Welcome!

Hello friends and family members! I’m going to take a stab at this whole blog thing as a way to keep in touch with all of you and keep you posted on my time in the Peace Corps, Philippines.

Currently, I am living with a host family in the town of Banate, in the province of Iloilo, on Panay Island, in the Visayas region of the Philippines. The Visayas are a cluster of islands located in the center of the country. Our Baranguy (or neighborhood) is called Talokgangan. I will be here for my 3 months of training, after which I will spend 2 years at my permanent site, which will be determined in a couple weeks.

Banate is a beautiful place, especially when you look past all the garbage and the pollution. From my house, you can walk right out onto the ocean. Unfortunately due to the sedimentation, garbage, and lack of sewage system, you can't really swim in the water. Banate is a great place for me to be. It's very safe, the people are extremely friendly, and it's fun having lots of kids fascinated by us "Kanos." I typically say hi to everyone I see, and the kids in the school that I walk past to class every morning all know my name and shout it when I walk past.

I live right behind the houses straight ahead. The pond is much more polluted than it looks!

The view from my house. My uncle's fishing boat in the distance.

My living conditions are quite comfortable. I sleep under a mosquito net, which is a nice luxury for me to have, and there is also an electric fan in my room, which has come in handy. It is hot in the Philippines, and although this is considered to be the winter (and rainy season), it gets to about 90 degrees every day and feels a lot hotter than that with the humidity. We haven't gotten much rain considering the time of year it is, but last night there was a rain storm louder than any I have ever heard before. I think it helped having a tin roof.

The bathroom situation has taken some getting used to. There is no hot water (which isn’t that big of a deal in this climate), and the toilets don’t flush. Instead, there is a huge bucket of water in the bathroom, and you just pour water from the bucket into the toilet to push everything down the drain. Somehow it works decently, and I'm very lucky because my house, including the bathroom, is kept extremely clean, thanks to my host mom and host grandmother.

This is my house in Banate.

And this is my bedroom. Check out the fan- NBD.

I have a great homestay family. I have a mother, grandfather, grandmother, and 3 siblings. My mother is a devout evangelical Christian, and the first thing she asked me when we met was what is my religion. I told her Judaism, and since then, we have had some interesting conversations. I try telling her Jews and Christians believe in the same God, but when I told her that we don’t believe that Christ is the son of God, she replied, “But he is.” Sort of hard to argue about, but I’ve enjoyed telling her about my life as a Reform Jew, and she brought me to her church, the Pentecostal Missionary Church, last Sunday. The service was 3.5 hours of listening to a foreign language, but I was given a bible in English to read, so it wasn’t too bad. I was asked to lead in the opening prayers, and the next day my Mom and her friend, who is always over at our house and was at the church with us, said I did a great job. I was glad she was happy since a couple days earlier, when she came home to my playing cards with my homestay siblings, she said that God does not allow us to play cards and instead I should read the bible of spread the world of God to my friends.

My siblings are really cute. I have two younger brothers (Mark and EG, short for Edgar) and a young sister (Gael). Mark is about 8, EG 6, and Gael 3. I’ve taught Mark and EG how to play Go Fish, Crazy Eights, Egyptian Ratscrew, and Concentration. Now they ask me to play cards with them everyday. They can speak a few words in English, but mainly it’s me showing them what to do. Gael is too young to follow along, but she does like grabbing at the cards. She is nuts, and every moment she is awake, she is running around like a wild-child, usually with food all over her hands and face.  I thought she didn't understand anything I said, but when I called her Baby Monster this morning, she said that I was "lay-aw" (meaning ugly).

Next to where I live is my uncle Nante's house. Nante is a fisherman who is college educated and speaks English very well. He has been really fun for me to have around, and he has been introducing me to the people who come by our house. He helps translate for me too. I know I am going to learn a lot from him. In between our two houses is a small pavilion with a small billiards table underneath. I spend much of my time at home out there, playing billiards, chess, or dama (basically checkers with slightly modified rules) with whoever comes by. There is also a family with nine children who live next door, and the kids like to come over and practice English with me and sing American songs. The biggest hit here in Banate is “Baby, Baby,” by Justin Bieber. You can't get away from it. It's not just the little girls. Even the boys and grown men have "Bieber Fever," singing "Baby, Baby" out of nowhere.

My homestay siblings: Gael, EG, and Mark

The pavilion at my house where I hang out and play billiards, chess, and checkers.

I hope you enjoyed my first post! I'm going to run and meet some of the other volunteers in my cluster to play soccer, but I’ll write again soon!