So as happy as I sounded in my last blog, it really isn’t quite as magnificent and carefree as I made it out to be. I still felt like a tourist in my last entry, everything was new and I was just beginning to discover the island. The poverty here is real and prominent on the island, the Philippines certainly isn’t paradise for the people who live here. They struggle everyday to make ends meet, they have no concept of saving, planning for the future, just living day to day. Many have no jobs or work only temporarily, and many talk of one day reaching America. But I have conversations with them about America as well. America also isn’t the paradise they dream of. I tell them we have poverty too, we have many people living on the streets begging for money, and the economic gap between the rich and poor is alarming. People are struggling to find jobs in America as well I tell them. They ask if we have squatters, and well we don’t really. I tell them we just have people begging on the streets because they don’t know how to build their own shanty house, they don’t know to raise chickens and crops, trade for food, and sustain their own livelihood, they just weren’t raised in that type of environment nor is there the space for that kind of life in a town, but they do know other skills, like maybe how to use a computer, do construction work or fix a car, but got sick and weren’t able to pay their medical bill, maybe they are disabled, maybe they have a criminal record, maybe they are veterans or maybe they are emotionally unstable because they had an abusive upbringing. Many of them were raised in the city or in more densely populated areas where there are no farms or other natural resources to live off of, and that’s where they end up, on the city streets begging for money because they don’t know how to sustain their own livelihood like a squatter usually does. Anyways, I really enjoy having these conversations with Filipinos, because many people in less developed countries just see America for what is in the media and on television and are unaware of the inequality and poverty that also exists in my home country.
I live in a beautiful place here, but as you can imagine living in a foreign country is vastly different from traveling to a foreign country. In all my previous travels, I have had the freedom to be able to pick up and leave, catch the next bus out, and be on my way to a new place surrounded by unfamiliar people. I have made the commitment to leave here, get to know the people, the language, and work to improve the livelihood of the Filipino people. The most difficult has been the language barrier. Unless I am being talked at directly, I tend to just sink into the background and try hopelessly to pick up what they are saying because not only do they speak very fast, but they speak the local dialect. There are miscommunications everyday, they take me for an idiot sometimes just because there is that lack of understanding which I guess could happen both ways. I also have a really hard time because I talk slower obviously than a native speaker. So I get cut off a lot and interrupted because well that’s how Filipinos talk, they all talk at once really fast and whoever talks the loudest or longer seems to get their point across. I really enjoy one on one conversations because I have more time to compile my thoughts in Tagalog before being cut off and I also get laughed at less. And if you do know something, never say “I know” here because it is taken to mean “I know all” and that you are a snobby American. Today I had my first session with my new Tagalog tutor at my house. She will be coming here Tuesdays and Thursdays for one hour and then three hours on both Saturday and Sunday. She is wonderful, her name is Mercedes and she is actually a 4th grade teacher so she really knows how to teach at an elementary level. I am really looking forward to becoming fluent in Tagalog!
My work started off pretty busy working with the NGO on the giant clam restocking project, but it has settled down quite a bit. I was warned about this everyday of orientation and training. The work pace is much slower here than in the United States as I am sure you can all imagine. When I come into work at 8 am, we chit chat about anything really, speak with other government officials or community members that stop by our office, play computer games, read some papers or books, look at pictures, sometimes just stare into space, take trips to market to look at the fish available, take naps, walk around town, and well do whatever you want really, it’s up to you how productive you want to be, then we all head home at 5 pm or sometimes have a drink at a sari-sari store after work. We also take trips to other parts of the island to meet with other People’s Organizations and their projects they have going there, like vermiculture (composting with worms), greenhouses, tilapia farms, and mangrove restoration projects. I started looking into starting a freshwater pearl farm here but I am not sure if we have the resources to start something like that here. It really has to be pretty big scale if you want to profit from it at all as an alternative livelihood project. So as some of you may know, mussels produce a pearl as a reaction to a foreign object inserted into its tissue. So you can artificially inject them with sand and they will produce a pearl, but for about every 100 pearls you inject, only 50 will survive, and only 10 of those perhaps will produce a nice pearl. Couple the survival rate with the fact that it can be a 5-10 year process and well, that calls for a pretty big operation, patience, and a lot of capitol investment. We haven’t ruled it out, but we are looking into more feasible projects.
One that my mayor suggested during my site visit was to create a bird sanctuary. I actually just visited the site earlier today. There are mangroves in the area which block off a decent sized body of water which only really mixes with the ocean during really high tide. There are wild migratory ducks, hundreds of them, they come to the lagoon around 5 pm every afternoon and leave every morning during sunrise when the squatters that live there start walking around. They are threatened apparently because people remove the nests and eggs and sell them for a high price in Manila. We want to not only create a bird sanctuary but develop the area as an ecotourism destination where tourists can walk on a boardwalk through the mangroves, watch the ducks, take a small paddle boat out and hook and line for bangus, and have a kitchen for them to grill up their catch, paddle out or take the boardwalk to a tiny little island just off the coast and hike on a trail to the top. While it all sounds ideal, we of course have to be very careful to not disrupt the natural ecosystem here and ensure that this ecotourism will not further destroy the habitat and thus further threaten the wild duck populations. It is a delicate situation that must be approached with caution. We will have to stock the pond with bangus (the national fish of the Philippines- milk fish) and maybe insert a mesh barrier where high tide ocean water enters the lagoon to prevent them from all escaping. We’ll have to build a guardhouse to watch over the area which can be connected to the kitchen area. However, there are, as of right now, eight families of squatters on the land. While they have no permission to be on the land, and we have every right to kick them off of the land if they are encroaching on land used by endangered species, it is a difficult and sensitive situation. These people have lived on the land for a long time now whether it is federal land or not, they have established a home here. The one I walked by today had a decent house, very well maintained yard, raked clean, and complete with flowers and a garden plot. It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, it will be hard to tell these people they need to leave.
