Here's something weird: there are hardly any birds where we live. Or, from what I understand, in the Philippines in general. It has a lot to do with habitat loss, pollution, the endless supply of stray dogs and cats and of course, the fact that people ate them. I was told it's mostly due to the fact that they've all been eaten. It's weird though, here we are in this lush tropical country and I rarely hear a bird. I didn't really notice it though until fairly recently when we were at language camp. It was up in the hills a little ways from Manila, and off the road, so for the first time in almost nine months, it was quiet. You could still here that distant highway rumble, but for the most part it was almost deafeningly quiet. Then I noticed there were no birds signing, and I thought back and realized that I never heard or saw birds at site, or anywhere else for that matter. A little discussion with other volunteers and I was able to piece together that information. Weird, huh?
The interesting part about it for me though was not that there weren't any birds, but more the fact that there's such a constant barrage of noise here I didn't even notice for close to a year. Tricycles going by (even the smallest little 150cc bike sounds like a Harley because they don't have mufflers), jeepneys and cars honking, neighbors talking, kids yelling, people outside cooking, dogs barking, cats in heat yowling, roosters crowing, music (ours or the neighbors), chainsaws going, street vendors calling out "Taho!" (silken tofu with syrup) or "Toasted Siopao!" (toasted, steamed bun filled with pork), the ice cream man ringing his bell, the Nestle ice cream man playing that damn song over and over, the cigarette guy snapping his rubber band, sirens going off, loudspeakers blaring the national anthem over at the elementary school, the non-stop whir of the electric fan, rain pounding on corrugated metal roofing... It's crazy how much noise there is here, and you get used to it so fast. I don't notice most of that during the day, but I'm still able to list it off. I guess that's why I never noticed the lack of a few song birds.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
It's official: Manila stinks
Well, the big surgery adventure is over, and it was not as bad as I thought it would be. For those of you who don't know, Abby has had an ear infection on and off since May and due to various factors, it ate a hole in her eardrum. After about two months of travelling to Manila every week to see the doctor, PC Philippines consulted with PC Washington, who decided she could reasonably get the surgery done here. We were skeptical to say the least because provincial hospitals leave a lot to be desired, like doctors, or equipment. But hospitals in Manila are a lot nicer, and we actually ended up going to the newest and nicest hospital in Manila. It was even nicer than Makati Medical Center, which is, as my host father explained, "Where movie stars go." I would say it was even as nice as an American hospital. So anyway she got top notch care, terrible hospital food and I slept on some kind of fold out chair that was really uncomfortable and of course, way too short. The doctor decided she needed to stay in Manila for a week, so after a little dicking around with Peace Corps, they put us up in what was to us a luxury hotel. All that meant was a private room with a tv and minifridge, but it was a lot better than getting stuck in a room at the pension we normally get sent to. She was in some pain, and rested the first day or two, but we did some Christmas shopping and saw the new Bond movie, so it wasn't a total loss. Other than that we stayed in bed until 2pm every day and ate some cheese.
Manila is kind of fun in small bursts, but it quickly gets old. The pollution gets you coughing after a few days, the poverty becomes depressing, the puddles of piss and street grime blacken the soles of your feet and you can't stand to see one more hooker. The area we stay in Manila is called Malate, which is actually a pretty nice area. There are a lot of hotels and tourists, some pretty good restaurants and even a few good bars. But with tourists come beggers and GROs (Guest Relations Officers [prostitutes]). Every fifth bar you pass is a GRO bar with a gaggle of little Filipino girls in small dresses standing outside (by little I mean in size, not in age), trying to get people to come in. In and of itself its nothing new, but seeing it over and over for an extended period of time, it starts to become depressing. And seeing these beautiful Filipino girls in their early 20s/late teens with fat, ugly white guys gets depressing too. The poverty there is also weird because Manila is way richer than the rest of the Philippines, so the poor stand out way more. Out here in the provinces everyone is poor, with the exception of a few people, so it's just a way of life. People are poor, but still generally happy, they have a home and a family, they still participate in daily life, going to the market, farming, whatever their thing is. In Manila it's by and large dirty shoeless kids, a good portion of which sniff something called "rugby," which is just industrial strength glue, to kill their hunger. Seeing a brand new car drive by a woman in rags putting her two kids to sleep in a pile of trash is fucking brutal. Top all of that off with the fact that Manila is drenched in piss and is full of terrible smells, and we were more than ready to come back to site after our week there.
Thanksgiving was really nice, we went down south on our island to hang out with some friends in their nipa hut. They built it themselves; its the traditional Filipino home, made of bamboo and nipa leaves. It's really nice though, they're out in the country a little bit, so it's quieter and more relaxed out where they live. Not that where we live is that crazy, but it's still a city. Since they're vegetarians we roasted a chicken at our place and brought it down, as well as a homemade apple pie and some Stovetop stuffing from home, and they made mashed sweet potatoes, fruit salad and green bean casserole. Top that off with a little wine and brandy and we had a feast. It was really nice and relaxing, and it was great to be able to pull off a semi-traditional Thanksgiving, since that is my favorite holiday and all.
Manila is kind of fun in small bursts, but it quickly gets old. The pollution gets you coughing after a few days, the poverty becomes depressing, the puddles of piss and street grime blacken the soles of your feet and you can't stand to see one more hooker. The area we stay in Manila is called Malate, which is actually a pretty nice area. There are a lot of hotels and tourists, some pretty good restaurants and even a few good bars. But with tourists come beggers and GROs (Guest Relations Officers [prostitutes]). Every fifth bar you pass is a GRO bar with a gaggle of little Filipino girls in small dresses standing outside (by little I mean in size, not in age), trying to get people to come in. In and of itself its nothing new, but seeing it over and over for an extended period of time, it starts to become depressing. And seeing these beautiful Filipino girls in their early 20s/late teens with fat, ugly white guys gets depressing too. The poverty there is also weird because Manila is way richer than the rest of the Philippines, so the poor stand out way more. Out here in the provinces everyone is poor, with the exception of a few people, so it's just a way of life. People are poor, but still generally happy, they have a home and a family, they still participate in daily life, going to the market, farming, whatever their thing is. In Manila it's by and large dirty shoeless kids, a good portion of which sniff something called "rugby," which is just industrial strength glue, to kill their hunger. Seeing a brand new car drive by a woman in rags putting her two kids to sleep in a pile of trash is fucking brutal. Top all of that off with the fact that Manila is drenched in piss and is full of terrible smells, and we were more than ready to come back to site after our week there.
Thanksgiving was really nice, we went down south on our island to hang out with some friends in their nipa hut. They built it themselves; its the traditional Filipino home, made of bamboo and nipa leaves. It's really nice though, they're out in the country a little bit, so it's quieter and more relaxed out where they live. Not that where we live is that crazy, but it's still a city. Since they're vegetarians we roasted a chicken at our place and brought it down, as well as a homemade apple pie and some Stovetop stuffing from home, and they made mashed sweet potatoes, fruit salad and green bean casserole. Top that off with a little wine and brandy and we had a feast. It was really nice and relaxing, and it was great to be able to pull off a semi-traditional Thanksgiving, since that is my favorite holiday and all.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Po troubles
Something that's interesting and a little frustrating for me in trying to use Tagalog is the word "po." It's not even really a word. In english it would be a tone of voice, or maybe a manner of speaking to someone. Basically, by adding "po" at various points during a sentence you are showing the person you're speaking to respect. You really only use it when speaking to older people, especially older people of some importance (mayor, your boss, etc). Some places use it more than others, some places use "ho" more often, which is slightly less formal. They use "po" a lot in Manila, apparently, and I'd say they use it a lot on Mindoro too. At least I do. Actually I probably over use it simply because I'm still not %100 on the terms and conditions of using it. I think the main problem for an english speaker is that we don't really have a direct equivalent to it. I think "sir" or "ma'am" is about as close as we get, and even then you probably have to think of 1950s US when that was much more common. Basically to give a quick example I'll give you a few very common ways it's used. The word for "yes" in Tagalog is "Oo" (pronounced 'o' and then 'o'). If you want to say yes in a respectful way, you say "Opo." "Good morning" is "Magandang umaga" but if you want to make it respectful, you just add a "po" (magandang umaga po). When you get into sentences it gets a little more complicated as the po does not always get attached to the end, for example "Magcano po ang pamasaje?" is a respectful way of asking how much fare is (for the bus, etc).
Now people say the english language, and American english in particular, is very informal, which is somewhat true, I suppose. We have less formality built directly into our language, but although there are many informal workplaces, I think it's safe to say most business still maintain some sense of formality. There's the tone and manner you use with your boss, and then there's the one you use with your coworkers. I mean, it's not like people here don't kid and joke with their superiors at work, but when it comes down to it there's still a hierarchy that people stick to. And out on the street, I'm not "sir-ing" and "ma'am-ing" every older person I see, and even if I do start out respectful with certain people, that usually breaks down after a while into a more informal tone. My problem here is I still am not sure about those kinds of things. Don't get me wrong, it's not that big of a deal. If I "po" someone I'm not supposed to, or I forget to "po" someone I am supposed to, it doesn't make that much of a difference, especially since I'm a foreigner. They're amazed I know anything at all (and rightly so). But I'm always wondering if I should "opo" the older tricycle driver or waiter. I mean, they're older than me, but they're also serving me. Is there a point at which you stop "po-ing" someone and speak more informally? I've discovered there is, but I still feel uncomfortable sometimes.
It basically just comes down to me wanting to learn the language a little quicker, because as true as this in most countries, it's doubly true here: you are automatically labeled "sucker tourist" from the get go, and knowing language is the only way to counteract that. The funny side effect to that though is that if you do know even the smallest bit of language, they automatically assume you are a missionary. I thought that was really weird that there are missionaries here since it's a roman-catholic country, but I forgot about the Mormons. Those little fresh faced kids in their white short-sleeved shirts and black ties are everywhere. There are also some born again types here too. I always get a laugh out of it though because they always ask me when I'm sitting shirtless on a beach drinking a beer or something, and I just want to ask them "do I look like a Mormon?"
The whole tourist image is an impossible and very annoying image to shake however, and it can really annoy you sometimes. Basically the only white people who come here or live here are rich by provincial standards, even if they're just dirty backpackers. Some guy asks them for p100 ($2) for a 15 minute tricycle ride and they think that's cheap, or normal price because they don't know any better, so they go along with it, even though it's double, triple the price. We were in a cab once in Manila, and the cabbie told us that an American had once paid him p3000 ($60) for a ride down to Batangas, which is about 2 hrs away from Manila. That's a great price by American standards, but the bus ride down there is p150 ($3). So it's no wonder people try and rip us off. And for us we know the prices, we know how to bargain, so it's much less of a problem. Unfortunately (I forgot to mention this in the last post), but the downside of living near a tourist destination is being labeled a tourist in your own town. More than a few times I've had this conversation, in Tagalog, with a tricycle driver:
"Where are you going?"
"Sta Maria Village" (the name of our barangay)
"Ok"
Two minutes later he sticks his head in an says:
"Jeepney terminal?"
"No, Santa maria village"
"Puerto Galera?"
"NO! Sta maria village!"
"Ok"
3 minutes later:
"Jeepney terminal?"
