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