Last weekend, two other Peace Corps volunteers came to my site and we went diving on Cobrador Island, which has some of the nicest reefs because the island is not nearly as populated as the main island. We planned on cooking up an Indian feast here for Thanksgiving with my friend here from India, also a volunteer but working as a director of a catholic school teaching kids technical skills. However, we got back late and came back to his school to find our meal was already waiting for us, prepared by his talented cook! Very delicious, spicy chicken curry! Not your typical Thanksgiving dinner, but masarap talaga! I met a few ladies the other night that also work in the Municipal Office. I walked by a sari-sari store on my way out of the office and I was convinced to come in and have just one beer, then it was just one more, then isa pa lang, then one for the road, and so on and so one. They bought me several beers, dinner, and paid my fare to get home despite all my effort to pay. Filipinos are so generous here, it’s really in their blood. They are my newest friends here all in their 50’s, one of them is divorced and another is a widow. We talk girl talk and about how we don’t need men and are independent, haha, but then the next minute we talk about how I will keep my eyes out for single men for them and that they will be looking for a nice lalaki for me. Filipinos are very keen on finding all of us volunteers a Filipino spouse. Usually the third question I get after how old are you and where are you from, is are you single?
Anyways, that’s all for now, overall it’s been great, my first few weeks of work have really flown by. I have my good days and I have my bad days, but as another volunteer put it, without a bad day you would never know a good day.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Happy as a Giant Clam
I am officially a United States Peace Corps Volunteer now. Up until a few days ago I could only claim I was a trainee, but now I am sworn-in, a full-fledged volunteer and have experienced my first two days of work thus far. Every Monday there is a flag ceremony here which is pretty typical everywhere you go in the Philippines. We sang the national anthem and then I was called up to the front to give an impromptu speech in Tagalog about what I am doing here. Everyone was very welcoming and the crowd was filled with nothing but good energy and smiles. After the flag ceremony I bought a mountain bike, a helmet, and a lock so that I could ride to the office of “SIKAT” a Non-Government Organization that I will be working with closely during my time here. We did a Giant Clam assessment in Agnipa around the Marine Protected Area (MPA) using the manta tow method I described a few blogs ago where you are basically pulled behind a bangka as you snorkel and then count any giant clams you see. We located the clams and recorded their location using a GPS so that the following day we could find them again, weigh them, and transfer them inside the MPA. It is prohibited in the Philippines to take Giant Clams regardless of whether they are inside an MPA or not. However, by putting them inside the MPA, they can be better monitored because there is a Bantay Dagat (coast guard) protecting the area. We are also moving the clams to slightly deeper water, about 15- 20 feet, so they will be less accessible to illegal fishers and less susceptible to overheating in shallow waters during low tide. We will then return to these MPA’s and tag each clam so that we can keep track of them and monitor their growth. It’s been an amazing couple of first work days and it doesn’t stop there. After work, I ride my bicycle 9 km to my house winding in around mangrove forests, coconut tree groves, up and around cliffsides with unbelievable views of the neighboring islands, breathing the fresh clean air because there is never traffic, and making it just in time to catch the sunset over the horizon. When I get home, my family greets me with smiles and banter, and merienda of course. Life couldn’t be better…. The last three months of training has certainly paid off, I am finally here at my permanent site in the Philippines, Romblon, starting my new life as a volunteer.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Meron akong maliit mga hayop sa tiyan ko
Ahoy! Well as some of you know, it’s been a little crazy here in the Philippines in the past couple weeks with the typhoons and all so I thought I would start this blog entry with all the madness then end on a lighter note. It rained pretty hard last week and caused some flooding near Manila leaving us stranded on our trip to Zambalas. I managed to contract amoebas leading to some intense diarrhea, making me dizzy and lightheaded and causing me to faint and break my nose. Fortunately, this happened the night before all of the flooding so I was able to get to a hospital. I spent almost a week there recovering from my amoeba ordeal and getting my nose operation, which by the way is still crooked. Builds character right? Yeah…. Ok. Anyways, people are getting sick left and right here, and one of the other volunteers I am training with managed to get dengue fever, an untreatable illness transferred by mosquitoes. He spent a week and half in the hospital with a 104 degree temp and an intense burning and itching sensation all over his body, but he’s much better now, more alive and glowing than ever. We are nearing the end of the wet season, so bring on the heat and avocados!
In other news, I am off to my permanent site, Romblon Island, in only two weeks. I fell in love with this place during my visit, it is everything I wanted. It is an ideal location, but yet to be discovered by tourists, because well it’s a quite a challenge to get to. I took the easy way there, a 45 minute airplane ride from Manila which lands on the island of Tablas adjacent to mine, then you either have to cross the island and take a one hour bangka ride to my island or you can take a three hour boat ride around Tablas to get to Romblon, Romblon Island. Just to clarify, Romblon is a province and within that province includes many islands and municipalities, but I am living near the capital of the province called Romblon which is on Romblon Island within the Romblon province. On the way back to Manila without the airplane, it wasn’t quite so easy. The flight is much more expensive than taking the ferry so I can’t afford it on my budget. So on the way back I first took a ferry to Tablas which continues north to Batangas on Luzon, then a bus from Batangas to Cubao in Manila, then another bus to Olongapo, then two more jeepneys to Sabang, my training site. Whew! All in all, about a 30 hour trip. I like that it is a remote site thus it remains relatively pristine. If I want to go somewhere touristy and crazy, I am only about 4-5 hours from Boracay, tourist central. It’s absolutely breathtaking here and I hope some of you can get the opportunity to visit me here on Romblon and experience a part of the Philippines that many Filipinos don’t even get to see. We have marble and quartz all over the island whether you are on the beach or climbing the mountain behind my house to get to town. We have an abundance of fresh seafood and atis (sugar apples), rice fields, a quaint bookstore/coffee shop, dive resort, and beautiful white sand beaches. The island is very clean compared to the rest of the inhabited Philippine islands. Peace Corps did an amazing job fitting us with our preferences. My house is about 100 m from the beach and a 16 hectare Marine Protected Area (MPA) however I am about 9 km from the town proper (and workplace) which makes things difficult. I plan on moving to town after living for three months with my host family so I can be closer to both my job and the markets. My host family is wonderful; my host father is an electrical engineer and my host mamma owns a store that sells electronic devices. I have a host brother that is 14, a sister age 8, and a baby boy age 1. I also have a very sweet grandmother age of 88. My host sister has a physical disability where her bones are not quite developed thus her body is very soft and she isn’t able to walk, but she’s very smart and has won several awards at school. I have my own room, occasional internet access if there are no clouds, a television with many English channels, about 30 chickens (one of which is perched less than a foot away from my window), dogs, cats, a shower, flush toilet, oven, and back porch. During my visit I also met the congressman, mayor, and governor, all of which were very excited for the upcoming projects. My office is located within the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries sector under the Local Government Unit. I am going to work on setting up a bird sanctuary to protect wild ducks that live off this cliff and will be doing a lot of watershed and mangrove reforestation. I will also be monitoring several of the Marine Protected Areas and updating their Coastal Resource Management Plans. In addition, I will be developing alternative livelihood projects for fisherfolk in the community. Livelihood projects are intended to give fisherfolk an alternative income and therefore reduce pressure on marine resources. Examples of these could be seaweed farming, aquaculture, basket weaving, making peanut brittle and jam, paper bead jewelry, and recycling plastic into bags, purses, and wallets. I am really excited for my work but a little intimidated by the language barrier I will face. I have spent the last two months learning Tagalog although in Romblon, like many islands in the Philippines, they have their own unique dialect. My counterpart (the Filipino I will be working alongside throughout my two year service) and supervisor are wonderful people and I know I will continue to pick up the language after training because they say when I arrive, they will only speak to me in Tagalog and likewise it is bawal (prohibited) for me to speak English. I couldn’t be more happy with my placement, it will be challenging but I am so excited to become fluent in Tagalog!
