Kuya Ronelo (Nic) Hidalgo

This week, I accompanied some other Peace Corps Volunteers and my friends from the local climbing club, Saypung Club, to Kan Apoy cave. I went to the cave last year as well, and enjoyed it a lot both times. It is a relatively short cave with some vertical dynamics that really make a rope crucial if you want to view all of the chambers. The biggest attraction of the cave is the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of bats everywhere, leaving lots of feces (gwano) which lends itself to an amazing ecosystem of millipedes, cockroaches, and all sorts of beetles who live in the stinky stuff.

Kuya Nic, as I like to call the leader of the group, is a head english teacher at the local high school, with lots of charisma and passion for teaching others about protecting important ecological niches like Kan Apoy. The club is in need of harnesses and ropes, along with financial assistance for transportation for ongoing trekking events in the area to keep the learning process alive, if anyone is willing to give. Thus far, I've been able to get tents from James Madison University and some name recognition for the club, and we've given a rope to the club, but they need good helmets, harnesses, sleeping mats, and other stuff for outdoor trekking. Although great for the members of the club, trekking clubs are also crucial for preservation of the environment of the Philippines and local treasures like cave Kan Apoy. The more foreigners and visitors show an interest in visiting places like this, the less likely it is that they will be exploited for their raw natural resources. If you're wondering if this is a plug for support, it is, but it's a well-deserved plug.

Rappelling like a Champ, PCV Kelly

On the job training: The Filipinos who were along with us were eager to learn about rigging for rappelling. We all shared my one harness, carabiner and figure 8. It took a while, but was a safe descent.

At the bottom of the pit looking up at the rigging point. The rocks of the cave are unlike the flowstone patterns in limestone caves of Virginia and West Virginia. Vines fall some 80 feet from tall Mahogany trees outside the cave.

The labrynthe of vines and mossy stones at the main skylit hole makes for a great group shot.

The bats are primarily fruit bats, feeding on the plethora of fruits outside the cave at night and the associated flying insects. I would estimate that the wingspan of most of the bats is 15 or 16 inches.

Fiesta!!

One of the Spanish traditions that is alive and well here in the Philippines is the fiesta celebration. Every municipality and barangay in the Philippines has their separate, special fiesta time, all of them devoted to a saint. The municipal fiestas are the biggest celebrations. In the Philippines nation, the size of New Mexico, there are 1400 different municipalities, and 40,000 barangays. That means a lot of fiestas. If you have family or good friends in a nearby barangay, it is incumbent upon you to attend. This begins to explain why work is not a high priority here. Many days, a coworker has come into the office and inquired about someone who was supposed to be at work for a meeting. The response is usually, "Oh, he is a fiesta for Barangay Rizal", or 'Lukay,' or 'Naga Asan' or any one of the other 21 barangays in this municipality. Upon hearing that someone is a fiesta, all responsibility is forgiven, and the person inquiring, usually a lady, says, "Ahh" with raised eyebrows and her high heels click the bare concrete floor as she swivels and leaves the room.

Whenever I mention going to fiesta, I am warned to be on the lookout for witches. 'Witches,' I am told, 'like to go to parties with lots of people. If they see a white person or someone they want to curse, they will do a 3-point shot, and throw poison from a long ways away into the dish being consumed.' These curses usually lead to stomach discomfort, diarrhea, and headaches, oddly enough, some of the same symptoms that occur with food poisoning. A lot of times, you get sick from fiesta food, but I think it's probably because some things are undercooked. But, instead of accusing the cook of underpreparing the food, witches are blamed for bacterial contamination here. It's a much more non-confrontational way to do things.

Fiesta is a time when everybody makes as much seafood, pork, rice, chicken, karabaw, and root crops as they possibly can, and then generously invite all of their friends, coworkers, politicians, and family over to gorge themselves. The idea is to pick the most decadent household to go to first, filling up on food of wealthy people, and then, after getting full as a tick, waddling over to another household for tuba (coconut wine) and sumsuman (snacks to eat with coconut wine.) During most Filipino events, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, etc., barcadas, or little groups of men drinking wine and eating snacks will be found sitting out in front of homes, or in some back room of the house, talking away, shirts off, drinking gallon after gallon of coconut wine. Most town fiestas are during May, which is dry season, so there is little chance of festivities being hampered by bad weather. However, the month of May is also hot as the dickens. So, in my case, add to your mental picture of all the seafood, the beer and tuba set out in a tiny living room with nondescript furniture and 7 people sitting in an area meant for two, an 8^th person, much larger than the rest, sitting in the corner awkwardly with beads of sweat on his forehead and a non-oscillating fan directed straight at his face for maximum effect. That person is me.

