Trainings Explained and MST in detail
|
Training |
Date |
Location |
Purpose |
|
Supervisors Conference, Counterparts Conference |
Oct 2009 and November 2009, as part of pre-service training |
Ormoc, Leyte and Island Cove Resort, Manila |
Team building activities or discussions on how to work with each other, coming from different cultures. Review PC Policies. Form/Review work plans |
|
In-Service Training (IST) |
February, 2010 |
Island Cove, Manila |
Just volunteers, had technical sessions led by Filipino professionals, formal “sharing sessions”, where we discussed our own projects, learnings, difficulties, and best practices |
|
Program Design and Management (PDM) |
February 2010, after IST |
Island Cove |
Went through the process of identifying community resources, designing a vision, goals, objectives, budget and action plan aimed for grant writing. (with counterparts) |
|
Volunteers in Environmental Governance (VEG) |
June, 2010 |
Sagay, Negros |
Learned more information about how to get VEG grant money from USAID (if we didn’t use it, next year PC would get less), and more technical knowledge about things like MFARMC building and MPA management (with counterparts) |
|
Supervisors Conference |
Sept, 2010 |
Bacolod, Negros |
Served as a resource volunteer for the new batch of PCVs, and helped facilitate some sessions |
|
Mid-Service Training (MST) |
Dec, 2010 |
Island Cove, Manila |
More info below, but just for volunteers |
Around June or July we will have our COS (close of service) conference, preparing us for our last three months at site and future after Peace Corps. I will likely be applying to be a resource volunteer again for the various trainings for batch 270 during 2011 – since there will be around 180 of them coming in, they split up the training periods (they won’t all start in August, some earlier), so there will probably be plenty of opportunities to help out. I’ll talk about this more later, but I may also have the opportunity to help plan and/or attend a PC training for volunteers and counterparts in HIV/AIDS in April.
Now, I’ll describe Mid-Service Training in great detail, if you are interested. I somehow got involved in a lot of PC things, so I was quite busy during the entire week. We were told to arrive at Island Cove Monday night, and after dinner, all of the volunteers under Stella’s jurisdiction (she is a regional manager) met for some updates, and she reviewed what our responsibilities were if we were facilitating a session. The next morning started with a brief introduction/welcome by Sonia, our Country Director (who visited my site during our camp), an outline of the training schedule, then a 1.5 hour session entitled “Keeping Kennedy’s Promise”. Keeping Kennedy’s Promise is a book written in 1978, and that morning/the night before, groups of us were given different sections of the book to read, and then we discussed them during the session (sort of like “discussion sessions” in college). My section of the book talked about the characteristics that make the “best volunteer” and how it didn’t seem that PC recruited for those characteristics, among other topics. Through this formalized discussion, we were able to draw on our own experiences and reflect on the year in a different way than at least I normally do. I really enjoy discussions like this, and the opportunity to expand my understanding of things, which is probably why I love school.
Anyways, after that, there was a 45 minutes session on Stress Management by PCMOs (PC Medical Officers), and then a 45 minute session on PC Philippines 50th Anniversary – events already planned and making plans for celebration in the upcoming year at our own sites. The Samar/Leyte crew decided that we are going to try to get a float in the Tacloban parade, and have a one day community service event. Then there was lunch, and after lunch Ryan and I facilitated a 1.5 hour session on “Environmental Education and Climate Change”. It went well, but didn't really cover the things I wanted it to, mostly because I didn't have access to the resources on my computer the week before to prepare. But during that same time, volunteers could also choose between the CYF session on WID/GAD issues with the Philippine Commission on Women, or a education session on DepEd Updates and Filipinism (how Filipinos speak English). Anyone, regardless of sector, could attend any session. The rest of the afternoon was about Social Enterprises and Business Planning, which I wish I had not attended. I did just for curiosities sake, and just got bored because I knew I wouldn’t use any of the info at site since I’m not involved in livelihood projects.
At 5:30, I went to play basketball with other volunteers (all guys) and there were only 4 people, and it gets dark at 5:45, so we played 2 on 2 for about a half hour. Still fun, and something I only really get to do at trainings. Then there was dinner, and afterwards I chilled in the room for a while, prepared some points about how PC could use GIS for our (Pete, Sky, Bart and my) meeting with Sonia (CD) and Charles (the Program Training Officer, second in charge) the next day, then went to the bar at the resort for a few beers and played some gin rummy and some version of scrabble with other volunteers.
The next morning, I got up at 6 to play basketball again. Unfortunately, the place to get the balls didn’t open until 8, but luckily there was a Filipino who brought a Bball, so we were able to play 3 on 3 with him, Boni (a PC regional manager), another random Filipino, and Keith, Bryan, and I (PCV's). It was fun, but awfully early. Our first training session of the day was “Development”, and this was the description: “What is “Development?” Is PC a true development agency? Where does the PC Volunteer fit in the larger development scheme? This session is meant to help you answer these questions and understand how Volunteers are contributing to the Millenium Development Goals of countries all over the world.” We started with an activity where there was an agree/disagree sign you had to move to depending on how you felt to the following statements, and then a few people explained why they choose what they did: (I’ll explain how I felt and the results of other volunteers in other posts).
o Development means living in Peace
o The biggest cause of poverty is a lack of education
o The biggest problem facing the world is government corruption
o We should give more money to overseas aid
o PC is more of a cross cultural organization than a development organization
After that we had some powerpoints on development and MGD goals, and then were told to write a letter to the President of the Philippines, which is the previous post in my blog. That session was only supposed to go 1 hour 15 minutes, but they allowed it to go 2 hours and 15 minutes, so after that the combined the next two sessions and we choose between them: either “Corruption Disruptions” or “Coping Strategies for Dealing with Harassment’. I choose Corruption because it was led by more interesting facilitators and I do deal with it a lot in the LGU (again, this can be another blog).
Then there was lunch, and after lunch there were two 1.5 hour sessions. The first one, I could choose between “Lesson Planning for non-education PCV’s”, “Volunteerism”, and “Understanding By Design (a Dep Ed Strategy)”. I already know how to plan a lesson, and I don’t need to know Dep Ed’s strategies, so I went to the Volunteerism session. There was no description, so I didn’t know really what it was going to be about, but it turns out it was mostly about how to get students involved and design service learning projects, which was interesting.
After that, the sessions were “Organic Gardening”, “HIV/AIDS”, and “How to Set Up a Remedial Reading Program”. I choose HIV/AIDS primarily because my RM hinted that I should, and I also just generally want to know more about it in the Philippines. There was also no description on the organic gardening, and I already know the basics so I didn’t want to review. The HIV/AIDS session started with a review of some volunteers projects with HIV/AIDS and best practices, then turned out to be a planning session for a training that PC received 50,000 USD to put on for volunteers and their counterpart. It would be a “training for trainers”, and PC (Charles and Stella) basically said, you are in charge of the content/venues/speakers/application process, and you have 30,000 USD. The rest of the money, PCV’s can apply for through a grant process to use at their own site. This came out of nowhere; I attended a session thinking I would just learn more about AIDS and not be planning a training. But, I’m fine with it, and even though I have no experience doing anything AIDS related and have just the basic understanding of it, I made positive contributions and am looking forward to working with the committee more.
After that was a business planning, part 2 session for everyone. So, I did not attend, and instead threw a Frisbee for an hour (we unfortunately did not have enough people for ultimate). Then, I went to the meeting about GIS and the possibility of PC using it in their management, which went until about 8 PM. Then I worked on a powerpoint I was giving to everyone the next day on how to use sharepoint, a PC website where volunteers can share electronic resources, among other things. I finished that around 9 PM, then had a few beers and an awesome club sandwich and went to bed.
The next morning’s session started with Program Development Opportunities (PDO’s) clarifications and reviews. Using PDO’s, a volunteer can basically receive money to attend professional development opportunities (trainings, conferences, etc), or you can request money to pay for other volunteers to come to your site to help facilitate events. Then there was a session discussing all of the new grants available to PCV’s. These two went from 8:30 – 10:30, and during this time I was talking with the PC IT guy (Ronald) about things to add to my sharepoint presentation. After snacks, Ronald and the RM’s went over the new quarterly reporting tool, and then I gave my 15-minute presentation/plug for sharepoint.
After lunch we could choose between “Renewable Energy: Gerrid and Forrest share the projects they have introduced at their sites”, “Working with CYF population (for non-CYF PCV’s)”, and “Wisdom/Folk Stories”, using them to teach language. I choose renewable energy, and it turned out to be really interesting and about “appropriate technology” – how to match technology to the skill levels of the country. They talked about how to make cheap solar cookers and more efficient ovens. Brandon also reviewed the status of renewable energy in general in the Philippines.
After that there were three sessions “CRM sector sharing”, “CYF Sector Sharing”, and “Strategies for Remedial Reading”. So, clearly I choose the CRM session, and we had good discussions about writing environmental profiles and working outside of the LGUs. Then, there was an hour devoted to Cross Sectoral Sharing. Earlier, PC gave materials to everyone to make posters about successful projects, and they were all displayed on the walls. This was not very interesting to me, as most of us had talked about our projects during our down time all week. But luckily, I didn’t even have to attend it; instead, the HIV/AIDS new planning committee had a 15 minute meeting outlining objectives and distributing tasks, and then I met with the IRC committee to help finalize which applicants from batch 269 we were going to select to add to the committee. The final session was “Career Planning and the RPCV Non-Competitive Employment Program”. This was a good session, and reinforced what I already know – I need to figure out who I am and what/where I want to go after PC. I need to start narrowing down some things. I also learned that if someone is thinking about posting a position in the federal government, if you contact them and explain your non-competitive status, they don’t even have to post the position and can just hire you…. So I need to start some networking.
That night, the men hosted “Stash Bash”; pictures are posted. Some of them had been growing facial hair for several months in preparation for this contest. Each guy shaved his facial hair, developed a character, and walked out on stage to a song they picked out. It was hilarious, and overall, a great way to end MST.
Letter to Mr. President Nonoy Aquino
Dear Mr. President,
As a Peace Corps Volunteer, fifteen months ago I left my family, friends, and life in America to embark on a journey that I hoped would not only leave a lasting, positive impact on the community I would serve in, but also broaden my understanding of the world. Currently, I am blessed to be serving in the municipality of Laoang, Northern Samar, working to develop a functional Coastal Resource Management program. But, what exactly is this “development”? It is not improvement in infrastructure that supplies basic needs, like a trike ride to the public market, where the trike actually provides you with a ride on a paved surface, instead of vise versa up a muddy hill. The child on the street who says, “Ate, gutom pa ako” or “ I am still hungry”, does not directly receive more food. What we, as Peace Corps Volunteers, are working towards is instead the development of Filipinos abilities to effectively manage their resources, for themselves and others, which in turn will provide lasting programs that improve the standard of life for all.
Like almost any other coastal community in the Philippines, my site is composed of primarily fisherman and farmers who report that fish catch has drastically decreased over the past 20 years, threatening their food security, income, and way of life. Over the past year, working with my counterparts in the LGU, we visited all 28 coastal barangays in Laoang, where we held community meetings talking, listening, and working with fisherfolk to help identify the resources they still have, explore their problems, and plant a seed of ideas for advancement. We compiled the results of these discussions and our assessment into an environmental profile, which will serve as the basis for all CRM programs and projects in the future, helping to ensure the Millennium Development Goal of Environmental Sustainability.
The completion of this profile has opened the doors for new ways of management and fisherfolk involvement in Coastal Resource Management. Next year, a previously inactive MFARMC will start working closely with the LGU to continue to monitor the health of the coral reefs, sea grass, and mangroves. Marine Protected Areas will be re-established with the guidance of the MFARMC, and the Bantay Dagat will begin to aggressively apprehend illegal fishers. Additionally, schools and perhaps even households will segregate their waste. As Peace Corps celebrates it’s 50th anniversary, I would like to invite you to Laoang to meet my co-workers, who are inspiring, hard-working community developers, and to converse with fisherfolk about the vision they now have for the future. Together, we can celebrate citizen involvement and ownership of community environmental sustainability.
Thank you for your continued support of Peace Corps. God Bless and Mabuhay!
Pre-Mid Service Training
So, Alyssa, Jaci, Sky, and I flew to Manila on Sunday morning. We arrived to a pension filled with volunteers and excited energy. After getting situated and talking for a while, we (around 15 volunteers) left on a mission to find burritos. We had also planned this during thanksgiving. If you can’t tell, while in Manila, we take food very seriously. May, a batch 267 volunteer and Manila expert, told us how to get to a burrito place that is just like Chipotle in America in San Juan, a part of Manila about 45 minutes away from where we were staying. I went to it in October when I was here – it was excellent. Now, she found out there was a new branch of the burrito place in an area called “the fort”, which is slightly closer and in a nice part of Makati. So, we all decided to go to that branch, partially because I wanted go to a place I hadn’t been before.
We arrived at the fort, and it seriously felt like we were in America. It is a big, open, pretty mall/green space area. We didn’t know exactly where the place was located, and we started asking around, and naturally, no one knew what we were talking about. So, we just started walking and walked some more, and ran in to the other volunteers from the other taxis, and walked some more, and a little bit more. We could not find the place. After probably 45 minutes of searching (after a 35 minute cab ride), everyone was super-hungry and quite annoyed it wasn’t there. (It’s not uncommon for a Filipino to say something like it is open now, when then actually mean it will open, so the thought that it was not actually there was is not surprising). So, people split up to go find some other food that would fill our stomachs, but not the craving that had been building all week. So, that was twice that I was supposed to have Mexican food and failed. Luckily, it is a nice area and there are other nice restaurants around. Sky, Kris, Tori, Brandon, and Darwin (or TCF from training), ended up eating at a place called something like Burgers, Sliders, and Beer. I had nachos, some onion rings, and a mojito and some other drink for lunch. It was great (and relatively cheap since happy hour started at 3), but still not Mexican.
After that we went back to pension, and people there said that as they were leaving in the taxi, they drove by the place. It was actually there, just not in the actual “mall” area, but on a side street. So frustrating! Oh well. I had to get back anyway so I could go to MOA (Mall of Asia), where there are Apple Technicians, in hopes that I could fix my computer before MST, or at least drop it off and fix it in one week.
So, I took a jeepney and a multicab to the apple store, (around 30 – 45 minutes), and the technician was able to look at my computer right away. He tried a few things and said the problem was with my hard drive, so he was going to erase it. He said it would take about 45 minutes, so I went and dinked around in a Philippine Cultura store. During this time, I got a text from May asking if I wanted her to pick up anything from the burrito place; unfortunately the texts were delayed, and she didn’t receive my positive confirmation until after they left. Three times denied Mexican food in one weekend. Anyway, I went back to the store and my computer was working!!!!!!!!! Everything was gone, but I had back-ups, so it was no problem. They didn’t charge me anything for it – all they had to do was insert the Installer Mac OS CD, and start the hardrive on that. So, that was as best as I could have hoped for!!!!
Then when I got back to the pension, people were going to see Harry Potter, starting at like 10 or something. So, I joined (I liked the movie), and after, I went out to a bar close to the pension with about 5 other volunteers. I returned around 2 AM. This bar is a bakla or gay bar, but not like a gay bar you would think of in the states. All it means for this bar is that there is videoke with a nice stage, and the bakla are the hosts and sometimes provide back up, or dance, or jokes between songs. It’s a pretty great place.
Monday, I had an IRC committee meeting starting at 8:30 AM at the PC office. The IRC stands for international resource committee, and we help Shelia, who is the PC staff resource coordinator, catalog books and upload electronic resources to the PC sharepoint website. We meet twice a year, since book cataloging can only happen in Manila, and we talk about the overall operations of the resource center, how to manage/organize the data on sharepoint, and how to get people to use it (it came out 6 months ago). But this time, Sonia, the country director, called an all staff meeting so Sheila couldn’t be there. So, the other 3 committee members and I were basically just uploading and cataloging electronic stuff all day… not the most exciting thing, especially when the internet can be slow. When Shelia was available, we also interviewed the batch 269 applicants for the committee. At the end of the day, we took a bus (about 1 hour) to Cavite, the part of Manila where Island Cove Resort is located, and where we seem to have all of our conferences. That night, there was good food, though I don’t exactly remember what it was, and I prepared for the session I was leading with Ryan on Environmental Education and Climate Change. Then I had a beer with other volunteers, and went to sleep in an awesome air-con room with a comforter.
Thanksgiving
Friday morning was also quite chill. After we all left Cassie's house, we went to Emma's supervisor's house for fiesta in UEP. She had one of the best surprises ever - tacos! I mean, they were by no means tacos that tasted like American tacos, but considering she only had ingredients from Catarman, and we were expecting the normal display of Filipino food, it was pretty great. After that, we met a bunch of other people in Catarman to buy food to bring to San Antonio for Thanksgiving, since it's a small island with no market. Jaci and Trent had everything planned and just told people what to buy: they were cooking for 40 people, so there was a lot of food. A bunch of us also brought our pans/knives, and other cooking utensils. However, I went to go get money from the ATM, planning on returning to buy things once I had money, but the line for the ATM took an hour, so I returned when the shopping was just finishing.
Then about 15 - 20 of us loaded up all of our bags and food in a multicab that we were renting to Allan, which ended up only being 10 pesos more than the regular fare - totally worth the convenience of having our own private transportation. However, about halfway into the trip, the multicab driver stopped and said he couldn't go any further because his engine was overheating... a fairly common occurrence here. So the driver flagged down a jeep that was passing, and we transferred ALL of our stuff from the multicab to the jeepney (there will be pictures soon). It was annoying, since we arranged for the private transportation and convenience, but it actually went quite smoothly. So, about an hour and a half after we left Catarman, we arrived at the pier in Allen, and the boats coming from the place we were staying (Haven of Fun) arrived shortly after we did. The boat ride took about an hour, and we arrived in pouring rain, so we all hung out in the big conference hall/cafeteria place the resort has before going to our rooms. We arrived around 4 PM, and then a bunch of the new volunteers from Leyte arrived around 8 PM. That night there was some beer pong, flip cup, and videoke....it felt pretty american and was a fun night.
Saturday, a few more people straggled in throughout the day, and the rest of us were either cooking, snorkeling/swimming, or just hanging out. There was a little drama in the kitchen, as one of the volunteers took over cooking, and didn't let some people help out/prepare things that they wanted to. But, overall, there were about 7 primary people involved in the preparation/cooking of the food, and they started at 8 AM. Some were in charge of cooking the chickens and pies; to do that we had to go to a bakery and "rent" their oven. Several of the aircon rooms have "kitchens" attached, and the resort let us use their refrigerators. We used one of these kitchens, so everything else was cooked on 1 two burner stove. This included 10 kilos of potatoes (for mashed potatoes), lots of green beans, creamed corn, a cranberry salad, and stuffing. The only thing I did to help with the food was wash and cut some green beans. But, the last thing they needed were a bunch of people in the kitchen cluttering things. However, I did help prepare the place settings for 40 people. The resort staff were awesome, and were letting us use the conference space, extra tables, and all of their plates/utensils and helped us set up too. I think the largest contribution I made was suggesting we add tablecloths to the table - definitely made it feel more homey/holidayish.
Around 6 PM, everyone (all 40 of us) sat down at the big table and started our program - wouldn't be a real event if we didn't have a program. We sang the US national anthem, had a prayer, and then everyone went around and said what they were thankful for. Then, we ate! Everything was delicious, and the only downside was that the 8 chickens ended up not quite being done. But there was so much food, we didn't really even need them, and the resort was nice enough to finish cooking them for us, and they were great to eat later in the night. Emma's birthday was also Saturday, so we celebrated that too.
Sunday was spent just hanging out again. The whole weekend felt like a big family gathering, with people mostly just talking and playing games. I saw Tori and Brandon, who I trained with, for the first time in 6 months. The only downer was that I tried to turn my computer on Sunday afternoon, and it didn't work. I use it everyday for work; so i wasn't sure what I would do the next week without it, but at least i'll be in Manila soon where hopefully someone can fix it. Monday, we left around 9 AM, arriving in Catarman around 12; I then did some shopping I was able to do the previous weekend because the ATM's were out of money, and got back to my Laoang around 5 PM. Overall, a great weekend.
Cost of thanksgiving trip:
Round Trip Transportation
Laoang to Catarman: 114 pesos
Catarman to Allen: 130 pesos
Boat to Haven of Fun: 100 pesos
3 nights at Haven: 190 x 3 = 570 pesos
Thanksgiving dinner: 260 pesos
5 other meals at Haven: around 600 pesos
Oatmeal I brought for breakfast for 3 days: 100 pesos
Snacks/Alcohol: around 400 pesos
Tagay-Tagay (drinking) and sports
MFARMC
Then today we presented the results for validation to the MFARMC; some information we collected in the barangays was not complete, and there are some errors in translation/typos. So, basically we presented most of our information, and they told us where our data was incorrect (at least according to them, all of our information is just reports/estimates from people). The MFARMC is required to exist by law and is primarily composed of fisherfolks from different barangays, and they are supposed to coordinate with the LGU and lead all CRM activities. Basically, the responsibility and power of coastal resource management is devolved to them, and the CRM office is there to support them. However, the MFARMC in Laoang is just recently established; so, they don’t actually manage or do anything yet, but we are trying to get them more and more involved. I really hope to have at least a one-day training on the basic principals of CRM, as most of these fisherfolk don’t completely comprehend the detrimental effects of overfishing and illegal activities or what they can do about, the power they can actually have over legislation and CRM programs, and their role in the CRM process/stages.
Anyway, for around 4 hours yesterday and early this morning, I worked with some of my coworkers to translate the 60-slide power point presentation from English to Waray-Waray. Planning for the meeting was minimal; we didn’t think we would have the funds for it…. But luckily somehow they mysteriously appeared. During the actual MFARMC session, I had a very small role (I just helped prepare/make the presentation). I asked each of my coworkers to present the information that they gathered from their tools during the PCRA, which left me to only present the results of the sea grass and coral assessments. This was bittersweet for me because this whole presentation was in Waray-Waray, and even if I wanted to I would not have been able to present the other results. Heck, I spoke in a 2nd grade level of Waray-Waray in my part, and they jokingly made fun of some of the things I said. For instance, during the coral survey, we record the amount of dead coral and dead coral with algae. If the dead coral has algae, it means it has been dead for awhile. If it is just dead, I’ve heard that sometimes it is possible for the coral polyps to come back. In my Waray-Waray, I basically said the corals are dead but can return, and my supervisor made a joke about them being like Jesus, returning from the dead.
So, it’s frustrating not being able to speak much after being here for a year, but most of the time I’m working with people who can understand English, so I don’t need it. The good side of this is that my role here is supposed to be capacity building. Since I can’t speak much Waray, my co-workers have to do the presenting to the barangay people, and I can help guide them in what to say and activities we can do.Day 1 of year 2 at site, some reflections on work
As far as work, I don’t have a long list of accomplishments, primarily because our main project has been doing Participatory Coastal Resource Assessments (PCRA), which will ultimately be one large accomplishment. For the past two weeks, day and night, I’ve been working on creating a draft of the environmental profile, which compiles all of the results from the PCRA, as well as information from secondary data. Currently, the text is about 35 pages; add on probably 15 more pages of appendixes, and another 10 of pictures.
Putting together this report is basically a huge exercise in storing and processing data. Earlier, I gave all of my coworkers tables to fill out to start compiling the PCRA information (2 days worth of information from 28 barangays), and the past two weeks have been me trying to put it together in a sensible way, but also asking a TON of questions. Most of the time has been spent in translating species/families of fish and fishing gears. There is not one published list of translations so my co-workers text their contacts, usually receive a few conflicting reports, and we take the one that seems most likely. We’ve been working on compiling data for a good 3 months, and still my co-workers will pull out new information (like a non-profit did a mangrove assessment in 2004), and I’ve got to make it fit into the report. This finding new information at a late stage is partially due to a lack of knowledge on their part about what is important in the profile, which reflects a lack of communication on my part. Part is the fact that there is no central place where all of this information is stored (so they have actually been looking and just still finding new things) and part of it is some of my coworker’s apathy, not wanting to look for anything.
I’ve learned that reports, not nearly as comprehensive as this, but saying information about the fisheries and some of the basic stuff we’re covering, have been done in the past. This, and my knowledge about the way the LGU’s work, makes me really doubt that anyone will really ever read this profile. (It’s 35 pages in English, what Filipino will want to read that?) But I’ve decided that I can’t control what they do with the report, it’s there as a valuable resource for them if they need it. I guess if nothing else, I know all of these translations will be useful for them to have in the future. Also, I think my coworkers, even if they don’t read the report word for word, know what’s in it and they have learned things that will help them and the fisherfolk communities. Writing this report has actually sort of been exciting, while incredibly frustrating and maybe tedious at times. There is some critical thinking involved and I think I feel like this is something I can contribute to Laoang. It’s something that I know will be there when I leave. It’s a big project, and I will be very excited to present it with my co-workers to the SB and the MFARMC next week.
Besides that, I’ve helped other volunteers with youth “camps” and had one here in Laoang, which the Country Director of Peace Corps (top person in PC Philippines), came to see. This camp was a long process in the making, being delayed several times, and probably would not have happened if the Country Director wasn’t visiting – my LGU wouldn’t have pulled the strings to make the funds available. I have several theories as to why this is, but ultimately, figuring it out may cause me to ruffle some feathers I don’t want to and is not worth it. So, it will remain a mystery.
Overall, though, the camp was very successful. Naturally, afterwards, there are some things I would have done differently, but I think the kids were excited and the main learning objectives I had were achieved. This camp was a big exercise in learning not to stress about things I can’t control. One thing that is difficult here, maybe always, is actually knowing things you can control and what you can’t. Being in Laoang then, for 11 months, I’d learned that logistical things are not my concern; that is my co-workers responsibility. I was surprisingly calm about the fact that we didn’t have a venue secured until two days before the camp, and that all of the supplies didn’t arrive until the night before. I guess I knew that the camp was going to occur, I just couldn’t dictate the terms – everything had to happen at a Filipino pace. I had also had bought some supplies with my own money, and there was thankfully already paper and ink in the office to print stuff on before the night before. As typical, some things didn’t happened as I planned. People from the municipal treasures office had to buy the supplies in Catarman; I couldn’t go with them because I was busy doing other things. So, I gave them the list, and one of the things they needed to get was a big tarpaulin sign for the camp. I showed them two designs in a word document that I had copied from other places. I specifically told them, in Waray, that there are two designs here, but I only need one sign. The designs can be combined (usually the print shops are pretty good at it). In the prep meeting with the facilitators before the camp, they arrived with two signs. Sayang. Oh well, not a big deal. Like most of their events, everything came together in the end. Because we are so busy with this environmental profile now, we haven’t had a chance to follow up in the schools. I was ultimately hoping that some projects would carry over from the camp into the schools – maybe following up on that will be December for me.
More reflections to come……
All About the NPA
But I have been told by supporters that the NPA exists to fight for the rights of poor people and an uncorrupt government. Therefore, the people who form it primarily come from the inland/mountainous, poorest parts of the province. And much of the Philippine government is corrupt; it is actually built into the system in some ways - contractors put a payment to the mayor or appropriate officials in their bids, for one example. And many government services or foreign help don’t actually reach the people they are intended to because it ends up in the hands of the people distributing it. It is also incredibly difficult to enter the political system unless you are a privileged and/or connected person, since it is very expensive to run for political office. Therefore, while I don’t condone the violence, I could sympathize with the NPA and perhaps their feeling that violence is the only way to be heard or accomplish anything. I was told that their goals in the recent attacks are likely to gain the attention of or take advantage of the new, young governor and prevent/scare people from joining the police or military.
