August Adventures

We were well into our second set of module classes when I found out that my student visa had expired, and I started to imagine being exported or paying a huge fine. The next morning, B accompanied me to the Immigration, about an hour-long trip taking a bus, two trains, and a jeepney, and I was able to get it renewed in a few hours with only about a $10 fine.

Then I learned that the deadline to apply for a new requirement, called the I-Card, was due on Tuesday, August 15. I knew other people who had spent six hours at Immigration working on their I-Cards. Because I had classes everyday except for Wednesday morning, someone was going to take my documents in for me on Tuesday so that I could try to finish the process on Wednesday, but he sent a text message about 2:30pm that day saying that he had not been able to take them in. Immigration closes at 5:00. I quickly got my documents from him and headed to Immigration. I prayed that God would do some kind of miracle so that I would be able to file them and even process them that night, and wouldn’t have to go back the next day. I arrived about 4:00p.m, and actually did get the whole I-Card processed before 5:00p.m! I thank God for that, and also that I was able to find my way to Immigration alone!

Norman, one of the mother tongue translators who recently joined the Kalanguya team, got married this August. His wedding was the weekend before the end of the second set of module classes, the ones with all of the frustrating schedule changes (I think the Filipino students might have been upset, too, but were too polite to complain much about it-it can be hard to figure out cultural things right away), not to mention the numerous frustrations with one of the other classes, but I’ll save you from all of the details….At least Anthropology class was fabulous!

It’s a seven hour trip to Nueva Vizcaya, and I thought it was a little crazy to go away for the whole weekend when I would have to finish my requirements a few day after returning, but I was happy to attend the wedding because Norman is on the same team as B, and my Japanese classmate Y and his Chinese wife K even joined us:-). At the reception, they had Kalanguya cultural dancing and tons of food, especially pork. I wonder how many pigs they had to butcher!:-) And they automatically gave me the bouquet (the bride didn’t actually throw it) of white roses, and said that I must be next :-).

After Norman’s wedding, Y, K, B, myself and some other people boarded a “dump truck” that’s used for transportation, and headed up to the village of Mapayao where the missionary couple from Australia live (B was named after their family name). We wandered around and got to see a blacksmith shop, among other things. We stayed with some of B’s relatives, and they killed two chickens for our dinner. I was beginning to despair that our dinner would be very late because it took them a long time to catch the second chicken, but we ended up eating the first chicken before the second one was cooked.

The next day, we attended the church service and a child dedication after that, ate at the feast after the child dedication (I wonder how many pigs they killed for the dedication!:-)), and went back on the back of another “dump truck.”

Please keep praying for my heart problem, though at least it’s been a little better. You can also pray that I’ll have energy for the third set of classes, quit catching colds, and continue to learn and adjust to the culture here. And you can be praying that I’ll be able to find a Tagalog class or something that will help me to learn Tagalog more quickly.

Thank you