We went to an elementary school for an environmental education workshop a couple weeks ago. Among us eight volunteers we had 200 students (4th and 5th graders) to teach! We split into pairs and had four games in which about 50 students rotated among. My station was the “Trash Relay Game”. Basically it was a relay race among four student teams to pick up items off the ground (banana peels, crumpled paper, plastic candy wrappers, glass and plastic bottles, coconut husks, and plastic bags) and place them into one of the three bins: Re-usable, Trash, and Biodegradable/burnable. The kids were all really into it and enthusiastic about segregating their trash! It was quite a success! We showed kids they shouldn’t be burning their plastic wrappers and that they can reuse many bottles and plastic bags. Teaching the children is great way to integrate in the community and you inevitably influence the decision making of their parents because their children go home and tell their parents about what they learned in class. Another game we played was intended to show the kids about dynamite fishing. A few kids represented dynamite fishers by holding water bottles. Then the rest of the kids were lined up along one edge and had to run across a field without getting squirted by the dynamite fishers. We also set up ‘Marine Protected Areas’ by marking a circle as a safe zone where the kids could run without getting squirted by the dynamite fishers. All in all, it was a success and the kids had a ton of fun… and I lost my voice.
In other news, I am off to my permanent site, Romblon Island, in only two weeks. I fell in love with this place during my visit, it is everything I wanted. It is an ideal location, but yet to be discovered by tourists, because well it’s a quite a challenge to get to. I took the easy way there, a 45 minute airplane ride from Manila which lands on the island of Tablas adjacent to mine, then you either have to cross the island and take a one hour bangka ride to my island or you can take a three hour boat ride around Tablas to get to Romblon, Romblon Island. Just to clarify, Romblon is a province and within that province includes many islands and municipalities, but I am living near the capital of the province called Romblon which is on Romblon Island within the Romblon province. On the way back to Manila without the airplane, it wasn’t quite so easy. The flight is much more expensive than taking the ferry so I can’t afford it on my budget. So on the way back I first took a ferry to Tablas which continues north to Batangas on Luzon, then a bus from Batangas to Cubao in Manila, then another bus to Olongapo, then two more jeepneys to Sabang, my training site. Whew! All in all, about a 30 hour trip. I like that it is a remote site thus it remains relatively pristine. If I want to go somewhere touristy and crazy, I am only about 4-5 hours from Boracay, tourist central. It’s absolutely breathtaking here and I hope some of you can get the opportunity to visit me here on Romblon and experience a part of the Philippines that many Filipinos don’t even get to see. We have marble and quartz all over the island whether you are on the beach or climbing the mountain behind my house to get to town. We have an abundance of fresh seafood and atis (sugar apples), rice fields, a quaint bookstore/coffee shop, dive resort, and beautiful white sand beaches. The island is very clean compared to the rest of the inhabited Philippine islands. Peace Corps did an amazing job fitting us with our preferences. My house is about 100 m from the beach and a 16 hectare Marine Protected Area (MPA) however I am about 9 km from the town proper (and workplace) which makes things difficult. I plan on moving to town after living for three months with my host family so I can be closer to both my job and the markets. My host family is wonderful; my host father is an electrical engineer and my host mamma owns a store that sells electronic devices. I have a host brother that is 14, a sister age 8, and a baby boy age 1. I also have a very sweet grandmother age of 88. My host sister has a physical disability where her bones are not quite developed thus her body is very soft and she isn’t able to walk, but she’s very smart and has won several awards at school. I have my own room, occasional internet access if there are no clouds, a television with many English channels, about 30 chickens (one of which is perched less than a foot away from my window), dogs, cats, a shower, flush toilet, oven, and back porch. During my visit I also met the congressman, mayor, and governor, all of which were very excited for the upcoming projects. My office is located within the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries sector under the Local Government Unit. I am going to work on setting up a bird sanctuary to protect wild ducks that live off this cliff and will be doing a lot of watershed and mangrove reforestation. I will also be monitoring several of the Marine Protected Areas and updating their Coastal Resource Management Plans. In addition, I will be developing alternative livelihood projects for fisherfolk in the community. Livelihood projects are intended to give fisherfolk an alternative income and therefore reduce pressure on marine resources. Examples of these could be seaweed farming, aquaculture, basket weaving, making peanut brittle and jam, paper bead jewelry, and recycling plastic into bags, purses, and wallets. I am really excited for my work but a little intimidated by the language barrier I will face. I have spent the last two months learning Tagalog although in Romblon, like many islands in the Philippines, they have their own unique dialect. My counterpart (the Filipino I will be working alongside throughout my two year service) and supervisor are wonderful people and I know I will continue to pick up the language after training because they say when I arrive, they will only speak to me in Tagalog and likewise it is bawal (prohibited) for me to speak English. I couldn’t be more happy with my placement, it will be challenging but I am so excited to become fluent in Tagalog!
