Hey everyone! This week is a good week. Over the weekend my coworkers and I put on an event that had been a long time in the making. In Peace Corps lingo we call it a Training of Trainers (ToT), where you basically train identified participants to eventually run there own projects or events. At this point, we have been working with scholars at Sorsogon State College for about eight months and we wanted to take our work to the next level. The goal of this training was to empower the students to take ownership of their community and come up with a project that they think would be beneficial to their campus. They would then take the lead and implement the project on campus with support from us staff. Overall, we had 60 participants coming from campuses across the province in Bulan, Castilla, Magallanes and Sorosogon City. We even had a group come all the way from Camarines Norte, a province about six hours away. They were accompanied by three other Peace Corps Volunteers, all of whom I hadn't seen in while, and it was really great to have some fellow PC support there. Some of my coworkers from DSWD came to help, and the support from the college was really amazing. Here's a shot of the sign they created for the event:

 At the end of the three day training, each campus gave a presentation about their project idea. It was so cool to see the level of creativity and passion the scholars had. You could tell they were really proud of their work by all of the energy and cheering during the presentations. This was really inspiring to me because I could see how much they wanted to help their community and support each other. It makes me very excited to work with them moving forward! Anyway, here are some shots of the different project presentations:

 Some group shots:

 I would definitely say this has been one of the high points of my service. I love working with the students so much, and its really exciting to see them grow as a community. I can't wait to start supporting them through their project in Sorsogon City! 

 In adventure news, a couple of weeks back I took a trip down to Catbalogan, Samar with two other volunteers to check out Lobo Cave. Without a doubt, the coolest cave I have ever been in. The entire journey through they cave was about 4 hours, complete with repelling. It was fairly physically intensive, mainly because we were swimming through an underground river half the time. The formations we saw were incredible and we actually saw a decent amount of wildlife. Snakes, spiders, crabs, fish, and the bats were so numerous their wings sounded like distant thunder in some of the chambers. Here are some pics of the experience:

 That's it for now! June was a really great month, and overall I feel pretty adjusted to life here. It took almost a year to have that feeling, but I guess that's natural. Rainy season has just begun, and even though the beaches may not look as pristine, its nice to be able to walk out the front door and not feel like you're walking on the sun. More adventures to come, peace!