Lunar Landing

This past month, I haven't updated the blog much, but there's been plenty going on. The first couple weeks of November, we continued teaching classes at the Catholic and public high schools. One of the most meaningful moments I got while teaching this month was introducing my beaming class of 58 1st year high schoolers to the fact that humans landed on the moon. This doesn't sound like a groundbreaking task I'm sure, but I found in really humbling to be endowed with the responsibility of conveying the importance of the event. I started with the size of the Earth and the Moon, and the distance traveled by the spaceship (238,000 miles) put in terms of the distance to the closest city, Tacloban, which is 24 miles away from here. We talked about the mass of the two floating rocks, why gravity is so much less on the moon. One day I tried, with two big balls of paper and an old globe from the library, to depict the moon's revolution around earth, the monthly phases. One night, I asked students to sit outside and just look at the moon, record the phase, and think about what they saw. Then, on one of the final days of the moon talk, I told the students about Neil Armstrong, and how he walked out of the ship, and uttered the famous line 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind..' I got students to stand up, come to the front, and one by one, I surrounded them with my arms, made a big "sssshhhhh" sound (an aweful imitation of what I imagine a spaceship door to sound like) while I spread my arms, the students then took one step, and slowly read from the chalkboard the unforgettable saying.

I honestly don't know if the students got it, if they understood what Neil Armstrong said, or why we wanted to fly up there in the first place. The students are coming from a background where it is hard for them to imagine any type of innovation like that. Without the historic context of Sputnik, or JFK, or the race to be the first, I haven't much Idea of how important they perceive the event to be. I do know, however, that I finally got it. It's one of those things that I've read and heard and seen, but only now do I get a feeling for what a huge time that was for everyone who saw it happen.

It gave me so much pride to tell these students that man is capable of such a feat, and that even the sky isn't the limit anymore. I have a pretty good idea now of the obstacles, financial, social, psychological, that face the studetns. It gets really discouraging sometimes to think about the lack of resources that were, are, and will be here for them, and what that means for these students' futures. But I was reminded while making spaceship sounds and lumbering around as if in a spacesuit in front of 58 Filipino students that really anything is possible.

This week, I was able to participate in the 8th annual exploration of Calbiga Cave in Western Samar, with 10 other cavers and 4 porters who live near the cave. We spent the better part of 3 days hiking in and out, and exploring the interior of the cave, and two nights camping in the cave.

There are many caves that are longer in distance than Calbiga, but it ranks first in Asia for sheer volume, as most of the rooms are so large that you cannot see one side from the other, and at most places in the cave, even the brightest LED cannot illuminate the ceiling, which in some places, is over 100 meters high. The locals here in the Philippines do not venture inside caves, as they are seen as places where demons and 'fairies' reside, so therefore, many caves are still not mapped here, and the ecosystems, largely undisturbed are relatively pristine, with huge cave crickets with adapted long antennae and reduced eyes, blind cave crabs, blind fish endemic to this one island in the Philippines, as well as cave snakes, huge spiders, tarantulas, and, ofcourse, cave sparrows and millions, (literally) of bats of all kinds.

The first day, we got inside the cave at around 1:30 after hiking about a kilometer in off of a dirt path where we rode to the drop off. We hiked about a kilometer down into the belly of the cave to the campsite where we laid out tarps, tents, cots, and hammocks for our first night inside. We immediately saw a snake we estimated to be 7 feet long on the campsite where we would be spending the night, gingerly chased it off to another area, and hoped it wouldn't be returning. The snake was identified by our guide as a Philippine Cobra, a venemous, but rather subdued snake. After a few hours ciesta, we got up, and walked into the cave, over thousands of boulders trekking to the back of the cave, past walls of flowstone, and past ruins of harvested calcite stalagmite towers taken by koreans before protected status came to Calbiga in the '90s. (We were told that Koreans paid 6 pesos per kilo of calcite harvested from the cave and would use raw calcite for industrial processing, or would just sell stalagtites for souvenirs or whatever) Anyways, that's when my shoes fell apart. I'm not embellishing, they literally fell apart, after months of use and rebonding with superglue and shoe goo, they just fell apart, first the rubber soles fell off, then the fabric bottoms of my shoes, so then I was just walking in sock feet over a boulderfield of jagged limestone. Now you might say "Wow, that sounds awful", and basically, you would be dead on, it sucked. One of the porters, a guy about 20 years old who was carrying our rubbish and urine (we were packing everything out, as any nutrients from foodscraps, trash, or our bodies could disrupt this fragile ecosystem) gave me his rubber boots, didn't even think twice, and although I tried to refuse, since it was my lack of good judgement that brought badly suited shoes, he gave me his shoes. He was left carrying about 40 kilos of weight on his back, walking through the cave on boulders in bare feet. He wouldn't take his shoes back, so although my feet were about two sizes too big, I squeezed my feet into the rubber boots and walked on. We got back to camp around 11:30 and all went to sleep, hoping that the snake wouldn't return and the crickets wouldn't get too rowdy.

Day two, we rose, took down camp, and ventured on to our next camp site, about 2 kilometers away. The site was in the wet area of the cave, where the cave is still 'alive' since water is still flowing, leaving the calcium deposits which basically build the cave. It is estimated that the process of stalagtites growing by means of calcite deposits, or gypsum, or whatever, takes, on average 100 years to produce 1 centimeter of growth. We saw some stalagtites in the cave that were over 10 meters tall, do the math and thats a 100,000 year old work of art. It's really something to see such incredible pieces of nature that have emerged over millenia, and just think about all of the time and history and birth and death and growth and regrowth that they have supported, the beauty that has emerged out of absolute darkness over years and years of flowing water, drip by drip, molecule by molecule. We hooked up ropes and hooked in to descend a short portion of vertical climbing, but for the most part, the going was much easier than the first night, with much less bouldering to do, and much more walking around forests of columns and stalagmites.

