The (Manila) Envelope, Please

Month Six in Haiku

2010-01-23T07:57:00.000-08:00

Really just three weeks
It’s exactly twenty-six
And it went by fast

Birthday tradition
You buy food for the office
Pepperoni ‘za

Hot water heater
Not too late to enjoy it
I like hot showers!

Under the weather
Cold, achey, coughing and such
Really, first time here

Final status rep
Marketing strategy too
Tying up loose ends

Visiting Bajaus
Small business consultation
Displaced sea gypsies

U-S-A-I-D
Said they’d donate – that’s good news
Packing my big box

Mindoro weekend
Stairway stage, waterfall hike
Nice Mangyan baskets

Talk with founder Lars
There’s consulting potential
Princeton interviews

COS process
Paperwork, reports
Still other work too

Evaluation,
Final report, PN-VS-CA
DOS, more forms

Making the food rounds
Pizza, sushi, other faves
Miss most? Mango shakes!

Last Habitat build
We moved dirt and had fun
Oh – Jackie Chan too!

Tayabas Ayta
After a fast 5K run
Interesting culture

Exit conferences
Tony/Milo, PN-VS-CA
New Habitat pres

Country Director
Milo again, dental, med
Lots of signatures

Goodbyes and farewells
Hard to believe it’s over
Mt. Pinatubo

Glad that I’ll come back
Before I take off for good
Will it hit me then?

I’ve had a great time
Loved the work and the country
And the friends I’ve made

Some Pictures from Week Twenty-Six

2010-01-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

The box:

Me, Mary, Mercedes:

The gang at the pension:

I'm a Returned Peace Corps Response Volunteer:

Capas (Tarlac) Shrine:

From the 4x4:

Pinatubo hike:

Pinatubo crater:

Pinatubo!

2010-01-23T07:23:00.000-08:00

Back in August in the middle of the rainy season, some foreign tourists on Mt. Pinatubo were caught in a landslide and killed, and the Safety and Security Director put trekking there off-limits to Peace Corps volunteers. I had seen Kate’s pictures and really wanted to go; he told me I could go when I was no longer a PCRV. So I saved January 23 for it. But I still didn’t want to go if it wasn’t safe! So I kept calling him; after all, it hasn’t rained for a while (flash floods are the danger there). This week, he called to tell me it was okay to go, and as of yesterday, the restriction was lifted.

Mt. Pinatubo was quiet for centuries until a violent eruption in 1991. The volcano lost 300 meters in height, the ash and rock column went 40 meters into the air, ash and rock covered Angeles, Clark and Subic Bay. At the time a typhoon raged, turning the ash into volcanic mud, which rerouted rivers and buries villages. If I recall, world-wide temperatures were cooler that summer because fine ash particles blew all the way across the Pacific

It meant getting up early again – lots of staying up late and getting up early these past couple of weeks; I can rest when I get back (maybe?). But I didn’t (and couldn’t) get there early enough; I had to wait for a few hours until the first 4X4s returned so I could be in the second wave. I shared the trip with two pairs of Germans, all of whom walked at a brisk pace! The 4X4 drive was along a riverbed (I could see the flash flood potential) lined with eroded lahar (volcanic mudflow). Some vegetation is coming back, and we passed some grazing carabao and cows and a couple of small Aeta settlements. From the end of the 4X4 ride there was a 45-minute hike to the crater, first passing some dramatic formations and then narrowing to a forested path that crossed the stream several times. I didn’t realize how big or how beautiful the crater and its lake would be; it was definitely worth it!

On the way to Pinatubo, I stopped at a shrine that marked the final point of the Bataan death march, on the site of the concentration camp where so many died. I had heard about this monument and thought it would be a nice way to cap off my WWII visits, but I didn’t realize that it was right on the way to Pinatubo until my (ex!) supervisor mentioned it earlier this week – I’m glad I went! There’s a big obelisk – its three parts represent the Philippines, the U.S. and Japan – and then a wall of names.