Thus far, I have been to 4 homes for fiesta, and it's only the first day. Tomorrow, I will be going to 3 other homes, (and probably stopping by a few more on my walk home from town.) Everyone celebrates fiesta in some way, either by hosting a big party with lots of food, or, if you're too poor, by just sitting around drinking. Last night, after going to a few houses to make an appearance and contribute to food insecurity, I was turning into the walkway that leads to our house out in rice fields. At the little waiting shed at the end of our lane, there were 5 boys, sitting in the dark, quietly sitting and looking at the clear starry sky, the north star visible on one horizon, the southern cross visible on the other. They had a 5 peso pack of orange drink mixed with a 50 peso bottle of vodka and water in a pitcher, and were passing around a shot glass. The guys ranged in age from 12 to 35, and motioned for me to sit down with them, share in their fiesta. I obliged, sat down on the edge of the concrete wall beside them, and shared in a couple rounds.

The difference between the big 'lavish' parties in town and that of my poorer neighbors outside of town was like night and day, and the class struggle in this tiny corner of the world struck me. These guys aren't interested in flying to another part of the world, seeing snow-capped mountains, or even in having computers or internet, they just want a piece of the pie in our simple town. When the little pitcher was finished, everyone sat in silence and looked out at the star-gemmed night's sky.

Restoring Hope – Watch out, It’s a long one!

Over the course of my Peace Corps experience, I've experienced lots of emotions, usually ranging from mild disapprobation to outright disgust with the way things are here. The mountains, streams, reefs and fishes are incredible, more colors and shapes and sizes of marine animals than I would have ever thought possible, but when it comes to the human element, it's been rough. I can't stand the way everybody just waits around all the time, waiting for things to happen. People stand for hours complaining about their lack of food or money while standing beside a fertile field with seeds in their hands. I can't trust anyone. My 'coworkers', the various gregarious nefarious politicians, the children who ask for pesos on the corners with bread in one hand and a begging bowl in the other, all of them, I feel, are subject to question when it comes to honesty. Even the local priest took grant money I solicited and earmarked for a waste disposal center and, instead, put a new roof on the church, among other things. It drives me crazy.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned here though, is that the lying, the indolence, the corruption, the lack of planning or any real foresight are not adjectives for these people. These traits do not describe the Filipino people, or the Leyte people, or even the local Waray people, but are symptoms of poverty. If you ask me, the Philippines is not what you see on T.V. Ten percent of the nation makes the decisions for the rest. Manila and the areas around it are doled out most of the money in the nation, whereas the rural areas just wait for the slush funds and NGOs to send in a trickle of funds, usually based in areas where politicians or their families reside. There is no national minimum wage, but different minimum wages throughout the 13 regions of the country, the highest of course, in the Capital Region of Manila, Quezon City. In Manila, the minimum wage is just over 400 pesos ($ 9) a day. In region 8, the place where I am, the minimum wage is 238 pesos ($5) a day, the lowest in the nation, and hasn't changed for over 10 years now. (keep in mind that money drives enforcement of laws, so there is little to no enforcement of the minimum wage in poor areas.) Most people who work at Local Government Units like the one where I am are political appointees, who don't get paid the minimum wage. These people are friends or relatives of politicians who ask for work as a favor, and usually don't have the minimum qualification for full-time employment, so are 'casual.' There are also 'job order' employees. They do all the grunt work, and get paid usually out of what seems to me to be some sort of petty cash system, and all of the details depend upon the local Mayor. The level of illegitimacy with which things are run is totally up to the locals. If there is any oversight for management at a regional or national level, I have yet to hear about it.

In America, we had the fortune to have our nation formed by statesmen who based our founding society on the highest principles of democracy, personal freedom and capitalism and ever since that founding, we've had hurdles, inequality, and poverty, but for the most part, our national focus on these founding beliefs has remained our collective ambition. Like it or not, the United States, with the near annihilation of the Native American people, started with a clean slate. Just the founding people, those ambitious founders who took the initiative to get on boats and come to a new, 'uninhabited' place, and make a new future, made up this new nation. A totally simplistic version of things, but it serves to sufficiently illustrate my point.

