The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love
9:17 PM
September was a whirlwind! I'm currently sitting at Pension Natividad, having just completed our Close of Service Conference. Ryan and I have left our site for good. It's unreal. I want to apologize in advance if this blog is all over the place, but that's how I feel right now.
I can't believe this time has come. It was SUPER hard to leave site. Intensely harder than I could ever had imagined. First, the entire month of September was crazy. We were so busy. Trying to pack, hang out with everyone for the last time, going to despsdidas (going-away parties), giving our things away, working on grad school applications, and on top of all of it we were asked to help with so many things so that people could get in their last American presentation. But despite all the craziness I absolutely loved it. I loved spending quality time with people from my community. I loved helping out one last time in any way I could. I loved seeing all the happy faces when we gave them "rememberances." I loved that several of the neighborhood kids wouldn't leave our house because they knew we were leaving. I loved that people came by our house to say their final goodbyes. I loved all the love that we received. It really is the hardest job you'll ever love.
So now I'm at pension in Manila trying to keep it together. We're leaving tomorrow to head up north to Sagada again for one week. We will then come back down to Manila to finalize all our paperwork and finish being volunteers. INSANE!!!! Then it's traveling time :) I'm super excited to travel and to finally get home to see family and friends, but right now I can't get past leaving my Filipino home and all my family and friends here. I'm going to forever cherish all the happiness and struggles from the Philippines and hopefully return one day :)
I can't believe this time has come. It was SUPER hard to leave site. Intensely harder than I could ever had imagined. First, the entire month of September was crazy. We were so busy. Trying to pack, hang out with everyone for the last time, going to despsdidas (going-away parties), giving our things away, working on grad school applications, and on top of all of it we were asked to help with so many things so that people could get in their last American presentation. But despite all the craziness I absolutely loved it. I loved spending quality time with people from my community. I loved helping out one last time in any way I could. I loved seeing all the happy faces when we gave them "rememberances." I loved that several of the neighborhood kids wouldn't leave our house because they knew we were leaving. I loved that people came by our house to say their final goodbyes. I loved all the love that we received. It really is the hardest job you'll ever love.
So now I'm at pension in Manila trying to keep it together. We're leaving tomorrow to head up north to Sagada again for one week. We will then come back down to Manila to finalize all our paperwork and finish being volunteers. INSANE!!!! Then it's traveling time :) I'm super excited to travel and to finally get home to see family and friends, but right now I can't get past leaving my Filipino home and all my family and friends here. I'm going to forever cherish all the happiness and struggles from the Philippines and hopefully return one day :)
Good morning, how are you?
My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Philippines? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Philippines in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez