Though it seems like I’ve been here for ages, I still can’t believe that our training is almost over and I’m going to have to do this on my own soon. We have just spent the last 3 days at our hub site continuing our training and meeting a few other volunteers in our region. It’s been a nice break to get back to the hub site, especially since the recent typhoon (which ended up as a signal 2 storm) had us powerless for at least 3 days. It wasn’t too bad the first two days, but the evening of day 3 was quite balmy and I was really missing the cooling power of my oscillating fan.
The sunday following the typhoon was nice and we went forth with our plans to make a return trip to Malabsay Falls on Mt. Isarog, this time bringing many more people along. It ended up being all but three of the volunteers in our region, our resource volunteer, two of our language instructors, about 6 host siblings and our hub driver. This day was much nicer than the initial day and we spent quite a long time just hanging out, swimming, eating and generally having fun. I really like this place and needless to say, anyone who comes to visit will probably get dragged here at least once.
I remembered to bring my waterproof case this time, but discovered some other issues with using it in the water and especially in cold water. Some of my shots didn’t come out so well, but I’ll be sure to figure something out for next time. In the meantime, I’ve uploaded a few new pictures and will put more up in the next few days.
When I finish updating this I’m going to grab dinner in Naga and head back to my cluster site, where fiesta is going on. Tomorrow we’re going to a local university to do a brief workshop with a professor there in preparation for our community project- which will be a half day composting seminar for the local farmers and teachers this saturday. It has just now occurred to me that the day after fiesta ends is probably not the best time to ask people to come and learn how to turn their pig manure and rice hulls into cash…