Home, Sweet Home

6 flights, 5 countries, 4 boat rides, many tricycle and tuk tuk rides, and 2 overnight trains later, my summer trip has ended.

This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I will never forget it. The people I met, the food I tasted, the places I saw, and the things I experienced have surely left a mark on me.

Traveling teaches you a lot about yourself, and about those who you are with. I am so glad to have been able to share this experience with 3 incredible people-Mitch, Alex, and Carissa. We are 4 different people with extremely different talents, likes, dislikes, etc...but we really became our own little family over the course of the past 11 weeks.

I hope to continue to write about this trip as things come up, and will insert them into their place in the blog. Thanks to everyone who has prayed for this trip and was interested in the work I did this summer.

Where will I be going next?...London- in January for Winter Term! To do a Human Services practicum. More on that to come!

Hong Kong

Well this was our last stop on our trip, and I can't believe we will be flying home tomorrow.

Hong Kong is beautiful at night. The buildings, all set up in traditional feng shui arrangement across the city, light up once the sun goes down. Every night, the city puts on a lazer and lights show with the buildings that can be viewed from across the harbour.

We went up Victoria's Peak and saw the wax museum one day, and that was a highlight!
We also traveled along the world's longest escalator that took us up the city streest to different shops and restarants.
We made a stop at Kowloon Park and watched Kung Fu demonstrations and cultural music.

We also had an interesting run-in with a dim sum restaurant that was less than satisfying- absolutely nobody spoke English and we couldn't figure out how to order or choose the food, or the prices of each item for that matter (remember we are on budgets!) It was quite hectic as women with carts of food swarmed us with dumplings that we did not know if we wanted or could afford. This was a cultural experience we will never forget.

Possibly my favorite part of Hong Kong was visiting the large population of Filipina women who work in Hong Kong as maids. Every Sunday on their day off, thousands of them picnic in the city after church. This was, of course, something we wanted to see because we love the Philippines and the people there! It was an amazing sight to see...women were not only in the parks, but many just sat on the sidewalks near the train station and malls, with their blankets spread on the ground, and tons of familiar Filipino food that we had become accustomed to. We loved hearing the Tagalog being spoken and were able to visit with some women for a short time.

Thailand

Thailand has been amazing! What an awesome place. Flying into Chiang Mai is beautiful and very green. The Centara Hotel we are staying at is beautiful and the concierge service there has been so helpful in booking things for us to do.

One of the coolest things in Chiang Mai was the Thai boxing matches we saw! The matches attract locals and tourists who are up for an exciting night of gambling or just watching a few good fights. Some of these guys are really tough!

Chiang Mai also has an awesome night bazaar that is ridiculously extensive. The guys are buying lots of things and each probably have more than Carissa and I combined!

In Bangkok, we attended a Thai puppet show, which was a very different experience. I had never seen a Thai puppet show, and was surprised when the puppeteers were an onstage act instead of hiding behind the stage. 3 to 4 people handled and controlled one puppet at a single time and gracefully took on the characters they were portraying.

I hope to be able to come back to Thailand and explore just this country entirely, from the mountains, to the beaches, to the cities. Thailand is called the Land of Smiles, and for good reason- we met a bunch of great Thai people who were eager to help us and happy to see us.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Well our time is now up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and though it wasn't my favorite place in the world at first, I really grew to enjoy the city.

We were so thankful when we discovered that our hostel was actually a decent living space! The Hotel Paradiso hostel is located right in the middle of the Bukit Bintang area of KL- and it is awesome. We were put up in room all together, with two bunk beds. El Paradiso, as I like to refer to it, is a cool place where lots of young backpackers from Europe, Australia and the US come to stay, and we met a few fun characters while watching "football" in the common areas.

We toured the city, tried new foods, ate a delicious dinner across the street from the Petronas twin towers, and saw a musical called Merchants of Bollywood in the Istana Budaya- the national theater of Malaysia. We even saw the first lady at the show! The music in the show was composed by AR Rahman- the same guy who composed the music for Slumdog Millionaire! The show was full of awesome music, great dancing, and tremendous costumes that must have been changed at least 2o times during the performance.

Carissa's birthday fell in this leg of the trip- she is 20! Ah we are getting so old! (haha)

Traveling is great and we are looking forward to Thailand, though we truly are backpacking around southeast Asia and at times it gets really tough and tiring. But our little family is managing to take care of each other and continuing to have a blast on this amazing adventure!

I got yelled at by a Singaporean taxi driver

Right now we are in Singapore! After a flight to KL and a lovely (?) overnight train we arrived yesterday morning in Singapore, which is a beautiful city!