Pretty much except for the people we know and the places we frequent, we are assumed to be a) from Puerto Galera or b) traveling through to Boracay. Or secret choice c) Mormom missionaries. Ahhh! But by and large, it's not that much of a problem. Mostly people take us where we want, for the right price without having to quibble with them, and only occasionally do they try and rip us off, so it's not as bad as maybe I just made it sound, but sometimes, when you're having a rough day and you're tired, it's the last thing you want to deal with.
Now people say the english language, and American english in particular, is very informal, which is somewhat true, I suppose. We have less formality built directly into our language, but although there are many informal workplaces, I think it's safe to say most business still maintain some sense of formality. There's the tone and manner you use with your boss, and then there's the one you use with your coworkers. I mean, it's not like people here don't kid and joke with their superiors at work, but when it comes down to it there's still a hierarchy that people stick to. And out on the street, I'm not "sir-ing" and "ma'am-ing" every older person I see, and even if I do start out respectful with certain people, that usually breaks down after a while into a more informal tone. My problem here is I still am not sure about those kinds of things. Don't get me wrong, it's not that big of a deal. If I "po" someone I'm not supposed to, or I forget to "po" someone I am supposed to, it doesn't make that much of a difference, especially since I'm a foreigner. They're amazed I know anything at all (and rightly so). But I'm always wondering if I should "opo" the older tricycle driver or waiter. I mean, they're older than me, but they're also serving me. Is there a point at which you stop "po-ing" someone and speak more informally? I've discovered there is, but I still feel uncomfortable sometimes.
It basically just comes down to me wanting to learn the language a little quicker, because as true as this in most countries, it's doubly true here: you are automatically labeled "sucker tourist" from the get go, and knowing language is the only way to counteract that. The funny side effect to that though is that if you do know even the smallest bit of language, they automatically assume you are a missionary. I thought that was really weird that there are missionaries here since it's a roman-catholic country, but I forgot about the Mormons. Those little fresh faced kids in their white short-sleeved shirts and black ties are everywhere. There are also some born again types here too. I always get a laugh out of it though because they always ask me when I'm sitting shirtless on a beach drinking a beer or something, and I just want to ask them "do I look like a Mormon?"
The whole tourist image is an impossible and very annoying image to shake however, and it can really annoy you sometimes. Basically the only white people who come here or live here are rich by provincial standards, even if they're just dirty backpackers. Some guy asks them for p100 ($2) for a 15 minute tricycle ride and they think that's cheap, or normal price because they don't know any better, so they go along with it, even though it's double, triple the price. We were in a cab once in Manila, and the cabbie told us that an American had once paid him p3000 ($60) for a ride down to Batangas, which is about 2 hrs away from Manila. That's a great price by American standards, but the bus ride down there is p150 ($3). So it's no wonder people try and rip us off. And for us we know the prices, we know how to bargain, so it's much less of a problem. Unfortunately (I forgot to mention this in the last post), but the downside of living near a tourist destination is being labeled a tourist in your own town. More than a few times I've had this conversation, in Tagalog, with a tricycle driver:
"Where are you going?"
"Sta Maria Village" (the name of our barangay)
"Ok"
Two minutes later he sticks his head in an says:
"Jeepney terminal?"
"No, Santa maria village"
"Puerto Galera?"
"NO! Sta maria village!"
"Ok"
3 minutes later:
"Jeepney terminal?"
Pretty much except for the people we know and the places we frequent, we are assumed to be a) from Puerto Galera or b) traveling through to Boracay. Or secret choice c) Mormom missionaries. Ahhh! But by and large, it's not that much of a problem. Mostly people take us where we want, for the right price without having to quibble with them, and only occasionally do they try and rip us off, so it's not as bad as maybe I just made it sound, but sometimes, when you're having a rough day and you're tired, it's the last thing you want to deal with.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Keepin' it real
We've really grown to like our site, the city we live in, but recently we found a reason to like it even more. We found a campground up in Puerto Galera that's right on the beach and only p100 ($2) a night person, so we can take a long weekend up there on the beach that includes eating out, going out at night and a few extras (like p200 [$4] hour long massages on the beach) for about p2000 ($40). We recently went up there for a few days (which turned into five) to hang out, and also so I could do a little research for the guidebook I'm writing. I was recently contacted by the guy I know at the World Wildlife Foundation up in Puerto because he had heard I was an English major, and he asked if I would like to help them write their guidebook. Basically they are trying to develop a small guidebook they can sell cheaply to tourists to help generate some income. They actually hired someone to do this for them, but she did such a lame job they scrapped the whole thing, and that's where my will-work-for-free ass comes into the picture. It's actually really exciting to be working on this, because even though it's a small guidebook (passport sized, about 30 pages), it will be completely written by me, and I'm going to assist with the layout and overall design too. On top of that I'm in charge of developing the official Puerto Galera website and I'll be working with them to create a project proposal to increase upland tourism!
They will be giving me a list of the hotels and restaurants they want to include, so in the meantime I walked around the three tourist hotspots and wrote down where basic services were, like internet cafes, banks, grocery stores, public transportation, etc. We also went to some of the tourist attractions they want me to include, one of which was a very nice hike up to a waterfall. In my opinion their problem could be easily fixed with little to no money by simply labeling where the hell stuff is. To actually get to the "trail" that led to the waterfall, we had to ask at least 10 people where it was. Basically we'd walk 50 or 100 meters until we were lost again, stop, ask someone, be told we would never find it and that we needed a guide, and then eventually be pointed in some vague direction. That's the thing about Filipinos: they can't give directions for shit. You ask someone where something is, and the usual response is a lip point in some random direction (they don't point with their fingers, it's rude. They point by making a "kissy face" and nodding their head in the direction they want you to go) and the word "Doon" which means "over there." It was fine for us because we're used to it, but I'm guessing your average tourist isn't going to want to bumble around some little village stopping to ask for directions every 5 minutes. That's where I come in, making simple suggestions like "why don't you put a sign out on the road?" and "tie some colored tape around a tree every now and then so people know they're on the right trail and not some goat path."
The beach itself was really nice. After 3 days there we wanted to leave because in typical American fashion, we were done with what we needed to do and couldn't think of anything else to do. God forbid we spend even an idle minute on vacation! We must be doing something! We eventually loosened up and relaxed and spend the next two days getting up and going for a swim, eating breakfast, going for another swim, reading, eating lunch, swimming, reading, dinner, beer, sleep. I think after 7 months in country we've finally chilled the hell out and are able to enjoy doing nothing at all. It was hard to do, there's 24 years of American upbringing that wouldn't let us sit still, but now a morning where all you accomplish is drinking some coffee and watching the news is quite possibly the greatest thing ever.
They will be giving me a list of the hotels and restaurants they want to include, so in the meantime I walked around the three tourist hotspots and wrote down where basic services were, like internet cafes, banks, grocery stores, public transportation, etc. We also went to some of the tourist attractions they want me to include, one of which was a very nice hike up to a waterfall. In my opinion their problem could be easily fixed with little to no money by simply labeling where the hell stuff is. To actually get to the "trail" that led to the waterfall, we had to ask at least 10 people where it was. Basically we'd walk 50 or 100 meters until we were lost again, stop, ask someone, be told we would never find it and that we needed a guide, and then eventually be pointed in some vague direction. That's the thing about Filipinos: they can't give directions for shit. You ask someone where something is, and the usual response is a lip point in some random direction (they don't point with their fingers, it's rude. They point by making a "kissy face" and nodding their head in the direction they want you to go) and the word "Doon" which means "over there." It was fine for us because we're used to it, but I'm guessing your average tourist isn't going to want to bumble around some little village stopping to ask for directions every 5 minutes. That's where I come in, making simple suggestions like "why don't you put a sign out on the road?" and "tie some colored tape around a tree every now and then so people know they're on the right trail and not some goat path."
The beach itself was really nice. After 3 days there we wanted to leave because in typical American fashion, we were done with what we needed to do and couldn't think of anything else to do. God forbid we spend even an idle minute on vacation! We must be doing something! We eventually loosened up and relaxed and spend the next two days getting up and going for a swim, eating breakfast, going for another swim, reading, eating lunch, swimming, reading, dinner, beer, sleep. I think after 7 months in country we've finally chilled the hell out and are able to enjoy doing nothing at all. It was hard to do, there's 24 years of American upbringing that wouldn't let us sit still, but now a morning where all you accomplish is drinking some coffee and watching the news is quite possibly the greatest thing ever.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Sheet metal flies well
So stuff happened this month, mostly went down to Iloilo City on the island of Panay for PST2, the technical portion of our training. It was pretty good, lots of hands on training, most of which should at least be a little useful.
I'm at the Peace Corps office right now, the building is running on generator power because the entire city is still without electricity. We came up on Tuesday for a brief doctor's visit for Abby, and ended up getting stuck here because Manila was hit by a signal 3 typhoon. I'm not sure what that is in American terms, but we heard on the radio before the power died that it had sustained winds of 220 kph and gusts of 260. We were up on the 4th floor of the pension we were at, which luckily for us was on the leeward side of the building, so we were able to stand out on the balcony and see the storm kick Manila's ass. Its interesting watching something like that in a city of poorly constructed buildings because huge sheets of roofing were flying by, plexiglass, etc. It was really pretty cool actually because I've never been in a hurricane before, just some big thunder storms in St. Louis
I'm at the Peace Corps office right now, the building is running on generator power because the entire city is still without electricity. We came up on Tuesday for a brief doctor's visit for Abby, and ended up getting stuck here because Manila was hit by a signal 3 typhoon. I'm not sure what that is in American terms, but we heard on the radio before the power died that it had sustained winds of 220 kph and gusts of 260. We were up on the 4th floor of the pension we were at, which luckily for us was on the leeward side of the building, so we were able to stand out on the balcony and see the storm kick Manila's ass. Its interesting watching something like that in a city of poorly constructed buildings because huge sheets of roofing were flying by, plexiglass, etc. It was really pretty cool actually because I've never been in a hurricane before, just some big thunder storms in St. Louis
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Money, that's what I want
Thank the lord, we have money again. We were down to some wanton wrappers, spices and half a package of noodles. We just went to the market yesterday and stocked up, so now we're back in business. You think moving is hard back home, try starting from scratch on a volunteer's "salary." Salary is in quotes because we've been told by the Peace Corps a million times, we are not employees of the Peace Corps. It's like we're covert ops over here. If we are caught they will disavow any knowledge of us. Yet, they still tax our non-earnings. How can you tax it if it doesn't exist? Somehow the government has found a way.
We have a few last things to buy for the house, the two biggest being wood for shelves, and a bbq. We've had books and other random junk sitting in boxes on our floor for a month because we had nowhere else to put it and no money to buy anything, but we're going to buy some planks today to build some quality cinder block and plank shelves. They're going to be beautiful. I'm really excited about the grill though. It's good grilling weather here all year round, and it's a nice change of pace, having grilled meat or veggies. Plus then we don't have to heat up the kitchen to near sauna-like levels. I have to cook with my shirt off because I'm dripping with sweat by the time I'm done with a meal. Of course my shirt is always off because I'm always dripping with sweat, so that's nothing new. It was pretty funny, speaking of meat, the other day we were watching a cooking show on cable, and the lady was making steak. She was talking about the different types of steak you can buy, and both of us thought of our options here. We have beef short ribs and a giant leg hanging off a hook. If you don't want ribs, you tell the guy how much beef you want and he whacks it off the leg. It's good for kabobs though, and tonight we're making beef bourguignon. For all the bitching we do to each other about the food we miss, we eat really well here. I think it was mostly last month though because we had no money to buy meat, or anything other than veggies, noodles and rice.
