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

Ang pusa mo ay ube

We are continuing the process of integration into our community. The more integrated a volunteer is in the community, the more effective their work will be. We are planning a community project while we are at our training site. We have less than two more months here and the equivalent of $40. We have been tossing some ides around and trying to get input from the community, since after all they requested our presence. One is to create a playground for all the kids to get off the street. We were thinking a giant xylophone made out of bamboo pieces, a standup dimensional tic-tac-toe board, a make-shift drum set, and a tire swing. The only problem is finding a place to put it. We were also interested in making a Recycled Materials Facility. Basically people would be able to bring their trash and recycles to the facility to be sorted and picked up, but because people bike around and pay people for empty bottles and cans, there may not be a high turn out for recyclables at the facility. Little individually wrapped snacks are a big thing here. At these sari-sari stores, they sell little packages of nuts with about seven peanuts each or individually packed gum or small candies. It creates a ton of trash causing many people to turn to trash-burning. When I go jogging in the morning I pass through big clouds of smoke created from trash (essentially all plastic) burning. It’s pretty rough on the lungs. The garbage truck does come through, but many houses aren’t accessible, and so these families end up burning it all.




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.

Here I am!

Kumusta kayo?! Well here I am in the Philippines, making a blog like promised. Peace Corps has kept us pretty busy since we’ve been here- our schedule planned out to a T. For the first few days in the country we (all 145 of us among the 3 sectors: Education, Children-Youth-Family, and Coastal Resource Management) stayed at a resort right outside of Manila during orientation. Those luxurious days are over. I am now at my training site where I will be for the next three months which is about a five hour drive from Manila. We are located on the island of Luzon in Morong, Baatan in a barangay called Sabang which is a pretty small rural fishing village of about 1,000 people. There are about eighty households if that gives you an idea of how packed each house is. It is beautiful here, I am right on the coast so we go snorkeling out on the reef after class. However, it is the typhoon season, so we’ve got to be careful of the current. Eek!




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