The Philippines societies, in comparison, were made up of many tribes throughout the archipelago, with chieftains, independent belief systems, sustaining natural resources, and a set way of doing things. Then one day Ferdinand Magellan and his cronies came along, and established the Philippines as a Spanish territory, immediately ushering all of the inhabitants of the new land into the catholic fold. Over the centuries since, the Philippines' existing cultures and traditions were beaten out of them in most of the areas. Some traditions remain, and the primitive language of 'Alibata' is being studied in the University of the Philippines in Manila, but that's pretty much it. Over the centuries of Spanish rule, 'Mestizo' blood was bred into the population, and most of the present-day dynasty families can trace their lineage back to early Spaniards with huge land ownership, or to Chinese merchants who settled here long ago. All of the big Filipino corporations, the malls, airlines, manufacturing centers, and most of the land, is owned by these powerful families. That's why many will agree that this is a superficially democratic nation with deeply entrenched oligarchical values. After the Spaniards came, the United States tried their hand at controlling the people of the Philippines and getting them to imbibe all of our values. Then the Japanese had a notoriously mercilous few years here, and then the United States came back, and finally gave a superficial ownership of this Filipino nation to actual Filipinos. We (the United States) supported a greedy despot for twenty years through marshal law and highway robbery, and in the 25 years since Marcos' departure, the country has continued on a rocky path towards modernism.

The people here are either rich or poor, with few in between. Either you're connected to a politician or you're not. Either you're getting lots of kick backs, you're on the take, or you're not. For those who are connected, the sky is the limit. If rich or powerful or both, you can go to the good schools, talk to the right people, go to the right parties, and really go pretty far. If you're not however, you really don't have a chance. The divide here is similar to that in the states between very rich and very poor. Just think social structure in the United States, minus our huge middle class. Take out everybody between the 10^th and the 90^th percentile on the tax bracket and you'd probably be close to the situation here. In this situation, the harsh sting of reality quickly quells any inclination of upward mobility. Squashes hope like my sweaty palm on a dim-witted mosquito.

That means that the people that I'm working with, the fishermen at the very bottom of the ladder, are not well off. However, they're accustomed to the idea that nothing is going to change. From their perspective, they have a social status that is endowed, and god forbid they challenge the status quo. From an American perspective, they have lost their spirit. I have seen students here, high schoolers with hope in their eyes and questions on their minds, but a lot of the guys I see, they don't have any of that. By teaching the kids here, I've seen that everyone believes at some point in their life that they can do whatever they want, and at some point, most people lose that belief. Part of my job, I feel, has been to try and restore some of that hope. It's been really neat meeting with the fisherfolks and getting them to talk through what they would do with a thousand or five thousand dollars if they had it. Their responses have gone from outright laughter, to confusion, to introspection, and finally, these last couple weeks, to real excitement. I went to Manila a couple months ago, and, without a whole lot of discussion with the fisherfolks, filled out a grant application for a project. I figured if we got the money and they didn't look like they'd be able to handle it, I'd give the money back. When I got back to Babagnon a week later, having submitted the application, I met with the fisherfolks about it. I told them the plan, and what we would be doing. Some of the fisherfolks feined interest, but for the most part, they were confused, and scared to consider the added responsibility of a project. Some of the officers even showed up an hour late to a meeting, drunk as skunks. I was crushed.

I decided to meet one last time before I cancelled the grant, just to see who all would want to participate, and how they felt. About 8 of the 30 fisherfolks showed up, along with their wives. We talked about the livelihood project, (growing seaweed for profit) and for the first time, I noticed some actual interest in some of them. Of course a couple people still were scared of the idea, but the mild support led me to leave the project as-is until we got approved or rejected, and I'd run it by all of the members again. Maybe the tangible idea of money would hook them.

An email showed up in my inbox last month saying that our project had been approved, and that funds would be released this May 16. I immediately scheduled a meeting with the fisherfolks. When we were all there, I told them that funds had been approved for the project and that we could begin setting up the seaweed operation at the end of May. As expected, the group got excited at the mention of money, but more than that, I noticed members who hadn't spoken at any of the other meetings talking excitedly about where they wanted to have the seaweed operation, how we would dry it for market in the city, what kind of nylon we would need, and how many sacks for rocks to anchor the big floating lines of seaweed to the ocean floor. We began talking about division of labor, who would buy the supplies, and who would guard the seaweed during the nights, and the men all raised their hands to be included in the activities.