In other news, we got a kitty! We were totally against getting a pet, but the stars aligned perfectly, so we couldn't help ourselves. Our next door neighbor's pseudo-pet cat had kittens, and they offered one to us. So we looked around, and you can buy cat food at this one "pet" store (mostly pig and chicken feed), we can get sand for the litter box, they have free vet service here so we got her de-wormed and can get her a rabies shot (and fixed), and one of Abby's coworkers already has a cat, and he volunteered to take her when we leave. So we just couldn't help ourselves. She's a little orange and white cat we've named Beatrix. She's really playful, learned her catbox on the first day and sleeps with us under the sheet every night. It's nice having a cat again.
We have a few last things to buy for the house, the two biggest being wood for shelves, and a bbq. We've had books and other random junk sitting in boxes on our floor for a month because we had nowhere else to put it and no money to buy anything, but we're going to buy some planks today to build some quality cinder block and plank shelves. They're going to be beautiful. I'm really excited about the grill though. It's good grilling weather here all year round, and it's a nice change of pace, having grilled meat or veggies. Plus then we don't have to heat up the kitchen to near sauna-like levels. I have to cook with my shirt off because I'm dripping with sweat by the time I'm done with a meal. Of course my shirt is always off because I'm always dripping with sweat, so that's nothing new. It was pretty funny, speaking of meat, the other day we were watching a cooking show on cable, and the lady was making steak. She was talking about the different types of steak you can buy, and both of us thought of our options here. We have beef short ribs and a giant leg hanging off a hook. If you don't want ribs, you tell the guy how much beef you want and he whacks it off the leg. It's good for kabobs though, and tonight we're making beef bourguignon. For all the bitching we do to each other about the food we miss, we eat really well here. I think it was mostly last month though because we had no money to buy meat, or anything other than veggies, noodles and rice.
In other news, we got a kitty! We were totally against getting a pet, but the stars aligned perfectly, so we couldn't help ourselves. Our next door neighbor's pseudo-pet cat had kittens, and they offered one to us. So we looked around, and you can buy cat food at this one "pet" store (mostly pig and chicken feed), we can get sand for the litter box, they have free vet service here so we got her de-wormed and can get her a rabies shot (and fixed), and one of Abby's coworkers already has a cat, and he volunteered to take her when we leave. So we just couldn't help ourselves. She's a little orange and white cat we've named Beatrix. She's really playful, learned her catbox on the first day and sleeps with us under the sheet every night. It's nice having a cat again.
Friday, August 18, 2006
We have cable
I had to join the Peace Corps and come to the Philippines to get cable. How weird is that? Our host brothers were in here playing some online video game that every kid here loves, and I didn't see them. They just came up to me and said hi, and that they missed us. Awww!
Everything here is cool. We moved into our place two weeks ago, and it is awesome. We have it pretty well set up, painted the floor and it's become really comfortable. It's pretty nice to be able to just do our own thing without being in someone's way, or vise versa. We still have a few small things to get next month when we get paid, because the cost of moving in has left us with no more money. I'll try to put some pictures up, but that's a lot harder than it sounds when you don't have an internet connection in your house.
We have a bunch of stuff coming up soon. We're going up to White Beach in Puerto Galera at the beginning of September with some friends to celebrate our birthdays, and just to get away from site. I'm definitely getting a little stir crazy here. White Beach is one of the more popular beaches around the Philippines, lots of bars and restaurants, and of course, a big, long white beach. We've been there before during our summer (march-may), and it was packed. The tourism there is mostly Filipino though, so it totally dies off after summer and every place reduces their rates anywhere from %50-%75, so it's a great deal.
Right after that we are going to PST2, which is mistitled because it's not preservice training, it's just more training. For some reason they don't do any technical training before you come to site, they save that for three months in. Word on the street is that they're going to change that though. We just got a new country director and he's really shaking up the program, in a fairly positive way from what I've heard. My training is down in Iloilo City on the island of Panay, which is supposed to be really beautiful, and a fun town. Abby and the other education people have to go to Cavite, which I consider Manila's butthole. We were there for our first week and it's just ugly and boring. I actually have a fair amount of travel because I'll be going to Cebu City in October with work for a conference on marine sanctuaries. Abby is going to try and come too, we might turn it into a little vacation afterwards and take the chance to visit other islands in the Visayas.
That's pretty much it for now. Work is chugging along. I just got involved with a project that's part mangrove reserve, part crab farming, so I get to help raise crabs with a crazy old guy who really wants me to take a second wife. It's too bad the crabs are mudcrabs, and they harvest them too early so they're these little useless things with hardly any meat. For a country that gets most of its protein from fish, they don't seem to understand much about it. You know, I'm all like "can a get a tuna steak up in this piece?!" But no, I have to eat tiny, bone filled fish, or worse yet, dried, fried fish, for breakfast. Actually they have some pretty good seafood, we've been buying live prawns, then shelling them and fryin 'em up. Masarap!
Everything here is cool. We moved into our place two weeks ago, and it is awesome. We have it pretty well set up, painted the floor and it's become really comfortable. It's pretty nice to be able to just do our own thing without being in someone's way, or vise versa. We still have a few small things to get next month when we get paid, because the cost of moving in has left us with no more money. I'll try to put some pictures up, but that's a lot harder than it sounds when you don't have an internet connection in your house.
We have a bunch of stuff coming up soon. We're going up to White Beach in Puerto Galera at the beginning of September with some friends to celebrate our birthdays, and just to get away from site. I'm definitely getting a little stir crazy here. White Beach is one of the more popular beaches around the Philippines, lots of bars and restaurants, and of course, a big, long white beach. We've been there before during our summer (march-may), and it was packed. The tourism there is mostly Filipino though, so it totally dies off after summer and every place reduces their rates anywhere from %50-%75, so it's a great deal.
Right after that we are going to PST2, which is mistitled because it's not preservice training, it's just more training. For some reason they don't do any technical training before you come to site, they save that for three months in. Word on the street is that they're going to change that though. We just got a new country director and he's really shaking up the program, in a fairly positive way from what I've heard. My training is down in Iloilo City on the island of Panay, which is supposed to be really beautiful, and a fun town. Abby and the other education people have to go to Cavite, which I consider Manila's butthole. We were there for our first week and it's just ugly and boring. I actually have a fair amount of travel because I'll be going to Cebu City in October with work for a conference on marine sanctuaries. Abby is going to try and come too, we might turn it into a little vacation afterwards and take the chance to visit other islands in the Visayas.
That's pretty much it for now. Work is chugging along. I just got involved with a project that's part mangrove reserve, part crab farming, so I get to help raise crabs with a crazy old guy who really wants me to take a second wife. It's too bad the crabs are mudcrabs, and they harvest them too early so they're these little useless things with hardly any meat. For a country that gets most of its protein from fish, they don't seem to understand much about it. You know, I'm all like "can a get a tuna steak up in this piece?!" But no, I have to eat tiny, bone filled fish, or worse yet, dried, fried fish, for breakfast. Actually they have some pretty good seafood, we've been buying live prawns, then shelling them and fryin 'em up. Masarap!
Thursday, August 03, 2006
we are no longer pissed
So everything ended up working out because we are awesome. Actually it's our RM who's awesome, we're just pretty cool. We filled out all the paperwork and then wrote a letter to him explaining the situation, so he gave us the green light and now my hands smell like bleach from scrubbing our new place. It's in surprisingly good shape, just a little dirty from sitting empty for a while. I personally think we got a sweet deal, because after seeing the other crap for rent around here, we're actually living somewhere that doesn't smell like piss or have huge leaking problems. It's two stories, the bottom floor is just an open room, with a bathroom and a kitchen at the end of it. The bathroom is pretty scary, we're going to have to do some work on it so we don't feel like we're showering in a killer's basement. We have a little space out back for doing laundry and we were thinking about making a place to sit, but the communal river of funk flows (or rather stagnates) back there, so I don't think we'll be doing much relaxing there. The river of funk is basically the runoff water from people's kitchens and bathrooms. Here in the city the toilet drains somewhere (septic tank, central system, I don't know), but all other drains lead outside. You can see light through the kitchen sink because it's just a pipe that pops out of the back of the house, and the bathroom drain (for shower water) is literally just a hole at the bottom of the wall. So this water drains out of everyone's house on the block and collects in a ditch that runs along the back of everyone's property. It's not really angled from what I can tell, so the water just tends to sit there and look horrible.
Upstairs is really the selling point of the house. It's two big, open rooms with actual closets and tons of windows. The entire wall is all windows, more or less. So it's very breezy and light up there, which really helps accent the hard wood floors. That's right, hard wood floors. How cool is that? The house also happens to be in a very nice part of town that has cute little streets with lots of families and people out in the street at night, hanging out. It's also a 10 minute walk to my work and a 5 minute walk to abby's work, so we won't have to spend a bunch of money taking the tricycles back and forth. And, there's a sweet bar right down the street. So all in all we're very excited. We've been shopping for things for the house, but had to go to Batangas across the bay to get some things for cheaper. We have all the basics now, plates and cups, a pot and a pan, buckets for showering, tubs for washing clothes, a double burner... We also bought a sofa set that's a sofa, two armchairs and two tables. It's not really a sofa though, maybe calling it a futon that doesn't fold down would be a better description. The tables will come in handy because now we have somewhere to eat. We're also getting a fridge because we can afford one here. The funny thing about the Peace Corps is that we make a decent amount by filipino standards. A while ago I was reading our provincial profile at work and they had the households divided up into tiers based on their annual income. The top bracket was P500,000+ a year ($10,000), the second bracket was P250,000-500,000, which is where we fall. So even as volunteers we make more than about %85 of the population on our island. An interesting side note to that is that the average annual income of a family of 8 here on Oriental Mindoro is p88,000 ($1,690). Things are cheap here, but not THAT cheap.
This week I went with 8 of my coworkers (all in the same car) down to Bulalacao, which is our southern-most municipality. It's not too far distance-wise, but it takes forever to get there, partly because the last 30km takes 2 hours to travel. We have a pretty nice main 2 lane highway here, because a while ago the national government decided to make Oriental Mindoro an alternate route down to the Visayas. However, once you pass the town of Roxas, where the port is, they didn't feel like putting any more money into the project, so it peeters out into a rocky mud pit. It's beautiful country down there though, kind of like a tropical Scottish highlands with mist covered green hills and a lush carpeting of rice fields. It is also home to a lot of the indigenous Mangyans and the worst poverty on the island. It's where you get down to ramshackle bamboo huts and no electricity or water. Bulalacao is a fairly nondescript, sleepy little town with great fish. If you're into eating endangered fish you can get some yellow fin tuna down there for about $1.50 a kilo. We went down there to have a meeting with some fisherman, but it was mostly an excuse for all of us to go somewhere and hang out, which was fine with me. I'm slowly accepting the pace of work here, which is good for me because I feel less bored and annoyed. My job continues to be my one sticking point, but things are happening and I guess that why we're here for 2 years: because it takes 6 months to even begin to start to think about doing something!
