Hold What Ya Got

I don't know if it's because I haven't got a whole lot of attention for detail, or because the alcohol I imbibed during early adolescence burned them away, but I don't have a whole host of childhood memories like some people do.  I don't really have any scarring memories that would lead me to block anything out, it's just that I don't have many detailed memories.  Maybe that's normal.  Thoughts?  Feel free to comment.

However, I do remember working in the family cabinet shop during my summers and on afternoons after school.  Early on, I followed my grandfather around as he built corner cupboards and teal leaf tables for customers.  My first steady placement at the shop was the spray room, where raw wood is dressed with paints and stains and clear coats that make it shimmer.  I spent so much time in the spray room, the smell of fresh laquer smells like home, and it makes me think of the loud squealing country songs that were always playing, the ones that I know all of the words to.  When I wasn't standing in the spray room, feverishly sealer-sanding cabinets to a smooth finish, I was out on the main floor of the shop, heaving thick pieces of Cherry, Poplar, and Oak up to the rafters where we stored all of the rough cut wood.  On other days, I would help to sand cabinets, plane boards, or some days, if I was really lucky, I would go out on the road with installers, and I would get to put the finished products into their places in houses, hoisted with screws and shims and brackets.

Oftentimes, when I was holding the weight of a cabinet, or a door that was being set, or later, when I would walk the purlins of a barn roof to steady a truss or ibeam that would be nailed in place, someone would yell, "Hold what ya got!"  This simple phrase was important but so simple.  Hold what ya got.  Don't bear more weight than is necessary, but maintain the weight that's needed to get the job done.  When a plumb was placed on a door, for instance, and when I had the door lifted to the necessary location, I just needed to hold what I had, no more, no less.

Harry Lee Stover, Granddad

I often hear this phrase in my mind, a vestige from days of hard work throughout childhood, and a message that means something more to me now than it ever did before.  It's a value that we often forget.  Just to be, in balance with that around us, nothing more or less.  Always do what is necessary to maintain balance, but don't bear more weight, or overcompensate.  Simply, hold what ya got.  The rest will fall into place.

3 Pet Peeves

1.

Fantasy Football

While working last week, music in my ears, coffee on my breath, and endless words on my screen, a couple of coworkers were walking by and stopped in the hall just short of my office, lost in a passionate conversation.  Their hands flailed in passionate expression and eyes bulged with inflection.  People don’t usually get worked up at our office, especially over work, so I thought that eavesdropping might be in order to get the scoop on something that’s going on in the world of wildlife conservation. 

“Drew Brees did great! He’s making for an incredible season!”

“The league is really dynamic this year, week 12 should be even better than this week.”

So, much to my chagrin, this passionate discussion, heated exchange of wits was just about football.  I’m not really into sports, I have to say, but I really don’t keep up with professional football.  However, I thought that it might be a good idea to listen in and brush up on the current season, leapfrog over hours of Sunday boredom and cut to the chase so that I could act somewhat educated if football were to come up in conversation.  So I listened…

“Manning went for 280 yesterday; that makes for some great points on my overall.”

“Yeah, and my runningback, whatshisname, ran for over 100 again.  Who knew, but hey, I’m not complaining.”

“Whatev, my points status is amazballs over last year this time”…..

And so on and so on and so on.

What I’m sure you’ve gathered, and which I eventually did, was that these two friends were not really talking about football, but about fantasy football, like, not life, not vicarious life, but a game marketed so that we follow or care about professional football more.  It’s like sports squared or something, or, no, that would make it better than sports, maybe, let’s say, the square root of sports divided by some big number like 100.  Basically, a giant, imbecilic activity. I’m don’t want to sound too judgemental, but what a monumental waste of time.  It’s a great marketing tool and method for retaining a fan base, but geez, really?

2. 

