For those of you that had been following my blog before hand, I want to apologize for the huge lack of posts. I decided to switch up how I would communicate with friends and family back home. I am now going to use this blog primarily as a way to share what I am doing with the schools I am partnered with in the Peace Corps World Wise Schools Program, so the target audience will be children. If you would like to receive my emails that go into more depth about things that are suitable for an older audience, just send me an email and I will add you to my list.
I will go ahead and start off with an introduction so here it is...
My name is Eric Reeder and I am currently a trainee (soon to be volunteer) for a group called the United States Peace Corps. I will be spending the next two years as an English teacher in a country called the Philippines. I hope to be able to share my experiences with everyone and to teach people about what it is like here in the Philippines.
The Philippines is located in Asia and is made up of over 7,000 different islands! There are over 170 different languages that are spoken here, but English is one of the two official languages. For most people here, English is their second language, so my job will be to help improve the English skills of high school students.
I am currently learning one of the local languages known as Waray-Waray to help me be able to talk to people more easily! Some of the words are the same as Spanish. Do you know how to count to 20 in Spanish? If so, you can also count to 20 in Waray-Waray!
I am currently staying in the province known as Leyte. It is located in a group of islands called the Eastern Visayas. Can you find it on a map? If you can, look for Tacloban, which is the closest city I live to. The name of the little town I live in is called Baras. It has one main road and is very beautiful and calm. The town is next to the beach (it takes me 3 minutes to walk to it from my house) and there are lots of palm trees and other plants.
The food here is a lot different from what we normally eat in the United States. In the Philippines we eat rice with every meal, even breakfast! A lot of foods here are also very sweet and have lots of sugar. Living next to the coast means that we eat a lot of fish with our rice. Some of my favorite foods that I have had so far include mangoes, rambutan (a type of fruit), eggplant, and litson (roasted pig). I have tried many different kinds of new foods and I have really liked almost all of them! What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?
The weather here is very, very warm. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, or what time of the year it is, it is always warm. Consider yourself lucky that almost all buildings there have air conditioning. Here, almost all of the buildings do not have air conditioning, including the schools! They usually have fans in most places, but it is still very warm!
I hope to tell you a lot more about my experiences in the future and about what is like here. Feel free to comment if you have any questions that you would like me to answer!
Alyssa and I at MacArthur Park
Our cluster: Brett, Jaci, me, Alyssa
Me in the backyard of the mayor of Guiuan, the town I will be spending my two years of service