Upstairs is really the selling point of the house. It's two big, open rooms with actual closets and tons of windows. The entire wall is all windows, more or less. So it's very breezy and light up there, which really helps accent the hard wood floors. That's right, hard wood floors. How cool is that? The house also happens to be in a very nice part of town that has cute little streets with lots of families and people out in the street at night, hanging out. It's also a 10 minute walk to my work and a 5 minute walk to abby's work, so we won't have to spend a bunch of money taking the tricycles back and forth. And, there's a sweet bar right down the street. So all in all we're very excited. We've been shopping for things for the house, but had to go to Batangas across the bay to get some things for cheaper. We have all the basics now, plates and cups, a pot and a pan, buckets for showering, tubs for washing clothes, a double burner... We also bought a sofa set that's a sofa, two armchairs and two tables. It's not really a sofa though, maybe calling it a futon that doesn't fold down would be a better description. The tables will come in handy because now we have somewhere to eat. We're also getting a fridge because we can afford one here. The funny thing about the Peace Corps is that we make a decent amount by filipino standards. A while ago I was reading our provincial profile at work and they had the households divided up into tiers based on their annual income. The top bracket was P500,000+ a year ($10,000), the second bracket was P250,000-500,000, which is where we fall. So even as volunteers we make more than about %85 of the population on our island. An interesting side note to that is that the average annual income of a family of 8 here on Oriental Mindoro is p88,000 ($1,690). Things are cheap here, but not THAT cheap.
This week I went with 8 of my coworkers (all in the same car) down to Bulalacao, which is our southern-most municipality. It's not too far distance-wise, but it takes forever to get there, partly because the last 30km takes 2 hours to travel. We have a pretty nice main 2 lane highway here, because a while ago the national government decided to make Oriental Mindoro an alternate route down to the Visayas. However, once you pass the town of Roxas, where the port is, they didn't feel like putting any more money into the project, so it peeters out into a rocky mud pit. It's beautiful country down there though, kind of like a tropical Scottish highlands with mist covered green hills and a lush carpeting of rice fields. It is also home to a lot of the indigenous Mangyans and the worst poverty on the island. It's where you get down to ramshackle bamboo huts and no electricity or water. Bulalacao is a fairly nondescript, sleepy little town with great fish. If you're into eating endangered fish you can get some yellow fin tuna down there for about $1.50 a kilo. We went down there to have a meeting with some fisherman, but it was mostly an excuse for all of us to go somewhere and hang out, which was fine with me. I'm slowly accepting the pace of work here, which is good for me because I feel less bored and annoyed. My job continues to be my one sticking point, but things are happening and I guess that why we're here for 2 years: because it takes 6 months to even begin to start to think about doing something!
Sunday, July 16, 2006
We are starting to get pissed
Ok, I'll keep this brief so the entire post isn't just me bitching. But you see, we belong to this organization that is drowning us in arbitrary and ridiculous rules. We like our host family a lot, the kids are fun to hang out with, but it's just them. The mom works in another town all week, so grandma next door and the housekeeper take care of the kids. We also cook our own food, seeing as how we're 24 and fairly capable of taking care of ourselves. We have also found a really nice house, 2 bedrooms, tiny kitchen, bright airy upstairs that we would really like to move into because living with other people is, quite frankly, starting to drive us fucking nuts. However, we are not allowed to move because you have to spend 3 months with this host family as well (for a total of 6 months living with families). Now, the reasoning behind this is that living with a host family helps your language, it helps your adjustment and it helps to integrate you into the community. As I've mentioned before, we don't really live with a family. It's more like we rent a (tiny) bedroom from them. We also live in a city of 100,000 people and plan on living in a different barangay anyway, so the community integration issue is a moot point. We also have friends and co-workers who we see everyday, and so far have been about %98 of our social contact. Not the "family." So why then are we not allowed to move? BECAUSE THEY HAVE A RULE! And if you have a rule, it can't be broken.
So anyway, we almost literally can't stand it anymore, not having our own space, our own things, so we're telling our regional manager that we are moving. We're not going to stay in a situation that's making us unhappy (and apathetic might I add), and the house we found is really awesome. It's going to make a huge difference.
Everything else is going really well, saw some friends this past weekend, which was a little breath of fresh air. Two weeks ago I went out to a rural barangay to help commemorate the launching of a fish sanctuary, and it was a real trip. The only way to get to this place is an hour boat ride, or a half day hike through the mountains, which means for people who can only justify using their boats to fish, every time they need something from town, it's a day long journey. We went out with maybe 12 coworkers of mine and we also inexplicably brought along 5 thoroughly bored looking, heavily armed guys. 4 with M-16s and one guy with an uzi. Now, I'm not sure why we had to bring along 5 guys with guns, but we did. The event itself was pretty fun. They had a table set up on the beach, loaded with two giant smoked, rainbow colored fish, and about 6 cases of beer and a dozen bottles of gin (we arrived at 9am). The ceremony was brief, consisting mostly of people acknowledging the other people who were there, and then we were able to get down to some serious business. After the speeches the women all made themselves scarce and we broke out the booze. The fish was delicious and the beer, well, it was warm and flat. That's ok though, you can't blame them, they only get electricity from 6pm until 9pm when they turn on the town's rickety diesel generator. Being the celebrity that I am, I was given both my own fish and my own bottle of beer, instead of sharing communally, which actually just made me feel like a leper, so I kind of worked my way into a circle. Since the beer is warm, and people want to drink, you fill your glass up, pound it, shake it out and pass it on.
Meanwhile the gun toting dudes are hanging out, leaning on their guns, and then the guy with the uzi sends his loaded gun clattering across the rocks on the beach and I took that as my cue to get up and move far away. I sat down next to one of the M-16 guys who had taken his clip out and was performing a delicate operation on the safety of his gun by bashing it with a rock. I won't say I was afraid of getting shot, but these guys didn't make me feel any safer from the invisible threat.
So as we said goodbye to the increasingly drunk fisherman and set out on our dangerously overcrowded boat, a school of flying fish sailed ahead the bow of our ship. The sun was beating down and the frothy waves reflected millions of points of light. It had been a good day.
So anyway, we almost literally can't stand it anymore, not having our own space, our own things, so we're telling our regional manager that we are moving. We're not going to stay in a situation that's making us unhappy (and apathetic might I add), and the house we found is really awesome. It's going to make a huge difference.
Everything else is going really well, saw some friends this past weekend, which was a little breath of fresh air. Two weeks ago I went out to a rural barangay to help commemorate the launching of a fish sanctuary, and it was a real trip. The only way to get to this place is an hour boat ride, or a half day hike through the mountains, which means for people who can only justify using their boats to fish, every time they need something from town, it's a day long journey. We went out with maybe 12 coworkers of mine and we also inexplicably brought along 5 thoroughly bored looking, heavily armed guys. 4 with M-16s and one guy with an uzi. Now, I'm not sure why we had to bring along 5 guys with guns, but we did. The event itself was pretty fun. They had a table set up on the beach, loaded with two giant smoked, rainbow colored fish, and about 6 cases of beer and a dozen bottles of gin (we arrived at 9am). The ceremony was brief, consisting mostly of people acknowledging the other people who were there, and then we were able to get down to some serious business. After the speeches the women all made themselves scarce and we broke out the booze. The fish was delicious and the beer, well, it was warm and flat. That's ok though, you can't blame them, they only get electricity from 6pm until 9pm when they turn on the town's rickety diesel generator. Being the celebrity that I am, I was given both my own fish and my own bottle of beer, instead of sharing communally, which actually just made me feel like a leper, so I kind of worked my way into a circle. Since the beer is warm, and people want to drink, you fill your glass up, pound it, shake it out and pass it on.
Meanwhile the gun toting dudes are hanging out, leaning on their guns, and then the guy with the uzi sends his loaded gun clattering across the rocks on the beach and I took that as my cue to get up and move far away. I sat down next to one of the M-16 guys who had taken his clip out and was performing a delicate operation on the safety of his gun by bashing it with a rock. I won't say I was afraid of getting shot, but these guys didn't make me feel any safer from the invisible threat.
So as we said goodbye to the increasingly drunk fisherman and set out on our dangerously overcrowded boat, a school of flying fish sailed ahead the bow of our ship. The sun was beating down and the frothy waves reflected millions of points of light. It had been a good day.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Soccer and housing
The title more or less sums up what we've been doing with our free time. Not really, but it's a good visual image to start with. The World Cup has been awesome, I don't know if anyone back home is watching, but it's going to be a really good final. We're getting together with a few friends to watch the final two games, and also to see some other Americans so we can bitch non-stop about all the goofy shit that bothers us. Actually, today is the 4th of July and we were invited down to Romblon, but it takes two days to get there, and two days to get back, so that would have been a lot of work for just one day. Plus, we can't really take time off work just yet. It has only been a month, after all. So instead we're going to cook hamburgers I think, and hopefully shoot off some cheap fireworks, if we can find them. They don't really do much to celebrate their independence day here, it costs too much to buy fireworks.
Which brings me to house hunting. As you might imagine there are no listings here for rentals, so you either have to walk around and occasionally write down phone numbers off of signs, or you have to know someone (who knows someone who knows someone). So far we haven't been very lucky, but Abby looked at a house today with her coworker, so maybe it'll be great and we can stop looking. I'm not holding out much hope though after the two places we've looked at so far. One was a store front. Yes, not a house or apartment, but the room where a little store used to be. So, seeing as how it was a store, it had no kitchen and no real bathroom to speak of. Oh, and it also floods and smells like cat pee and she wanted about 3x what is was worth. So, we politely declined that gem. We looked at another house that was nice, with a little patio, but it would have been really small for two people, and since the Peace Corps gives us a decent amount for rent between the two of us, we felt we could do better. I'm not too concerned about the place, I just want a nice outdoor space and as little traffic as possible.
Speaking of money, at work we have these people called "casual employees." They come to work everyday, do field work, write reports, file paper work but the catch is they only get paid if there's money to pay them. One of the guys who works as a casual employee at the municipality where our friend Beth works has not been paid in months because there's no money in the budget for him. But the office needs him, and he can't leave a job where at some point he might get paid, because someone else will take it and then he definitely won't get any money. That's the problem with a country that has a high population but is still mostly agricultural out in the provinces. There are a lot of skilled people but very few jobs for them. As of 2004 there were 87 million people living in a country that's slightly bigger than Arizona.
Which brings me to house hunting. As you might imagine there are no listings here for rentals, so you either have to walk around and occasionally write down phone numbers off of signs, or you have to know someone (who knows someone who knows someone). So far we haven't been very lucky, but Abby looked at a house today with her coworker, so maybe it'll be great and we can stop looking. I'm not holding out much hope though after the two places we've looked at so far. One was a store front. Yes, not a house or apartment, but the room where a little store used to be. So, seeing as how it was a store, it had no kitchen and no real bathroom to speak of. Oh, and it also floods and smells like cat pee and she wanted about 3x what is was worth. So, we politely declined that gem. We looked at another house that was nice, with a little patio, but it would have been really small for two people, and since the Peace Corps gives us a decent amount for rent between the two of us, we felt we could do better. I'm not too concerned about the place, I just want a nice outdoor space and as little traffic as possible.
