the story

bicol day 7, 8, 9, 10

2008-12-17T06:21:00.000-08:00

alright. after a long hiatus. i shall now blog. i apologise for the long delay. been too tired to blog.
yes, it's was very tiring over there. i'm still feeling the strain. it's like school, but requiring more energy.

so day 7 was MASS day. Went to the Our Lady of the Assumption Parish for mass where we had to serve as choir, lectors and ALTAR SERVERS. yes, Daniel and I served mass in the end, in our blue mission t-shirt and black jeans. and the server who was helping to guide the two of us around movement was this guy named John Christopher? haha he was nice and continuously nudged me around during the entire mass simply because i was the most convenient one to nudge. -.- well serving the mass was very interesting. for one, the servers are never seen by the congregation unless we're actually needed. and well, there's no kind of fixed decorum simply because, well, you're not actually seen. it's definitely a lot less strict than here in Holy Spirit. Father Gerard would probably flip if he saw the way the servers served mass there. and i'm not meaning that in any sarcastic manner. Well, they managed to get us to do quite a bit. I lit the advent candles and got wax on my shoes. Daniel and I helped out with washing of hands too. the rest of the way was just us blindly following whatever the servers there were doing. Oddly enough, when i was chatting a little with John, i found out that all the servers there were Seminarians. either they were about to be ordained, in the Seminary, or about to enter. and seriously, there were a lot of them. More than the total number of seminarians we have in Singapore, they have in one single parish. the scarier part was that pretty much the bulk of them were about our age too. John was 16, if i remember correctly. After the mass, i wanted to go take a picture with John, but never got the chance to. sad. I can still remember how he looks like, but my memory's really bad, so we'll see for how long? Well, after mass we went up to help out one of the Sisters with her catechism class full of people of all ages who were into their first lesson in preparation for Confirmation too. but the difference is that they only have 4 lessons before they get confirmed. so i got dragged in to give sort of like a last minute uhm, what's that called? i forgot. sort of like telling people about our confirmation journeys. which i only then realised that it was the one thing that i forgot to do before coming to bicol. so i said the first thing that came to my mind was the whole idea of self-discovery. which now that i think about it, is exactly what i would've said either way. This entire year has been a journey of self-discovery for me. of who i am and what i mean to people, to God himself. I believe God has a plan for each and every one of us. every up and down, every single time you entertain the thought of your faith being useless and God never being there. Every time you cry he's beside you. and every time you laugh, he smiles upon you. every time you fall, he's there to catch you to make sure you're not too hurt. and all he asks for in return for every grace he gives you, is to spread the Word. and that was the mission of Jesus. like in John's Gospel, it begins "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Jesus" God sent his Son to preach the Word and he passes this responsibility to us through the rite of Confirmation! ok well, at least that's how i'm seeing it. ok now i shall stop sounding like i'm giving catechism. haha. well, the rest of the day was pretty sleepy. everyone was very much happy to have some rest. and i helped out here and there to plan for Dona Mercedes. i honestly cannot remember what else i did that day! OMG! there were probably a lot of scandalous activities though, just as there were everyday. haha. If i'm right, today was also the day where i tried to conduct a rosary session. and when i say "tried" i mean i pretty much BOMBED. so sorry to everyone for that!!! i obviously did not prepare reflections and ended up just making things up as i went along. which is really embarrassing.

