After two meals, four in-flight movies and fourteen hours in the air, we had made it to the Philippines. What was once in my mind just a splotch of white in the middle of an expanse of blue on world maps was made instantly real as soon as I stepped off that plane. I took in the sights, the smells, the humidity, the friendliness of the people—everything. The wheelchair guy almost wheeled me past the cast, and I had to tell him a couple of times that this was the group I was supposed to be with. He was almost in shock at this discovery, but he wheeled me over to the cast, and I was immediately lei’d by a lovely Filipino woman. I don’t think they call them leis in the Philippines, but I have no other word to call it.
It’s so interesting to get on a plane and whisked off to a place that is so different from where you came from. When we were in Denver, we needed our jackets and hoodies to stay warm; in the Philippines, if there hadn’t been indecency laws in place the entire cast would have stripped down to our underthings, and even then we would have been overheated. After we all got our luggage together and our passports were handed to our logistics coordinator to go to the State Department for visa extensions, it was time to load onto the buses. The Filipino buses were not a thing like the American buses, and I had a hard time getting up into them, so I rode with the staff in the staff van. The Filipino drivers asked me if I needed help, and I think they would have tried to pick me up and put me in the van if Ellen Enebo and I hadn’t told them that I needed minimal help.
Once I got situated, the long trek across the city and to our meeting area began. Immediately, I was struck by the poverty that I saw around me. Every time the van stopped at a traffic light, seeming scores of people peddling homemade necklaces and jewelry swamped our van asking us if we wanted to buy anything. The next thing that struck me was all the billboards—some of which had to have been at least a couple stories high—advertising perfume, Gucci and Guess jeans. All of this towered over the streets that were dirty and in disrepair. All of the images I was seeing around me couldn’t have summed up better the microcosm of humanity that I spoke about in my spoken word pieces during the show: everywhere you looked, the stark contrast of the haves and the have-nots made itself all too apparent.
Then, through my jet-lagged stupor, the realization of my not being in the United States anymore started to reveal itself to me in increasingly vivid detail. I saw whole pigs, gutted, and cleaned hung up by their snouts on meat hooks displayed proudly in several storefronts; flashy old Jeeps that I would come to learn were called Jeepneys and motorcycle/rickshaw hybrids which zoomed past us on the left and the right; signs written in a language I had never seen before—all of it was almost too much to take in all at once.
After a good forty-five minutes of traversing the city, we finally made it to Elbow Room, meeting place for the cast briefing and allocation meeting by day, bustling night club by night. It was so good to just sit and decompress from the humungous sensory overload, get our schedules and allocations, and just chill. I got my schedule and learned that my roommates for the next two and a half weeks were Colin from Texas, Marieke from the Netherlands, Katrin from Germany, and Arnab from Bangladesh. I always loved big allocations like this because it was always great to have huge meals, and we could really delve into really interesting topics. We also found out that this portion of our tour was sponsored by Zesto, which is the Philippine’s answer to drinks like V8 Splash, and Gatorade, and as such we had as much free Zesto as we could get our hands on, which was great because the heat was getting more and more intense as the day progressed. This was also the day that I discovered Filipino iced tea. For those of you who know me, you know that when I make iced tea, I make it as strong and as sweet as possible. Well, this iced tea is better than all of the powered iced teas in the United States hands down. And the best part of it is that it is served in place of water in some restaurants. It’s one of the things I crave from time to time. If you ever have the chance to go to the Philippines, if you never enjoy a tall glass of iced tea over there, consider your trip a failure. Seriously.
After several futile attempts to find free internet connections, we all got together in our CI groups to find out what we would be doing for the next two and a half weeks. I found out that we would be working for an organization called Gawad Kalinga, which is an organization that is dedicated to ending poverty and improving the lives of every Filipino. To do this, it goes into areas hardest hit by poverty and tells show them that there are alternatives to violence and looting. That through hard work, you too can enter into a life that is more fulfilling and healthy. It’s really kind of impossible to explain everything in a short amount of space here. But we had a great CI group and all of couldn’t wait to start working with these incredible people.
