Philippines Day One

I'm not quite sure how to structure these posts about my experiences in the Philippines... I did keep a journal the entire time (except like the last day or two), but I'm not sure if I should just copy straight from the journal or not. I went to the Philippines with a small knowledge of the culture, which I found very helpful. Jeff really wanted me to enjoy my time there because he wants to return as often as possible. Sometimes I think he loves the Philippines and the people there more than me and the dogs, but I'm not really bothered by that.

Anyway, here is the first day of us being in the Philippines.

Friday November 21, 2014

"We woke up and had a lazy morning around the house. We played with their two (cleaner) dogs. {Not many Filipinos have pets. There are tons of stray dogs and cats. All of the female animals have saggy nipples from having too many litters and the male animals attack and rape the females. The family we stayed with had four dogs that they kept in cages outside all the time so they were always dirty and gross.} I felt so bad for them because they are in a tiny cage together and their food and water bowls were empty. {I could understand their food being empty, but not their water, especially with how hot it gets.} When we let them out, the female (who is pregnant) pulled the plastic out from under the cage and ate the stray pieces of rice on it.

The Relloma's have slaves {They are actually workers, they get paid to live in the house and cook/clean} that do everything for them. They clean and cook and do laundry. We don't have to prepare anything. There is always food on the table and we have to eat so we don't offend anyone.

We decided to go to the Manila Ocean Center and our trip started with a tricycle ride down to the main road. It's a motorcycle with a side care with a cover over it. It is a tight fit. {I actually enjoyed all the tricycle rides.} We then took a taxi to the Ocean Center. It was cool to see the city. It's incredible how every space is taken up. The alleyways are filled with people and squatters. {Squatters are in fact people... I must have been tired or something.} Empty buildings have been taken over by squatters. Fields and sidewalks are taken over by squatters as well.

Being white, we are like celebrities. During the sea lion show, I was picked to be "kissed" by the sea lion. {Jeff told me that when they ask for a volunteer, if I rose my hand, they would pick me. And they did. It was fun and you can tell that Filipinos love being treated like normal people by white people, especially women. Jeff told me that most of the white people that come over are men and they are rude and expect the Filipinos to treat them like royalty.}

We sat in a fish spa and had fish nibble our dead skin off. {This was gross and awesome at the same time. It took me a while to get used to fish biting my feet.}

Next we went to the Antarctica Room and fed penguins and walked through the snow room where Filipinos could take pictures. {It was seriously a giant freezer that had some fake snow. All the Filipinos loved it, but we walked in, looked around for one second then turn and ran out. It was so cheesy, but I'm sure it's because snow is normal for us.}

After the Manila Ocean Center we went to eat at the Harbor View Restaurant and they put our picture on their Facebook page and gave us a free dessert because Jeff knows Tagalog. {Filipinos also think it's amazing when white people know Tagalog. They find it respectful that someone would come to their little third-world country and take the time to learn the language. The owner of the Harbor View Restaurant actually sat down for a long time and got to know Jeff and kept asking why he knew the language so well. One of my favorite things about the Philippines was watching Jeff interact with the people and being able to speak Tagalog.}

After, we went home and we saw a HUGE fire that was started by squatters and had some members houses involved. {The fire was huge. The sky was pitch black from pollution and it being nighttime, but this fire made the sky a reddish-orange. You could see the entire city was in a panic and it was frustrating that things seemed to be happening so slowly. What I mean by that is no one moves for emergency vehicles because they, more often than not, abuse the sirens, so no one treats it like a real emergency. One cool thing that I learned from this fire was that emergency vehicles are made more narrow so they can drive through the smaller streets to get to the problem faster.}"