VIDEO: Peace Corps Philippines: Catholic Mass

7/20/14

Today was a very adventurous day. I woke up and attended a Catholic Mass with some other batch mates and a few Filipino staff members. It was my first time attending a Catholic service so I had many observations. The first is the fluidity of my cohorts when it was time to knell, stand, rise or motion. After talking to them I realized most of them had some sort of Catholic influence in their upbringing. Despite the absence of Catholicism in my upbringing, I did not feel out of place or awkward in any way. I was just happy to be there and we were happy to be able to fellowship and integrate together. Another observation I noticed was the duration of the service. We walked in at 9:00am exactly and I believed we closed around 10:30am. In my opinion, I thought that was short. I am use to 2 hour services and I thought Catholic mass was longer but I was informed that the hour and a half was longer than other Masses in the United States. Once again, I had no problem with that because they had quite a few songs to keep me alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic. My final observation was the use of Taglish (Tagalog + English) in the Priests sermon. He would start the sentence in english and without indication, he would finish that sentence in Tagalog. That added a very contemporary feel. I felt accomplished because I did not get a chance to attend mass in Costa Rica. 

The second half of the day consisted of shopping. We went to the local market where you walked the streets popping in and out of small shops. It reminded me of Soulard market but on a larger scale that spanned across a few blocks. After the market we went to Robinson's Mall. This was a cheaper alternative than to SM. We have become so accustomed to "Brown Outs" now. When the lights went out in the midst of our supermarket shopping we just pulled out our phones turned on the flashlight feature and continued shopping. Even the workers made the most of the brown out. They were singing and dancing and they didn't mind that my kasama and I joined in. Now I'm just waiting for that wonderful Wednesday. This is the time we travel to meet our training host families for the first time. I'm ready to jump into the Filipino family culture and continue my language immersion full-time.

In case you missed it, here is a recap of Initial Orientation in the Philippines

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AKkzgt4Z5U]

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