my world's full of people

after two months of being alone, there are now heaps of people here! in addition to those i mentioned last time, we've also got carly, 28 from aussie who's living in my house here in long beach, and ray and jean who are in their 60s from canada and living down the road. it is, to be quite honest, a bit overstimulating. carly is quite nice and i really enjoy chatting with her, but it's so strange to go from it being very quiet here at my house with plenty of time to myself to always having her here and chatting.

last weekend, all of us volunteers (seven total) and mycel went over to romblon on friday to spend the night and go out to dinner. we took the boat from san agustin (which is bigger than even the big boat from long beach, although by no means a big boat), and scott and i sat outside and got completely soaked because there were some decent sized waves.







we had a great time out at dinner at a place that serves more "european" food, which is just a good break from rice. some carollers were going around and they sang for us, which was great. after dinner, we were craving something sweet, so went by a bakery and these two filipino guys took us to a videoke bar where we all sang. it was quite hilarious. videoke is MASSIVE here (it's basically karaoke, except that behind the words it shows viedos – usually of some girl from the 80s staring wistfully out at the sea or something equally gag-worthy). and all of the favorite songs are BAD sappy slow love songs that didn't make it in the late 80s or 90s for a reason, but for some reason everyone loves here. ??? i don't get it. it's absolutely everywhere and they paly it at top volume, even in restaurants, making it impossible to have a conversation. but we did have a good time and got into it. i sang 'sweet caroline' which made me laugh because i always hated playing that song at BC, but somehow it reminds me of home here.



[carly]


it was great to go out with all of them and relax and have a good time. plus scott bought some awesome board shorts:



[yes those are women in bikinis and yes the pockets are made out of different fabric than the rest of the shorts]



i'm glad that there are other volunteers here with scott (who i am liking quite a bit and think we'll work well together for the last three months i'm here / first three months he's here) while i'm off running around the country with brad. just in this week we've gotten some mangroves planted, worked on a new fence at the sanctuary (to keep all the dogs and chickens out), made some signs, and built up a nursery at the sanctuary. it's all things you just need manpower for and it's awesome to have so many environmental volunteers at once. they'll get a lot done while i'm gone.