In the early afternoon, we arrived at the lagoon where we would be camping for the night, but found that the typhoon which came through here last week had made it into something more like a lake, and we would not be able to camp where we normally would. Our porters swam the lake and went outside to find bamboo to construct a raft that we could use to portage perishables and cameras across the water while we swam. The raft was a success, and at about 5, we had arrived at the exit of the cave, larger than the entrance, about 200 meters across, and about 120 meters tall, with a towering jungle falling into sight, it was really someting. At this point we were surrounded by the sound of bats preparing to exit the cave for the night and we found a small overhang in a pocket of the cave where we could set up camp for the night without the threat of getting covered in a layer of gwano by morning. We then witnessed the exit of hundreds of thousands of bats around 6:30 p.m. and prepared for our night exploration of the live cave.

We spent the night going to the lower portion of the cave, where there were many pools lined with calcite, many tarantulas, much more fauna overall, and cool waterfalls where we were able to swim a bit. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of this part of the trip since we wer fully submerged during a small sump where I was afraid my camera would get wet, but take my word for it, it was a great experience.

Sunday morning, after a chilly night and not much sleep, we took down camp, and climbed through the jungle for around 5 kilometers to a spring where we got fairly clean, and waited to rendezvous with our transportation. It was great to be going back, and since I didn't have much money to give him, I handed my favorite Carhart working jeans that had seen me through the trip to the porter who had given me his shoes without hesitation. He looked at me as I held them out, and I explained in broken Waray that since he saved my feet, I wanted him to have my pants. He didn't thank me verbally, but took the jeans, looked me straight in the eye, and went to washing the cave dirt out of them in the stream while we relaxed in the cool water nearby. He scrubbed and scrubbed, and by the time he was done with them, they looked as good as new.

I have been to many caves in Virginia and West Virginia, where the limestone bedrock of the Aleghany Plateau gives way to some of the best caving in the world, but one huge difference is that the ecosystems of the eastern United States Caves have, for the most part, died. Lots of the terrestrial life has died or been reduced dramatically, and right now White Nose Syndrome, a non-native fungus probably spread by well-meaning humans just visiting caves, is systematically killing the majority of colonies of eastern bats. I have never seen as many snakes and critters in Virginia caves as I did in this one cave in Samar. I don't think we are more careless with our caves in the US, it's just that we like to see everything, to 'look' at everything, to 'experience' everything, and it never seemed so bad until I got to see the ecosystem as it used to be, fully functioning, without the endemic species having been extirpated through 'exploration' or 'study'. It reminds me of Thoreau's saying that 'Man is rich in proportion to that which he can let alone.' I don't think he was referring to caves in Samar when he said this, but his statement definately fits.

One part of the trip I keep thinking about now is when I was down in the bottom of the cave on the second night with about 5 of the others and one porter, and we all were washing in the waterfall coming from one of the huge calcite-rimmed pools. It was like a paradise, cool, refreshing, clean water, and just the sound of our voices and the rush of water. Everyone of us was washing, shirts off, heads submerged, as one of the porters sat and watched. Concerned that he felt ashamed to wash in the same water, to have fun with all of us, I asked the man to come and bathe with us "Pwede makarigo ka liwat?", he looked at me and laughed and said "Hilo it tubig"(Poison water).

GIS Training, Bacolod City

This week, I spent my time in Bacolod City, in Negros, Occidental. It is a beautiful city, very modern, with lots of culture and pride. I was working with three Australian volunteers from two different Australian organizations, and with two other Peace Corps Volunteers, one of which is a Peace Corps Response volunteer who was in charge of setting up a GIS training project.

The objective of the whole week was to work with Provincial government Disaster Management Personnel to train in the use of GPS and GIS tools to create spatial data for modeling and reference during emergencies like typhoons, floods, earquakes, landslides, and volcanoes here. If you are familiar with GIS, you will understand how the creation of spatial data on demographics, structures, dwellings, roads, rivers and the like can be used to not only respond to disasters, but predict effected parties, steer land use planning in disaster-vulnerable areas, and do a multitude of other functions.

Our class consisted of about 40 Provicial engineers, employees, and IT staff who would be in charge of gathering required information to be consolidated into GIS databases and would also be tasked with attaining new GPS'ed information on existing features of areas, population data, all sorts of stuff. Although the training was really technical, and we packed a huge amount of information into one week, teaching everything from satellite triangulation, to explaining Latitude and Longitude, to going into digitizing information and creating modeling scenarios for natural disasters, the participants hung on and got a lot out of it. The ultimate goal, to teach people the need for this technology, and to get them interested, was superceded. At the end of the 5 long days of training, people who were learning how to right click on Monday morning, were asking how they could get recent Raster files for their provinces and how they could simultaneously project multiple files into WGS 84/Zone 51. In other words, they came a long way in just 5 days.

We were fortunate that while we were here for the training, Bacolod was also celebrating the Masskara Festival, a famous mardi-gras type of street fiesta. The festival is full of ornate costumes, dancing, music, and lots of drinking.

Throughout the week, I was really impressed with 1) the participants showed a real investment in learning the material and a stamina for sitting through a full week of really tough stuff, and 2) Our Australian counterparts showed a level of professionalism that was really a breath of fresh air. It was an air of sophistication that I really haven't seen during Peace Corps trainings thus far. I've worked with Australians before on field crews where I could see clear differences in culture with Americans. I think the lack of perceived professionalism is due in part to Peace Corps' efforts at total integration and understanding of the local culture, and we could see the real value of a truly straightforward approach without the games, or the wavering deadlines, or really much 'emotional' stuff at all. Us Peace Corps volunteers were very soft with our communication, giving energizers at breaks and singing songs to break the tension, all of the suggestions we've been given by program staff, while the Australians were nice, but did not spend as much time 'making people comfortable', got right to the point, moved along at the necessary pace regardless of whether a few people were left behind, and ultimately, the Australians, I believe, were more successful in getting the information across to participants.