We went to an elementary school for an environmental education workshop a couple weeks ago. Among us eight volunteers we had 200 students (4th and 5th graders) to teach! We split into pairs and had four games in which about 50 students rotated among. My station was the “Trash Relay Game”. Basically it was a relay race among four student teams to pick up items off the ground (banana peels, crumpled paper, plastic candy wrappers, glass and plastic bottles, coconut husks, and plastic bags) and place them into one of the three bins: Re-usable, Trash, and Biodegradable/burnable. The kids were all really into it and enthusiastic about segregating their trash! It was quite a success! We showed kids they shouldn’t be burning their plastic wrappers and that they can reuse many bottles and plastic bags. Teaching the children is great way to integrate in the community and you inevitably influence the decision making of their parents because their children go home and tell their parents about what they learned in class. Another game we played was intended to show the kids about dynamite fishing. A few kids represented dynamite fishers by holding water bottles. Then the rest of the kids were lined up along one edge and had to run across a field without getting squirted by the dynamite fishers. We also set up ‘Marine Protected Areas’ by marking a circle as a safe zone where the kids could run without getting squirted by the dynamite fishers. All in all, it was a success and the kids had a ton of fun… and I lost my voice.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Off to Romblon!
Goodness, do I have a lot to say….
Well I found out my site, I am off to Romblon Island! It’s a pretty small island and I am the only volunteer placed here this year!!!! Many of the volunteers are clustered relatively close to each other, but I pretty much have the whole island to myself except for two currently serving volunteers that have been there for a year. I am very excited! I just met my supervisor and my job entails a variety of projects; among some of them are mangrove rehabilitation, coral propagation, sea turtle conservation, coastal clean-ups, alternative livelihood projects, Marine Protected Area monitoring, and even some endangered species monitoring like whale sharks, dolphins, and dugongs. I’ll be working for a local government unit on the municipal level. We are all so overwhelmed and anxious to visit our sites in the coming days. My site is pretty tricky to get to from Manila unless you fly; it’s only a 45 minute trip but will take all day if you want to travel by bus and banca. I also may not even be speaking much Tagalog at my site, because the main languages are Romblomanon, Tiyad Ini and Sibuyanon, but my sector manager said most people should be able to understand Tagalog. My site is also very good for diving from what I hear; considering it has 14 Marine Protected Areas! Eeeeaaahhhhh! Sooo sooo elated!
Anyways, last week we presented our Coastal Environmental Profile in Nagbalayong. The whole presentation was in Tagalog, and while we did have to read mostly off note cards, I think the community was still proud to see us trying. As part of our community project we might host a workshop to educate people on what a fish looks like that was caught using dynamite. The scales are generally loose, the fish is more floppy, visceral mass extrudes from the anus, the gills tend to bleed and it can have scars on the body. Because it’s hard to monitor, regulate, or enforce the laws on dynamite fishing in small municipalities, we would hope that we could take the reverse approach by educating the consumers which may ultimately decrease the sales of fisherfolk using destructive methods.
Yesterday we visited an indigenous village located about a half hour drive from where we live. It was quite a scary endeavor heading up in the mountains. We took a jeepney which is an old World War II vehicle- main mode of transportation in the Philippines, and as it reached the top of the hill, the brake line snapped sending the jeepney flying down the hill backwards. Good thing there was a cement wall edging the side of the road because to the other side, it dropped off maybe a hundred feet or so directly into a river. So the jeepney flew back down the hill and smashed into the cement wall. It was a good thing also that many of us had already gotten off the jeepney about two minutes prior to the accident, because it would have been tragic had the jeepney slammed in to the cement wall- packed full of about 25 people plus more people hanging off the back. Luckily there were only about 10 people inside, and no one was injured. Whew!
When we finally made it to the village, we were surprised to find a group of photographers that were hosting some festivity. They had photographed members of the community a while back and won third place (first place was a trip to Vietnam), and received 5,000 Php to sponsor the community. So with their 5,000 Php, about $110, they feasted on KFC for one day. Interesting way to spend the money…. We ventured further into the village and were greeted by the Barangay captain who told us a little bit about what they do here. As part of their livelihood, they work on growing seedlings for both their own sustenance and also as part of restoration project around Luzon. They also plant seedlings to attract honey bees and then produce their own honey. Then they showed us how to make a fire using only bamboo and a machete. Impressive- yes… but then they showed us how to steam rice and cook vegetables over the fire with only freshly cut bamboo, then eat and drink again using again only pieces of bamboo. There was a river that we all we went swimming in after a short climb up a hill. On the way back down the hill we passed some guys that were torching the hair of a dog hanging from a tree. Dinner time!
I managed to get an ear infection last week and while I initially thought I would wait it out to see if it would get better, I was quickly reminded that we will get our first opportunity to dive in two weeks. So off to the ER I went. The hospital was very nice, I was waited on immediately and just about everyone spoke English. I was pretty impressed with the experience I must say. Now I am taking almost 10 pills a day, but the pain has gone away, 5 days later. I haven’t been able to hear very well out of my ear, which turns out to be pretty sweet because I am not woken up by the cats mating on my tin roof in the wee hours of the morning, and by the way, is probably the worst noise I have ever heard. We made carrot-ginger-cashew soup and quesadillas the other night which were improvised using lumpia wrappers. I also have been exploring new puluton (the Tagalog word for drunk food), and so far fried cuttlefish is my favorite. Liquor is pretty cheap here, we can get a pint of rum or vodka for less than the price of a can of coke, about 50 cents.
I picked up my backpack off my floor this morning to find a colony of black ants infesting the netting side pockets of my bag. It seems to make good nesting material, especially if it’s damp. I put my bag outside and watch the colony of ants scramble out of my room and down the hall followed my host mamma and brother screaming “money money money” you’re going to be rich because there are black ants-- money! I must have a miracle coming my way, cause I sure don’t make much as a volunteer!
Anyways, Ill post more after I return from my site! Yeayah!! Magandang gabi!
Well I found out my site, I am off to Romblon Island! It’s a pretty small island and I am the only volunteer placed here this year!!!! Many of the volunteers are clustered relatively close to each other, but I pretty much have the whole island to myself except for two currently serving volunteers that have been there for a year. I am very excited! I just met my supervisor and my job entails a variety of projects; among some of them are mangrove rehabilitation, coral propagation, sea turtle conservation, coastal clean-ups, alternative livelihood projects, Marine Protected Area monitoring, and even some endangered species monitoring like whale sharks, dolphins, and dugongs. I’ll be working for a local government unit on the municipal level. We are all so overwhelmed and anxious to visit our sites in the coming days. My site is pretty tricky to get to from Manila unless you fly; it’s only a 45 minute trip but will take all day if you want to travel by bus and banca. I also may not even be speaking much Tagalog at my site, because the main languages are Romblomanon, Tiyad Ini and Sibuyanon, but my sector manager said most people should be able to understand Tagalog. My site is also very good for diving from what I hear; considering it has 14 Marine Protected Areas! Eeeeaaahhhhh! Sooo sooo elated!
