We're Loaded

Peace Corps is usually associated with people living in the bush, without running water or electricity. They are believed to travel great distances by meager means just to reach a glimpse of what many of us refer to as civilization. However that is far from Peace Corps Philippines. Peace Corps Philippines has been tagged as the Club Med of Peace Corps and I think it is a properly fitting title. When we started our application process we imagined being whisked away to a land where transportation was by horse, we lived in a tent, and the only other foreigners we would see would be Peace Corps volunteers but even that would be a rare occasion. The reality is far from that. Our house sits in a small coastal fishing village, which is quaint and offers a little rougher feel than many places we've been in the Philippines but let me put this in perspective. We have electricity, we could have a television if we chose to, we could have air conditioning, we could have a refrigerator, and we could have any electronic device that we pleased. We cook over a charcoal stove but could easily have propane stove. The house we live in is built from concrete and coconut lumber. Then there is our town, which is small by Pilipino standards. Our town has an open air market, three or four small grocery stores (not like Price Chopper/Hannaford’s but more like a large convenience store), our town also has a Dunkin Donuts, Mister Donut, pizza place, coffee shop, a couple restaurants, five gas stations, a city park, two private schools, etc. Then there are the bigger cities in our province which are about 1-2 hours away from us and they offer malls with McDonalds, KFC, pizza places, electronic stores, clothing stores, grocery stores, etc. They are identical to malls in America. The cities also have universities, bus stations, and almost any other city-orientated thing you could imagine. Then there is the big city. Manila, the capitol city is estimated to have a population of 12-15 million people. Manila has anything and everything. Manila has some of the largest malls in Asia, it has museums, night clubs, a range of restaurants from Italian food to Middle Eastern food, there are even parts of the city that are reminiscent of upscale areas in Los Angeles with manicured lawns, large new buildings, and palm trees. The point of all this is simply that it isn't any where near as tough as we expected. If we want hummus we travel 3 hours to Manila, if we want pizza then we travel an hour to a provincial city, if we want cheap fresh seafood then we walk out of our house. There are things that we can't get here but that is fine because where in the United States can you get fresh mangos, bananas, pineapple, coconut, tuna, tomatoes, eggplant......... EVERYDAY?