Reflections and Reactions

I’ve been somewhat reflective this week – or, rather, I realized that I really haven’t been reflective before this week. Visiting Mary and then coming back here gave me pause – it made me think a little bit about what’s important to me in the future. Could I have a life where each day begins and ends with a swim in the ocean? Can I have a job where I don’t have to go to an office every day? Just how important is it to have natural beauty? Or a beautiful city walk (I never took for granted my proximity to the lake and my walk along the Magnificent Mile – or the walks I take when I visit New York)? I then got a long email from a friend I hadn’t heard from in a while, telling me about her life and asking me similar questions and making me think still more. And what finally occurred to me is that I am doing pretty well at living in the moment, which is my goal! I think I will update my resume this month, and maybe the month after that start to put myself in a position to look for the next assignment. I think it’s good to muse about how what I have now helps me prioritize what I might want next (and that means not just the job and the location but also relationship/s), but upon reflection, I don’t want to do too much reflection right now! But maybe I’m also not reflecting (as much as Mary, for example, who shared with me her emails home) because, as I mentioned before, I feel acclimated – I certainly feel I’m in another culture, but I’m also in a big city, and I know big cities.

Some non-work-related adventures: This week I went to the post office to mail a letter for Mary. The post office was such a central part of my Azrou experience – writing cards that never went anywhere, hoping for mail that sometimes arrived, getting my monthly living allowance. Here, we get our living allowance via ATM (and Morocco is moving to that system), and post offices are few and far between. The mail that I have received has come to my office, and when Peace Corps sends anything they send it by courier. So it was a treat to go to the post office. Sir Tony had someone accompany me on the jeepney; we wound through Pasig City to the City Hall. Pasig City is big! It’s all urban, but I saw some interesting parts to it – commercial streets with more people hanging out than hang out on my walking route, the big market that I may go back to for fruit. Nothing’s walkable, but maybe I can take the jeepney and walk around a bit to get more of the flavor. The post office transaction itself was an adventure, too, but I think I managed to get postage and get the letter in the mail.

I also went to the baranguay offices to introduce myself. A baranguay is a neighborhood of a city, but it is also the main social unit of the villages – named after the boat that the Malays arrived in way back when. The volunteers who move into the villages have to introduce themselves to the authorities. I’m not sure I had to but I thought it couldn’t hurt.

And I decided to spend more time on language. I’ve been bringing my book to the office, thinking I would take language breaks, and not doing it. So I decided I’ll do some every morning and go into the office later. I practice every so often with Hanna but I want to do it more regularly. I’ll never learn if I don’t spend more time with it! It’s a good way to start the day.

And I’ve had some social forays. Last week, I went out for a drink with Jonathan and Charlie. We went to the M Café – M for Museum, right next to the Ayala Museum, so I knew exactly where it was. It’s an expat hot spot on Thursday nights. I’ve never been much of a bar person, but maybe I can broaden my horizons here. I did meet some interesting people. And now (that Peace Corps knows about it) it can be told that Jonathan, Charlie and Drew (along with Drew’s friend Jenny, who is visiting) came along on the Mindoro weekend. I thought I did a good job of writing about the weekend without mentioning that! Yesterday I met three Princeton-in-Asia fellows (one of whom was a Princeton alum; the program is about half non-alumni now) in another Makati hot spot – good people! I have some other friends of friends (whose names I was given) to meet and hope to do meet them soon, and there may be an alumni network or two to tap into. I’ve also been working on columns for the Alumni Weekly and have been in on some conversations about Reunions, so I have a bridge to another reality, and this week I was officially matched with my World-Wise Schools class – a different one from the one in Morocco, but still at my nieces’ school.

I should also add that I heard that one of the volunteers here was robbed at gunpoint. That’s disturbing! More when (and if) I know more (and can tell it).