People seemed to respect the fact that the Australians were not as interested in being 'fluffy' and 'nice.' It just helped to show me that cultural integration and patience has a place, but sometimes that is not the most effective in achieving the desired result.

September 2010

The last couple weeks, like all weeks here, have held many new experiences. I'm always learning things here, about the Philippines, about cultures, and about myself. Last week, September 12-17, I spent my time in Babatngon, attending training that we set up for our fisherfolks in the morning, teaching in the afternoons, and watching beauty pageants and birthday parties in the evening.

DTI, the Department of Trade and Industry, came out, at the request of my office, and spent 2 days teaching basic bookkeeping and accounting to the fisherfolks that I am working to organize. The training was great, expecially because it was done by native speakers, who understand the culture of the area better than me. The success of the training reminded me that such services are available, and trainers are willing to come out, and that the job of volunteers like me sometimes might be to just get people communicating, so that trainers know where the needs are, and so that those in need know the proper channels to avail of services. I am finding that often times the NGOs and grants and government services are there, there is just little to no accessibility for those services. Although it is not as 'sexy' for me to be networking and talking as it would if I were out giving money and building houses, the work is probably much more sustainable in the long run. Afterall, I'm here for 2 years, but these government agencies and support services will be here much longer, so if people know where to go when they're on their own, it's going to help a lot.

This week, I went to Zamboanguita, Negros. Since the airports are small with limited flights, I had to fly to Manila first, and then back down to Dumaguete City, Negros, instead of taking just one direct flight here. It was good though, to get to walk around in the city, go shopping, feel extravagant. Zamboanguita is an incredibly nice place, with world-class coral reefs within walking distance, very nice, welcoming people, and lawns, huge mango trees, and public areas, which I have come to appreciate most of all. (Public land makes America Great - Another blog, another day) It is really interesting to be so close to Leyte, and the culture be so different. The language is different, the way that people meet and greet is different, education seems to be much different, it's like if Norfolk Virginia, and Lexington, Virginia spoke different languages, had different school systems, had vastly different ways of welcoming people into their homes. It's really something to think how 50 miles of ocean can so effectively isolate cultures from one another. The family with whom I stayed in Zamboanguita was really something, making food for me, welcoming me in every way, and really seemed to be honest, unconditionally friendly people.

I have now returned to Manila, the taxis and the shopping and the loudness of it all. Unlike the United States, where poverty and extravagance are separated by distance or highways, here the two are side by side. Street children greet you asking for change in every part of town, people urinate on the sidewalks outside of casinos, and in front of the biggest malls in the world there are persons carrying their life's accumulations in trash bags. The livelihood here I'm sure is no less than it is in Leyte or on other islands, but everything here is cramped, and the poverty has nowhere to go. The poverty can't go and hide inside a nipa hut, or find a lean-to in the mangroves. The poverty here can't go to the ocean to wash the excrement and filth away. The poverty here stares you in the face and takes your breath away. It's unnerving to have to mentally justify the economic chasm between you and it every time you brush past or shift your gaze. The only times I have seen this type of poverty have been in big cities in the United States, mornings when people are still sleeping on benches or stoops, and the biggest difference is, that those people I have seen have been alone, an aging woman or man, smelling musty or of alcohol. When they're alone, it is always easier to say that that person must have screwed up at some point, must have fallen into alcoholism or drugs or gambling. Whether or not its true, it makes it easier to walk by.

But here, when you see whole families, your mind can't even come up with a reason why the kids should have to suffer like that, and your mind goes blank, without a reason for why things are as they are. Poverty is horrible anywhere, and no one deserves it, but for kids to have to start out like that, to have never had a chance to get started, it's hard to see that.

It is definately good to be within reach of internet and starbucks and the central office for a little while, but it will wear off quick, and in a couple days, I will be happy to see Leyte again.

*View of the World Famous Apo Island from Zamboanguita, Negros

Week 52, Pete in the Philippines

Yes, folks, that's right, week 52 come and gone, 1 year of this exciting, frustrating, educating, invigorating, excruciating, experience is over. The year has been tough, lots of ups and down, lots of new experiences, and like I have mentioned in previous posts, they have all been challenging in the most unexpected ways. What seemed like it would challenge me the most at first, like the new food and lack of variety that I have grown accustomed to, or the new transportation and lack of my car to take me wherever whenever, or the heat and humidity; these things have been a challenge, but they pale in comparison to the challenges faced by endless scenes of poverty, the tug that I get when I have to walk by street kid after street kid asking for change, the longing for family, familiar faces, and the sweet loam of the Shenandoah Valley, quiet walks on public land, Appalachian Mountains, traffic laws, and I'm sure they mirror the plethora of things missed by other volunteers and overseas relief workers in my situation.

There have been many highlights, one of which happened this week when we planted around 500 mangroves at a particularly typhoon and flood susceptible area in the town proper. We had 70 students come out from the local catholic school and dig with sticks in the muddy sand and place the propagules (mangrove seeds) in hopes that they will leaf out, grow, and provide fish and shrimp habitat as well as coastal protection for many years to come. This is hopefully the first of several plantings that we will do, trying to get mangroves reforested in many of the coastal areas that used to be full of them. I'll post a couple pictures of the planting event.

Also, we've met some great people, Our first host family, the Alicers from Cabuynan, come to mind right away when I think of friends we have made, as well as the family we live with now. Also coworkers, and most notably, the many fellow volunteers that we have grown to really appreciate, for their different points of view, and their mutual understandings of this experience. I think our periodic get-togethers and gripe sessions with other volunteers has helped sustain positive moods for us despite some big challenges.

One of the main lessons I have learned this year is that honesty is integral to a functioning society. I appreciate honesty and personal pride more now than I ever knew possible. A functioning workplace and community has to have a fundamental concept of honesty within its members. Without this seemingly basic polity of candor and trust, things fall apart. I've seen it throughout the politics here and the office where I've tried to help create positive change.