DAY 8! the day we FINALLY go to Dona Mercedes. so we all woke up late again despite my constant effort to wake people early... had breakfast and then we moved off in the jeepneys [i think that's how you spell it. i called them the bus-ish things the last time] I was initially going into the first jeepney which carried all our supplies for the 3 days, but got shifted to the second one because the chapel people [which was what i was attached to for the first day], needed to get brooms and i was the most convenient chapel person to get off and ensure that we got the brooms we needed. so yeah, we stopped by the market where Jeanalyn and her friend, Ava? came to help us get the brooms. they helped to specially pick the better ones for Uncle Anthony and myself. [well, i didn't really get the difference, but they did. so, yay!] then we went back to the jeepney and apparently the driver himself had no idea how to get to Dona Mercedes, so Jeanalyn ended up helping to guide the driver. pretty funny actually. she was standing at the back of the jeepney and swinging about dangerously while being precariously perched at the edge of the stepping platform of the jeepney. I think i fell asleep after a while, the ride took just about as long as it did to get to Tagaytay. which is about 30 mins to 45 mins. and me being me, i can never stay awake on a moving vehicle, i mean, i even fell asleep on the tricycle taxis on the way back from Masarawag too! haha i think i fell asleep on Anne's shoulder that day. OK BACK TO THE POINT. bleah, i keep straying. so when we finally got there, i pretty much ran to the chapel to go check it out and try to spam photos of the place. we unloaded all the equipment and then we made our way to the elementary school where we were... entertained. by the many... interesting... performances. especially the feliz la vidad item and the two individual dance items of the boy with the stick and the same boy with, very big hand movements. i'll try to upload the videos one day to explain what i mean. haha. scandalous. so the entire morning was gone. and then we all decided only to begin work after lunch. since lunch was only half an hour away, and there was no point beginning anything much before then. but some of them began to help to clean up the chapel grills with wet cloths and water which we got from the nearby stream since the water pump at the back of the chapel didn't work. i got bitten by a red ant along the way while helping to get water. Rae too. Let me try to explain, the stream was like 100m away from the chapel in a jungle/plantation like place. and the only way to get across to the other side of the stream was a very unstable "bridge" that was pretty much just a halved coconut trunk buried in the ground which was by the way. VERY VERY VERY UNSTABLE. so it was either stand on the bridge, stay on the front side of the bridge and get attacked by red ants, or get to the other side which already had no space because the volunteer, the local helper and Rae where already there. so i ended up getting bitten by red ants. i still have a few dots here and there on my feet. so after lunch, kenneth, Uncle Anthony and I thought that maybe we could actually begin painting the walls today since we finished cleaning up way before lunch, and a whole bunch of them were already beginning to paint the grilles. so the three of us and Mark, the BUCAF volunteer, went out to go get paint. so we took the jeepney back to town to get paint from the paint shop opposite Guinobatan East School. and it was really cool the way the guy mixed the paint out for us. and fun to try out too. haha. then i began poking Mark and Kenneth and then after about half an hour at the shop, we finally loaded up the 32 litres of Margie coloured paint and 2 litres of white paint. next thing to get was the ladder. we were gonna buy one but Mark said we could actually borrow it from the local Police Station. because he had an uncle who was a police officer he could borrow from. but the station needed the ladder so we ended up going to Mark's cousins' house to borrow a bamboo ladder. then we went back and Kenneth and I began to help out to paint the grilles with the enamel paints too. i was standing on a chair on muddy ground painting so i actually nearly fell off the chair many times because the chair kept on sinking in... it was scary ok! haha and i shall not elaborate on the "rags" we used. SO SORRY LIZZIE!!!! we kinda used your t-shirt donations as rags. you know? the ijtppetshirts. :p and that kind of wraps up Dona Mercedes Day 1. Oh and we had coconuts to eat/drink. it was nice!!! and i felt so jealous at the fact that to convince Mark to eat the coconut flesh, i had to ask like 5 times. Rae asked once and he consented. -.- Just before dinner, the bunch of us were rushing out like crazy writing the lyrics for the carols and 8 copies at that. the night ended with us carolling at an old teacher of the university's house and at the volunteer Jeanalyn's house. which was awesome fun and i ended up skipping back to the dorm with Jonathan and Kevin i think. fun fun.