Flu Shots

Today, everybody seemed to be talking flu shots.  At work, they were offering up free shots for whomever desired one, and I, being the opinionated person I am, conversed with several people, feverishly waiting by the elevators to get theirs.  When it comes to flu shots, I’m not a big fan.  I figure they're for infants or the infirmed, but not helpful for the general population.  My limited knowledge of flu shots is that they’re meant to inoculate recipients from the most common, i.e.  most probable viral strains going around in a particular season, but serve as a shot in the dark for prevention of what will probably end up getting you.  However, I may very well not know what I’m talking about, and often wonder if there’s something to the whole flu shot debate that I’m not getting.  Well, in this age of endless, ubiquitous information at our fingertips, I thought I’d do some research to see just what seems to be the consensus on flu shots and if there is any point to them after all.  I’m biased, you understand, but I tried my best to be as objective as possible.  Here’s what I found:

Pro-Vaccine - Here's a site that sums it up pretty well.   

Anti-Vaccine - Here's a couple that refute it.

 - Article on whether there's empirical evidence that the flu shot is helping overall flu mortality.

- Heavy metals and flu vaccines

After looking at some background information, it's apparent that everyone who thinks that you should get a flu shot is operating on the assumption that they actually work.  "Get a flu shot, because you're putting others to risk if you don't." "Get a flu shot because it will save sick days and help efficiency."  However, when you look for corollaries between purchases of vaccines and flu rates throughout the population, there isn't any discernible relationship.  In 2009, flu rates were the lowest in years, but purchases of the flu vaccine were as well.  Finally, populations that get treated very rarely have a significantly different occurrence of the flu than populations who don't get treated.  But, if it makes people feel better, I guess that makes it worth it.  Just quit talking about it, either get one or don't. 

3.

The Spin

In this world of constant, 24-hour news, politicians and pundits are forced, or ‘motivated’ more than ever to wrap increasingly complex ideas up into nice little bundles so that the fleeting constituent can get a grasp of the issues as quickly as possible.  Ideas like a tax on inherited real property are termed the ‘death tax’ by those who are opposed to it, or, throwing a bone to the ‘other side,’ when voters are asked to show identification in order to prove citizenship and that they have the constitutional right to vote, to decrease fraud in the electoral process, those opposed to the process call it voter intimidation. 

So now I segue into the third of my showcased pet peeves that reared its head in the news just last week.  Spin.  Most would agree that republicans, for noble reasons or not, have overplayed their hand in the past couple years when it comes to brinksmanship in subverting the political process with gimmicks and political strategies that were meant to protect our political process, not manipulate it.  In addition to partisan votes and dangerously strategizing to limit the reach of government or regulations, many of our esteemed congressmen have contributed to an unprecedented use of the filibuster to prevent political appointments of qualified individual to seats that need to be, and always have been, filled.  In the past, we’ve required a supermajority, or 60 votes to bring cloture to a filibuster, basically allowing congress to vote on a bill.  Last week, however, Harry Reid decided to change this longstanding rule and make cloture possible with 51 votes, a simple majority of senators. 

Now, while republicans and democrats in the nation’s capital argued over the technicalities of this move, things got heated up.  Brows were moistened with perspiration while leather soles clacked on marble hallways on capital hill.  Red velvety rooms were filled with passionate politicians politely professing their proclivities.  Press bulbs flashed in furies as lions of both houses roared about tradition and civilized discourse.  Meanwhile, though, the whole country, the real people doing honest work and counting on their government to do the same, didn’t really give a shit. 

Some of you may feel differently, that somehow a simple majority shouldn’t be enough to kill the free speech of a filibuster, but I respectfully disagree and don’t care…at all.  Grow up, politicians, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.  Calling the allowance of a simple majority to rule in a democratic government a ‘nuclear option’ is a bit absurd, you have to admit.  Heck, it doesn’t even have the impact of a fart, it’s the way things should be and this is a good change that was a long time coming.  Did democrats use it to their advantage?  You bet your ass they did, but that’s how everything gets done.  Nothing's accomplished if it doesn't help somebody.  Stop alarming everybody with this crap.  It’s just a bunch of spin. 