Since that meeting, we have come close to the conclusion of nearly 7 months haggling with the provincial government to get additional government funds for a fish cage in the adjacent area. The proposed project would quadruple the monetary value of the initial Peace Corps-funded project and restore the fisherfolks' faith in a government agency that they don't see a lot of. This past Friday, a team of provincial inspectors came to the ocean to make a site validation for the project, and hopefully those funds will be released shortly. The project will total around $14,000, a pretty small contract by American standards, but a number that could really make a big difference to these 30 fishermen and their families.

Through this process, I've seen that all that lost spirit and hope can be brought back, but it takes time. I've worked for a year with these fisherfolks, and they're just now getting to a place where they are really excited to be working on a project together, something new, something that challenges their status that they had come to believe could never change, should never be challenged. Guys who laughed at the idea of a joint aquaculture project just 8 months ago won't shut up about how they want to build the guard shack and tie the bamboo poles for the project. Indolence transforms into excitement. Hope supplants cynicism.

The goings on in Babatngon

This week, we have continued our coastal survey of Babatngon. I thought I'd let some of my favorite pictures speak for themselves.

The stacks of cut and split mangroves wait at the port to be taken by small boat to the market in Babatngon to be sold for 20 pesos per bundle. About 70 percent of people in Babatngon still cook over wood fire, outside their small nipa houses. Although it hurts the environment and natural filtering that mangroves do, it's a better alternative than burning old tires and cartons to cook over, which is often the case.

I like to call this picture, "Product Placement."

As we waited out a rain storm in our little boat, waiting for waves to subside, these girls looked on, wondering our reason for being in their neck of the woods. They were pleased to get their picture taken.

We do our best, collecting small samples of seagrass and mangroves, so that we can compare them to old dichotomous keys and make fairly accurate identification of the species.

Edwin, and his son, Jibi, who has begun to come along with us on the coastal surveys.

One of the countless rocky outcrops along Babatngon shores. The rocks make for a great substrate on which coral grows. However, decades of unimpeded upland mining and development has washed tons of silt into the ocean, killing a lot of the coastal corals. Such is the case in this area.

Sometimes the water's surface is a torrent of whitecaps and furious waves, and sometimes, like this morning, the water's surface is smooth like a tranquil mirror reflecting a beautiful sky.

The sun splatters on the water like paint on canvas, when it's sunny, a raw heat stings the skin, and when it rains, a raw battery of cool raindrops stings the senses.

With coffee cup, our snorkels, some maps, a pencil and paper, and camera, I'm prepared for another day of swimming and surveys.

The mooring area at the town center, a collection of old boats, broken fishing tackle, and crumbled concrete, all giving way to inertia.

A gorgeous frog we found while trekking up in the mountains one day. The mountains are surprisingly pristine in some areas. The only reason natural areas have not been exploited in some areas is due to folklore of witches in the mountains and deep waters. We didn't see a soul on our hour-long hike.

Applying GIS to Natural Resource Mapping in Babatngon

The past few weeks, I have been trying to combine my knowledge of GIS and Mapping with the coastal resource mapping here in our host site, Babatngon. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is an area of mapping and software that uses different datasets such as infrastructure, topography, property boundaries, and the like to create maps and modeling for use in areas such as disaster preparedness and landuse planning, not to mention hundreds of other applications that are being studied and used in other sectors (apart from the environment).

In the early '90s, GPS technology, something used in the U.S. military, was opened up for public use, and has since become a huge part of mapping and using remote sensing to manage large spatial areas. In the United States, we have lots of data on everything now, from forest cover types mapped with GPS units, to city blocks delineated with underground infrastructure and specific addresses of houses, to school groups using the technology for Geocaching for scavenger hunts. Every year or so, new satellite imagery becomes available for every inch of the united states. We update topographic maps often, for higher resolution, or to depict land use changes, or to include information with higher precision. It is insane how much data is out there for use in GIS and spatial planning in the United States.

Then there's the rest of the world. The Philippines is listed as one of the top 2 if not the most disaster prone country in the world. The combination of liquifaction (landslides), volcanoes, fault areas and earthquake-prone areas, as well as low-lying populated coastlines, typhoon potential, as well as other threats makes for a very tenuous situation here. For that reason, extensive mapping, while incredibly good to have for places like the United States, is downright crucial in a country such as this. However, there exists very little spatial data in the Philippines. I have taken it upon myself to begin collecting information from a host of government agencies to develop some semblance of a database for this mapping information. Hurdles to this process are usually inept government officials who don't know where to send me for the informaiton, or the fact that different agencies don't communicate, so even if there was a GIS file for faults of the Philippines at the Department of GeoHazards, the The National Land Mapping agency knows nothing of it. It's frustrating to say the least. I have walked down many a Filipino street in hopes of getting information of this sort, just to leave an hour later bathed in the awesomeness of air conditioning, but empty handed.

