Home is where...

Dear Rylan:

Being home is not what I expected. I expected to be more excited about returning to the land of washing machines and dryers, real-beef hamburgers, and dish TV. Only 63 days abroad was able to reshape my thinking: things don't matter. Keep it simple. Do with less. So I find myself reluctant to gather up my stuff and become comfortable in this country where comfort is so common that it is not even considered a blessing anymore.

One thing does make me feel joyous about returning home: loved ones. How welcoming everyone has been! They are so much more excited to have me home than I am to be here because they are THRILLED to have me home. Their joy takes away some of the sting I feel at my abrupt return. The love and kindness of everyone has been palpable, like the sweet taste of the lanzones that were so abundant in the Philippines. Firm and juicy and sweet and warm. Delicious--the fruit there and the spirit of love here.

However, I left people there whom I had grown to love, and who loved me back, even though we had known each other such a short time: My fellow trainees, with whom I endured the ridiculous rules of Peace Corps, with whom I slogged through the drudgery of PC training, and with whom I laughed about the sublime and ridiculous situations in which we found ourselves in that foreign culture; my host family, with whom I shared many a meal, with whom I laughed about the differences between my culture and theirs, and from whom I learned more in a few weeks than I have learned in a long time back home; and the wonderful Filipinos who served as trainers and ambassadors for us trainees--the people who allowed us to ask dumb questions and muck up their language with our errors, and who were interested in how we Americans live and think in relation to their culture.

So here's what I am thinking about life right now: Stuff doesn't matter much. People matter. After air to breathe, food to eat, and water to drink, people are the most important element of our existence. Interactions--both good and bad--are what fill up a day with purpose and feeling.

So, Rylan, relish your relationships. Enrich your life with friends. Cherish your family. Gather up each day's memories and press them between the pages of your mind. Memories will sustain you in those times when you are far away from the ones you love.

Love you bunches,
Mumma

Homecoming and Hibernation

Dear Rylan:

Traveling from Asia to America is a hassle. My trip involved 20 hours of flight time and 3 planes. I do not know how many security checks occurred: I just lost count somewhere along the way. I do know that every airport involved at least 3 screenings. I think the tactic is to wear the terrorists down so they don't even care anymore about carrying out an attack.

When I was flying out of Narita, we rose above the clouds just enough to see the end of a magnificent sunset. And I realized then that the sunset I was seeing was actually the sunrise you were seeing at that very moment (assuming you were awake and noticing the sunrise). Half a world apart, and yet we were connected.

Getting home has been pretty anti-climactic. The best part was arriving and seeing you and your parents! How wonderful to see you in person and hear your voice. Sorry that since then I have been unconscious. Nine weeks of sleep deprivation has a way of catching up on a person. The fog is beginning to lift, however, so maybe we can have some quality time soon. It's just nice to know that you are only a room away for now instead of a world away.

I am excited about seeing my friends again. I have stories to share, but their lives have been full and sweet, and I want to hear what has been going on with them, too. Lots of catching up. But the truth is that right now, anyway, I miss my friends overseas very much. I feel as if something important was interrupted and now I will never know how that could have ended. Unfinished business is bothersome.

But life moves on, regardless of our decisions. We cannot really plan the future, but we can plan to negotiate the terms!

I love you, and I am glad to be back home with you and all my friends and family. As soon as I wake up, I will emerge from this room and greet the new day that awaits me for the rest of my life.

Love,
Mumma

Homecoming

Dear Rylan,

As you grow older, you are going to learn a very harsh reality: things don't always work out. One of my favorite lines is from a Robert Burns poem: "The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry." And so my PC plans have gone awry. When I was much younger, this turn of events would have been devastating. But after losing your Papa three years ago, I know that life changes for better or worse in an instant, and there's no way to avoid it. No do-overs in real life.

So I am accepting the disappointment by looking at the good that comes from it: I will be able to return home and see family and friends. I will be able to drink real milk and eat real hamburgers and enjoy pasta that isn't sweet.

