Settling in Cebu

My new host family consists of my host mom, host grandmother and a two year old. They also have a full time nanny, a full time cook and yet another maid. I am a lot more independent here, my room even has a separate entrance to the house which has its advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes I am invited to have meals with the family and other times they will just deliver a tray to my room. Although my host mom speaks perfect English, I am really hoping that when I learn the language I can begin to build relationships with all the staff here, because I see them more than anyone else. 

Despite what this may sound like I am no longer spoiled in the realm of clothes washing unless I want to cough up 100 pesos every week. For all you PCV’s reading you're probably rolling your eyes but I only just recently experienced washing my clothes by hand here in Cebu. It’s an interesting process consisting of many different buckets. You’ve got your soapy water bucket, your rinse bucket, then your second rinse bucket. Then they have a spinner you put the clothes in for only a few minutes to get the excess water out then you simply hang your clothes in the sun to dry. Sounds easy enough but by the end of the process (two hours later) I was completely exhausted and dripping in sweat. I had put my old dirty soapy water into the bucket in the bathroom trying to conserve water and thinking it would get used to flush the toilet (we use this bucket to shower as well as to flush the toilet) but then no one went to the bathroom and I was awkwardly waiting around for someone to go to the bathroom and empty the bucket. Then I was trying to decide if I could acceptably use one of the laundry buckets for showering. By the end of the day I had successfully showered from a clean bucket and only one of my shirts fell off the clothes line into the mud.

I have already met up with some other Peace Corps Volunteers living in Cebu. We went to “the IT” for dinner, an area where there are tons of outsourcing companies. Many young Filipinos with money live there. I felt like I was walking around in California because it was so well developed, with lots of really new restaurants and huge office and apartment buildings. Although Cebu has pretty much anything an American could ever need including multiple Starbucks, living here on the Peace Corps allowance I will have to budget very wisely. I haven't been able to do this city justice as far as exploring goes but I will get some more photos up eventually. 

My first week at work was pretty laid back. I made some flashcards in Cebuano and the girls are already helping me learn the language. I was able to make my first courtesy call by visiting a napping barangay captain and introducing myself. I helped collect items for a garage sale for the center. I was able to attend a quarterly human trafficking meeting with all the stake holders in the community; unfortunately it was in Cebuano so there was little I could understand. I did however get to participate in the pre-meeting prayer, where we all stood up and sang along to a youtube video about Jesus, a staple here in the Philippines. I also attended a really interesting meeting with a representative from the Visayan Forum, the agency that is currently being sued by USAID. He came to establish a partnership with our agency and explained that the Visayan Forum plans to prove their innocence in court. More info here: http://philippines.usaid.gov/newsroom/us-sues-top-ngo-execs 

By Thursday I had my first experience with Filipino health care. After having a bad cough for the last three weeks and having a fever for two days I decided it was time to get checked out and boy did I miss the American healthcare system. Not sure how much of it actually had to do with the Filipino system or the Peace Corps credit system or the combination of the two but I was at the hospital from 10am-4pm waiting around for the doctor, then waiting to get my tests and prescriptions authorized by the medical office then I had to wait forever for my tests and to get my prescriptions filled. Thankfully my counterpart Arianne was there to help me through it all. The next few days were rough. The meds they prescribed me made me really sleepy and the first day on the meds I had a migraine that lasted for 6 hours. The next day I was feeling better but my body was still really aching so my host mom suggested one of the maids give me an oil massage for 50 p. After the massage they told me that I needed to get very sweaty and wait until the late afternoon to take a bath so I sat around covered in oil for hours feeling really sweaty and gross hoping they knew what they were talking about. By 4pm something miraculous happened... I was actually feeling hungry, my appetite had returned! There is a method to the madness.

This is the church I walk past everyday on my way to work.