Musings From Vacation

In the back of my mind I have always know that the various PCVs in country have extremely different experiences depending on where they are placed, but that reality was made palpable by my visit to Heather & Mike at their post in Cebu over Christmas. Cebu is the 2^nd largest city in the Philippines and is advertised as a cleaner version of Manila. Its found on the southern island of, you guessed it, the island of Cebu, right across the channel from Bohol where Bridget & I were diving. Mike lives in a small studio apartment, belongs to a gym, spends most of his time at the mall for lack of any other options and generally lives the kind of life you would expect to find in an urban environment anywhere. Its one thing to know this via texting and quite another for me to see it in person. It was the little things that caught me off guard. The ability to go to the gym or a coffee shop at will or to find good health conscious vegetarian food.

The most astounding experience of my trip there was to taste real milk for the first time in 9 months. Not the powdered milk I mix up for breakfast, nor the powdered milk re-mixed for me in country I can buy at the store, but real honest straight-from-the-cow (&-then-pasteurized-bottled-&-shipped-over-from-New-Zealand, but still) milk. I’m sure the fact that it also happened to be whole milk factored into the overwhelming taste, but regardless of fat content it exploded upon my brain bringing back the far distant memories of milk & cereal in the mornings and gallons upon gallons of milk found within ease grasp at the grocery store or gas station. To rediscover something you had not know you missed is quite the jolt to the system. I’m left wondering how many other little surprises will knock me sideways at an unexpected moment of recognition of something from a different reality. Reverse culture shock will definitely be interesting if nothing else…