Cebuya

Our new Filipino employees from Cebu are training in Costa Rica. They moved into the condos where I live. We have two guys sharing the master bedroom in my place, and in the girl's condo there are four girls who volunteered to stay in the same room. They are very communal. They all went in for food and cook and eat every meal together. They invite me to join them every time. It's refreshing and I feel like an important guest rather than the host I expected to be.

There are fully bilingual between English and Cebuano their local dialect. They will switch between the two mid-sentence when talking to each other. Even though we share the same language they seem like a more alien culture than the Costa Ricans. The Filipino habits are more like what I expected from the Costa Ricans. I have to admit that I'm constantly surprised when they start speaking to me in English. It doesn't feel like we should speak the same language. It's not like they're ignorant or primitive either. They were all helping each other with their laptops, getting online, and uploading their digital photos. I've been adjusting so easily to Costa Rica that I began to feel that culture differences were not as severe as I had originally supposed. But the Filipinos are simply a very different culture.