While the NPA is not a political party, it refers to this militant group, it seems that in Northern Samar there are also sympathizers, and even people who would consider themselves NPA but likely don’t partake in the violence – maybe the violent people are the “extremists”. The NPA has been in existence since the 60’s and Marcos, and my nanay’s sister’s husband was actually a policeman who was killed by the NPA around 25 years ago. The sister and her daughter visited during Laoang’s fiesta. The NPA is also present in other provinces. While it seems that a lot of people sympathize with the NPA (some call it the Nice People’s Army), there are also a fair amount who think that they are just a bunch of greedy violent people. It is probably a mixture of both.
Invitation to Scuba Training
Trashin Show and Governor's Visit
Did I leave Laoang planning on spending the night in Catarman? Nope. Did I go into this weekend thinking that I would be having lunch with the Governor on Sunday? Nope. Did I go into the weekend thinking that I would be making ecological recommendations for a provincial park? Nope. Did I go into Catarman thinking I would be the judge of a drawing contest? Nope. A judge of a trashin show? Nope. Welcome to life in PC.
A while back Cassie had invited me to come with them to see the plasticathon that DENR was putting on. The first event was a plastic boat race in the morning and then there was a “trashion” show in the evening, which is a fashion show where all of the models wear clothes out of recycled materials. I was planning on going to the boat race, but the trashion show started to late for me to be able to return to Laoang in the evening. It turns out that the boat race started earlier than Cassie originally thought, and it was finished before I left Laoang Saturday morning. But, I decided to go into Catarman anyway to just hang out with Don and Cassie in some AC. On the van ride there, I get a text from Cassie saying that they had room at the pension house for the night and asked if I wanted to join. For some reason, I thought DENR was paying for it, since they knew we couldn’t get back after the trashion show. And even though I did not have any change of clothes or toothbrush, I said absolutely I will sleep in air conditioning with cable TV. Turns out they just got the room for themselves, and I had to pay 300 pesos to stay there, but it was still worth it.
I arrived in Catarman and met Cassie and Don at the coffee hub, the popular PC hangout place because it has AC, wifi, and serves decent coffee. We hung out there until they had to judge a coloring contest (which I will post pictures from), which I didn’t know about before, but decided to tag along for. The drawings were actually really awesome, and I wanted to take one back with me to hang in my room. After that, we killed a few more hours just hanging around, playing some 10,000 (a dice game) and eating at Inasal (a new fast food chicken bbq place which is great). Then we went to the plaza on time (which was actually an hour early) to judge the trashion show. The show was a lot of fun to watch, and little did we know that the governor was also going to be a judge. Afterwards, he invited us to his house the next day for lunch, and to look at a beach they were hoping to develop into a provincial park.
I did not have a change of clothes, but luckily what I was wearing wasn’t too sweaty, because we did end up going to the governors house the next day. The provincial DENR/tourism people constructed a grand plan for the beach development, and luckily the governor told them to scale it back alittle. Then he took us all to the property – which is a great beach front. I don’t know if we were able to give him any quality recommendations about how to develop it (none of us really know anything about shoreline development), but at least we told him if he removes the plants, the sand will move too. Then we went back to his house, had a good meal, played some foosball, then I returned to Laoang.
So, that’s how what was meant to be a few hours excursion turned into a two day outing and a pretty good weekend.
PRCA Canyonmanao
At the end of the day of our assessment in barangay Canyomanao, we sat outside for around an hour to an hour and a half waiting for the other team to come pick us up. While waiting, I realized that if you were to blindfold me and drop me here, it would seem as if I’m in the middle of what I picture parts of the amazon to be, lots of vegetation with no people around for miles (outside of the small barangay population). In all actuality, there are a lot of people just a short boat ride away, but if were randomly put there, until you saw a boat you wouldn’t know that. Look at the panoramic pictures I took in the album on the right, it is a really pretty area. I don’t know why, but that was interesting for me to think about.
ROTC speach, broken down jeepney
That Sunday I spoke to the ROTC kids, and I planned on doing a lecture and then an activity. I brought Trent along to help. While it was a little intimidating to speak to 100 – 150 people in uniform, I think it went really well. I felt in my element in front of the class with a chalkboard and really enjoyed it. I had just prepared an outline, not even thinking exactly about what I was going to say and I did some things on the fly, and it was great. I feel like my experience teaching in VA helped me with this. They activity was a little shaky, mainly because it was designed for fewer students and the English barrier was a problem for some, but I think overall it went well.
Just another random note – sometime I was traveling from Catarman back to Laoang, and was with Trent and Alyssa who were going to Pambujan, and our jeep broke down in UEP (about 15 minutes outside of Cat). Surprisingly the jeepney guy who takes the money spoke English quite well and actually said “sorry for the inconvenience”. We ended up switching to vans, which were smaller and hotter, but got us on our way again. Ended up setting us back about a half hour, but the back up was there surprisingly fast, like there is some system in place to deal with broken jeepneys.
School SWM visits, UEP Party
Some of my work in July and August was to conduct a solid waste management “inspection” of the schools in Laoang proper area. This involved me going with my counterpart, Eddie, to the school and inquiring about their recycling methods. First we would stop by the principal’s office to introduce ourselves, and then usually a teacher would take us around or talk more about the schools efforts. For the most part, none of the schools segregate their trash, and the students know the key words of the 3 R’s, but don’t really understand what it means. Not surprising.
The real value in these visits for me was just establishing relationships with the principals and teachers in the schools. I was finally able to introduce myself and basically tell them I am available if they ever need my assistance or want to partner in anyway. As a result of the visit at the University of Eastern Philippines Laoang National Laboratory High School, I was invited to what I believe was their inauguration of class officers ceremony, though I’m not exactly sure what the event was.
The night of, I was not that thrilled to be going, but motivated myself to because I knew that a partnership with UEP was important. I really wanted to start working with them on projects or environmental education. A little bit of effort on my end could go a long way in their openness to working with me.
So, I went to this ceremony, unaccompanied (which is very un-Filipino), but, as custom, when I arrived I was taken to where the food/buffet was and invited to eat. While there, I met the mayor of Palapog for the first time; he/she is an interesting person to say the least. After that, I was ushered out to the main table to sit with all of the distinguished guests, while we watched lots and lots of class officers get sworn in. When going to the table, most of the people stood up to shake my hand to become acquainted with me, and one introduced himself as Ram Uy. While the name didn’t mean anything to me, his face was really familiar. After an awkward silence with me looking blankly at him, he proceeded to say Vice-Govenor of Northern Samar. Whoops, I didn’t recognize the vice-governor – fou paus. I had never met him before, but I realized his face was so familiar because of all the campaign signs of him I saw, some of which are still up. So, there were some big wigs at this event, and I was sitting with them all. Anyways, I think they had class officers for every major (from the college), and every grade (in the college and high school), so there was just a lot of segments to this ceremony. But in-between the swearing in of each group, there was always a caracha dance (the fundrasing one, see last post) each time.
I also got to sit and have a nice conversation with the daughter of the principal, who is a Catholic sister but attending Grand Valley Statue University. She attended high school in Laoang, went to UEP, and is now at GVSU studying psychology. (Year wise, a senior in college here would be a sophomore in college in the states).
The next Wednesday after this party, I spoke (well did a powerpoint presentation and showed some video clips) at the request of the Municipal Disaster and Coordinating Council to a group of teachers and barangay captains (around 60 people) about Global Warming. I also invited Alyssa, the PCV in Bobon, to talk about some green activities her school is doing. Anyways, the next day I think, I was walking on the street and someone stopped me. It turned out to be the ROTC director from UEP Laoang, and he invited me to speak to the ROTC kids (about 150) about global warming. I don’t know if he met me at the party at UEP or at the session on Wednesday, but it was the first time someone asked me to work with them independently of my supervisor. It felt great to feel like I was established enough that people didn’t have to go through the LGU to work we me.
Depressed Funk
For several weeks now, I’ve noticed a cloud of unhappiness looming around me. That sounds sort cheesy, but I don’t know how else to describe it. I would go out and do activities and generally enjoy myself. However, when I returned, there was this pit or emptiness inside me. I lost motivation to do anything and generally felt pretty apathetic towards the world. Before I looked forward to my down time, and reading or watching movies or whatever. But for weeks, I’d been increasingly unable to enjoy that time. I have had individual days like this before, but never weeks of it. I tried everything I knew that usually kicked me out of it – talking with other volunteers, playing the piano, hanging out with site friends, getting out of Laoang, going to the beach, talking with people at home, writing blogs, running, etc. But every time I stopped doing these things my “funk” would come back. I’ve never really had this happen before, where I couldn’t really control how I feel about life. But other volunteers have described the same thing, so it didn’t surprise me; I was just frustrated that I didn’t know how to deal with it.
I think a lot of things contributed to it. The first being that nothing has been happening at my site work wise, and it’s not that nothing is happening, it’s that there were a whole bunch of things in limbo. I was waiting to hear if a number of activities would actually push forward or not, and the meetings where this was supposed to be determined kept being pushed back for about 3 weeks. So, I was in a position where I can’t move on to the next thing unless some of the current proposals happen, and if they didn’t I need to modify the plans. But I couldn’t do that cause I was just waiting. So, I think the lack of anything actually being accomplished for about 5 weeks began to take it’s toll on me. (Though there were some good activities which helped strengthen my relationships with the schools, but I was unable to focus on them). I also started to question the helpfulness of my past 8 months of work to… if it will really make any difference, because we will make a report of the findings and theoretically management decisions would be based off of it. But will that really happen? Doubtfull. (Though there are other reasons the assessments and the report are important, but at the time it didn't seem to offset the lack of things it was going to do) Then, I even volunteered at an organic farm, where an Australian volunteer works/lives, and had a great time and felt super productive, but unfortunately that did not carry over once I was alone in my room. Like I said before, I think this is a somewhat natural cycle to go through in Peace Corps at one stage or another, which is comforting, but doesn’t help me get out of it.
I was also homesick. Initially, it always made me happy to talk to anyone from home for obvious reasons, but also because it was a confirmation that I didn’t drop off the Earth and life still exists outside the Philippines. Now, after a year, I have hit a different level of homesickness. My life feels normal in Laoang, and a lot of the communication just makes me think about all of the differences between here and America and this gap that has sort of formed because no one can really know what my life is here unless they visit. And I also think about my lack of knowledge about other peoples’ lives. It’s no longer comforting to know that people are there, because it just makes me miss all of the activities I would be doing with them. Also, it’s really hard to have short conversation with people, because nothing that I say will make sense without a fair bit of contextual explanation and it’s hard to find time to have and substantial conversations. Or, at least that is how I was feeling. I also think seeing both Jaci and Alyssa’s families from home also made me more homesick. But someone told me one comforting thing, which was that even if people don't understand it here, they are willing to try, which is really the only thing I can really ask.
Fiestas and such
Basically, people go from house to house of their friends or relatives and just say hi and eat. The closest American thing I can think of is high school graduation parties when you have like 3 to attend in one day. However, there is no limit on the number of houses; I think the Edu volunteers attend a barangay fiesta in the being of service and went to something like 13 houses once. It just depends on how many people you know. And depending on the person (on how well you know them), it could be rude to not show up at a house if you are invited (a close friend or co-worker would take insult). But everyone in the town is just walking around and the atmosphere is sort of like that of one before a football game, with everyone being out and about as a community and sort of excited.
Typically, when you go to a house, the host hands you a plate and silverware, and then you get food right away. It is rare to have any fruits or vegetables on the buffet lines. It is usually just meat (pork, caribeef, and chicken) and desserts. Any host who has any respect will have a lechon too. Once you are done there, go on to the next house and repeat the process. Initially, these things were sort of annoying, because we were just being dragged from house to house with no knowledge of where we were going or who the people were. But now that I know more people, I sort of enjoy them. And it’s always more fun to go with other volunteers.
The exciting thing about Fiesta in Allen, Don’s site, was that there was a carnival. (There are some pictures from fiesta in the July pictures album.) And it was what I envisioned an old-school carnival would be like, because the attractions were less rides, but things like see the man with the anaconda or the deformed people or the monkey that can perform amazing feats, etc. And there was a ferris wheel, that looked really sketch. It was very old, and it moved superfast. Don and Cassie rode the ferris wheel before I got there, so I was not able to experience it unfortunately. However, we all went on the “horror train”. The train was on a small circular track, that could probably fit inside about 20 yards of a football field. Then half of the track was covered with a black tent thing. Once inside the black/dark area, people dressed up as monsters, usually wearing just black clothes and a mask, would jump out from behind a barrier, and sometimes actually jump onto the train and touch you. The funny part was that we went around the track about 5 times, and by the 3rd time, the “monsters” were giving us, the Americans high fives, and greeting us as Joes.
Then, I went to the fiesta in Palapog (Trent’s site), with Kris, Sky, and Emma. You have to take an hour boat ride to get there, and right before we were about to leave and as we were sitting in the boat, Emma faints. For like 30 seconds. Her eyes were rolled back and looked really weird; it was sort of scary. She woke up not realizing she fainted, but said she was fine so we proceeded. We think she did not drink enough water, and she was also getting sick. But she really was fine the rest of the time.
Once we got there, Trent had to attend a baptism, and we just hung out at his house. That night, Sky and Emma were pretty exhausted/sick, so Kris, Trent, and I went to the “ball” thing put on by the municipality. There were some kids dancing in costumes, and ceremonies of crowning Miss Palapog, and lots of caracha dancing, which is a fundraiser dance. Basically, the important people of the night, one guy and one girl at a time, go and do a traditional dance in front of everyone. We were in a gymnasium full of people. Then the other important people come and throw money on the floor while they are dancing. And they make a big scene of throwing the money, usually one 20 pesos bill at a time. After once dance I would not be surprised if 5,000 or more pesos laid on the ground.
In Palapog, one Provincial board member (Provincial City council), the governor, and vice-governor were all there. It was a big deal. People paid to get inside (Trent’s nanay had paid for our table), and there were lots of people outside trying to look in. Usually the politicians went around to the tables (there were also just bleachers) and made sure to great everyone. Sort of how I envision a political fundraiser in the states. Then I danced the chacha with the Provincial board member, and Kris danced it with the governor, which I found ironic since she is not even from our province. This again is in front of all the people in the gym, but at least there were some other “couples” dancing too. But all eyes were on us, Americans with politicians, and there were tons of camera flashes; but this was surprising to none of us and doesn’t phase us anymore. Trent won the crowd though; he would dance with whichever one of us was not dancing with a politician. As this is basically ballroom dancing and none of us really know what we are doing, Trent (with a few drinks under his belt) just went crazy hopping up and down and moving all over and the crowd just loved it. Little did we realize that there was live filming of this event going on, and it was being shown outside in the plaza on a big projector in real time. Oh well, we had fun, even if we made a fool of ourselves.
The next day we went to some houses to eat, and then returned to our site. The food at fiesta generally sits out for two whole days (I don’t think I ever saw Trent’s host family take their food off of the table, just replace it with new food). So, there is always the risk of getting sick after it, and that did indeed happen to me later that night. I had some unfortunate bowel movements, but no one else who was with us did. I think my intestinal resistance to bacteria is quite week.
Catarman fiesta was more of the same, except that we went to Rosario’s house. She is Filipino-American and is a RPCV who served in Mongolia I think. We met her before, and she took us around introducing us to various important people or good potential counterparts. But their house is VERY nice. It is completely air conditioned inside, and they have a grand piano. Since I knew this ahead of time, I brought my piano books with me and was able to play. I didn’t care that there were other people around; in fact I really enjoyed the opportunity to semi-perform in front of people. While I was doing that, the other PCV’s got to talk to some German volunteers who were in Catarman on a medical mission for like 3 weeks. The German’s were surprised to see other white people.
After fiesta in Catarman, the volunteers all went to Alyssa’s house. Her new Nipa house is awesome, and we played some beer pong outside and introduced the game to some of Alyssa’s Filipino friends. We also tried to have smores again. However, the guys happened to build the fire directly on top of the small layer of dirt covering a PCV pipe that ran the water from Alyssa’s pump to her house, and the pipe melted. So that night, we only had one small bucket of water to work with to flush the toilet and clean up with. That meant no showers for us after a long day of walking around. Oh well, such is life in the Philippines.
July 19th - Vigil and Funeral for the Mayors Mother
Yesterday evening, I found out that the mayors mother had passed away on Thursday. I sort of knew that she was sick, but I guess I didn’t realize just how sick. Apparently, she was diagnosed with liver cancer around April. So, tonight there was a “vigil” for the Mayors Mother for all the LGU employees. Everyone went to the mayors house, and the body was on display. They started the vigil by playing the song “Power of Love”, which made me think of Ethan and his sax. Then, the Mayors brother and sister both spoke and then the SB handed over the resolution that expressed their sympathies on behalf of all Laoanganoes. It all lasted about 1 hour. I actually enjoyed the messages of the brother and sister a lot. They told a few stories, but their main message was that people are saved through Jesus Christ, by confessing their sins and believing in him, not through good works, not through money, or not through going to church. I think they were Born Again Christians. It was simply nice to hear God’s message, even if it is one of the most basic (but also most important) in English again.
Follow up, written on Aug. 20th:
The following night there was another vigil type of thing, but a catholic ceremony, which lasted about an hour. The next morning was the funeral, held in the covered court, attended by all municipal employees and many other people. Afterwards, everyone walked to the cemetery for the ceremony there. There was quite the colorful array of umbrellas on the street, as when it is sunny, people walk with them for the shade. I did not attend that ceremony, but instead went with my nanay to the structure (a crypt?) where her family was buried, and it was very nice. I also finally realized why everyone referred to her as Nieta Lumasak instead of Nieta Erinco – her father’s last name was Lumasak and her mothers was Erinco. I’m not sure why she keeps her mothers last name, or if it even matters.
It is also customary for the daughters to wear black for a certain amount of time after their mothers die. In Tanauan, Tori’s host nanay said she had to wear black for 7 years. Since I have been at site, I have not seen Lucy (another person in the mayors office), wear anything but black. I’m not sure when her mother died. It is now August 20th, and I have not seen my mayor wear anything but black. Our language and culture facilitator during training said that it sort of depends on the person, as far as how long they will wear black.
In the week after the funeral, I went over to the mayor’s house to play piano and arrived just before about 7 other ladies and the mayor started a prayer session. My mayor said that they have the short sessions for I think 40 days after the death every evening.
Santol Fruit Harvest
My nanay’s “farm” is mainly for copra – coconut oil making. So, it’s mostly coconut trees, but I think she also has a fair amount of other fruits mixed in with them (I have only walked one side of the perimeter of the farm).
My nanay had been talking about going to see this harvest for a couple of weeks, so I was excited to go see it. Plus, I didn’t know what Santol was, so I wanted to learn. I woke up so I could leave the house by 7 so I could go see the harvest and then get to work around 8. One of my nanay’s helpers, Shirley, went with me. On the trike on the way there, we passed my nanay’s other helper, Mirshiana, and house caretaker, Ediza, who we were supposed to meet at the farm. They don’t have phones, so it was a good thing I am conspicuous, so that they noticed when we passed, because then they started to walk to the farm. But when Shirley and I arrived, Shirley was confused because no one was there (she didn’t see Mirshiana and Ediza on the side of the street on our way there). So, there was an interesting conversation in Waray-Waray of me trying to explain that the other two were on their way, and of me asking if we could just go ahead to the Santol (since I did have to go to work later). She then started talking about how we couldn’t because Dodong, the caretaker of the farm, was not there.
Now, I was confused why he had to be there for me to see the Santol harvest, and I thought maybe Shirley didn’t know where the Santol were on the farm or something. I realized about 20 minutes later, that I was confused because by harvest I assumed some sort of larger scale operation. Mainly, I was picturing a bunch of people in some sort of organized manner collecting these santol from whatever trees they grew on. This was not the case. About 20 minutes later, after Ediza sent for Dodong, Dodong sent a guy to “harvest” the Santol. This involved him climbing the 30 ft Santol tree and shaking it so the Santol would rain down. Then the helpers just picked them up off the ground. Not quite the “harvest” I was expecting. The Santol tree I saw was by the cement road, so any of the fruit that fell on the cement just splattered open. Luckily, that wasn’t many. So, that whole process was interesting.
More birthday celebrations and Transportation Woes (from July 17 and 18)
I should also mention that I am carrying my backpack stuffed to the max with overnight clothes and gear and books/magazines to give to other volunteers. Other volunteers houses/apartments are very basic. So, when we go someplace overnight I always bring my sleeping pad, pillow, malong (like a sheet sleeping bag that’s open on the end), and Cassie said to bring a mosquito net since her house was infested. Naturally, I also have my towel, beach clothes, and clothes for the next day. I threw my computer in there too, because I wanted to get pictures from other people. Then, I also brought the cake that I baked on Thursday, the frosting, my water bottle, the intertube, sunscreen, and squirt gun. So, I was carrying a lot around with me in the jeepneys and while shopping in Catarman, which was quite annoying.
After shopping, I went to the Catarman terminal to catch a multicab to the beach in Bobon only to find that they were fixing a flat tire, so no one could get on. So, I had to wait probably 10 minutes for them to finish up. As I was waiting, I asked a couple people (in Waray), who were also waiting, how much it cost to go to Dancalan beach in Bobon, since I forgot. Well, they didn’t know and then proceeded to treat me like I had never ridden a multicab before. Really, they were just trying to be nice, but for whatever reason I got really annoyed at them (since I did infact know what I was doing, I just wanted to know the price) and just walked away at the first pause in conversation. Then I went to check to see if someone was sitting in the front seat (the most spacious), because there did not appear to be anyone there. As I walked to the front, the guy finished fixing the tire and everyone started getting in the multicab. There was in fact a person stealthily sitting in the front, and by the time I walked the back of the multicab where everyone gets on, it was already full. A massive rush of people jumped on. This did not help my frustration level, as I had clearly been waiting longer than some of the people who just got on, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to get on the next one.
So, shortly after, the next multicab came and I got on and waited for it to fill again. It actually took less time to fill than I thought. I think the other multicab was out of service for awhile, so there were a lot of people waiting. This ride confirmed that I really don’t like riding on multicabs with a lot of gear. The isle is hardly as wide as my backpack and the roof is very short. So, I have to walk/shuffle in completely bent over holding my bags up trying not to hit anyone (which is impossible) and also try not to trip on any objects I can’t see on the floor, because all I can see are the bags I’m holding. And usually, since people go to Catarman to buy things, numerous bags, crates, and buckets of every item imaginable line the floor. For some unknown reason to me, people with a lot of things generally stop and sit by the entrance of jeepneys/multicabs instead of walking all the way to the back. It’s like they enjoy placing all of their goods on the floor and watching everyone try to walk through the obstacle course they created.
Then, once I sit down, I have to figure out how to arrange my bags (on my lap/floor) in this small space so that they don’t fall on anyone (we are basically sitting on top of each other) and they are safe from theft (I’m not really worried about it, but you never know). After that, I generally can’t move much until I get up to leave for fear of messing up the arrangement.
So, I got situated and was very thankful when the multicab started moving, creating a nice breeze to get ride of the stagnant air. All seemed to be going well until the first passenger gets off. The driver stopped, and then couldn’t get the multicab to start again because it had overheated. Eventually, he grabbed a small bottle of water he had stored in the jeepney, poured it on the engine, and we were up and running again. However, because he was afraid of overheating, we traveled at an incredibly slow pace. The motor stopped probably 3 or 4 more times during our ride. Our driver also ran out of water, and it was sort of an ordeal for him to go fill up his water bottle again. So, what should have taken about 30 minutes took probably an hour and 15 minutes.
But eventually, I made it to the beach in Bobon and met everyone there. It was a nice beach day, except for some red ants on the ground. We also had a crew of young children overtly watching us from the next “beach hut”, but it was fun. Then we returned to Cassie’s house and just made dinner (pasta, yummm), drank some win, and played a Pictionary-esk game. It was a lot of fun to just hang out and chill. In the morning, Cassie and Trent made crepes and we just chilled some more.
It was sort of a rainy day and I didn’t really want to leave, but I new I should to go to Israel’s birthday party with my “new” group of Pinoy friends (people I’ve seen around and done a few things with, but I now feel like I’m part of their group, or more accepted or more integrated. Basically, I just feel more comfortable being around and with them). It probably took me around 3 hours to return to Laoang from San Jose, but I’m glad I returned early enough to make it to the party. It was at Onay beach, and it was beautiful when I arrived; the sky was clear enough that you could see all the way to Bicol: the Bulusan and Mayon volcano. And only a few hours later, the clouds had covered them up again. The party was sort of winding down when I came, but videoke was still going strong and they were actually drinking Tuba (coconut wine). It’s really common in Leyte and Eastern Samar, but rarely have I seen Tuba at my site, so I was excited. At one point, I was sitting on the bamboo bench on the beach, drinking tuba, looking at the volcanoes and had one of those revelation/appreciation moments, that this is where I actually live.
Visit of Canadian Volunteer, Ben
I enjoyed watching the dynamics of how people interacted with him and the guest treatment he received. It’s interesting because now I can fully appreciate how hospitable Filipinos can be and the types of special treatment I first recieved. I didn’t interact with him much during the week, because he was busy working with other LGU people. But at one point I had lunch with him and some other LGU people, and one comment I received was that they can understand Ben’s English better than mine. I didn’t say this, but I was thinking that is because Ben speaks English as a second language too. He primarily learned French, and he does speak more like Filipinos. Things like the “th” sound are really hard for them to say, and it just ends up being a “Da” sound. He also probably spoke a little slower that I do, and the pitch of his voice may also be easier to understand.
At the end of the week, they had an “exit ceremony” for Ben. During this ceremony, the LGU person that Ben was working with basically presented all of their work for the week to the department heads of the LGU and some SB members. They also asked me to speak about what the LGU can do about Global Warming. This took place at Jerome’s “mansion” as they like to call it. Jerome’s family is cousins of the mayor’s family and they have lots of relatives in the states, so their house is in fact very large. After the speeches, we had dinner, then proceeded to videoke and drink. Some of the same people who were at my birthday party were there, so we had a good time. The whole things started around 3 and I went home around 11:30. This also made me think about what will happen when I leave and what type of “exit” party I will have.
Delayed Environmental Leadership Camp
So, I logged on and the only e-mail in my inbox was from Charles saying he could actually come to the camp. So, that naturally added to my frustrations, being told that my camp was postponed and then having Charles say he could have come (he is a very busy man, as in he met with the President of the Philippines to discuss Peace Corps when our Country Director was on leave). Come the 2nd week in August, about 140 new volunteers arrive and the staff will be up to their heads trying to keep everything organized. So, in my mind, the chances of him being able to come next time are slim, which is really the only downside to having the camp being postponed (and if there are other volunteers who can not come who could have before).
So, why was the camp postponed? From what I understand, our work plan and associated funding were only approved for up to July, and our funds ran out. I’m not sure how the accounting process works here. But I wouldn’t be surprised that once a proposal is approved by the SB and the mayor, if the treasures office looks at the account of the offices/programs the funds are supposed to be drawn from to check if there is money there at the time, but doesn’t actually lock the funding for the event. Overall, our proposal is still approved, we just have to wait for the SB to approve the new workplan/funding for the next 6 months. This affects not only our camp, but all activities in our office, everything was suspended. I’m not sure how long this will be delayed, as I don’t know if all of the offices are included in this workplan. If they are, there may be debates still over how to allocate funds to everyone. I also found out that both the mayor and vice mayor are on leave, and the official designated person in charge has not been officially approved since the elections. This means that no vouchers (for funding) or anything can be approved, which may be the only reason, an additional reason, or have no relevance to why the camp was postponed.