Speaking of money, at work we have these people called "casual employees." They come to work everyday, do field work, write reports, file paper work but the catch is they only get paid if there's money to pay them. One of the guys who works as a casual employee at the municipality where our friend Beth works has not been paid in months because there's no money in the budget for him. But the office needs him, and he can't leave a job where at some point he might get paid, because someone else will take it and then he definitely won't get any money. That's the problem with a country that has a high population but is still mostly agricultural out in the provinces. There are a lot of skilled people but very few jobs for them. As of 2004 there were 87 million people living in a country that's slightly bigger than Arizona.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Singing
I think one of the things I like most about living abroad is that you become an amateur anthropologist. You study people and you try to make guesses and assumptions so you can try to figure out what the hell is going on. So, in my studies here, I have figured out two key facts: Filipinos love cell phones and videoke. Now, I didn't say I was I was a good anthropologist, but that's what I've figured out. Everyone here has a cell phone, even if they're dirt poor (because you can buy time in 30 cent units, if you want to) and they use them all the time. On the jeepneys, during meetings, while talking to one another. It's neither uncommon nor rude to whip out your cell phone in the middle of a conversation and reply to a text while still talking. It's funny, people back home bitch about cell phone etiquette, but it seems like the solution is just for everyone to get a cell phone, then no one cares. Also, the videoke thing. There is a machine in every restaurant or bar, and most people have a microphone at home. In fact, singing in general is just huge here. People sing along to songs in public, anytime there's a public event or competition singing is usually involved. Most commercials and tv shows have singing. It's hilarious. It's actually so prevalent that not only do I now sing videoke, but I actually like it.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Reality sets in
So after a fairly boring 3 days in Los Banos, we are officially sworn in. We had to swear our allegiance to the constitution, and there was also something in there about defending America against our enemies? I don't know, it was a very odd thing to have to repeat back. So yay, replace our T's with V's, for we be official, yo. We took a few days in getting to our actual site by way of Manila, where we found probably the best hostel I have ever stayed in. For an aircon dorm room with its own bathroom, it was a whopping P200 ($4). This included a sweet balcony overlooking the city, free wifi, free coffee, a kitchen and communal fridge, and on Saturdays the owner has wine night. Needless to say, we're going back in July to watch the last game of the World Cup. Is anyone following the World Cup? Our family has cable, so we've been watching the games on the bad reception Japanese channel. Manila was a really nice 3 day break full of eating good food, drinking bad beer (actually, it's not so bad) and just checking out the city. Manila is huge (I think 12 million people), but not too difficult to get around. We went to Quiapo, or more specifically to Chinatown, and Abby discovered a whole street devoted to beads. She was in heaven. Actually, she got our friend Carrie into it, so now bead madness is sweeping the PC ladies. Well, three of them at least.
After Manila we got to site to, dun dun dun, start working. After 2 1/2 months of goofing off, it was a little nerve racking showing up to work. Not to mention both of us were taken everywhere possible and introduced to everyone and their mother (sometimes literally). Abby's boss got up at a conference and introduced her as the Peace Corps volunteer with a different last name than her husband, and no babies. For a country that is supposed to be very indirect, pinoys can say some startlingly upfront things. For example, our old host father said to us, in front of his 16 year old daughter, "she's not feeling well, she's on her period." Ha! I think an American girl would die of mortification is her father said that to guests. The work situation is good, but frustrating for both of us. We can both see that these will be good jobs and that we'll get along well with our co-workers but for the time being it's a lot of showing up and wandering around trying to figure out what's going on. It's much more self-directed than a normal job, and by that I mean it's totally self-directed. You have to find out what's going on, and then invite yourself to it. I think part of the problem is that I now have 2 desks, 2 (maybe 3) counterparts, 3 (maybe 4) offices and 1-3 "bosses." So basically I'm going to have to narrow my focus here at the beginning if only so I know which office I'm supposed to go to every morning. Unfortunately everyone is out of town this week, so that will have to wait until next week.
All job bitching aside, everything else is great. Our host family is very nice, there are three kids who are hilarious and very talkative (a radical change from our last host family where the girls maybe said 8 words to me between the two of them over the course of our 2 month stay). The 9 year old likes to watch movies and then point to things and say "Kuya Owen, is that how it is in America?" My answer is yes, if you're very rich and live in New York. Also, and this is a biggie, we get to cook our own food! Maybe that needs two exclamation points. Cook our own food!! Now don't get me wrong, Filipino food is great, we still eat with the host fam sometimes, but pinoys have this habit of deep-frying fried eggs. And there's a lot of boiled meat and vegetables going on. And they have this stuff called tuna spread which is just tuna flavored mayo and definitely NOT tuna salad despite their claims that it is. So it's nice to be able to make spaghettii that doesn't have sugar and hot dogs in it, or a tuna salad sandwich, or curries. It's kind of a happy medium, I guess you could say. Also, Calapan is really nice, we keep discovering cool new places and there's a ton of exploring still ahead of us. For example, hiking on the 9000ft mountain that's a little ways away. Or taking a banka out to the three uninhabited white sand beach islets that are just off the shore. Puerto Galera is only an hour away and three hours away, 50km after the road ends, is Bulalacao, which is all white sand beaches and Mangyans (indigenous tribe), no tourists. We have a marine sanctuary project down there actually, so I'll get to visit it on the government's dime.
So all temporary job frustrations aside, everything is going really well here. Still sweating it out, but a little less so. Actually it'll start getting a little bit cooler over the next few months and during typhoon season it's supposed to be pretty nice (except for the 21 predicted typhoons of course). So, yeah...
After Manila we got to site to, dun dun dun, start working. After 2 1/2 months of goofing off, it was a little nerve racking showing up to work. Not to mention both of us were taken everywhere possible and introduced to everyone and their mother (sometimes literally). Abby's boss got up at a conference and introduced her as the Peace Corps volunteer with a different last name than her husband, and no babies. For a country that is supposed to be very indirect, pinoys can say some startlingly upfront things. For example, our old host father said to us, in front of his 16 year old daughter, "she's not feeling well, she's on her period." Ha! I think an American girl would die of mortification is her father said that to guests. The work situation is good, but frustrating for both of us. We can both see that these will be good jobs and that we'll get along well with our co-workers but for the time being it's a lot of showing up and wandering around trying to figure out what's going on. It's much more self-directed than a normal job, and by that I mean it's totally self-directed. You have to find out what's going on, and then invite yourself to it. I think part of the problem is that I now have 2 desks, 2 (maybe 3) counterparts, 3 (maybe 4) offices and 1-3 "bosses." So basically I'm going to have to narrow my focus here at the beginning if only so I know which office I'm supposed to go to every morning. Unfortunately everyone is out of town this week, so that will have to wait until next week.
All job bitching aside, everything else is great. Our host family is very nice, there are three kids who are hilarious and very talkative (a radical change from our last host family where the girls maybe said 8 words to me between the two of them over the course of our 2 month stay). The 9 year old likes to watch movies and then point to things and say "Kuya Owen, is that how it is in America?" My answer is yes, if you're very rich and live in New York. Also, and this is a biggie, we get to cook our own food! Maybe that needs two exclamation points. Cook our own food!! Now don't get me wrong, Filipino food is great, we still eat with the host fam sometimes, but pinoys have this habit of deep-frying fried eggs. And there's a lot of boiled meat and vegetables going on. And they have this stuff called tuna spread which is just tuna flavored mayo and definitely NOT tuna salad despite their claims that it is. So it's nice to be able to make spaghettii that doesn't have sugar and hot dogs in it, or a tuna salad sandwich, or curries. It's kind of a happy medium, I guess you could say. Also, Calapan is really nice, we keep discovering cool new places and there's a ton of exploring still ahead of us. For example, hiking on the 9000ft mountain that's a little ways away. Or taking a banka out to the three uninhabited white sand beach islets that are just off the shore. Puerto Galera is only an hour away and three hours away, 50km after the road ends, is Bulalacao, which is all white sand beaches and Mangyans (indigenous tribe), no tourists. We have a marine sanctuary project down there actually, so I'll get to visit it on the government's dime.
So all temporary job frustrations aside, everything is going really well here. Still sweating it out, but a little less so. Actually it'll start getting a little bit cooler over the next few months and during typhoon season it's supposed to be pretty nice (except for the 21 predicted typhoons of course). So, yeah...
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Are we done? Yes. Yes we are.
We are finally done with training. It's hard to believe, but it's true. Today is actually our last day at the hub site, and tomorrow we travel about 5-7 hours south to the swearing-in venue. Why is it 5-7 hours? Because we have to pass through Manila, and its traffic is that bad. So we're just been doing wrap up activities here, filling out about 8000 evaluations and surveys, listening to people blabber at us about this and that. We had our community project last week, but we weren't able to participate because Abby decided to faint and hurt her neck, so we had to go to the hospital in Manila. According to my host father, it's the hospital movie stars go to. Thanks, Peace Corps. Anyway, after some tests it was determined that Abby just fainted, it wasn't a serious problem, or a seizure and her neck got better after a few days, so it wasn't too bad at all. Plus I found a little cafe around the corner that had turkey sandwiches on wheat bread with freakin' gruyere cheese on it. That is huge, believe me. So we did all the work for the project, had all of the meetings, bought all the stuff, and all we missed out on was the actual trash collection, which I don't mind at all. That trash was nasty.
We also had our LPI (Language Proficiency Interview), which is the official test to see where you are in the language. You're supposed to achieve a certain level or proficiency, otherwise you have to write up a language action plan for the next 6 months, etc. Basically they just hassle you. Anyway, I did really well, I got intermediate-high, which is the highest anyone got. There were 5 others who were in the bracket with me, so I felt pretty proud of myself. Abby did really well too, she got intermediate-mid, so neither of us will be hassled! Yay! It was funny though, people were getting really stressed about the test, which I couldn't understand. Nothing really happens to you if you don't meet the requirement, and all the test was was a 30 minute conversation with the tester in Tagalog about basic stuff like your job, your family... Anyway.
We also had our supervisor's conference, which was great because we all sat down with our supervisors and got on the same page about work schedules, what we'll actually be doing, what we expect of them and what they expect of us. My supervisor is a great guy, and I have so many potential projects to choose from it was more of a matter of figuring out what one project I'll start with initially. So, I will be working with a community (chosen by myself with my counterparts) on setting up and implementing a mangrove restoration project. I bet you didn't know I knew how to do that. Hell, I didn't even know I could do that, but I'm going to be doing it anyway. I've actually been doing a fair amount of research, so I think I'll be ready to get started once I get to site.
We also had to say goodbye to our host family on Saturday, which was very sad. They were great people and incredibly nice, but we have a friend who will be in this area, so we'll stop by and visit them again when we come to visit her. The news we got to soften the blow was that we'll be living with one of my counterparts, which is great news because she's only 29 and awesome. So to summarize, our co-workers are awesome, our jobs are awesome, where we're living is awesome and life is well, awesome.
We also had our LPI (Language Proficiency Interview), which is the official test to see where you are in the language. You're supposed to achieve a certain level or proficiency, otherwise you have to write up a language action plan for the next 6 months, etc. Basically they just hassle you. Anyway, I did really well, I got intermediate-high, which is the highest anyone got. There were 5 others who were in the bracket with me, so I felt pretty proud of myself. Abby did really well too, she got intermediate-mid, so neither of us will be hassled! Yay! It was funny though, people were getting really stressed about the test, which I couldn't understand. Nothing really happens to you if you don't meet the requirement, and all the test was was a 30 minute conversation with the tester in Tagalog about basic stuff like your job, your family... Anyway.
