Day 4 Dalaguete, Philippines

I took a bus to Dalaguete today. It's about two and a half hours south of Cebu City. It's amazing how much the vegetation begins to take over the further from the city you get. I videotaped snippets of the ride down here, but I'll have to edit it and post it later since the internet is quite slow here. I had to buy a USB stick that connects to the internet via satellite because there are no service providers out here.

Anyway, my cousin and aunt rode with me down here and helped me set up a savings account at the local bank, then took me to Cardinal hospital where Rick works (he's my Dad's cousin and whose home I'm staying at for the duration of my visit). He took me to HR and I'll be starting orientation tomorrow at 7AM.

We just came back from the local market to pick up dinner. Everything is open-air and all the produce and fish are fresh. He bought three whole fish for dinner and they chopped it up and bagged it for us right there. Dalaguete is a coastal town known for producing large quantities of fruits and vegetables and for it's abundance of fish, so the market reflects that. I asked Ricky on the ride there, while bobbing up and down on the back of his motorcycle, what he deals with on a day to day basis at the hospital.

“Mostly fevers and motor vehicle accidents,” he said.

After being in the Philippines for only a few days, I can definitely say I'm not surprised that car accidents are common.

The first night I was in Cebu City my cousin said to me, “Be careful crossing the street, there are no traffic laws on the weekend.” Sounds totally absurd, but is totally true. Traffic cops get the weekend off, so at intersections that aren't regulated by street lights (and there are a lot) are a free-for-all.

Rick's son had to go to the hospital to get stitches removed so I got to go there and meet the doctor who I'm going to assist. The doctor told me how it's different here than it is in America.

He said, “Most of the people here come to the ER because they cannot afford regular checkups. In America it's different because everyone gets good healthcare.”

I tried to explain to him that it's not really that much different. America might have, on a microscopic scale, better healthcare – access to better technology and whatnot, but on a macroscopic scale we still suffer from many of the same problems. It was around this time when, BOOM, all the lights in Dalaguete went out. It was a brown out. And suddenly the night sky was as clear as I've ever seen it and all the stars were just brilliant.

I can't wait to start working tomorrow.