*Jump ahead 3 days from writing that post* It is now July 23rd, and I have just been told that all of the school were required to do testing this week, so students would not have been able to come to the camp anyway. Also, the mayor’s mothers funeral was this week, and many municipal employees were helping make preparations for all of the ceremonies. So, maybe it was best after all that the camp got postponed.
And just a little information about the camp, there are supposed to be about 100-125 high school students (which is grad 8-10 in the US) attending. It is two days, but the students will go home at night. The first day focuses on environmental issues, with education and activities about solid waste management, coastal ecosystems, upland ecosystems, threats to those ecosystems, and global warming. The second day focuses on project design and management, basically how to create a project. So we discuss identifying and issues, identifying resources, forming goals and objectives, creating a timeline and action plan, and where to get funding. By the end, the students will have a rough draft of a complete project that they theoretically could implement.
Birthday Weekend Day 2 (July 11th)
When I arrived to site and started texting everyone, no seemed to have remembered that it was my birthday. I was slightly disappointed, but it was not really a big deal. Also, the two people who normal plan these types of activities were out of town. So, I then probably spent a good hour texting people to try and get a group together to go out to the “bar” and videoke with me around 7 that night. Most of these people were co-workers who I had previously videoked with. Eventually, I got a couple of positive responses, so I proceeded to have a pretty chill and uneventful birthday until the evening.
Eventually 7:30 rolled around, and I was still in my house, and no one had texted me saying that they were at the videoke place (which was a 5 minute walk from my house). So, I realized that I had to initiate people going there; so I sent out a bunch of texts saying I was at the bar, and then I waited about 15 minutes to leave. I arrived there and no one else was there. Naturally, I was more than a little worried that no one would actually come (a text confirmation doesn’t really mean all that much here). But that did give me some time to buy sum-suman, food you eat while drinking. My friend Ambie found me during this, so at least I had one person who wanted to celebrate with me! We probably waited another 15 slightly awkward minutes (because it was just the two of us) before 7 or 8 other people arrived. I was so relieved people came, and really appreciated it. So, then we all drank some beer and sang videoke and I had a good time. Seeing as it was my birthday, I paid for most of the bill; Philippine tradition.
Later that week, I also hung out and drank with this same group of people 2 other times. Once, during the Canadian volunteers exit party and second during Israel’s birthday party, which I will post about later. But I do really feel like I am part of a group of Filipino friends, all of whom I really enjoy being around. This was a big step in improving how integrated I felt into the community.
Birthday Weekend Day 1 (July 10th)
I was expecting some sort of shenanigans for my birthday, since Jaci and Cassie basically told me that there was a plan to kidnap me from the airport and take me somewhere. And sure enough, Alyssa was there at the airport waiting for me. She rode in the trike with me back to the terminal, where I met Jaci, Emma, and Trent, and they proceeded to blindfold me with Jaci’s stocking. I think it looked rather ridiculous, because about 5 seconds after it was on me, I heard a Filipino ask with all seriousness, “is she ok?”
Now, there really only two directions you can go from Catarman, so I could tell that we were headed in the general direction of Allen/San Jose, but didn’t know exactly where we were going. It was really crazy riding the multicab and walking around not being able to see; it was fun. We met Cassie and Donald when we got off in San Jose (I didn’t know which exact municipality we were in at this point). But I had to take off the blindfold in order to walk onto a boat (so I knew we were going to an island then), and that island ended up being a completely undeveloped one in San Jose (Cassie’s site) with no people on it when we arrived. It had a nice beach and was supposed to have nice corals. After we arrived, though, other Filipinos did come; apparently it was a good place to be on a Saturday. The other PCV’s brought good food and some beer (I brought a pizza from Manila) and we started eating everything around 10 AM.
It’s a good thing we ate it all early, because around 11 AM we had a brief downpour, which probably would have ruined a lot of the food. Sadly, though, around 11:30 AM we were out of beer, so the boys decided to go for a beer run back to mainland on the boat (which was rented for the entire day). About a half hour after they left, we watched two very dark clouds sort of converge and envelop the island and the waves go from calm to white caps in about 15 minutes. It poured again with no signs of stopping, and being wet with the wind actually made it cold, a feeling I hadn’t felt for a good while.
So, we were in a storm on this island where there was no real shelter, so we decided to stand under a tree to try and stay dry and protect against the wind. (I don’t think there was lightning.) One Filipina, probably college age, was nice enough to point out to us that we were standing under a coconut tree (which we obviously knew), but then just looked up at the coconuts and back down to us with a face that basically said, “really guys, come on, those 2lb coconuts could fall on you from 30ft at any moment”. We then proceeded to move into the water, where it was warmer anyway.
For whatever reason, we also decided to sit in a shallower part of the water with lots of sand and sea grass (it didn’t get deep for a long ways). It was only once the boys returned (in the middle of the storm; they claim they risked their lives for us), that we realized we should have been wading about 50 meters down the shore where it was slightly deeper with less sea grass, so more of our body could be underwater in the warmth. The boys were slightly shocked we were not ready to go the moment they pulled in, but after about a half hour of indecisiveness over whether the storm would blow over, we decided to leave. Everyone’s backpack and gear was super sandy and soaked, which later on was a pain to clean. We were all also all covered in sand from sitting in it for so long. But the fact that we were all legitimately chilly by the time we got back to Cassie’s house, made it worth it. We all took a bucket bathe and then had some really good hot chocolate Cassie had from the states. It was annoying that we got rained on, and that we couldn’t go see the good corals. However, it made for an interesting day and one we could be cold in, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
After Cassie’s, I spent the night at Jaci’s with Trent because it was too late to get a jeep back to Laoang. That was pretty laid back, but nice cause I got to watch some Top Chef and Project Runway (or whatever version of it there is now).
Difference between spagetti and pasta
This is the second time they have done that, and I was not quite sure why they didn’t quite get it. Spaghetti is really common here. Thought, it’s not quite the same; they mix the noodles with a really sugary tomato sauce, hot dogs, oil, condensed or powdered milk, and some super processed form of yellow cheese. But, then I had a revelation. Spaghetti to them is not pasta; in the states the two are sort of interchangeable. So, they have no idea what pasta is; all they have ever heard of is spaghetti. That means that when my nanay told them to make pasta, they probably thought that “pasta” was the sauce packet.
Comfort Zone
The post:
Comfort Zone:
On February 10th, when we were having trouble motivating ourselves to ride any further, we had a great conversation about comfort zones in the context of what is sustainable and beneficial.
The Model: In our outdoor leadership experience we have both been exposed to a model that explains different comfort zones. This model looks like a bulls eye, with the middle circle being things in which one is entirely comfortable, the next ring being things that stretch one's level of comfort, and the outside ring being things that push one into a panic zone.
To clarify why the two of us have both spent time learning about this model, we will provide an example. As a leader of adventure trips for others, it is important to be able to bring individuals back to their center circle, even in a setting that is not comfortable. Perhaps sleeping in the woods is entirely uncomfortable for Jill because the thought of Daddy long legs spiders walking into her mouth while she sleeps is horrifying, but if you can make her a fantastic cup of tea each night of the trip, like she drinks every day, you might be able to bring her back into her comfort zone long enough to be rejuvenated and ready to enter her stretch zone as she goes to bed for the night.
Conclusion: Different activities, tasks, etc. fall into different categories of comfort for different people. For example, changing a diaper might fall into the center circle for my mom, but be something that makes my 5th grade neighbor panic. These differences in what makes each of us comfortable or uncomfortable reflect both experience and personality. These differences are okay. The important point is that in order to grow, learn, and have life changing experiences it is beneficial for each of us to step out of the center circle and into something that makes us stretch every once in awhile. Although not always comfortable or easy, many opportunities can come along if you challenge yourself to do something different and embrace the experience and journey throughout. However, if you spend too much time in the stretch and panic zones, it is likely that you will not be having a positive experience (whether it is because you are no longer learning or because you are constantly unhappy/nervous/worried/etc.). Finding the balence between these rings is important, as well as knowing when the time is to move within the diagram. Comforts are important to each individual in different ways but it is also something that we all share - we all enjoy our comforts! What can we do to stretch? And, when is it time to go back to what is comfortable? We have both spent a lot of time in our stretch zone in the last few months and are looking forward to some comforts upon our arrival back in the states.
Week after training - productive
Then Thursday afternoon (under text recommendation from my supervisor who was in Manila), I talked with my co-worker Mirle, who is now back from her surgery in Manila, about the consolidated biophysical assessment data and we discussed where to put an MPA. We also discussed everything that is involved in applying for a VEG (Volunteers in Environmental Governance (from USAID) grant, and she said we should just wait for my supervisor before we start filling anything out so we don’t waste our time if he decides he wants to change something, which I agree with. We also agreed that we should consult the barangays and get their approval before applying for everything. I finished talking with her around 2:30 PM, and then my plan was to go to fiesta in a fisherfolk barangay on Batag island where Mary Grace is from. Then on Friday, I would go straight to another barangay’s fiesta, where I would meet my host nanay. I was planning on leaving at 5 with another co-worker, Zonora to Batag Island. Since I had time to kill I decided to dink around on the internet in the municipal building in the room I always go to next to the mayors office.
Well, at about 4:20 out of the blue, someone from the Mayors office comes and invites me to attend the Municipal Development Council meeting (which consists of all 58 of the barangay capitans) the next morning at 8 AM and asked what I want to talk about. Well, I was a little confused why I was invited, but I assumed that someone (either my supervisor or the Mayor) told the people that I should speak, and if that was the case, they probably wanted me to talk about the assessments. Then about 10 minutes later I was called into the mayors office, with my counterpart, and was actually told that they want me to discuss the assessment results so that the barangay capitans can start budgeting and setting aside money for the MPA’s, essentially get the community support process rolling. This is a great idea, I just wish I had a little more time to prepare cause there is so much I could have talked about, including CRM planning. I didn’t get to that, but I did manage to throw a little general IEC about coastal ecology/interconnectedness into the presentation. I also felt bad because the meeting with the mayor ended around 5 PM and Zonora was already waiting for me at my house, and I had to tell her I couldn’t go anymore because I had to make this presentation. I also couldn’t meet my nanay in the other barangay for their fiesta because of this meeting.
The meeting ended up going great on Friday, and the Mayor got the barangay capitans to pledge some money for MPAs. This whole process is just sort of interesting. I really didn’t have the necessary knowledge to say where MPAs should be; I am not an expert and we just finished compiling the data. I didn’t have a chance to do any research on it or really look at it. My recommendations were soley based on the places that had the highest percentage of live coral and sea grass; the mangrove assessments were not even done. So, basically I was making recommendations and people made plans off of my gut feeling on where they should be. Oh well… there is still A LOT to be done before any MPA’s are established and the plans can change. Plus, it’s good to get the capitans to start thinking about putting CRM into their barangays budget/plans.
Then Saturday I got my fever, which started a miserable week spent in bed, but that will be another post.
Gray Skys (7/1/2010)
Bacolod/VEG training/Manila
I also asked my sector manager, Joyce, if she could bring a mahjong set and teach us how to play. It’s a four person tile game, sort of like a cross between Rummy Cube and Gin Rummy with betting, though we didn’t bet. We played with Joyce the first night, then our sector manager Stella the second night; it was fun. The third night Joyce had our conference center bring in a videoke machine, and we sang and drank with the counterparts. Good times.
Don, Cassie, and I met Tori, Brandon, Charlotte and Chris in Bacolod on the Saturday before training to explore the area a bit, without having to take vacation days (as it was the weekend. Bacolod is a really nice city, with more cars than jeepneys/multicabs/and trikes. It has 3 big malls and real café shops and just a nice atmosphere. So, we had fun just being American consumers. On Sunday, Cassie, Don, and I went to Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park and it was gorgeous – a tropical rainforest but at a high altitude. The temperature was quite comfortable/cool. We just went to the visitor center that had some great viewing platforms and hiked down to one waterfall that was maybe 30 meters high and gorgeous. You could sort of swim in the waist high water by it, but the water was super cold. And on the way up to the park we passed several PINE TREES! I never thought I would be so excited to see them, and really it wasn’t even seeing them that was great, but the awesome smell. Negros is also dominated by sugar cane fields, not coconut trees and rice fields like in Northern Samar. The sugar cane grows high enough so that you could sort of pretend you were driving by wheat/corn fields. It was nice.
Monday we tried to go around to visit the provincial capital, a market place that had some crafts, and a wildlife rescue center, but all were closed because it was a holiday (Philippine Independence Day). But we did end up finding a really cool craft showroom, which really reminded me of being in a Pier 1. Their stuff was a little pricey, but still nice to look around in.
After training, all of the Northern Samar people had a layover in Manila for one night, since we got into Manila about 11:30 AM, and the only flight for Catarman is in the morning. So, I decided to tack on an extra day and spend two nights in Manila. There was a lot of good eating (TGIF, Chili’s, Taco Bell, Dairy Queen, and Salcedo market) and malling (the verb of spending time in a mall). Friday night we went to the Greenbelt mall in Makati and had a real draft beer and then found a place to watch the US world-cup game. Unfortunately, we sat at a place and ordered some beers before we looked at the prices… we paid 90 pesos for a cerveza negra, which we can get in Northern Samar for 35 pesos. The draft beer cost 50 pesos I think. What a rip off, but we got to see the game that ended in a tie.
Saturday, I went with Tori and Brandon to the Salcedo market in Makati, and that was really cool. It really is like a farmers market in the states. It fills a small parking lot and there are all sorts of freshly cooked food and fruits/veggies on sale. It was worth going for the atmosphere alone. We ended up eating burritos, chipotle style, and Hungarian sausage for lunch. Plus, I drank a fresh chocolate milk (the regular white low fat was already sold out). Then we went to an Ayala mall in Quezon city, via the Light Rail System. The rail system usually is not any faster, but it’s way cheaper. I want to make more use of this in the future.
I never thought I would say this, but we spent 8 hours in the mall and it was amazing! I found some flip flops, dry bags (mine got holes in them), and a usb all for decent prices and it was just nice walking around. I also found a really cute skirt outfit and some shorts at Gap that fit perfectly, but they were out of my price range. This mall had a carousel inside it and a rooftop plaza area. The malls here are generally bigger and nicer than in the states. When in Manila, I’m realizing this is where I spend most of my time.
While this was an expensive trip (I spent one months allowance in 10 days), I bought some things I needed, some gifts, and enjoyed good food. For me, it’s always a trade off between good food and traveling (one night at the pension costs 350 pesos, a burger at TGIF costs 350 pesos). Generally, I would prefer traveling, but when i’m with other people who are eating good stuff; it’s hard to resist. But, I enjoyed every minute of the good food this past week.
I think that there is only one flight to Catarman each day, and it leaves Manila at 6:05 AM. This means that on Sunday, I left the pension at 4 AM and ended up getting back to site around 10:30 AM. The flight is only an hour, but baggage claim can be slow in Catarman, and getting transportation on Sundays from the airport to the Catarman terminal, where I can get a jeep to Laoang is annoying and sparse. When I got back, it was a brown out until about 6 PM. Quite a welcome back from the magical world of Manila.
Brownouts, bugs, etc.
Speaking of legs falling asleep, I find that my limbs fall asleep a lot more here. I’m not sure why, but I think it has to do with the small spaces during transportation. For example, last week we had about an hour boat ride to barangay Cahayagan, and my whole leg fell asleep, as in I couldn’t walk for a good two minutes because I couldn’t feel it. So weird.
And speaking of cuts, I think I have managed to slip/fall somehow in every barangay I have been to in the past two weeks, leading to several cuts. Mostly, it’s the old coral rock that is hard to walk on – very uneven and very sharp. One of the days I slipped on mangrove mud that I wasn’t expecting to be there. But generally, I think it’s also because I am clumsy, or get distracted with other things and forget to watch where I’m going. My Filipino counterparts just fly across everything.
I feel like I also have an insane amount of bug bites right now, in all shapes and sizes. I have about 4 or 5 areas where there is this series of about 6 consecutive bites in a straight line. There is an area about my armpit that has a grid-like pattern of about 15 bites. Plus I have numerous other single bites. I don’t think the majority of them are mosquitoes, but more likely ants. I just saw one biting me and it left a mark that is similar to other ones I have, plus I’m regularly flicking them off my body. (Though sometimes I mistake a bead of sweat for an ant). I am also sleeping in a different room because of the construction at our house, and it is full of ants. Unfortunately, the combination of sweat and dirt sticking to the sweat, in addition to bug bites makes my skin very itchy. I can’t wait for winter, when it was colder, there were not nearly as many bugs (or I slept in places without bugs) and, there seemed to be fewer brownouts.
Week of Batag Island Assessments
- Cabidiangan
o Scheduled to meet and leave office at 6 AM for overnight trip. I had planned and packed to spend 5 days without returning on Batag island, but apparently no one else was on the same page. Some thought we were not spending the night, others thought we were there for just one night.
o We met at 6 AM, but instead left at 9 AM instead, as we were waiting for my supervisor who apparently had meetings with mayor
o We arrived in Cabidiangan around 10:30 or 11, so we started the assessments after lunch aournd 1 or 1:30
o We did coral assessments in the Palapog channel in afternoon, and we saw the standard, less than 5% live
o As we were wrapping up the socio-economic stuff, Joel and Nitnint said that they were not going to spend the night. Joel because we were relying on the barangay capitan to give us all of our food (there are 13 of us), instead of bringing our own, and we also didn’t have snacks. (It is sort of a legitimate conern, about capitan (since he is not weathly), but apparently we didn’t have anymore budget for our own food). Nitnint didn’t want to stay, because she is still breast feeding her daughter, but didn’t tell my supervisor that. Mary Grace went along with it because she felt they were overworked. I agree with that, since often we leave at 6:30 AM and return at 7 PM, and they receive no extra compensation or recognition. They did in fact go home at night and didn’t come back the next day, leaving me with no one trained to do the remaining assessments (ugh). In America, they would have been expected to confront my supervisor about this, but here apparently that’s not how it works…. Mary Grace and Nitnit are back working. Joel was moved to another office.
o Overall, the barangay had a really good atmosphere at night. There were people walking around, and it may sound strange but I sort of felt like it was homecoming night before a football game, with the community feel. There is not electricity there, so they use a town generator for 4 hours a night. This also means that it is very hot, because there are no fans.
o It may have also been fiesta, as there was one street with fair like games. I played a sort of mocked up version of craps. You put coins on one of 6 colors on the table, and then the guy would roll 3 colored wooden blocks. You got double your money back if the color you betted on was rolled.
o That night, the guys in our group slept in the new rural health building, and the girls on second floor of capitans house. Luckily there was a little breeze.
o The next day, I went out with Julius, who did Mangrove assessments, and showed him how to do sea grass and coral surveys, in less than idea conditions. The corals were quite deep, so it was hard to point out stuff, and the sea grass was really muddy, but everything ended up working out.
o This was also the first time I saw the coral on the actual pacific side of Laoang and not just in the channels. At one time, there would have been some really gorgeous formations, and it was a totally different types of reef than I had seen. It was really cool.
o I also found out that the mayor wanted to change the dates of my environmental camp. Over the previous weekend, I sent invites to the other PCV’s and Peace Corps staff. So, I had to text a lot to fix it, annoying.
o I was also told that we would be returning that night, and that I would not be going back to batag the next day, because we had a meeting with mayor about the environmental camp. I was happy with this, because I was rather tired from not a great nights sleep and early rising days. Then, as I got off the trike at my house later that night, my supervisor said meet in the office at 6, and I asked why so early. He told me that he would be the only one to go to the meeting about the camp, and we would proceed with assessments in Langob. This really annoyed me, as it is a PC run environmental camp, and I wouldn’t be able to discuss it with the mayor, and he also told me this in a way (as I was getting off the trike), where it couldn’t be discussed. But again, everything ended up working out ok.
o Got back at 7:30 PM – saw a really cool sunset and lightning storm in the distance during the return boat ride.
o The next day in Pangdan, I found out that the year before, the barangay capitan in Cabidiangan was beheaded because of political/family clan reasons.
- Pangdan
o Most rural barangay I’ve been to so far, a 1 hour and 40 minute boat ride away, with dock on pacific side, and maybe about 40 houses
o We again relied on the barangay capitan for food, and had fried fish, octopus, and shells over the two days
o It was very hot, and again no electricity here (all of batag has no electricity, just generators for a few hours after sunset). No breeze
o Sea grasses were really cool; there were a lot and many fish in them, though it was a little difficult to do assessments at high tide
o Because it so rural, the kids really watch me – I was reading and a bunch of kids just sat on the sidewalk outside and watched me read – entertaining, I know. Eventually I started talking in Waray waray with them, and it led to about a half hour conversation typical conversation. All of those kids have never been off of batag island before.
o First day in Pangdan I found out that my camp was going be changed to first week in July. After much texting (from the one place that received service, most of the time, in the barangay) I found out that at least three other volunteers would not be available. So, I was not happy with the dates, but more unhappy that I didn’t have any say in them.
o At this same time, I was also trying to make sure that our biri trip happened that weekend with the Laoang Spelunkers club and other PCVs
o The night was overall quite miserable. All of us were in one “house” and the guys snore loader than anyone I have EVER heard. And there were mosquitoes. Plus, Malin insisted that the windows be closed because she thought it was unsafe. I thought she meant people entering from the windows and taking our things, but she really meant from WacWacs, which I’ll explain later. So eventually, I went to a nipa style picnic table outside the house, but in a completely enclosed area, and could just barely hear the snoring and there was a slight breeze. So, I could sleep, but there were TONS of mosquitoes/bugs. I had coted myself in deet, so I didn’t get bit much, but I could hear them buzzing around my head. At 3 AM the church bells started ringing for about a half hour, calling people to the rosary. Once they were there, they started singing the traditional (dirge like) songs, but the church was about 200 yards away from us, so I could hear everything. Apparently it is common on batag island to pray the rosary at 4 AM, maybe because they start work/breakfast preparations around 5 AM. So, I didn’t really sleep that night and rolled up my sleeping pad at about 5:30 AM.
o Since we didn’t start until 8 AM, that allowed me to shot some hoops before we started, which was fun. I again got the comment that I was a tomboy (lesbian) because I could play basketball, and again said it doesn’t matter what you are, girls can play too.
o Second day did more pacific corals – similar to before, gorgeous rock formations
o I found out later that Malin was scared of WacWacs, or witch like creatures. She said she heard one during the night. Many Filipinos are superstitious and believe in WacWacs or Aswang. I’ve realized that Malin is very superstitious, and all of the mysterious things generally occur only in places that she is unfamiliar with. It’s interesting hearing about them, but as soon as her superstitious beliefs result in actions that make me uncomfortable is when they are not so fun anymore.
o We left Pangdan at 3 PM, and got to Aguadahan, where the pier is on the island of Laoang around 4:45 PM. We stopped to eat there bc it was fiesta in that barangay (normally we just take trikes back to the poblacion right away). I was not to thrilled about this since I was again, very tired, but it would have been rude not to attend. We got back to the poblacion around 6:30 PM.
o When I returned, I also met with Ambie from the spelunkers club to talk about the biri trip
o Then I was told to go to Jeromes house, in a different part of Aguadahan, for their fiesta/birthday party. It was a rather big deal coordinating, and I eventually just went with the mayors entourage and they dropped me off on their way to Aguadahan proper. I thought I was going to meet my supervisor there, and he ended up not going. So it was slightly awkward, because I only recognized a handful of people. After I got my food it was like the cafeteria style panic, who do I sit with now. Eventually, Jerome brought me to some other LGU folks. I returned to sleep around 9 PM.
- Candawid
o I only spent one day here because the next day was the start of our Biri trip
o We met in the office at 6 AM the next day, so we could stop in Aguadahan for breakfast for fiesta. (Filipinos eat the same thing for breakfast as every other meal).
o During the sea grass assessments I ended up getting around 20 urchin spines in my ankle because I slipped on coral rock getting back into the boat. I didn’t really know what to do, so I removed the spines right away (though there are still some remnants in my ankle), and once we got back treated it like a jellyfish sting and put vinegar on it. It didn’t hurt much, but there were dark spots around where the spines were in. I texted PCMO (PC doctor) and he said that urchins usually leave a toxin in the body from the spines, so alternate between putting almost boiling water and then vinegar on it to break up the toxins, which I did. It is fine now.
o Of all the barangay capitans houses on batag island, this one was the nicest. Overall, this was a super cute barangay with really nice people. Sort of wish I could have gone back the second day.
Weekend of May 21st - unexpected activities and meeting cool people
I was expecting to have the afternoon to do whatever I needed to, whether that was finish the camp proposal for approval by the SB or take Alyssa and Emma to the beach. It turned out that my supervisor, Mano Dongdong, took all of the volunteers out to lunch (at a cool place that I didn’t know about yet) and then invited us to attend a fish-pond launching ceremony in barangay Aguadahan. That sounded cool so we decided to go. I don’t know what happened to the ceremony, but we ended up just hanging out with some free alcohol, Mano Dongdong’s family, and the DILG head in a little secluded place by the beach the DILG head owned.
There we met my supervisors son, Keenson, who is 27, and his two friends, one who is 22 and I don’t know the others age. But they were all awesome people that I felt like I could actually be friends with. Most of the time when at site, I hang out with my co-workers or some of my neighbor friends, and I have a lot of fun but usually there is still a gap between us. I don’t really know how to describe it; a lot of it is cultural and language. But Keenson lives and teaches in Manila and graduated from UP with a degree in philosophy. Keenson and his friends could understand and discuss more intellectual issues and make jokes all in English. They were more of our peers than anyone other Filipino has been so far (perhaps beside my technical instructor during training, Darwin). It’s just a bummer that Keenson doesn’t live here, but his friend Janus does, I think.
So, we ended up hanging out on the beach from about 1-5, and then the municipal multicab that brought us there also brought us to a bar in Calomotan so we could do some videoke. After that, we went to Onay beach for a birthday party, because one of Keenson’s friends owned a trike that could take us. (Normally, they don’t run at night so we can’t go places at night). We stayed there and Keenson introduced me to a bunch of Laoang people, and then we went to another restobar, called Rue 21 I think, that I didn’t know about. It was a great place and had some “Americanish” dishes, including real French Fries. Then we called it a night around 11:30 PM.
Saturday, Sky, the PCV in Pambujan, joined us for a beach day. We went with Keenson and his friends again, and it was fun hanging out. Everyone returned around 3, and then I started working on the proposal I thought I was going to finish on Friday.
Tomorrow, I am going to get up early and go to Sky’s sight, and do a beach hike with her and Emma, and then go to Catarman to work on our Project Design Process power points and worksheets for the camp with Alyssa.
Next week, I will be on Batag Island for 5 days, spending the night, for our assessments. It is very rural there; there is no electricity or cell phone service. I’m excited, but a little stressed because there is a lot to do in order to get this camp organized in a month, and I wont be in the office able to do it. We are also inviting the Peace Corps country director to attend this camp, so if she comes, I would like to appear to have my act together. We will also be doing assessments for all of June, and I will also be attending a Peace Corps led CRM training away from site. And I know from the pass months, the assessments are exhausting. I am also trying to go to Biri with the Laoang Spelunkers club next weekend, and missing Alyssa and Don’s camp being on Batag Island. So, I just hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew, but I won’t know that until I try.
Philippine Elections
Elections started affecting my work back in March when the agency that liquidates our money wouldn’t release our funds because there was concern that the money would be used for campaigning in the barangays instead of work. We waited over a month for the money to push through before my supervisor and counterpart were able to retrieve money through some other means…. I don’t really know how, it just happened. Also, permanent employees are not allowed to campaign, but there is only one permanent employee in the MENRO office, Mirle, my main counterpart. Everyone else is just a “job-order”, and I don’t think there are any laws prohibiting him or her from campaigning during work time. Luckily, most of my counterparts still did MENRO related things up until the last week in April. Then they all started campaign work. Other volunteers were not so lucky and have not had much to do because everyone in their office is busy campaigning. This also means, though, that anytime there is a new administration in office, 99% of government employees change. So, it’s no wonder programs and policies are not consistently upheld.
