Then and Now

Yes it’s been an even longer amount of time since my last blog now, so this one’s going to be jammed packed with information. Maybe I'll make it into two, Actually I have been pretty busy compared to my stagnant update I posted over four months ago. So I’ll let you know about what’s been up in the past four months and what’s going on now. I'll save the 'what’s to come' for a later time.

Since my last post I have been busy traveling and working in between, of course. Getting to see as much of the Philippines as I possibly can, has been my major goal in this second year of my service.  Recently my trips with some of my friends are in the islands of the region of the Visayas here in the Philippines. This is the region is located south of the largest island Luzon, where my site is located. If you look at a map of the Philippines these islands are in the middle of the two larger islands.

The Visayas, Luzon, and Mindanao are the three parts of the Philippines. Unfortunately as a Peace Corps volunteer, I am not allowed to travel to Mindanao due to safety reasons. But I’m trying to explore the parts I can go as much as I can.

 

To get to specific islands in the Visayas there are bus and ferry routes, but this can take days of traveling on bus/boat hell. So I have opted out to take 9 hour bus rides to Manila and then fly to major cities. It’s more expensive, but airlines here offer promos for flights at certain times. On average if I can time it out and keep my eyes online for promos, round trip flights here can average around $30.

Here are some place that I have visited recently:

In April I traveled to the city of Iloilo and then made a long journey (about 6 hours by bus) across the island of Panay to where a hot spot for tourist is, called Boracay. This felt like a vk you would take to get away from work and just relax. It wasn’t the most beautiful beach I have seen in the Philippines, but it definitely was the most modern. My friends and I spent our time eating, drinking, sun bathing, and being merry for Easter.

 

Then I also visited the cities of Dumagete of the Island Negros in May and most recently for my Birthday I went to Tacloban in Leyte. I actually didn't take many pictures, but just spent time hanging out with other Peace Corps Volunteers and enjoying the cities.

 

Beside Visayas traveling I have also been enjoying visiting places at my site of Bicol.

It truly is a gem for traveling to pristine beaches. There's not much tourism going on from international visitors, more just from local Filipinos and Filipinos from different regions.

So here are some of my favorites, including the most beautiful beach I've ever been to:

islands of Matnog, including Subic (the pink sand beach), in the province of Sorsogon,

 

 

Sangay beach chilling in my province of Camarines Sur,

 

 

and last but not least, the gorgeous island of Calaguas in the province of Camarines Norte.

Liked it so much, it was so nice that I went twice!

 

 

 

But of course there's still been work too.

So right now I have a little less than three months left in my service.  I have a couple bigger projects coming up that I will explain in a later blog (promise), but currently I'm focusing on just finishing up a grant project that I started with my counterpart over a year ago. The funding for this project came from an organization called World Connect. They help fund Peace Corps Volunteer projects all over the world; here's their website. where you can read more about the project:
http://worldconnect-us.org/projects/parent-leader-capacity-building-training/

I talked about this project in previous blog posts and it is still not quite completed.  Parts of this project has been postponed so much due to weather and schedule conflicts. Also after the initial project was completed in January there were funds that still needed to be used. 

This month two follow up activities were completed at a local school involving teambuilding activities with elementary school students that are also beneficiaries of the program 4Ps, to which I am assigned. Along with teambuilding the children and their parents were given sessions on the Rights of a Child under the guidelines of the United Nations. The parents were also given sessions on positive parenting.

So there is one more activity of the same nature that will be finished within the next month. yaya! I will explain more work stuff later, but I hope you enjoyed seeing and hearing about my travels. I'll post again soon :)