Subic and More

On the Wednesday night of the build, the PCVs from afar who were still in town and the PRCVs in Metro Manila all got together and cooked dinner – pasta with white sauce (I made it up, based on past tips from Morocco PCVs combined with my own improvising – and it came out well!), sautéed vegetables (with spices – which have been missing from my cooking here), garlic bread and salad. It was delicious – but more, it was fun to cook with a group. This was a big part of my Morocco experience and the first time I had done it here. Inshallah, it won’t be the last – it was a good time!

We had billed the build as three days on site and a reward day of recreation; that’s the way Habitat organizes their volunteer builds. For our reward, we went to Subic Bay, site of the former US Naval Base. The base closed in 1992 and there are various things they are doing now with the site – some tourist attractions and some retirement communities – but the area has the air of lost economic support. We had what Julie referred to as an unfavorable travel-time-to-activity ratio, but it was a fun day.

We arrived and found a place for snacks and mango shakes with bubbles (I don’t know how long bubble tea has been around, but this was my first, and they have yet to grow on me). It was nice to sit and chat – almost tempting to stay there for the day – but our destination was the pristine forest. Most of the Philippines (I think I recently read 80 percent) has been logged (largely illegally), but this part of the forest is pristine – the military used it for jungle training. Good old US military! We took a hike with an Aeta guide. Also called Negritos in some places, the Aetas were here prior to the arrival of the majority Malays. They are small in stature, darker than most Filipinos, and have kinky hair.

Our guide showed us some of the plants that were used for jungle survival – what was good for diabetes, good for stomach, etc. Bamboo and other plants could be cut for the water inside and used for plates, utensils and other tools. It was an interesting tour and a nice walk. Then a tribal elder in native garb did a fire-making demonstration. We would have liked to walk to the Aeta village, but there wasn’t enough time. Instead it was back on the bus and to the Shangri-La mall for Mexican (might our next cooking event be Mexican night? That was popular in Morocco!).

The next day I worked from home, writing up the Habitat International visit from the previous week and making CDs of build pictures for everyone who participated in the build. I felt a little tired and achey after non-stop activity, guests and/or travel starting with Veterans’ Day a week and a half earlier, but the better to sleep on the overnight bus that night!

My vacation came at a wonderful time. In addition to having the International guests and the build behind me, I had finished my big email appeals and gotten the USAID and other appeals ready to go – in other words, I was at a good breaking point in my work. And also in my service – in a way my trip north was the equivalent of my trip to the south of Morocco after COS conference. After the vacation week, there are about eight weeks left here, still almost a third of my service - plenty of time to get some work done, but also a good time to transition towards the finish, summarizing what I’ve done to date, starting the final report/plan, and then prioritizing what to do with the remaining time. The vacation was wonderful – it’ll take a while to write everything up (and this month’s haiku will be late), but for now I will say that I saw some breathtaking parts of the Philippines and had a terrific time and returned invigorated and ready to get back to work (and to travel some more!).