A Day in the Life...

i didn't think it was possible to find each day better than the last, but I do. Yesterday, Monday, has been the best so far. I'm just going to walk you through each moment because I loved yesterday.     My roomates, Lynn and Angela, and I were up with the rooster at 4 am. Its been that way every day. The guys named his Harold, I named him dinner. :-) We're all plotting to get him.   After breakfast we began session at 8:30 and asked many questions about the Philippines and culture. Church and State are not seperate here and the Catholic Chruch, according to the panalists, owns much of the land and govern much of the country politics. In fact, they excommunicate any politician who opposses them and then that politicians approual rate goes down so low they lose all power.     We broke into our projects-mine is Education. We also have Costal Resource Managements and Child, Youth and Family coordinatiors. Discussed our goals and learned we heed to create lesson plans for we will be teaching on our own. High School (secondary) by the way. I'm excited to begin, but freaked all the same about curriculum. I may need to call on you friends at the CCE! :-)      Session ended at 4 and children from the Children Abuse Center had prepared several dances for us. They were so cute! Afterwords they came up to us and played with our hair, giggled each time we spoke, and laughed at our attempt at Tagalog. They taught us a dance and a new game. The boys brought some of us girls, me included, yellow flowers. They made me bend down so they could put the flowers in my hair. I felt so accepted at that moment. The kids are great, they accept you immedietly and try to teach you as much Tagalog as they can. Like our numbers... isa, dalawa, tatlo, apat, lima, anim, pito, walo, sigam, sampu... There is no sense of privacy here. We're on display and free entertainment for the next 27 months. I wish I oculd say more but I do not wish to offend my new host country. Fun questions for when I return. I will tell you that having white skin here is ideal. It's considered beautiful. On the way to the hotel Saturday night I saw a "Skin Whitening Boutique", a lot like our tanning salons, which they consider very strange. Love to explain more, like the Mall of Asia (the largest mall in Asia) and the fact that Jason and Garrett are freaking me out about eating cats, but it's time to party. Gotta go do Videokee. Later! Peace.

More to follow...