This is gay Joy from San Antonio, Zambales and I love you!

I'm finally home and reflecting on the last 6 weeks and came to the conclusion that enough unusual experiences happened that it would make for a good Ben Stiller movie.  I should have known it wasn't going to be the typical travel experience when it started with projectile vomiting on the plane after eating meatloaf at the hotel and left me laying on the lav floor for 3 hours while enroute to Tokyo and narrowly escaping quarantine.  Getting stranded on a remote beach, blinding myself with deet, ingesting ants that caused an allergic reaction, eating bizarre foods many with diarrheal results, getting stuck with the bill for Valentines dinner for 10, mass circumcisions were some of these experiences but the last one the day before I left probably tops the list.

Every Saturday I would host a party with food and drink at the beach for clinic and neighborhood friends.  They often would invite other friends which was great.  A bit of background from my perspective - the Philippines is a primarily Catholic country and appears to have conservative approach to the sexual dating ritual while at the same time very accepting to the homosexual lifestyle.  Seems a bit contradictory but whatever works.  At my parties it wasn't unusual to have gay or lesbian people attend and everyone was welcome that wanted to have fun and were nice.  The last Saturday there was a gay guy and a "lady-boy" (a lady-boy is a guy who dresses and acts like a girl) who I hadn't met before.  As a good host, I welcomed them with food and drink and took a few photos.  Party went well and didn't think much else until the next day when I started getting text messages from an unknown phone number ....

Text:  "Hi, how are you?"

Me:  "fine, who is this?"

Text:  "are you busy?"

Me:  "who is this?"

Text:  "how are you?"

Me:  "tell me who you are or get lost"

few minutes later

Text:  "Joy"

Hmmm, do I know a Joy???  Maybe I met a Joy working the sporting event in Iba?  Wasn't the lady-boy named Joy?

Me:  "were you here last night?"

Text:  "yes"

Thinking .........who can this be?

Me:  "are you gay?"

Text:  "no"

Thinking ........ I really have no idea who this could be.

Me:  "I don't think I know you"

Text:  "This is Joy"
  
Text:  "This is gay Joy"

Text:  "This is gay Joy from San Antonio, Zambales"

Text:  "This is gay Joy from San Antonio, Zambales and I love you"

Thinking .......... everyday someone is trying to set me up with a new single girl with limited success and the day before I'm leaving a lady-boy falls in love with me.  Now, Joy is obviously a guy acting like a girl and has a big silver grill for front teeth and really isn't my first choice for a date.

Me:  "well thanks Joy but I'm not gay and not interested but good luck"

Text:  "I want to come see you"

Me:  "I'm busy"

Text:  "what are you doing?"

thinking .............. geez, my last day and I just want to hang out at the beach and I have a stalker.

Me:  "I with my girl friend (not really but thought it would work)"

Text:  "what is her name"

Me:  "I'm busy and can't text"

Text:  "why, you don't want to text a gay?"

thinking ..... this isn't going to turn out good

Me:  "no, but I'm busy and I'm not gay"

Text:  "what are you doing?"

thinking ....... I'm just going to ignore Joy

Multiple texts:  "why don't you text gays"  "I'm coming to see you"  "what are you doing" .......

Me:  "Joy, I'm out of "load" (load is the minutes you buy for cell phones) and I'm not at home"

Whew, finally no more texts but I did look over my shoulder for the rest of the day.  I still don't know how he/she got my cell number but I think it could have been when I left my cell on the counter and busy with other friends.

I tell you, the Philippines is anything but boring.