Orientation - Part Three

We next had an admin orientation – what’s new here is that allowances are deposited to a bank account and we are given ATM cards. Morocco was moving to that system too, but I was grandfathered. We also have monthly phone calls to the program staff – by the first Wednesday of every month. Others in the group had done this in their country of service but it was new to me. What’s also new – the admin manual was available in both hard copy and on CD. My inclination was to take both, and then I thought about the new me and took only the CD! I do prefer to read paper than to look at a computer screen, but I think I made a good decision. Oh – one big difference – the mailroom person will help you send stuff home! We then had short orientations on computer use in the volunteer lounge and on resources available in the library (which are in the same space here). There are some resources on the Philippines and some by sector; all the casual-reading books are on a volunteer exchange shelf, available for anyone.

And then we had swearing-in! We stood by the Peace Corps Philippines logo, between the flags, and everyone in the audience served as a witness as the Country Director read, and we repeated after her, the Peace Corps oath. We got lapel pins, too – some of the other PRCVs knew this was coming, but not those of us from Morocco, where we didn’t get them. It seemed a bit corny at first, but it was a nice little ceremony – moving, really. We’re Peace Corps Volunteers again!

Then the men napped (they had been up late) and the women went back to the mall. We thought it would be nice to get a little gift for Milo, to thank him for bringing us here and for putting together the orientation. He started working for Peace Corps last year, so we aren’t his first Response volunteers, but we are the first he is seeing from the beginning. So we made a big print of a photo of the six of us swearing in and put it in a frame – and while we were at it, made copies for each of us, the Country Director and the Programming and Training Officer! We also went to get pasalubong – this is a Filipino custom. When you go somewhere, you bring a little something back for the people in the office. Milo thought it would be nice if we brought a little something to our new offices; in this case, food. I hadn’t brought anything from home, since I knew I wasn’t having a homestay. But I wouldn’t have brought food for the office anyway. Got some Hershey’s Kisses.

Mercedes was spent, but a COSing older volunteer (coincidence?) replaced her for dinner, this time at an Indian restaurant. Both this one and the Korean one are Lonely Planet and PCV favorites – of course, the PCVs who are in rural areas crave different cuisines and splurge when they get to Manila; we can’t eat like this every day and stay within our living allowances, even though we have access. We reminisced about our days of training – yeah, that hour of language. And do you remember the trip we took to PNVSCA? And what about the IT training? It all went by so fast!

We were then introduced to another Manila PCV institution – the Hobbit House. Owned by a former Peace Corps Volunteer from 1961 (one of the first group! I would say RPCV but he never returned), it’s a bar staffed by little people. At first the music was loud, but it wasn’t at all smoky, and it was our last night together, so I thought I would stay for a while. The loud band was replaced by a balladeer (when he started to sing Simon and Garfunkel’s “America,” a song that I love, it really hit me that I was in Manila listening to it…counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike?) and then I poured some more of the shared margarita pitcher into my glass. The new me, having a good time in a bar! More of the COSing PCVs came and we stayed for a while longer, and then Mary and I walked back together; we sat outside the pension and talked before going up.