We also had our supervisor's conference, which was great because we all sat down with our supervisors and got on the same page about work schedules, what we'll actually be doing, what we expect of them and what they expect of us. My supervisor is a great guy, and I have so many potential projects to choose from it was more of a matter of figuring out what one project I'll start with initially. So, I will be working with a community (chosen by myself with my counterparts) on setting up and implementing a mangrove restoration project. I bet you didn't know I knew how to do that. Hell, I didn't even know I could do that, but I'm going to be doing it anyway. I've actually been doing a fair amount of research, so I think I'll be ready to get started once I get to site.
We also had to say goodbye to our host family on Saturday, which was very sad. They were great people and incredibly nice, but we have a friend who will be in this area, so we'll stop by and visit them again when we come to visit her. The news we got to soften the blow was that we'll be living with one of my counterparts, which is great news because she's only 29 and awesome. So to summarize, our co-workers are awesome, our jobs are awesome, where we're living is awesome and life is well, awesome.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
More pics
I'm not sure I have much to say at this point, not too much has happened. After we got back from our site visit it's been a lot more paperwork and general laying around. Actually right now we're in the middle of our end of training community project, so that's taking up most of our time. Half of our barangay doesn't get trash service since the road there is supposed to be too small, so we're working with the local women's and youth groups to get trash barrels placed around that part of town, and we'll be doing a sanitation "seminar" and a coastal clean up. We have a meeting with the mayor on Sunday to try and get him to bring the truck down there, otherwise we have the funds to buy a little peddle tricycle with a side basket to be used to collect the trash on a weekly basis. I wish I had pictures so you could see the trash, but it's a huge and very unsanitary problem, and we've been lucky to get a lot of community support.
Also, Abby and I were recently in a parade. It was in the barangay of our host sister's mother-in-law, and it was the Santacruzan parade, which might have something to do with saints. In the case of the parade it was just a bunch of girls in ball gowns with lots of makeup walking all over town (in a typhoon). Did I mention we were hit by a typhoon? It was only signal 1 (the weakest) so all we had were 60 kmh winds and lot of rain, and an angry sea. It still flooded the low lying part of town, and apparently trashed our future host site. They had flooding, trees knocked down, etc. Nothing terribly severe, but it still caused a lot of damage. Abby and I are thinking we might geta 2nd story apartment. Haha. Anyway, the parade was really interesting, Abby was taken to a beauty parlor where they poofed and sprayed her hair mercilessly and covered her in makeup. They wanted to put makeup on me too, but I was able to avoid that. "Just a little lip shine!" they would say. No thanks.
So other than our project, we also have our barangay fiesta coming up, which involves a lot of videoke and eating, from what I understand. Everyone in town just makes a ton of food and then you walk to all of the houses of the people you know, and you eat and socialize. It sounds gut-bustalicious.
This is a picture of our island from the outrigger ferry boat. As you can see, it is an awesome island.
This is a picture of Puerto Galera.
This is Abby with my counterparts. Ate Lyn is to her left and Ate May is to her right.
The girls in Santacruzan were anywhere from 6 to 18 or so. Here's Abby being peppered with questions.
Aw, isn't she cute? Just like a little doll. Hahaha
Here's Abby in front of Tamaraw Falls on the way to Puerto Galera. It falls in a series of 7 different steps.
Here's Abby in the river, eating papaya and beans from the can. This was an outting with our host family.
Here's another parade pic. I'm wearing a Baraong Tagalog, the traditional dress shirt here.
Also, Abby and I were recently in a parade. It was in the barangay of our host sister's mother-in-law, and it was the Santacruzan parade, which might have something to do with saints. In the case of the parade it was just a bunch of girls in ball gowns with lots of makeup walking all over town (in a typhoon). Did I mention we were hit by a typhoon? It was only signal 1 (the weakest) so all we had were 60 kmh winds and lot of rain, and an angry sea. It still flooded the low lying part of town, and apparently trashed our future host site. They had flooding, trees knocked down, etc. Nothing terribly severe, but it still caused a lot of damage. Abby and I are thinking we might geta 2nd story apartment. Haha. Anyway, the parade was really interesting, Abby was taken to a beauty parlor where they poofed and sprayed her hair mercilessly and covered her in makeup. They wanted to put makeup on me too, but I was able to avoid that. "Just a little lip shine!" they would say. No thanks.
So other than our project, we also have our barangay fiesta coming up, which involves a lot of videoke and eating, from what I understand. Everyone in town just makes a ton of food and then you walk to all of the houses of the people you know, and you eat and socialize. It sounds gut-bustalicious.
This is a picture of our island from the outrigger ferry boat. As you can see, it is an awesome island.
This is a picture of Puerto Galera.
This is Abby with my counterparts. Ate Lyn is to her left and Ate May is to her right.
The girls in Santacruzan were anywhere from 6 to 18 or so. Here's Abby being peppered with questions.
Aw, isn't she cute? Just like a little doll. Hahaha
Here's Abby in front of Tamaraw Falls on the way to Puerto Galera. It falls in a series of 7 different steps.
Here's Abby in the river, eating papaya and beans from the can. This was an outting with our host family.
Here's another parade pic. I'm wearing a Baraong Tagalog, the traditional dress shirt here.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Mindoro, the sequel
I came up with a little test to determine your nationality. I'll present you with a scenario, you tell me what you'd do. You're driving a rickety, piece of crap, chromed out LED light explosion of a jeep from WWII. You're driving down a 1 1/2 lane road in the mountains and there's a tricycle, a dump truck and another jeepney in front of you, all going different speeds and in different lane(s). You're going around a blind curve. Do you a) wait to pass or b) gun it wildly around the curve?
Now the results. If you selected choice A, you're probably American. No matter how aggressive of a driver you think you are, you are a passive, defense driver here. If you selected choice B, I don't know what you are. Maybe Indian. I hear they're crazy drivers. If you're Filipino, you would have selected secret choice C, which is that you'd stop on the blind curve to pack 4 more people into a vehicle that already has people on the roof and hanging on the sides.
Ok, enough fun and games, I have a serious job to do here. I must recap for everyone. Actually, I won't do that, but here's what's been going on. Life with the host fam is good. We've been working on these stupid (if anyone from PC office is reading, I mean great) "tools," which involves a lot of talking to people and then writing about the experience. It's by and large a waste of time, but there are some good things too. We all had to shadow someone in our field, so I went out for the day with Kuya Jun (Kuya means big brother, a term of respect), who lives in our town and works for the municipal government in CRM, much like I'll be doing. So he took me around on his normal day, which in this case involved drinking beer and eating chicken at the Bantay Dagat (local water patrol) and going to a chicken farm for much fruit eating and snake handling. In actuality, his job is to coordinate with all the different environmental organizations in the municipality, but in a country that's all about interpersonal relationships, that translates to a lot of hanging out and chatting.
Last Tuesday we took the ferry, the bus and then the ferry again to get to Calapan. We were supposed to have a host family, but since we didn't, we stayed at the guest house at Abby's school, which was probably better anyway. Abby really didn't have a whole lot to do because it's summer vacation here from April until June, but she went out to visit other schools and various youth organizations in town. I, on the other hand, was taken on a courtesy call extravaganza which resulted in us doing a shitload of driving and meeting with the mayors and environmental people of 9 of the 12 municipalities here. It was cool though, I got to hang out with my counterparts a lot, see a lot of the island and meet most of the people I'll be working with. Mindoro Oriental is really beautiful, we have the country's 4th highest peak (Mt Halcon ~9000ft), a huge freshwater lake named Naujan Lake, and a big national park right next to the lake. Most of the country-side consists of rice fields, banana and coconut trees and coastline. In the upland areas are the indigenous peoples of Mindoro, the Mangyans. There are 7 different tribes, and from what I've seen they're shy and wear g-strings.
My counterparts are awesome. They're both very nice, one is 46 and the other is turning 29 soon (both women as you might remember). It looks like it's going to be great working with them, and they're really excited to have me here, which makes me even more excited to be here. There are a lot of projects going on, but initially I'm going to be working on about 3 to 4 things. They want to set up a demo farm that will showcase different techniques of planting and raising crops, as well as how to do it organically without fertilizer, how to compost, etc. They also have a reforestation/mangrove rehabilitation project, and a few municipalities are setting up marine sanctuaries. Also, the WWF in Puerto Galera is starting the second phase of their project here, which is developing the upland areas into a tourist destination by creating trails, working with the Mangyans to showcase their cultural heritage, and educating the community about proper waste disposal and segregation, the need for environmental responsibility and all that good stuff. They invited me to work with them, so I think I will since it'll be nice to work with one project that's already doing well, it'll be a good learning experience for me. One way or the other, I'm going to be doing a lot of research because in case you didn't know, I don't know much about a lot of that stuff.
Right now we're in Puerto Galera. We went to White Beach last night, which is a small resort area with a lot of beach front bars/restaurants and drunk teenagers drinking brandy from the bottle. It was cool though, they had a concert and it was a very relaxed atmosphere. The weird thing about the resort areas here is that they're nothing like you'd expect. The roads are still dirt, it's mostly Filipino tourists from Manila and it's not the nicely manicured mega resorts with swimming pools like in the south of France or Jamaica. Today the guys from the Bantay Dagat took us over to Sabang Beach which is where all the dive shops are to talk to this guy we heard of about getting PADI certified. He gave us a little discount for being PC, so we get the course, the book, all the gear (rental) and one extra dive for $300 each, which I think is a pretty good deal? I dunno, but he's been doing this for 20 years, so at least we'll get a good lesson. They also took us to a few other beaches in their boat and then brought us back. Tomorrow we head back, and then we have about 3 more weeks of training before swearing in at the beginning of June. Whoo, the paperwork will be over with (for the time being)!
Now the results. If you selected choice A, you're probably American. No matter how aggressive of a driver you think you are, you are a passive, defense driver here. If you selected choice B, I don't know what you are. Maybe Indian. I hear they're crazy drivers. If you're Filipino, you would have selected secret choice C, which is that you'd stop on the blind curve to pack 4 more people into a vehicle that already has people on the roof and hanging on the sides.
Ok, enough fun and games, I have a serious job to do here. I must recap for everyone. Actually, I won't do that, but here's what's been going on. Life with the host fam is good. We've been working on these stupid (if anyone from PC office is reading, I mean great) "tools," which involves a lot of talking to people and then writing about the experience. It's by and large a waste of time, but there are some good things too. We all had to shadow someone in our field, so I went out for the day with Kuya Jun (Kuya means big brother, a term of respect), who lives in our town and works for the municipal government in CRM, much like I'll be doing. So he took me around on his normal day, which in this case involved drinking beer and eating chicken at the Bantay Dagat (local water patrol) and going to a chicken farm for much fruit eating and snake handling. In actuality, his job is to coordinate with all the different environmental organizations in the municipality, but in a country that's all about interpersonal relationships, that translates to a lot of hanging out and chatting.