Would I have gone to Pinatubo anyway when no longer a PCV? Probably; that’s why I had the date in my head. That’s not to say I didn’t break any rules during my service. Last year when after I COSed I confessed to some of my violations – so I guess in keeping with this tradition, let me say that I may have ridden on the back of a motorcycle in Siquijor (honestly, I think I had a memory lapse and I thought only driving one was a violation; I got back and realized that merely being on one is – oops!). I may have ridden on the top of a full jeepney between Bontoc and Banaue, twisting through the mountains (line of the year – Me: Are we about to do something illegal? Bill: I think we’re doing something fun!) and I may have ridden on the top of a full bus in Bohol (and then on another motorcycle when even the top of the bus back was too full). I may have returned my life vest early and then taken boat rides without it (including one to the Caramoan peninsula when the boat also didn’t have any life vests – all the time watching the shoreline and reassuring myself that I could swim that far). But then again, I may not have done any of those things. Hey, I’m glad the Pinatubo restriction was lifted! A number of people suggested that I go to Mindanao (which has safe, beautiful parts) when no longer a PCV and subject to those restrictions – instead, it will go on the list of possible places to visit in a return to the Philippines.

Now it’s off to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia – which will be chronicled in travelsinthe offseason.blogspot.com (eventually). In two and a half weeks, I come back here for a few more days – an overnight at the Farm and a last surfing weekend. I’ll be staying at the pension every other night while in Manila. They need my room here in Pasig! I’d gladly have stayed, but part of me likes the closure of staying in the pension where it all began. I’m glad I’m not saying goodbye to the Philippines just yet.

Side Notes

2010-01-23T07:12:00.001-08:00

With the holiday billboards and ads over, now political ads are popping up everywhere. The elections this spring are going to be very interesting; I’ll have to follow from afar. Some of the volunteers, who are in spots where there could be some unrest, are going to be evacuated from their sites for about two weeks; I think there may be travel restrictions on everyone. This country has a lot going for it but it also has so many issues….

As does Haiti – several people at work thought I would go there next. Peace Corps was in Haiti but has not been there for years; there are about 500 RPCVs from Haiti. The Peace Corps networks are abuzz with ideas though, and it seems likely that there will be some Peace Corps Response effort there – after all, that’s what Peace Corps Response is all about. I don’t know when they’d need someone of my background – but maybe by the time they figure out a role, it might be more along the lines of what I can offer than of immediate relief; many agencies do that well already. I would guess that French and/or Creole might be required, so I am not packing my bags (that is, I am not keeping my bags packed!), but if I could help, I would go!

The Country Director is of Haitian descent and her husband is Haitian. He’s a doctor who works for a big international agency, so after the earthquake he offered to help, and he was on a plane the next day. That also enabled him to look for loved ones. The more I read and hear, the more overwhelming it sounds. Poor Haiti.

Beryl, the PCRV who started the week after we did, is COSing next week, and Michael, the last PCRV to arrive, is med-sepping next week. It would have been nice to see them; if there is a celebration I will be there in spirit!

My Last Week as a PCRV - Part Two

2010-01-22T01:48:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday morning I had a last coffee with the Wharton alum I’ve had a few coffees with – he added a dimension to my time here. And then Charlie and I took the MRT to PNVSCA, the Philippines National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency, for an exit interview. When we had gone there during orientation the van ride took forever in the traffic; it was an easy MRT ride! Manila seemed so big and overwhelming then – it still is, but we know it now. The exit interview was good – the concept behind PNVSCA, coordinating the efforts of all of the international volunteers here (as well as those of Filipino volunteers who serve abroad), is good. It seems bureaucratic to us, but the exit interview made me feel that there are people who are genuinely concerned.