Dona Mercedes day 2 was an entirelt different experience from day 1. that day i was posted to Village outreach. so in the morning i briefly helped out at chapel for like what, half an hour? then it was off to the village with Mark Lee, Sam Chia and Uncle Al. oh, not forgetting the local guide. so we pretty much walked by the roadside the first 15 mins or so. then we walked into the forest. and sam and i were pretty much screaming out in anger about being cheated. because the group that went yesterday told us that there were BIG BREEZES. so cold YOU'D NEED A JACKET. and we didn't have to worry about SWEATING. oh please. total rubbish. it was like a real trek through the forest with only slight breezes and a lot of sweating involved. so Sam and I complained and whined a lot about it. and we were saying things like "seriously, i'm gonna kill whoever told me about big breezes. MUST BE KEVIN KE and GERALDINE MARK". ok so at the end of the day we didn't kill them, but you get the point. so we continued on and visited a few houses here and there along the way. seemed pretty random if you asked me. but i guess that's the beauty of adventure eh? chatted with a few families only to discover like the average number of children there was like, 10? which pretty much shocked us all. and so we left them giving them an oil lamp, milo and some biscuits. oh and at a few houses we sang carols! which was fun. There was one particular house where we sang rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and i was pretty much the only one singing because sam and mark weren't sure of the song... the baby of that house was SO DARN CUTE. i didn't wanna go... i wanted to play with that baby boy. i've got some pictures of him and his mother. so cute. so so cute. so we then went to our local guide's house. where she very nicely let us use her karaoke machine. haha. so we sang a few songs. and sam and i competed with Uncle Al. so Uncle Al sang "Father and Son" and we sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" Uncle Al got 91. which is impressive. but we got 92! HAHAHAHAHA. we won uncle al in singing! haha. ok so we sang a few other songs. and the thing is that the lyrics on the screen were accompanied by some very, inappropriate imagery of what i'd called soft-core pornography. and as i was singing rudolph i think, mark took a video of me and the screen. -.- so oh wells. after the karaoke, we proceeded back to the chapel where i was desperately in need of a toilet. and i had to hold in my bladder the entire walk back. which was both excruciating and disturbing. and yeah, i ran to the elementary school toilet and had the longest pee of my life. :D TMI? haha. so it was lunchtime. and we ate lunch quick before departing immediately, thinking that we'd need to visit 12 houses in the afternoon to make up for the 2 houses we missed out karaoke-ing. so we were pumped up, kinda lethargic after lunch and ready to go. and we began our trek through the forest. if we had thought this was gonna be easy, we thought entirely wrong. turns out we ended up having like a reliving of our OB experiences of Land Expedition. we walked through jungle, tall grass, bull poop, nearly walked across the river and nearly had to scale a wall. well funny parts of the trek was.... Mark slipping on moss on one of the rocks and falling onto wet rock on his butt. and his pants were khaki, so it was dirty and wet, very obvious to see. :D when we were walking across the bull poop. sam's shoe came off. and her sock stepped on it. so the rest of the day her foot smelled like poop. and for me, i think it was the most hilarious. when we were trying to find a way to cross the river, i was using my trekking stick to poke at a hole which was amusingly quite deep. then we moved forward and realised we needed to go back. so on the way back i stepped into that hole i was poking... and got both my shoes and socks entirely WET. and so i was trying to think, bright sides. and thought, hey, at least my shoes are clean. and then we trekked through more bull poop. -.- then just as my shoes and socks FINALLY dried... i stepped into another stream. wonderful. i was wet the rest of the way. the three of us were prettymuch wondering when the first house was gonna be. i mean, after say about an hour and a half of trekking, you'd get sick of it. and it turned out that we weren't going toward any house at all. we were going toward a famous waterfall in the area. something no other group was going to see. so we took pictures, stared in awe and got bitten by a colony of ants. then along the trek back, we gave provisions to every house we saw. which was quite funny for me in a weird way. so it was another LONG LONG LONG trek back and when we finally hit the main road. it was like "OH YES. FINALLY. CIVILISATION!!!!" and we pretty much chugged down a bottle of pop cola each. which btw, gave me bad... bad... stomachaches later. all the gas... and so that was pretty much the whole highlight for the day. i honestly cannot remember what we did at nights. because every night seems to be like, the same. :p