Campaigning in the Philippines involves a lot of music, flyers/posters, and parades. For a couple months now, you could walk anywhere and happen to come upon a political parade. Depending on the rank of the politician, these typically involve a few people in cars with loudspeakers blaring music with the politician’s name inserted into phonetically correct places, followed by a bunch of motorcycles decked out campaign paraphernalia. Everyone will have their vehicles and clothes all decked out in the same colors/flyers/streamers. In general, there are just tons of flyers and posters all over buildings, coconut tree, bangkas, and trikes. They are everywhere, I posted a couple of pictures. During rallies, the politicians will go to the barangays and either just start talking on loudspeakers or blaring their music loud enough for everyone in the barangay to hear from their house. It can be rather obnoxious.
One thing that is sort of openly talked about is vote buying here. If the candidates don’t go door-to-door giving out money, they will not win. The amount of money depends upon the level of the position and the municipality. I’ve heard of giving out anywhere from 20-30 pesos per house for “city council” to 1,000 pesos per house for mayor, and on the extreme up to 3,000 per house for a mayor. Besides money, people will also vote on the family name. My nanay from training said that Nonoy Aquino, who is the new president, will be a good leader because it was his father who was killed while leading the movement against Marcos. But, family names play a part in elections anywhere in the world.
The general vibe that I get here, is that most people do not think that they can influence political events, and that elected officials are the ones who need to do everything. For example, it is not the community’s job to look down upon people who cut mangroves, but it is the barangay officials responsibility to just enforce it more and make more policies. Many of the kids we have spoken with also feel like they cannot influence anything until they graduate college, because they will not have the power to change anything until then (which could sort of be the same way most teenagers feel in the states). Overall, there just seems to be the feeling that the politicians are not accountable to anyone, but they are the ones responsible for doing everything. It’s not the average citizens job to serve the barangay or community, just those who are elected. But the people don’t have much say or influence on what politicians do; once, elected, they have free range. But, for anything to get done, it does need both the support of the mayor, the SB (city council), and the barangay council of the barangay that the project is in.
So, now on to the reason I am consolidated right now. Northern Samar is the number 1 hotspot for election related violence, meaning that it is known to have violence in the past and may be likely to have some during this election. Trent in the neighboring municipality said that one of the bod guards for the forerunner mayoral candidate was stabbed to death. (Trent’s mayor’s term limit is up, so he can’t run again). I never felt unsafe, but right before I left, my supervisor, who is essentially my mayor’s campaign director, said that she had such a majority the opposition was using a scare tactic to try and win. They were going door-to-door wearing masks telling people that if they planned on voting for my mayor, they may not be alive on Election Day to do it. A mostly false threat, but I guess better safe than sorry for us.
This year is also the first time the Philippines is trying an electric vote counting system (I think just like scantron). But about 2 weeks before elections, the people in charge of it said they encountered major flaws with the machines, and were reprogramming chips, but they should be done in time for elections. Also, not every place in the Philippines has electricity. And, as PC safety and security coordinator (SSC) says, there are no losers in any Philippine elections, just people who were cheated out of a victory (referring to how much election results are challenged, and I think usually it takes months before someone is declared winner, in a good election). So, these could just add more complications and potentially prolong the declaration of president. We also saw on a mostly Tagalog news station that there could be failed elections in Samar because the wrong ballots were delivered to places, so the local politician names would be wrong. However, none of us have heard of any problems from people at site or our SSC yet, so I think all is good. Overall, while you can argue that there are many flaws in American elections, witnessing the ones here makes me appreciate them and how we do actually have a working democracy, for the most part.
House life - construction, lack of water, talking to my nanay
Also, the construction workers live in the house, and would start at about 5:45. Since we had been starting assessments at 6 or 6:30, and since I have been traveling a lot, this was not much of a problem. Sometimes, I would just have to go to a different room to change, and there was one time, however, where there was a brown out and really hot and I took off my shirt to sleep, forgetting that they were going to start in the morning. Luckily, I had a sheet over me in the morning when I woke up to their noises. It was also a little annoying because my room is a place I can go to escape from being the “American”. People can’t look at or interact with me there. The construction workers never stared or anything, but it still felt like they could be watching me.
Another interesting thing that happened in April was that we had a water shortage in my town. My nanay’s well went dry, and my helpers had to fetch water from neighboring deeper wells. Because of the lack of water, people were lined up down the entire street outside of our house waiting to get water from the deep wells. It was crazy, and I posted some pictures of it with the construction pictures. Because the wells were literally across the street, I’m sure that didn’t help my nanay’s well fill up. People get the water from wells that other people own, and at first it seemed strange that certain individuals could have such control over water, a thing that is generally public and that everyone needs. But the more I thought about it, the more I could see how it may actually be better that the government doesn't control the water supply, because it can be very corrupt and inconsistent. On the subject of lack of water, many other places in the Philippines, like Cebu, are going through an extreme drought, as in it has not rained in 3 months, causing some of the rice to fail. Many blame it on El Nino, but I’m not entirely positive it is an El Nino year. I don’t think we really have a rainy season, it may rain alittle more during nov-jan, but it still rains now occasionally. But it is definitely a lot hotter now, and it is not enjoyable.
I also have come to generally enjoy the conversations my nanay and I have over dinner. I find out lots of random information, such as the construction material prices have increased because of elections. There are so many construction projects funded by politicians that supplies are short to come by. She said that people, like ten years ago, stopped buying fish that were caught using dynamite methods because they knew it was bad. You can tell if a fish has been dynamited by it’s eyes and swim bladder. Again, finding information out in random places in random times.
you never know what you'll find....
Random April Musings and happenings
I also had an abnormal amount of bruises, as in a bruise that was as big as my hand on my thigh and I don’t know how it got there. I generally bruise easily, and doing assessments and getting in an out of boats, I bump a lot of things, but this is a little excessive. So, I started to take my multi-vitamins again (which we are supposed to take every day). Maybe they helped, I don’t know.
And a random note about jeepneys. It seems to be pretty acceptable for totally random people to fall asleep on jeepneys and put their head on a random persons shoulder, like mine.
First day of biophysical assessments
We met in the office at 6:30 AM, and left the office around 7 when Trent arrived. We arrived in the barangay we were going to start assessments at around 8. Then we had to go meet the barangay captain, and let him know of our activities. We also asked if he could send three local people with us. So, after about another hour, we actually split up into the coral and mangrove teams and started to do the assessments. My co-workers who did the mangrove assessments with me are foresters and are very good at identifying the species and doing sampling. They just needed me there the first time to show them how the PCRA mangrove assessment works. Mangroves are considered wetland habitat, and normally they grow in very muddy areas. However, the mangroves in this barangay grew directly on rock, and it was all dead coral rock (like it had been dead for a hundred years). I’m still confused on how they could grow there, but it really made me wish I had different shoes. The dead coral rock is very uneven and sharp. I just wore my booties, like watershoes, and I wish I had had my heavy duty sandles, like my chacos. Oh Well. The coral rock is also very tricky to walk on, and one time I tripped and cut my knee up pretty well, but it was fine.
For the mangrove assessments, one transect consists of 5 consecutive, (temporary) 10 x 10 m plots, starting at the water and moving back perpendicular to the shore. So, we set up two 50 m ropes that are parallel to each other to start, and move in 10 x 10 me increments. For our assessment, we count the number of mature trees, and record each trees species, the tree height, and the crown diameter in the 10 x 10 m plots and the number of seedlings and saplings within three 1 x 1 m plots in the 10 x 10 me plots. Based on the average height, crown diameter, and diversity of trees, and number of saplings, you can get a general idea of the health of the ecosystem.
During the assessments, the people from the barangay that went with us were called guides, and that’s essentially what they were. They told us what citio we were in within the barangay, and also helped my co-workers identify trees that they didn’t know. I was really hoping that we would be able to teach them how to do the assessments, so they would actually participate in data collecting but that didn’t happen. Another thing that disappointed me was that one of my co-workers cut down some of the mangroves that were in the way of our transect lines. The mangrove areas can get really thick and difficult to walk through, but Julius could have just moved the 50 m rope instead of cutting down a tree. It didn’t need to be that exact. I didn’t notice what he was doing until the end of the day, because I didn’t go with him to set up the transect. I didn’t say anything because confronting people can lead to bad situations here, but later I’ll probably say something about how it is illegal to cut mangroves, even for sampling and that our lines don’t need to be exactly straight to the general group. Overall, though, I was really satisfied with how everything went.
Trent went with the coral group doing manta tow surveys. For these surveys, there is essentially a 1 m board that gets towed behind a boat, and one person (with a snorkel) holds onto it for a set amount of distance and estimates the percentage of live hard coral, white dead coral (recently dead), dead coral with algae (been dead for awhile), soft coral, and sand and rubble that they see during the tow. So, it is not very exact, but can cover large amounts of areas and is used to just get a general idea of the status of the coral. Ours was especially not exact because our boat speeds were never consistent due to the nature of the boats, weather, and curves in the reef (which slow the boat down). The speed is important because it affects how much area you can see and the detail of that area that you can see, and can make the estimates between tows not standardized. But, for our purposes, it still gives us an idea of what the corals look like. Trent said he saw some good areas when he went out, but by good, he meant less than 15% live coral cover, which is not good at all. But he saw a couple of bigger fish, which was a good sign. He said that they had a barangay fisherman go out with them, and the fisherman could do some crazy free diving. At the end of the day, my main counterpart, who organizes everything, gave the barangay people who assisted us money for the day, since they could not go out and get their food during the day.
Back to the training the barangay people subject, it bothered me for a while that in our biophysical assessments, our actual surveys, we were not including the barangay people, since it is a fundamental part of the Participatory Coastal Resource Assessment process. However, my mayor really wants the assessment done fast, and it would take more time and resources to organize and train groups of barangay people. Then I realized that I should probably start with training the municipality people first. Then as part of the CRM plan we create, we can incorporate training the barangay people and maybe set up a whole monitoring team into the 5 year plan.
First Day back after Guiuan - slow office, co-workers son's death
My first day back from Guiuan, I went into the office and there was not much going on so I used the internet. Later, around 11 AM, I talked to Mano DongDong, my supervisor, and was informed of all of the plans for Earth Day and that we had money to start assessments the next day. Apparently we are going to have a beach clean up on the 21st and then an ecological walk for a cause on the 22nd. We will be walking to the pier in brgy. Aroganga, then taking a boat to batag island, then walking to the lighthouse. We may be doing some cleaning at the lighthouse too. All month I had been asking when we were going to have an Earth day planning meeting and they had it when I was in Palapog. Oh well, the plans still sound good. Then, that afternoon had a meeting to discuss the assessments. So, I am supposed to be the leader the assessments and I found out a half day before we were going to do them. We had two groups of people, the mangrove and the coral, and luckily Trent was able to come on short notice so we could split up and show each group separately how to do the assessments. Trent confirmed at 6:30 the night before that he was going to leave his site at 4:45 AM so he could be to mine by 6:30 AM to start. But it was exciting news to find out we would finally be starting assessments.
After work that day, everyone in my office went over to Fred’s house (another person in our office) because his 26-year-old son had died over the weekend. Apparently he died from an allergic reaction to shrimp that was in some noodles (pancit) he accidentally ate while drinking. They say he died of his allergy and asthma, but I think when they say asthma they just mean he couldn’t breathe, probably because of the allergic reaction. But they were showing the body at Fred’s house, which is why we went. I think they just kept the body in the house until the funeral and burial.
First Day back after Guiuan - slow office, co-workers son's death
My first day back from Guiuan, I went into the office and there was not much going on so I used the internet. Later, around 11 AM, I talked to Mano DongDong, my supervisor, and was informed of all of the plans for Earth Day and that we had money to start assessments the next day. Apparently we are going to have a beach clean up on the 21st and then an ecological walk for a cause on the 22nd. We will be walking to the pier in brgy. Aroganga, then taking a boat to batag island, then walking to the lighthouse. We may be doing some cleaning at the lighthouse too. All month I had been asking when we were going to have an Earth day planning meeting and they had it when I was in Palapog. Oh well, the plans still sound good. Then, that afternoon had a meeting to discuss the assessments. So, I am supposed to be the leader the assessments and I found out a half day before we were going to do them. We had two groups of people, the mangrove and the coral, and luckily Trent was able to come on short notice so we could split up and show each group separately how to do the assessments. Trent confirmed at 6:30 the night before that he was going to leave his site at 4:45 AM so he could be to mine by 6:30 AM to start. But it was exciting news to find out we would finally be starting assessments.
After work that day, everyone in my office went over to Fred’s house (another person in our office) because his 26-year-old son had died over the weekend. Apparently he died from an allergic reaction to shrimp that was in some noodles (pancit) he accidentally ate while drinking. They say he died of his allergy and asthma, but I think when they say asthma they just mean he couldn’t breathe, probably because of the allergic reaction. But they were showing the body at Fred’s house, which is why we went. I think they just kept the body in the house until the funeral and burial.
Pete's EE Camp (Babatngon, Leyte)
When I arrived at 11:30, they had just started going over general expectations of the camp and some rules. After that we had lunch, then some trash barrel painting/labelling (recycling, composting, trash), and then some environmental games/ice breakers. After that we hiked maybe an hour and a half to our campsite. The walk had pretty parts, but was overall not the prettiest one I’ve been on. Pete’s counterparts also drove all of the gear to our “camp”. So, we didn’t have to walk with anything. Our camp was on the shore in a different coastal baranagy, and it was literally set up infront of some other people’s houses.
When we got there, the guys set up the “tents”, which were really more like the tents you would put over an event booth outside (see the pictures in Pete’s camp, Babatngon, Leyte Album). They set up a couple small one for the kids (there were probably around 30 kids) and then a couple of bigger ones with tarps on the side for all of the people helping out, which probably numbered around 20. We also arrived to a political campaign/rally in the barangay. (It is unclear whether they planned to go here before they knew about our camp, or went only because our camp was there and they wanted to claim some credit for the camp and having the American there). This involves the politicians blaring music and their speeches so loudly that anyone in the barangay can hear it from their house. So, that is what we heard all night, until midnight. You can imagine how fantastic that was, and totally did not detract from the whole purpose of the camp, to enjoy nature. After dinner, Pete, Trent, and Don spent quite awhile getting a laptop set up to a projectors to show a couple of movies to all the kids. I fell asleep before the movies even started.
Most of us woke up to the sunrise around 5:30, and if we didn’t, there was a house that started playing, or really blaring, music at 6:30 AM. The people who woke up early hiked to the waterfall, Don and I stayed back with the kids who were still waking up. After breakfast, we had a short talk about water quality stuff and then spit up into groups and sampled water along the river past the waterfall. I really enjoyed this, because we did some of the same measurements we did at MSC in Virginia. So, I actually felt like I knew something about it and love talking about it/explaining it. We then ate lunch and put everyone’s results from the various monitoring sites on a big chalkboard, and I discussed them with everyone. After that we started the beach clean-up, and it was pretty hot, but the kids did well. Then we had dinner, and everyone just relaxed/did their own thing for the night. The meals were all pretty good Filipino food, but the only bad thing was that everyone got their meal served in a Styrofoam take out container thing. So, after 3 meals for around 60 people for three days, we had lots of trash bags filled with Styrofoam, not a very environmentally friendly thing for an environmental camp focusing on solid waste management and reducing and reusing.
That night, several of us videoked and drank at one of the houses we were close to and then hung out by the water, listening/singing to guitar music and just enjoying the night. One thing very different about a Filipino and American camp is that we did not keep the kids occupied at all times. There was tons of down time, and this wouldn’t really fly in an American camp. But, American camps also are not free. Also, at night, most of the facilitators ended up drinking and no one really supervised the kids. I mean there was almost as many helpers/facilitators as kids and not many places for them to go unnoticed, but they really just let them roam free. Some facilitators even drank with the kids, because they were 18 and of legal age. This was totally acceptable.
Sunday, we woke up again around 5:30 AM and Pete’s counterparts were leading the morning activities. So most of the volunteers just played Monopoly Deal/read/relaxed until about 10:30. Then the close of ceremony started, which involved all of the facilitators (Peace Corps and Filipino) giving a short speech about their reactions to the camp, some music numbers by the kids, and handing out of certificates to everyone. After, Pete, Trent, and I got a ride back so we could leave for scuba, and the other PCV’s and Pete’s counterparts stayed and wrapped up everything. Overall, I had a pretty good time, and it was nice to sleep outside with some stars.
Earth Day 2010 and travel to Tacloban
Once there, I probably waited about 45 minutes until a boat was ready to take our group to Marubay. Then, we waited for probably another hour or two before the boats could shuttle everyone across. Once everyone was there, my supervisor and the tourism officer led a ceremony/rally talking about the devastating effects that the proposed bauxite mining (open pit) could have on Batag Island (the mine is a national government agenda) and then read the document and official request for denial of the mine which described why it was a bad idea. I completely agreed with everything they said. Then, they had all of the kids make a pledge/ sign the posters saying what they could do to prevent climate change. I had given a talk to the SK on climate change in January, so some of them actually knew what it was.
After that, we all walked to the lighthouse and planted a few trees. I didn’t stay up there very long, because I returned with the rest of the MENRO staff who had been there most of the morning preparing for the tree planting. Plus, I needed to return early so I could make it to Catarman to go to Tacloban that night. So, we had lunch, and around 1 or 2 PM, the first boat made its trip back to Aguadahan. I rode a trike back to Laoang with my co-workers, but all of the kids were getting rides from the dump trucks.
I then spent about an hour packing at headed to Catarman around 3 and arrived at 4:30. Unfortunately, there were no 5 or 6 PM vans straight to Tacloban, so I had to wait for the 7 PM. So, I went to an internet café, grabbed some BBQ pork dinner, and read until the van left around 7:15. For a straight, “direct trip” to Tacloban this van sure had a lot of stops. Unlike grand tours, we didn’t stop in Catbalogan and Calbayog to switch vans, but we stopped in both of the cities because they were essentially check points for the vans. The driver had to get out and sign something with one of the van company’s employees, and as nothing is short in the country, these stops took at least 15 minutes. Plus, this company drops people off at their house, so we went out of our way to some of these house. So, my “direct” trip didn’t end up being any shorter than the trip with grand tours, and I got to the Tacloban terminal around 12:30 AM Friday morning.
Unlike all of my counterparts, and Pete’s counterparts said, there were no more Jeeps to Babatngon, Leyte (where I was going) at that hour. So my options were to take a trike (P300) to Babatngon, but I decided against that, as I would have been traveling by myself to a place I didn’t know in the dark, and it was expensive. I could have also taken a trike into Tacloban (the terminal is a little outside the city), stayed at a pension house, and left around 5:30 AM for Babatngon. But the pension probably would have been closed at 1:30, and even if they were not, 4 hours of sleep hardly seemed worth the cost. So, I decided to just sleep in the Terminal. There was a pretty nice air con room with a bunch of chairs and about 20 other people sleeping in them waiting for morning transportation, plus there was a security guard there almost the whole time. So, I read for an hour when I arrived, then got a little bit of uncomfortable sleep. I got up at five to see if there were any jeepneys yet, but they said they started at 6 AM. While I was looking, I found Don’s counterpart, who apparently arrived around 2:30 that night/morning from Allen. So, we got on the 6:00 AM jeepney to Babtngon together. As we were waiting to leave on the jeepney, Bart, the PCV in Tacloban, also joined us, so we were one big happy party then.
I went to Pete’s site (Babatngon, Leyte) to help out with an Environmental Camp he was doing. There ended up being enough other volunteers (Pete, Don, Trent, Kelly, and Bart) that he didn’t really need me until 11 or 12ish on Friday, so I slept in Pete’s place for a few hours and then went with Pete’s wife Selena, to the municipio where they were starting activities. I felt surprisingly awake. The next post will talk about the camp.
Hair Cut and first EE camp in Northern Samar in San Jose, Cassy's site
April 19 and 20
Tuesday (April 20th) we went to Barangay Marubay to do our assessments. (I posted a photo album with a bunch of random pictures taken during our various barangay assessments - my work pics for April/March). Marubay is the barangay on Batag island where the lighthouse is and is about an hour to 1.5 hr boat ride from barangay Aguadahan, which is about a 20 minute trike ride from our office. The whole MENRO team went (so 13 people I think), and we met in the office at about 6:30, didn’t leave until about 7:30, and we were on the water by about 8. So, i’m sort of used to the whole waiting thing, but it still annoys me. Especially when it’s in the morning and I could have slept an extra hour. The water ended up being super calm, and I wish we could have split up so we (the biophysical assessment team) could have done our coral assessment of barangay Calomotan. We hadn’t been able to the entire week before since for whatever reason it was always too wavy. But my supervisor wanted us to all go together; mainly he wanted me to show up with the socio-economic team so more people would show up for our activities. So you know, whatever role I can play, whether its helping write a CRM plan or being the white person who attracts people, as long as I can help. Lol. I’m pretty good at and have gotten used to the whole white person role. Now, people have been commenting that my skin is “pili” or dark. I’m turning into a Filipino apparently…
Anyway, we waited until about 10 AM for people to gather and get organized (we could have done the assessment in Calomotan by this time….) and they still were not. So, the biophysical assessment team left to assess the coral reefs in barangay Marubay. We found less than 5% live coral cover, which is what we have been finding in most places. Pretty sad. There was evidence of dynamite fishing in these reefs. We returned around 11:30 for lunch, and caught the last part of the socio-economic stuff going on, and I introduced myself to everyone at the meeting. When I walked into the school room that the meeting was in, everyone started clapping. I am truly the celebrity American, haha.
For lunch we had rice, jack fruit, fish, and shells. I took a picture of the shells (snails). They look disgusting but don’t taste that bad, once you get over the chewiness. We finished lunch around 1:30, and then our biophysical team tried to go to Calomotan to do the assessment there, but by the afternoon it was already too wavy. So we returned and did the sea grass assessment in Marubay. They seemed to have pretty nice cover, with 6 different species, which is very good. We finished around 4 and then went back up to the socio-economic stuff. They were wrapping up their focus group discussion and then my supervisor explained to them why they have not received electricity yet (they just use generators). But they are supposed to have electricity for the elections because the ballots will be counted electronically. I didn’t listen to his speech, I was talking to other people. We left Marubay at 5, whichs means that I didn’t get back until around 6:45, and was pretty tired.
This is from back in February when I was pretty sick... I apparently never posted it
Unsustainable Solid Waste Management: An LBM Saga
Not for the faint of stomach…..
Wednesday morning I had some unfortunate bowel movements. It is now the following Monday night, and I am unconvinced they have stopped (though the last one was at 9 AM this morning). Before this week, nothing that I previously had lasted more than 12 hours. I was fully expecting that to be the case on Wednesday, and I was so wrong.
Thursday morning, during my normal routine of showering and what not, I realized I still did not have solid BM. I was surprised, but not that worried and just took a couple Immodium and felt almost normal. Now, the following is what I have learned about Immodium and myself; instead of passing a bowel movement, it makes me pass gas. This is obviously much preferred, but the only problem is that I can’t really tell which one it is going to be. I just hope it’s a fart, and not a shart or something worse. Thursday morning, around 9:30 AM, I was in the office and thought I was going to pass gas. Well I was wrong. It ended up being a full fledged LBM, not even a shart. But, I guess lucky for me, it was that special time of month, and I was using a pad. So, somehow, very little actually ended up in my underwear, and saving me from complete office embarrassment. Nonetheless, I still had to go home and change, and surprisingly (or not that surprisingly) no one asked me why I went home or what I did, thankfully. I took two more immodium and that plugged me up for the rest of Thursday and Friday. I thought I was home free.
Before I continue, I should tell you that my nanay essentially constructed a shower next to the toilet. And by that, I mean that she put up plastic shower walls around the bucket of water we use to bathe. My main point being that the labo and water are no longer reachable from the toilet, because there is a wall there. We just use toilet paper (which I am very pleased with). At first I thought the walls were great, and liked thm because it kept the toilet seat dry. Soon, however, it became annoying when the water was turned off (which is 90% of the time) since I had to walk in and out of the shower with the Labo in hand, trying not to spill it when the door slammed on my arm, just in order to flush the toilet. This “shower” was even more annoying when it prevented my access to water when I had substances on my rear end that toilet paper alone can’t really clean. Also, my bedroom is on the second floor and the bathroom is connected to my nanays room on the first floor. So, if there is not much warning, things get messy fast.
So, back to the story, I was not home free. Saturday morning, another PCV and I were planning on heading to a third PCV’s site early morning. But, I instead woke up to more LBM’s. So, around 7 AM, I took a couple of immodium and waited for them to kick in. But they didn’t, and the spacing of the LBM’s were not consistent. Sometimes I would go twice within 5 minutes, other times it would be twice in a half hour. Due to that and because sometimes I thought (too hopefully) that I was passing gas, I think I went through 3 pairs of underwear and one pair of pants Saturday morning by 9:30. At this point, I decided to prepare a stool sample and take two more immodium. That is also when I finally got smart and decided to move the bucket of water out of the shower next to me (genius…. But it only took how many LBMs…?).
Around 10:15, I felt like things were slowing down enough for me to drop my stool sample off at my local hospital, like a 5-minute trike ride away. So, I went, only to find that the lab was closed on weekends, but there was a private hospital in a neighboring barangay (where we could also catch transportation to the 3rd PCVs site). Then, I actually thought things were stopped enough to walk home. Nope. Another LBM, though I could mostly hold it in and it was not very big (I don’t think there was much left in my system). It just told me I was not ready to travel yet. However, other than LBM’s I felt fine and still wanted to go to the 3rd PCV’s site. If nothing else, I at least wanted to drop off my sample off at the second lab. When I returned, I did put the sample in the fridge to preserve it (but don’t worry, it was wrapped a lot and there were only like 3 other things in the fridge). So, I took 2 more immodium and around noon things actually did stop. I waited another hour, and took one more immodium just to make sure, and left around 1:30. Besides LBM’s, I felt fine. No vomiting or even stomachache, just a little fatigue from hardly eating any food because I didn’t have an appetite. So, once things stopped I felt good to go.
I took my stool sample with me, but the private hospital in the other barangay was closed, even though people at the first hospital said it would be open (was I surprised, not really). So, I ended up taking the sample with me to the other PCV’s site and back to my site and then threw it away. Not sure why I didn’t just throw it away quickly. Once in the third PCV’s site, we had a “Mexican” food night. Then we did the typical play cards and videoke, and I had no issues. That is until about 3 AM. I was groggy and don’t know how long it lasted, but at some point I took 3 immodium because I just wanted it to stop, and thankfully, it eventually did.
Sunday morning, I woke up to some more LBMs but quickly took 2 more immodium when I woke up and one after breakfast. Then things plugged up enough to go on a beach hike. Again, I was a little fatigued, especially after not having slept well, but otherwise felt fine, and wanted to do something active rather than sit on my butt and feel sorry for myself. The hike ended up being great, once it actually started. We returned around 1, had lunch, and I took 2 more immodium to be sure I’d be able to make the trip back. The rest of Sunday was fine.
