Nenita visit 6

Once again this morning I got woken up by the same roster so I went down to the shore and just sat with Nenita for probably a hour or so it was very calming and I can understand why she dose it. Then we had breakfast, then today we had to work in her stand for a couple of hours. It was actually pretty fun to work in her stand I got to talk to a lot of different people! It was very interesting to hear all the different peoples stories. For example there was this old lady and one of her kid had just died and so Nenita is very nice and is giving the lady free bananas for 3 weeks, it's 3 weeks because that is the typical morning period. After we were done working at the stand for the day we went back to Nenita's hut and we went swimming the ocean was beautiful! if you went far out enough little fish would brush up agains your leg, it was amazing! I only went swimming for a little bit then I sat on the sand with Nenita and that was amazing the sand was soft like a baby blanket and it was warm to! After a while of lying in the sand I looked at my watch and realized that now it was almost 3:00 so I had to get moving I sadly had to catch a 5:30 flight. I rsn into the main part of town and I said good bye to all of the people that I had met, the people that work at Nenita's stand, the people that I met working at Nenita's stand and I said good bye to people that I never really talked to but were always there like the drunk dumbs on the corner and all of the other people people that own stands. Next I ran back to Nenita's hut and you found Nenita starting to make her dinner and so I had to get all of my belongings together. That did not take so long since I did not bring that much stuff but, when I was done there was a very sad good by that I still had to do, it was Nenita. We both new it was coming. I walked up to her and we hugged for about 3 minutes and then we said our good byes. When we were down I ran out side whistled for a taxi and waved my last good bye to Nenita, I hopped in the taxi and said "step on it to the air port!" That was probably the screeds taxi ride ever it took about a half hour and it was twisty and bumpy! When I finally got to the airport, I ran in, found my plan and luckily they had not left yet. I ran on and then when I got to me seat I had to find my book in my bad to I was digging around in my bad and I found that Nenita hard slipped in her bracelet that she always wears and there was a little notes attacked it said "Here is a little gift from me to you so now you will remember me and you will come back to visit me!" When I finish reading the note I got a little choked up. I was thinking about my over all trip and I was thinking about playing Hide and Go Seek with the kids and I thought how kids that maybe aren't as lucky as others don't think that they're not lucky because they don't know the difference. I had a very good trip and I definitely will be going back!

Nenita visit 5

This morning super early I got woken up by a roster. I got very angry. Since I was awake I said to myself "Hey Im awake now theres no use sitting in this hut, I might swell go down to the beach and see the sun raise." It was magnificent!

When I went down to the beach I saw Nenita there and so I went up to her and asked her why she was there so early she said "Ever since my husband died a couple of years ago, I have been coming down here every morning and thinking about him." There was a small pause then I asked "If you don't mind me asking, why do you come to the the sun ride and not say, the sun set?" I could tell that that hit a sore spot in her heart but she slowly answered, holding back tears. "Its because he was a fisher man and he spent most of his time on the water, and then one rainy August afternoon he was out fishing for the family and he got killed in a surprise typhoon." Long pause... Then I felt really awkward because I brought up the subject and now I had no idea what to say, so I just said "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that." Then Nenita said after clearing her throughout "Oh, it's okay, why don't we go inside and we can make so breakfast." So we went up to her hut and collected some fresh eggs and we made scrambled eggs. They were some of the best scrambled eggs I had ever eaten, probably because they were so fresh.

Since today is Sunday we had to load up Nenita's banana and charcoal stand for the next day. Nenita makes all of her own charcoal at her sisters farm and gets the bananas form her sisters farm  also so they have to split the earnings. But, before we went to her sister's farm Nenita played me this song on her little music CD player, this is the song music video.

After she played me this song we took a hour long taxi ride to her sisters farm and them we got straight to work Nenita's sister is a sweet women she has a couple of children and a husband her farm is quit large but not that big. she had about an acre of just banana trees, a big pile of charcoal in the making and some livestock that Nenita trades for extra money. It is very weird how to make charcoal but the basic ideal is burning wood in a really weird and difficult way. Some of Nenita's sister's children were helping us pick bananas.  Reason that Nenita sells the charcoal and bananas and livestock and not the sister is that the sister has HIV/AIDS and is slowly dyeing Nenita is one of 6 though so it's not like she dose not have a small family but the rest of them live far way. After about 4 hours of harvesting bananas and making charcoal we took a community pick up truck to Nenita's store and we loaded all the bananas and charcoal on to the selves the stand looked pretty good her is a picture of Nenita in front of her stand.