DAY 3 DONA MERCEDES was a very sleepy day. i guess everyone was really pooped by day 3. and so it was pretty quiet. helped out with chapel the whole day. did the final touching up in the painting. and i spent the morning doing a cross on the rostrum. and the afternoon in the elementary school. there was quite a bit of drama going on but i won't elaborate on that. anyways. helped out with the grade 2 class in the afternoon and when i was really supposed to be working on the closing video. michelle and jacintha kind of gave up after a while when they realised that the kids couldn't understand english at all. it's quite amusing actually. because the kids still don't understand english even though all the textbooks are in english too. i'm guessing the way the education system works there is a little different from other places. well other than seeing Ivan get really close to the grade 4 class, there wasn't really much to do. i played games with the grade 2 class which pamela eventually helped to take over. actually, thinking about it. seeing Ivan and the grade 4 class was actually really surprising for me. because i never expected, of all people, to see Ivan get so attached to the kids. I really saw a side of Ivan i had never seen before at that point. and in a way it kind of affected me too. because aside from my class in Guinobatan East, who, by the way, probably don't remember me anymore, i never really got close to any of the kids. i decided instead to be the guy who worked the background and helped out with logistics or admin and running around everywhere... never really staying at one spot long enough to get to know people. there always seemed to be something more urgent to do. or maybe it was just what i made it out to be. i dunno. it's kinda sad really, for me.

well that's day 7-10. i'll do up day 11 and 12 soon.

Bicol Day 4, 5 and 6

2008-12-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

alright, so sorry for not updating these few days. was too tired to do so the last 2 nights. well tonight our curfew got pushed back by an hour. so that's how i'm blogging now. Mel and Daniel are currently hogging my laptop so i'm using the university desktop computer, whose keyboard is seriously very unfamiliar for me to use. hahah.

anyways, day four was my group's trip to Masarawag Elementary school. another school, more autographs to sign. Yes, we were bombarded with notebooks, pens and screaming children even when we had JUST stepped into the school compounds. we took a taxi to the school where i sat behind the driver again with Michelle. haha the journey up to the school was weird. We were the second taxi to leave, but we ended up being the last to arrive because we stopped for gas, and we got stuck in a ditch on the way up a hill on a road covered by volcanic ash. and the area was like, flooding. and they had to pry us out the hole. after which i got splattered with the volcanic ash on my bag and my shorts. sad life. when we got there, the bunch of us were welcomed by a VERY rousing crowd who seemed to love the fact we were there. they planned out a performance and welcoming programme specially for us and we performed the national anthem and some other randon weird songs. they sang for us some traditional songs and danced to a song "sarong bangi" which, by the way, i want to learn before i leave this place. and there was the one guy named "brayan" who sang "wake me up inside" by Evanesence. which was weird. but admirable. because he managed to hit most of the high notes even though he mispitched a lot too. it was cool, the entire school joined him in singing the song too. after that, we were delegated to the different classrooms. Michelle, Cecilia, Lizzie and I were put in the Grade 5 class. so we initially wanted to tell the kids some stories from the bible like, walking on water, wedding at cana and feeding of the 5000. we decided after a while that we were just being irritating. so we ended up teaching them like 5 new action songs. which worked marvelously to kill a hellalot of time. haha. so we ended up extended past dismissal time which they didn't exactly care about at all it seems.
the moment we left the classroom, the entire class ran for our signatures and emails. so we were signing for about an hour before we began eating lunch. after lunch, it was another 2 hour signing session where i actually managed to get them to line up for my autograph [oh, i feel like a SUPERSTAR]. and then the paints and pails arrived. so we went to paint one of the classrooms. which caused me to turn white within half an hour. thanks to liz and timothy and mel. pfft.

after our work, we washed up at the pump behind the library. and then we were all called to gather in the library whilst all the children were shooed to go home. turns out there was a typhoon alert number 1. which isn't that serious but they wanted to take all precautions anyways. the mission blog is updating info on the whole typhoon thing. it's kinda irritating to talk about it. so yeah. had dinner where i managed to force Anne to eat Vegetables! :D i rock. now to make Jamie eat some too.

