A New Door Will Always Open

I'm not quite sure whether anyone still visits my blog or not but regardless of who sees this, I couldn't justify keeping a travel blog without a final entry. 

My time in Up with People has come to a close and I've been home for nearly a month now. The transition back into my normal, everyday life wasn't nearly as difficult as I had anticipated it being. Up with People is just like anything else in this world; if you do it for too long you grow tired of it. Toward the end of the tour, it was more of a struggle than anything I've ever done in my life. I found myself having to muster up the energy to do things that once excited me and made me want to do my best. I found the weekly travel days to be mundane and tedious instead of exhilarating and mysterious. Instead of wondering about where we were going next and what it would be like, I found myself uninterested and content with just stepping off the bus in whatever the next city may have been with little to no knowledge of my surroundings. Maybe it was the mystery of being in a new place that appealed to me, or maybe it was my body telling me that being in a new city every week was something that was incredibly hard to adjust to but regardless of the meaning, I had become disenchanted with the Up with People lifestyle. The only thing I found myself looking forward to was the day that I would return home to see the family and friends that I missed so much. It's safe to say that I was way homesick.

Don't get me wrong. Up with People provided me with so many great opportunities to broaden my horizons but it also taught me that there's nothing wrong with being critical at all. As a matter of fact, Up with People taught me the value of not only being a critical and proactive person but of being a critical thinker. Why should we accept things as they are? Why should something be true just because someone older and presumably wiser says so? What does it mean to be diverse and why should I be? What's wrong with asking questions; demanding answers to legitimate questions? By and large, I found that "taking it to the source" and "telling it like it is," two very commonly preached proverbs of Up with People, wasn't always acceptable. I learned that theoretical "authority" in a group of supposed equals was more important than open and honest discussion between two equals.  And above all else I learned that in a large group of people, whether it's high school, or a group of young humanitarians, the dynamic will always be the same. 

Now that it's all said and done, I've asked myself the question several times of whether I'd do it all over again or not. I have plenty of reasons to say that I'd reject the offer to travel in UWP if I knew then what I now know but on the inverse, I have so many more to persuade me to say yes. The people I met, the families I lived with, the places I saw, and the things I learned from others while traveling outweigh the negatives by far and if given the opportunity to do it all over, I'd opt to do so without the least bit of hesitation.

Now, what's next for me?

Manila!

After almost three days of traveling, a few too many airplane meals, and a few in-chair foot pumps (to keep the blood flowing, you know) I finally arrived in the Philippines around 5:30 Tuesday morning. I've been here for nearly a week now and have already had a fantastic time working with the locals and spending time with my host family and roommates and can safely say that the Philippines is so much better than Mexico!

Sure, the water's dirty and the people drive like complete maniacs, but there's an exotic sense of euphoria in the air here for whatever reason. It could be the fact that while I'm awake and going about my daily business everyone back home is asleep or the fact that I'm 8,000 miles from home, or maybe it's just because I'm in Asia, but no matter what the reason is, the Philippines is just a fun place to be. The internal workings of Up with People are completely different here in the Philippines, too. Instead of staying a huge herd 24/7, we're split up into several different small groups and are working independently at different sites all over Manila. Groups of about 20 UWP students are deployed to various sites, working on projects like building houses in slums that take about 8 days each, whereas in the US each community service project usually only lasted one or two days. This is really a unique chance for us to build stronger relationships with the community members that we're working in collaboration with and in the end, it will give us a greater sense of accomplishment and instill a sense of pride in the work that we've done. As is true with everything in life, there are a few exceptions to the rule and in this case, I'm a part of it. One of the small groups in the area is referred to as the "Flex Group" because rather than working at the same project site for several days at a time, these students work in different places everyday. Aside from community service, the Flex Group also does a miniature version of the Up with People show in places like shopping malls and festivals in order to spread the UWP message and raise awareness about what we're doing in the community of Manila. I'm part of the Flex Group and have had an awesome time thus far with all the things that we've done!

Our first project was on Wednesday, just one day after arriving in Manila. We drove two hours outside of the city (which would only take 30-45 minutes if traffic wasn't deadly) into the mountains to a place called Mandaluyong City. Our objective was to visit Hulo Elemntary and Hulo High School to interact with the kids that attend each school. The history behind the two schools really is fascinating and a bit lengthy. In short, the school was built in an area of the mountains that prevented children from accessing the nearest school. Originally, only about 100 students were expected to attend, but after the school was constructed, many more children showed up due to the subsidy of the annual tuition (only $20) by the locals who wanted to give children who couldn't afford an education an opportunity to earn one. After a 5 year period of instability and constant growth, the Hulo Schools now educate nearly 800 students from the surrounding areas for free and have become the most renowned schools in the Philippines, known not just for their incredible success story, but also the quality of education offered there.

Our job was simply to interact with the children who attended both schools which proved to be much more difficult than any school interaction we had done in the United States. We were split into pairs of two to visit each classroom and I was paired with Laura Lynn from Nebraska. We were given literally about 60 seconds to modify our plans because upon arrival at the school we were told we need four groups, instead of the three we had been previously prepared ourselves for. Luckily, Laura Lynn and I are two of the smartest, most fun, and most attractive people in the group, so we had no problems adjusting our plans! ;-) The kids were excited that we were there and incredibly well mannered and respectful. We walked into the room and were immediately bombarded by a chant something along the lines of "Mabouhay visitors, welcome to our classroom!" I couldn't help but notice how well coordinated and almost brainwashed it sounded, but it was awesome nonetheless. After two hours of playing games, talking about differences in cultures and just having an overall good time, it was time for us to leave. We departed the campus the same way we arrived; serenaded in song and waved off by hundreds of kids. All in all, it was one of the best experiences I've had in Up with People so far and can't wait to have more stories to tell you all.

On a much darker note, I've decided I should keep tally of how many near death experiences I've had since I've been in Manila. So far the count is over 100 and all have been traffic related incidents. :-p