there's got to be a better way to say that.

Spotted this in their city's museum when I visited the other day.  Apparently it's the flag Mindanaoans used as part of their rebellion against the Spanish and fight for independence.  

Took more than one Google search to find that last link.

Went to church on Sunday and got distracted a lot by the monkey just outside.

my first real task as a volunteer here: promo girl for the university-sponsored zumbathon.

Is it weird if the person giving you a foot massage has their hand between your legs?

Not a typo.

good morning, meat lovers.

divisoria.

Taken from the inside of a jeepney 'round the night markets they have on Friday and Saturday nights.  Php 6 for a trip ($0.20 NZD - the $1.80 fares back home can bite me).  I spent Friday night in the company of a girl who works at the research centre I'm at, wandering around and looking at imitation bags while talking about love, long-distance, and intellectual property.

survival tactics.

I'm so scared of crossing the road here that I've taken to ghosting people on the sidewalk.

room for two.

Watching Discovery Channel (an activity whose ironic value I'm fast becoming aware of -- I should be out there! discovering! instead of inside watching other people discover things) when I saw a mouse scuttle along the side of the wardrobe towards the door, out of my sightline.  

There's no way out of my room that isn't bolted shut, and so I've spent the last half hour playing let's pretend the floor is lava! 

I was taken out to dinner by two friends of the family and we went to an open-air seafood restaurant.  It was nice to see those two again - they work for a church out in the municipality where some of my family are based, and I'm going out to their church 'anniversary' this coming Sunday.

After only one day I'm also learning words thick and fast - lugar lang ('stop now'), asa dapit ('where is'), tag pila? (how much?).  I feel more in place than some, less in place than others.  There are two other volunteers here (one from France, one from Germany) and they're both particularly... Aryan.  We attended a birthday 'do for one of the people working at the research centre where I'm based and I noticed I laughed more easily than the two Europeans, was able to pick up fragments of the conversation and make people smile by dropping Cebuano words.  I don't speak the language, but I'm surprised by the amount of detritus has settled into my vocabulary by mere virtue of hearing it around me so often while growing up.  It's comforting, realising I've inherited more than I thought.

on the future.

So I've found a job here if lawyering doesn't work out for me.

 

things to do with things in my mouth.

It so happened that one of my brackets from my braces came off on the flight over. I e-mailed a friend telling him about my adventures in the world of developing-country orthodontia.

Hilariously and fortunately, it so happens that my mother's two friends in Manila are orthodontists. We all trooped off to see a friend of theirs who had a clinic near where I was staying. The ortho was having trouble pushing the archwire into the final bracket. He pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and when he finally managed to shove the wire in he smiled triumphantly and said, "virgin."

I. Was. Horrified.

but had to laugh it off, like, 'haha, that's such an apt analogy, I really enjoy thinking about you deflowering women and how you're able to liken it to something that you've just done inside of my mouth."

moments you don't really forget.

A little boy pressed his head against the window of the car I was in while we were stopped in traffic and pleaded for money. I should have gone to that unlimited rice place and gotten some food for him.

RICE AT KFC! YES.

first impressions, again.

Manila is crowded and dusty and loud. Even though I was only here six months ago and I pretend like I'm totally used to it ('oh yeah, Manila? Totally used to it. Motherland.'), I'm always thrown for the first few hours by how different it all is to home.

Particularly weirded out by the huge billboards with impeccably dressed and disinterested caucasian teenagers plastered across them. Globalism, I know, but I feel uncomfortable at the idea that people are idolising an idea of beauty that they literally cannot achieve.

ALSO: there's a fast-food place that apparently offers UNLIMITED RICE with every meal you order. Surely, this is a land of plenty.

Goodbye, New Zealand! Hello, the Philippines! Hello, McSpaghetti!