Happy Birthday to Me!!!

My birthday was last week and to help me celebrate, the Peace Corps dragged me to Manila for a full week of In-Service Training. I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to celebrate at my site but some volunteers who remembered my big day took me out for pizza and it ended up being a pretty good day. But in order to enlighten you some more cultural differences, here is what WOULD have happened if I had remained at site.

My host mom, extracting the "juice" from the  rice wine.
It tastes pretty good! Kind of like a sangria but gets stronger
every day you let it sit.

Birthdays in the Philippines are celebrated a little bit different from back home. First of all there are no presents; if you haven’t figured it out already, nearly every celebration is centered around food. Second, it isn’t the friends who treat the birthday-boy, but the exact opposite. If it is your birthday, you are expected to provide food for all your guests or pay for their dinner if eating out at a restaurant. It can get pretty expensive and I was dreading it. I had already ordered my rice for the wine and was counting the number of chickens I would have to buy as my mental guest list kept rising. Teachers, family, neighbors. Those are only the base. As word gets around, anyone might show up! However, this year I was excused and I can start saving up properly for next year.

After the training ended in Manila, I rushed – no wrong word – I traveled as fast as the buses would take me back to Bauko to catch the end of our town fiesta. I was supposed to present an encore of the Cotton Eye Joe with the teachers. Unfortunately they had to present alone because I was an hour late which, honestly, when making a 12+ hour night trip isn’t all that bad. The highlight of the fiesta, and of this year for that matter, was the Tiliw ti Manok (Chicken Catch). This is a popular game where they release the fastest chicken they can find and the person who catches it wins!

I won. I had to race against all kinds of foes including my students, but I came out victorious. And my prize was the chicken! Boy do I have some big plans for this chicken. It is going to make me rich. Ahem, I mean it will make my school rich. Native chickens (any other chicken than the standard white chicken) are the most expensive and most prized of all chickens. When a person has a dream of a deceased relative, they will fork out the cost of a native chicken to butcher and offer some of the meat with a little gin to the ancestors.