Last Tuesday we took the ferry, the bus and then the ferry again to get to Calapan. We were supposed to have a host family, but since we didn't, we stayed at the guest house at Abby's school, which was probably better anyway. Abby really didn't have a whole lot to do because it's summer vacation here from April until June, but she went out to visit other schools and various youth organizations in town. I, on the other hand, was taken on a courtesy call extravaganza which resulted in us doing a shitload of driving and meeting with the mayors and environmental people of 9 of the 12 municipalities here. It was cool though, I got to hang out with my counterparts a lot, see a lot of the island and meet most of the people I'll be working with. Mindoro Oriental is really beautiful, we have the country's 4th highest peak (Mt Halcon ~9000ft), a huge freshwater lake named Naujan Lake, and a big national park right next to the lake. Most of the country-side consists of rice fields, banana and coconut trees and coastline. In the upland areas are the indigenous peoples of Mindoro, the Mangyans. There are 7 different tribes, and from what I've seen they're shy and wear g-strings.
My counterparts are awesome. They're both very nice, one is 46 and the other is turning 29 soon (both women as you might remember). It looks like it's going to be great working with them, and they're really excited to have me here, which makes me even more excited to be here. There are a lot of projects going on, but initially I'm going to be working on about 3 to 4 things. They want to set up a demo farm that will showcase different techniques of planting and raising crops, as well as how to do it organically without fertilizer, how to compost, etc. They also have a reforestation/mangrove rehabilitation project, and a few municipalities are setting up marine sanctuaries. Also, the WWF in Puerto Galera is starting the second phase of their project here, which is developing the upland areas into a tourist destination by creating trails, working with the Mangyans to showcase their cultural heritage, and educating the community about proper waste disposal and segregation, the need for environmental responsibility and all that good stuff. They invited me to work with them, so I think I will since it'll be nice to work with one project that's already doing well, it'll be a good learning experience for me. One way or the other, I'm going to be doing a lot of research because in case you didn't know, I don't know much about a lot of that stuff.
Right now we're in Puerto Galera. We went to White Beach last night, which is a small resort area with a lot of beach front bars/restaurants and drunk teenagers drinking brandy from the bottle. It was cool though, they had a concert and it was a very relaxed atmosphere. The weird thing about the resort areas here is that they're nothing like you'd expect. The roads are still dirt, it's mostly Filipino tourists from Manila and it's not the nicely manicured mega resorts with swimming pools like in the south of France or Jamaica. Today the guys from the Bantay Dagat took us over to Sabang Beach which is where all the dive shops are to talk to this guy we heard of about getting PADI certified. He gave us a little discount for being PC, so we get the course, the book, all the gear (rental) and one extra dive for $300 each, which I think is a pretty good deal? I dunno, but he's been doing this for 20 years, so at least we'll get a good lesson. They also took us to a few other beaches in their boat and then brought us back. Tomorrow we head back, and then we have about 3 more weeks of training before swearing in at the beginning of June. Whoo, the paperwork will be over with (for the time being)!
Friday, May 05, 2006
Mindoro Oriental
We're in Puerto Galera right now, which is a beach town and kind of a tourist destination. We came here with 6 of my co-workers, all women. Actually, I pretty much only work with women. Single women. It's hilarious. My job seems very cool, I'll be working with the provincial government, and more or less I get to pick the projects I would like to work on. Calapan is a really nice city, very clean and still really rural. You drive 5 minutes out of the city center and you're in rice fields. I will type more later, maybe in a few days and tell you more about what's been going on, but right now I'm in the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) office and they told me to use the internet. I also have very important things to do today, like go to the beach, drink beer and right now, eat bbq'd something. Mmmm, bbq'd something...
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Freakin' finally
We know where we're going to be living finally. About 1 year 4 months into the overall process and we know what we'll be doing, who we'll be working with and where we'll be living. Abby and I will be in Calapan, Mindoro. It's a larger city, I think of about 100,000 people and it's the provincial capital. It's taken a second to get readjusted to the idea of living in a city since I think most of us assumed in the Peace Corps you live in the boonies in a hut, but I'm very happy with our placement. It supposed to be a very cool city and it's really close to a lot of good beaches and scuba spots. Actually Mindoro is known for its excellent scuba spots, and that's saying a lot since the Philippines is considered one of the best dive spots in the world. I'm going to be working with the provincial government helping with eco-tourism, reef restoration, flood control and a bunch of other semi-unrelated things. It sounds pretty cool because the government works with something like 12 municipalities around the province, so I'll be doing a lot of day travel around the island to different communities and working with them to set up programs and implement them. Abby is going to be working in a high school that has both a special ed and a deaf ed class, so she's very excited about the prospect of working with deaf kids. I can't say much more at this point since I haven't looked into it at all, and I'm kind of pressed for time, but yeah, it seems like it going to be awesome. We've been in Balanga the past two days for more training, and we're heading back now. We go to visit our site next week, so that'll be our first big travel experience since we're arrived here, and it'll be great to finally see the place. Also, we went swimming in the south china sea yesterday, and it was amazing. This country rocks. And now, look at some pictures.
This is a picture of the flagellents from behind. You can see their bloody backs.
Here they are from the front. They cover their faces to make it more of a personal sacrifice and less of a public display.
Here is where we had our water safety "lesson." Life is hard here.
Here is our host father Bhoy with his grandson Paul Lee.
They had a night time procession on Holy Thursday with lots of floats.
Here is a view across the fishponds from our town. As you can see, it's very nice. But, directly behind me is a lot of trash.
We walked over this rickety bamboo bridge to get out to the water at the mangrove nursery.
This is us in a tricycle, the best and usually cheapest way to travel short distances.
This is a picture of the flagellents from behind. You can see their bloody backs.
Here they are from the front. They cover their faces to make it more of a personal sacrifice and less of a public display.
Here is where we had our water safety "lesson." Life is hard here.
Here is our host father Bhoy with his grandson Paul Lee.
They had a night time procession on Holy Thursday with lots of floats.
Here is a view across the fishponds from our town. As you can see, it's very nice. But, directly behind me is a lot of trash.
We walked over this rickety bamboo bridge to get out to the water at the mangrove nursery.
This is us in a tricycle, the best and usually cheapest way to travel short distances.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Magandang hapon
It's official. Internet cafes here should be renamed internet video games rooms for boys under 16. The "cafe" part of the title is the most misleading, mostly because it's totally untrue. There is no coffee here, not even a cookie. It's just a room with computers. So maybe it should be called Internet Room on all of the signs.
We moved in with our host family a week ago, and they're awesome. The Estrella family consists of about 47 people by my estimation, most of whom come and leave throughout the day. There are 6 kids, a few grandchildren, grandparents, aunts, uncles, um, second cousins... I don't know. I can't remember half their names, but if they're female and under the age of 25, it doesn't matter anyway because they're all too shy to talk to me. Well, that's not true, they are warming up, but it's been a slow process that involved a lot of card playing. We've played uno, canasta, skip-bo and my new favorite game, tongkit. It's kind of like rummy mixed with poker, only you throw in a ridiculous, incomprehensible betting system that I have yet to make any sense of. Luckily we play with pisos (2 cents). They have a nice little house though, mainly due to the fact that he worked in Japan for the last 9 years until he was sent home for being an illegal immigrant. It's funny actually, walking around town you can pick out who has a relative abroad and who doesn't. Cement walls, tile, a complete roof and a big TV? They have a relative abroad. Wood or sheet metal walls, coconut leaf or tin roof and a small tv? They're a fisherman. I've been talking to some people around town and apparently the use of dynamite in fishing has totally wrecked their catch. People come in from other provinces, blow the shit out of the fish population and then the net fisherman here are basically left with nothing. It's a huge problem, one that hopefully I'll get to help with.
We still don't know where we're going, but there's a lot of gossip, so we're about 95% sure now. Probably a small island, hopefully one that is well stocked with beer. When I first got here I heard about the barkada, which is a drinking circle of (male) friends who have some (or many) drinks and just generally shoot the shit. Then I learned most barkada drink gin or brandy and my enthusiasm waned. Nothing like a hot shot of gin from a communal cup, followed by a chaser of warm water. That sounds like the scientific formula for puke. Actually I briefly hung out with a few guys and had a shot of brandy, which had ice in it luckily, so it wasn't too bad. Which leads me to my next point, the Filipinos are friendly to the point of embarrassment (on my part). I walked by those guys a few days back and they yelled at me "Shot! Shot!" so of course I had to stop. But everywhere you go, there's food, coconut juice, mangoes, halo-halo (ice milk with beans and stuff), cookies, crackers... If I make the mistake of asking someone what a food item is, within 3 minutes that food item will be in front of me so I can find out for myself. The first three questions you get asked are: Are you married? Do you have kids? and Do you eat Filipino food? It works out really well though because Filipino food is the shit. Did you know you can buy a kilo of caught-that-morning fresh mussels for 20 cents? Well, you can.
We moved in with our host family a week ago, and they're awesome. The Estrella family consists of about 47 people by my estimation, most of whom come and leave throughout the day. There are 6 kids, a few grandchildren, grandparents, aunts, uncles, um, second cousins... I don't know. I can't remember half their names, but if they're female and under the age of 25, it doesn't matter anyway because they're all too shy to talk to me. Well, that's not true, they are warming up, but it's been a slow process that involved a lot of card playing. We've played uno, canasta, skip-bo and my new favorite game, tongkit. It's kind of like rummy mixed with poker, only you throw in a ridiculous, incomprehensible betting system that I have yet to make any sense of. Luckily we play with pisos (2 cents). They have a nice little house though, mainly due to the fact that he worked in Japan for the last 9 years until he was sent home for being an illegal immigrant. It's funny actually, walking around town you can pick out who has a relative abroad and who doesn't. Cement walls, tile, a complete roof and a big TV? They have a relative abroad. Wood or sheet metal walls, coconut leaf or tin roof and a small tv? They're a fisherman. I've been talking to some people around town and apparently the use of dynamite in fishing has totally wrecked their catch. People come in from other provinces, blow the shit out of the fish population and then the net fisherman here are basically left with nothing. It's a huge problem, one that hopefully I'll get to help with.
We still don't know where we're going, but there's a lot of gossip, so we're about 95% sure now. Probably a small island, hopefully one that is well stocked with beer. When I first got here I heard about the barkada, which is a drinking circle of (male) friends who have some (or many) drinks and just generally shoot the shit. Then I learned most barkada drink gin or brandy and my enthusiasm waned. Nothing like a hot shot of gin from a communal cup, followed by a chaser of warm water. That sounds like the scientific formula for puke. Actually I briefly hung out with a few guys and had a shot of brandy, which had ice in it luckily, so it wasn't too bad. Which leads me to my next point, the Filipinos are friendly to the point of embarrassment (on my part). I walked by those guys a few days back and they yelled at me "Shot! Shot!" so of course I had to stop. But everywhere you go, there's food, coconut juice, mangoes, halo-halo (ice milk with beans and stuff), cookies, crackers... If I make the mistake of asking someone what a food item is, within 3 minutes that food item will be in front of me so I can find out for myself. The first three questions you get asked are: Are you married? Do you have kids? and Do you eat Filipino food? It works out really well though because Filipino food is the shit. Did you know you can buy a kilo of caught-that-morning fresh mussels for 20 cents? Well, you can.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
I like fruit
They have really great fruit here as you can probably imagine, and they practically force feed it to you. They have, in my opinion, and awesome tradition here of having something called a merienda which is basically a snack between breakfast and lunch and then again between lunch and dinner. It's nothing big, usually just fruit, or a little empanada, but it's great.
