Rissa, be home by midnight...

... or else you'll get arrested by the cops!

Just in case you didn't hear the news, or perhaps just in case the news didn't cover it in your part of the world... there was a coup attempt in the Philippines against the current president, Gloria Arroyo. A google search will by now, provide the basics of what happened. Pretty much a senator and general walked out of some court hearing, paraded through the financial district and shouted "down with the gov't!". there were tanks and guns and all that good stuff but in the end not that many people showed up and they were eventually dispersed.

I'm fine and safe in my little community in teacher's village, at least half an hour away from the commotion. As an after effect though, there was a curfew mandated by Lady President. 12am-5pm, no one is allowed to roam the streets. I was listening to the radio last night and one of the talk show guys brought up some good points as he was talking to one of the people who was enforcing the curfew. What about all the people who HAVE to be out at that time? people who work at clubs, medical staff, call center workers... oh and it turns out a bunch of other people, based on the discretion of the police. Yea that makes a lot of sense.

Anyway, that was the big news all yesterday.

Washing Machines...

are something of a luxury here in the 'Pines. The person who owns the house has one of these. First of all, it's half the size of the U.S. counterparts. Second of all I had to be instructed on how to use one. Bear with me as I enlighten you on the process.

1) Plug it into the wall. This is a complicated task, as the outlet is located behind an old refrigerator. Incidentally, my washer is located outside of the actual house.
2) Attach hose to faucet at side of the house.
3) Put in dirty clothes (i think I can put in 10 items here maybe) and detergent.
4) Run faucet, and fill machine with water.
5) "wash" for 25 minutes. Basically the round container filled with water shakes around for a little bit.
6) Drain machine into built in sewer on the floor
7) repeat to rinse
8) "Dry clothes" Now there's this spin dryer attached to the washer. you get to put in maybe 3 or 4 articles of clothing in there comfortably, and then you can "spin dry" it for 5 minutes. Basically, I have to spend 20 or so minutes refilling and resetting the dryer to dry all my clothes. The clothes end up still damp, so you have to hang dry anyway.

Needless to say, washing clothes in the 'pines sucks!

Thanksgiving

This is I think my first thanksgiving away from home. Surprisingly, I spent it with mostly white people, definitely a first for me. I was invited to one of the fulbright student's house and got a chance to meet some other fulbrighters. They're all pretty cool. sorry for the lack of pictures, most of them are on my facebook and for some reason my account is not cooperating with me. Anyway, we did a potluck and I made stuffing from scratch. Let me just say I didn't realize you needed an oven for it when I volunteered. I had my first experience with an oven that needed to be lit with a match. I was quite afraid that I would blow myself up, but somehow it was successful and my vegetarian stuffing was pretty yummy. During dinner, we all gave thanks to this and that but i think everyone was just mostly thankful that we were able to have thanksgiving together instead of letting the holiday slip by.

Although there were a couple of accidents involving broken glass, we still made most of the evening. After one injured party was escorted to the ER (he's fine) we all made our way to the bar to end the evening.

Mountain Province

A couple weeks ago, I went to Sagada with Nicole and Eric. It was a harrowing ride up steep mountain terrain while there was a heavy downpour. The trip was a last minute idea and definitely something i was not quite ready for. It was quite cold there and I had only brought a thin sweatshirt for the trip. Ironically, the most trouble I had was during the 8 hour overnight bus ride because it was so cold. We made our way up to Banaue, after having to climb over a large landslide that had blocked the road. I managed to get splinters all over my feet because I had not anticipated on having to walk onto a large mudpile filled with upturned trees before I even got to our destination.

After we got to Banaue, we transfered to a jeep to Bontoc and then finally to Sagada.


This is one of the vistas on our way to Bontoc. These are the world famous rice terraces in all their glory.


endless rain as we travel up the mountains. In some areas, there were no barriers alongside the cliff edges. The drivers all seem quite confident as they would blast through turns on the road.


Pardon all my pictures. most of the time it was quite rainy, so there's this blur on a bunch of my pictures. This picture, i think turned out quite nice.


Bontoc. There's really not much to say about this place except that it's a nice quite little town between Banaue and Sagada. Also, apparently there's a hot spring that's somewhere near there. I didn't get a chance to go though.


Once we were in Sagada, we checked into a hotel and headed straight to one of the tourist attractions, which are stacked coffins near the mouth of a cave. The mountain tribes apparently mummified their remains with tobacco smoke and then put them in these handcarved coffins. Pretty neat.


cave mouth

The others went into a really neat cavern, but I opted out for some well deserved rest.


view of the town center from the hotel


this is one of the most stereotypical postcard set ups.


When they got back from the caves, we went to the Log Cabin for a fantastic buffet made by a French Chef. Food included homemade bread, vegetable soup, fern salad, eggs in sauce, roast beast and sausage on puff pastry. For dessert there was chocolate crackers, souffle and tart. On a cold rainy day, with a fire burning, it was quite heavenly.
From left to right, it's Nicole, Me, Canadian girl we met while up there, Eric, and Mark, who runs the Philippine branch of the Financial Times Magazine.

After Sagada, we headed back towards Banaue. The other travelers insisted on riding on top of the jeep. Let me just say, although the view was amazing, I was clinging on for dear life and hoping that I wouldn't fly off the top.

more terraces.
if it's a bit blurring, sorry we were zooming down the mountain and I was taking pictures with one hand.

I decided to stay in Bontoc because they had a bus going to Manila. Man, that was not a great idea. The bus ride was longer (11 hours), more uncomfortable, and we passed by Banaue anyway. Oh well, tough lesson learned.

Oops

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I have 2 weekends worth of pictures to show so don't be surprised that my next post is so loaded that it'll take you 5 minutes to load your page. Anyway, went to Pagbilao fiesta this weekend and it was fantastic. More details to follow, i promise!