Ducks PLUS Tequila equals Americans in Paradise

Also on Thursday the 24th, a very special bottle of Tequila will be opened and used to make margaritas - the one thing I actually know how to cook. Please refrain from judgement. I brought one bottle of the precious liquid to the island to introduce my host family to my talents, and the reception was so good that I splurged and bought another bottle for the coming festivities.

After bringing the precious bottle to my mainland home, drama ensued as a rat entered stage left. Did you know that, after eating several pairs of decent underpants, one roll of toilet paper that I really needed, and countless other objects that are only precious because I have no salary and no belongings, that freaking rat thought he could go after my Tequila? Will that rat stop at nothing?? But alas, I am saved. In all of my literature, I've read only of them eating through steel, and nothing has been mentioned of glass, THANK GOD.

Ethan the Duck

Do you want to see my duck?

The picture doesn't do little Ethan justice. He is hideous. My mastery of photography has somehow concealed the roughly 4 x 4 inch patch of skin on his back which is completely exposed and has no feathers whatsoever. While I also tried to get the "scratch and sniff" button on this blasted computer in working order, it fails me at the moment and you are not able to whiff the rancid odor that is his essence. He smells like meat, like raw, butcher-block meat. Having spent more time in wet meat markets over the past seven months than I care to recall, the scent of li'l Ethan, quite frankly, makes me want to hurl the eight cups of rice I ate today, because it reminds me of that time when a WHOLE PIG SKIN slammed against my left side as a meat-market-pig-skin-carrier was taking it to his booth. I still won't wear the shorts I had on that day.

So my duck is smelly, mange-y (you didn't think ducks could even have mange, but they can, and I have the proof), and furthermore, his heart beats at nine thousand beats per minute because he spent every waking moment of his 26-day life in a quiet rice field until today. Today he is in a basket and constantly eyed by Pogie, the dog at my house who is starved and kicked daily. Side story: Pogie remains suspicously alive in spite of the fact that my host family claims he had rabies once and that he used to have positively male identifying characteristics which have since disappeared, who really knows how. Anyway, continuing: Pogie loves Ethan in the way that I love a good piece of deep-fried Key Lime pie. Meanwhile, Ethan loves Pogie in the way that I love a good heaping plate of Crisco with crawling scorpions on top, and naturally Ethan freaks out and tries to rattle his cage, thinking that all 1.2 pounds of him can snap the bamboo container in half. Poor Ethan hasn't figured out that his 1.2 pounds of effort have no effect other than to make his heart nearly explode.

He is a fighter, though, and come Sunday (Philippine time), he will be safe on Himokilan with only no food and water to contend with.

That being said, he's only a fighter until Thanksgiving, when I've decided to sacrifice him for the sake of my American friends who want a good killin' come Thursday the 24th. His fate is sealed, you can't talk me out of it.

Introducing Mila Cavite

When she was eighteen years old, Mila Cavite had her first kiss. She was working in Manila at the time as a house maid, while another young man worked as a cook in the same house. He walked her to her quarters one night after work, and just before leaving he kissed her on the cheek. Shocked with complete embarassment and fear, she hit him on the face and he ran away. The young man courted Mila for four months after that, slowly winning her affections and stripping away her shyness, but she never was kissed by him again because she moved back to Himokilan before it was the appropriate time in their relationship. Yet still, nearly forty years later, Mila fondly remembers him as her very first love.

Having just eaten breakfast, Mila tells me this at the kitchen table during our morning ritual of talking over cups of warm brews – hers coffee, mine tea – as we wait for the sun to bring light into the house and to the island so we can start the day.

I am constantly curious about details of Mila's life, and I can tell she likes to share them with me. Its not often that someone finds her life anything but ordinary, because she is surrounded by the ordinary and always has been. But understand that Mila is not ordinary herself, at least not in my eyes considering her counterparts on Himokilan. To me, she is the sort of woman who doesn't seem to quite fit into the life she owns. In school, Mila never made it past grade four, but she speaks English more fluently than anyone on the island; while she never lived outside of Himokilan for more than five years total, three of them consecutive, she has an understanding of American and foreign culture that catches me with my jaw open at times in complete astonishment of her knowledge; and while she has never had real work, except for those few years outside of Himokilan as a house maid, she has always somehow supported her brothers and sisters, as well as her own children, during their times of financial hardship.