Of course, I will be leaving behind a dream of adventure and service. (Of course, I can do both back home.) I will leave friends that I have made during training. (But I will live vicariously through them using Facebook connections.) And I will leave behind my Filipino sister, Tess, and her lovely nieces and nephews. (But I have their phone numbers and address and FB connections, too)

The lesson I want you to really learn from my experience, however, dear Rylan, is not that life changes. It isn't that bad things happen, even when we have the best intentions. It is this: Life is short. Take risks. But take them knowing that nothing ever remains the same. If you are not experiencing highs and lows, then you need to take stock. Life shouldn't be boring. The Orientals believe in yin and yang--life and death, high and low, good and bad. Life is composed of both, and they believe they balance out. As a Christian, I know that it rains on the just and the unjust, but I also believe that at the end of our lives, if we have lived as we should, we will see that in the balance, the good far surpasses any of the bad.

Soon I will be seeing you in person again! That will be a great moment. I have much to tell you and everyone else there. Can't wait to catch up on your life.

Love you bunches,
Mumma

They love a parade!

Dear Rylan:

Another week has flown by. It went so quickly that I spent Thursday believing it was Wednesday. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I had lost a day! I suppose that just means that I have been too busy to notice time.

It is election time in the barangay. Filipinos have a very colorful political process. One day while we were in language class, a parade came through the neighborhood, with music and bullhorns and people carrying signs and waving! We were so excited that we all jumped up from our chairs and ran out into the yard to watch.  It is a good thing that our language trainer, Medy, wants us to soak up the culture. We were forgiven for our spontaneity. Later that same day, ANOTHER parade came through the streets. My next-door neighbor must be running for something because I can hear him next door practicing his campaign song. I don’t understand the words, but it has a catchy tune.  One of the daughters in my host family is running for SK Chairman.  The best I can determine about this position is that it involves organizing the youth in the barangay to participate in community projects. Ariel is only 15, so I think it is great that young people become involved in the political process here.  Another interesting element of elections in this country is how many people want to be involved in politics. I think I heard that there are 67 candidates running for 7 spots? Wow! I don’t know if there are many people left to vote that aren’t running!  Things around here are going to continue to be interesting until October 25. Let’s hope Ariel wins. She is very capable of doing anything she sets her mind to do. I am proud to be associated with her family.

We also visited the Olongapo City Museum. It was very interesting because it was so…well…nice. Even when the information was about the invasions and occupations and colonization, there were no negative comments. Everything was presented as factual. Just reporting what happened. But when we reached that part of the museum that illustrated how the people rebuilt their city once the Americans (the last colonial power here) relinquished control, the pride of the people shone through. Again, at the exhibit about coming back after Mt. Pinatubo erupted, I saw the determination and optimism of the citizens. I asked my host sister Tess why the museum does not address the atrocities and injustices of the past, and she gave me a very Filipino answer: The people today don’t want to blame the people of the present for the things that happened in the past. Filipinos want to achieve and / or maintain friendly relations even with those who may not have treated them well. She said the government does not want to plant hatred in the hearts of the people nor does it want to stir up anger. What an interesting country this is!

Of course, I cannot let this week pass without mentioning the anniversary of your Papa’s death. I have been sad this week. Without my family and friends back home, I have felt burdened. No one here really knows about my past, and I have chosen not to go into detail. But this morning—the day that marks 3 years since I lost the love of my life—two of my Peace Corps friends greeted me at our Saturday meeting with a box of Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins—in honor of my own Duncan. So, you see, even far away from home, God finds a way to show Himself in the kindness of others. I may be far from home, but I am not alone.

And if we are patient, our prayers are answered. I was reminded of this today when my host sister Tess told me that she had wished for something when she was four years old, and that her prayer was not answered until August of this year. I asked her what her wish had been, and she said, "When I was four, I asked my father, if I have a sister, what will her name be? And he said it would be Margaret." Wow! Hearing that gave me goosebumps! So if I have come here for no other reason, it is in answer to Tess's hope for a sister. She and I are as close as sisters, and I am so happy to call her friend. 

Still, I miss you and your parents and your Uncle Caleb. I love you SO MUCH! Please know that I think of you every single day, and I look forward to the day when I can get a hug in person. Until then, accept hugs from far away ((((()))))).

Love you bunches,

Mumma

Supervisors' Conference

Dear Rylan:

Last week the other PCTs and I were in Antipolo, near Manila, for the supervisors' conference. We were very busy, but not too busy to enjoy the beauty of the resort.  We were there to meet our supervisors and travel with them to our permanent site. My supervisor is Ma'am Cora, and my site is MinSCAT, a college in Bongabong, on the island of Mindoro.

