Singapore. We went over to Bago City to do our community project. It's a small town located in Negros Occidental, an island an hour away from Manila. For the first 4 days of the trip, we took part in the TRY summer youth camp. It was totally unexpected for me to take part in the camp as a member and it was kind of like an orientation camp. We were divided into separate groups and mixed together with the Filipinos. It was weird in the beginning as they are not comfortable conversing in English and they were all 16 or 17 year olds. However, they were all really friendly and we all ended up being friends. I was very impressed with their creativity as they made use of a lot of things found in nature to create beautiful things. I can never imagine having a candlelight stand made up of leaves and twigs. There was also a cooking segment which put all of us Singaporeans to shame. The Filipinos were really great at cooking, starting a fire from firewood and expertly preparing all the ingredients to create a few delicious dishes. We were more of a hindrance than a help to them. They also had a beauty pageant which left a big impression on me. They were all very daring and open about the pageant. It's part of their culture to have a lot of fiestas and pageants. They were all very comfortable with wearing little clothing and they were not shy at all. It's really a big culture shock. We continued to be in contact with our Filipino friends throughout our stay in Bago City.

After TRY camp, we had a few days of visits to various high schools as well as government offices. There was also some time allocated for shopping. The high school visits were pretty boring though it was an eye-opener. They certainly did not have the kind of facilities that we enjoy and they did subjects that we do not have e.g. agriculture. It was quite sad to see their libraries stocked up with the books that were donated from Singapore. The books they study depends on what kind of books we donate. The shopping wasn't really good for me. Maybe it's because I'm not an avid shopper but I can't find much things to buy. I bought mostly food stuff over there. Our favourite food there is the Baccolod Chicken which is chicken leg or wing skewered and barbecued. It costs roughly about 1 sing dollar which is really cheap. We bought it whenever there's an opportunity. A group of good friends were also made through those chickens.

After about a week in Bago City, we had our homestay. I was allocated to quite a rural place which was the farthest away from the rest. It was my best experience throughout the whole trip and I still recall it with fond memories. My whole theme for the homestay was adventure and me, together with my homestay buddy, Karin, were brought to the outdoors everyday. My house was located in Ma-ao and it was a very different experience from my life in Singapore. My host family had a really sad story to tell. My host family consisted mainly of my host, Jaypee and his mother. Actually, his 'mother' was his aunt because his mom passed away because of cancer when he was young. His aunt had 2 daughters but they died during a flood in 1991. We visited the cemetery in the first night and it was really sad. When we got back to the house, there was a blackout, and we ended up having dinner by candlelight. My host family reared chickens in the backyard and they were really noisy throughout the night. The next morning, we went to the waterfalls. It was really fun as we negotiated the rocks and dipped in the water. We went over to Jaypee's friend's house for lunch and there was this really scary disused waterway. The covers were absent and the waterway was elevated so we had to walk on the edges of the openings and if we miss our footing, we will fall from quite a height. It was a real test of nerves. We headed to the "Black Sand Beach" after lunch. The sand was black in colour which is really unique. The view was also very good as we can see the whole horizon. The next day, we headed to the river and did nothing much by the river. It still felt great just relaxing by the river. When the time came for us to leave, I felt really sad. Our host's mum was really nice to us and her cooking was superb. We did contribute a little to the cooking, barbecueing fish and wrapping popiahs. She made some sauce for us and it goes really well with the fried brinjal that she made. I'm not a fan of brinjal but I ate almost one whole plate of it. Their whole family went to send us off and their hospitality was touching.

I shall continue on the next post because 3 weeks is too long to be condensed in a single post.