Home Sweet Home

September 22nd, 2012

Well I've made it all the way through PST training and am now present at my site that will be my home over the next two years! How does it feel to reach this point.  .  . to have successfully interviewed, adequately and efficiently be medically/dentally cleared, to have been invited to serve and have separated from family and friends, to experience living with a foreign family and engage in drinking sessions.  To have experienced a flood, the most significant flood in a few years, to have taught literacy, life skills, and community projects and to have sworn in officially, as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  It is a bit overwhelming and seems like a blur that so much as happened over the past 10 weeks here in the Philippines, SouthEast Asia!  This is the day that many prospective volunteers dream of and hope to make it this far.  My group began with 70 peace corps trainees and now are down to 66.  Some have gone home for not being a good fit for the organization and others have claimed family reasons as the motivation for resignation. 

I now reside in the class 4 barangay of Nasisi, where we have Kawa Kawa http://wowlegazpi.com/kawa-kawa-hill-in-ligao-city/ and an amazing view of Mayon volcano http://tourism.albay.gov.ph/mayonpage.html.  We have no running water in our home but the people are nice and hospitable.  Just a week ago in Subic, I lived with a family that had not only running water, but wifi and a modern home, similar to the homes seen back in the U. S.  The best part of my home is my room.  Its very spacious and has a nice size bed.  It will take some getting used to but the best part of my site is that my work site is less than 5 minutes from me by walking! Yes, three months of training down and 24 wonderful months of work to go! I feel as though the journey has not yet even started because I have such a long way to go on this journey for peace. I'm sure some think that I am hidden somewhere in the swamps of the Pines but I assure you that I am safe in sound.  In fact, I guess you can say I'm hiding in Peace!

Bedroom Space.  The walls are not painted, just concrete. 

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing, but what you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.

-Alan Alada