Anyways, last week we presented our Coastal Environmental Profile in Nagbalayong. The whole presentation was in Tagalog, and while we did have to read mostly off note cards, I think the community was still proud to see us trying. As part of our community project we might host a workshop to educate people on what a fish looks like that was caught using dynamite. The scales are generally loose, the fish is more floppy, visceral mass extrudes from the anus, the gills tend to bleed and it can have scars on the body. Because it’s hard to monitor, regulate, or enforce the laws on dynamite fishing in small municipalities, we would hope that we could take the reverse approach by educating the consumers which may ultimately decrease the sales of fisherfolk using destructive methods.
Yesterday we visited an indigenous village located about a half hour drive from where we live. It was quite a scary endeavor heading up in the mountains. We took a jeepney which is an old World War II vehicle- main mode of transportation in the Philippines, and as it reached the top of the hill, the brake line snapped sending the jeepney flying down the hill backwards. Good thing there was a cement wall edging the side of the road because to the other side, it dropped off maybe a hundred feet or so directly into a river. So the jeepney flew back down the hill and smashed into the cement wall. It was a good thing also that many of us had already gotten off the jeepney about two minutes prior to the accident, because it would have been tragic had the jeepney slammed in to the cement wall- packed full of about 25 people plus more people hanging off the back. Luckily there were only about 10 people inside, and no one was injured. Whew!
When we finally made it to the village, we were surprised to find a group of photographers that were hosting some festivity. They had photographed members of the community a while back and won third place (first place was a trip to Vietnam), and received 5,000 Php to sponsor the community. So with their 5,000 Php, about $110, they feasted on KFC for one day. Interesting way to spend the money…. We ventured further into the village and were greeted by the Barangay captain who told us a little bit about what they do here. As part of their livelihood, they work on growing seedlings for both their own sustenance and also as part of restoration project around Luzon. They also plant seedlings to attract honey bees and then produce their own honey. Then they showed us how to make a fire using only bamboo and a machete. Impressive- yes… but then they showed us how to steam rice and cook vegetables over the fire with only freshly cut bamboo, then eat and drink again using again only pieces of bamboo. There was a river that we all we went swimming in after a short climb up a hill. On the way back down the hill we passed some guys that were torching the hair of a dog hanging from a tree. Dinner time!
I managed to get an ear infection last week and while I initially thought I would wait it out to see if it would get better, I was quickly reminded that we will get our first opportunity to dive in two weeks. So off to the ER I went. The hospital was very nice, I was waited on immediately and just about everyone spoke English. I was pretty impressed with the experience I must say. Now I am taking almost 10 pills a day, but the pain has gone away, 5 days later. I haven’t been able to hear very well out of my ear, which turns out to be pretty sweet because I am not woken up by the cats mating on my tin roof in the wee hours of the morning, and by the way, is probably the worst noise I have ever heard. We made carrot-ginger-cashew soup and quesadillas the other night which were improvised using lumpia wrappers. I also have been exploring new puluton (the Tagalog word for drunk food), and so far fried cuttlefish is my favorite. Liquor is pretty cheap here, we can get a pint of rum or vodka for less than the price of a can of coke, about 50 cents.
I picked up my backpack off my floor this morning to find a colony of black ants infesting the netting side pockets of my bag. It seems to make good nesting material, especially if it’s damp. I put my bag outside and watch the colony of ants scramble out of my room and down the hall followed my host mamma and brother screaming “money money money” you’re going to be rich because there are black ants-- money! I must have a miracle coming my way, cause I sure don’t make much as a volunteer!
Anyways, Ill post more after I return from my site! Yeayah!! Magandang gabi!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Pitongpu’t-pitong puting tupa
Dear Blog,
We are all getting pretty anxious to find out about our permanent sites; Peace Corps does a really good job at keeping you in suspense during the application process and throughout training. They don’t give you any information until the time comes when you actually have to move. In a week or so I should know because I get to visit my permanent site and meet the supervisor I will be working with for the next two years. We’ve been staying super busy like always, so I haven’t had a whole lot of time to write lately… but here I go!
Last week, we conducted coral reef surveys by snorkeling in Nagbalayong. The reef is in pretty bad shape here as dynamite fishing sill occurs regularly. We found several dead fish when we were out there and were told that there was dynamite fishing just earlier that day. We did manta tows which are super fun—basically we get dragged by a boat and snorkel for two minutes, then identify the percent cover of hard and soft corals and any abiotic substrate. We also set up a 200-meter transect and estimated the percent cover of corals, sand, and seaweed by snorkeling/free diving. The area we surveyed was probably about 8 meters down and since the visibility is pretty bad and because you have to read the tiny numbers on the transect tape, you have to literally dive to bottom to check out what’s there. We do 50-meter transects between each pair, and have to survey every 0.25 meters. If you do the math, that’s 100 points each, and if you are lucky, you can survey a meter (4 points) every dive. Still, that’s at least 25 dives each and usually many many more because you drift so much and forget where you are at along the transect. I definitely cannot complain though, I love my job. In addition to assessing the corals, we also assessed the fish populations. That was a bit of a joke to be honest. It was set up the same way as the coral survey. Basically we had to take turns free diving again down to 8 meters looking for any fish along the 50 m by 10 m plot and coming back up to record on a slate. I hardly have enough air to dive down and find where we are on the transect tape, let alone try to identify tons of different reef fish swimming every which way direction. So I am getting pretty good at free diving now! The survey would have been a lot more successful had we had SCUBA gear, but you just have to work with what you’ve got. We didn’t have enough fins for all of us and some of the fisherfolk even improvised with some hard slabs of plastic strapped to their feet!