Yesterday was our trip to Tagaytay. it's this little village that's along the slopes of Mt Mayon. and btw, the view was so freaking awesome! i'm still trying to find a time to upload photos somewhere. no luck so far. anyways. we had two rounds to get there by bus. i was on the first bus because i carried the amplifier and the projector. so when i got there i was pretty much like, dead from sitting my back facing the front of the bus above the engine. it was hot, itchy and i was nauseous. not a good feeling. but i went to set up the projector and the amp. so we tried to entertain the kids with some action songs and such, thanks to the help from the university volunteers Abon and Mark. they translated for us. the stupid amp kept giving off static though. and i was mostly on the receiving end since i had to carry it. irritating. so when the power was finally turned on, we were able to carry out the movie plan. so we watched Lion King. or at least most of it until someone kicked the cable and the entire movie got cut off. i was watching the beginning part of it before i realised i was so tired i was about to fall asleep. so i got up and walked around. had a very nice chat with Mark, the volunteer. haha. he's a very nice guy. though he was the one who didn't allow me to carry anything that auntie julianna bought from the market. he did wish me a happy belated birthday. and so i was just exchanging some stuff about singapore and about philippines. talked a bit about the typhoon thing too. it's scary when you think about the floods. because according to him, the floods can actually reach up to your neck. the last typhoon that hit[which was just a few months back], killed about a thousand people in the Guinobatan area. Mark was also talking about being afraid of drowning too.

well on a happier note. when the power cut, the fun really began with praise and worship and action songs coming out. we played musical chairs, house child and storm and hap hap hooray. and after a while we each ended up carrying a small kid of our own and playing with them. haha it was so fun to teach them how to high five, low five and everything. they were seriously, adorable. we didn't want to let go of them. and neither them, us. so at the end of the day daniel was just screaming at people to let go of their child and help out. no one wanted to. :p we simply sang from where we were, sitting on the stage with the children playing and laughing around on our laps. hilarious. curfews were pushed back to 1am last night. haha. not really much, and most people didn't sleep till 2am either way.

and then today came and after i showered i began waking everyone up with a philippino[sp?] accent. and i couldn't get rid of it! i began having the accent in every sentence i said. GAH! and as usual everyone complained about waking up half an hour before the time to meet. it's kinda sickening when you get scolded for waking people up so they'd be on time and not late. in the end, people were still late and i could see the stress on uncle al's face, even though it's RnR day today. and all through the day i continued receiving complaints. i'm beginning to consider not even caring about waking people up tomorrow. they can go sleep all day for all i care now. (i apologise, i'm feeling kinda, pissed).

so we rode on these bus-ish like things. and visited about 4 churches? it was pretty cool and each church was special in their own way. at our last church stop, we were allowed to buy things from the bookshop. and so i did. and i bought like, nearly 2000 pesos worth of it? heh heh heh. then it was off to pacific mall for shopping. i thought it'd be fun, but i ended up feeling really sian after a while. bought a t-shirt from a hang ten sale which screams out "POKE ME!". and then i ended up sitting at Macdonalds reading archie comics that i bought from a bookshop. i managed to get jamie and rae addicted to them too. :D then we came back and something really hilarious happened on the bus which i will not share here. :D and now we're back at the hostel. and i have officially spent about an hour trying to type all this out. MUAHAHAH. i rock. and i'm only saying that because it's true. :D

tally-ho!

bicol day three

2008-12-10T04:49:00.000-08:00

hello everyone! i'm back to update today's exciting journey. haha. today was the first day of us actually doing work. and it was to Guinobatan East and Guinobatan West school. i went to Guinobatan East Central School. after a very hearty breakfast, we walked out to the school of GECS. the Guinobatan West school was pretty much directly outside the University campus grounds itself. but the East school was much further down. I was so unlucky to be carrying such a huge bag with me. -.-

Anyways, i was initially supposed to be in charge of games alongside Fredrick and Samantha Pang. But in the end, the games committee was kinda, dispersed and i ended up teaching English in a grade 4 class. i actually went into the classroom having no clue AT ALL on what i was supposed to be doing. so thank god the teacher actually updated me on the last lesson on english the class had, so i ended up impromptu-ing from the textbook. i think i taught English for like what, nearly 2 hours? haha Michelle and Cecilia barely had anytime to teach really. but they took over after the break. i got quite bored and took pictures everywhere. and i found out the teacher of the class i was in, her name was GLENda. lols. i actually ended up trying to search for the outreach group. Mark's group seemed to be doing pretty well in the grade 6 class. and the outreach gave me chocolate when i saw them. haha it got me hyper for the rest of the classes.