Okay, I'm done.

Meander Scar

I think water lends itself to a lot of metaphors for life’s journey. It’s free flow and patient, slow progress are two qualities to which many of us would like to aspire. Today, while speaking with someone at work about the way that rivers serve as boundaries for some some states and localities, we got out an atlas and began to look at rivers, their doglegs and curves and billabo

ngs, and how they are constantly changing. Logically, you would think that the force of water falling down to the ocean would produce straight, succinct fall lines following the path of least resistance. But if you get a map out, you can look at the Mississippi or much of the ancient New River in West Virginia or the James right here in Virginia, and they are all a series of twists and turns, a slalom of loops and arches. When you think about it, it doesn’t make sense why streams would have undulations in their trajectory, and you'd think that millions of years would have produced a deep, direct channel from mountain to outfall. However, in the course of a river’s journey, once in a while, a large boulder or two are nicked from the shoreline and fall into the channel, creating an obstacle for water, and sticks and sediment gather behind it. Eventually, the river flows on one side of the obstruction or the other, and the river develops a bend, reinforced with years of leaf litter, sand and gravel, all resulting from that initial boulder or fallen tree.

Over millennia, the riverbends grow and shrink, leaving behind folds of rich silt that result in nutritious streamside forests or swamps, and these areas are known as meander scars. Recently, I have spoken to several friends and family who told me of their journey in life, and how it has not been the straightforward voyage they would have anticipated. Obstacles, large and small have crowded their way and they have had to work around them, but what has resulted, they have described, seems to me to have been meander scars, or their beginnings, fertile folds of rich loam that have given way to an unanticipated explosion of life. It just reminds me than despite our best intentions and focused ambitions, that maybe the best parts of life are our meander scars, those places where a single, sometimes devastating obstacle has forced the entire course to change, leaving nothing but new life in its wake. And when those obstacles are still fresh, and water is still bending in a torrent away from them, we can look forward to the build up of silt and detritus that will one day be, hopefully, a meander scar.

Remote Rescue

A couple weeks ago, while walking back from lunch at a little shawarma stand in Arlington where a smiling, happy-seeming lady dips me out mutton and chickpeas in a pita on Wednesdays, I was approached by an exuberant young lady with a neon green clipboard and streaks of fuschia in her dirty blond hair.  With head tilted and an anxious smile on her face, she approached me, "Excuse me, can I ask you a question?!"  My mind told me to run, that these surveys do little more than fill binders with mindless theses and fluff, but my heart told me to smile, and say, "Of course, what's up?!" with my eyebrows raised and forward gesture as if I was interested.  Like always, heart won out. 

"We're here from Georgetown University today and we're asking what is one thing you would do, if you could, to change the world?"  Her head tilted to the other side now and wisps of abused, frayed hair blew in the October breeze.

"I would kill the internet.  Destroy it, and make it never come back."

She gave me the look of one who pities a diseased cat hobbling across a barnyard, and then walked away. 

I know, I know.  Irony, written on a blog.  Okay, get over it. 

I'm a self-proclaimed luddite, or somebody who doesn't like technology, termed after some guys who wrecked equipment way back in the industrial era to save jobs that might potentially be lost.  I say technology euthanizes the mind, complicates life, and eradicates communication and culture. 

This week though, I ate my words once again.  A good friend  and fellow Philippines Peace Corps Volunteer who went to graduate school for a degree in remote sensing, or geographic information systems, started sending around emails about how we could all get involved in the Philippines relief efforts by mapping what we could remember about our towns. 

OpenStreetMap is an open source mapping platform where anyone with an email address and knowledge of an area can add features, such as meeting areas, schools, hospitals, and markets.  Really any features at all, to build a map, remotely, from anywhere, of a place that might not be on the radar for many. 

Enter relief agencies.  When attempting to help a remote area that hasn't been mapped, an aerial photograph just looks like a bunch of buildings to relief organizations, so it is essential to have information about the nature of the buildings, and likely places where people have congregated to get to higher ground or avoid a disaster like the recent typhoon. 

