17/01/11

College Basketballs biggest night…

Well I am not sure if it IS the biggest night but it sure was nice. The UAAP-NCAA (no idea what those letters stand for) Collegiate Basketball Awards were held on Monday night and Cedelf invited Chris and I to help out with the promise of dinner. Who am I to turn down a free meal and a chance to get dressed up?

The night was held in the Topaz Room of the Gateway Suites, walking into the room took me back to my year 10 formal. We were giving a buffet meal- Philippine style, so lots of food and rice.

The awards began, half spoken in Tagalog with snippets of English thrown in, Chris and I laughed along with the crowd completely unaware of what was going on.

Then it was our turn to 'work' Cedelf made us individually get on stage for the raffle and present the prizes to the winners. As Chris called it we were glorified 'trophy girls'. We were introduced as the 'Australian Interns' and at the end of the night we scored ourselves a prize as well, a Gatorade backpack!

After the ceremony we went out for dessert with all the sports reporters. I was amazed at all the information they knew about Australia. One journalist even had a better grasp on our federal politics then any average Australian, which is quite sad really. He hit the nail on the head though when he said Australians are largely happy and looked after by the government, in comparison to the Philippine people, it's much easier for an Australian to drift along not taking notice because at the end of the day we know we will be looked after. Sadly in the Philippines they are not so lucky.

It never ceases to amaze me how much you learn about yourself and your country from outsiders.

From Manila lots of love,

Stace

xxx