I guess my life is becoming normal here, I don’t have all that much to report. Which doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying myself and learning more every day. Fiesta came and went. Basically it’s a big celebration where people stop by the house to eat freshly slaughtered pig (and caribou.) I discovered the city carnival where I rode a rickety Ferris Wheel for about seventeen cents, and watched a motorcyclist zoom sideways around an even ricketier structure (with a rooster tied up in the middle, for effect.) It’s really indescribable, but I must say never in my life have a I seen old ladies quite so petrified. I feared for my life a little too. Well worth the 15 peso admission. ($1=56 PHP)
The election is coming, May 10. Maybe CNN will cover it. One of the presidential candidates is a action hero here. One of his parents is American, I think. We’ve been told to stay out of politics. But the campaigning is relentless. It seems that every candidate has stolen an infantile pop hit for their theme song. So when the actual infantile pop song is not on the radio, the campaign ad is on. The message seems to be “vote for me cuz my name kinda sounds like the chorus of this song.” In case somebody misses the radio ads, funny old converted Japanese farm pickup trucks drive around town blaring these songs through second-rate speakers. I hope the drivers are getting paid handsomely to have a single song stuck in their head for days on end. (It’s even worse than working at The Gap, where the same CD repeats itself for a month. No, I never worked at The Gap, I just got that info second hand.)
Oh, and sometimes they play old Weird Al songs on the radio. And at the grocery there’s an entire aisle dedicated to mayonnaise products; not a single one of which is fat free. I’m often confused in The Philippines. There are more out of school youth than god could ever have imagined, yet there’s enough mayo to give everyone on the planet a free cardiac arrest...
Posted by dbs at May 7, 2004 07:14 PM