 

I have to admit, that while I have been watching the situation unfold and worrying about all of my friends in Leyte, it has been good just to feel like I'm doing something by marking all of the sturdy buildings, political subdivisions, friends houses, and gathering areas around Babatngon.  However, it looks like this tool may be making some real difference in the midst of the situation, which is a really great thing, and is being used by the Red Cross as they make initial entry into some hard hit, rural areas. 

So, long story short, I'm still a luddite, but I'm not as sure of myself.  My apologies to the fuschia highlights.  And thanks to my friend for a great idea on how to aid in the recovery from all the way over here. 

Putting Faces to your Prayers This Evening

It's hard to care when we don't have images and tangible faces to think of.  Oftentimes, we hear on the news of distant places and foreign faces that are suffering, and want to care for them, but just can't.  Unfortunately, it's just hard to care.  I'm as bad as anyone.  When I hear of the suffering in Syria or the starvation in North Korea, I'm alarmed, but I can't imagine those faces, the furrowed brows, the day to day of all of those in need.  I think it's only human to need a picture of one's life, a glimpse into their eyes, to care for them in their time of suffering.  

  Mano Jimmy and Raymond with the catch of the week 
Municipality of Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

My surrogate family, the Tabaranzas, Mano Ted, Mana Bea, 

their girls Angel, Mary Gwendolin, Nobi, Riezel, Beatrice, 

and the little big man, Aldrich

Municipality of Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

Collecting shellfish at low tide in the evening in Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

A family pauses to watch the sun set in the distance over the peaks on Biliran Island,
 Barangay District 1, Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

Children happily play Damat, a game of wits, in the dirt
Sitio, Monbon, Barangay District 1, Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

The jeepney, a Filipino staple of transport, at the town center

The Barangay District 1 fisherfolk's association

A rad pedicab

Friends at Cave Kan Apoy, Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

Sitio Kamaay, Barangay San Augustin, 

Municipality of Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

My fearless neighbor, Joshua, and his father driving

District 1 Fisherfolks Association

Sitio Monbon, Barangay District 1

My earth science class, the wonderful Orchids.  (That's their class name.)

Barangay Sangputan, Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

Ladies holding down the fort at the municipal hall, 

Municipality of Babatngon, Leyte, Philippines

Tita Grace and Daughter, Grace Ann Alicer

Municipality of Tanauan, Leyte, Philippines

A Legacy of Grace

When I arrived in Leyte to begin training for Peace Corps service, I sat down in a cold little room with all of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers.  It was blazing hot outside, but the office in which we sat was almost foggy with the furious coolant from window unit air conditioners.  We were in the Municipality of Tanauan, set to meet our host families, those people who would usher us into the Filipino way of life, the culture, and the language.  I remember choosing a shape, cut from construction paper, that would fit with one held by one of the host parents.  This was one of the hokey ice breakers we'd come to expect at Peace Corps functions.
Weeding through the uncomfortable, compact little group, I slipped past person after person, laughing as my shape fell short of the intended fit, until finally, I walked up to a jovial, laughing woman, rotund and gorgeous, who, when our shapes fit, gave me a hug immediately, and told me to call her Grace.  I think she told me to call her Mana Grace, (Mother Grace), but I called her Tita Grace (Aunt Grace.)  I stuttered my name, "Ako hi Pet-Ako hi Peter (I am Peter)" and from that day forward, I was PetPet.

Tito Terry (Grace's husband and my host dad) was equally jovial, smiling and laughing as he interacted, and we quickly became close.  The two had a daughter, Grace Ann, a beautiful young woman  going through early adolescence with new clothes and friends and the weening that comes with being a teenager.  On most days of those first three months, I would come home for lunch and Tita Grace would have a spread waiting, dried fish, lots of rice, the best of her bananas, sweet rolls, pineapple, and coke.  I once mentioned that I liked peanut butter, so she always made sure to have a healthy heap of peanut butter waiting on my plate too.  She went to town daily to get me fresh food, making sure that her volunteer was the healthiest and brightest.  She'd quiz Selena and I on Waray, the local language, vowing that we would perform the best on our examination, always proud of our improvement, willing to laugh at any moment.