To meet her on the street in some mainland town, never would you place Mila as a woman leading a rural island life. Her personality is far too witty, far to modern, and far too strong to be anything resembling many of the other small-town folk I know here. She is an enigma, to put it simply. More eloquent descriptors fail me at the moment, but it is worth noting that she is, by far, the strongest and most admirable woman I have met in the Philippines, and I truly respect her. It bears repeating that I have no idea, no idea, how she is the woman she is considering the circumstances of her life.

She takes a slow, labored sip of coffee. Her eyes point toward the undadorned wall across from her and she looks right through it. Sitting across from her, my back to the same wall, I try to catch her stare, but its obvious that other memories from her time spent in Manila are returning to her, illuminated by those thoughts of her first love. When she speaks again, I'm not quite sure if she is knowingly telling me a story, or if she is unknowingly just thinking out loud.
“You know, Katarin, when I work for my German employer, he want me to go with him back to Germany. His children love me, his family love me, and I love them. I want to go, but I can't go because of my responsibility to my brother.”

I press Mila, I ask her what responsibility she owed her brother. Her eyes leave the wall and meet mine, as if she forgot, for a moment, I am there. “My brother is sick, Katarin.” She always calls me Katarin. She emphasizes the word 'sick,' as if she can't understand why I don't understand.

Sick how? I ask. “It is because he is stabbed. He is riding the Jeepney in Manila, and, what do you call that bu-ang? Ah, a crazy man stab him. He stab my brother in his stomach, and my brother is in hospital for five months. You know what Katarin? It is my responsibility to help my brother.”

In some random turn of events that ordinarily only happens in a ridiculous action/mystery/romance movie, my host mother was forced to decide between moving to Germany, a sure promise of prosperity for herself and her family, or staying behind to tend to her brother in the hospital.

I don't even need to bother explaining the rest. Knowing where Mila is now, the story writes itself: she stayed in Manila because of her responsibility to her family.

Seven months ago when I arrived in the Philippines, I wouldn't understand her logic. If I were in the same situation, my own upbringing and culture would tell me to leave, to follow a dream and pursue a career that would leave me and, possibly, my whole family in greater financial standing. Of the 80-some-odd million Filipinos, I would guess that nearly all of them would sacrifice anything – I mean anything – to have the opportunity to work abroad. But now, knowing the fraction of culture here that I do, I understand as best I can that sense of responsibility that Mila felt for her family. As the oldest child, the first born, her unwritten duty since birth has been to care for all of her family members. In her youth, her duty was toward her brother when he was stabbed, or any of her other younger siblings. Now, as an adult, it is to her aging mother, as well as her own children who fall on hard times.

But Mila doesn't need to tell me this right now at the table, because I have here lived long enough to now understand. She doesn't pity herself, either, but I know she will always wonder what life would have been had she left to Germany. She says with a poetic eloquence, “You know, Katarin, I am so lucky that God gave me this fighting spirit, because if he does not give it to me, I will have died of a broken heart.”

She smiles and takes another drink of her coffee. She then asks me, probably for the ninth time, why it is that so many older American men often marry Filipina women, but why very few American women marry Filipino men. And so I explain to her my interpretation of this twisted reality, and she listens to me with her lips curled in a gentle smile, as if I have the intersting things to say.

From diets to carnage...