I hope that the coming year goes better, that I can form some more positive working relationships throughout the community here, but I understand that this goal might not be realized. However, I've learned a lot, and made good progress in strengthening those who are doing good work here. And with every passing day, I do my best, and realize that I'm that much closer to seeing family, friends, and the Shenandoah Valley once again.

Gone Fishin'

The highlight of this week was wednesday, when I went fishing for a large, Mackeral-looking fish called Tangigi which often grows to 4 kilograms here. The fishing trips for Tangigi are overnight, starting at 5 pm one day, and ending at 7 am the next. I arrived at Mano Jimmy's house at about 4:45 on wednesday, expecting to go fishing with Don-Don, Don-Don #2, and Bong-Bong, and Mano Ben-Ben, but instead met two new men, Edgar, a 38-year-old fisherman with an honest face and dedicated work-ethic, and Ali, a 53-year-old man, wise to the ways of the ocean, resigned to the variable luck of fishing, and very knowledgeable about the coastal community. Ali, Edgar, Mano Jimmy, and I all got onto the boat about 5:30 pm and headed out. The fishing vessel is about 20 feet long, about 3 feet wide at the middle, with bamboo outriggers and a tarp covering the middle area of the boat where the motor is contained. Edwin blew out air bubbles in the gas line, and dipped the hose into a new gallon jug of diesel, priming fuel manually into the motor to start the stream of fuel, and after wrapping a cord around the crank shaft of the motor and giving a solid yank, we were off, sputtering efficiently into the middle of San Juanico Strait, in Leyte Philippines, for a night of Tangigi fishing, a new experience for me, and all too familiar for my three companions.

At 6:15, we were at our destination, Edwin lit our kerosene lanterns for the evening, 4 were mounted on the boat, and three others sat on styrofoam floaters, and they would serve as a visual indicator of where the end of our net was, so that other boaters would not cross lines, and so that we would not lose our bearings. Mano Jimmy and Edwin let out the 1400 meter net for 30 minutes, until our kerosene lamps in upturned vodka bottles were but a speck on the horizon of dark water underneath a cloudy sky. Then we slept, or tried to. Everyone claimed a section of plywood covering the hull of the boat, and I sat down in the cockpit, where I thought I would be fairly comfortable. I couldn't have been more wrong. As my three companions snored, and the little boat swayed, I reshuffled a thousand times, in hopes of getting comfortable. Nothing worked, and I remained awake until 10:30, when we all arose to get ready for taking the gigantic net back into the boat, a net so long that it completely filled up the front half of the hull of the little boat.

We didn't catch anything, nothing, tangigi, or flounder, or skates, or anything, and I have yet to find out if this is normal, to not catch anything and have tried with so much diligence. But, everyone continued on, Edwin started the motor, and we headed further into the darkness, headed for who knows what. I didn't understand much, but that Mano Jimmy was complaining of hunger and an aching stomach. After taking the boat for about 10 minutes, we stopped along someone elses kerosene lamps floating in the water, and began checking the net attached to it for fish. I was dumbfounded at what I was witnessing. I know that cultures are different, that some things are accepted here that aren't where I'm from, but I consider it fairly universal that you don't mess with someone else's catch, you don't take someone else's livelihood, but that's just what Jimmy and Edwin were doing, and before traveling onward, we had harvested 6 or 7 eels from someone else's nets! I understand that my presence may have caused them to feel that they had to have something to prepare for the midnight meal, the nets may have belonged to friends or family of my boat mates, but at the moment, I was outraged to be an accessory to an act that would get you shot in Virginia. At about midnight, Edwin made a fire in a metal can, with the remaining kerosene from thelamps, and on top of the fire he put a cast iron bowl with seawater, and cut pieces of two of the eels we harvested earlier. After about half an hour of wondering if the little flames would escape and be our demise, the meal was ready, and we poured the broth and meat over cold rice, and ate ravenously, all of us.

After we ate, we cranked the engine again, and headed out to another part of the ocean and repeated the process, setting out the kerosene lamps, and dashing the long net out, one armlength at a time. After setting out the net for the second time, we all found our positions once again, and tried to sleep some more. Before too long though, it began to rain, and apart from the motor, the other post-19th century invention came in handy. Four grown men rolled down the sides of the 3-foot-long tarp and huddled under it, and what little comfort there had been, was lost. We had full bellies, and in cramped positions, we listened to the drops of rain on our tarp. Ironically, it was the closest I've felt to the peace of camping in the Virginia mountains in the past year. The night was not hard for me, because this remained a novel experience, and I was relatively noncommital to whether or not we caught fish. However, I was struck with how different the night and the rain, and the silence would have been if, like my companions, my livelihood and that of my family depended on what those nets would yield. These men would do the same process the next evening, and the next, whereas I was fortunate enough to have made it a choice to come out and go fishing.

The second net didn't yield much more than the first, we caught a small, flat reef fish, and a saltwater tilapia, probably 2 kilos. The sun rose and the heat returned as Ali and Edwin pulled in the net once again, complacent in the relative misfortune for the night. When we returned to shore, we all jumped out of the boat when we reached knee-high water, and pushed the boat to a good docking location that wouldn't be too deep at high tide. And when we returned to his house with our fish that we had caught, tired limbs, bloodshot eyes, Mano Jimmy told me to choose which fish to take home. I hadn't even helped to throw the net out or take it in, I just sat and watched as these men worked all night to sustain themselves, and Jimmy wanted me to take a fish, as thanks for coming. I was dumbfounded, he seriously wanted me to take a fish, one of the 5 fish that we had in the bucket, and I saw then that to people here, at least the guys that took me fishing, it means more to have someone who cares, someone who respects their way of life enough to spend time, than it does for them to have other 'basic' needs met for the day. I refused the fish, and hopefully did not offend them by doing it, but we slapped shoulders, smiled, joked about my bad luck, and parted ways.