Tita Grace was a strong woman, always preparing the books and accounting for Tito Terry, quietly working at her concrete porch, pouring over the numbers and latest construction projects that were going on.  She was District 7 Cabuynan Village (a little circle of houses for about 75 people) President, and she loved her title.  When I would ask her about it she would blush and nod proudly.  When Peace Corps Volunteers planted a small group of mangroves in her section of town, Grace proudly would tell everyone that her volunteers had put them there, that it was the 'Barlow forest.'  She always laughed and smiled knowingly when she would joke like that, understanding the absurdity of it.

Grace was proud of appearances, and took ironing seriously, always trying to teach me a better way, wanting me to look my best.  During the afternoons, she would tend to beautiful orchids she trained up bamboo poles, or she would just sit in the breeze of a fan on the porch, watching the sun move across the hot sky.  She was a voracious reader, always happy with whatever magazine or book she got, reading every page, cover to cover.

Life wasn't easy for Tita Grace though.  She wanted a big family, and provided housing for distant family.  She always carried an air of humility and profound intelligence, an intelligence that caused one to wonder what this mind, given more wealth and opportunity could achieve.  She provided a good home for her family though, with all of the trappings that she could give.  Often, she would joke that she was too big, or didn't measure up to the stereotypical beauty, but I can't imagine a more beautiful person than her.  Her presence filled the air whenever she was in the room, and her laugh was contagious.  She would always plead for everyone to sing karaokye, always wanting to suck the fun out of life.  In 2012, she went through chemotherapy for breast cancer, and it nearly consumed her, but when I called, her sense of humor was as good as always as she laughed through the fatigue.

When I moved to Babatngon, Tita Grace made sure to keep in touch, always calling, sometimes visiting, always proud of 'her' volunteers.  When I went to the hospital with amoebic dysentery one time, I made sure not to tell Tita Grace, save her the trip to town.  Somehow, though, she found out from family, and in a driving rain from another typhoon, Tito Terry and Tita Grace rode 20 miles on a motorcycle with nothing but a flapping umbrella to make sure I was alright.  Oh her lap, she carried a tin of fresh rolls and peanut butter.

Tita Grace, her smile and wonderful presence, were lost in the typhoon that claimed so many other lives this past week.  Tita Grace's mother also died, and her husband Terry was injured, but was being treated last I heard.  I can't begin to write all of the great stories that I have from being with her.  That contagious laugh, and the bright, knowing twinkle in her tired eyes will stick with me.  Words don't do Tita Grace justice, but they're all the tribute I can give to such a wonderful soul.

'Tita' Grace Alicer and husband, 'Tito' Terry

Pride in the Wake of Typhoon Yolanda

I remember vividly the night of August 23rd 2009, the first night I spent in the Philippines.  My cohort and I were staying at a resort in Manila, and while the scent of roasting coconut and the acrid musky aromas of my own sweat mixed with relentless tropical heat wafted through a room that had the constant backdrop of roosters crowing and the ching ching of pedicabs on the streets below, I was terrified of the 2 years that awaited me. 

Two days later, after lots of talking and anxiety, I stood in a group of 21 that had been chosen to work in the Visayas.  My wife and I, along with another couple, would be working on the island of Leyte, and I would finally discover, after some training on Leyte, that my home for 2 hard years would be The Municipality of Babatngon.

