Gym Class Clearly Taught Batch #270 Nothing About Volleyball

Today was water safety day! Yayyy! We had a much needed excursion from the “compound” and went to Villa Excellance, a beach in Tanza, Cavite. I was expecting those white beaches you see in photos, but this one was a little different. The sand was black! I’ve never seen anything like it—one of the girls thought it was from volcanic ash? I don’t know… will someone Google that for me, please? There are a ton of volcanoes throughout the Philippine islands, both active and dormant. I want to hike to the top of a dormant one at some point; I’ve heard people do that. I have a feeling that’d be pretty awesome.

The point of this training was to teach you how to get in and out of a boat, what to do if your boat sinks, and how to escape someone trying to desperately hang onto you in the water. Hee-yah! Practiced my karate moves. These boats were pretty native, to say the least. They’re all handmade, and the one our group was supposed to get into started sinking as we tried getting into it. Sooo we made the executive decision to wait a bit longer and take another one. I told them it would have been a more realistic scenario, but I don’t believe that was the popular opinion.

Once we finished on the boats, we were just hanging around the beach and saw some Filipinos down a ways, playing volleyball. A few of us went down, and after a couple minutes a whole bunch more came down to play with them! At first our teams were all mixed and then one of the Filipinos said with a big smile on his face, “Filipinos vs Americanos!” and we all switched. Needless to say it ended up a slaughter. Some of them were taking it seriously, but whenever a point was scored, everyone cheered. Definitely did NOT remind me of gym in Scituate High School. It was so fun. I wish I could do that EVERY day. A lot of them spoke little or no English, and would just “blablabalbalblablablabla hahahahaha!” and you kind of stand there nodding and laughing along. Granted they were probably saying, “Wow you Americans are SURPRISINGLY awful at sports! Hahahaha!” and I’m just standing there agreeing. Yep. Ignorance is bliss.

And when I suggested taking a photo, I might as well have held up 1 million pesos in my hand, for the reaction I got. People rushing around, posing, laughing, making faces… and then another 10 cameras popped up everywhere, everyone wanting their own shot. We ended up with a massive photo shoot. Love it.

Today was a good day :)

Naimbag nga rabii mo!
(Good night!)