MYLS goin’ abroad: Philippines, here I come

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Peace be upon you all,   

Thanks to a gracious and extremely generous invite from the Philippines Youth Leadership Program (http://www.cseas.niu.edu/PhilAccess/default.htm), I’ve finally made it to Manila!  Dr. Susan Russell, the program director (http://www.seasite.niu.edu/russell/), and I departed from Chicago on July 23, 2009 in the afternoon and by way of Detroit, Nagoya, Japan, and 18 hours of flying, we are here at last.  Despite the long journey, I feel energetic and well rested.  On that note, I will offer this helpful piece of advice to my fellow globe-trekkers: don’t sleep the night before your flight.  Now, that seems outrageous but trust me it’s much better to be tossing and turning in your cramped economy class 9 square inches than it is to be wide awake for 18 hours without a TV monitor to distract you.  Believe me, not even Harry Potter will last you that long.  Aside from waking to change planes or eating my sqaure-shaped meals, I haven’t done much here.  

We arrived in Manila on Friday evening at 11:00 PM. Going through security was a breeze especially for an innocent 21-year old who knows the TSA personnel far too well for his liking.  As I stepped out of the airport, I couldn’t help but feel at home.  The warm and humid air that strikes you across the face leaves you with a sense of serenity.  Weird, but true.  There is a palpable calmness over the people and surroundings, something which is sorely absent in the fast-paced and hectic American cities and way of life.  Manila feels strangely similar to Sri Lanka and Pakistan.  I don’t know if the comparison starts and ends with the climate but remarkably, the panic that we are taught to fear just isn’t as alarming as the whistle-blowers and nay-sayers make it seem.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to deny that a place like the Philippines has its fair share of frustrations and dangers that accompany political and ethnic unrest but I think that, we Americans, can learn a lot from peoples beyond our own majestic borders.  

As we were driving to our hotel from the airport, the juxtaposition of a prominent and bright neon glowing KFC sign overseeing the highway with a small reserved 8-year old boy knocking on the car window for a foreigner’s charity got me thinking.  This is neither the first nor the worst contrast I’ve seen but the helplessness and the guilt I feel doesn’t go away.  We speak so reverently of globalization but it’s hard to see its advantages for the already marginalized and vulnerable peoples.  In any case, I will stop my social commentary right there—it’s 4 AM!  I need to wrap this up if I have any shot of exploring Manila tomorrow.  

Once I got to the hotel, thanks to my helpful traveling tip, I had to annoy management to open the gym exclusively for me so I can expend the energy I had stored up.  I love running outside but I settled for a state-of-the-art treadmill in the hotel.  The run was great except that it was a bit creepy to be watched by the security guy while I worked out.  After a while, he started doing his own thing–seemed like he was doing yoga.  Is that even popular here?  Oh well, after feasting on a sumptuous mango in my room and getting e-mails out of the way, I am off to bed for a few hours.  Dr. Russell has already started filling me in on the regional politics and cultural relations, all of which I will relay to you all in due time.  Oops, I didn’t even talk about the program and why I am here.  Well, there is always next time.  Stay tuned…..Good bye for now!  (I promise I will learn to say that in Filipino by the end)

Manila Skyline

With peace,

Mokaram