Today marks the first week done with our host families. Everyone is having different experiences. Mine so far is good. my family is great, i really like them. My family is actually just one lady. Everyone calls her Mommy Ann, which is wierd to me, but it works.
Her husband, Boy, is a visual artist and they are very prominent in the community. In our house also lives Christine,who is about 14, and lives with Mommy Ann so she can go to school, because her house is too far from any school. In return she does a lot of the chores. This makes me feel strange, but it's not like she's a servant. She does things with us and is like a part of the family. She was very shy around me for a while, but as she was showing me how to wash my underwear, we bonded, and now she likes me and we're cool.
Our barangay (village) is called Lambuyao (Lam-boo-yow). It is outside the town of Oton,which is south of Iloilo city, on the island of Panay. It feels very rural. We live on a dirt road. We have roosters and there is nothing to do but videoke within walking distance. Videoke is ALWAYS within walking distance, no matter where you live. It's a national pastime.
The Barangay captian is an elected position, less than a mayor, but still important. Cap Axel is our barangay captain, and he is mommy ann's brother. His wife is Baby (names...i haven't figured them out...) and their 3 children are Samantha, Bam, and Pok. Sam is about 12 and lives with us. Bam is a girl, she is about 8, and basically lives with us, but sleeps with her parents in the house right behindo urs. Right behind means about 10 feet. Pok is 4 and also is usually around but lives with his parents. Those are the people I interact with everday. There are also plenty of other people i see, and everyone knows us.
Erin lives across the street and our teach Anna next to her. It's nice to be able to go to Erin's to study or have her come over and hang out. My family, unlike most everyone else's, is not overbearing or smothering. They don't make me eat things, although they like me to try new stuff. They don't insist that I'm not eating enough. They aren't constantly offering me things, it's very laid back and i have a lot of freedom, which is nice.
Mosquito nets are coo l,you feel like you're camping every night. But you are supposed to take them down in the morning. That's more of a pain than making my bed ever was, and i never bothered to do that.
It's just rediculously hot. More than anything, the heat is getting to me. Standing on a concrete floor dumping cold water on my head for a shower is fine. Carrying toilet paper with me because they don't use it here is fine. bug bites are fine. The heat is NOT FINE. I'm drinking lots of water, but probably not enough. We learned the word for cold, and we wondered if filipinos even know what it means to be cold. We suspect not.
Our barangay is getting ready for a big dance/drama competition coming up at the start of May. All the barangays around Oton compete. I'm sure we will win, we are awesome. It's really neat to watch the kids practice, they are goood dancers.
As my family says, I have 'first honors' in my language class. Out of 3 people, that's not too hard. But I am the best in the class. Today we started making sentences. whooo!! I can't tell you how much the spanish has helped me learn Ilonggo. I would be way worse off without it.
By the way, I got a cell phone. Peace Corps requires us to have one, and all the Filipinos have them. It seems contrary to the idea of why we're here to have a cell phone, but we're accepting it. So if anyone feels compelled to call from the other side of the world, let me know and I'll give you my number, and ask my parents how to make the call.
Here's some of the kids I hang out with. This is Pok, of course, doing funny faces for the camera.
Here is Mel James, Erin's host brother. He's 12, and hangs out around us a lot. He's really fun, we like him a lot.
This is Nicole, the daughter of the videoke owner. She's adorable, and has really good English.
but this one was a sweet breakfasty food, so I stuffed my face. After that we had to complete a worksheet of ilonggo sentences. Here's a picture of Anna and Erin working on theirs.
had to put together the easiest puzzle in the world, and then Ross and I were the winners! Here's a pictures of Erin and Anna putting together their 4 piece puzzle while our teachers, Alvin and Anna, look on.
o go on with our real class. When I came home at lunch, my host kids had made a sign that said "CONGRATULATIONS MANANG LAURA! YOU DID IT! Sam, Bam and Pok." [Manang is like a respectful term for anyone, it's not very formal. They call me Manang Laura. So it was a fun race, and our teachers worked really hard on it.
Yes, believe it or not, this is a real picture of me handwashing my laundry at my house. Okay, helping to hand wash my laundry. I'm sure that if I did it all myself it would take hours and still my clothes wouldn't be very clean. Christine, our schoolgirl is helping me. We're not laughing because it's so much fun. It's not really any fun at all. We're laughing because Christine can't stop laughing at me trying to wash my own clothes. Everything I do is hilarious because it's so so wrong. And she broke into fits of giggles when she was washing the leg parts of my zip-off pants. She said "What is this!?" and tried it on like a sleeve. She couldn't breathe she was laughing so hard. I look so Peace Corps in this picture, but washing by hand sucks and as soon as I get to my site I will hire someone to do it for me. Lots of people do, we're helping the local economy! But for now I keep trying to wash things myself. With help.
This is my house! Everyone who knows something about houses says my house is really cool. My host father (who I have never met) is a visual artist so the house is covered with neat artwork. On the porch is my host-aunt Baby. The yard is really cool too, but my room is very small and hot. 
While at SEAFDEC (our hub site) we had a barbeque on the beach one night. Kevin, a current PCV who leads our group, found this blue jellyfish. The little girl is Migi, one of the staff people's nieces. 
Here I am with my host mother, Mommy Ann. This is at SEAFDEC, when he had just met.
Here is Pok, my host cousin. He is four, and he's hilarious. He talks to me a lot, but unfortunately I can't understand him. I always just say 'yea!' like with American 4 year olds I can't understand.
Here is our Hub group of Western Visayas. We are all freshly showered and dressed nicely to go meet the Barangay Captain, so we took advantage of it to take a picture. Here's who everyone is, starting with the big guy next to me. Front Row: Ward, Laura, RyAnn, Anna, Erin (Scott's wife), Alice, Erin D, Abby.
Okay, quick descriptions of the pictures. Carlos was our tour guide at Intramuros, an old walled city in Manila. He was HILARIOUS. Best tour of anything ever. Behind him is Boni, one of our PC Manila staff people.
This is Anna, a girl in my hub site, and one of my friends. We were roommates at SEAFDEC, the campus we stayed at during hub. The room had A/C! And flushing toilets!! We get to go back in two weeks, and we're excited.
