A photo tour around Calapan

I thought some people might like to know what our town looks like and what our daily lives look like, so this past week I went and took some pictures of the various places we frequent and spend our time. This isn't everything because that would just be boring. You can click on any picture to see the larger version (as is true of every photo on the blog).

This is the downstairs part of our apartment. Abby just finished tiling the bathroom because she wants to be on the Filipino version of "This Old House."

Here is the front of our apartment. It used to be just a boring slab of concrete until we turned it into a kick ass outdoor seating area.

This is Block 1, our street. It's generally nice and quiet, lots of families and kids and whatnot. What I left out of the picture was the vacant lot/garbage burning area.

Now to the untrained eye, this may look like a vacant marshy field. But no! It's so much more than that. It's a playground, a kite-flying area, a tricycle driver urinal, a grazing place for your goat/cow/water buffalo, a place to get firewood or look for edible leaves...

Signs like these are in every town in the Philippines. They may be encouraging you to avoid drugs, keep an eye out for crime, to recycle, or in this case, to keep the barangay clean. It roughly says "Let's band together! My dedication! My clean!" The sign next to it says "Don't throw your trash here." Good luck with that one buddy!

This is just a little welcome sign to our barangay. It listed who the captain and council are. They have these for every barangay, who knows how old this one is.

My favorite Filipino invention, the sari-sari ("everything") store. Your average block with have anywhere from one to twenty of these things, and you buy all sorts of stuff from them. Chips, vinegar, cigs, beer and booze, soy sauce, shampoo in single use packets, a single hard candy, candy, text load for your cell phone, sometimes veggies and eggs... I love 'em!

I know what I'm doing for my next birthday!

Tricycle drivers all lined up and waiting to yell at me. I mean, pick up passengers. These dudes will just sit around and wait forever for a fare. Behind them are awesome home-made kites for sale. It's summer, so it's also kite-flying season.

This is the gate that leads into the Capitolio complex, where I work. My office is down the left side, way in back.

Jose Leido National Memorial High School, where Abby works. Also known as "JJ" and "Lemnahis." Abby said this photo sucks, but tough, I'm using it anyway.

This is the main street through Calapan, Jose Rizal St. It's where most of the shops are, and traffic.

You think this looks bad, it's three times more crowded after school and work let out. I avoid this street like the plague from about 3pm-7pm.

A Filipino once asked me if Calapan was a big city. I said I didn't know. He then said, "Let me ask you this, is there a Jollibee in your town?" It's a fast food place, but in addition to burgers you can also get fried chicken and rice, taco hotdogs, spaghetti, something called a "tuna pie" and ice milk topped with purple yam and cheese. Awesome!

Citimart is kind of like a department store. We never go to that part of it, but they do have a sweet grocery store.

The market is a big complex, part inside, part outside. The fruit vendors are all outside and you can get some killer oranges and mangoes in this country. On the other side are the bootleg dvd vendors.

This is the main street by the market. It may look busy, but it's not. This was taken at about 2pm, and the market is really bumpin' around 7am.

This is the indoor wet-market. You can get fish and seafood, meat and veggies in here. Behind it is the dry market where you can get a ton of crap that was made in China.

An average veggie stand: japanese eggplant, tomatoes, bitter gourd (ampalaya) and a ton of stuff I only know the tagalog word for.

This meat sits out all day, so if we buy it, we make sure to get here early. In the heat of the day at 3pm, this place is enough to make you a vegetarian for life.

Random pictures

Here are a few pictures from the past month or so, just to give you an idea of what we've been up to. My work is winding up, in starts and lurches, as Abby's work winds down for the summer break. She's actually going to be pretty busy over the summer, as she's doing a two week long workshop in Cebu City for about 300 teachers from the island of Mindinao on how to teach english. She and 7 other volunteers will be working with them to improve their english, and also to introduce new teaching techniques and teaching philosophies, games, visuals, etc.

We also have some travel plans coming up, both work related and for fun. We're going up to Puerto Galera on Thursday to help facilitate a three day youth camp for gifted kids from Laguna. It's going to be all about ecology and the environment, so Abby and I are helping with the games, and we'll also be helping work with the groups. Over Holy Week we're going to the island next to us, Marinduque, for the Moriones Festival. There are some volunteers who live there, and it's maybe 4-5 hours away, so it'll be a super cheap and fun weekend. We already saw the crazy people whipping themselves last year, so this time around we thought we'd opt for a less insane Holy Week celebration. Also, after Abby's workshop we're going to spend about a week of official vacation time down on the island of Bohol, which is home to the famous Chocolate Hills, the insane little Tarsier, dolphins and whales, hiking, waterfalls, camping, beaches, diving and snorkeling and is, according to our friend who lives there, pretty freakin' sweet. So here's hoping because it's gonna be expensive!

This is another awesome ray of light picture from Puerto Galera. I guess it's because of all the humidity in the air?

Abby visited two friends in other provinces for a week to work with their deaf programs. They hiked out into the hills around Limay, Bataan to visit with the tribe there and check in on their school.

This is the front of the school. A friend said "now that's a Peace Corps picture!"

Here's Abby with our neighbor Jaan. She was one of the "muses" at her school, which is who knows what. An excuse for little girls to get all dressed up!