The next night, it rained again, harder and longer, and while I was laying on the mattress inside listening to the rain on the roof, 'recovering' from the fishing trip, Mano Jimmy, Edwin, and Ali were no doubt huddled again under the same tarp, surrounded by the same water, pulling the same net, with the same hope of a good catch.

July 26-30 ha Babatngon, Leyte

This week started with my arrival to work on Monday, where I met officer Ventura carrying this chicken. The chicken was then tied to a post beside the jail, to be butchered and served as the entree for lunch in the afternoon. I wanted to include this picture because officer Ventura seemed so proud of his handsome chicken as he carried it around monday morning.

I have been working with the local Catholic High School to create a sustainability and 'care for creation' lecture series that will be piloted here, and then shared with other catholic schools in the future. Now Grace, my counterpart, and I are planning lessons and topics to be discussed in our 18 weeks of 4-hour lectures. Usually, it is hard to convince my coworkers here to plan for projects like this one, but with the support of the priest, who is very infuential in a 99%-catholic area, convincing others of the need to plan and continue building the project has been easier..so far. We're currently meeting with 70-3rd year high schoolers to lecture on Coastal Resource Management, Solid Waste Management, Global Warming, The Food Chain, etc. I hope the program is a success, but for now, the jury's still out.

I also got invited to the Priest's house this week when some dignitaries were there. The vice governor, the lady in the middle of us in the first picture, was there. A very educated and friendly person, she explained to me some of the duties of a vice Governor in the Philippines which were interesting, such as making referendums to be voted upon by congress, and other regional duties as well.

I continue to work on other projects, such as reorganization of a local People's organization and project development, planning, implementation, and disseminating books to other local high schools. My science class of 57 1st year students at Selena's school continues to improve. Since they are bombarded with English from both of us every day, their comprehension is increasing markedly more than with students in some of the other classes. Since science is taught in English, it seems that much of the content is lost on students not because they don't want to learn, or don't understand the subject matter, but because they lack a fundamental english understanding.

Philippines, Week 48

This week, I continued to get to know the people and places with whom I live in Babatngon. Sunday I went fishing with Jorge Pontillas, better known as Don Don. We hopped in a neighbor's boat, boat a liter coke bottle full of diesel, and set out with 2 pesos of hooks, 10 pesos of fishing line, and one squid. We didn't have much luck, but I'm getting better at finding rocks concave in the middle and thick on the ends to use as weights, and I'm learning how to keep throw my line with the flick of a wrist to make a cast of more than 10 feet, (they don't use fishing poles, just the line in your hand) I asked Don Don what would happen if I hooked a big fish, wouldn't it hurt my hands, the line tearing at flesh? Don Don replied, "Oo, bangin mga samad." (Yes, maybe multiple cuts." Well, I didn't get any cuts, we didn't have much luck at all except for my one fish, the most beautiful rainbow colored fish I've ever seen, the name of which I still don't know.

On Monday, I spent most of my time at the municipal office in the morning, before going to teach my science class at Juan S. Tismo National High School, the 'Orchid' section of 57 first-year high schoolers, hungry to learn. Although I like a lot of things about the work here, the class has to be the single most inspiring part of my day. There is always a smiling face, a furrowed brow trying to understand the mumbling gringo in front, someone squinting to understand my horrible handwriting on the board.

Tuesday, I went with a fellow volunteer and visitor from California back to Sohoton park. Only this time, we had time to go further past the cave, the the natural bridge, the likes of which I have never seen. It is incredible, and although I am a loyal Virginian, proud of our handsome Valleys and ancient forests, Natural Bridge south of Lexington doesn't hold a candle to this one. We swam in clear water, under the bridge of gnarled stalagtites and cave sparrow nests, the only three people there. It was truly a religious experience.

Wednesday started at 6:00 with my first noticible earthquake. It shook the house, cabinet doors opened, creaked, people downstairs shouted at the abruptness of it. It was really different from what I have ever felt before. After it was over, no one asked the specific magnitude, no one looked for structural damage, no one called family to check on their safety, they just went on about their day. It surprised me how little it affected others. I asked if they felt the earthquake, and some would look puzzled, try to remember, and say, "Oh, yes! I remember that!" Later on in the day, I took an impromptu hike with the municipal environmental planner to the mountain to look at a proposed site for a new mountain trail, funded by the German Technical Cooperation. We went through a few low-lying rice paddys, terraced on the low slopes, then through a banana plantation, sewn with pineapples underneath, walked past Guava and Santol trees, and then started up into the jungle, or the closest thing to it that I have ever seen. we walked past families harvesting coconuts and avocados, Santol fruit, and wood for cooking. The foliage was so thick that our leader, a local, no shoes or shirt, just jean shorts with Machete tied around his waist, would hoop! like an owl, and in the distance, we would hear a like reply, and round a bend to see a companion of his harvesting something else, for some other reason. At one point, it began to rain, soaking all of us through. In time to get back to my science class in the afternoon, I let our leader know that I would have to turn back, and he let out a hoop, and friends of his emerged from the foliage 20 yards away, and would be my escorts back down the mountain. One of the men, the one in front, carried an ancient .22 caliber, for harvesting salamanders, snakes, whatever else they could on their travels. The barrel was old as the hills, every bit of 50 years old, with a stock of familiar oak grain, (I have come to miss the tight weave of oak) and on the barrel, it said Fargo, North Dakota. We continued down, met a friend of his who had gotten stung several times while harvesting honey from wild bees, and I realized again, that there is much more to the Philippines than I have learned thus far.

Thursday was a somewhat normal day, except for the fact that, at the end of the day, I went searching for a barber, and asked for a recommendation from Mano Ted, the father downstairs at our rented residence. He referred me to a friend of his whom had obviously never dealt with facial hair before (filipinos don't have facial hair for the most part, and those who do, never have full beards), so the first move he made was to cut my sideburns, a clean shave down to my jaw. Now, this would not be an issue if I did not have a beard. So to make a long story short, I am sitting here in tacloban, writing this blog, with an odd mess of facial hair, my beard full except for between my jaws and top of my ear, nobody seems to care, since it looks no more odd to them than does a beard in the first place.