The national mapping agency tasked with compiling disaster preparedness data is working on a comprehensive product and has made lots of progress, but when I look at what data they now have available, large sections of the country have not been started. These sections, as you would expect, are the poorest areas of the country usually, and even the 1950's topographic maps have been scanned in to begin the process. Read that again if it didn't hit home, that means maps from 60 years ago are the only resource for land-use planning in over half of a country where 92 million people live. Forget satellite imagery, forget spatial information on infrastructure, power grids, telephone lines, water mains, septic systems, drain fields, reservoirs, none of that. The only repository of spatial information in the 21st century are Topographic maps from the 1950's, maps made, believe it or not, by the United States Military.

Enter Pete. For the past few months, I have been working with these scanned topographic maps, georeferencing those maps to display in GIS, and beginning to try and fill a 60-year mapping void. Additionally, I'm trying to convince Peace Corps central office to begin using geospatial software so that they can plan for potential disasters for volunteers in vulnerable places. That though, is for another blog, another day. I rode a jeep one sunny day about 8 months ago to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources office in Tacloban in hopes of getting a hard copy of one of the U.S. Army maps. An hour later, a man came out from a dilapidated map room, dusty map in hand, rolled up, bound with twine, with signs of never being studing before. I paid 200 pesos for the map of Babatngon, and left, happy with my loot. I've been able to get most of the barangay (village) borders and start looking at infrastructure, health clinics, elementary schools, rice mills, waiting sheds for the jeeps, and most importantly for my project, mapping of natural resources. This has been the fun part.

At 7 a.m. on days where it's hubas (low tide), I meet Edwin at the shoreline and we head off to map corals, mangroves, seagrass areas, and try to ground truth what United States soldiers mapped 60 years ago. With that old map in hand, and Edwin, the captain at the helm, we go to all of the dots on the map where some old soldier long ago said there was coral, demarcated with a squiggly line. Most times, the coral is all gone, signs of years of overfishing apparent, and we snorkel, diving to find seagrass beds the locals claim are there. Sometime's though, we come upon areas that are nearly pristine, schooling fish circle, and dead coral has live buds, signs of rehabilitation. We map mangrove stands, and record the Waray Waray and latin names of all the species using antiquated field guides, hopefully creating a repository that will be used in the future to see what's left. We take pictures, I take notes, and we move on, hoping to hit all of the high points of Babatngon's nearly 40 kilometers of winding, mountainous shoreline. While I snorkel, estimating dead and live percentages of coral, or looking at striations on seagrass and leafscars on mangrove twigs, Edwin anchors the boat, and walks the shore looking for shellfish to take home to his family. Some places we find are suitable for protection, and would be fairly easily managed as a no-fishing area, so I deliberate with Edwin, a born fisherman, why the areas would or would not be good for protection, in the eyes of the locals who depend on them for livelihood. Sometimes I will find a good clam or mussel or abalone when snorkeling, and I will swim to Edwin, hold out my hand, and drop the shell in his hand. Our eyes will meet briefly, his raised eyebrows mean thank you, that the shellfish is a good find. At the end of the day, I take our data that we've collected, and enter it into the GIS database I'm creating, and overlay 60-year-old map data with mine and Edwin's 2011 information. Edwin is very street smart, but if I tried to explain the process to him, he wouldn't understand having never worked with a computer, but he is part of a pr that project that is bridging data from 2 centuries, spanning decades. I think that is pretty neat.

We're about a third of the way done with the survey of the shore areas at this point. We have found 3 or 4 50-hectare areas so far that will make for good protected areas in the future, areas that will hopefully lead to a healthier fishery and higher yields for the fishermen in the future.

