I have now been home for just over a month and thought I'd better tie up my story.
What an amazing experience. Since I've been back I've tried so hard to put my trip into a quick sound snippet to tell everyone who asks "How was your trip?" - and all I've managed to come up with is "It was amazing, a real eyeopener".
How do you explain an experience like that to people who only want the highlights? And then there is my dad, who for the first few weeks of being back, would constantly come up with new questions for me from - 'what was homestay really like?' to the random - 'how do they wear their hair over there?' :)
I miss the Philippines quite alot. It has seemed to come in blobs - I've had a few dreams about my trip and I'll wake up feeling sad about what I miss now that I'm home.
Its the people and their amazing openness (sometimes coming across as too abrupt), their welcoming nature and their 'community' which is like family.
Its the kids - who make me smile everytime I see a photo of their beautiful faces.
Its the country (you can't really say beautiful), but the busy-ness and constant happenings, the jeepneys, the 'traffic signal dancing men' and the 'Sari-Sari' stores - which you will find the most satchets you'll ever see in your life, of just about anything you could imagine!
So thank you to anybody and everybody who has read this, or simply checked out my photos... The plight of the street child in the Philippines is so hard to fathom - particularily if you are reading this from one of the 'lucky countries' - that if this blog has opened up a few more minds and touched a few more hearts, my story has been worth it!
xoxo
