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
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