Friday, I conducted educational games with students from rural barangays, delivered some textbooks to another high school, and talked with the Parish priest about future projects with his Catholic High School. He says that although I am a protestant, he will still work with me...just as long as I don't support divorce. I thought that was fair.
I'm attaching some pictures of the week, hopefully they fill in some of the gaps where my explanation falls short.

Bottling Joy

Nobi is the Smallest Girl, Waving

Here I am, last week, helping carry rice seed to be planted during rainy season

During our daily routines of going to our respective Philipino offices, talking to our respective coworkers, doing our respective tasks at work, it is easy to forget the big picture ideas, why we came, what we are doing, who we represent. In order to keep doing productive work, making necessary changes, helping those most in need, we have to constantly be willing to change what we are doing, with whom we are working, and projects to pursue because afterall, nothing stays the same, some projects will fail, and people, just by their nature, are often fickle. It’s easy to take stuff personally, and to lose perspective on a situation like this one.

And for every yin, there’s a yang. My bike tire might be losing air again as I plead at my bike petals in the morning, sweatily going to work, but there is little Nobi, living downstairs, cute as a button, to see me off to work. As soon as she hears my kickstand snap up and the tires on gravel, she is there to run outside, and from the doorstep yell “Bye bye, eeetaahh! Bye bye,” over and over again, long after I am out of sight. Little Aldrich curious and precocious, follows me, asking where I am going (“Ngain ka?” in Waray Waray), although every day the reply is the same as before.

Although I will be one of the first to the ag office in the morning, doors locked and my papers scattered, there is always Mano Butch, sweeping early, a big smile, and a greeting, willing to stop and talk about anything. And when I’m on a Jeepney, soaked with sweat, sitting on a two-by-four surrounded by 45 filipinos inhaling diesel and fish smells, there will always be a young mother, tropical complexion, swollen breast nursing a beautiful baby, or an old man, weathered from years of rice sacks and sunny island days, still with a smile that exaggerates a thousand deep wrinkles. Don’t let anyone fool you, Philippinos don’t have unconditional love, or honesty, but there is an unconditional joy here that I have never known. In a place that has been colonized, and assimilated, the land pillaged and money stolen, people are defiant in their willingness to love life and enjoy every day of it. It is a testament to what we need (or don’t need) in life to be happy. Since I have been here, I have seen that you definitely don’t need money, lots of friends, or a host of other things to be happy. All you need is a willingness to love life, to be open to joy. It has become cliché, but seriously, you really don’t need all that stuff. I am somewhat concerned that by creating a stronger economy, a higher standard for learning, more efficient transportation, the modern world is doing away with this culture of joy. I understand that for a global economy and sustained environment this is necessary, but culture is not something that you can keep a piece of. You can’t keep a little bit of the culture in a bottle in a repository someplace like DNA of an extinct animal. Once it goes, it goes forever.

Two years is surely a long time to spend in another culture, but I think it will take at least that long to understand how the Filipinos have so much joy. I honestly don’t understand it, it is almost a hedonistic love for life. I don’t understand it, but hope to someday.

The Kayak (kindof)

Ever since I took a walk to the mangrove area behind the house where we live, I’ve wanted to have a kayak to explore it. Since kayaks are pretty much non-existant here in Babatngon, except for a tourist area about 10 miles away, my options were either to buy one of the boats with outriggers that I see everywhere, be branded rich and extravagant by the locals, or try to build my own kayak, since I have the time, be branded ‘not so rich and extravagant, but definitely wealthy, and a little bit crazy’ by the locals, and have a good time with it.
So, after questioning some of my coworkers and friends here about durable native materials, and where to buy them, I set about on my journey to make a kayak from native vines, bamboo, a tarp (sent by Merv, Selena’s dad, (gotta give credit where credit’s due)), all tied and woven together with a native vine for making rope. Just so that everyone is caught up, I engage in projects like this one all the time. I was caught by dad when I was little, making a fishing pole from sumac poles, gourd slices for eyelits, and 12 lb test, and he warned me against reinventing the wheel. I think that most of my endeavors since then have been stubborn rebuttals to that. (Oh, and no, the fishing pole didn’t go well, I think I caught a red eye in Dry River, snagged by the dorsal fin)
Just my luck, the suppliers of bamboo mats and vines from the mountains live in the next village, about 3 miles away, a place called Barangay San Ricardo. I went there on April 30, and asked around about where to get Balukawi vine, a native vine that I had been told is the most durable in the whole island. Unfortunately, they did not have any available, since it is seldom used, but a middle aged man, about 5’5’’ and proud, came forward and offered to go to the mountains and get it. He didn’t know English, but explained that he would spend the day walking and climbing, get me 13 meters of vine (the amount I had determined I would need) and have it the next afternoon for 400 pesos (about $8.50.) I agreed, we shook on it, and the next day I returned, twice that amount lying in front of the man’s small nipa hut, enough for me to choose pieces from that matched my needs. I picked my pieces, payed the man who was visibly happy to have the work and threw them on top of the next jeepney to come lumbering by. I waved as the man’s neighbors tried to sell me their goods as well, thinking that they might take advantage of the American buying vines.
For the next week, I bent and tied and squirmed with the vines to make them into loops, to be joined together by bamboo slats and tied of with mangrove reeds called Uway (oo-wigh.) I was able to buy the bamboo slats for 20 pesos apiece from the man next door to my friend before, and the Uway reeds for tying I bought near the market in town. After all of the hoops were tied and slats were in place, the kayak started to take shape and seep like something that might just work.
Next was the tarp, the material that I’d use to keep water out and keep the boat displacing enough water to keep me buoyant, (if not just long enough for a photo op and some paddling in the mangroves.) The kayak didn’t look quite as good with the tarp on, but was gaining functionality by the day.
Finally, towards the end of June, I returned back to San Ricardo, and asked the maker of Amacan Mats (Mats made of bamboo, tacked up on the sides of nipa huts for walls) to make me two mats, 4 feet by 8 feet to protect the tarp from punctures, roots and mangrove limbs that could damage it. Two days later, I returned to her hut, got my mats, and piled them onto a motorcycle trike and rode away. Since the mats are made of inflexible bamboo, I had to fill up the buckets here with water and drench the mats, tie them, and warp them, little by little in the sun. After putting mats around the entire boat a week later, I was left with a boat that could float, tarp protected through the mangroves, not exactly beautiful, but functional nonetheless.
Finally, I needed a pole or something to propel me through the water, ofcourse a kayak paddle would be nice, but that’s not an option, so the brother of our host family helped me out. He took me down into the jungle a ways and we found a good tall piece of bamboo and cut it down. I kept telling him that all I needed was about 8 feet, but for some reason, we returned to the house, dragging two segments of a 40-foot bamboo shoot.
On June 30, 2010, NoyNoy Aquino was inaugurated as president of the Philippines, first to be elected by means of computerized votes. Also, on that day, Peter H. Barlow set sail in his kayak, made from vines, bamboo, and a tarp, and he did not drown. Yes dad, I reinvented the wheel, and it was fun.