A continuation of the death theme from below: I witnessed the slaying of three pigs last week. Three. This is how it's done:

Step 1: Get two Americans who have never seen pigs killed brutally before.
Step 2: Send three Pinoys into the pig pen, one with an axe that is much larger in the story-teller's memory than it was in reality.
Step 3: Slam the selected pig victim on the noggin with the blunt end of the axe.
Step 4: Laugh at Katrina the American who is gasping in shock at the brutality and suddenness of it all.
Step 5: Remove the stunned and unknowing pig from the pen (with the help of the three Pinoys inside).
Step 6: Slit throat of pig. Just like that.
Step 7: Say "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew" in a very shrill, girlish scream if you are named Katrina.
Step 8: Laugh at the American saying "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew" in a very shrill, girlish manner if you are one of nine Filipino onlookers.
Step 9: Cut up pig and eat for fiesta.
Step 10: Repeat.

The Diet

About three weeks ago I made the bold declaration that the relationship between Katrina and Rice would end. No more. Kaupt. Finished.

Allow me to relay the seriousness of this situation. To say one will eat no rice here in the Philippines is on par with declaring that the mountains of the earth must shift their positions to form a giant smiley-face shape visible from space, and, in effect, give that stupid man on the moon a run for his money and show him that Earth cannot be beaten in the planetary faces game. The no-rice decision came at a hefty social price as well. In refusing to eat it, I traded my relatively solid image of sanity for a lesser image of idiocy and lunacy, and my host family on the mainland looked at me kind of like all those kids in high school did when I made the mistake of cutting my hair short, effectively making me look like a 10 year old boy.

On top of no rice, I also gave up meat entirely and relegated myself to eating only fish as my main protein source. The impetus for this “diet,” as I have dubbed it, was the training I went to several weeks ago. There, in the presence of 30 other American volunteers, I ate what can only be described as the closest thing to American food I have eaten in three months, including: pizza, pancakes, peanut butter, french fries with tomato ketchup, spaghetti Italian style, not the sweet Filipino style, and delicious wheat breat with REAL BUTTER THAT HAD BEEN REFRIGERATED. For three weeks I ate no meat and no rice, and after the training I was spoiled rotten, like a spoiled little American in the presence of lots of Americans. It was then and there, at training's end, that I decided it is entirely possible, if not downright easy, to eat whatever I want. So I declared it. I said no more meat and no more rice, and I was serious, too.

My plan was genius until I returned to my site and indulged in fiesta. Oh no.

But the “diet” was to return in full swing immediately following fiesta, because, as I'm sure it was declared in the Bible or some other really important historical document, everyone knows that all diets are off in times of fiesta and vacations. Sadly, immediately following fiesta was also vacation, which involved gentle persuasion by my chosen travel companion to eat the “most delicious food for its value in all of Asia, no, wait, make that IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.” I thought it was impossible for said travel companion to have eaten the best food for its value in all of the restaurants in all of the world when he hadn't been to more than about 7 countries of, like, at least 70 total, so naturally I had to try the food to see for myself. And yeah, it totally is the best food for is value in all of the world, but it did involve rice. One must eat rice with curries and sauces from the best-valued restaurant in all of the world, musn't one?

So anyway, the rice aspect of the diet was put on hold. At this point, I might have declared the diet a complete failure, but because I was staying relatively strong on the meat front, I felt that I was doing okay on a scale of “horribly bad” to “super excellent.” And then. Oh, and then....sometime between the diet declaration and me breaking the diet on multiple occasions, a tiny Filipina named Nanay Flor approached me with the dullest knife in all of Asia, no, wait, make that IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, I AM SO SERIOUS, and asked me in sweet Filipina-doesn't-speak-English-so-good fashion, “Do you like to kill?”

Insert roaring laughter here.

And then I killed my first chicken by slitting its throat like I was flippin' Rambo. The fact that it was with a dull knife has little to do with the story, except I think it made the task all the more third-world and therefore better in the telling. But the fact that Nanay Flor and her husband Tatay Bal insisted we kill a chicken, well, that's important. They don't exactly kill chickens all the time because they are very poor and simply can't afford to. Only on the most special occasions and for special guests, and maybe even sometimes when a lost chicken wanders onto their property like a little Hansel or Gretel, they find the event of killing a chicken for a meal appropriate and perhaps even necessary out of respect for the occasion or individual visiting.