Saging is For Loving

The Philippines, as is the case with many other tropical nations, abounds with many different fruits of all shapes and sizes. They have pineapples, papayas, watermelon, rambutan, lanzones, jackfruit, and many others. Among their plethora of fruits is the Saging, or banana. Now, before arriving here, I was under the erroneous assumption that there was but 1 type of Banana, but now I realize what a fallacy that was. Being the ever abundant fruit that it is here, a banana is regarded as a pretty paltry commodity, and usually costs around a peso apiece. They grow everywhere, and you can make out their big, flat leaves along any roadside. The leaves are used as a picnic blanket when you eat out in the forest, and many times, during an unexpected downpour, you'll see many people walking around without an umbrella, but instead shielded from the weather by one of the gigantic leaves. Bananas have big, beautiful red blossoms that grow in the center of the short trees. Many times we'll go to the canteen to have lunch, and the 'Bukad nga Saging' or blossom of the banana will be cooked in a spinach-type concoction, and served with coconut milk. Some bananas are hard, harvested while still unripe, and are boiled, and eaten like a boiled potato. Some of those are sweet, and some are just plain hard, and if you're like me, you'll find yourself at many a Filipino gathering, eyes wide and watering, forcing yet another boiled banana down, wondering how some little tribesman ever stumbled upon this crappy food. There are also the small bananas, about 5 inches long and very sweet called 'kadulce' or 'candy-like' by the locals. They're really very good and I go through them pretty quick. They draw ants pretty quickly though, so when you are offered these in a person's home for snack, you'll notice that these little treats are often sprinkled with little specks of protein. The other main variety of banana's here are the big ones, much like those that you would find at the supermarket at home. They cost 2 pesos (4¢) apiece, are seasonal, and are generally better than any of the bananas that you would get at home. Often when I stoop under the awning of a little tiny Sari Sari store to get a banana, I'm reminded of my granddad and how he'd always be on the lookout for deals on bananas. I'm reminded of how he'd always have to get a few pounds of bananas when they were on a 30¢-per-pound sale. Well Granddad, eat your heart out.

Bananas, like the coconut, are cherished here, and are a part of the culture. Coconut trees are called 'kahoy nga lubi' or 'Tree of Life,' and their byproducts, the coconut wine, the shells of the fruit, the coconut meat, even the fibers of the outer shell are all integral parts of the livelihood here. In much the same way, the leaves, fruit, and blossoms of banana trees are crucial to people here and how they live. An old lady was telling me about how detrimental it is for unwed partners to sleep in the same room and said that it would lead to all the Banana trees being cut down. Honestly, I don't know what she was talking about, but she was making a connection, I thought, between an immoral situation and the grief she would feel if all of the bananas were removed from her home. Sex and giving life is not taboo at all here as it is in the states, so even the most devout old men and women at fiestas will hold a banana up, smile really big, and say "Saging is for loving," phallic innuendo intended.

Sling Shot

Some of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers and I recently got together for a 'Men's weekend.' Although those of us who are married enjoy the constant companionship of our wives, it is really good sometimes to just have some 'guy time.' We didn't get very rowdy, but hung out in a big hostel bedroom, talking about man stuff. That didn't take too long, and after about an hour of wondering what to say, we all decided to go out and get food, and follow that up with some good ol' men's weekend drinking. Some of us are more overzealous drinkers than others, and by some of us, I mean someone that wasn't me. So, we all got back to the pension sometime that morning and rose to a gloriously hot Philippine morning the next day when I decided that I needed something. I couldn't decide quite what that something was until I saw someone looping a rubber band around toothpaste and a toothbrush and heard the familiar snap of rubber's recoil. I threw on pants and a shirt and headed downtown to get a slingshot, to fill that void that had been throbbing now for months, the need which I had been unable to identify. My companions and I asked at several little establishments with wooded wares. We finally came upon the store I'd been in search of. Tens if not hundreds of little coconut-lumber slingshots hung from a wire, flimsy rubber bands holding the main rubber cords taught, ready for action. For 20 pesos, I got one with red rubber bands. Although mens weekend was fun, my excitement at my purchase drowns the rest of the experience.

This week, I started by replacing flimsy rubber cords with intertube cords for maximum accuracy and effect. The first shot I landed was on one of the hundreds of feral cats that haunt our residence. It was a direct hit, and I have rarely been as successful since. I carefully select stones that I imagine sailing through the air unimpeded by sharp corners or flaws that would reduce aerodynamics. My first assumption was that the slingshot would be used only for feral cats and rats, but rats are so darn fast and nocturnal, that I have had to replace that void with chickens as the need arises. I continue trying to perfect my weapon, increasing tension, finding good rocks, shaving the 'V' in the middle of the slingshot down, so as to allow for larger ammunition. I recognize my preoccupation with bigger, faster, and more efficient weaponry as symbolic of one of the overarching reasons for international nuclear proliferation. Maybe Iran or North Korea just wants bigger, better projectiles, just like me. It's a scary thought.

As a personal note to family and friends at home, yes, I am still working hard and doing what I'm supposed to be doing here. At the same time though, I am getting to be a mean sling-shotter.