The people of Babatngon didn't come across as the easy going Filipinos everybody talked about.  They didn't automatically welcome us in to their homes, sharing coke and crackers in cool concrete parlors as we had come to expect, but rather they often shut their doors to Selena and I, and conspicuously wouldn't invite us to fiestas and parties, when we had taken for granted that they would.  Many times, I got into arguments with my coworker Grace who was headstrong and conniving, not feeble and pleasant, as I had assumed these people would be.  Although I was expecting open arms and welcoming smiles for the noble work I had set out to do, my presence was met with skepticism and reproach, and it troubled me for the first months of my Peace Corps service.

One day, when I had worked to get provincial leaders to come to the Village Center, the Barangay Hall, the men I had organized didn't show up, said they were sick, sent children to tell me they weren't coming.  I sat for hours waiting for someone to show, and nothing.  I was sweaty, tired, and hungry, and got on my bike to leave when I saw two 'officers' of my group staggering down the street, drunk, smiling at me, laughing at me.

Some of my first posts from my time in Babatngon mention projects that had been wasted, supplies and donations from foreign governments seemingly squandered, and my own efforts sometimes discarded and disrespected.    I didn't know what to do, where to turn, and how to help these people who I felt didn't want me there in the first place.  Day after day, month after month I worked to understand how to provide assistance, do the 'Peace Corps thing' and 'make' life better for these folks.

One day, I don't know what happened, but it dawned upon me like the first rain after scorching drought that it was pride.  These people of Babatngon, despite all odds, despite hunger, poverty, dehumanizing disregard, had pride.  They weren't about to let a cocky white couple come into their town and 'save' them.  They weren't going to grow seaweed just because I thought it would be good, nor were they going to start saving tomato seeds because somebody told them to, and they weren't going to welcome complete strangers in, give them the shirts off their backs, make themselves vulnerable, in order to appease the precious foreigners.  When I realized this, my distress and disdain turned to a certain respect, affection for the men and women with whom I was sent to work.

The rest of my service was not easy by any means, but I developed a bond with the Fishermen that I had been sent to serve.  I worked alongside them, tying bamboo and learning how they worked with their hands, and trusted them to do the work they needed to do.  I brought in the money, we'd buy supplies, and their sweat, tears, and pride brought projects together.  It took a lot, but they did it.  Often, when I talk to other volunteers, I can't help but think that my work was something more than theirs.  Not because I worked harder, or put in more hours, sang more songs with kids or drank more tuba with the old men, but because I had gotten past their firewall of pride.  Some of my friends wore their communities like a top hat, but I wore mine like a fire brand, burnt into tender skin. 

Typhoon Yolanda struck the Philippines with a fierceness seldom seen before on Earth.  In its path lay Samar, Guiuan, Leyte, and Biliran, but at its eye, the very heart of the storm, lay Babatngon.  The Babatngon District 1 Fisherfolks Association is comprised of 30 great friends, their wonderful spouses who cut my hair and painted my toenails, and their children who handed me their homework and smiled as they recited Newton's laws in Earth Science class.  Since communication is down, I have no way to know what sort of destruction is there, but the only report that I could find, an article about Barangay Uban, where a faithful priest and his congregation huddled from the storm, mentions 16 bodies that had already washed ashore in the wake of the storm.  These could be my friends, caught on the ocean, fishing to feed their families, just to eat.  My village, the people that taught me their way of life, lifted me up when I was down in those last months, their houses feebly sit over the water on 5-inch diameter poles, and I can only imagine the destruction that is there.  Houses made of bamboo, nipa, and cogon wouldn't have stood a chance against storm surge that Yolanda brought.  My friends, who carried pesos worth of rice home in coke bottles and relished the treat of skyflakes and sprite are sitting in the squalor of squalor tonight, eating who knows what, fearing the hunger that tomorrow will bring. Imagine just living to eat, having to work to merely survive.

If you would like to give money for relief efforts, here are some good suggestions. 

If you know me, you know that I disdain technology, but now, this is when we can put it to use, so, please, text friends, repost this blog to all of those useless social networking sites, or contact aid organizations to find out how you can help to get these people back on their feet.  That's all they need, is to get back on their feet, after that, the Babatngonanons will take care of themselves.