One of my main gripes so far (luckily there haven't been many) was that I wasn't getting much of an opportunity to exercise. Last night (Monday night) and this morning I finally got a chance to walk around Aparri with my body guards. Some of the students of the Seminary are here over the summer working for the school in various capacities. A few of them live with me and are thus tasked with making sure I'm safe, so I needed an entourage when I wanted to take a walk and they are affectionately referred to as my body guards. So, we took a walk last night to a park nearby and around the town also. It is a lot easier to get your bearings when you are walking as opposed to riding on the back of a small motorcycle. Anyway, it was a great fellowship opportunity to just walk and talk with these guys. We topped it off by coming back the house and singing some choruses. It was really cool evening that I hope is repeated many times.
This morning I also got a chance to take a walk to the sea shore here. It is a neat area where the South China Sea and the Cagayan River meet. The smell of drying shrimp and fish is a constant presence there though. Said scent can be a little gamey.
It's really interesting the way the students interact with me. When they first meet me they are very quiet and they'll only speak when spoken to. I've been told that this is because they are shy about their English abilities. As we spend more time together and they warm up to me, they become more talkative, asking me about myself and joking with me. It's really funny because whenever a new student shows up and is afraid to talk to me, all the others make fun of him, even though they were doing the same thing 3 days ago.
Another interesting pattern keeps showing up, and I think it is because of similar religious backgrounds. There have been several connections as far as names go, and I think it's because of good Catholic naming traditions. The administrative assistant and accountant here at the office is named Maria-Therese , which happens to be my mother's name. A gentleman who refers to himself as my English student and who is on the board for the school here is named Marion, a very special name to me because it was my paternal Grandfather's middle name, the name he most often answered to when he wasn't answering to "Pappaw." Filipinos place a lot of emphasis on family and familial connections, and these connections have been really interesting to me.
How about some updates on customs? I received several lessons here at the office yesterday. One was on how to wash bread. Filipinos like to dip their bread in their coffee, and when a previous American witnessed this, he thought they were washing their bread before they ate it. He was then aghast when the Filipino he was watching proceeded to drink the coffee. It's hilarious to hear them tell the story, and since they were telling me my friend Marion decided we needed some bread so I could learn how to "wash bread."
Another thing they taught me yesterday was how to eat a mango without a knife. The mango is similar in shape to a pear, but it's flesh reminds me of a more tart peach. It is very tasty, but there is a large seed in the middle of the fruit and typically it is served sliced so that it is easier to eat. Anyway they showed me how to peel and eat a mango, and it was a mess because the flesh is also moist like a peach. It is pretty easy to eat until you get to the fruit around the seed. You have to work for it and it is very slippery. It was pretty funny up to this point because they love to give me things to eat and not tell me how to eat them; then they the make fun of me for eating it wrong. But my friend Marion then informed me that removing the last of the mango flesh from the seed is how Filipinas practice kissing and then proceeded to demonstrate: "It is how they practice for tongue! Ha ha ha!"My co-workers in the office here keep insisting that Marion is a shy man. I haven't seen much evidence of that.
So far I'm doing very well. I'm preaching next Sunday evening at Aparri Church of Christ and looking forward to the opportunity. Pray that it goes well and that my speaking tempo doesn't get too fast or too slow. It needs to be slow enough that older folks can follow, but not so slow that it is insulting. Older Filipinos are less familiar with English, so it takes them a little while longer to understand, but younger Filipinos are very familiar with the language; so I need to find that balance.
Nick
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