Mindoro is beautiful, and the school is right on the beach! My host family is very nice and very happy to have an American living with them. One of my counterparts is the grandmother and lives next door. Ate Sally is very smart, kind and godly.  I enjoyed spending time at the Soriano home.

Bongabong is a quaint little town.  It's really out of the way, so I don't expect to run into many foreigners there, except for the Korean volunteer. I really liked their market--much smaller and quieter than the one in Olongapo.  Overall, it is the kind of town you might find in rural areas of Alabama. EXCEPT it has a rockin' view of the water!  Oh, and the mountains there are breath-taking.  There is a huge lake on the island, surrounded by a beautiful valley bordered by green mountains.

The college president was extremely kind. He learned that I like lanzones and rambutan best of all the fruits in the Philippines. Well, those fruits are grown on Mindoro, and he went to great lengths to obtain many of them for my visit there. It was especially touching because rambutan season is over, so it must have been hard to track those down. But they were masarap!

The ride back from the island was amazing! I cannot describe how beautiful the mountains are rising out of the sea. They shone in the sun, the different hues of green seeming to ripple beneath the wispy clouds.  Some of the mountain tops were shrouded in mist, and I could only imagine how high they must tower.  As we approached Luzon, I saw a lovely coastline with little villages dotting the shore. Then a red and white striped lighthouse loomed over the edge of a mountain on the edge of the sea.  What a view! What a ride! (I cannot post pictures on this blog right now. I will try again or send them to you in an email.)

In Manila, I stayed overnight at Pension House with several other PCTs as well as some PCVs who are COSing (closing out their service and returning home after 2 years). It was a very relaxed atmosphere, and we stayed up late into the night discussing economics and politics and culture with other foreigners staying there.  Before we returned to Olongapo, a few of us paid a visit to the Peace Corps offices and were given a tour by the country director.  We ate lunch at the Mall of Asia, which is too big to make sense. We made our way back to Olongapo and our host families.

It was so good to see the Atayans. They are really like family to me. They were glad to have me back. Tess had cleaned my room and spruced it up. What a great welcome home, along with Mama Nitz's lumpia. Ahhh.

I miss you and hope that you are having a great year at school. Tell your mommy and daddy and Uncle Caleb that I love them, too.

Love you bunches,
Mumma

Mountain Climbing

Dear Rylan:

How are you? I heard that you had a birthday party on Saturday. Oh! How I wish I could have been there, too! I miss you so very much that sometimes I am tempted to give up this crazy adventure and come home. Then I remember that the time will pass quickly, and I will be there by the time you are 6, just as I promised.

This week the Mabayuan group completed our community project using our PACA skills. I think it was a great success. We held a two-hour workshop on strategies for reaching different learning styles for teachers at Gordon College. I think they had fun; I know we all had a blast! Maybe our opinion is skewed a little by the great relief of having it done.

On Wednesday we were able to visit Pamulaklakin, a mountain (bundok) where the Itae tribe lives.  The mountain reminded me very much of the terrain back home, especially of the area around Gatlinburg. Our guide was a member of the Itae tribe. He taught us some survival skills, which I can sum up as the following: 1. Don’t touch anything because most things are poisonous in one way or another, and 2. The Pamulaklakin plant, a thick vine, can be hacked off and drained for drinking water, which we did. Pretty cool!

After our mountain trek, another member of the tribe showed us how we can use bamboo to cook rice, to make chopsticks, and to start a fire. He was the spryest 60-year-old I have ever seen. When he showed us how to make different traps, he jumped into a tree and acted like a monkey! (I wish you could have seen it because I know you would have giggled, and I love to hear you giggle!)

Next week I will travel back to Manila, where I will learn about my permanent site and meet my supervisor. At week’s end, I will travel to my permanent site to make courtesy calls. It is exciting to be moving from the role of trainee to full-fledged volunteer! However, it is also a little scary because it means I will be leaving the friends I have made here in Olongapo City and heading out on my own.  I have come to love my host family, and I really enjoy being in Olongapo. I hope my new  home will be as wonderful as this place has been. Yet, I have learned that Dorothy was right: There’s no place like home. . . there’s no place like home. . .

I love you bunches,
Mumma