Where are all the girls?

On Sunday of this week tito Bobbit, Marc, Kyle and I made the long awaited journey to Tarlac, which is where the Mamawal side of the family is originally from.  My grandfather, the closest relative in the Philippines, died a few years ago, but we went up to Tarlac in order to visit his widow and her son on the anniversary of his death.  Death days are celebrated in the Philippines, and the dead are kept around to a greater extent.  For instance my grandfather's ashes are kept in a shrine in the front yard.  Pictures of him still cover the walls of the house.  It was a little disconcerting as this was the first time I had been to the Philippines since his death - and I generally am not confronted with shrines to the dead before I even enter the front yard, but customs are customs! (And who am I to turn up my nose at a party?) Tarlac is a three to four hour drive north of Manila, so it was a trip that needed to be made, but took some planning.  It was good to see the people up north, and of course there was lots of food.  Including a muffin/ sio pao combination that was particularly delicious.  There was also karaoke.  The drive up and back was also exceedingly pretty - though I don't have any pictures because taking them through the window of a moving car is difficult.  Anyway, it was a lovely trip and it was much enjoyed.

 Grandfather's ashes in the shrine 

Sio Poa muffins with cheese on top

On Wednesday I attended the General Assembly of the Mechanical Engineering Society.  I'm mostly taking economics classes here in the Philippines, so I joined MES for a little balance.  Organizations here are generally larger than those I'm familiar with at home - and due to the lack of campus culture they are one of the few vehicles for making new friends.  Anyway, the General Assembly was the first meeting of all the members.  There was food (not common at events here), icebreakers, "talent" performances, and a brief address my the department head in which he encouraged us to have fun as it developed the full engineer.  The talent portions included a rendition of singly ladies - with wigs (no girls), as well as some singing.  The ice breakers consisted of games I would expect at a frat initiation.  One of these involved passing a playing card from one person to another via sucking on it with your mouth.  Another involved a relay with a cucumber between your knees.  Did I mention how few girls are part of this org?  Anyway, I was obliged to stand up and introduce myself to the group - which actually made things less awkward after I sat down.  Additionally as the theme of the assembly was "Hotdog Fest" I won a hotdog computer screen cleaner in an icebreaker game.  At the end of the meeting after we had all gotten our hot dogs (and the ladies had been obliged to take a picture before getting their food) we were treated to a promotional video of upcoming events which was mostly a guy eating a hotdog slowly to music with ads for events interspersed.  Like I said. Boys.

Thursday we were greeted with a canceled class - which meant most of us didn't have anything to do until our 4:20 afternoon class.  As a result I was able to attend mass (for the first time in the Philippines actually) at school.  Most of the day was spent wandering around with my classmates and generally doing nothing.  It was perfectly lovely.  At lunch I tried this lovely aloe jelly-mango-watermellon smoothie as well as BBQ pig intestine.  The intestines are quite good, and its not the first time I've had them, but I don't think I would pair them with such a sweet drink in the future.