To try and give some closure to my time in Korea, I would like to thank the people that made it such a fantastic experience for me. My first few days were kind of lonely and I was worried that I would spend my whole time as kind of a floater with no real group to hang out with. 6 lovely Europeans changed that for me. It's ironic that in some ways, I feel like I learned more about Dutch and Finnish culture than Korean, but intercultural exchange is amazing no matter what country you are learning about.
I hope to return to Korea someday but until then, here are some of my favorite memories:
- making lemonade out of lemons when the subway and buses were no longer running and going to a jimjilbang (24 hr sauna/spa)
- Boryeong mud festival
- free breakfasts at Casaville
- learning all about the great Dutch empire, hilarious expressions like "tying the cat to the bacon", and trying to find a translation for "Gzellich"
- all the jokes involving "random action hamnikka?"
- dancing til sunrise
- speaking only in French for the 1 hour train ride home
- BBQ on the street at 4 am
- sushi buffets
- soju in all its wonderful forms
I've now been in Tacloban for 2 weeks and it's definitely been an adjustment from the decadence of my life in Seoul. Doing volunteer work abroad has been something I've always wanted to do and I'm really happy to be able to get a taste of it with Streetlight Philippines. The kids are amazing little human beings and it's been a gift to be able to get to know their personalities, goof around, and inspire confidence in them. It's pretty disgusting that these kids can amuse themselves with jacks, dominoes, and colored markers for hours while North American kids aren't satisfied until they have the latest PS3 game.
So far, I've had the opportunity to help plan a birthday party for 70 kids, run a craft day complete with super hero masks, drop off food for street children at 4 am, watch High School Musical with 15 year old girls, scrape paint off a wall with a wire brush, and draw water by hand from a well. We have also gone caving, bridge jumping, beach relaxing, jungle hiking, and hunting for the best halo-halo in town.
Observations/interesting happenings in the Philippines thus far:
- I have never seen poverty like this before. I'm really glad I stepped out of the shell of huge developed Asian metropolises and had the opportunity to see what a large portion of the world lives like.
- I get stared at a lot...I felt like I was pretty used to being stared at in Asia but this is the worst I've seen. I walk into a restaurant and the whole place looks up and their eyes follow me.
- I'm back to living with 7 people in a house again...takes me back to 9114-116 St.
- I am actually allowing myself to get a tan for the first time in about 5 years. Go go Ukrainian farmer genes and not Mom's Irish spottiness!
- I saw about a hundred fireflies one night and it honestly made me gasp at how beautiful it was.
- People eat rice with their hands.
- You can eat a filling meal for $1 CDN and get a 1 hour full body massage for $5
- There are avocadoes as big as your head! Well maybe not but WAY bigger than you can buy in Canada. About 1 km down the road there is a fruit stand where you can buy huge bunches of bananas, mangos, papaya, pineapple, and jackfruit. YUM!
- Foreigners get catcalls of "Hey Joe!"
- The song "Nobody" by the Wonder Girls has followed me from Korea and I hear it about 7 times a day here...globalization...
- My new TV obsession is "How I Met Your Mother"
- I have earned the nickname "Bonesaw Worobec" for my skills at sawing bamboo
I hope I can find the motivation to write more frequently, but until next time, I'm sending my love from the Philippines!
