Just the facts

First the rumors:

• Women run the show.
• Going south will get your white butt kidnapped (says the first Filipino I actively sought out to ask about the country!).
• There's little trash service so if you bring and use tampons your host family may have to burn them in front of you.
• Underwear dissolves from all the hand-washed scrubbing. 
• Ants get in to everything.
• They eat dog as a delicacy.
• The sound of animals is deafening.

 

And some facts?


I'll be working in the Children, Youth and Families program of the Youth in Development sector. My sector manager writes that the work I'll be doing is considered to be very challenging, physically tiring, and emotionally draining. But equally fulfilling. (Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point)

 I don't know what or where and won't until a while after I get there. I could be assigned to a short or long term residential facility, a community-based program that targets rural and extremely poor communities, street community-based programs targeting urban areas, or some combination of those.

The Philippines is on the other side of the world. So when it's Saturday for you it will be Sunday for me. I'll be 12 hours ahead of EST.

Most Filipinos are Roman Catholic and I have to wear skirts below my knee.



Americans occupied Manila during the Spanish-American War and during World War II.  

1 Philippine Peso is equal to $0.022 of a U.S. dollar.

There are 87 native languages there. English is a second language to nearly half the population. I have to learn Tagalog and may have to learn another language at my permanent site.

There are 7,100 islands that make up the Philippines and about 2,000 of them are inhabited. 

The average temperature is 80 degrees and there are about 15 typhoons every year between July and October. The dry season is from January to June. 

Malaria, dysentery, GI funkiness, fungal infections, heat rash/exhaustion are common foreigner ailments. And sometimes dengue and typhoid fever. 

I can get mail! Send me a postcard and mash some USA all over it:

Nora Balduff, PCT

US Peace Corps

PO Box 7013

N.A.I.A.

Pasay City, Philippines

1301