So let's see. We have wireless internet here in this "resort," hence my ability to post a lot, but there are internet cafes everywhere, so I'll probably be able to keep this up. We don't have a cell phone yet, but apparently it's the thing to do, especially in this country. We went to a mall nearby to by a surge protector, and every other store was a cell phone store. When I say every other store, I mean that literally. There would be a clothing store, and then a cell phone store and then a food stand and then a cell phone store and then an electronics store and then a cell phone cover store and so on. It was insane. But anyway it's really cheap, text messages are only a peso a piece, which is about 2 cents a pop. Someone here told me that Filipinos send more text messages than any other country in the world. My point is eventually we'll have one, and then we'll send out the number and people can call us if they want.
We found out a little more info the past few days about where we'll be going and what we'll be doing, so get out your maps. Abby and I are in a really good group of people who are going to be assigned to the MiMaPa 3 region (which isn't official by the way, that's a Peace Corps term). Basically it means a few things. One is that we'll be the only group learning Tagalog, which is the national language. The other 4 groups all learn the regional dialect/language of wherever they're going. So in the respect we have a real advantage because they speak Tagalog everywhere, whereas Cebuano or Iligano are only spoken in their respective regions. I thought that was pretty cool. Geographically, we'll be spending the next three months in the region of Bataan, which is north of Manila, but on the other side of the bay, basically. It's about a 4 hour bus ride away (or more, depending on Manila traffic), and we're going to be in the town of Balanga, which is supposed to be really great. They have coffee there (whoop whoop), and they're really close to a lot of great hiking and a lot of historical sites, mostly related to WWII. That's all we know for now. Out actual site could be anywhere in the region, which consists of provinces to the north of that, as well as one region to the south called Caminares Norte, and then the islands of Mindoro, Marinduque and Palawan. Basically I think we got a great placement so far.
We leave tomorrow to go the these "hub" sites for the rest of our pre-service training, and in a little less than a week we meet our host families and go off to live with them, so that's going to be awesome. I'm already planning to blow some minds with my cooking skills, plus guys don't cook so I thought that would be a fun cultural exchange. Anyway, Abby's waiting and I'm using all the internet time, so I'll write later from the hub site.
So let's see. We have wireless internet here in this "resort," hence my ability to post a lot, but there are internet cafes everywhere, so I'll probably be able to keep this up. We don't have a cell phone yet, but apparently it's the thing to do, especially in this country. We went to a mall nearby to by a surge protector, and every other store was a cell phone store. When I say every other store, I mean that literally. There would be a clothing store, and then a cell phone store and then a food stand and then a cell phone store and then an electronics store and then a cell phone cover store and so on. It was insane. But anyway it's really cheap, text messages are only a peso a piece, which is about 2 cents a pop. Someone here told me that Filipinos send more text messages than any other country in the world. My point is eventually we'll have one, and then we'll send out the number and people can call us if they want.
We found out a little more info the past few days about where we'll be going and what we'll be doing, so get out your maps. Abby and I are in a really good group of people who are going to be assigned to the MiMaPa 3 region (which isn't official by the way, that's a Peace Corps term). Basically it means a few things. One is that we'll be the only group learning Tagalog, which is the national language. The other 4 groups all learn the regional dialect/language of wherever they're going. So in the respect we have a real advantage because they speak Tagalog everywhere, whereas Cebuano or Iligano are only spoken in their respective regions. I thought that was pretty cool. Geographically, we'll be spending the next three months in the region of Bataan, which is north of Manila, but on the other side of the bay, basically. It's about a 4 hour bus ride away (or more, depending on Manila traffic), and we're going to be in the town of Balanga, which is supposed to be really great. They have coffee there (whoop whoop), and they're really close to a lot of great hiking and a lot of historical sites, mostly related to WWII. That's all we know for now. Out actual site could be anywhere in the region, which consists of provinces to the north of that, as well as one region to the south called Caminares Norte, and then the islands of Mindoro, Marinduque and Palawan. Basically I think we got a great placement so far.
We leave tomorrow to go the these "hub" sites for the rest of our pre-service training, and in a little less than a week we meet our host families and go off to live with them, so that's going to be awesome. I'm already planning to blow some minds with my cooking skills, plus guys don't cook so I thought that would be a fun cultural exchange. Anyway, Abby's waiting and I'm using all the internet time, so I'll write later from the hub site.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
I saw a monkey last night. I was walking through the compound and I looked up and there he was, just hanging out. At first it didn’t register, I was still looking for squirrels and house cats, but it was one of those things that actually confirms for you that you are somewhere different.
Anyway, enough about the monkey. Everything has gone really well so far, and smoothly too. It’s been kind of weird, actually, traveling and not having to deal with any hang-ups or delays. Detroit was fine, if not a little boring. It had that “first day of class” feel about it, where you spend all of your time introducing yourself to everyone and talking about your only shared interest: the fact that you’re all there. It has been neat meeting everyone though, because I envisioned being surrounded by a bunch of 20-somethings who all wanted to change the world. It turns out that we have a very diverse (and large) group, with people of all ages and backgrounds. We have a surprisingly large contingent of older people, probably about 6 or 7 of them over 50. It’s been cool getting to know people better though because a lot of people have really interesting stories. One guy was recently over in Thailand teaching for 3 years. Another was raised in India. One guy was over in Melbourne waiting tables while he was going through the whole process. It’s nice to be with a group of intelligent, well rounded people. Not that there aren’t also people who are fresh out of college and have never flown on a plane, but hey, they’re here.
Right now we’re outside of Manila in this weird resort-y kind of complex with a “zoo” and giant pool complete with rickety water slides and various other strange diversions, but all in all it’s pretty nice. Never having been to a resort before I have nothing to compare it to, but I was expecting to just be in some hotel, so I really can’t complain. Actually, so far the Peace Corps has just been throwing money at us. I mean, we each got $160 for 2 days back in Detroit. Granted, we only got 585 pesos ($11) here for the whole week, but still. Yesterday about 5 of us took a jeepney into the nearest city center and walked around a little bit. There’s a huge mall here called SM (Shoe Mart), but we didn’t go in. We actually passed a lot of cool looking places though, a big market, little stalls of that sold various meats on sticks, that kind of thing. The resort is a little confining, so I imagine we’ll explore more since we’ll be here for about 4 more days. As you can tell from my incoherent thoughts, we’ve all had a fair amount of info to process so far.
We’ll have a lot more to do it sounds like, more orientation here, a visit to the embassy, training, etc. We’ll meet our host families in about a week and a half, which I’m very excited about. It’ll be nice to progress out of the confines of this initial orientation and actually sort of start our lives here. Well, I’m tired of typing and I’m not sure what the write next, so I’ll just save it until the next update.
Anyway, enough about the monkey. Everything has gone really well so far, and smoothly too. It’s been kind of weird, actually, traveling and not having to deal with any hang-ups or delays. Detroit was fine, if not a little boring. It had that “first day of class” feel about it, where you spend all of your time introducing yourself to everyone and talking about your only shared interest: the fact that you’re all there. It has been neat meeting everyone though, because I envisioned being surrounded by a bunch of 20-somethings who all wanted to change the world. It turns out that we have a very diverse (and large) group, with people of all ages and backgrounds. We have a surprisingly large contingent of older people, probably about 6 or 7 of them over 50. It’s been cool getting to know people better though because a lot of people have really interesting stories. One guy was recently over in Thailand teaching for 3 years. Another was raised in India. One guy was over in Melbourne waiting tables while he was going through the whole process. It’s nice to be with a group of intelligent, well rounded people. Not that there aren’t also people who are fresh out of college and have never flown on a plane, but hey, they’re here.
Right now we’re outside of Manila in this weird resort-y kind of complex with a “zoo” and giant pool complete with rickety water slides and various other strange diversions, but all in all it’s pretty nice. Never having been to a resort before I have nothing to compare it to, but I was expecting to just be in some hotel, so I really can’t complain. Actually, so far the Peace Corps has just been throwing money at us. I mean, we each got $160 for 2 days back in Detroit. Granted, we only got 585 pesos ($11) here for the whole week, but still. Yesterday about 5 of us took a jeepney into the nearest city center and walked around a little bit. There’s a huge mall here called SM (Shoe Mart), but we didn’t go in. We actually passed a lot of cool looking places though, a big market, little stalls of that sold various meats on sticks, that kind of thing. The resort is a little confining, so I imagine we’ll explore more since we’ll be here for about 4 more days. As you can tell from my incoherent thoughts, we’ve all had a fair amount of info to process so far.
We’ll have a lot more to do it sounds like, more orientation here, a visit to the embassy, training, etc. We’ll meet our host families in about a week and a half, which I’m very excited about. It’ll be nice to progress out of the confines of this initial orientation and actually sort of start our lives here. Well, I’m tired of typing and I’m not sure what the write next, so I’ll just save it until the next update.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Welp...
Well, this is our last day here in St. Louis. Today has been pretty nuts because although we've actually done some pre-packing, there are still a lot of things to pack, last minute details to take care of, etc. We've been been on over-drive since about 8:30 this morning, running around the house, making trips to get boxes and taking things over to Abby's parents house. I finally took a minute to eat some left-over chinese and sit down for a second before plunging back in.
It looks like we'll be pretty much down to the wire here, but hopefully tomorrow's an easy day because I'm going to be dead tired. We have about two days of training in Detroit (well, actually at a hotel by the airport in a suburb of Detroit), and I can only imagine what a blast that will be. Filling out forms, getting inoculations! It's going to be a blast. Oh well. This is about as much time as I can spare, so backing to packing and my next post will be from the warm, polluted confines of Manila. Hooray!
It looks like we'll be pretty much down to the wire here, but hopefully tomorrow's an easy day because I'm going to be dead tired. We have about two days of training in Detroit (well, actually at a hotel by the airport in a suburb of Detroit), and I can only imagine what a blast that will be. Filling out forms, getting inoculations! It's going to be a blast. Oh well. This is about as much time as I can spare, so backing to packing and my next post will be from the warm, polluted confines of Manila. Hooray!
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Packing sucks
Well, we've started packing, and even though we don't have much, we sure have a lot of crap. Despite the fact I've moved quite a few times, I can't imagine how long it must take to pack up an actual home, with kids and good china and lots of furniture you want to keep. We're keeping some of our stuff, but most of it isn't worth holding onto, so we're selling some, donating some, and throwing away a lot. For instance: the old brown chair that was found in a parking garage 4 years ago? Probably not going to move that again...
Really, other than that, everything is going swimmingly. We actually have a small amount of savings, we have our plane tickets, everything is more or less ready to go. Now we just have to pack up, enjoy our last three weeks with cheese and milk, and kiss this place goodbye!
Really, other than that, everything is going swimmingly. We actually have a small amount of savings, we have our plane tickets, everything is more or less ready to go. Now we just have to pack up, enjoy our last three weeks with cheese and milk, and kiss this place goodbye!
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Look at me Ma, I'm on the internets!!!!
I don't really have anything important to say, I'm just creating this post to see how everything works. Basically, I'm going to try and post here with some frequency, and I think Abby will too, if she wants. I figured this would be better than sending emails to everyone, and this way people can check here whenever they want. Besides posts, you can also put up to about 300mb of pictures on here too, so I'm going to try adding photos as we take them. Take for example this one:
Wow, that's great. Anyway, I don't know why I'm bothering to explain what's going to be here. It shall all become clear in due time (fade out)...
Wow, that's great. Anyway, I don't know why I'm bothering to explain what's going to be here. It shall all become clear in due time (fade out)...
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