It was truly my honor to be able to do “the deed.” The experience of the killing was one that invovled a bit of exhileration, a bit of fear, a bit of queasiness, and, in the end, a bit greater understanding of the life of a rural Filipino on my part. I don't know that I'll replicate the act (although that's what I said after my first videoke attempt, and now, four months later, I'm in the ranks with Barry Manilow for musical performance), but in its own right, my brutal murder of a clueless chicken will remain as a special memory for me for a long time to come.

I was able to witness and participate in an experience known to few Americans. It was difficult for me to do, and as the pictures will show, my eyes were closed for most of the time. I didn't know that chickens don't stop moving for minutes, minutes, after their throat is cut, or that their blood isn't smooth like water as it flows out, but more thick, like a mixture of corn starch and water. In some ways the whole process downright scared me, but in a greater way, and I know this is going to sound so cliché, I finally saw where the meat on my table comes from. Moreover, for all of the chickens that I see on buses and yards and streets around my municipality and beyond here in the Philippines, I now realize that to kill one of them for a meal means taking away just a piece of its owner's livelihood, just a piece of a future meal. That notion of sacrifice makes my role in the killing and, naturally, eating of the chicken afterward all the more valuable to me as a part of my experiences here. And thus, it was at this realization that the diet officially ended.

I bring this experience with me back to Himokilan Isla, where fish and rice are the staple, and where chicken and pork are also a very special and rare treat. Strangely enough, it took a training event, a brutal killing, and about 4 months at my site to truly realize what a luxury it is to be able to afford both the food and the things I love. Be it on an island in the Camotes Sea with 550 people, or a rural mountain barangay, or even the slums of a dirty city, to have the choice for your next meal or your clothing or your livelihood, well, that's something you may need to be an American to really understand the value of, because in some parts of the world, a person has no choice about what her next meal will be, and therefore the fantasy just ceases to exist.

I once asked my host mother on Himokilan Isla what her dream job would be, her most fantastical of fantasies. Her reply: a house maid in Manila. No, Mila, if you could have any job, in all of the world, and if whatever job you chose would make you rich beyond your wildest dreams, what job would you want? What job would you chose? Yet again, her reply: a house maid in Manila.

To afford to dream of diets and of jobs...what a wonderful thing. How sad that some people can't afford the luxury.

I returned to Himokilan last week. Rice and I have been reunited. Fish and I remain together, though I'm sure when the next oppourtunity for a slice of ham comes along I will spare the calories and the concern for high blood pressure and just indulge with everyone else.

I hate to quote my father's cheesy sayings, but I really DO need an attitude adjustment

About 4 weeks ago, my "Positive Mental Attitude" (PMA) wiring got BLEEPED up. I had a row with one of my office mates, which is funny, really, because I've only been to my office 5 times in 3 months. How can you get in a row with someone you've only met five times? Moreover, how was I so changed by the experience that I've resurrected stupid words like "row" and insterted them into my lexicon?

Without going into detail, it was just a disagreement where the Arguee thought he was right and Katrina, aka the Arguer, knew he was wrong. It left me cranky, though, because it only enhanced other frustrations I had been feeling culturally, emotionally, and professionally until that point. One might call the great argument of 2005 a Tipping Point. Namely, it tipped me over the flippin edge and BLEEPED up my PMA.

Feeling demoralized, cranky, and undeniably depressed at having made no progress whatsoever in 3 months, I left to a technical training event for two-and-one-half weeks soon after. In the presence of Americans for 17 days, one develops intense emotional ties. One also bashes work constantly. It was a great release to be able to talk freely about challenges with work, as well as challenges with host families and the local culture. But as the days went on, I realized that my attitude was really only becoming more and more negative. It's as if a switch in my body was just turned off.

