So, a few days ago we left our cluster sites and returned to our hub site, which is where the training for the volunteers in this region occurs and where the training staff for our region is staying while we’re away. We had about 12 days with our families and came back to do more training, find out our site assignments, learn how not to die in a boat and recover a bit from the community immersion.
It’s been fun here, but the time has flown by. Our first night we went out for Indian food, there are some really great restaurants in Naga and this one was fantastic. After my first meal without rice in weeks, we headed out to do something very Filipino…videoke (videoke = filipino karaoke). It started out very innocently with us proposing a short stay and then returning to our hub site, which is out of the city a bit. The night ended 3½ hours later with us leaving our private rented room, many empty beer bottles littering the table and hiring two trikes (motorcycles with a sort of modified sidecar welded to the frame) to take the 10 of us home. I learned from this experience that when everyone else is drunk and singing their favourite classics it’s not so much fun when you’re not drunk too, and will probably result in a piercing headache behind your eyes.
Yesterday we all piled into the PC van and the hotel jeepney and drove about an hour to get to the beach, where we had “water safety” training. This meant we were supposed to ride out in a boat, jump out and climb back in. We also had the option of overturning a bangka (local small paddle outrigger boat), righting it, bailing it out and paddling around in it. We went in shifts of cluster groups, but mine decided to forget about the boat ride out and swam about 100 meters out to meet the group before us and take our turn. It was fun, we kinda broke the boat- but it was fixable. Back at the beach, PC rented out two huts and we lounged around eating lunch, playing cards, singing videoke and napping on the upper level of the huts (which are very cool and breezy, might I add). All in all, it was a nice day and it was a nice break from the classroom learning environment.
Now, after three days it’s time to head back to our clusters. In a few weeks I’ll make a visit to my actual site, which is the northernmost in our region. I’ll still be in Camarines Sur and I’ll also be the closest to Manila. I don’t know too much about my city, but I’ll see what my host family has to say about the place when I get back.