uKaY-UkAy

An unplanned trip to Japan left me with one problem. I have no winter clothes here because I expected to spend two years in the eternal inferno that is the Philippines. So I had one simple mission before me: to find a giant sweater. The mission posed two problems one is finding a sweater for sale in a sub tropical environment and finding a sweater for someone with a 6'4" frame in a country where the average height is about 5'8". I decided to head to the ukay-ukay which is Filipino for giant thrift store. Rebeka and I were scouring the racks for a giant sweater but it didn't look like a possibility. Then all of a sudden I grabbed a light brown sweater. I gave it a look over and thought it might actually fit. I unzipped the sweater and threw it on. Just like a glove. A perfect fit and even in style. Then I heard Rebeka laughing behind me. I turned around and said "what, you don't like it". I couldn't understand what was so funny. I took off the sweater and was a little bit hurt. Then I noticed a big jean patch on the back of the sweater. Oh great I found a sweater that fits but looks like the 1980's threw up on it. After Rebeka stopped laughing she came up with the idea to cut off the patch, which said sicko on it. So we spent the 150 pesos (3 dollars) and took the sweater home. After an hour long procedure I removed the patch but the word sicko was stained in the sweater. Rebeka had a solution for this problem too. She decided to wash the sweater repeatedly and let the sun bleach it out. Well we're getting ready to leave for Japan and the sweater still has a faint sicko outline. I guess it might be an opportunity to get a new nickname. Oh how I love shopping.

Fiesta and Surprises

This past week was our town's Lambayok Festival. Lambayok is a combination of Lambanog the 90 proof coconut wine made from coconut nectar, and palayok which is locally made pottery. The highlights of the three day festival were a beauty contest, a boxing match, a dancing competition among the schools and free lambanog (my students especially appreciate this element of the fiesta). Wednesday was the street dancing competition and parade. Kids from the local schools were dressed in costumes made from native materials.

Standing in the hot hot sun sweating be cause the parade wasn't moving.

Our host sister. Her school won for costume and dancing!

Students from my school performing

We finally collected our last two bags from my supervisor's house where they have been stored for the past 4 months. Yes, we definitely over-packed! When we got the things from our bags we had lots of mold and this little traveler. He obviously had a liking for our American Tourister luggage.

Two of my third year classes!

We awoke to a beautiful sunset rising through the trees. Granted there was no power and we could hardly see, but we did spy something sitting on our windowsill... It was red and rounded? No, the color came from the hundreds of tiny red ants consuming the pile of ??? Yes our dear friend the cat (who came with the house and we share with the neighbor) had left a surprise on the window sill. Left over noodles that he hadn't digested? or a pile of parasitic worms? hmmm... Either way getting it and the hundreds of red ants off the window sill was interesting. We are grateful that rubbing alcohol is quite inexpensive and readily accessible for all of those times you just don't really know what something is.The other creature who really belongs to our neighbor and leaves lots of unwanted surprises around our house.

Steve with Leo, our host brother and Jimboy our neighbor.