Charlie and I had sushi lunch at the mall (and I had a mango shake) and then I went back to Habitat. I know, I had said my farewells, but the new president (he started at the beginning of the month) wanted to have an exit interview as well. My supervisor had given him a copy of my final status report and my final report to Peace Corps and he had gone through them line by line and had questions. Then he asked my opinion of things in general and what I would do if I were he; he also told me some of the immediate things he is dealing with (the Philippines is the only Habitat country that does the medium-rises, and International brought in a team to make sure the design was earthquake-resistant – turns out it may not be. And Manila had an earthquake, magnitude 4.0, just the other week (I didn’t feel it)). I didn’t realize how good it would feel to have someone go through my report in detail and ask for my thoughts and observations. And this from the new president of the organization, no less. I’ll have to keep in touch to see what new directions Habitat for Humanity Philippines takes!

Yesterday, I brought my big box to the Peace Corps office for mailing. How nice that they help you get your things home! My box was overweight (no surprise) so I had to split it into two boxes. This was fine, actually – I had only gotten the big box because that’s what the store had. Inside the big box was a smaller box, all taped up and ready to go, of things that can wait until I get to the imaginary studio apartment. Everything else, I just put back in the big box; the mailroom man will cut it to size and air-mail it, while the things that can wait will go by boat! I’m not going to say how much it cost to mail everything back. At least it was only one big box’s worth of stuff.

I had my exit interview with the Country Director that afternoon. She’s very low-key and the interview wasn’t structured, so I felt I rambled. I didn’t have an agenda per se, but I think I managed to tell her everything I meant to tell her. I felt good afterwards. Then Mary and I met at Starbucks and after coffee we went over to the pension; I’d had dinner there last week with Lynn, one of the PCVs I met at the build. The food is good and it’s nice to sit at one of the outdoor tables, so I proposed an all-PCRV dinner there. For a while it was just Mary, Mercedes and me, and eventually everyone came. Really nice to sit and talk and relax. Usually Peace Corps Response volunteers come and go one at a time, but it’s been nice to have this group, this community. I came up with a fun idea – the DOS (Description of Service) document is a template where you fill in the blanks with the particulars of your service; I proposed DOS Mad Libs, and everyone at dinner contributed a sentence.

This morning I took my big suitcase to the pension, where they’ll store it while I am inVietnam. That will probably be overweight too, but I am getting rid of some clothes, and I did budget my toiletries well. Then I had an exit interview with Milo. I had a chance to tell him about some of the dynamics at Habitat that I have only hinted at in my monthly reports and haven’t said much about here either – overall I am very pleased with the organization, with the independence I had, and with what I accomplished and what I leave them with, but, as one of the people I worked with said, maybe they could have used me better; I thought Milo should know.

Milo then took the group out for lunch (a Peace Corps Philippines tradition – not so in Morocco – but Morocco had the “stamping out” that was a sweet little ceremony, providing some closure). I got all of my signatures but I’m not technically done – the Description of Service and Certificate of Health weren’t signed by the Country Director, so they’ll be waiting for me at the pension when I come back here. It was good to say goodbye and thank you but not farewell. Tonight there’s a party at the guys’ house – the PRCVs and some of the current PCVs, who are in town for a meeting, will be there. Maybe the finality will sink in and I’ll feel more of an impact when I leave the Philippines in February – or maybe I’m just living in the moment and going with the flow.

My Last Week as a PCRV - Part One

2010-01-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

I knew that even with only a few appointments on the schedule that it would be a whirlwind week, and I was right! The whole six months has gone by fast, but this week more than most.

Monday was my last day in the office, and it was a busy one. I sent out thank-you notes for and pictures from the build, followed up on things from the exit conference, wrote to my World-Wise Schools class, dotted the is and crossed the t’s, wrote a nice farewell note to everyone at Habitat, and at the end of the day I walked around and said goodbye and hugged people. That’s it, no fanfare, no cake, no speeches. It’s a quiet office and I didn’t want a big deal and I didn’t get one.

It rained on Monday – after saying that it wasn’t going to rain anymore. And the electricity went out at home – I had given my candles away but at least I kept my flashlight handy. It did come back on at a reasonable hour, but I thought that wasn’t going to happen anymore either. I taped up my huge box and took the maps off the wall.