I attempted to make a pre-emptive strike against this budding bad attitude by skipping on the office a few days early before said technical training and meet my friend Frederica to take a mini-vacation that we didn't declare. Freddie was also suffering from PMA failure, and we both concluded conclusively that two bad attitudes cancel each other out. With this logic, we joined her very Belgian parents (real Belgians, though nothing like the Dr. Evil variety) and escapaded to the far north island of Bantayan in Cebu Province. When I say far north, I mean north relative to where we both are latitudinally. Regionally speaking, it is still hot, tropical, and, most notably, not either of our sites. Oh yes, and we could wear bikinis. Translation: wonderful.

While the attempt was a great celebration of air con, comfy beds, hot showers, tanning of otherwise blindingly white parts, excellent english speaking opportunity, and humor regarding the accents and overall nature of a Belgian family, it sustained Freddie and I for a mere 48 hours before the sadness and depression genes infiltrated our psyche once more as we slowly returned to reality.

It was at this point, perhaps three or four days into training (incidently, just before Freddie was afflicted with "The Plague" known locally as Denghe Fever, or Feva as some prefer) that she and I decided cheezier tactics for sanity development were required. What we came up with is an as yet unnamed list of quotes, realizations, and general attitudes to bolster positive attitudes in us both. It will soon be alphabetized and filed under the "TO BE READ ONLY WHEN MILD DEPRESSION IS INVARIABLY LURKING TOWARD DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR" file.

The list is very personal and kind of embarrassing, but I included some of it here. I'm wondering if anyone in my readership of four, or 3.27 if we are using proper statistics, has any suggestions or pearls of pearly wisdom to add? Feel free to e-mail me. You know how I enjoy it so.

The List:

* Do what you can with what you have where you are.
* (Optional: God) give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
* Whether or not you can see it now, the people who you befriend will remember you and appreciate your work for the rest of their lives.
* Your job is not to change the world. It is to change yourself so you can better serve your world.
* It is not the Filipino's fault.
* Remember why you decided to join the Peace Corps.
* Remember the first day you came into this country, the first day you met your host family, and the first day you told yourself you never wanted to leave this place. Embrace those memories and always remember why you felt that way.
* Some people see things as they are and say "Why." I dream things that never were and say
"Why not."
* It's not what happens to you, it's what you do about it. Take responsibility for change and encourage others to do the same.
* It's okay to feel sad sometimes. It's okay to have days when you feel discouraged.
* Set short-term goals and be proud of small victories.
* Don't forget to get a good laugh in every day.
* If you cannot change something, change the way you think about it.

Decision 2005

I was relayed a charming story by a friend via text about how his 4 year-old host sister tries to imitate his Buddha belly by inflating her sweet little gut with air. Cute, yes, but is it as cute as my little host sister when she eats crumbly cookies and gets them all down her shirt, then proceeds to take off her clothes off to find those silly crumbs?

This is How I Discovered I Finally Like the Taste of Beer

After four months as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I finally accomplished something in this country: I like beer.

This realization, dare I call it epiphany, came to me suddenly in the midst of me attending the joint birthday party of my friend Yad and her mother. I was accompanied by the town powerhouses: my host father (The Councilman), Nanay Esay (The Mayor), and, lastly, Randy (The Bodyguard: 5 foot 10 and 216 pounds of soft tissue that could, one day in the very, very, very distant future, be sheer muscle).

Sometime between bowing my head and pretending I was Catholic during the prayer before dinner and my third glass of sweet, silky San Miguel beer, I found myself being hit by the mayor during a fit of her laughter as she joked that I would one day be a true Filipina and bear 17 children, all boys named Guille (after The Councilman). So as not to confuse one Guille from the next, their nicknames would be GiGi, LeLe, GilGil, LarLar, GuyGuy, etc. and so forth until the very last of the bunch, who would inevetibly be dubbed the nickname Guille Jr. because the name Guille is only condusive to 16 cutesey nicknames, not 17.

