The best part of Peace Corps is never knowing what's next

Last night we spent the evening sipping cocktails, eating roasted lamb and fresh tuna salad, listening to a world class violinist and mingling with some of the most beautiful women in the world on a white sand beach at a world class resort. Peace Corps is tough. Miss Earth, the 3rd largest international beauty pageant http://www.missearth.tv, is held in Maynila and one of the judges owns a resort in San Juan. The resort owner hosted 10 of the girls at his resort (Japan, China, Costa Rica, New Zealand, England, Canada, Poland, Argentina, Columbia and Peru) for a couple of days. Steve and his supervisor have worked with the owner of the resort because he is very interested in the environmental conservation of San Juan; beautiful beaches = environmentally sound practices. Hence we were invited to attend the activities yesterday. In the morning the girls went to the Municipal Hall where they were greeted with a traditional dance and local treats like lambonag (coconut "wine" thats 85 proof). Later they visited a bangus (fish) processing center and "planted" a mangrove. In the evening we went to Virgin Resort and gorged on amazing food. There was lumpia, fresh tuna salad, fresh vegetables, roasted lamb and sandwiches for appetizers. For dinner we ate green salad (something we haven't had in 6 months!) soup, and grilled prawns with eggplant and tomato. Dessert was turon (banana wrapped in an eggroll wrapper, coated in sugar and deep fried) with caramel sauce and sesame seeds. To say that we were stuffed is an extreme understatement.
The range of our experiences has been so great, sometimes it is all a little surreal.

Students who performed a traditional dance for the visitors at our Municipal Hall

Miss Earth candidates and the resort owner with his family