What my internship in the Philippines taught me: memoirs from 2014–2015
What I learned from a 5 month long deep-dive into a completely foreign culture
About 9 years ago, when I was only 21 years of age, I set off for the biggest adventure of my life until then; I left The Netherlands for an internship in The Philippines. Being there changed my perspective on life in many ways and left a lasting impact on me. In this article, I will share some of the differences I noticed in between Western-European culture and Filipino culture, and what I learned from that.
Arriving in the Republic (of the Philippines)
To give you a little background: Back in those days, I was doing a Bachelor in water management in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. I’m a Dutch national and was born and raised in this country. I was in my third year of my internship back then, and had not travelled abroad by myself until then. One of my teachers had connections in the Philippines, and through him I was able to organize an internship at a government department there.I was 21 years of age, had never traveled to a foreign country by myself, and flew half way around the world to do an internship in a place where I knew nobody and where I had never been before. I was going there for five whole months, and didn’t really know what I…