That was only the first time during the evening that The Mayor hit and bruised me. The second time was when she told me, in hysterics, that my future love would be The Bodyguard. Prior to that exact moment, the town joke was that I would marry Wiggy the LBC delivery guy. LBC is the UPS equivalent of the Philippines, and Wiggy is the strange-delivery-guy-who-you-wish-didn't-know-where-you-lived equivalent of the Philippines. Were anyone to write his personal ad, it would surely say: "Very nice delivery guy from LBC, age 53, two cats, lives with mom, has affinity for chocolate ice cream, and likes spaghetti with sausages. A lot." (As a side note, I should probably insert here that he really is very nice) Yet seeing as the constant playful ridicule has had four months to progress, the joke that LBC stands for Loved By Catrina has become quite stale. Only natural that last night, a new series of jokes were begun at my expense.

And through it all, it didn't really matter that I was popular because I was an easy target to laugh at; that the very notion of marriage and children and dating became slightly uncomfortable and completely undesirable to me; that I had bruises the size of small dinner plates on my arms. Through and through, I kept saying, wow, this beer is just so good. And that's how I knew that I finally liked the taste of beer.

The end.

Fiesta: fi·es·ta, n. The week long celebration where Katrinas get fat.

It was in the time of dragons, cauldrons, castles, worts, fairies, and all other things that surely existed in the 1500s, that Magellan sailed the oceans of the soon-to-be-discovered round world. Somewhere between Spain and Spain again, the good Catholics of Magellan's crew landed on Limasawa, Southern Leyte Province, Philippines (mere kilometers from my humble home), and held the first mass in this previously un-Westernized landscape. In its wake came war, the supression of a previously tribal culture, and an exploitation of natural resources - not necessarily in that order. Most significant, however, is that this very first mass was the precurser to what would become the most culturally significant remnant of the Spanish Era in the Philippines, hands down: FIESTA.

Depending on where you are in the Philippines, Fiesta is celebrated in different ways. In the northern provinces in Luzon, the Spanish inlfuence is little or nil, and often times fiesta represents a sort of mystical and spiritual celebration of the sea, the land, and man's relationship with the god(s) of nature. Don't ask me though. I live in the Visayas where Catholicism holds strong, and in these parts fiesta is a celebration of the patron saint of a municipality. Traditionally, there consists a week of religious and cultural activities, including singing, dancing, and naturally the excessive drinking of the native coconut wine, which, for any interested parties, will absolutely floor you. As if that weren't enough, each barangay, which is an even more localized government unit within a municipality, has its own saint and respective fiesta. I am not Catholic, so I don't really know how many saints there are, but judging from all of the fiestas I have attended in my brief 4 months in country, the number is somewhere in the "A Lot" range.

Aside from the fiesta celebrated by each of the 20 barangays in my municipality, the municipality of Hindang itself celebrates fiesta twice: once in May when many balik bayans, or emigrants, are visiting on summer vacation, and the other September 28, the actual date of Fiesta. I understand the logic for having two fiestas, I do. These are a family-oriented people, and they want their cultural activities to be available to all; but I also suspect they like a good party, and two times the better, right?....which makes me love this town even more.

Fiesta kicked off with a beauty pageant on Tuesday night, beginning promptly at 7:30 in the evening and continuing until the decent hour of 2 a.m., with yours truly as an honored judge. While some readers may find the term "beauty pageant" offensive and would instead prefer I refer to the activity as a "talent contest," they will just have to suffer. Lets not kid ourselves. This was all about looks. As I quoted to my parents in a recent e-mail, I've seen less talented people, but not many.

There is a high value placed on looks here, one that even trickles into the poorest members of the populace. You don't have to be beautiful, per se, but you must be well kempt - combed hair, nice clothes, makeup, the works. The value is, at times, so high that, yeah, they have contests during fiesta to celebrate it. And so I was witness to my first beauty pageant, where I, the white lady - one of the most beautiful of them all - judged who was prettiest and who was ugliest, who looked hot in her street jeans, and who had the tackiest, gaudiest, poofiest evening wear of them all - the clear winner.

