A Taste of the City Life

Hello all! Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote, but I've been busy getting ready for a site visit to La Trinidad. Actually, that's where I am now! I met the people at my center on Monday morning. Very hard working people. I spent a few hours in the nursery...talk about cute little babies! I was wrong about the age range...7 years old is about the oldest they get. I also met with the social workers and center head on Tuesday morning to get a sense of what exactly they want me to help with. I think it will be great working at the RSCC. The staff love to joke and laugh. They told me, "We mix work with talking, texting, eating." Those are the three main things Filipinos like to do from my experience.

My host family in La Trinidad wasn't quite ready for me so I got to bunk up in a dorm hall at Benguet State University. My host family had scheduled their vacation time for this week so they invited me to go with them for one night. The mother is from a town about an hour away from here so I decided to go. The bus ride was amazing! I never thought I would see bamboo and pine trees growing in the same place. The ride was a little scary too! It was a dirt road that wound through the mountains. In some places there were no gaurd rails and we came extremely close to the edge when another truck or jeepney came from the other direction.

Life is a lot more fast paced here than in Vista Hill. The traffic is going to take some getting used to. There's also so many American influenced businesses...McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, 7-11. Not to mention a huge mall called the SM that has many of the same stores you'd find in a mall in the states. I suppose that's about all for now.