Tuesday, in the park, and it was the 4th of July

As chance would have it, July 4th was Cadiz City Charter Day, which meant big holiday with no school, and lots of activities. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as fun as our Independence Day and probably a lot hotter.

First thing, at 8am, me and my co-teachers, along with most of the local civic groups met in the park for an outdoor mass and the unveiling of the new Rizal statue. Rizal is the national hero of the Philippines. They set off firecrackers and released some doves at the unveiling, so I pretended they were big fireworks. They smelled like it! After that, we went across the street to hear the dedication of the new school building for Cadiz East II elementary. They are very creative in naming their schools here. The new building is super nice, I wish we had one. Finally about 10:30, we went home.

The worst part of the day was the afternoon parade. Parades here are, in my opinion, masochistic and pointless. I have now walked in two of them. Ours was held at 1:30pm, and it was even hotter than usual, with the barometer falling. It was oppressive. I don't know why anyone bothers to watch these parades. The only things worth seeing in ours was the high school marching band and the white girl walking with the teachers. Everything else in the parade is just different groups walking togeter, carrying their banners. No floats, buskers, bands, anything like that. We walked forever, and then the teachers decided to take a shortcut back to the park, so we didn't actually do the whole parade route, which was fine by me.

After the parade, we went to a fellow teacher's house for her daughter's birthday, which just happened to be that day. All I will say about the party is that it was not fun and the delicious looking cake was not eaten, it was just displayed then put away. I can tell you about Filipino birthday parties some other time.

Finally we went home. But the day wasn't over. About 9pm I went with my host brother, Elvin, and his friends to the 'disco'. They are also big on discos here, but I really don't get them. Usually discos are a big sound system and a DJ set up on a basketball court and it generally resembles a middle school dance. This time was much bigger, since it was the whole city, and they actually had a live band, which was cool. But we just stood there in the city gym (outdoors...but with a roof) and watched the band play covers of American pop music and popular Pinoy (Filipino) songs. When the second band came out, Elvin's friends ran into another friend, who took us 'backstage'. Remember this is the city gym. We slipped through a gap in the fence surrounding the stage, and then we were about 10 feet from the band. We had an okay time listening to the music and dancing a little. I went home way too late, and had to teach a class at 8am. But i didn't mind. They say making friends is the most important thing a PCV in the Philippines can do.