Last night we went to the Night Safari after navigating the subway and taxi systems. And yes, we got yelled at because we didn't follow the rules for waiting in a queue. Who knew there was a proper way to stand in line?

Anyway today we are off to do more exploring of this impeccably clean and orderly city.

We spent 3 days in Manila prior to our flight to KL and had an amazing experience there, walking through slum areas with some of Stairway's Manila staff, and getting to know the city better with Ken Lee, a friend who goes to Duke. Zach, Jao, and Mark were able to meet us in Manila on Friday to watch the new Harry Potter movie! It was awesome to see them again before we left- we definitely miss the Stairway family a lot!

More to come on the rest of our Manila experience!
We leave Singapore tomorrow night on a train back to KL to do some exploring there for a few days.

I'm leaving on a jetplane, don't know when I'll be back again

Well technically I am leaving on a bangka (boat). But yes- today we are leaving Stairway after 2 incredible months. I can't believe how fast it went- it seems like just yesterday we were sweltering in the humidity and heat of Puerto Galera because we were not used to the climate. It has been a month since the new batch of kids got here, and after seeing the slideshow that we put together for the kids last night, it is amazing how much they have already changed and grown.

It is hard to leave the kids- especially Lance and Louie, who were our first friends here! It is hard to leave these two boys, who have become to us like our own kids, or at least little brothers to us, with only a goodbye letter, book, combination lock, and an email address to hopefully keep in contact with them.

And the Stairway staff have become like family to us as well.

But the boys will leave Stairway and a new batch of kids will come in. Lance and Louie will grow up. These things end and time continues to pass, like clockwork. I will miss these new friends that I have made, and know that I will always have a home on a small island, in a tiny barangay in the Philippines.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every matter under heaven.
a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
atime to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time for laughter
a time to mourn, and a time to dance
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend
a time to be silent, and a time to speak
Ecclesiastes 3:1-7


plans from now on:
Headed to Manila for 3 days.
7/18: flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
7/18-19: overnight train to Singapore- two days there
7/21: overnight train to KL- a few days there
7/25: Carissa's bday- flight to Chiang Mai, Thailand- there for 5 days
7/30: flight to Bangkok, Thailand- there for 1 day
7/31: Flight to Hong Kong- there for a few days
8/4: flight back to New York

we have quite a busy schedule and lots planned for the next two weeks. Please pray for safety as we have a lot of planing and training to do!

Too cool for school

"Good morning, visitors!" yelled the 50 students in unison and stood at their seats as Mitch, Alex, and I entered the brightly colored yet small Grade 5 classroom at Aninuan Elementary School.

Teacher Rosemary was about to start her English reading lesson when she invited us in to observe her class. We took our seats in the back of the classroom as the students, dressed in white shirts and navy blue shorts or skirts, finished the teacher's open ended sentences and answered her introductory questions. The lesson was about paragraphs, and how to identify topic sentences and supporting details. Together, they enthusiastically read the paragraph on the board and Teacher Rosemary asked them to identify the sentences. There were also new vocabulary words or them to learn. I was impressed to see the words "garner" and "valedictory address" on the board.

Though they were a bit giggly whenever they turned around to look at us, all of the kids were extremely well-behaved and respectful toward the teacher. One would assume that a classroom of over fifty students with only one teacher would be out of control. That is the way larger classes in the United States are. But it was not chaotic at all during the lessons. Another great thing about the school is the campus. Though it is small with maybe 12 classrooms in lines around a courtyard, not one bit of space was wasted. Even the gardens have learning in them. Color was everywhere.

Rosemary spoke to us while they kids were doing their group work. She said that she loves
being a teacher. She has been there for eight years and is a foster mom for some of the children who had gone through the Stairway program. But it is a hard job, and is especially hard financially because she spends more than half of her salary on teaching supplies. The government only gives each class 300 pesos- enough to cover the cost of chalk. She talked about the students and said that this was the poorest batch she has had. That three or four of them actually learn the material quickly but the rest are slow to learn.

I was quite uncomfortable when she said this because the kids were sitting right there and could have overheard us talking. That happens a lot here, I have found. People speak very matter of factly about others, even if it is unkind and they are standing right there. It happens especially with the adults speaking about the children. There is such a divide between adults and children here. This is much different than at home. It can be good in many ways, especially in order for kids to learn how to respect their elders, but it is also a detriment in many ways. For example, parents do not talk to their kids about things like sex or drugs. This is actually a huge factor in the problem of sexual abuse- especially because if a child is abused, he or she would not be comfortable talking to their parents about it.

Anyway- the trip to the school was a great experience and lots of fun for all of us. Lance and Louie were especially excited to see us- it is a good thing we weren't visiting their individual classrooms, because otherwise we might have been more of a bother!