Contestant number 3 sweeped in my rankings. She didn't do so well in the street jeans competition, but my, my, my, during the sportswear aspect she really beat the bunch in her bikini top, hot pants, stiletto knee-high boots, camo hat, and authentic semi-automatic sniper rifle. To answer your question, no, I'm not kidding. I could only imagine my father's horror if he were there to witness her point it at us judges in a playful pose, and fake the recoil as she fake-pulled the trigger. While she continued to strut in her full military regalia as only a beauty pageant contestant knows how, I can still hear the mantra of my youth in my head: "You treat every gun as if it were real." Its best that my father wasn't there when the second girl came out with her shotgun, of which I'm only fairly certain that the safety was on. There are safety's on shotguns, right?

Between each competetion were local high school students dancing with the skill of plastic dolls whose knees and appendages cannot bend. There was also singing. I don't even know how to describe the singing. I imagine you must be a parent to appreciate the efforts of untalented youth, but seeing as I am not one of those, I will just hold my tongue.

I'd like to tell you who won the pageant, but it was just too long for me to stay. I jetted out at about 1 a.m. to catch some sleep before Wednesday's coronation of the fiesta King and Queen 2005 - another tradition that runs entirely too long. I gave a speech at that one, which was welcomed with applause, although I can't be sure my fractured Cebuano was understood by the crowd. They certainly were polite, though.

The following day was the actual day of fiesta, and I took part in the town parade, walking alongside the Mayor, Vice Mayor, and, at times, screming and giggling children who just couldn't get over the fact that a real live American was walking on the street next to them. I also danced a jig with the local government unit (Mayor and Vice Mayor included) in front of about 1,500 people, further cementing my status as "that fluent Cebuano-speaking American girl who is also a really good dancer." If it wasn't mentioned previously, the Filipino perception of my skills in all aspects of life is greatly inflated, which only scores the Pinoys more points in my logbook.

Between the dancing and the judging the was, of course, the constant intake of high-fat, high-calorie foods that might give someone in poorer health a heart attack by sheer proximity. The traditional foods include Lechon, or whole roasted pig; pigs feet; fried lumpya, much like egg rolls; rice; rice; rice; various pig insides; no vegetables; fried bananas (my favorite); and Coke as the beverage of choice, or Coke and beer if you're a sneaky old lady. My, I do love fiesta.

Cebu City Experience, Part II

I watched a movie by myself yesterday, which allowed me to conquer a great fear of the modern woman and simultaneously lose 136 brain cells. Note to self: when in the big city, do not EVER watch "The Brothers Grimm," no matter how many months it has been since you saw a new release. Or how badly you hope to conquer a great fear of the modern woman, for that matter.

Somewhere in my mind, I think that, surely, the development of the human brain over the past 70 years should prevent the invention of such crappy films. But then, somewhere else in my mind, I know that as long as there exists a PC volunteer on an island without electricity in the middle of the Camotes Sea, said brainless blockbusters will, in some perverse way, continue to entice viewership.

My adventures in the city included, but were not limited to: multiple trips to Starbucks and another chain called Bo's, where the value of one single drink is enough to feed me for a week on my island; aimless strolling in a four-story, air conditioned mall; and, of course, watching one of the worst movies I've seen in months, after "Face/Off", which shouldn't even count because I'm sure it was made as a joke to make late night cable funny again. It must have been.

In his opening statement to us volunteers waaaaay back in Manila during our arrival week last April, the Philippines country director looked us over and said boldly and powerfully, "you are the Peace Corps." Those words sparked a twinge of patriotism and pride in us all, and I think I speak for most volunteers when I say we remember it, even six months later. So now, when I'm feeling just a hint of guilt while chugging a frappuchino and eating wheat bread with fancy jellies on top, I say that to myself. I am the Peace Corps. And then I continue to chug and eat, and it's delicious every time.