Monday morning, I had like 15 minutes more of LBM’s and took one immodium and things stopped again. I took another stool sample and took it to the local lab. Naturally, with no communication between us, my counterparts also showed up at the lab worried because I did not have a kasama. Turns out that I had no amoebas, parasites, or worms. So, PCMO thought it must have been some sort of bacteria. They also told me that I shouldn’t take more than 2 immodium in a day because it could have bad side effects. I’m guessing that it could prevent the body from flushing out the things it needs to. (The 3rd PCV’s packet of immodium said not to take more than 6 in a day). I guess I missed that guideline by just a little bit, or a lot bit. Whoops. Hopefully, this does not permanently affect my ability to pass bowel movements. I returned from the hospital around 9 AM and proceeded to sleep the rest of the morning. It’s now Monday night and I’m feeling better. I actually had an appetite at dinner and have not gone to the bathroom since the morning.
- An anonymous Visayan supporter of sustainable solid waste management
Alittle bit about Coconut Oil
“There is presently a growing awareness that it is not only the amount of fat in the diet that is important, but also the type. It has been found that the more saturated the fat, the more likely it is to contribute to arteriosclerosis and heart disease. Therefore, emphasis has been placed on the use of polyunsaturated fats, or those with a low P/S (polyunsaturated/saturated) ratio. For comparison purposes, corn oil, which is considered highly unsaturated and therefore desirable, has a P/S ratio of 1:2. Meat fat has a P/S ratio of 1:24; butter, 1:34; and coconut oil, 1:54. Coconut oil is the big exception to the rule that animal fats are generally very saturated while vegetable fats are generally unsaturated. The cooking oil that is being used by most Filipinos is largely coconut oil.”
Donsol Whale Shark Adventure 4/9-4/12 2010
We arrived at our hotel/resort rather late and night on Friday, and quickly proceeded to eat dinner. The resort actually had pretty good food, I was impressed. We then checked into our room, which had a fan and private bath. It was originally intended for 3 people, but we had five so they brought in 2 extra mattresses for a small fee, and we literally covered the entire floor. It looked pretty hilarious in there. But we didn’t care, because all we would be doing in the room was sleeping. That night, we had a couple of beers and met and chatted with a couple of Canadian guys who had been travelling for a couple months around Asia.
Bryan had arrived before the other four of us, because he was coming from the north, and us from the south. He said he had reserved a boat for us to see the whale sharks at 10:30 AM on Saturday. So the next morning, we had nice mango pancakes for breakfast and prepared for our expedition. We arrived only to find that our boat was not in fact reserved, because Bryan did not pay for the entire thing. A necessary detail that the clerk failed to inform him of. So, we scheduled one for 7 AM the following morning. We then just spent a wonderful day relaxing on the beach. The first time I had really done it, as in sitting in a chair with a drink in hand wearing only my one-piece bathing suit and athletic shorts, in the Philippines. Later that night we ate at a near by resort, which had awesome food and actual real mixed drinks. It was really expensive, as in 700 pesos for a meal, but it was really good. Then, I think it was that night that we had a bonfire and discovered the ctenaphores. They are plankton that look like jellyfish without the tentacles and they are bioluminescent when agitated (as in mixing of the water). So, when we swam, any place we had just been would light up. It was really awesome. We were also skinny-dipping.
Sunday morning we had our whale shark adventure and it was awesome. It takes about an hour on boat to get to the spot where they are, and it was a pretty boat ride. Then, I don’t even know how many whale sharks we saw, we ended up seeing so many. One time, I ignored all of the environmental principals I have ever learned and touched one. The only bad thing was that sometimes there were so many people you would be swimming and kicking into one another. It was also the most intense I have see some Filipinos get. All of the guides really want you to see a whale shark, and once they spot one, the boat circles in front of the shark, perpendicular to it. Then, you’ll jump into the water and the shark will swim right under you. But sometimes the timing would be off, or there was a really short notice so it was hard to get the snorkel gear back on fast enough. In this case our guide would just yell, go, go, go, GO, gradually getting louder and faster with each “go”. It was entertaining. Overall, it was an awesome experience.
We spent the rest of the day just chillaxin, and in the evening we took a firefly cruise. We left on a boat from our resort to go up the river where fireflys live on some mangrove trees. It was a clear night, so the stars were beautiful too. But the fireflys were really neat. Tons of them would congregate around just one tree, making it look as though the tree had moving Christmas lights. It sort of reminded me of Avetar too. We tree hopped for a couple of hours, and then returned. It was the perfect compliment to the whale sharks, a very relaxing and beautiful evening. Then Monday, we all started our journey back, described in my other entry.
Guiuan Holy Week
Overall, the trip was great. I arrived before some of the other volunteers so Tori and Brandon could show me around. They took me to the BFAR run hatchery and that was really interesting to see. They raise milkfish and crab fry that are then given/sold to fisherfolk to put in the fishponds. I also walked around with them as they were trying to secure transportation for the group for the week’s adventures, and once again was shown that Filipinos generally don’t plan anything in advance. They had been asking for weeks to reserve a jeep or multicab to take us to some of the beaches, and still nothing was finalized.
Everything worked out though because almost everyone arrived on time on Wednesday, and the multicab was finalized about 2 hours before we left. So we were able to go to the beach for lunch, and it was awesome. We were on the pacific side; it was so rocky and the waves were gigantic, very pretty. Then we went to a place where they make Tuba, a coconut wine, and drank there for a bit. Then we went to another beach that was on the Leyte Gulf side, I think, but still gorgeous. It was quite shallow, but there was a place where the American military bombed out a swimming hole many years ago that was neat to swim in. Walking out there though, Tori accidentally stepped on a small octopus and freaked out. Having a few tentacles stuck to your feet, when you are wearing keens and not expecting it is creepy. But, I helped her pull of the tentacles, which had detached from the octopus. They were still surprisingly sticky. That night, the San Roque cluster rocked some videoke. The pension that Don was staying at also locked their doors at midnight; so he had to wake Cassy, his girlfriend, up to get her to let him in.
On Friday, Alyssa (who is Jewish) and Eric (and Trent and Sky) spent most of the day cooking a Sader dinner (Jewish Passover). The rest of us just hung out at a cool restaurant with a swimming pool by the water and just played games and dyed some Easter Eggs. We were told that everything was going to be shut down because it was Good Friday, so that’s why Tori and Brandon planned a chill day, but it turns out that almost everything was up and running. We went over to Eric’s host family’s house for dinner, where they were cooking, and they were not done until about 8 PM, much later then they expected. I don’t think they (or anyone) knew exactly what they were getting into, trying to cook for 20 people in a rather small kitchen. Normally there is a ceremony that happens while you eat, but because Alyssa was so burnt out from cooking, we just ate the food. It was all delicious and all semi- kosher (well as much as you can get in the Philippines) and mostly Matza based. We all bought wine to drink; Trent and I found bottled Franzia, which I have never seen in the states, only in boxes. It tasted like what you would expect, which is pretty darn good in the Philippines. Then we spent 2 hours doing dishes, because there were a ton of them, the sink was small, and there was really no running water.
Saturday morning we went to Pearl Island for relaxing and snorkeling with giant clams. It was really cool. The BFAR in Guiuan raises them in a hatchery like place and then plants them in the water. Later, Brandon and I swam to a sandbar like island about 100m off of Pearl Island through a rather wavy channel to see if there were corals there. While he was out, he saw a black tip reef shark (not dangerous). I didn’t see anything, just many of the same type of fish. I was jealous. Sunday (Easter) was Brandon’s birthday and when everyone was returning, so Saturday night we went out to the most club like bar I have seen in the eastern visayas for some dancing; it was a good time.
Around 4 AM on Sunday, I heard parts of the Easter the parade that happened down the main street. Apparently the whole walk was meant to represent the walk from the garden of Gesthemane (I should know how to spell that but I don’t) to the cross. We saw floats being prepared for it during the previous days. Tori and Brandon tried to go but said there were so many people kneeling on the streets that they couldn’t really leave the house. There were rumors that there might be people who actually mimic the crucifixion by nailing themselves to the cross, which is done in some areas in northern Luzon, but we don’t think it happened.
Also, in many places in region 8, is tradition that the birthday person’s friends will give him a mana neeta. This means that they all get up quite early, as in 4 AM, and go sing various love songs to the birthday person outside their house. Then the birthday person has to provide the singers breakfast. Tori and Brandon joined the Mana Neeta group in the LGU that sings to everyone, so they were definitely hosting many people for breakfast on Brandon’s birthday. Tori and Brandon invited us all for breakfast too, and I managed to get there around 5 AM, after all the singing took place. Then at 6:10 AM I watched MSU play Butler in the final four in our pension room. Disappointing end. Then we watched Duke play West Virginia and then Trent, Kris, Kris’s sister, Megan, who was visiting, and I left for Tacloban. We spent the night there in what turned out to be a rather nice pension room and ate at a great restaurant, called Ocho, that made awesome fresh sea food, vegetables, and other meat cooked however you wanted, including with butter and not fried. Overall, it was a great break, though I did really miss going to church.
Travel Documentary: Guiuan, Donsol
To Guiuan from my site: The following is the outline of my day travelling to Guiuan.
Walking to pier in Laoang at 6:00 AM: 5 min
Wait for boat to fill up: 10 min.
Boat ride: 15 min. 7 PhP
Walk to Jeepney and wait to fill up: 15 min
Jeepney ride (left at 6:40 AM): 1 hr 15 min, 50 PhP
Arrive at Grand Tour Van Terminal 7:55 AM
Wait for Van: 10 minutes
Van ride to Calbayog: 1.5 hr, 100 PhP
Wait for van to Catbalogan: 10 min
Van ride Catbalogan to Calbayog: 1.5 hr, 100 PhP
Wait for van to Tacloban: 20 min
Van Ride to Tacloban: 1 hr, 15 min, 100 PhP
Arrive in Tac 12:45 PM
Eat at McDonalds 1:00 – 1:40
Go to Duptours Van terminal and wait for van to Guiuan: 50 min
Leave Tacloban: 2:30 PM
Van ride to Guiuan: 4 hr, ~130 PhP
Arrive in Guiuan 6:30 PM
Total Travel time: ~ 12.5 hours
Total Wait time: ~ 1 hour 45 min.
Fare: ~ 587 PhP
From Guiuan to my site, everything was about the same except van ride to Tacloban was only 3 hours and we spent the night in Tacloban. The distances and routes never change, just traffic, vehicle condition, and number of passengers picking up and dropping off. The van we ride in hold 12 -14 people, and kids sit on their parent’s laps. Your baggage will either go underneath some of the seats or on your lap. If it takes up a seat, you have to pay for that seat. My knees were always touching the seat infront of me, the vans are quite small. It is not a comfortable ride, but most of the time it is not that uncomfortable either, just manageable.
The following outlines travel from my site to Donsol:
Walked to pier and wait for boat to fill up, left at 6:15 AM: 20 min.
Boat ride: 25 min, 7 PhP
Wait for bus in Rawis: 1 hr 10 min
Fare for air con bus ride to Sorsogon, with ferry price included: 500 Php
Bus ride to Catarman: 1 hr 15 min.
Wait in Catarman (nobody got on our off the bus, very strange): 45 min
Bus ride to Allen: 1 hour (Arrive in Allen at 11)
Wait for ferry to leave: 3 hours 15 min
Ferry terminal fees: 25 PhP
Ferry ride: 1 hour 20 min
Bus ride to Sorsogon: 1 hour 10 min.
Trike ride to Sorsogon proper/jeepneys: 15 min, ~ 10 PhP
Arrive in Sorsogon: 5 PM
Find and wait for van to leave: 20 min
Van from Sorsogon to Putiao: 45 min, 60 PhP
Wait for Jeep from Putiao to Pilar: 7 min
Jeep ride to Pilar: 40 min: 40 Php
Trike ride from Pilar to Resort in Donsol: 35 min, 50 PhP
Arrive in Donsol ~ 7:30
Total Travel time: 7 hours 20 min
Total wait time: 5 hours, 57 min
Total Cost: 692 PhP
The big glitch in this trip was the boat. Apparently there is no regular schedule, it just leaves when there are enough busses to fill the boat. So, we had to wait. But Allen, the town where the boats leave from, is Don’s site, so we got to eat lunch with him. I met a women/family on the bus leaving from Rawis and she was gracious enough to help guide us through the process, since the drivers did not explain what was going on, as in when the boat was going to leave and if the boat ticket was already paid for, and what terminal fees we need to pay. The buses are nice though, and essentially charter busses. So we had plenty of leg room, air con, and watched a couple movies. We also thought we could catch a van or jeepney from Sorsogon to Donsol. We were mistaken, and we also arrived to Sorsogon later in the afternoon when transportation starts to slow down. So we caught whatever transportation we could going in our direction, as we did really want to end up in a random transit town overnight.
Donsol to Rawis:
Leave at 7:30 AM
Trike from resort to Donsol proper: 15 min, 20 PhP
Wait for Jeepney to Putiao: 30 min
Jeepney ride Donsol to Putiao 1 hr, 40 PhP
Wait for Bus to Matnog: 10 min
Bus Putiao to Matnog Crossing: 1.5 hrs 80 PhP
Wait for bus from Matnog Crossing to Matnog Port: 15 min
Bus to Matnog Port: 20 min, 25 PhP
Ferry Terminal Fees: 11.20 PhP
Ferry Ticket: 120 PhP
Wait for Ferry: 30 min (Leave 12:10 PM)
Ferry ride: 1 hr 20 min
Wait for Jeepney to fill: 20 min
Jeepney ride Allen to Catarman: 1.5 hours, 60 PhP
Wait for Jeepney to fill: 20 min
Jeepney ride Catarman to Rawis: 1.5 hours, 50 PhP
Wait for Bangka to fill: 5 min
Bangka Ride – 15 min, 7 PhP
Total travel time: 7 hours 40 min
Total wait time: ~ 2 hours 10 min
Total cost: ~ 513.20
Coming back from Donsol seemed to go much smoother, all the transportation connections worked out, especially the ferry. I was traveling bymyself, since the rest of my crew had other places to go. Dan left Donsol at 4:30 AM in hopes of catching an early ferry, and I left at 7:30 AM. We were on the same boat. Riding from Donsol to Putiao, I was in an awesome seat on the jeepney that was very breezy and had great views.
The bus was not air con coming back, but with all the windows open it was plenty cool. We watched the movie Herbie. When I got on the bus, I asked if it was going to Matnog, and he said Matnog crossing. I thought he meant Matnog crossing, as in where the boat crosses to water to Allen, and apparently I was wrong. If that was the case, Matnog is the last place that the bus stops, as there is no more road. So, I was nodding off and on, not paying much attention to where I was going. Then, sort of suddenly, the fare collector on the bus tells me that we were at the stop, Matnog crossing. I’m glad he woke me up, or who knows where I would have gone, but it was in his best interest to wake me since I only paid the fare to go there. Apparently there is a split in the road in the municipality of Matnog, one goes to the ferry and the other to a different direction. So, I was dropped off at this random intersection, and didn’t really know where I was. Then I realized that I am getting used to transportation in the Philippines as I was surprisingly not worried at all.
At this intersection, I met some nice random guys who told me that I could take a trike to the port in Matnog, but it would cost 150 pesos for the whole thing. So, I said I would wait for more people to fill it up. I was there maybe ten minutes, and one jeepney passed in the direction I was going and they told me to get on it, but then stopped me when they realized it wasn’t going all the way to the port. The next bus they waved down for me (not that I couldn’t do it, but they were excited about helping) and facilitated my transportation. They were nice guys and were actually a big help.
On the jeepney ride from Allen to Catarman, I rode with I think 5 live roosters, probably going to a fight and drove by/through a political caravan and rally (I’ll talk more about politics in another post). I’ve come to realize that you can’t really plan transportation in the Philippines. There are not that many roads and during the day there will always be vehicles going back and forth, you’ve just got to wait and catch one. It just becomes more tricky around 5 o’clock when things start to shut down and vehicles stop.
Monday March 29 - disagreement, womens month, text mate
Monday morning I arrived in the office thinking it was going to be another day with nothing planned, and I was going to use the internet. As I’m walking to the office, the post office people flag me down and tell me I have two packages. Yeah! Apparently they had arrived the Thursday before, but I had been in Palapog so I was not able to get them. So I went in and picked them up and walked back to my house to return them and then walked back to the office. When I arrived, I started talking with my co-workers and eventually asked Malin if she had the rest of the transportation money for me from my transport to Palapog for the graduation. Apparently, this was a bad question to ask.
I’m not sure of everything that happened, because Malin was speaking fast Waray-Waray, but apparently she was upset because she did not have an “upod” or companion to return from Palapog with since I spent the night there. It took awhile for me to figure out what she was upset about, and I don’t think she was necessarily upset with me, but at the situation. My supervisor knew that I was spending the night, but somehow that wasn’t relayed to Malin. I also told her about a half hour into the trip, but maybe by then she didn’t feel like saying anything. As we were talking, someone came and told my office that we needed to go to the covered court, the auditorium like thing back by my house for the womens month celebration. So, we left our discussion unresolved. About an hour later, I was told my some of my counterparts not to worry about it and that Malin was just overreacting. Being the American I am, I wanted to confront her later and make sure everything was alright between us, but that is not the way here, especially since 3rd party intervention already happened.
For the womens month celebration, the mayor brought in her husbands brothers wife (who is a laywer and used to practice in the states) to speak infront of the whole LGU and various other community groups about the influence women can have on society and 8 principles to live by. It was basically a womens empowerment speech in Tagalog. All of the municipal council people were there and naturally I was told to sit with them. This is so awkward because they sit infront of the whole crowd behind the speaker, so everyone is looking at them (me), and I don’t really feel like I am as important as they are. Luckily they did not ask me to say something in Waray-Waray (I wasn’t in the mood) and they moved the tables about half way through so people could see the power point better.
The event ended before lunch, so I ate and then went back to the office. On my way to the office, the post office people stopped me again and said I had another package. This time it was from my mom! 3 packages in one day, it was awesome! So, I walked it back to my house and then returned to the office only to find that everyone was going back to the covered court for some training on voting or something political that didn’t apply to me. So, I went to use the internet in the municipio and the few people in the office were discussing trying to find me a boyfriend or text mate in Waray-Waray, as if I wasn’t there. Eventually I chimed in and said that I couldn’t have a text mate because my phone is only for work, but just another example of how every Filipino wants all the Americans to “find love” here. After my internet, I spent the rest of the afternoon packing for Guiuan for Easter.
Saturday March 27 - Bball and Earth Hour
Saturday morning, Trent and I woke up to go play basketball at 5 AM. This is the first time I had played with Filipinos. It was also all guys, and I was still the tallest one. Girls don’t normally play basketball, at least not the daily games that happen everywhere. But apparently there are leagues somewhere and girls basketball in high school, but I have yet to see it. The common stereotype is that ALL girls who play basketball are tomboys, or lesbians. Now, I’m not sure if this is in reference to just girls who play with guys, or all girls, even if it is an all girls game. But I definitely overheard some comments saying that about me, half-way jokingly. It’s just not typical for girls to play with guys. I want to play in Laoang, but first I need to meet someone who can give me an “in”. Even though it took awhile for the game to get started, it was still fun.
I returned to Laoang around 1, and then just cleaned and organized my room and uploaded some pictures. I also noticed my Chacos (which I live in) were starting to smell pretty bad, or as all the volunteers say, get the funk. So I looked at them more closely and found that there was dirt caked in the small grooves on the top of the sole. So, I spent about a half hour with my letherman cleaning out the junk that had been caked in my shoes from walking in rainwater, and mud, and everything. That didn’t remove the smell, so I doused them with alittle Isopropyl, put them in boiling water, then let them dry in the sun. It’s the volunteer tried and true method for removing funk, and it seemed to work.
Then Saturday night, from 8:30 to 9:30, it was Earth hour, where many places in the world shut of most of their power for an hour for energy conservation awareness. My supervisor promoted it and told us that we should all turn off our lights, and that the municipal was going to send “announcers” or “shouters” down the streets around 8:15 to remind people to turn off the lights. Well the time came and that didn’t happen, and no one turned off the power. But I asked my nanay if we could and she was surprisingly excited to do it; she saw it on a commercial on TV. So, we did and then went outside, because it was really warm inside without the fan. We sat for 15 minutes, and since the mayors house is so close, I thought I would check and see if anyone was there that could still send around the announcers. Not surprisingly there wasn’t, but then my nanay suggested we go talk to our barangay Capitan and see if he could turn off the streetlights. So we walked to his house and they were not really interested (I don’t blame them, I don’t think there was any planning for it as no one was turning off the lights). But it was good to meet them and talk to them for a while. Overall, the hour was a good bonding time for my nanay and I.
Northern Samar Environmental Protectors and English Pub
As a Peace Corps volunteer, you learn to expect the unexpected and still be surprised. The provincial people left around 7 and Trent wanted to check out a hotel/pension house/restaurant close by that he heard was nice. Was it ever! As soon as you stepped inside, you left the Philippines and were in an English pub. It really did felt like you were not in the Philippines anymore. An English Pub in Palapog. What!?! So random, but so awesome. While they had fake tap decorations, they did not actually have any other beer besides San Miguel. But they did have some liquor and frosted mugs, and darts. Trent and I stayed there until about 9, then called it a night.
Graduation Speech 3/25
I was escorted to lunch with the schools program director, or PTA supervisor, I don’t know his title, to eat with the family of one of the honor students . I hardly talked with the student, just his father. I think that is pretty typical; the parents talk to the guests. After lunch we had about 45 minutes before anything started, so I was told to take a rest and took a nap in a room upstairs. This was rather nice because I didn’t sleep well at Sky’s the night before. I left Laoang wearing what I would wear for the ceremony, my skirt, black top, and shawl thing.
After I woke up, and was taken by trike to the gymnasium where my name was plastered on the wall in huge writing (I’ll post a picture once I get it from Trent), and immediately it was announced that the guest of honor had arrived and I “marched” down the center of the whole length of the gym. It was all very ceremonial. There were 8 seniors graduating and about 13 kindergarteners. The graduation ceremony lasted about 4.5 hours. In addition to giving medals and diplomas to the graduates, medals of honor/achievements were given out to all of the other grades in the school. Each grade also did a dance number, and there were 3 or 4 prose like speakers, in addition to the valedictorian, salutatorian, and my address and some other random things.
The principal had asked for my resume to introduce me, so I gave it to them. And in her introduction, she literally read almost everything that was listed on my resume and the year accomplished. She also added some of her own flowering words about me, but one of my favorite lines was something like, she is young but well accomplished, blah blah blah, but most importantly, she is an American. Ah, the true reason I was invited. It was just funny after reading my resume and saying nice things all about me, then finally saying the real reason I was invited. Lol. I think my speech went well. It is attached if you want to read it. It’s not very eloquent and very cliché, but I’d be lucky if half of the people could even understand what I said, despite speaking very, very slowly. But, I did get a nice fruit basket out of the gig and free transportation to and from Palapog, and it was fun, even though boring at times.
After the ceremony, we went to 2 of the graduates houses for their parties. Later in the night, I met two Canadians who were part of the Canadian NGO that sponsers children and a school, Liceo de Bethlehem, in Laoang. The principal is the same as the schools that I spoke at, which is how I got invited to speak in the first place. The principal asked me to speak in Palapog when I was speaking at the English month ceremony in Liceo. This is also the reason that Trent was not invited to speak, even though he was the volunteer in Palapog. He had not met the principal yet. But I gave him a hard time about my name being on his municipalities gym and not his. Then, I stayed that night at Trent’s house. His host family has an extra bedroom on the second floor of their attachment. But at night I could see awesome stars when I stepped outside.
BFAR meetings/rent-to-own trainings 3/24
Anyway, Trent arrived and while using internet in my municipo, got a call from his counterpart from Palapog. She told him to go to UEP (University of Eastern Philippines) for the mud-crab training meeting. Mind you, she is talking in Waray, we are talking in English, and the phone reception is not good. But eventually we thought we had things figured out. So, apparently there were two separate BFAR meetings going on in Laoang, and the surprising thing is my supervisor didn’t know about it. He seems to know about everything, but whatever. So, we (one of the people in my office and I) went with Trent to UEP to make sure his meeting was there (and it was on the way to our training in Aroganga). We arrived, and then walked all the way to the back of the University. I had never been on the grounds, and they were actually pretty nice. There was a great open space, and in the back they had fishponds that they did research on. News to me. So, even though I had to pay slightly more since Trent got off the trike early, I learned something new. That’s how it always happens here. You learn something when you least expect it.
I arrived in Aroganga and the training was already going on, and there wasn’t much space so I just sat outside with my counterparts. I think they were working on fisherfolk registration paperwork, because you couldn’t participate in the BFAR program unless you were a registered fisherfolk. This is how it should be, but it is still a new concept so some folks were not registered. So I spent most of my time just sitting around playing games on my phone being the American, because there was not much I could do to help. But I also did some significant social networking/relationship building with some national and regional BFAR people, which was good. After the training, Trent and I went to Pambujan to spend the night with Sky. We rode to Pambujan in a jeep that was full of fish, like two huge crates of them, apparently going to Catarman to be sold. These strange/random things have sort of stopped being surprising and more like it’s just life in the Philippines.
The rent-to-own fish trainings are part of a program launched by the national BFAR, which is going to place about 50 fish cages which fisherfolk will run in the Mariculture park as a livelihood project. Laoang is very lucky to have the project. Many of the fisherfolk who will have them, use illegal fishing methods, like dynamite and cyanide. Hopefully this project gets them out of the water and just raising fish. So, BFAR is training the fisherfolk on how to make and run the cages, and the fisherfolk rent the cages from BFAR until the total amount of their payed rent covers the cost of the cage, and then they own it. I think it could be a really successful project, and BFAR has even built an office by the main port. I will just tag on and try to help them anyway I can. I’ll start by doing an assessment of the resources in the area (with my office) to make sure they are not putting fish ponds on top of healthy ecosystems, because the ponds would damage it.
translating PCRA and housing
Today was sort of interesting. I feel like I accomplished a good amount at work and also spent about 3 hours just talking to my co-workers. It was a really nice day today, and for the morning I brought my computer outside in our cute little sitting area with a view of the water and translated the words with my co-workers. Around 10:30 we ate snack (frozen ice, and fresh baked bread/pastry things) and no one did anything after that but just talk.
After lunch, I compiled some EE activities that might be good to do when I visit Shala’s sight. She is working with kids in conflict with the law in Manila, and I am going to spend a day at her site doing activities with her after I participate in the Project Advisory Committee (PAC) in Manila in a week. Then I started to organize/compile some of our gender related data.
Over the last two days, I’ve translated (with my counterparts telling me what words mean) all of the PCRA (Participatory Coastal Resource Assessment) data we collected the first two weeks in February. This is a lot of stuff, and regardless of what I do with the data, it made me feel productive because I created an excel sheet with all of the Waray-Waray and English words that were covered in the translation. There are a lot of technicalish terms, and the list might really help out some of the other volunteers, so I felt good about that. Also, now that I know what was actually said, I can go about figuring out how to organize it all in a way that makes sense. While a little mundane at times, it is a type of challenge I like.
I stopped really working around 3 or 3:30 today and again just hung out and talked outside our office. I found out that the Solid Waste employees of the LGU, which under in the MENRO office, decided to create a “cottage” by the trees in our sitting area. I saw trees being cut down by the church earlier in the week, and apparently they salvaged them and decided to build this. When it’s finished it could be a cool tree-houseish structure with a good view of the river/ocean below.
I also brought up my housing situation again, saying that I need a place with cell phone service and that Sky found someone to build a nipa hut just for her. So, they suggested that the barangay capitan in brgy. Aroganga, where they found the house for me, just build me a nipa hut in a place in the barangay with cell phone service. They also told me that there is a short cut road, that cuts from behind the hospital to the barangay, going up and down two hills. But if it really is just like a 20-minute walk from the town proper, I’d be ok with living there. We’ll see how everything works out, but I can tell my counterparts really want me to live in this barangay.
