Finally!

This has taken me a week to post, due to a dearth of internet access in my apartment, the mall, and the office. If I can find a consistent way online, I'll try and get another post up soon.

Without further ado -Greetings all!

Due to internet access issues, I am composing this blog entry in MS Word, then finding an internet café somewhere to upload it. As such, I do not have access to all the wonderful e-mails you have sent me or comments you have posted on my blog. Thank you so much for the communication; they really are bright spots in my days. However, I was going to respond to a few questions that a number of people raised, but now I am left with only those that have been caught by my porous memory. Please bear with me.

Major Developments of the week: Still no signs of the immense culture shock that I’m sure is to come. However, earlier in the week I was really hit hard by a sort of “moral shock.” Intellectually and academically, I knew about the absolute evil that IJM works against here. Now having seen some of this nastiness with my own eyes, I find coming from a very comfortable life in suburban America to a place where evil is raw, bold, and out in the open a difficult transition to make. My faith and the support and fellowship of others have helped me stave off anger, discouragement, and despair, but I feel that this will be an ongoing struggle while I am here, so I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers on that matter.

In other news – I have moved into my own apartment! In the middle of this past week, I moved out of my boss’s place and lugged all my junk to a new apartment. Furnished, air conditioned (when I turn on the AC, which I must in order to store my medicine – that’ll be a bummer of a power bill!), phone, TV, cable – quite a find. I only lack internet. My landlady has been such a blessing, too. She has spent a good deal of time in the states and understands quite well all the difficulties I am facing as an American expat. She is really going out of her way to help, so I am very grateful to her. Most of my free time in the past week has been spent preparing for the move, moving, unpacking, and then making random shopping trips to fill gaps in my possessions – you know, little things I didn’t have, like bedsheets or towels.

My building is in walking distance of one of the two major malls of the city, in which can be found the church I will regularly attend while I am here, a movie theater, two grocery stores, a bookstore or two, a department store, and the gym I have just joined. . There is also a coffee shop in the mall where there is free wireless internet with any purchase. Their internet has been down lately, however, hence my “write now, upload later” plan. Also within walking distance are my language tutor and the only ATM in the city that consistently allows me to withdraw money. My only concern with this place (aside from the sing-alongs that happen with regularity every other night in the apartment above me from 8-10 every night) is that everything I really need is so close to me that I will wrap this mini comfort zone around myself and not get out and explore the city and engage the Cebuano culture and people.

I hope my language lessons help me in that effort. I went to my first language session with my tutor Anita on Friday. I will meet with her once a week in an effort to diminish my level of linguistic idiocy with regards to Cebuano. The language is unlike any language I’ve studied in its structure, though Spanish words do pop up every now and again. I have a few hours of homework each week, but I find the material incredibly interesting and look forward to the day when I can actually communicate semi-intelligibly in Cebuano. If I had to guess the date of that day, it will probably happen July 25th, the day I come home, but still. One of my assignments this week was to use the Cebuano phrases I was taught to learn fifteen new words from Cebuanos. After I got over my initial shyness about asking someone, I found the guard at the front desk of my building more than happy to help me. It was actually somewhat touching – earnestness written all across his features, he kept repeatedly saying to me as I tried to think of words to ask him about, “Now now, try to think of things that will use every day, things you will need to be able to know. How about –“ then pointing to something I really would need to know, like antipara, glasses, or yawi, key. I was only assigned to get 15 words, but I found he was so eager to help I ended up with closer to thirty!

Nifty cultural experience of the week: So really this was last week, but it was Friday, so I’m fudging a little. Anyway, that Friday afternoon I was to meet up with my boss after his language session with Anita so I could meet her and see if we could set something up for me. I left work a little early, allowing for traffic so I could arrive just at the end of his session with her. Lo and behold, the seas of traffic were parted and I arrived a half-hour earlier than intended. Luckily, this was the weekend I was taking the office guitar home to learn a few worship songs for our weekly devotional meeting Monday, so I had my entertainment slung across my back. I just sat down on the steps of the bank and, after asking the VERY heavily armed security guards if it was okay with them, proceeded to play and sing to pass the time. After a few minutes, five or six ten year olds came up to me and started dancing and clapping around me, just sort of enjoying the music. They would put in requests for songs I had never heard of, they would sing along with the song whether they knew it or not, and they were all absolutely sick on the air guitar. After a while they calmed down a bit and just sat down next to me, talking amongst themselves and using me as a soundtrack. They would direct questions at me every now and again, but once it became I didn’t know the songs they wanted me to play, they more or less ignored me. I enjoyed it immensely and they seemed to, as well. I was planning on buying a cheap, cheap guitar anyway for purposes of decompression and de-stressing, and this was right near my new place, so I might just wander down there every now and again and see if they come back. Who knows?

Anticipated next week: Maybe a little sight-seeing next weekend. Guitar purchase, with a potential trip to a factory to make said purchase. Blog on the compatibility of the food here (meant to address that in this post, but I am running out of time, sadly). Who knows? I’ll try and put pictures of my new place up at some point, but I have to solve my internet access issues first. Alright, I must stop my rambles and shut it down, as I have grocery shopping yet to do before I head to my church’s young adults group (I will know exactly one person. Yikes!) So thanks again for your e-mails and comments and I look forward to continued correspondence!

Take Care Everyone,

Kelly