No Tape For You!

Yesterday,like some of the days here, I sat at my office desk at the Municipal Agriculture Office, reading, entering in the journal, waiting for something to happen. I finally got bored, and decided to get on the computer, plug in my wireless modem, try my luck at service, and pull in my email net and see if I had caught anything. I pulled up to the desk, and plugged the computer in, when nothing occurred. The outlet fell out of the wall, having been disconnected after it was chewed by a rat. Knowing now where the extension cord is, I plugged it in, and rolled it in from the adjacent room and the one outlet in the office that works.
After plugging the computer in, it hummed and purred as it turned on and did what computers do. After successfully booted, I jiggled the mouse to scroll to the internet option, but nothing happened, the movement of the mouse didn’t register, so I assumed that the mouse was unplugged, and checked the back of the computer, just to see that everything was as it should be, the mouse firmly plugged in. However when I then picked the mouse up to check under it for an obstructed wheel, I saw that the cord of the mouse was cut clean, several bite marks around the cut, all indicating that yet another rat had done it’s work overnight. I got to work, cutting wires, twisting the whites with whites, the greens with greens, the reds with reds, and had established all of the connections, but, being the safety conscious American I am, I had to dress the wounds with electrical tape, which led me on a journey throughout the municipal offices to find someone with 6 inches of electrical tape to lend. I went first to the engineers office, no tape, then to the municipal planning office: no tape, then to the Assessor’s office: no tape, then to the accountants office: no tape, then to the barangay officials office: no tape, then to the police station: no tape, and finally, I saw a man who looked resourceful walking around the parking lot and asked him, and he said that the municipal budget officer had electrical tape. I went to the budget office, and asked the first person I saw if there was electrical tape available. Without looking, he said no, that there was no electrical tape, while a kind woman walked from behind, a small roll of black electrical tape in tow a friendly smile on her face.
So, I taped the spliced wires like the cautious person I am, and got on the internet, scrolled around a little more than usual, making full use of a mouse that I had previously taken for granted.
Then last night, I attended the mayor’s inauguration, an event that was scheduled for six p.m., but that started at around 8, after an hour long mass that started at 7:00. There were over a thousand plastic chairs set out, and a stage for the speeches, dances, and oath taking in front of the municipal hall. The stage, made from coconut lumber and marine plywood, was adorned with a 8 x 12 foot banner with the Mayor's face in one corner, the waterfall here, that has been dry from El Nino for some time in the other, and the words the words "Inaugural Celebration" in big, formal letters. I sat with selena by the big statue of Jose Rizal, national hero, behind me was about 50-2 liter bottles full of tuba, and 30 or 40 cases of san mig beer. Behind the cases set a monk-looking man in slippers and his Sunday finest sitting as guard of the tuba, since this is the stash most likely to be stolen at such events. Then came the food, 200 kilos of karabao, 10 roast pigs, and 200 halves of chicken, along with coconut salads, reef cake which is a concoction of mango, jello, pineapple, papaya, and nestle cream, and some other desserts, none of which I had room for.
All of the food was really good, I didn’t have much of the karabao, since the municipal treasurer came up early in the evening and showed me her aching arm from where she had repeatedly cut the 500 pounds of karabao into eatable pieces with a big paper cutter from the office, you know those big cleaver-type paper cutters in libraries, yeah that. Anyways, since I trust roast pig the most here, (and it's delicious), I got as much of that as I could. Selena and I stayed through the mass, the many speeches, the dances, new York new York was one of these, complete with umbrellas and hats and all, and we finally left after a few glasses of tuba and the inaugural address at 10;30 by the mayor. We left as discreetly as possible out the back, but two white people lumbering about the thousand Filipinos, well, you get the idea. Since there were no jeeps or trikes at 10:30 at night, selena and I walked the 3 kilometers back home in the dark, the trees, houses, lizards and frogs obscured by the night, and we were left with universal stars, darkness, and silence, the great equalizers. The walk was beautifully serene.
This morning, I came into work, looked around, and saw no one. I then stopped and heard a faint repeating hum. Looking over the side of my supervisor’s desk, I found mano butch, lying across three chairs, sleeping soundly, still in the same cincinatti Bengals hat and Abercrombie shirt as last night. Understanding the pain he would be feeling in a little bit, I walked to the bakery down the street and bought the best looking 5-peso roll, and filled up a Tupperware with clean water.
I’m able to tell everybody about this, because of the working outlet, which is attached to the extension cord, which is attached to the computer, with the wireless modem, and the working mouse….and the electrical tape.

