Monday, April 30, 2007

Election time is so silly!!

I think we can all agree that election time in the US is pretty damn annoying. You have to hear about it on the news, the TV is full of horrible ads accusing people of being un-patriotic baby killers, and it goes on for like 3 years. Somehow, the Philippines has found a way to ratchet up the annoying factor. All day long, up and down the streets of Calapan, trucks drive around with loud speakers attached to them, blaring music and/or talking. But it's not just any music, it's current popular music that has been redone locally in Tagalog with ELECTION THEMED LYRICS! There was a horrible, god-awful song around Christmas time called "Boom Tarat Tarat." It was created on the enormously popular daytime game show "Wowowee." I am not making this up, these are the titles of these things. Anyway, since everyone in the country watches this show, this song caught on like wildfire and for the entire month of decemeber and many months after, we've had to hear this song being sung by everyone, all the time. The refrain of the song is "Boom tarat tarat, boom tarat tarat, la dada, la da da, bom bom bom." There is also an inane dance that goes along with it. Anyway, the point is I hate that song with a passion. We all do. And now it's being broadcast from a pair of very cheap quality loudspeakers all day long, with local election lyrics added into the song. Maybe you have to be here to understand it... As bad as that one is, I think my personal favorite is the truck for another candidate. There's an old song here that's a classic videoke song called "Totoy Bibbo." This guy's truck plays the music to that song and occasionaly throughout the song a man yells "Paul Luna!" So it's music, music, music, PAUL LUNA! music, music, music.

Also, other than these boom trucks, the other tactic is the good old campaign poster. Thousands of them. Millions. All stuck to every available surface in the entire country. Trees, bus stops, power line poles, people's houses, cows... They are everywhere, and you just know after a few months they'll slowly fall off and soon we will be drowning in a sea of weather-worn campaign posters.

The other upside to this is that elections are notorious for violent altercations, so we've all been warned to stay far away from rallies, and on the actual election day they basically told us not to leave the house. Or we could go to Manila and hide out if we were worried. I haven't seen any evidence of this so far, but it does add a little spice to the campaign period.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

No happy endings

It's been in the news, so I'm sure most of you have heard, but last week about this time they found the body of our friend, the missing PCV Julia Campbell. There was a really great, very emotional memorial service for her on Saturday and on Sunday we officially got the autopsy report: she died of blunt force trauma to the head. They have some leads and a prime suspect, so hopefully they do a good job and don't just jump the gun and pin it on someone because of all the pressure to make an arrest. As hard as the news of her death was to hear, the idea of her being beaten to death, all alone, was even harder for me to deal with. We're ok now, safe, not in any danger or anything as this was an isolated incident. I hope her family is doing ok. That's about it for now, hopefully next time I update there will be something good to share.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Missing volunteer

A fellow volunteer went hiking last sunday and hasn't been seen since. There's a huge PC/Embassy search party looking for her, but it's already been a week, that can't be good. We're getting occasional updates but everyone is super freaked out, mainly because of the uncertainty of it all. I hope she's ok...