Towards the end of the day, we all were dead tired as most of us hadn’t seen decent sleep since 48 hours prior, and we couldn’t wait to get home to our host families. It was pretty late in the day that they came to take us home, so unfortunately we didn’t really have a lot of time to get to know them at all before we all crashed. It had been an overwhelming day for all of us, and we couldn’t wait to crash and wake up in the morning to start our Community Impact day.
It’s so interesting to get on a plane and whisked off to a place that is so different from where you came from. When we were in Denver, we needed our jackets and hoodies to stay warm; in the Philippines, if there hadn’t been indecency laws in place the entire cast would have stripped down to our underthings, and even then we would have been overheated. After we all got our luggage together and our passports were handed to our logistics coordinator to go to the State Department for visa extensions, it was time to load onto the buses. The Filipino buses were not a thing like the American buses, and I had a hard time getting up into them, so I rode with the staff in the staff van. The Filipino drivers asked me if I needed help, and I think they would have tried to pick me up and put me in the van if Ellen Enebo and I hadn’t told them that I needed minimal help.
Once I got situated, the long trek across the city and to our meeting area began. Immediately, I was struck by the poverty that I saw around me. Every time the van stopped at a traffic light, seeming scores of people peddling homemade necklaces and jewelry swamped our van asking us if we wanted to buy anything. The next thing that struck me was all the billboards—some of which had to have been at least a couple stories high—advertising perfume, Gucci and Guess jeans. All of this towered over the streets that were dirty and in disrepair. All of the images I was seeing around me couldn’t have summed up better the microcosm of humanity that I spoke about in my spoken word pieces during the show: everywhere you looked, the stark contrast of the haves and the have-nots made itself all too apparent.
Then, through my jet-lagged stupor, the realization of my not being in the United States anymore started to reveal itself to me in increasingly vivid detail. I saw whole pigs, gutted, and cleaned hung up by their snouts on meat hooks displayed proudly in several storefronts; flashy old Jeeps that I would come to learn were called Jeepneys and motorcycle/rickshaw hybrids which zoomed past us on the left and the right; signs written in a language I had never seen before—all of it was almost too much to take in all at once.
After a good forty-five minutes of traversing the city, we finally made it to Elbow Room, meeting place for the cast briefing and allocation meeting by day, bustling night club by night. It was so good to just sit and decompress from the humungous sensory overload, get our schedules and allocations, and just chill. I got my schedule and learned that my roommates for the next two and a half weeks were Colin from Texas, Marieke from the Netherlands, Katrin from Germany, and Arnab from Bangladesh. I always loved big allocations like this because it was always great to have huge meals, and we could really delve into really interesting topics. We also found out that this portion of our tour was sponsored by Zesto, which is the Philippine’s answer to drinks like V8 Splash, and Gatorade, and as such we had as much free Zesto as we could get our hands on, which was great because the heat was getting more and more intense as the day progressed. This was also the day that I discovered Filipino iced tea. For those of you who know me, you know that when I make iced tea, I make it as strong and as sweet as possible. Well, this iced tea is better than all of the powered iced teas in the United States hands down. And the best part of it is that it is served in place of water in some restaurants. It’s one of the things I crave from time to time. If you ever have the chance to go to the Philippines, if you never enjoy a tall glass of iced tea over there, consider your trip a failure. Seriously.
After several futile attempts to find free internet connections, we all got together in our CI groups to find out what we would be doing for the next two and a half weeks. I found out that we would be working for an organization called Gawad Kalinga, which is an organization that is dedicated to ending poverty and improving the lives of every Filipino. To do this, it goes into areas hardest hit by poverty and tells show them that there are alternatives to violence and looting. That through hard work, you too can enter into a life that is more fulfilling and healthy. It’s really kind of impossible to explain everything in a short amount of space here. But we had a great CI group and all of couldn’t wait to start working with these incredible people.
Towards the end of the day, we all were dead tired as most of us hadn’t seen decent sleep since 48 hours prior, and we couldn’t wait to get home to our host families. It was pretty late in the day that they came to take us home, so unfortunately we didn’t really have a lot of time to get to know them at all before we all crashed. It had been an overwhelming day for all of us, and we couldn’t wait to crash and wake up in the morning to start our Community Impact day.
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