This week we were working through this process Peace Corps developed called the “Participatory Analysis for Community Action”. We got together with the fisherfolk again and created a community map of their available resources. We start with this because we want to identify the strengths first which can then pave the way for an assets-based approach to resource management as apposed to listing all the problems first. Then we created a seasonal calendar that identified everything from holidays to the high fish-catch seasons to the rice-harvesting seasons. Then we made a daily activities schedule to identify the best times for the community to meet and work on a management plan. Lastly as part of the process, we identify the needs of the community. Medical supplies and equipment for the health center were top on our list as well as an ambulance to bring people to the nearest town for medical emergencies. They also were lacking reliable transportation for high school students especially during the rainy season. Having a cemetery was also pretty high on the list. Irrigation dams and a spring-fed source of potable water were brought up too. Right now we pump all of our water from deep wells and one individual claimed that it is only a matter of time before their waste water contaminates their drinking source.
The next day we went back to Nagbalayong to conduct our socio-economic survey. We went from house to house asking questions regarding their monthly income and expenses, number of children, religion, family planning, level of education, what they do with their garbage, and their perceptions of the local coastal resources and pertaining issues. All of the folks we interviewed were very welcoming and invited us into their homes. Many had little more than an elementary level education and identified severe economic hardships as the biggest issue in the community.
With all of this information (the biological surveys I talked about previously too) we are going to create a “Coastal Environment Profile” and present it to the community by next week. It only serves as practice for when we actually get to our permanent site. The profile is intended to identify the local issues and assess the coastal resources by collecting baseline data. While collecting this data is extremely important, it is a little frustrating because we have no time to actually put this data to use by developing a management plan to address these issues. So we are essentially collecting the data, identifying issues, and then leaving because, well, we are only here at our training site for another month and a half or so.
We also participated in a beach clean up event the other day. We ended up picking up a whole lot of old used diapers and drew parallels to beach clean ups in the states where, instead of diapers we end up picking up old used condoms. Interesting eh? Yesterday we had a volunteer cook out with our language and technical trainers for some “cross-cultural exchange”. We made adobo, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, salad, and apple crisp with whipped cream. The apple crisp was a hit, it was “baked” using coconut shells as coal, since ovens don’t really exist here. Yum!
Next Saturday, another volunteer Morgan, and I are going to host a community soccer workshop/game, we’ll see how that goes. First we have to level out the beach with some rakes. We also just started talking about putting on a fashion show/empowerment movement/costume party for Halloween using recycled materials for clothing! Keep ya’ll posted with some photos mamaya!
Well this is what I’ve been up to in a nutshell, a big nutshell maybe. We are continuing to pick up the language all the while. It is a bit overwhelming at times, so I enjoy escaping from reality for a minute to enjoy a good novel. I have also been eating lots of new foods here like snails, balut (the fermented fertilized duck egg that’s on the verge of hatching), dinuguan (the chocolately thick stew made of pork blood), avocado leaf tea, bright pink hot dogs, and bibinkas-- napakasarap! Anyways, writing blogs is rather weird for me because, well, I don’t really enjoy blabbing about myself this much, so I’d love to hear from ya’ll too!
Makita kayo sa isang linggo. XOXO
We are all getting pretty anxious to find out about our permanent sites; Peace Corps does a really good job at keeping you in suspense during the application process and throughout training. They don’t give you any information until the time comes when you actually have to move. In a week or so I should know because I get to visit my permanent site and meet the supervisor I will be working with for the next two years. We’ve been staying super busy like always, so I haven’t had a whole lot of time to write lately… but here I go!
Last week, we conducted coral reef surveys by snorkeling in Nagbalayong. The reef is in pretty bad shape here as dynamite fishing sill occurs regularly. We found several dead fish when we were out there and were told that there was dynamite fishing just earlier that day. We did manta tows which are super fun—basically we get dragged by a boat and snorkel for two minutes, then identify the percent cover of hard and soft corals and any abiotic substrate. We also set up a 200-meter transect and estimated the percent cover of corals, sand, and seaweed by snorkeling/free diving. The area we surveyed was probably about 8 meters down and since the visibility is pretty bad and because you have to read the tiny numbers on the transect tape, you have to literally dive to bottom to check out what’s there. We do 50-meter transects between each pair, and have to survey every 0.25 meters. If you do the math, that’s 100 points each, and if you are lucky, you can survey a meter (4 points) every dive. Still, that’s at least 25 dives each and usually many many more because you drift so much and forget where you are at along the transect. I definitely cannot complain though, I love my job. In addition to assessing the corals, we also assessed the fish populations. That was a bit of a joke to be honest. It was set up the same way as the coral survey. Basically we had to take turns free diving again down to 8 meters looking for any fish along the 50 m by 10 m plot and coming back up to record on a slate. I hardly have enough air to dive down and find where we are on the transect tape, let alone try to identify tons of different reef fish swimming every which way direction. So I am getting pretty good at free diving now! The survey would have been a lot more successful had we had SCUBA gear, but you just have to work with what you’ve got. We didn’t have enough fins for all of us and some of the fisherfolk even improvised with some hard slabs of plastic strapped to their feet!
This week we were working through this process Peace Corps developed called the “Participatory Analysis for Community Action”. We got together with the fisherfolk again and created a community map of their available resources. We start with this because we want to identify the strengths first which can then pave the way for an assets-based approach to resource management as apposed to listing all the problems first. Then we created a seasonal calendar that identified everything from holidays to the high fish-catch seasons to the rice-harvesting seasons. Then we made a daily activities schedule to identify the best times for the community to meet and work on a management plan. Lastly as part of the process, we identify the needs of the community. Medical supplies and equipment for the health center were top on our list as well as an ambulance to bring people to the nearest town for medical emergencies. They also were lacking reliable transportation for high school students especially during the rainy season. Having a cemetery was also pretty high on the list. Irrigation dams and a spring-fed source of potable water were brought up too. Right now we pump all of our water from deep wells and one individual claimed that it is only a matter of time before their waste water contaminates their drinking source.
The next day we went back to Nagbalayong to conduct our socio-economic survey. We went from house to house asking questions regarding their monthly income and expenses, number of children, religion, family planning, level of education, what they do with their garbage, and their perceptions of the local coastal resources and pertaining issues. All of the folks we interviewed were very welcoming and invited us into their homes. Many had little more than an elementary level education and identified severe economic hardships as the biggest issue in the community.
