Carmelita, Mary and Miscellaneous

I have said a couple of times that my 2005 trip to South Africa ultimately led me to the Peace Corps (if only I had blogged then…were there even blogs then?). One of the people I met there was Carmelita, a co-worker of my host there. When she traveled to the U.S., he suggested that I host her, and since he had hosted me for an extended period of time, I didn’t feel I could refuse, even though I didn’t know her well. Now that I have been in the Peace Corps/expat world, I realize that this is what people do. And she turned out to be a wonderful guest and sweet person, and we are still in touch. Well, she has some relatives in the Philippines and is going to introduce me to one who works in Makati City, the next city over from mine. That’ll be nice!

And speaking of introductions – I was in New York City earlier this week and I met one of the other people who is going to the Philippines with Peace Corps Response. I had sent her a photo so she could find me, and she wrote back, “I sense a kindred spirit!” She sent her pic and I sensed it too. Her name is Mary and she was an architect and she served in Eastern Europe and she seems fun and interesting. She’ll be three hours away and I hope I see her! At least we can text.... I get the sense I won’t interact much with the regular PCVs, so we PCRVs will need each other. She’s going to visit friends during her extra time here, so she’ll no longer be flying from JFK, but it was nice to make the contact.

And I just want to go on the record as saying that I didn’t see the Times special section about the 1969 moon landing until after I made the astronaut reference (nor had I seen the Endeavour liftoff). But I had already read that Casey Kacem had broadcast his last show – countdowns will never be the same.

As I was reading Culture Shock: Philippines (so far a lot of history and a lot on family relationships and gender roles – but not a lot to write about; I think I’ll keep reading and then discuss when it relates to my actual experience), I realized that I did more to prepare for Morocco than I’d mentioned. I read a book about living abroad and one called Understanding Arabs and maybe another book or two that were recommended by my Peace Corps recruiter, and I skimmed Culture Matters, the Peace Corps workbook about cultural sensitivity (while watching the Air and Water Show…).

And I had met the woman who worked on the Casablanca-Chicago Sister Cities committee – so I looked up Sister Cities. Taguig City appears not to have any; it was incorporated only in 2004. Makati City has several other sister cities in the Philippines (is that allowed?), Los Angeles, and Ramapo, New Jersey (who knew?). Manila has four designated by Sister Cities International – Sacramento, San Francisco, Maui County, and Honolulu City and County, and also Santa Barbara, Winnipeg and Taipei!

I also wanted to note that after 27 months without baseball, I didn’t think I would be here this long, but I made it to the All-Star break! The NHL (watched a lot of hockey) and NBA (watched a little) playoffs are long over. And I saw some of the French Open and Wimbledon (though I viewed a lot of tennis in Morocco, with Abdou), golf’s U.S. Open and now the British Open. Plus, the Tour de France ends on the day I leave! I’m not spending as much time or energy on sports as I did before I left, but it’s one of the ways I mark time.