Regional BFAR meeting - Tacloban visit
Thursday (3/4), the regional Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) office (which would be sort of like a state level office in the US, the hierarchy of offices in the Philippines being National, Regional, Provincial, Municipal, and Barangay level) asked to have a meeting at their office in Tacloban, Leyte with all of the CRM volunteers in Region 8 (Biliran, Leyte, and Samar). They were already having a meeting with our Peace Corps CRM supervisor (sector manager), Joyce, to discuss priority areas in placing the next batch of volunteers. Either Joyce or the BFAR people recommended meeting all of us, but we found out about the meeting during our PDM in Manila. So we were back at site for 3 work days, and then left again.
To get to Tacloban in time for our meeting at 1:30 on Thursday, we took the van that left Catarman for Tacloban at 6 AM. Since I would have had to leave my site around 4:30 AM to get there in time, Trent (who is further away) and I spent Wednesday night in Catarman with Emma, the education volunteer. Trent and I left her house at 5:15 AM Thursday, since we did not know if trikes or pedicabs were running that early, or if the highway was open to cross (it closes sometime early in the morning for the planes). (The runway is perpendicular to the highway, but they still have to close down that section of the highway and all of the traffic has to go completely around the runway). Surprisingly Don, Cassy, and Sky all made it to the van terminal by 6 AM, and we were on our way. To get to Tacloban via Grand Tours, the van company we took, we had to transfer vans 3 times. They essentially just took us from van Terminal to van Terminal. The one way trip cost us 300 pesos, and we arrived in Tacloban around 11:30. Like and other Filipino transportation, the van spacing is very small and my knees were jammed into the seat infront of me.
After that we checked into the pension house we were staying at for the night, then went to the BFAR office for lunch and the meeting. BFAR just reviewed their mission, goals, and current projects and how we could work together. It helped clarify what they would be able to assist with and helped re-establish some of the contacts I had made. They acted like a legit agency, and I felt like I could have been listening to the DENR in Michigan or something. Mainly, what gave me this impression is that they based their projects on the environmental assessments, were trying to make everything as scientific as possible, and were offering technical assistance with various projects. They also had the best snacks, some bread thing with chocolate inside and a cookies and cream ice cream bar.
After the meeting, we went to see the seaweed culture/lab nearby and their display of fishing gears. It was cool to see, but they havn’t sample much of Northern Samar yet for possible seaweeds that could be grown and sold on the market. After that, we returned to the pension house then went to Robinsons, the mall. This was the first time I had been back to Tacloban since training, and not much had changed, except some of the traffic routes. Most of us bought some groceries that we can not buy at our sites, then we ate dinner at Shakeys, which is a pretty decent chain pizza place, with Joyce. After that, we saw Alice in Wonderland, which was pretty great. The movie finished around 10, we returned, and some people used the pension internet, but I just took a hot shower and watched some college basketball for as long as I could stay awake.
Friday morning, we ate breakfast at McDonalds and left on the 9 AM van back to Catarman. On the second van transfer (during our hour wait), I realized I did not have my cell phone with me anymore. So, I asked the grand tour rep to call the Tacloban office to see if the first van driver turned it in. The driver wasn’t back to Tacloban before we had to leave on our next van, so I asked the Grand Tours Lady in Catarman to call Tacloban, and they said they had it and the next van would bring it to me Catarman. I was so relieved. I didn’t want to purchase my third phone since being here. It must have fallen out of my pocket. After that, I tried to cash an American check (apparently you can’t do it after 12 noon, and they needed to ask headquarters the process, since it’s not something they do often) and buy a keychain for my friend Corey. Then I left for Laoang, and was back in time for dinner around 6 PM.
Saturday, I read for most of the morning, then went to the beach in the afternoon with my neighbor/friend Libi. She has friends that live on the beach and have a nice sitting/table area. It is now summer here, and it quite hot. Like usual, Saturday was brownout, which meant no fans. It was sort of miserable in the house, so I was really glad that Libi invited me out; it was so much nicer on the beach with a breeze.
Sunday morning, I went into Catarman again to get my phone and because the Northern Samar PCV’s arranged to have a meeting together to discuss potential environmental day camp plans at all of our sites (basically and excuse for us to all hang out together, but do something productive too). I went to Grand Tours first thing, and got my phone, but the screen was broken, and I lost about 200 pesos of load. So that was disappointing. But, everything still worked, I just couldn’t see most of the screen, which doesn’t really work for texting. But luckily, later that afternoon I found a shop that would fix it for 300 pesos. So, 500 pesos later I got my phone back. Our meeting was good, and I also got to see both Jaci’s and Emma’s apartment/places that they just moved into.
Laoang Beach Hike
I also talked to some of the fisherfolk I saw on my hike, either collecting shells or preparing to go out fishing. Hopefully, some of them feel more comfortable with me after that. On may way back, I was also pulled into two groups of people/friends who were hanging out/celebrating on the beach. Even though I may have a slight sunburn on the top of my feet and other random patches where I forgot to put sunscreen on/didn’t rub it around enough, it was a good excursion.
Reflections on Manila and trainings
Parts of Manila can seem like a totally different country than the one I live in at site. In Makati, there are American restaurants, high-rise buildings, no jeepneys/trikes, and a beer restaurant that sells more that just San Miguel and Red Horse (they have Flying Dog of all things). And you can literally buy almost anything (if you are willing to pay the price). That is anything besides my Filipino size XXXXL shorts.
I felt quite accomplished when I went from our hotel (in Cavite) to the University of the Philippines Diliman using all public transportation. I had to go there to pick up assessment gear for my municipality from the Marine Science Institute. Someone wrote me directions, but I took two buses, the MRT line (subway), and a jeepney to get there. It took about 1.5 hours, which is not that bad considering that I think I went from one side of Manila to the other.
During all of this public transportation, I realized that you could take a bus (and when I say bus, I mean charter bus used for public transportation) from Manila to almost anywhere in the Philippines (even if the bus has to drive onto a boat part of the way). But the only reason this works and that there is enough demand to service all of these busses is because most vendors outside Manila get the goods they sell from Manila. There are no companies that ship the gear, but instead it is individual shop owners going to Manila and buying the stuff for themselves. Now sometimes these shop owners can go to other big cities, but I think people go to Manila cause it is still cheaper. Manila is also where anyone goes who has money for Medical care, and for unique goods.
Overall, I thought all of training was quite beneficial. It provided some new energy/ideas for us to use/start on at site, and we had our counterpart with us for the project proposal/grant writing workshop. So they learned some things too. I am hoping to post the movie I made for the PCV sharing session we had on what’s happening at each others sites.
I also really enjoyed getting to spend time with all the volunteers. I played lots of basketball (well two games), ultimate Frisbee (3 games), and one game of capture the flag. It’s so nice to have a big group of people who like to play sports, and be able to do something active. I also got to see a few snapshots of the Olympics, but it’s not really a big thing in the Philippines as there is no snow here. It was also several peoples’ birthdays as well. We celebrated Eric’s in true Filipino fashion by giving him a Mana Neeta (sp?). We all woke up at 3:45 AM, and gathered outside his room and sang the Mana Neeta songs, which talk about how much we all love him and how we hope he is happy on his birthday. Eric was also on amoeba medication, which meant he couldn’t drink. So later that day, instead of doing a bar crawl, we did a food crawl. Everyone who went had to buy something from each place we went in the mall. These included: Pizza hut, Wendys, McDonalds, Burger King, Jolly B, and Chow King (I feel like I’m missing some, but you get the point). It was fun, and probably fattening. Burger King gave out free massages and a free whopper for the birthday boy too. For Trents birthday we brought him breakfast in bed and sang happy birthday to him, then went out later that night. It was also the last night of training, so lots of people were celebrating. When there was not a birthday, there was lots of swimming, loaded questions, GSM, and wine and cheese parties (as wine and cheese is not available at most of our sites).
On Thursday, my last day in Manila, we (Brandon, Tori, and I) accompanied Trent to the Orthopedic center in Manila because he was having his ankle checked out (he just twisted it). And PC pays for the taxi cab for him to go there, so we hitched a ride to Makati where the center is. While we were there, we met two PCV’s from Micronesia. They were a married couple and the guy messed up his knee, and the closest legitimate hospital/center for him was in the Philippines. They are both education volunteers and have about 6 months left in their service. We didn’t get to talk to them for very long, but it was cool hearing their opinions/stories/experiences.
After he was done, we went to the Greenbelt mall. It was crazy! It was super big and consisted of 5 separate buildings all in one area and the atmosphere was really nice. There were tons of good restaurants. We ate sushi and at Buba Gumps. It felt like we were in America.
My trip back to Laoang was a little interesting. The night before, I got a text from Lani, who is the volunteer assistant for Peace Corps staff. She said they got a call from PAL saying my flight was not at 6 AM instead of 6:30. Not a big deal, but just something that would never happen in the US. This meant I had to leave the pension at 3:30 AM, and I was traveling by myself. I ended up going to the wrong terminal to start with (my bad for not checking the ticket and just going by what people say). Normally PAL flys out of terminal 3, but for whatever reason it was at terminal 2 for my flight. The terminals are far away, so I paid almost as much to go from the pension house to terminal 3, as I did to go from terminal 3 to terminal 2 – almost 85 pesos. Oh well. I got in the airport and my baggage was 25 kilos overweight (which I was expecting because I bought a bunch of stuff; they only allow 15 kilo bags). Then I went to my gate took a brief nap in my seat (I still had an hour to wait), woke up, used the CR (bathroom), went back to a different seat and fell asleep again. This time I woke up to the loud speaker speaker saying, “Last passenger, Leah Ettema, please come to the ticket counter.” I don’t know if I was so asleep that I missed them boarding the whole plane (I didn’t think I was cause I thought I could still hear the loudspeaker the whole time), or if I just missed it with the accent and my grogginess. But I don’t think anyone was waiting very long (and my seat was in the front of the plane), because when we got off the bus which transported us to the plane, people were still walking up the steps to the plane from the last bus transport.
I arrived in the Catarman airport around 7:45 AM. My host nanay was also flying in from Manila on the flight after mine, because she was just getting back from a vacation in Macaow, China. She said she/her friends could give me a ride back earlier in the week, so I decided to wait for them. With all of my luggage, I didn’t feel like dealing with public transportation and it would save me a few pesos. What I didn’t realize was that their flight wouldn’t get in until around 1:15. I never wrote down the actual flight details, but the second flight of the day usually gets in around 10/11 AM. My nanay has no cell phone so I had no way of contacting her. Apparently their flight was delayed because they were waiting for the govenor’s wife, or that could just be rumor. So that was a long wait.
FEb. 9
The past two days have raised my spirits and I feel much better about life. I brought my computer for the assessment we started on Monday in Calomotan. This was an excellent idea, because I could encode all of the data right after it was done and I felt like I was doing something productive. Monday we also had a meeting in which I think everyone finally understands the amount of work that would go into making an environmental profile for every barangay. We did not really figure out how we were going to address it, but at least everyone is on the same page. I also found out that there may be a “technical team” that may be able to help us out in writing the reports. Our transportation to Calomotan was the trash truck, which is literally just a dump truck. It was all washed out and we got to stand in the back. It was a fun ride feeling the wind across your face (cheesy I know), and just getting a good view of the scenery around us.
Today, we validated all of the data in Calomotan in the morning, and then returned after lunch. Everyone just went back to their houses (everyone worked the weekend so they earned some time off). I tried to use the internet in the municipality, but it was still down, and was about to start doing some work. But then I realized it was 1:30 and a gorgeous day and decided to go to the beach to swim. This was a another great idea! There were not many people at the beach, and I swam around some cool rocks with lots of holes in them and saw a bunch of crabs and some other invertabrates. It was the first time I was able to swim in at least a month. I’ve gone to the beach a few times, but normally I don’t swim because I don’t have much time after work before it gets dark, and I don’t like to ride my bike home wet.
I was planning on doing the work I wanted to tonight, but I may run out of time as I’m organizing my blog stuff. Oh well, I’ll just do it tomorrow night. The most important thing is that I feel good about life again.
First Bike ride to Skys and cooking
On Sunday (2/7), I went to visit Sky like we had planned earlier in the week. I rode my bike there for the first time; it’s about 9 km from Rawis to her house. It is a gorgeous ride, and the weather was perfect. It was partially overcast and not too hot. During a good portion of the ride you can see the ocean, and a lot of it is through/by rice fields or coconut farms. On the way back, I saw the sunset and the sky was beautiful. But the ride was more strenuous than I though it would be, probably because I am out of shape and maybe the heat. It is mostly flat, and 9 km is less than 5 miles, something I could easily do in the states. But it was a struggle for me; I guess that just means I should do it more often, because it did feel really good to actually exercise.
At Skys, her nanay taught us how to make a sort of wrap they commonly use as a dessert. It is made out of glutonous rice and coconut milk. Usually they put sugar in it too, but sky wanted to try a vegetable mix inside the wrap, so no sugar was added. It was fun to learn, and you can see the pictures to get a better idea of what it is. I don’t remember the name. After that, we went to see how Sky’s nipa hut is going (she is getting her own constructed), and went for a short walk on the beach. Then we decided to watch the movie “The Great Debaters”. We got through about an hour and a half when Sky’s nanay told us the food we made before was done and invited us to have Ginebra (a type of alcohol) mixed with ice tea and coke, her specialty (this is what she made when I visited last time). So, we had just a little and then I had to return because I didn’t want to ride back in the dark. Overall, it was a nice break from work, but I still feel more irritable than I feel like I should. The rest of my team went back to the barangay we were in yesterday to validate the data. I wouldn’t have been able to understand much anyway, and knew I needed the break.. Tomorrow we are going into another barangay (Calomotan) leaving at 7 AM like we normally do, and probably returning around 5:30.
Overwhelming few days
The past few days have been a little rough; by the end of the week I felt completely overwhelmed in a way I have never experienced before. Basically, there were a ton of little things that piled up and made me really frustrated and irritable. It was unusual because, well, normally I don’t become irritable and because I don’t know how to make it stop. I played the piano, which helped, and watched some movies, but I still feel annoyed with life. But I guess I’m hoping it will pass with time, and I just have to last a week. Then I’ll be in Manila.
So here are some of the things I’ve been frustrated with. Most of these situations are normally no big deal, but for some reason, this week, little by little, they all started to bother me.
The first thing is our Particiaptory Coastal Resource Assessments that we are doing in the barangays. The assessments themselves are going great. My team knows how to do everything, and I don’t do much of anything during the whole day except facilitate a 30 minute activity at the end. Apparently a NGO came and facilitated a month long training on how to do a participatory forest management plan. We use almost exactly the same tools, just focused on coastal resources instead. So, they are more knowledgeable in this stuff than I am, which is awesome.
By the third assessment, I was slightly annoyed by the fact that all 13 of us are there for the whole day when in reality only 2 or 3 of us need to be there at one time. I felt like I could have done something more productive in the morning and just showed up for the afternoon activities. But what overwhelmed me the most is the amount of data we are collecting (which is great), but I have no idea how to synthesize it all. We need to create some sort of barangay level report to show our results of the meeting, but the larger goal is to create an environmental profile for the whole municipality using all of the data we collect in the 28 coastal barangays. I feel like people don’t understand that this is going to take a lot more time than they have planned, even though I have tried to express it.
Digitizing all of the stuff we do at the meetings takes an entire day alone. I don’t want to be the one doing it for several reasons. One being that it is all in Waray and I don’t understand a lot of it and could enter it wrong. Two being that I don’t want my co-workers to be dependent on me to create a report. For sustainability purposes, I need to show them how to do it and I’m not sure about how to go about doing this since only 2 people have real computer skills. I was also really frustrated with how little I understood during the assessments. I have been here 6 months and I don’t understand things past daily conversations in Waray.
I was also still sick this week. I took a stool sample into the hospital early Monday morning, and then proceeded to sleep until noon since I was so tired. I went to the hospital by myself in the morning and while waiting for the results, I got a text message from my co-workers asking where I was. They were already in the hospital, slightly shocked I didn’t ask them to be a kasama (a person to accompany you). This is custom in the Philippines, but I was pretty positive I could take a 5 minute trike, give the sample to the lab, and wait for the results on my own. Normally, I would appreciate the niceness of the gesture and genuine concern of everyone, but I was slightly annoyed because it made me feel like I couldn’t do anything on my own. Good news was that I didn’t have any parasites, worms, or amoebas. Peace Corps doctors told me that I could take some anti-biotics, but I decided to wait on them because I didn’t have another bowel movement until Tuesday afternoon, and it was healthy. I also had an appetite Monday night. So, I thought I was ok and didn’t want to take anti-biotics needlessly. But Wednesday morning I found out I wasn’t, so I took the anti-biotics. Overall, my body was just not quite right all week.
On Friday, my co-workers said they were really concerned because they thought that I might have a “sickness that cannot be explained by science”. They believe that if a malicious person who is sweating walks behind you, the person can make your stomach sick. They also thought that I could have been poisoned (of course not in Laoang, but when I traveled to Palapog). Normally, I enjoy these conversations and the cultural exchange. But last week, I just wanted to yell at them and say they are crazy and the only things that was making me sick is bacteria. Maybe it’s because they were really persistent about the need for me to go to a quack doctor, or because I didn’t want to be told what was going on with my own body. But it was all I could do to just nod and let it pass.
Another aspect of this week that really overwhelmed me was my potential living situation. In our first barangay (Inamlan), I asked the barangay capitain if he knew of any places that I could potentially live in when I’m ready to move out. He said that his family actually has a spare nipa hut/residential structure that no one is using on a regular basis and that I could potentially live in. He showed me pictures and it looked great, a nice place inbetween trees and apparently close to the beach, so I was excited about the potential.
During the assessments of the next barangay, my co-workers told me that they don’t want me to live there, because it is too far away and because the barangay capitan has been involved in shady activities Instead, I should live in Aroganga (the barangay we were in). So, I asked them if they knew of any places, fully expecting that they wouldn’t and that this would just start the process of them helping me search for places. I was totally wrong. Apparently my supervisor had already looked into it. After I asked them, my co-workers first said that I could live in a house with another person (which I said I didn’t want), so they asked the barangay capitan if there was any other place. He proceeded to take me to another nipa-esk structure that I could live in by myself.
While it really is nice that they have started to search for me, the way the conversations happened, I sort of took it that my supervisor has been planning on having me live there. So, I was really annoyed that he never informed me of this or asked my opinion, and because then I didn’t know if they were telling me the bad stuff about the place I could live in Inamlan because it was actually true or because they just wanted me to live in Aroganga. Looking back, my supervisor might have asked my opinion in a roundabout way during one of my first visit to the barangay, during site visit in Octoboer, when he asked among other things, “do you think you could live here? “ I said yes, thinking it was a general question about being able to live in a remote coastal barangay, and wanting to be sure that they know that eventually I would like to live in one. Really, they are trying to do me a favor and help me out, but I just got annoyed at how little I knew of the situation.
The capitan essentially told me that I could start living there whenever I wanted, and that caught me offguard too. The barangay is remote and living there would be more like the Peace Corps experience that people think of when they think about PC. The structure I could potentially live in is made out of a few wooden beams and tin siding. There is no running water (I would have to go to the well and pump it), the barangay is small (which is nice) but hardly anyone speaks English, there is no market in the barangay, there is no cell phone service, and it is a 30 peso trike ride away from laoang proper through forest/coconut areas. But there is electricity (when there is no brown out) and it’s like a 100 foot walk to the ocean pier where I could swim. Eventually, this is the type of situation I want, but the reality of it actually happening just caught me off guard, for lack of better words. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet and it just overwhelmed me.
That same day I also found out that my supervisor was apparently slightly upset because I hadn’t been telling him where/when I left Laoang. He genuinely just wants me to be safe, but I again took it as sort of a lack of freedom. I don’t need to tell him where I go on my free time; he is not my father. I am responsible for telling Peace Corps when I leave site overnight, and that’s it. He is just looking out for me, but I was annoyed that he got upset.
Friday, I also found out we were going to be working Saturday and Sunday without a break until I leave for Manila. I don’t mind working on weekends, but was again annoyed that no one told me or asked my opinion and just assumed it would work. At this point I was already irritated with the week and knew I would go insane if I didn’t have a break, so I told them that it was likely I wouldn’t work on Sunday, because I told Sky I would visit her (which is the truth). I wanted to wait until Saturday to confirm, because I wanted to be sure nothing really important was going to happen on Sunday. It turns out it was just validation of data we collected on Saturday, that I would not have been able to help with because of my lack of Waray, so I’m glad I didn’t go. I feel a little guilty because they are working and I am not, but I knew I needed a break.
This week, there was also construction in the municipio. So, for the two days when we were not in the barangays and putting data into the computer, the internet was down. Normally, no big deal, but I really wanted to talk to people from home on skype or wanted to send some e-mails because I was annoyed with life and that just wasn’t possible, adding to the frustrations.
All of these little things just added up and started to get to me last week/ facilitated my annoyance rather than acceptance of the situation. I guess most of it just comes from the lack of control/freedom I feel like I have over things right now.
Second day of PCRA, plus cockroach/ants and love texts
Wed. Feb 3 - Second day of PCRA.
Today we were supposed to be in Inamlan, but we finished there yesterday. People still wanted their travel/food allowances so we met at Marie’s house. To my surprise, people actually worked. We had a meeting discussing how things went and possible improvements, and then spent the rest of the time “encoding” or putting the info into the computer. This mostly involved me typing it all in with whoever did the tool telling me what to type when I couldn’t read it. They also wrote up summaries with my guidance that I typed into the computer. It was quite productive, even though the people who were not working with me were either drinking or singing videoke.
We had a really good lunch, something called Lauya. It was caribaw (water buffalo) meet and potatoes cooked in a really good broth/water, and it really reminded me of a roast in the states, with rice of course.
Just a little bit ago, there was a large crazy cockroach flying around my room. I’ve seen lots of cockroaches, but all just walking. I’ve never seen them actually fly. This one got really close to me head and totally freaked me out. For now, it’s under the bed. Out of site, out of mind. I also just ate M&M’s that my mom sent me (I think dark chocolate are now my favorite) with ants all over them. Oh well, it’s chocolate.
Everyday walking to the office, I pass by the majors house and her security people. One of the guys is really cool and we exchange simple greetings in Waray every moring. He asked for my cell phone number, and I gave it to him thinking we were friends. I was wrong, he proceeded to send me like 5 texts a day, and has proceeded to ask me if I can be his girlfriend and told me he loved me all via text. Most of them are in Waray-waray, so I don’t even understand all of what he has tried to communicate. But, this was not entirely surprising, just disappointing because now it’s awkward walking by him. I thought he could just be a cool person to talk to.
First days of PCRA
Overall, today was a good day (2/2/10). I was slightly nervous going into the assessments, because I had almost no role in preparing for the assessments (as in the materials). In the past week, I did not check to make sure that everyone was prepared to use their tool or if they had any questions. I wanted to learn what everyone would do without my supervision or guidance, and they did awesome. Now, I could only understand about 25% of what was being said, but it seems like we were able to get all the information we were looking for. I helped facilitate a few things during the day, but really just watched most of it. I have a few suggestions to make tomorrow, mainly on logistics or how to approach things, which could only be learned once we actually did an assessment. This is exciting, because I feel like they could do this by themselves tomorrow if they had too, not to mention once I leave, but it still has me wondering why exactly I’m here. Though, I do think I’ll be able to help package and compile everything we are collecting, as information sharing does seems to be something that is lacking in the municipality.
I also happened to randomly talk to the barangay captain about places that I might be able to live in Barangay Inamlan. I’m not really looking to move out yet, but I know that eventually I might want to for a different experience if nothing else. It turns out that his family has a guest house (nipa hut) that might be available for me, and I think it is pretty close to the ocean. So, that was super exciting to learn about, and hopefully I’ll check it out this weekend.
For the assessment in barangay Inamlan, we met at the municipal hall at 7 AM, and I returned to my house at 6:20. To get there, we had to take a trike to Arogana and then a boat to the barangay. We finished what we had scheduled to take 2 days in one, so tomorrow we are are going to meet at Marie’s house to review everything and start putting the data into the computer. However, we cannot be seen by the municipal workers because apparently we will still be collecting the travel allowance. This is slightly sketch, and likely impossible for me. I can’t walk anywhere without people noticing me. So, we’ll see what happens.
Cultural Reflections
Here are some cultural reflections observed over my first three months.
A daily part of my life are ants. They are EVERYWHERE, in the food, in my clothes, on my bed, and were in my computer. Any piece of food or wrapper left out for more than a few hours will be swarmed with ants. At first, I tried to fight them. Now I just accept them, though they are still annoying. But I learned that if you find a jar of oats covered with ants, all you need to do is shake it a little and wait a few minutes and the ants will leave and the oats are good to eat. I shake out my clothes before putting them on and am sure to cover/seal appliances. I store my laptop in a waterproof bag, mainly to keep the ants out.
Some sort of black mold has also started to grow on my backpack and my rashguard swimming shirt. I don’t know how to get it out. It doesn’t seem to be doing anything bad to the materials at this point, but I still don’t like it.
Kids are awesome to interact with. I know I can probably make one kids day by interacting with them, but sometimes it’s too much. Our office is quite close to a school and when they are on breaks, often there will be 30+ kids staring in the office. This is sort of annoying/creepy, but you can’t see through most of the windows in our office so it’s not too bad. Sometimes kids will be brave enough to walk by my side all the way home, and if they are usually I start a conversation with them. Sometimes they will still behave goofy/obnoxiously, and then I just ignore them. But when they actually behave normal, it can be a really fun conversation.
I also found that I have a real lack of motivation to study Waray-Waray. This is not a good thing because the Waray is quite different here than it is in Leyte where we trained. But after working/talking all day the last thing I want to do is look at more Waray-Waray. This needs to be changed, but watching movies, writing letters/blogging, and playing piano always win out over studying Waray.
It’s interesting to listen to my nanay talk about Filipinos and Americans. Her family lives in America, and she did too for a while, but some of her perceptions/understanding of behaviors are just off. One example is some of the food. She wanted to make me an American dinner because I was sick, so she made a dish, which consisted of canned chicken, canned peas, and banana ketchup. The sentiment was nice, but the flavor not so much. I think she thinks that people in America eat a lot of canned goods or that I will like them simply because they came from the states. In general, Filipinos think Americans eat a lot of stuff that is canned. For example, they think that a typical American meal is canned corned beef, which is disgusting. I’m thinking this perception may have came from the US military presence in the Philippines; maybe that’s what the soldiers used to eat, but who knows.
Summary - Reflection on first 2.5 months
I've been at site now for almost 3 months (hard to believe) and thought I’d share an update. I wanted to talk about more than just work, but this is long enough.
By any American standard, I’ve done little to no work for being here 3 months. But this is what I have done. I have given a presentation on global climate change to a youth council and heads of our LGU, learned about data collected by the regional BFAR about current velocity and bathymetry (ocean floor topography) that they use to determine suitable fish pond/aquaculture habitat sites, and compiled/summarized a list of local legislation related to CRM. I am constantly learning about past and current CRM related projects and general information about my municipality. All of this has really made me appreciate technology, and how easily information is shared/how accessible it is via computer system networks. I am in a new department created for the purpose of developing a CRM plan, the Municipal Environmental and Natural Resources Office (MENRO). Previously, CRM related projects would fall under the department of agriculture. However, any management plans made would be the responsibility of the Municipal Planning and Development Council Office. So, there is all sorts if information in different places. One example sort of sums up data gathering in the municipality: there was a rapid resource/habitat appraisal done of coastal resources by a NGO not too long ago, but no one in the municipality can find the results of it.
