As I write this I am about to end my fourth day at my permanent site in Sorsogon City. So far my placement has been great, and I was extremely happy to finally get here after a nearly 20 hour bus ride from Manila on Friday. Much of the passage through the region of Bicol was flooded due to typhoon Mario which made overnight travel incredibly difficult. But, the good news is I won't have to worry about long distance travel again for a while. The highlight of the past month has definitely been the swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Manila. The build up to that moment was pretty steep and everyone there was understandably emotional. I also had the incredible experience of singing the national anthem with a few of my good friends to open the ceremony. The hardest part of that experience was saying goodbye to the volunteers and staff who had all gotten so close.
I am very excited to start my journey here in Sorsogon. I am placed here with two other awesome volunteers from the Education sector and one from the Coastal Resource Management sector in nearby Gubat. My counterpart and coworkers have welcomed me with open arms and have already taken it upon themselves to start showing around the area. There are around 155,000 people here in the city and all 64 barangays (neighborhoods) are covered by the 10 City Links (CLs) working in my office. Needless to say, my coworkers have an incredible amount of responsibility on their shoulders. Despite all of that, they are all incredibly young, energetic and fun people who I am so happy to be working with. I am not expecting the work to be easy but I feel lucky to have the team around me that I do.
For those of you that are curious, I am working in the 4 P's program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. 4 P's stands for Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program. It's basically a social welfare program with an emphasis on educating and sustaining healthy families. So, I will be leading Family Development Sessions with my counterpart and eventually focusing on working with youth leaders in the community (hopefully). Anyway, today was my first full day of work so I've barely scratched the surface of all this.
All in all, Sorsogon is a really cool place. The beaches are beautiful and there are a ton of natural sights to see. There are nearby cold and hot springs, a handful of volcanoes and a spot where you can swim with whale sharks! Not the worst place to spend the next two years.
I miss everyone and staying in contact with people has really made a huge difference to me! I'll keep updating this as I feel inspired.
Peace!