Then we had to take the community pick up truck back to Nenita's sisters neighbors house so after we did that we went back to Nenita's sister's house. at her house we sat on the porch and we drank ice tea that and the tea is grown in the area and it was delicious! It was so relaxing on the porch that I dosed of for a while when I woke up Nenita's sisters ids had drawn a mustache on my face in charcoal and they were all surrounding me waiting for me to wake up and see my reaction. When I woke up I jumped up and screamed "ROAR" and all of the kids surrounding my screamed and then ran away laughing so I chased after them and we played a fun game of hide and go seek tag. After a couple of rounds Nenita yelled at us from the porch "kids come inside it is time for dinner," so we all ran inside and all of the kids libeled in to the door way it was pretty funny. For dinner we had fresh chicken and she vegetables. For dessert we had fresh bananas they we simple and delicious! After we finished dinner we said god bye and thank you to Nenita's sister and I hugged all of the kids and then we caught the last buss going back to were Nanita lives. Once we finally got home we both were very tired so we said good night and went to bed. Right before I went into a deep sleep i was sad to think that tomorrow I had to get on a plane again and leave Nenita. Then I fell asleep.

Nenita Visit 4

Once I got to her village she met me at the bus stop. Kabankalan is very different then the other places I had been, I thought that it would be sort of like the small villages I visited in Africa. I was wrong. It's hard to find one perfect word to describe it be I think a close word it developed yes Kabankalan is more developed then the small villages I visited in Africa. I don't know about you but before I actually came to the Philippines I did not know much about it at all so here is a little in sider information, the beaches are very beautiful and tropic but, the actual village has a lot of poverty but it also has some not so poor parts of town. They do have buildings but not very many some of the streets are paved but again not very many and they do have streets signs and once again not very many but that is pretty good for place with so much poverty. So any way, I met Nenita at the bus stop and we walked to her hut it took about 20-30 minutes which was difficult considering I had my luggage but it was not very much because I alone had enough time to stay with Nenita for 3 nights sadly I wish I could have stayed longer but I had to get back home to go back to school. So far I could tell that Nenita is a very find and gentle old lady. The second I walk in the door I smelled an amazing smell of some kind of food I smelt mean and bread, it was amazing! Also when I walked in I was bombarded with lots of  "Hello" and I could tell that they learned how to say hello recently because I was coming I was also bombarded with hugs from all sots of people short tall fat skinny it seemed like Nenita had invited the whole town in her little 2 room hut to meet me! After about an hour of eating and talking to people they finally all started to leave the food that was there was so delouse there was some kind of chicken then there was a bread rolls and potatoes and some other delouse thing that I don't quite know what it is. Now that everyone left I could talk to Nenita more, she has four children but they live in a couple of cities over working and they send most of the money to Nenita. I was unbelievably tired after a long day of planes and buses so I asked Nenita where I will be sleeping and she offered me her bed but I did not feel quite right taking her bed and making her sleep on the fool or I took the floor instead. I slept on about 5 blankets and had three more on top of me because at night it gets quite cold.    

Here is a picture of Nenita's hut you can't see from this picture but since she lives on the shore her hut has to be raised on polls. 

Here is a picture of some of the food that I had it was all so delicious!!

         

Nenita Visit 3 Currency

Now since in Kabankalen their currency is different then ours in America I needed to exchange my money for Philippine peso. 

$1 = 42.65 Philippine peso


$5 = 213.25 Philippine peso          


$10 = 426.5 


$20 = 853


$100 = 4265


Now that will make my stay a lot more convenient!

Nenita Visit 2 Communication

Now since in the Philippines they speak Filipino I have to lean some basic words or phrases in Filipino.

Hello : Hoy

Thank you : Salamat

Goodbye : paalma

Where is the bathroom? : Kung saan ang banyo?

My name is Grace : Ang pang ko ay Grace      

You're welcome : tuloy po kayo

Excuse me : patawarin ninyo ako

Hi : Hi

May I : maaaring I

Please : pakiusap


This will make my trip a lot easier!

Visit Nenita #1: Transport

For a class assignment we when to Kiva.org  and we picked someone to lend $25 to. I picked Nenita Muleta. So I decided to go visit her she lives in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, Philippines. Before I met Nenita all I knew about her is what I read about her on her description on Kiva, but when you actually go and stay in there hut you really get a new sense of the person first I had to get there. Here is a picture of my flight plan.

Since there is not an airport in the village were she lives I flew into the capitol Manila, Philippines. Once I finally got to Manila it was only about 9:00 pm but after 19 hours cooped up on a  plane I was very tired. I took a small bus to her village the bus felt like it was falling apart so I was pretty scared but I thought in my mind over and over again that this bus runs every day and nothing will happen, nothing will happen, will happen, happen, happen... I repeated as I fell asleep.