Room of Good Intentions

The last few days here have been one of those weeks that go unmentioned. One of those weeks where things don’t go quite right, when your experiences don’t really add up to that image of a productive international volunteer, smoothly making change for those in need. However, I see a need to share the bad with the good.
On Monday, I walked around town, clothes sticky and sour with sweat, to find different people to talk to, different organizations to share coastal resource management information with. Not many people were available, some told me to come back later in the week when others were there, but the success of the day was talking with Antonio, president of the senior citizens association of Babatngon, a nice guy, agile for a 76-year-old, always willing to dance the Kuratsa for you, or sing a song. He told me that first of all, my 2 paragraph letter detailing why I wanted to share and what the subject would be was too long, one sentence would have sufficed. Secondly, their monthly meeting was on Wednesday, and I was warmly invited. I showed up Wednesday, and shared about the environmental threats to this region, and assistance that was available internationally to deal with the issues. Only my counterpart, the one person here who is supposed to understand my purpose and translate our goals to the community, did not attend. Said that she would come shortly, but then sent someone in her stead to let me know that she would not be attending. Without a community member and visible local support, my words came out, but seemed to fall on deaf ears. If no one from the community is willing to work with me, why should they? ( “This is just one more foreigner, with more ideas, more ‘assistance,’ but still no concern for what we want, where we want to go with this community.”)
I returned to the office, where my supervisor was telling staff her plan finally clean out the ‘back room.’ This is a 20x20 room where stuff is filthy, stuffing the door closed, without order; a place no one goes, except to throw something when its purpose is unknown. The room also smells foul, and in the morning, you can see rats scurry into and out of the room out of the corner of your eye when you’re working at your desk. We began in the afternoon, just moving plastic drums and light material on top of the pile of debris out of the room, and left the real work for Thursday.
Thursday morning I got to the office to find everyone sitting outside, talking about drinking and their lovers like most mornings. I waited for this to end, but after 45 minutes, I walked inside, and called others to follow. Mano Butch was the only person to respond with a nod, the rest of the staff just shot a quizzical glance my way, and went back to their chismis. The Japanese volunteer also came in to help with the cleaning of ‘the room.’
The whole morning, we cautiously brought out handfuls of half-eaten papers, and books, and posters. Everything had rat feces all over it, years of piss and grime, hundreds of copies of the national fisheries code, no doubt meant for dissemination to local fishermen, lists of ordinances, pamphlets and brochures, printed by The German Technical Cooperation, half of which we would keep out of habit, half of which we had no choice but to burn. Then we got to the next level of trash in the room, it consisted of computer monitors donated by Japan, more papers, 50 pound sacks of concrete, hardened from Philippine moisture and heat, taken out one by one, sweat bead by sweat bead, hand over hand. The lone Japanese volunteer, the lone American, and Mano Butch worked, as the rest of the office looked on, no hint of guilt for their laziness could be detected. We finished the day with nostrils burned, shoulders sore, and the room half empty.
Friday, we began again. Now lower in the pile, we found dead festering rats, and huge Philippine cockroaches, and more squalor. We found huge banners that read ‘Welcome World Bank Visitors’ and ‘Welcome Indonesian Aid Visitors’ and hundreds of packs of fertilizers, donated by political parties, meant for dissemination to farmers, to be spread on crops, eventually to help fill the mouths and stomachs of children here. There were pesticides, intended for the same people, and more papers, letters, books, good intentions. We now had another man, Edwin, helping to clean The Room, but still, the office staff sat outside, watching the armfuls come out, the posters dusted, new life being breathed into an old forgotten space. Friday we finally finished, the floor was visible, the worst burned, the remaining repacked, a quarter of the room empty when said and done. Still the office staff said nothing, just came back into the new space, continued conversations at their desks, seemingly oblivious to the effort that had just been given.
I don’t know why gifts are squandered and international aid isn’t appreciated sometimes. Of course people will say that the aid doesn’t ‘address immediate needs in the community’ or ‘isn’t implemented in a sustainable way,’ but some aid, nomatter how well planned, will fray and rip if the commitment of the community is lost. I also don’t know how people can sit around and watch others work, and do nothing, it makes no sense to me. While here, I will try my best to put resources to good use, to teach organization and engender personal responsibility, but I’m fully aware the room might very well fill up again with the same squalor in ten more years. All the oversight and transparency in the world will not ensure that donations and assistance are going to the right place. What I learned this week is that with all of the disappointment and frustration that comes from wasted time and resources, it beats the alternative. A world in which aid is given, and wasted, and then given again is better than a world, xenophobic and afrai to help, where aid is never given at all. Efficiency and progress is good, but love is great.

Sohoton, Beautiful Sohoton

Next stop on my tour of the incredible Philippine Islands is Sohoton National Park and Cave, near Basey, Western Samar. Selena and I happen to be relatively close to the park, so are fortunate to be able to go, with relative ease, to the park. Western Samar, especially places like the park where illegal logging still takes place frequently, are considered somewhat unsafe, so our trip there was with anxious caution, after hearing about the beautiful sites to see there. With us, we took Atsuro and Irei, Japanese volunteers who work in the area. We showed up at the Basey tourism office around 10:00, and then got our boat to take the hour-and-a-half boatride through the mangroves to get to the remote park that encompasses something around 850 hectares. The whole trip through the mangroves, you are passing villages, only accesible by boat, with docking areas in the center of town, with fishermen in dugout canoes, and children splashing in the brackish water, waving at the newcomers (us) all along the way. As you approach the park, jagged rocks begin appearing, jutting out of the water, covered with vines, moss and ferns. Huge Narra, Jimalena, and Mahogany trees provide the canopy as you continue on. Sohoton Cave, which was our destination for the day, was incredible, a huge towering cliff of gypsum, and limestone flowstone create the backdrop for the waiting area when you're waiting for a guide to take you through the cave. And the cave itself is full of breathtaking formations, nearly pristine, huge natural organs, tide pools, calcium falls, all sorts of incredible things. It's formations like those that make people like me crazy about caving, and it's natural areas like Sohoton that make me passionate about conservation.