With all of this information (the biological surveys I talked about previously too) we are going to create a “Coastal Environment Profile” and present it to the community by next week. It only serves as practice for when we actually get to our permanent site. The profile is intended to identify the local issues and assess the coastal resources by collecting baseline data. While collecting this data is extremely important, it is a little frustrating because we have no time to actually put this data to use by developing a management plan to address these issues. So we are essentially collecting the data, identifying issues, and then leaving because, well, we are only here at our training site for another month and a half or so.
We also participated in a beach clean up event the other day. We ended up picking up a whole lot of old used diapers and drew parallels to beach clean ups in the states where, instead of diapers we end up picking up old used condoms. Interesting eh? Yesterday we had a volunteer cook out with our language and technical trainers for some “cross-cultural exchange”. We made adobo, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, salad, and apple crisp with whipped cream. The apple crisp was a hit, it was “baked” using coconut shells as coal, since ovens don’t really exist here. Yum!
Next Saturday, another volunteer Morgan, and I are going to host a community soccer workshop/game, we’ll see how that goes. First we have to level out the beach with some rakes. We also just started talking about putting on a fashion show/empowerment movement/costume party for Halloween using recycled materials for clothing! Keep ya’ll posted with some photos mamaya!
Well this is what I’ve been up to in a nutshell, a big nutshell maybe. We are continuing to pick up the language all the while. It is a bit overwhelming at times, so I enjoy escaping from reality for a minute to enjoy a good novel. I have also been eating lots of new foods here like snails, balut (the fermented fertilized duck egg that’s on the verge of hatching), dinuguan (the chocolately thick stew made of pork blood), avocado leaf tea, bright pink hot dogs, and bibinkas-- napakasarap! Anyways, writing blogs is rather weird for me because, well, I don’t really enjoy blabbing about myself this much, so I’d love to hear from ya’ll too!
Makita kayo sa isang linggo. XOXO
Monday, September 13, 2010
Ang pusa mo ay ube
When I run in the morning, I must go with a “kasama” which is the term Filipinos use for companion. Women usually always have a kasama whether it’s down the street to the market or on the way to church. Members of the community usually make fun of us when we go jogging probably because it seems so strange to them since they probably get plenty of physical exercise throughout the day anyways. They will chase after us laughing and waving their arms like a bakla. The kids mock us and laugh at us when we speak Tagalog to them. It’s all in good fun though, you have to stay lighthearted and easy going or you won’t last. Apparently five of the 140 of us have gone home already and not for medical reasons.
I have been attending an independent catholic church on Sunday with my host family. My host brother is in the choir. People are very devoted to their religion here. We just had a meeting at the Barangay hall with local government unit members and local fisherfolk and we bowed our heads and said a prayer before starting. As you can probably guess, people run on a different schedule here. We set an appointment at 1 PM and don’t get started until about 230-300 PM. It’s also expected you bring a merienda (snack) for everyone if you hosting a meeting. The better merienda… the more support and interest you’ll get, hehe.
The pound of coffee I brought has been one my most prized possessions. Apparently I snuck it into the country because another volunteer tried to have a package sent from home only to find out it is illegal to ship coffee here. A nice cup o’ joe is necessary to sit through four hours of language training and then four more hours of technical training. However, we just started conducting assessments out in the field which is much more fun applying the concepts that we have been learning in lectures. On Saturday we surveyed mangroves and seagrass in Barangay Nagbalayong. This week we are surveying the coral reefs here and then I am supposed to give a presentation on the visual fish census methodology. I also want to mention that all of our training is done by Filipinos and we have fisherfolk that assist us in the surveys so we can identify the species by the local name.
I am really craving some dark chocolate here, as everything you find here is made with maybe a touch of cocoa dust, milk, and sugar. And mmmm…. dried figs. It’s funny how much your desire for certain foods changes here. I could really go from a cheeseburger right now so if any of you know me, this probably seems strange. Anytime someone goes into town, they usually bring back a pasalubong, which is like a treat from town. Being surprised with a delicious donut can really brighten up a slow day. I haven’t been too incredibly homesick, I feel it mostly in the morning right when I wake up because I have been having really vivid and realistic dreams about being back home, then I wake up and for a second, forget where I am. Apparently it is a side effect of the malaria medicine we are taking. Then I go for a jog with my kasama and feel much better. If anyone wants to contribute to a care package (hehe) I am going to have sent soon, you can give these things to Nicole. Much appreciated!!
Learning the language has been a little frustrating. There are multiple ways to conjugate verbs and arrange sentences. I learn one thing in the classroom and then go home only to get corrected by my host family. Since there are tons of different dialects within the hundreds of languages, it can be tricky to communicate with people although they are only an hour away. Our teacher is from Baguio City and knows at least five other Filipino languages so some of the confusion may originate there. But I guess it is good preparation because there is a chance that I’ll be placed at a remote site that speaks a unique dialect of Tagalog that is hardly transferable. It’s also really interesting to learn Tagalog while having a background in Spanish. There are many similarities, but many more differences. Many times when I don’t know how to say it in Tagalog, my mind just automatically wants to switch to Spanish which obviously doesn’t cut it. For example, ‘siguro’ here means ‘maybe’ but in Spanish I am pretty sure it means ‘sure’ and ‘derecho’ here means ‘straight’ which is really similar to ‘derecha’ in Spanish which means “right”. Also ‘siempre’ here means ‘of course’ while in Spanish it really means “always”. When the Spaniards colonized the Philippine islands, the Filipinos were not allowed to learn Spanish so many of them tried to learn the language anyway and started using words not really knowing the true meaning.
Anyways, that’s all for now. I don’t have internet access where I live, so I’ll probably be back susunod lingo! Sige, mag-ingat ka. Mahal kita sa inyong lahat.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Here I am!
While in Morong, I will be studying Tagalog and Coastal Resource Management planning with seven other Coastal Resource Management “cluster mates”. Today we had the opportunity to meet the mayor and some of the other municipal offices that we anticipate collaborating with. During our stay here, we will conduct assessments of a nearby barangay since last years Peace Corps group assessed this barangay. We will be interviewing fisherfolk, the women who often end up selling the fish in the market, government officials, and any other stakeholders in the fishing industry. We’ll also be conducting assessments of the coastal resources available here like the coral, fish stocks, seagrass, and mangroves. By conducting these assessments we can create some baseline data, identify any issues to be addressed, and then help the community reach their own goals of sustainability. Dynamite and cyanide fishing is illegal and has not been a problem here in this barangay for about eight years. What does remain a problem are the commercial fishing fleets that intrude into municipal waters (15 km from the coast). The fish wardens and coast guards have such limited resources to enforce the regulations and their small bancas cannot catch up to the huge commercial boats in time to be effective. So these commercial boats end up competing with all these small-time local fisherfolk, and you can imagine who has the upper hand.