Cebu City Experience, Part I

Somewhere in the world, Mik and Debbie, aka The Parents, are sitting in a room that doesn't require air conditioning and are likely debating one of the same three topics:

a) Whether or not a diet allows for the occasional (if not exceedingly regular) consumption of beer. No doubt mama Debbie believes, wait, insists that it does, while papa Mik says it is a great interference to the benefits of a diet. Meanwhile, they both take another swig.
b) Should they watch HBO or Cinemax before falling asleep like old people at the unreasonable hour of 9?
c) Why does Mik always insist on the two of them paddling at 6 in the morning? Can't it wait until 8 just this once?

Perhaps they also wonder what their daughter is doing on her end of the Pacific Ocean at this very minute. Now, before I continue, for those of you who know my parents, surely you are laughing at this point. My parents have probably been celebrating my departure months ago by NOT thinking of where I am at every moment....but for the sake of a story, lets just all imagine that they are.

I wonder if their vision of my experience here matches reality....Do they think I woke up this morning at 6 am with the crowing rooster, dawned my ecologically safe insect repellant, then stormed through the jungle with a bolo knife and bandolier across my chest in search of a coconut tree to climb from which I retrieved fresh young lubi; that monkeys are swinging from trees outside my door; that I saw all 7 species of giant sea turtles swim in the coral reef just off my island mere moments ago? Do my parents salivate at the thought of all the fresh fish and seaweeds I've been eating? Do their hearts race thinking that, at any moment, the typhoon developing in the Pacific could scream toward the province of Leyte and make a beeline path toward my tropical isla paradise?

Well here it is; this is what I'm doing RIGHT NOW (brace yourselves): I'm using a computer at an internet cafe in a Cebu City mall, one of the nicest malls I've been to in my entire life. This is it, folks. And that's not all. The internet experience was preceeded by a trip to Starbucks, complete with poppyseed bagel and a fruity, iced beverage. Yes, I said ice.

Last night I found myself enjoying a chill music scene atop a rooftop bar where, later on, I was eating pizza and consuming beer in the presence of other pizza-eaters and beer-drinkers. The last 24 hours have been everything glorious, modern, and convenient.

Now I wait for a boat that, in exactly two hours and 11 minutes, will leave to the land I call home and, once again, I'll return to a life where I merely dream of high speed internet and neon lights and escalators and poppyseed bagels.

In truth, I dread going to the big city. There's a reverse culture shock that occurs, one that leaves me soured because I see a sad juxtaposition of incredible poverty and ridiculous wealth. At the same time, though, I came from that world, and there are comforts in it that I find hard to tear away from. It takes all of my mental strength and emotional stamina to get on the boat and go back to a place where work is stagnant, where me hand-washing my clothes never quite gets them clean enough, where I can't eat MSG-free food. And yet that's why I'm here. To experience the world as many others do, which I might define as "the hard way." My great hope is that, one day, it will be harder for me to go back to the cities and the mall and the traffic, not the other way around.

So to get back to my original point (which is a long time coming, I know), every day is spent simply trying to find my home here. Sometimes that means I go to a city and remind myself of home; sometimes I call my friends and speak as much English as a 100 peso phone card can accomodate; sometimes I speak Cebuano only and try to drink in the culture; sometimes I ride my bike or walk aimlessly around my barangay; on more rare occasions, I work. Often times I'm alone, and in essence, I just live a quite existence -- one that I'm slowly becoming comfortable with, but one that doesn't involve tropical island fantasies of the buried treasure variety. I think my parents know that, but I thought I'd express it just one more time....mostly because I want them to get the hint and send me the entire Harry Potter series. Book six just wasnt enough.

Where in the world....?

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Katrina who decided that she wanted to save the environmental world. She joined the Peace Corps, flew to the Philippines, and landed on the white sand beach of Himokilan Isla in her best work attire: $1 sandals purchased at the local market, nouveau-hippie shorts from REI, and a T-shirt boasting the words "I'm proud to be a little American" written in Chinese characters. She quickly learned the world wasn't hers to save, but she writes her adventures anyway and hopes that she can bring her friends and family just a little bit closer to the place she now calls home.