Three weeks and I can tell you the mosquitoes were inescapable. Day or night they will hunt you down! I swear. I had bug bites all over my face and toes and knuckles. I did not survive
through the night. Repeat. I did not survive through the night!

But day-to-day living was ok. Talk about old school. You take baths with a bucket of water and soap. Yay. Caution: No hot water. And you wash and dry your clothes by hand, no washing machines. Sorry. They also used a windmill as alternative energy. The stove was not really a stove; it was just the top part witha gas lighter on the bottom. And the food. Oh the many wonders of food.

I was ok for the first few days. And then, it came to my attention that the food did not do my body good. Every time I ate out or at a family member’s home, I would get sick. The peak of this sickness was in the last days of my stay, during which I couldn’t do CRAP!! I ate seaweed, then a couple of days before New Years, bada bing bada boom: I was sick beyond recognition. I was so sick I had to go to the hospital. They gave me loads of medication for every meal. I never want to go to the doctor in the Philippines again.

Filipinos are also fascinated by medical and beauty treatments from skin whitening creams, eye lash curling to chemically straightening your hair or perming it. They recommended soma for my father who suffers from severe muscle spasms. I got my eye lashes curled and tinted.