Peace Corps really stresses the facilitation and networking aspect of being a volunteer. We spend three months learning the language and culture so we can not only better communicate our ideas, but gain the respect of the local community. After training we are linked with one or more Filipino “counterparts” associated with a local government unit where we will begin to take on coastal resource management projects. I know a common stereotype of a Peace Corps volunteer is an American coming into a foreign country and telling people (who have lived there all there lives) what to do. But I want to tell you that this is a huge misconception. Pardon my preaching, but I myself have learned more about the Peace Corps in the last two days than I have since I applied over a year ago. The goal of Peace Corps volunteers is to help people help themselves. We work closely with the locals and help organize the community and facilitate projects to meet their own goals. Creating a sustainable project that will continue long after we are gone is essential, because in the grand scheme of things, two years is rather short.
Anyways, my host family is wonderful. They speak little English making it a good opportunity to learn Tagalog. I have been here for a week and am already starting to make simple sentences and express some emotions like “Salamat, busog na po ako” (Thank you but I am full). My host mother is Ate Olive and although she has no spouse or children, we live with her sister and brother’s family, so there are a few kids running around which I love. They teach me Tagalog, I teach them English, and we play hacksack and Uno. Everyone here knows everyone else, and chances are they are related to each other someway or another.
Oh and the bathroom- I am sure you are all interested bahahah! I have recently converted to the tabo method when I need to use the “comfort room” as they say here in the Philippines. Flush toilets do not really exist here but I have been blessed with a toilet none-the-less that will flush with a scoop of water (tabo). Basically you wash up with a water and some “handy” assistance. I actually feel a lot cleaner afterwards. Toilet paper is hard to come by here and it’s more a pain in the butt (haha) to deal with the toilet paper trash since they don’t have a trash can in the bathroom. You can imagine how awkward it might be to carry your toilet paper trash in a plastic bag as you pass through the living room to get back to your room. So tabo it is. Also there is no toilet seat, so when I come back with muscular thighs you’ll know why. We have all become really open about our poop, how it looks, how often we go, etc. It has become quite a popular conversation topic amongst us volunteers- that and our hairy body parts, bug bites and injuries. I played soccer on the beach last week barefoot and got kicked pretty hard above my ankle. Ten days later and I still don’t have any feeling there. The bruising caused some internal bleeding down into my foot but the blood is now starting to assimilate back into my blood stream. For a while I had a pretty good looking purple kankle! Now that I have flooded your mind with enticing mental images, I’ll talk a little bit about the culture.
People in the Philippines are very conservative. It’s absolutely prohibited to wear two-piece swimsuits let alone a one-piece swim suit. We must wear t-shirts and shorts while swimming and tanktops (even around the house) are not appropriate. I actually ended up throwing away some undergarments that had “less material” because I was afraid of what my host family would think come laundry day. It’s frowned upon to walk alone with a person of the opposite sex or be in the same room with one alone- otherwise, there will be lots of chika chika (gossip) that will spread around town like wildfire. Everyone here is so very nice though and greeting everyone you pass is the norm. People are very generous with the little they have and generally pretty shy as well. If you want to ask or invite a Filipino to eat or hang out, it’s a rule of thumb to ask at least three times because only then will it be known that you are sincere. A lot of the Filipino guys that I have met here are very flamboyantly gay and proud of it, we call them baklas and they like it. The dynamic is strange because other Filipinos bluntly laugh at them and make fun of them in front of others, but they love it and really enjoy the attention. There is also a lot of non-verbal communication like raising eyebrows and pointing with your lips. These are things I grew up seeing my mom do and never thought twice about it until I came here and heard other volunteers discussing it as Filipino culture. Also I understand now why Filipinos always mix up he/she because they are the same word here- siya pronounced “sha”.
As many of you know my birthday was last week, but I actually chose not to celebrate it- weird I know. In fact, I didn’t even tell anyone it was my birthday until a few days later. I actually just went out for the first time last night. We went over to one of the volunteers’ house and I sang my very first solo videoki song, Hey Jude it was. I am actually pretty surprised that I have made it two weeks in the Philippines without singing. It sure won’t be the last- and mind you, these events typically occur while sober.
It’s been hot here, I get pretty sweaty unless I am directly in front of a fan. Thus it doesn’t take long for my clothes to require washing. I’m lucky my host family has a washer but it still means I do a lot of my clothes washing by hand. I soak all my clothes first in a big bin and then throw them in this “mixer” with some soap and water which just stirs it around for about 15 minutes. Then I take the clothes out of the soapy water and put them in clean water, wring them, and repeat several times. I am also lucky that there is a spinner attached to the washer which spins the clothes really fast and works pretty well to dry them-they still require a day or so to dry on the line. It’s extremely nice to have one of those spinners during the rainy season, otherwise it can take a few days for your clothes to dry which is prime time for mold.
All of my meals consist of a mound of white rice and some type of meat-usually a small fish, but cooked whole, with the head and all or some fatty chunks of pork. Eating fish, or any other type of meat for that matter, becomes a bit of a dissection project. My favorite dish so far is one with the banana flower, the Tagalog name escapes me at the moment. My diet is definitely lacking in fresh fruits and vegetables so I am trying to take multi-vitamins to keep healthy. It’s pretty sketchy eating anything raw here, intestinal parasites are pretty common among volunteers placed in the Philippines, I am crossing my fingers! I have learned how to eat with my hands- and somewhat gracefully might I add. Nothing goes to waste here either, we suck the bones dry and eat every grain of rice on our plates. The bones and any other inedible scraps go to the stray cats and dogs, which are pretty abundant here as there is no money nor clinic to spade or neuter. I just pulled my computer out for the first time in about a week from a plastic bag and as I type there are still ants crawling under my keys gathering crumbs that have probably been accumulating over the past several years.
Well that’s all for now. I’ll post some pictures soon. Sige, hanggang sa susunod. Magandang gabi! Ingat
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