lunchtime had got to be the highlight of the ENTIRE day. we were shown to the office were they had actually already gotten our food. but the bunch of us decided that we should have a play first before we go to eat. so we did, played with the basketball and played monkey for a bit. then we decided that the ball was too dangerous with all the potted plants and glass windows and children all around us. so we tried to play freeze and melt. but Sarah Tan slipped while running and she ended up skidding across the rocky ground and getting quite a bad wound along her left calf and right knee. she went back earlier to get cleaned up and bandaged properly. but before she left, i think Elizabeth Kow had someone come up to her asking for her autograph. and so she signed. before we knew it, the entire group was being bombarded by over 400 children armed with a notebook and pen forcing us to sign our names on it. haha i had like a trend. i began writing my name, signature, phone number AND email AND wishes. then i cut down to name, signature and phone number. then it cut down to name, signature and a heart. then it cut down to signature and a heart. then it was just my signature after a while. haha. whoops. my goodness, it was such an overwhelming feeling. like being a celebrity with the throng of fans that swarm just to get to touch you and have you write on their precious paper. haha. a lot of them asked me for my friendster too. so i gave it to them, i'm still waiting for them to add me on it. haha Liz ended up forming her own fan club which protected her from violent paparazzi by saying "eh, she's my lizzie, don't disturb her so much" so funny. and i swear, the way we tried to get away from the crowd of screaming children was so hilarious. Justin began running around the campus and the children all CHASED. so funny. i was laughing as i was signing. i would've taken a photo, but all the swarming children were too overwhelming.

so we had our lunch and we went back out for another signing session. which was even worse than the first one. haha. the children ended up being half an hour late for classes because they were trying so hard to get our autographs. some even got a caning from their teachers for going in late. it's sweet yet creepy at the same time. so we ended up sleeping for about an hour before we went around to go and do outreach for a couple more classes. we sang the same thing and did the same thing in all 5 classes. which btw, got really um, tiring by the time we reached the last class. haha, we ended up taking hellalot of group photos. oh and a group photo which was going to be for the school paper, on the front page. haha.

so it was a walk back to the university where we stopped by the consumer center where they sell havaianas' for 2 sing dollars. and at the store, someone pestered my dad to get justin's full name and details. when justin came out, he got bombarded by the boy. the boy got a picture of him and put it as his phone wallpaper. he was like saying things like "you're my idol" and it was so hilarious.

dinner was good after showers. i showered in the dark today. the blackout and stuffs. dinner was hilarious, with Fred and Liz having a verbal battle and me blackmailing Anne into finally taking vegetables. WHOO! sorry Anne, but seriously, your reaction was DAM FUNNY. :D

anyways, it's 950pm now. and prayers will be in 40 mins. so adios till tomorrow. Uncle Al's uploading the photos on the mission blog i believe. so do check it out at www.missionariesinbicol.blogspot.com

advance party - BICOL DAY ONE AND TWO

2008-12-08T23:37:00.000-08:00

HEY EVERYONE! omg i finally managed to get the internet. haha. sorry, been either too tired or too busy to type out here. I tried to use it this morning but the place was kinda, locked. so yeah. i'll be updating everyone back home now.

After leaving everyone at the Budget Terminal back home, we pretty much made a beeline straight for the plane. the plane was so cramped! and the wait just to board the plane was hella long. but it was cool to have to walk to the plane and climb up those metal steps to board. haha. sat beside Uncle Al and Kevin. oh oh and Uncle Al treated the two of us to cup noodles. haha. everyone said it was tasteless. but somehow it tasted so nice and salty to me. haha. oh wells. anyways i pretty much fell asleep the rest of the way. i was so damned tired. i managed to sleep through take off AND landing. which was really funny, because for some reason i never felt any air pressure, haha.