As Peace Corps prepared us for, most of my time has been spent meeting people and developing relationships. I’ve done numerous courtesy calls to barangay councils, captains, and other important people. These are essentially done because it would be considered rude to do anything in the barangay’s without letting the leaders know about it, and because these are the people we will need to rely on to gain participants and support for our projects. Most days in the office, at least 2 to 3 hours are spent doing nothing but talking. And from what I hear, my office is far more productive than other PCV’s offices. The reasons for this apparent lack of work are actually culturally complex, and I will not go into them now.
Like most PCV’s (I think), I am still just trying to figure out the role I need to play here. Comparatively, my municipality has many resources, both financial and human. The people in my office have already created a community based forest resource management plan (with funds from the World Bank), in which they used the same socio-economic assessment tools as we will use for a community based coastal resource management plan. They know how to do it. My supervisor has arranged all of the activities, forums, and trainings I have participated in/ lead so far. It is sort of like a magic wand is waved and stuff just magically happens that I had no role in planning, but yet am an integral part of (usually a keynote speaker). All of this is great for sustainability purposes, but I feel like I’m not initiating anything. I am just showing up and sort of being the token American while sharing some knowledge. This is fine for now, but hopefully as we start our assessments I will learn what everyone in my office is capable of and how I can bring new things to the municipality. It’s just sort of odd reflecting on it, because I have never had a full-time job for more than 4 months, and usually by 3 months in I feel pretty accomplished. Here, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what my job is.
Overall, there are lots of ups and downs, but so far everything is going well and i’m enjoying it. I’ll be a videoke star by the time I’m done, a meal without rice will seem very strange, and instead of giving a head nod to acknowledge someone or agree to something, I’ll just raise my eyebrows.
Week of 1/22
The first two hours of work Monday morning were spent discussing the Sto. Nino festival and the controversy over the results of the dance competition. One of the groups (which was probably the best) had drummers that were from outside of Laoang, so they were penalized and didn’t win, and they complained. And there were also judges on the board who had some sort of affiliation (with relatives or schools) with the dance groups so there were claims of biased judging. But with easily over 500+ participants, it would be hard to find people who are completely unbiased.
After that was the Mayor’s State of Laoang, address, and then here birthday lunch at the SB hall. In the afternoon, my counterpart and I went out with the regional BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources) people to retrieve a tool they were using to measure current velocity. I asked my counterpart if sky and trent could come (the other PCV’s close to me), and she said they could. They arrived around 12 and we left around 1:00 on the boat to go over to Rawis to pick the BFAR people up. We ended up waiting for them until 2:30. Once we picked them up, we rode all the way to the other side of the island (we started on the west side and ended up on the east side). It was about an hour and a half boat ride, but the weather was gorgeous and so were the views, so I was pretty ok with it. In the end it was anticlimactic because all we ended up doing was watch two BFAR people put on scuba gear and retrieve the measuring device. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but not that. We didn’t even talk much on the boat because the motor was so loud.
Mirle, my counterpart, told me that the BFAR people (all Filipino) were staying at Ceasar’s Place that night. So, I decided to go over and see if they were hanging out so I could actually talk to them about what they were doing. That was the best decision I’ve made in awhile. I talked to the supervisor, and she explained to me that they go around to all of the proposed mariculture/fish pond sites in the region (Biliran, Leyte, and Samar) measuring currents and ocean floor topography. At a fish pond site, the currents have to be strong enough to carry the pollution out that the ponds generate, but slow enough to allow the fish to eat all of the food they are fed before it’s carried away. They measure the topography of the ocean floor to make sure there are no coral reefs near by that that the pond could damage. Then the other 3 people were younger, in their 30’s, and just fun to hang out with. I think part of it was also that it was nice to talk about the data/research that they were gathering and have an intelligent conversation.
Tues.
Tuesday morning I just interneted, mainly looking for stories of Filipino efforts/projects to stop global climate change as an example to use in my presentation to the college in Laoang. In the afternoon our supervisor was not around and nobody had work to do, so I was invited to go drinking with everyone at 3:30. When your in the Philippines, do as the Filipinos do, so I went with everyone. I think the normal hang out spot for the people in my office is Marie’s house because she had a karaoke machine. In the Philippines, if you are drinking, it’s a big deal if you are not eating something too. So, we had pancit (noodle dish) and some sort of egg drop/fish soup. I ended up staying for dinner, which my bowels told me later they did not like. We ate dried fish and tomatoe sald (and rice of course). The dried fish is soooo salty, and that was the first time I had really tried any. I think the killer for my health though was the water, it was not mineral.
Wed.
Disclaimer – just a warning, I talk a lot about my bowel movements in the remainder of this post.
So, Wendesday morning I woke up to a LBM (loose bowel movement). I went to the bathroom, took a bath, went to the bathroom, put on my clothes, and went to the bathroom again. But after that I felt ok and fairly normal. So, I went up to my room, took an imodium just incase, texted trent saying I was going to be late to meet them in Catarman, blow dried my hair, and started to organize my backpack. Then I had to use the bathroom again, and didn’t make it downstairs to the toilet in time. But, luckily it was contained in the underwear, and I was able to clean up in the bathroom. I did not really want anyone in the house to notice, because I did not want my nanay making a big deal of it since I was still planning on going to Catarman. I went back upstairs to change and take another pill, and then went to eat breakfast downstairs. After I was seated for a couple minutes, I had to go again, and again didn’t make it time. But after that, the meds started to kick in. So two pairs of underwear later I was ready to go to Catarman.
In Catarman, all of the PCV’s in northern Samar were having our monthly safety meeting, which is essentially just an excuse for us all to get together. Everything went well, and it was fun to have lunch with everyone, and I returned around 3 PM in the hopes that I might have a language lesson. It didn’t end up happening,
However, I still met my potential instructor at the tennis courts because she just got done playing and we were watching the next people play. This was still good because I was able to just have a conversation with her in Waray-Waray. After watching the tennis, she invited me to go with her to her friends house because they were celebrating a wedding (this might have been like a bridal shower). We did not stay for long, maybe a half hour, and my Joey (my teacher) was essentially just getting food to bring home to her family. After that, I accompanied Joey to her house then went home and watched Lost.
Thurs.
I spent most of the morning using internet again, talking to my cousin Mary and her children and my mom. I also found out that my LBM’s were not done yet, so I had to go home mid-morning to take more medicine. Like normal, everyone watched me as I walked on the streets, but this was one time where I really wished I was invisible. I just wanted to be able to walk back quickly and get medicine. Luckily, I was able to mask my uncofortableness and nothing happened on the way home. I felt mostly fine for the rest of the day, minus a lack of appetite and some fatigue.
In the afternoon, I did do something productive. I made the last chart I will use for the needs assessment I will conduct in the barangay and found out the prices of various biophysical assessment gear I could buy in Manila. Now the LGU has to do the paperwork/go through red tape to get the money to me/the company on time. After work, I was still really tired, so I just watched “Lost” and went to sleep pretty early.
Fri.
It’s now Friday morning, and I have spent this morning writing some of this blog, checking e-mail, and sending a few e-mails to PC staff in Manila. I’m feeling better, and had an appetite this morning. I took a different type of Imodium pill last night, and have not had a bowel movement since. I think this was the same kind I took when I was sick in training, and if I remember right, it plugged me up for like 3 days. I would be ok if that happened again.
I’m sitting in the office now, right next to the mayor’s office in what appears to be a normal office room, and just realized part of our office is apparently a pharmacy too. In the back there is one cabinet filled with drugs, and mothers are bringing their children in to buy meds. I think I remember my supervisor mentioning before that if I needed cheap meds I could get them here. So, the LGU must provide meds at subsidized costs. You don’t need a prescription here to buy them. It’s just sort of funny to be in a normal office with desks and chairs and then randomly have pharmacy sales going on too.
I don't know what's going on for the rest of the day, but I'm hoping ot find out some more information about the assessments we are doing next week. Tomorrow, I am going to Palapog with Sky to visit Trent, and we are going to try and have a Mexican food night. So after work, I am going to try to find beans (I don't know if they are sold here). Hopefully, I'll do some reading too, since I have no more episodes of Lost to watch and maybe i'll go to Onay.
Weekend of 1/22 - Laoang Sto. Nino and more
In the morning, MENRO (Municipal Environment and Natural Resource Office that I work in) had a forum on global climate change, and I was the keynote speaker. This finally occurred after 3 reschedulings, and there were some computer issues again. This time the computer NitNit had was not working with the projector. So, we had to find a different computer, which actually ended up being better since the different computer also had a quicktime player. My presentation was about an hour long, with about a half hour of it consisting of quicktime clips from Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. Everyone told me the presentation was really good and they thought it was motivating, so I guess it went well.
I am now addicted to the TV show “Lost”. I spent a lot of my evenings last week watching it.
Saturday I went to Catarman to buy a new phone, since my other one was pickpocketed in Bobon. I was very happy to be in contact with everyone again. Saturday evening I rode my bike to the beach (less then 10 minutes away), and ended up seeing some people I know from the LGU and some friends of Marie, one of my co-workers. Apparently Vivian’s family owns a coconut farm right on the beach and they have a nice sitting area; so, I ended up hanging out with them for awhile and ate/drank a coconut. In the evening, I went to Marie’s house to drink/sing and had a good time. The pictures are Vivan and her friends and Onay beach. But apparently pictures will not show up in a post?
Sunday was Laoang’s Sto. Nino festival. I was judging the dance competition and was told to go to the outdoor “auditorium” at 8 AM, and that the dancing would start at 9. Well I arrived at 8:15 and the dancing didn’t start until around 10 AM I think. But it was still sort of fun just watching the place fill up and being in the festive atmosphere. The dancing started with a dance fight between the Christians (in White) and Muslims (in red). There was sort of a procession of each group coming in, then there were just individual pairs fake fighting, then everyone started to fake fight then eventually just started dancing to the drummer. I’m not sure why this happened or what it symbolizes, but it was fun and is why I was dancing to in the pictures.
Next was the dance competition, and any group of at least 20 people could enter. Most of the groups had at least 40 dances plus the drummers, and there was a 20,000 peso first prize, 10,000 peso second prize, and 5,000 pesos third prize, and 2,000 peso consolation prizes I believe. There were ten participants in all and they were really fun to watch. The pictures/videos are the best description.
The cost of the whole festival falls (including any prizes that were not donated by other families) falls onto the hermano mayor, a person from the community who volunteers to essentially host the festival. Apparently, hosting this is supposed to bring you good fortune for the rest of the year, so there is a very long list of people who want to do it. It would easily cost in the thousands of U.S. dollars.
After the groups were done with the dance competition in the “auditorium” they immediately proceeded to march through the streets, where they were judged again; the scores of their dancing and marching were combined to get the overall winner. After the competition, I returned to my house and I think I saw 5 groups pass my house, so they marched for awhile. Again, for what reason, I do not know, but as soon as the dancing started, people started throwing water on each other. The people on balconies would get everyone below wet, people on the street would throw water from huge buckets or from tied plastic bags filled with water, and people would drive by on trikes or motorcycles spraying people. I didn’t get wet though, because I think everyone was afraid to throw water on the American.
After the dancing, the fluvial parade started. These were essentially like parade floats on water, and they were judged and there was a cash prize. I went to the pier to watch, and did get wet here. Everyone was throwing water/swimming. Even the boats were having water fights. Apparently this is the first year in a long time where someone has not drowned (I don’t really know why, but most Filipinos can not swim). After that the awards ceremony took place (which I did not attend). So it was all done around 3 or 4 PM. Overall, it was a fun event
Bobon Sto. Nino Festival
Anyways, this past weekend was Bobon’s Sto. Nino festival, and it is supposed to be one of the best festivals in Northern Samar, so Alyssa invited us all over for it. I don’t really know what this festival celebrates, but there is a black baby Jesus, which is put into the sea. But I have no idea why; no one has really been able to tell me. I think there is some sort of thanks given to Jesus too. There are lots of Sto. Nino festivals all over the Phillipines, but in Bobon everyone covers themselves in black (either charcoal or oil paint) to celebrate.
The festival started Sunday morning very early, so I decided to spend Saturday night at Alyssa’s place. I left Laoang around 1:15 PM Saturday, took the boat across, and then sat in Rawis waiting for the van to fill up to go to Catarman until about 3:00. Good thing I brought a book with me. Then the van ride was about an hour long, but it does not go directly to the terminal. So, I had to walk maybe 10 minutes to get to the terminal where the trikes are to Bobon, no problem normally, but it was pouring rain. I had an umbrella (which was partially broken) and a rainjacket, but still got wet. I met Jaci at the terminal and we waited maybe another 10 minutes for the trike to fill, then headed for Bobon. On our way to Bobon though, it was pouring rain, so all of the drivers pull down what are essentially plastic sheets over the side of the trike to keep people inside dry. However, we passed a truck and it completely sent a wave of water on us through the gap between the ceiling and where the plastic actually hung. Our driver had to stop to wipe his eyes, and then he couldn’t start the trike. But he fiddled around for 5 minutes and got it working, luckily. I think he said something about a wet spark plug. So, we ended up getting to Alyssa’s around 4:45 PM. In the evening we went to a party at her nanay’s sistser house either for someone’s birthday or it was a festival party. But it consisted of the usual – drinking and videoke.
Sunday started around 6:30 AM with breakfast at Alyssa’s house. Then we took Alyssa’s family’s car to Bobon proper to watch the parade, which started at 7:35 AM. It consisted of basically all of the different dance/drummer groups marching down the street. These groups would later take part in a dance competition. This is also when we got our first face paint. Basically, a few guys just came up to us and put a fingers worth of paint on our face, because it’s what people do to celebrate. After that we had our second breakfast at Alyssa’s nanay’s sisters house (a different one than the night before). We left that around 9:00 to go to mass, and the church was packed. But before we got to church, we walked through a whole line of guys who were just waiting to paint peoples faces, so we obliged (not that we really had a choice).
The only different thing I noticed about this Sto. Nino mass was at the end of the service all of the kids came forward at once and the priests squirted all of the kids with water out of a plastic bag as a blessing . There was also a lot of incense involved (but that could just be a Bobon thing). That finished around 11:00 I think.
We exited the church to a packed plaza waiting for the dance competition to begin. Cassy and Don had arrived and were waiting for us somewhere. But, as we were looking for them, Alyssa’s nanay introduced us to a former Peace Corps volunteer who was in Bobon in 1963 (batch 3). We heard he was going to be there (he married a Filipino and has family in Bobon) and we were super excited to meet him. It was really interesting briefly hearing about some of his experiences. He made a point of saying that their group took a boat from Manila to Northern Samar because they refused to fly since it’s not what people normally did and said that he was in one of the most remote spots at the time. Once we finished talking to him we went and found Don and Cassy and watched the dance competition. Unfortunately, even being tall, we didn’t have the greatest view, but it was still cool. However, at some point my phone got pickpocketed. I was really annoyed because I had thought about that possibility earlier in the day with all of the people, and then I think I just forgot to button the pocket my phone was in and it was really easy for someone to take it. So, that put a damper on things.
Around 12:30, the competition wasn’t done yet, but Alyssa, Emma, and I returned to Alyssa’s nanay’s sister’s house to eat (and use the bathroom). We stayed there until about 2 just chillen and waiting for the rest to join us. We left to visit Alyssa’s supervisor. During festivals in the Philippines, every house basically prepares food and you just go house/food hopping. But we stayed there until around 2:45, just eating and drinking, and then returned to the plaza because there was dancing. However, this dancing just consisted of pointing your fingers forward to the beat of the music (see the pics/video). That’s all it was, and they had been doing it since the dance competition ended. After ten minutes I was ready to be done. But around 3:10 it finished and then they took black baby Jesus back to his boat and marched him to the ocean to release him (again, I don’t know why this is the process). We didn’t march all the way to the ocean, cause I had to get back to Catarman to buy a phone and catch the last jeepney (at 5 PM) back to Rawis. Plus, everyone was pretty tired.
So, we had to return to Alyssa’s house, which is outside of Bobon proper, but on the way to Catarman, to get our stuff (cause Jaci and Emma spent the night too). After we got our stuff, around 3:30, we waited on the road for a trike or jeepney to catch back. However, every single one that passed was full. Mainly because they all went to Bobon proper to pick people up and wouldn’t leave until they were full. Around 4:10, we finally just decided to pay a few extra pesos and to get a trike that was headed toward Bobon proper to turn around and take us to Catarman on a “special trip”, meaning that it wasn’t full. We arrived in Catarman around 4:30, and that maked me super rushed to get a phone. However, I needed money before I could buy a phone, and I found out that all of the ATM’s were apparently closed at 4:40 on Sundays. Hence, I was not able to buy a new phone. So, now I’ll have to wait until next weekend when I can go to Catarman to get money until I have a phone; that’s a long time here, but at least I have internet. After waiting for the jeepney to fill and a rather long ride home, with two military checkpoints, I arrived back in Laoang at around 6:45.
Week 2 of 2010
Week 2 was fairly productive. On Friday of week 1, Mano Dungdung (my supervisor) said I should do a participatory coastal resource assessment training with my counterparts (all the people in my office, so 11) on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday and Thursday we would plan and prepare materials for doing the assessments in the barangay. He also said I would be giving a presentation on Global Climate Change to department heads of the LGU’s and various stakeholders within the community of Friday. I could basically give the same presentation I gave to the youth council in San Antonio (which I got from a Peace Corps resource CD) So, I spent Monday preparing for Tuesday with the help of my counterparts. On Tuesday, the workshop went well enough, though it was quite a process finding a computer for my powerpoint presentation. Nitnit is in charge of all the IT stuff and she said everything was all set to use the SB’s (municipal council) stuff. Unknown to her, the SB secretary would not let us use her computer anymore because she was scared of viruses (from USB’s) since she just had her computer reformatted. And my mac isn’t compatible with the projectors connection. But after an hour or so we found someone who would let us use their laptop. Once we got that set up, the training went fine for the most part. I’m not completely familiar/comfortable using the Participatory Coastal Resource Assessment tools yet, so I don’t think I was really the best facilitator/teacher, but I got the job done. It turns out most of my counterparts have done almost essentially the same types of assessments, just in upland areas, which is awesome.
The next days were supposed to be for preparation and planning of the assessments. My supervisor failed to tell me that I would be leading these sessions. So, it took me off guard a little that everyone was looking to me to lead the meeting/reporting to me if they could be there or would be late. But after initiating some conversation on Wednesday we got an outline of what we’ll do in the barangays done and who is doing it. I felt sort of awkward because there was a lot of down time and I felt like I should have been filling it with something since this was supposedly my meeting. But I didn’t and just went with the flow of things. But my supervisor told me in the morning that he wanted me to go over what a CRM plan is/how to make it that afternoon (something you could have a whole college class on). So, luckily I could just piece together some Peace Corps materials over lunch which gave brief description of the contents of a CRM plan and the process for forming. Then I spent 15 minutes in the afternoon going over it.
Thursday morning I tried to talk to Janelle on skype, but there was a brownout, which was super frustrating. I went to the meeting again not knowing what we would do, but we ended up creating PCRA proposal for funding, which is attached if you are interested (but prices are still just estimates). In the afternoon I talked to the disaster preparedness office about the greenhouse effect and global warming. If I understood right, they were in charge of making an information/education campaign about the greenhouse effect (why it was not global warming I’m not sure) and how it would affect Laoang. Problem was they did not really know anything about it, so they asked me and I told them a little and gave them my powerpoint for reference. Then in the afternoon, I returned to our staff meeting with nothing planned to do, so we ended up not doing much of anything besides finalizing a few of the costs. I’m not really sure why my supervisor arranged to have this meeting last 3 days, because it really could have been done in 1 or 1.5 days. But, I guess that’s the Philippines.
Friday morning I tried to talk to Janelle again, but this time internet was out. I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out why, because it said I was connected and had full strength and failed to figure it out. Later I learned that some line was cut. But once again, failed communication attempt, frustrating and disappointing. The rest of Friday, I read some books that I got from Peace Corps and had my first language lesson. My language lessons are now with a lady the LGU hired for me, who is 63 and super cool. She has lots of stories to tell because she’s a major political activist, and she is very smart (my tita said she knows everything). But our first lesson consisted of her telling me stories in mostly English. Whatever.
At night during the past week, I’ve kept mostly to myself, watching all of season 5 of the TV show Stargate Atlantis. It’s not that great of a show, but it’s sci fi/action and I’m addicted. Someone in Peace Corps burned a CD of season 5 and gave it to Sky and then Sky gave it to me. Stuff just sort of circulates around. The weather has also been much cooler and I actually wore a longsleeve shirt comfortably for 2 days in a row! Tuesday afternoon when I returned to my house from work, I ended up talking to a small group of kids and we chatted all the way home. To my surprise on Wednesday after lunch, one of the girls I talked to was sort of waiting outside my door to walk with me to the office. It was cute, so I walked with her and 3 of her friends to the office. They ended up following me around for like an hour, just watching my type/print off the overview of CRM materials for the meeting. The past two weeks there has also been numerous drum corps practicing at all times of day for the St. Nino festival next weekend (apparently there is a cash prize). I generally enjoy listening to them, just not at 4:30 AM. Friday night I went over to Marie’s house, a counterpart, and just drank and sang videoke, the usual. But this time I tried to sing songs in Tagalog…. It was rather unsuccessful.
Sea grapes
I also ate this today... raw dipped in the juice of lemonsitos it was quite good
the following is from this website: http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y4765e/y4765e0b.htmSea grapes or green caviar (Caulerpa lentillifera)
There are many species of the genus Caulerpa, but Caulerpa lentillifera and C. racemosa are the two most popular edible ones. Both have a grape-like appearance and are used in fresh salads. They are commonly found on sandy or muddy sea bottoms in shallow protected areas. The pond cultivation of C. lentillifera has been very successful on Mactan Island, Cebu, in the central Philippines, with markets in Cebu and Manila and some exports to Japan. About 400 ha of ponds are under cultivation, producing 12-15 tonnes of fresh seaweed per hectare per year.
C. lentillifera (Figure 61) is the species best adapted to pond culture, although some strains of C. racemosa also give good yields. C. lentillifera is sensitive to changes of salinity, so pond areas must be placed away from any freshwater sources, and in the wet season in the Philippines surface drains are placed around the ponds to remove freshwater. The seaweed can tolerate a salinity range of 30-35 parts per thousand. Successful cultivation depends on good water management and the ponds must be designed so that tidal flows can be used to change the water in the ponds every second day. Water temperature can range between 25° and 30°C. Pond depth should be about 0.5 m and areas of about 0.5 ha are usual.
Planting is done by hand; about 100 g lots are pushed into the soft bottom at 0.5-1 m intervals. Sometimes broadcasting is used but this is not as efficient, the plants are loose on the bottom and can be moved by water motion induced by wind action on the surface. Key factors to control during growth are water exchange, weeding of other species of seaweed that would otherwise compete with the Caulerpa, and fertilization if the plants appear unhealthy or pale green to yellow in colour. Harvesting can commence about two months after the first planting; the seaweed is pulled out of the muddy bottom, but about 25 percent of the plants are left as seed for the next harvest. Depending on growth rates, harvesting can then be done every two weeks. The harvested plants are washed thoroughly in seawater to remove all sand and mud, then inspected, sorted and placed in 100-200 g packages; these will stay fresh for 7 days if chilled and kept moist. For local consumption, or air freight to Metro Manila, the seaweed may be packed in baskets lined with banana leaves; 20-30 kg of seaweed is placed on the leaves, the basket is topped with more banana leaves and covered with a plastic sack that is then fixed to the basket.
FIGURE 61
Caulerpa lentillifera (the Philippines).
Planting Rice
Libi said that we could borrow her father’s car and pick everyone up to take to the farm, and we planned to leave Laoang at 7 AM on Saturday. So I went over to Libi’s house at 7 AM (with mana Ediza, a friend/helper who lives in my house). Libi informs us that she was not feeling well enough to go, but we could still take the car. However, the driver was not there yet, so we sat around and waited a bit. Eventually I heard her say that the driver was meeting us in Laoang, which I was confused about, because there are no cars on Laoang, just trikes. So, it took me some convincing to tell her that we should really just go to Rawis (The town/barangay on “mainland” where the boats land) and meet him there. So, Ediza and I left around 7:30 for the boats. We got to Rawis and it took us about 15 minutes for the driver to arrive or for us to find him if he was there. So, we left Rawis around 7:50 for Catarman to pick up everyone else (and then head back to the farm). We picked up Sky on the way, and then picked up Jaci, Cassy, and Alyssa at Jackies house in the University of Eastern Philippines. We were definitely jammed tight in the car with 8 bodies and all of our stuff. Then we picked up water and our driver had to stop for gas. Gas ended up costing us 400 pesos. I was not expecting to pay anything for the car, because I assumed that Libi’s family was covering everything since she said they were going to provide the car. I should have asked about the price/ I wish she would have told me because it would have been much cheeper for us to all just take jeepneys. However, it was very convenient to have a car, especially with all of our stuff and because he new the location of the farm.
We arrived at the farm at about 10:30 AM, had snack/changed and left for the field around 11 AM. We were all told to bring rubber boots and I assumed that’s what we would be planting in. However, we wore them for the 15-minute walk to the field and then took them off because it would be impossible to move around in the actual rice field and sometimes the mud was deeper than our boots, rendering them useless. The fields had tons of snails and some spiders. Then there was other stuff that you could feel move in the mud, but just didn’t look or care to know what it was. Just look at the pictures. Sash told me that we would not get schistomiosis by planting and I trust him. But the conditions were perfect for it, so I’m really hoping he’s right.
A rice plant essentially looks like a long, stiff blade of grass. To plant it, you’re given a big bundle with maybe 30 plants in it, and then you trek along removing one/two plants (one plant has about 3 blades on it) and just stick it into the mud. The plants given to us were taken from the field right next to us. There is a certain technique in the way you hold the bundle and remove each plant to put it into the water that allows people to plant super fast. None of us had it. (But I sort of got into the groove later in the day.) So, Jaci, Alyssa, Emma, Cassy, and I all planted from about 11-1, then went in for lunch and to wait for Don to arrive from Allen (we had to wait on the road so he knew where to stop). After lunch around 2 or 2:30, Cassy, Don, Jaci, and I went back to plant some more. Cassy and Jaci stayed out for an hour or an hour and a half, and Don and I stayed out for maybe another 45 minutes after that.
We were more productive in the afternoon, as we were finally starting to get the hang of it. But before Jaci and Cassy left, Cassy fell down in the mud and Jackie tried to help her out and Cassy pulled Jackie in. The Filipinos in the other field started cracking up at them; it was funny watching both of them falling in, but even more funny just watching the Filipinos laugh at them. I was about to join in when as mud started being thrown at me, but one chunk hit me in the eye. It’s all fun and games until someone gets mud in their eye, and that was me. Luckily it wasn’t that bad and I think I got most of it out right away cause it didn’t really hurt. But that was the end of the mud games for me. But after I was done cleaning my eye, Donald tackled Cassy and the Filipinos loved that even more. It was really amusing.
Donald and I stayed out longer because we were both enjoying it and wanted to finish the rows we started. It down-poured when we were out there, and it felt awesome. Only downer was that I had nothing to clean my glasses with, but oh well. We’ll probably go back in March to harvest the rice we planted. Overall, we worked for about 4 hours total in the day and finished about 2/3 of the field, and Libi’s cousin Sash (who owned the farm) said that it would take Filipinos (don’t know how many of them, maybe two) about 2 hours to plant the field we were in. It’s amazing watching them go. Even a guy with one arm was planting faster than we were. All in all, I enjoyed getting muddy for one day, but am very glad I don’t do it as a means of living.
