My first typhoon day...

In South Dakota kids hope for snow days.  Here, they're typhoon days.  Though to compare typhoon days and snow days isn't exactly an equal comparison because, well, typhoons are destructive.  Really destructive.  Typhoon Juan (which is the Philippine name, Megi to everyone else) reportedly killed anywhere from 11-20 people, depending on your source, and caused around Php 5 billion (USD 115.5 million) worth of damage to crops and structures in the central Luzon area.  The province of Tarlac, a primary supplier of rice for all of the Philippines, reportedly lost its entire crop.  The prices of vegetables at the market here in Subic have increased to four times what they were 3 days ago. And it's not done yet...the most recent reports I've read say that it's now picking up speed in the South China Sea and will soon make landfall in China. 

So yes, I experienced by first typhoon day in the Philippines (in all it was actually about 3 days), but it wasn't as fun as the snow days of old I remember while growing up in South Dakota.  It's true that we all got a couple days off from teaching at our school, but in the end, given all the destruction, it really wasn't worth it (and that's something I've never said about a snow day). I've never experienced such battering winds or driving rain.  At times the thunder claps were so loud that I thought the earth had cracked open.  And we were only at a Signal 2 here in Subic.  There are a total of 4 signals: 1 being the lowest and 4 being, well, I'm honestly not sure what happens at 4, but I think it's something like what happens in the movie The Day After Tomorrow when the wall of water overtakes the island of Manhattan and the Statute of Liberty floats away.  Typhoon Juan reached Super Typhoon status (you know it's bad when you need the adjective "super" to precede "typhoon") and much of northern Luzon was at Signals 3 and 4 during this time.  Here in Subic we were without electricity or water for a full 24 hours and experienced intermittent brown-outs for days leading up to and following that time.  The American military was reportedly in Luzon, including in Ilwas, the Subic barangay bordering mine, handing out food and water.  It's amazing how a matter of 50 yards can make the difference between being in a relatively dry area versus an area of devastating flooding.

And we've recently learned that a new typhoon has formed and is heading for us again.  The Philippine name is Katring, which will hopefully not in any way resemble the Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans in 2005.  She is expected to make landfall on Sunday or Monday.  We're already getting some pretty fierce rain, but hopefully it won't come to more than that. Typhoon season certainly makes living and working in the Philippines interesting.  Think good thoughts for all of us here in the Philippines!  I promise my next post will focus on something a little more light-hearted, like mango trees that don't actually produce mangoes.  Which raises the question: can it truly be called a mango tree if it never produces a single mango?  Philosophize on that for awhile.  I'm going to get home before the rain begins again.  And I thought NYC got a lot of rain...

Where will you be spending the next two years?

Because I'll be in the town of Sual in the province of Pangasinan!



It's a town on the western edge of central Luzon on the Lingayen Gulf and is a 6 hour bus ride north of Manila.  The high school where I'll be teaching has around 1,700 students (quite small by Philippine standards), and the town itself has a population of just under 30,000 people.  At this point I don't know much more than that. BUT...tomorrow morning (which will be tonight for you folks back in the States) I'll be making that 6-hour bus trip north to Sual for my site visit!  I'll be staying there for the next 3 days with my new host family and get an opportunity to see my school, meet my fellow teachers, and generally get the lay of the land.  Unfortunately I don't get to stay there - on Sunday I have to return to my training site to finish out my last 6 weeks of training.  Interestingly, the language I've been learning - Tagalog - is not the language spoken in Sual.  While Tagalog is the national language of the Philippines (along with English), and is therefore taught in the schools and understood my most everyone, the native language of the people of Sual is Ilokano. So it sounds like I may be learning a second Filipino language once I get to Sual in November.  Yikes! Guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

But for now I'm just excited to know where I'm going and get an opportunity to visit before moving there for good in November.  Wish me luck.  I'll take lots of pictures and post when I get back!

As promised, my exposé on the secret underworld of Philippine videoke...

Okay, now that I've got your attention and you've been sucked into reading my blog I'll admit that 1) this is a blog post, not an expose...this ain't the NY Times, folks; and 2) the world of Philippine videoke is not secret, has never been secret, nor will ever be secret as long as videoke machine rentals cost Php 500 for 24 hours of non-stop singing enjoyment.  For those who don't know, videoke is karaoke, but the machine comes on a big stand with a TV so that the words (and often a strange background having nothing to do with the song) can be seen by everyone at the party.

Videoke is huge here. Huge. HUGE.  Birthdays, christenings, funerals (reportedly, though I've never witnessed this)...they all have videoke.  Your baby turns one year old?  Darn right there's videoke.  And let me tell you, there are a lot of birthdays/christenings/other-reasons-for-renting-a-videoke-machine here.  And do Filipinos enjoy making American Peace Corps Trainees sing videoke? You betcha.  I've been invited to birthday parties solely because they want to hear me sing videoke.  In the 5 weeks I've been here I've sung videoke 17 times.  Yes, I keep track.  Soon after I realized that I was the new videoke singer on the block, I developed a defense mechanism.  No, I don't change color to blend into my environment.  I found my go-to song.  The necessity of a go-to song is apparent nearly immediately.  People want you to sing and present you with a HUGE book filled with a GAZILLION songs and want you to pick one.  Yet despite having a GAZILLION songs to choose from, you find yourself unable to choose.  Can I sing this?  Is it too high? Is it too low? Do Eric Clapton and I really have the same range?  You want me to sing in Tagalog?  So to avoid this nervous-breakdown-inducing process, you find your go-to song.

Don't be fooled...finding your go-to song is a long, deliberate process involving much soul searching and a little trial and error.  (Hopefully not too much error because you will be laughed at...a lot.)  But when you find that go-to song, well, it makes your life a whole lot easier.  It's a song you can sing.  It's a song that's a crowd-pleaser.  It's a song that can be found in the memory banks of every videoke machine.  What's my go-to song, you ask?  I'd like to thank Journey for their little ditty entitled Don't Stop Believin'.  Can I sing it? Check.  Is it a crowd-pleaser?  Double check! Is it in the memory banks of every videoke machine?  So far so good!  And it keeps me from having to sing in Tagalog, which makes everyone happy ('cause let's be honest...Filipinos don't want to hear me slaughter their language in song anymore than I want to do it).  The only problem is if someone else has the same go-to song.  But I've got a plan if that ever happens.  It involves tackling and gagging the would-be singer, but I probably shouldn't reveal any more than that.

So if any of you ever come to visit me in the Philippines, beware.  The only thing Filipinos like better than listening to a Peace Corps Trainee sing is listening to a Peace Corps Trainee's friends/family sing.  It may be best to choose your go-to song in advance.  Don't say I didn't warn you.