Then we reached Manila airport. I actually forgot that we needed to transit here first. i thought it was a straight flight to Bicol. OOPS. so we landed around.... 430am? and it took us 2 hours to get our bags and check in for our transit flight to Legaspi airport. and our flight was at 1215pm. so we had pretty much 6 full hours to ourselves. we ended up sitting just outside Jollibee and sleeping and playing cards and playing indian poker and bridge and taiti and every other random thing we could think of. which was fun because i got sugar high at that point, haha. JOLLIBEE IS AWESOME. IT'S EVEN BETTER THAN MACS. but the portion is super small. BUT IT'S STILL SO DAM GOOD. I bought 2 double Yum burgers, a chicken rice set, a jolly hotdog and 2 bottles of water. ALTOGETHER UNDER 15 DOLLARS SING. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. so i had a good transit.

the flight to Legaspi was, weird. it was about 45mins. and i slept through the thing again. and the landing was VERY ROUGH. i got the shock of my life when the plane hit the ground. it was so sharp and sudden. i immediately woke up and was like hyperventilating a while. Legaspi airport is weird. there's no customs and stuff, just a small conveyer belt where you can actually see the people loading your bag onto the belt. it was raining at that point so all our bags and boxes were wet. :p there were two vans waiting for us. one for our luggage and the other was for us. so we loaded everything. and kelly was very fast to buy a new bag. auntie juliana too.

so we went to this eatery called "Halo Halo" and the food was really good. Bicol express tastes heavenly. and the dessert named after the shop was dam good too. shared with Geraldine. Daniel refused to eat it because he said it looked like vomit. haha. so after that we had like a mini recce trip to Masarawag, Guinobatan East and West school, Republic College and such. we passed by an area that was completely submerged by the previous eruption of Mt Mayon too. quite cool, when we waved at the people, they smiled and waved back.

so we went for dinner in some weird place. and we took the taxi there. the taxi ride was freaky, because i was sitting behind the driver and like my feet were off the vehicle itself. and the cars were speeding past in the other direction. which was freaky. Dinner took very long. we ordered our food and drinks, and the food only arrived like one hour later? heh. but the food wasn't too bad. ate till i was on the verge of overeating. uncle al says the meals from now on won't be as good. but i bet it'll still be awesome anyways. so i tried to type the prayers for next week at night, kinda, FAILED. because i fell asleep like, almost the moment my com started up. so yeah. stupid. haha. i think i'll publish photos tonight. too lazy right now. and rae's beside me :D

so day two arrived. i woke up earliest besides Uncle Al. went to try and use the laptop to print out prayers for the morning, but couldn't because of the whole, locked door thing. so i ended up using the projector and having a slideshow for prayers. haha. but it was pretty good all the same. :D then we walked out for a very nice breakfast where Uncle Al, Rae and I tried to help the group not waste too much food. which means we ate the most. -.- then it was a walk round the market areas where we met the volunteers from the University. Hayacent, Abon, Janeline, Mark, Martin and Vic. they were really nice. and i was following auntie juliana and uncle richard to buy stuff for breakfasts and foodstuffs. Hayacent and Mark came along too. AND THEY WOULDN'T LET ME CARRY ANYTHING! and i got scolded by Sarah Mao for that. pffttshh. haha but they were very nice and they even wished me happy belated birthday! :D haha, i'm SPECIAL. lols. ok ok, joking...

Then we took the taxi back to bring all the things we bought back. and then walked out for lunch, where we missed lunchtime at our original eating venue, so we ate at another place, and it was still pretty good. then it was a short walk back into the Dorms and we've been waiting for the Main Party since. it's like, 420pm here right now as i post this. the leaders have been planning alot these past 2 days. and everyone's really getting into the real drive of the mission trip. haha. i think the most boring part of the trip is probably me conducting silent prayers. :p oops. but yeah, the prayers i prepared depended a lot on personal reflections. so it CAN be pretty boring. but when you see the message, a lot of meaning appears. and it's really beautiful. can't believe i'm saying it, but Father Gerard was right about silent prayers. scary.

haha anyways, um, someone stole my camera and uploaded my photos on facebook. so if you have an account on facebook, go check it out. if not, you'll have to wait till tonight for me to upload the photos here. :D