We stayed in Sash’s cabin, which sort of reminded me of a fancy hunting blind. Now, I’ve never been in a hunting blind. But this building was made from wood (expensive here) and was just a single open room with no furniture and two stories (see the picture) with a porch on the outside. Our bathroom was in another building. So, essentially it was just a wooden frame with enough room for about 7 people to sleep in each floor. It was right on the national highway, so sort of loud during the day. At night all we could hear though was the intense sounds of croaking frogs. There are not really any vehicles on the road at night and the frogs were super noisy; it was quite nice. Sash’s family/helpers took care of our food while we were there, and Sash even paid for us to all have pedicures (which are quite cheap) after we were done planting.
Random notes - Coconut Farm, Piano Lessons, Parades, Christmas Parties
I found out during my third week that my host tita owns a coconut farm quite close to the beach. We went there and got fresh, young coconuts to take to the beach and drink on the sand. I like coconut milk, but I think I have only had young coconuts, which are supposed to be sweeter, and it is still an acquired taste. Coconut milk is supposed to be very good for hydration too, and in some rural areas when doctors didn’t have access to IV’s for hydration (usually associated with dysentery), they injected coconut milk instead and it works almost as well. My tita was also telling me that there used to be squatters on their farm, who had lived there for 20 years. They got the mayor involved and eventually paid them what I thought was a lot of money to leave. So, I’m not sure how my tita owned the land but people were living on it for 20 years before they started to farm it, so that was interesting.
Piano lessons:
I sort of gave my first piano lessons in week 3. There is a student who works in the LGU, she is 20 years old, and plays the piano for the choir. She had lessons every day for one month, and is quite good for such a short time with formal lessons. She brought me a piece she really wants to learn and she knew some of it. So, I first thought she could read music, but no. The only reason she knew it is because it’s a popular song here, so she was just playing by ear. So my “teaching” ended up being me playing the next measures and her trying to copy me by watching my fingers. This was obviously slow and a little frustrating, especially because she doesn’t really have the technique yet to play the piece she wants to, but I think I got her to understand that she needs to be able to read music and I can show her how. Though, it’s hard to teach someone to read music when there is very little music available to read. Plus, there is still a bit of a language barrier. She came back for a second lesson two days later and that went better, I showed her some scales and she had some other music that she is going to work on too. We havn’t had a lesson for a while now just cause we’re both busy with holiday stuff, but hopefully they can continue.
Parades:
The first parade I heard in Laoang was at 5:06 AM. I was not happy to be hearing it. Apparently it was for the celebration of the immaculate conception of Mary. Later that night we had a party celebrating it too. I was also in a parade celebrating youth week. The parade consisted of me in the front police car with a few other people, a band behind us, and the youth council representatives walking behind them. I think it was basically a way for youth council to get attention and get a bunch of the street kids to come and participate in the games they had going on after the parade in the plaza.
Christmas parties:
So there are a ton of Christmas parties in the Philippines, and it is acceptable to miss work for them. I attended one Christmas party at a Canadian Catholic sponsored private school, and I arrived half way through. In the morning, the whole school celebrated together but when I arrived each class was celebrating in their homeroom. With the school director, I went around to each classroom, ate a little, and just said hi. Their celebration basically consists of eating and dancing and a gift exchange. The next day I went as a kasama (friend who accompanies you somewhere so your not by yourself) with one of my counterparts to a Christmas party for her daughter. I believe the school was just our equivalent of preschool and kindergarten. But the party consisted of a key note speaker talking (more for a celebration of some anniversary of the school) and then basically a dance recital with all of the kids. There was literally an hour of just them dancing with at least 8 costume changes. It was really cute but very different than an American Christmas party, and maybe even from the typical Filipino Christmas party. Oh, and of course there was food, but I didn’t stay because I had a birthday party to attend later that night.
Random notes - witchcraft, scams, Catarman airport, brownouts
I spent about an hour one day at work discussing witchraft, hypnotizing practices, and poisonings that occur in Samar. Basically, I was told to be careful if I go into any of the rural interior areas. I don’t believe any of it, but it was an interesting conversation, even though I only understood about 60% of it.
Scams:
Also, apparently a big scam that hit Filipinos is when people walking on the street and say that that they will leave a bag of money with you if you will let them borrow your phone. Naturally, the bag ends up being filled with paper. I don’t really know what this says about Filipinos, maybe it just reflects on how they are generally willing to trust people.
Airport:
I don’t think I have described the Catarman Airport yet. It only has one landing strip, and it is the national highway. So, when there is a plane landing, all traffic takes a detour around the city. The Provincial Police Station is on the national highway, and we were reminded of the air strip during our courtesy call as we were sitting outside and a plane literally landed about 100 yards away from us.
Brownouts:
Also, brownouts occur fairly regularly here and apparently there are scheduled ones every weekend. It hasn’t been a problem yet, but I could see it as an issue when there is no electricity at night and I want a fan. Even if there is not a brown, sometimes the current will fluctuate a lot. I was sitting in my room one night and my fan kept changing speeds, not because I was changing it but because of the electricity.
Thanksgiving Weekend in the Philippines
Six of the 7 volunteers in Northern Samar met us there, in addition to one volunteer in Guiwan and one in Biliran. So, Trent, Alyssa, Jackie, Emma, Don and I were all there (Cassy arrived on Sunday), plus Eric and Brett who are dating Alyssa and Emma. Saturday we all just hung out, walked around Allen, and enjoyed the rest-o-bar/zoo/crazy compound that Don is living in. It was a sweet place, but the only downer was that it is very loud. The bar in the band did not stop until about 4 AM Sunday, and Don also lives about 3 blocks away from the High School. They happened to be having some sort of competition/celebration thing and started playing (well blaring) music literally at 6 AM on Sunday.
Sunday morning, once we all got up, we went to the market to buy stuff for our dinner. We spent most of the afternoon just cooking in the “industrial” kitchen of the resto-bar. We had green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, salad, watermelon (with vodka inside) and fried kamote (like a potatoe) chips. Then Don’s host family slow roasted chickens and made shrimp. It was an awesome meal. Trent went to culinary school and was in catering so
Monday was a Philippine national holiday so none of us had to work. So, Sunday night we stayed at the Wayang-Wayang beach resort, which is a pretty nice place and has some good views, but no beach. The people from out of Northern Samar had to leave early in the morning to get back on time, but Trent and I stuck around until about 11 AM. Then we left but met Alyssa, Jackie, and Emma in Catarman for lunch, and found a decent pizza place. Then Trent and I went bike shopping and that is what my next post will be about.
Second Week - Friday
The other people from the LGU had to do a session measuring sustainability of some of their previous projects. Before this started though, I requested to walk around the barangay just to get a better feel for it. It’s obvious that this barangay is very rural; I don’t think they have electricity, there is maybe one sari-sari store, and I think it has a population of 600 people, with about 120 adults. There is no place to buy anything in the barangay, which is probably why it seemed like everyone had a garden. But by the end of the walk, I had a possee of about 20 kids following us. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first time a foreigner has ever been there. Then I attended most of the sustainability session, but around 2:00 I was hot and tired of trying to understand Waray, so I went to where my supervisor was and just played games on my cell phone.
The session ended at 2:30 and then we ate lunch at the barangay capitans house. There was small lobster, some kind of flat lobster, snails, crabs, and octopus. I didn’t eat a lot because I already had lunch. Between this session and the ribbon cutting ceremony, I started to talk to some kids because I was bored. In about 3 minutes, 5 kids turned into 40+ kids and over 20 adults. They formed a circle around me, and I did not really know what to do with them all. They were excited that I could speak alittle Waray and everyone was obviously curious why I was there and wanted to get to know me. So, I was trying to just be friendly and make them more comfortable with me. So, I started to ask individual questions, and everyone was to ashamed to answer. So I turned it to general questions… who is in grade ____ , so at least that got them shouting/communicating with me. But pretty soon I ran out of questions, and I just stood there awkwardly until I could figure out something else to do.
So, after a few minutes, I asked them to teach me the nobody, nobody but you dance. It took awhile for them to understand what I was asking and for the music to start and to find someone “brave” enough to dance infront of everyone. But eventually, three young girls started to dance and I tried to imitate them infront of everyone. I think I pretty much made a fool of myself, but it made everyone laugh and I started to win over the crowd. But again, after that there was more awkward standing around until I decided to try and teach them the hokey pokey. It was just me singing and doing the actions with them following the actions behind me. It actually went sort of well and got a lot of the kids dancing. Then I asked them to teach me a dance or sing me a song, and again it took awhile for everyone to understand me with the language barrier. So, I eventually just asked them to sing the national anthem (since I knew they sing it in school), and they did and were great. Then they also sang me a Christmas song. Then we stood around awkwardly for long, and I was hoping the ceremony would start, but it didn’t. Eventually the song, “All the Single Ladies” was playing and I sort of started danced to it and they said they wanted to see me dance more. I replied by saying everyone should dance, not just me, so we should go to the plaza where the music was. So, I walked over, and all 50 kids followed me. I danced a little but couldn’t get the kids to dance cause they just circled around me and watched me. But luckily I was saved by the start of the ribbon cutting ceremony pretty soon after we got to the plaza. (Perhaps because I brought all of the people there). This whole group definitely put me out of my comfort zone, but it was sort of fun trying to interact with everyone and having their undivided attention. The LGU people said that it was easy organizing events with me there, because I attract people.
The ceremony was the same as usual; however, the only “important” people there this time was my supervisor, myself, and the barangay capitan, so I thought the ceremony might be quick. But no, my supervisor decided to talk for over 30 minutes. I also spoke and my speech was now mostly in Waray, and it went pretty well. I think I probably still sound like a 2 year old, but everyone appreciates the effort to learn their language. We were done around 5 and got back home around 7.
Second Week - Thursday
We (PCV’s Trent, Sky and I and our supervisors) arrived in Catarman at about 9:30 and walked to Emma’s supervisors house in UEP to know where it is. Then our supervisors split to go visit people they knew at UEP and let us walk around Catarman. We took a trike to Catarman (since it is a little bit of a ways away from the university) and walked around until lunch. This was my first time in Catarman, so it was nice to get oriented. We checked out some bike places, went to the bank, and found some grocery stores, and we randomly met Don (a PCV in my cluster whose site is on the other side of northern samar) as we walked around. So, we all went back to Emma’s supervisors house around 11:30 for lunch, and a little later all the other volunteers arrived from Northern Samar. This was the first time we saw each other since going to our sites by ourselves. Granted, it was only a week and a half, but it felt like so much longer and it was great to see everyone!
We left for the governors around 2:15 and surprisingly did not have to wait long for our meeting. In the meeting the governor mostly talked about how he got to meet President Clinton and his life in California. We tried to ask him questions, but he was really hard of hearing so it was difficult. I asked him where the best festivals are in Northern Samar, and apparently he heard bats so he told me where I could go to find bats in Northern Samar, on Capul island. As we were leaving, he also asked for the girl interested in bats, so I walked back into the office so he could show me a picture of Capul. It was all I could do to hold in my laughter; I just thought it was hilarious that I was now known as the bat lady. After that, all the volunteers split up again. So, Trent, Sky, and I went back, but my supervisor wanted to stop at UEP to visit another one of his friends house, who turned out to be the provincial director for the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DENR). So, we had some beers and food there for about 2 hours then went back to our respective sites.
Second Week - Wednesday
The barangay we visited is another one on Batag island as is about an hour boat ride away. So, I gathered everything and went to the mayors house where we were meeting at 12:30, and she told me we were not leaving until 1:30. So, I got to go back and relax for a bit. I went back at 1:30, and about 25 people, including myself, representing the LGU left around 2:10. We arrived at the barangay and all the barangay officials lined the dock creating a theoretical red carpet of people we walked through to get up to the plaza area. At 3:30 we started the ceremony, after the ribbon cutting for the new health center. Now, there were a lot of important people from the LGU there, so there was a lot of speaking and the ceremony finished around 6:00. So, I got to sit through 2.5 hours of Waray speeches, whoopee. But, I got to speak and had my best Waray-Waray speech yet, probably infront of about 400 people, children and adults.
In all of these ceremonies, various LGU people come and there were the most in this barangay, and I think it is because it is one of the biggest barangay’s in Laoang and it gives them public face time in preparation for the elections in May.
After the ceremony, we had the celebration dinner at the Barangay Capitan’s house, and we tried to leave at 7 to go back, but the tide was too low, so they were not able to get the boat out. So, we crashed at a LGU workers house whose family lived very close to the “dock”. I ended up reading (good thing I brought a book) and nodded in and out of sleep. My supervisor said we might stay the night, since it was so far away, and I had all of my things and really thought that’s what we would end up doing. So around 10 PM, I decided to see where everyone left to, and there was a dance going on up at the plaza. So I went up to check it out, and naturally my presence was announced over the mic to everyone when I arrived and they thanked me for being there. It seemed like a good time, but, unfortunately, I only got to stay for no longer than 5 minutes before we had to leave on the boat to go back (around 10:15 PM).
So we left, and the water was still quite shallow but apparently deep enough. It was raining pretty strong for about ¾ of the ride, and I was very glad I had my rain jacket, but my pants were still soaked by the end. All the Filipinos were complaining about being cold, and this was one of the few times I was actually chilly too. About half way through our trip, we hit a coral reef. We could feel the boat bump, and then they shut off the motor. I wasn’t worried at all, but several of the other people on the boat were; most Filipinos can not swim. But, they just used bamboo poles to push us out with (the same ones they use close to the docks where it’s shallow) and then started up the motor again and we were on our way. We arrived back on the island of Laoang around 11:30, and I got back to my house at about 11:50.
Second Week - Tuesday
After the meeting, we went to a rural barangay for their turning over/ribbon cutting ceremony for their new day care building, elementary school building (grades 1 -6, two classrooms), and farm to market road. The barangay is about a half hour away, and we went with the mayor and a small possee of municipal people or SB members in the PNP (Philippine National Police) car. The car sort of looks like a truck, but it has 5 seats inside in the front, and in the bed there are two benches with a roof over top. It was raining pretty hard when we arrived, so instead of everyone getting out to cut the ribbon over the farm to market road, we just drove through it and called it good. Then we parked the car at the end of the road and walked to the school building for the official ceremony. Again, it followed the same pattern, and this time it probably lasted 1.5 to 2 hours (just from people talking), and I spoke again. There were about 40 people at this one and afterword there was food for us. So we ate dinner and left around 8:30 PM. After we leave, I think most of the barangays continue the party. As we left they had the music blaring through the speakers, and it was sort of a surreal feeling to literally be walking through a jungle in the dark with Lady Gaga blaring overhead. We got back around 9 or 9:30 and I went to bed.
Second Week - Monday
After that, I had a death anniversary lunch to attend at our neighbors/my new friend Libertine (Libby’s) house. There were lots of people there and the mayor arrived about 45 minutes after I did. They had typical Filipino party food and they also have a piano, which they requested me to play. So after I ate, I played for about 15 minutes, and then I just mingled with people. I left around 2 to go back to the office. Around 2:30 I found out we were going to barangay San Miguel Heights for their turning over/ribbon cutting ceremony for a new drainage canal. We left shortly after, and the barangay is in the proper area so we just took a trike. Once we arrived we just hung out and mingled as we waited for the mayor to arrive. When she arrived we started the ceremony. All of these ceremony things that I have attend have the same order of events. First, someone leads a prayer, then there is the singing of the national anthem, then any important person in the room speaks, then they have plaques that someone reads and hands over to the barangay officials/volunteers. So, in this ceremony the mayor, my supervisor (who is the municipals program coordinator), myself, and the barangay capitan spoke to about the 30 people there. They did not have food after this ceremony, so I arrived back at my house around 6:30.
Almost as soon as I arrived, we ate dinner. I then went back to Libby’s house because she said they were drinking and all of her 7 sisters were there and she wanted me to meet everyone (because I wasn’t able to at lunch). So, I went over around 8 and by then most everyone was either a little tipsy, drunk, or not drinking and about to go to bed. So, I hung out with the partiers and just tried to meet people over a beer. It turns out that most of the people in this group are gay, and they said there is a professional alliance of gay people in Laoang that would be happy to partner with me, which is good news. However, most of our conversation focused on the fact that I could speak alittle Waray-Waray and them trying to teach me new words or explaining what they were saying to each other. I called it a night around 11 PM.
First Weekend at Site - Congressman visit, internet, school contact
That afternoon, since I was at home, I met David, who is the Mayor’s nephew and the national Congressman’s son (there are 2 congressman for Northern Samar). David is a friend of my host family and was informed that I was staying with them and he (or someone) requested that I go over to the mayor’s house to meet him. David has been a dentist in the twin cities, MN for 15 years and was just visiting his relatives here. So, I went over and we chatted for a bit. He then wanted to tour town, so I went with him. We used one of the few non-motorcycle vehicles on the island and just drove around for a bit; then we went to a restaurant for a “snack”. The place we went is really cool and I’m glad he introduced it to me. They had pretty real hamburgers for 35 pesos and a great Halo-halo (Filipino shaved ice/ice cream dessert). Then we went back to the house and had dinner with the Mayor’s husband, and eventually my supervisor.
Friday, I was told to rest again. So, around 10 or 11AM, I went back to the mayors house because David said I could come over anytime and use the wireless internet they have there. It turned out that the connection was good for skype, I talked to my parents (which was great), but pretty slow for the rest of the websites. The connection would come in bursts – I would have about 5 minutes of good connection followed by 10 minutes of inactivity. But, it was free and I got most everything that I wanted done, including making a presentation that I gave this week to the barangay capitans.
I had lunch at my house and returned to the mayor’s house around 2 to finish things up on the internet. Then David and I went the municipal area. He wanted to walk around and see some of the projects and talk to the people. He reports this to his dad and he has also done several mission trips with the rural health unit, so he likes to see how people/things are doing. It was good that I went with him, because I was introduced to some new people. After that, I was informed that I was invited to meet the congressman that night. The congressman lives in Rawis on the mainland. David was going to drop off his things at the house, because he was leaving very early the next morning, but then return to Laoang for the night. He invited me to go with him.
So, I took this opportunity to meet the congressman with David. We got VIP treatment (as David is the congressman’s son) to the Congressman’s VERY nice house. This includes our own car and boat to Laoang. We also traveled with 3 guys in bulletproof vests carrying some type of big gun. Somehow, this didn’t exactly make me feel safer, but oh well.
When we arrived, we found out that we would be attending a birthday party that night back in Laoang with the David’s dad. As we waited for the Congressman to be ready, a group of about 12 unannounced school children and their teachers arrived at the house. The congressman came down and chatted with them as they showed him the newsletter they created. After a little bit, he introduced me to them, and shortly after we left to go back to Laoang.
The birthday party we attend was fun – I’ll explain later what Filipino birthday parties involve. After, David was going to meet up with some of the people in the Rural Health Unit for drinks. So, his Dad and I went with him. The place we went had live music and was right on the water; it was pretty nice and I’m excited to be able to go back there. The only downer was it rained a bit and most the tables were outside, but we managed. I met some new people, and it was a really nice night. The congressman also paid for all of drinks of the 12ish people who were there in our group.
It was great meeting David (and the congressman) and learning about his work in the Philippines and his impressions of things here. They were also just fun to hang out with on my first weekend in Laoang, though I feel slightly bad getting VIP treatment.
Saturday night, one of Mana Nieta’s friends came over to visit and for dinner. It turns out he is a community organizer for a Canadian Mission group. He is the director for the NGO which helps foreign individuals sponsor kids to attend their private school. They also work with the families in alternative livelihood projects and housing projects. He is interested in having me do some IEC in the school, which is great. We got talking about my family and how I talk to them with skype, and he then said I could just use the internet in their office, which is about 50 feet away from my house. I just had to ask Mana Ediza and she would let me in.
So, Sunday morning I decided to take him up on his offer and asked Mana Ediza if I could go. She was initially hesitant because she wanted to cook lunch, but I thought it would just be a quick process to let me in and I didn’t want to go after lunch in case I could catch someone at home on-line to chat with (it was Saturday night in the US). So, I sort of insisted on going in the morning. We ended up leaving, and we had to go to another house to get the key to the office. I chatted with the owners of the house, another person who works for the NGO, for about 20 minutes. I was wondering what was taking so long to get the key. Soon after, the person I was chatting with said that Mana Nieta called her daughter because she needed to show me which computer to use, and we were waiting for her to arrive before we could leave. I’m not really sure why that was necessary, but she came and we all walked over to the NGO’s building (which was very close) and opened it up. There were only 3 computers, and it was obvious which one had internet, but I was grateful she was willing to help (but feel bad that she had to come just for that). I then proceeded to use the internet (which had a mostly good connection, but no skype on the computer), and Mana Ediza went to cook lunch.
After about 45 minutes Mana Ediza came back, she was done. Then she sat there and waited for me to finish. Again, I’m not really sure why she had to sit there with me, and it was a little awkward having her just waiting for me. But I got most of what I wanted to done on-line, the connection was really good, and again, it was free. It was a little more hassle than I expected though, and I feel bad for making other people do things for me.
Second Day of Work
Then a bunch of us left in the PNP (Philippine National Police) car to go to one of the coastal barangays we would be working in; there was a fisherfolk training going on (with about 60 people) and my supervisor was going to introduce me to everyone. We arrived around 10:30 and they were just finishing a session, so then my supervisor started talking about various things, including why I was there. Then I was asked to introduce myself. I did better this time than the day before. Since I knew my supervisor already covered everything about me, I just stuck to the basics and spoke all in Waray-Waray. Then I watched the training/information session they had on Global Warming (it was all in Waray, so I didn’t understand much), and after everyone had lunch. We stuck around until 2 PM, walking around the barangay and meeting a few more people after we ate. Then we left for another barangay.
We had about an hour pumpboat ride to another island plus a half hour hike to get to this barangay. This island is really rural, and there is no electricity. However, there are steel posts with electric wires (that look just like electric posts in the states, and are the only metal posts I’ve seen in the Philippines); they are just waiting to get the generators, which are apparently coming in March. But almost all the houses are Nipa/Bamboo huts and they are really in the middle of the forest (palm trees and coconut trees). Our hike was really pretty and the path was like a typical hiking path, but maybe a little wider. The only vehicles on that island are motorcycles, and normally they use the path we walked on. I would have ridden a motorcycle to the barangay, but PC does not allow us to. And again, it was nice to get away from the noises of most towns in the Philippines (traffic, roosters, and karaoke) and just be in undisturbed nature. Luckily it was fairly cool outside, so it was actually a pleasant walk.
The barangay is quite poor, but looks very nice. There is very little trash on the ground and most of the houses have gardens/flowers/shrubs and they are right on the coast. But it really is like a totally different world because of how remote it is. We went there because they were having a ceremony celebrating the completion of a new school building and 36 individual toilet facilities. I guess the ocean was their toilet before these. The ceremony was just like the one the day before (apparently they have them after projects are completed and apparently there are many finished projects in my municipality). Living here would probably be more of what people think of as the “typical” Peace Corps experience, and I found myself pondering if it would be feasible for me. I’m thinking of it for like 3 months, just to get to know the community, and because it would be a totally different experience than where I’m living now. But I would literally drop off the radar if I did that – it would be hard for me to travel anywhere, I don’t know if there is a place to buy cell phone load, and there would be no easy internet access; so that probably wont happen. But I think it would be really cool (and difficult) to actually live like rural people do. On the way back to Laoang proper we saw a beautiful sunset.
First Day of Work
“Sustainable Fisheries and Coastal Resource Management with Critical Environmental Concerns” (SF-CRM-CEC)
Duration: 2 years (Nov. 2009 – Nov. 2011)
Expected Output:
· Fisheries and Coastal Resource Assessment
· Fisheries and Coastal Resource Plan and Implementation
· Community Based eco-tourism plan
· IEC on critical environmental issues and concerns (climate change, RA 9003, clean air act, clean water, ecology, health care, waste management
Funding: 20% EOF Augmentation Fund, FY 2007/FY 2008
Implementing Organization: Joint team from MENRO, Office of Mayor, and Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO)
After everyone on our team had written it down, we went around and formally introduced ourselves to one another. I cannot tell if the rest of the team knows each other or not; I believe they were all working for the LGU before this, but perhaps not in the same office. By the time we were done, it was about 10:30. Next, we went over our plans and activities for November and December. It seems very organized and I’m excited that there are activities already planned. However, I’m still a little unsure of what we are going to do to achieve the expected outputs. I’m mainly just meeting people for the first month. But I’m sure the means to reach the goals will come later. We finished around 11:30 and then broke for lunch. I will normally go to my host family for lunch, unless I am out in the field working in a different Barangay.
After lunch, we left at 2 to go to a different Barangay for courtesy calls, or so I thought. Courtesy calls are basically introductions to important people in the community. So, I reported to our office at 1:20 and ended up texting other volunteers about how things were going until we left at around 2. We rode on a trike (a motorcycle with a cab), because I am not allowed to ride on motorcycles (it’s a worldwide Peace Corps policy because apparently there have been too many accidents). It was about a half hour trike ride to the barangay, and about 10 minutes of it was on paved roads. The rest was on the road the quality of a two-track; so, needless to say, it was very bumpy. I didn’t mind though and it was a really pretty ride. We were along the coast for part of it, and in places with very little development along the road. However, once the road ended, we still had a little distance to go. So, we walked about 1000 meters up a dirt path to the barangay. Normally, people just ride motorcycles there; so, everyone thought we were crazy for walking until my supervisor could explain why. This little hike made me really happy though, it was so pretty and there were no cars or people or houses… it was like a little retreat into the wilderness. It seems like there are people everywhere in the Philippines and it was nice to escape for a bit.
You could tell we arrived at the barangay because there were houses and a paved road. To my surprise, we were not going to just a courtesy call or barangay council meeting, but a ribbon cutting/turning over ceremony (from municipal to barangay) of a new Day Care Center building and the Payow (an offshore fish attracting device…. I don’t really know what it is…). We arrived a little before it started, so I chatted with some people. Then they blared some music over the speakers (Poker Face by LadyGaga)… what better way is there to start a meeting? There were about 30 people there plus the vice mayor, 4 people from the S.B. (the municipal governing body), my supervisor, my “counterpart” from counterparts conference (she’s not on our team but is a community organizer for other projects), and me. The vice mayor, S.B. people, and I all sat at a table infront of everyone during the ceremony. They all gave speeches, and I really should have expected that I would be asked to speak, but I didn’t. So, when I was asked to explain who I was and what Peace Corps is I totally choked… I tried to do it in Waray-Waray and no one seemed to understand me, so I switched to English, and even in English my speech was pretty bad. That was a little frustrating because it’s something we practiced in PST. Oh well, what mattered more was that I was just there and showing support for the barangay projects and meeting people.
After the ceremony, there was food in the Day Care center. I thought everyone at the celebration was going to eat, but apparently it was just the LGU officials and myself. I was told the celebration was going to continue into the night, so maybe everyone else ate then, because we certainly did not eat all of the food. I just thought it was a little odd that the people who probably participated in the project didn’t get to eat at the ceremony.
I got back to my host family around 6 PM, and Joseph, a gay dance instructor, was waiting for me. I met him the night before when I was introduced to the neighbors (and their piano J). He is also 23, and we could probably be friends; he seems cool. Anyway, the night before he asked if I wanted dance lessons, and I said sure. I wasn’t expecting him to show up the next day, but it was a pleasant surprise. So, he proceeded to teach me swing and the tango. We started talking, and he kept on saying how he was a gay and just wanted to be a professional (I think implying that people don’t take gays seriously here), and that I would be able to solve his problem. He has a few problems that he talked about, so I was confused initially about which one I was going to solve. But assumed/figure out he meant financial. So, I clarified what I am able to do and I think we are better now. But, that was a little awkward.