And then Tuesday the medical began. Dental first – no cavities. I walked to the Peace Corps office – nice along Manila Bay but then long and desolate after that. Got some of the administrative signatures and had a pretty thorough physical. Samples and tests of all sorts – they have an in-house lab and analysis, so no rushing samples to the lab as we did in Morocco. Totals for the week: no TB, no parasites, no extra pounds (but none lost, either). H1N1 shot, seasonal flu shot, voucher for a mammogram when I get back, malarial pills for my trip and then fourteen days of post-malaria pills to take when I get back to the states. With all the vaccinations in the past three years, I’m on a second WHO card.

Mary came back to the ‘hood with me. She experienced the MRT and then the walk over to my home – I had told her that I was walking while she was swimming every day, and she had a chance to experience my world. We walked back and ate at Shangri-La mall – a delightful dinner! I had debated moving to the pension to spend more time with Mary and Mercedes vs. staying in my own place until it was time to go. When we arrived we had an air-conditioned room to ourselves; at COS they put you in the fan-cooled dorm. I did not sleep well there during consolidation – and I decided I wouldn’t see much of Mary and Mercedes while we were sleeping anyway – so I decided to stay put.

Charlie is COSing this week too, so the four of us have been crossing paths. Drew left early, last month, and Jonathan is balancing him out by staying another month. Mary’s going to Vietnam for a week and a half (we’ll overlap for a day in Hanoi and maybe see each other). Charlie is traveling in the Philippines for a few weeks and leaves February 16 (I told him if he left on the 15th we could have quality time together on the way to Tokyo, but he was not swayed). Mercedes is the only person who didn’t change the flight Peace Corps gave us all – she’s leaving Saturday morning and going straight home.

Some Pictures from Week Twenty-Five

2010-01-20T05:50:00.000-08:00

Jackie Chan:

The first building is move-in ready:

Ready to dish some dirt:

The build PCVs:

The Stock Exchange bell:

After the run:

Bridge to the Ayta village:

Ayta house:

Rice fields - and the ever-present basketball court:

Ayta members:

A nice outing with Tony and his family:

The Tayabas Ayta

2010-01-19T06:38:00.001-08:00

My supervisor’s wife is a doctor; she works with another doctor who is in charge of a study that documents the medicinal practices of indigenous tribes. As part of the study he also does a needs assessment and tries to help the people get what they need. He wrote a proposal about the Aytas near his hometown of Tayabas. My supervisor passed it along to me to send to the people with whom I’ve established relationships, to see if there was anything any of them could do (and a couple said they would consider it or pass it along further, so it was worth it). My supervisor thought it would be helpful to actually see the community, so on Sunday he, his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, his grandson, the new French intern, the doctor and I piled into a van and went to Tayabas, in Quezon province.

When I went to Subic I met Aetas – I think Ayta is just a variation; that’s how the people here spell it. They have some appearance attributes in common (smaller stature, darker skin, kinky hair) but different languages and stories and different cultural practices; there are actually 33 different Ayta (or Aeta, or Negrito) communities in this country. The Tayabas Ayta have an extinct language – two elders know it but are reluctant to share it with outsiders because people have come and gone without leaving anything sustainable. They were traditionally hunter-gatherers so didn’t have a concept of land ownership, and when the land was divided up they didn’t get any. They have been informal settlers in their current location for 25 years, but can get evicted at any time. So land is a priority.

There are 60 families in this spot and another 19 nearby. They used to inhabit the land from the mountain to the sea but as Tagalog people moved in, they were pushed into (of course) the land that nobody else wanted. The men still do some hunting – turtles, monitor lizards, wildcats – but not enough to sustain them. They do some seasonal work, planting and harvesting and construction. They do some woodcarving too (Christian symbols, because there is a market for them, but not at a fair price). They would like some livelihood for the men. At present, the women sustain the tribe, gathering plants on Good Friday and turning them into medicinal herbs (one day of gathering sustains them for the year!). So they can’t just relocate anywhere – they want to be on land near their gathering spots. They don’t have the money to buy the land they are on, but that would be ideal.

The adults are uneducated and the children usually drop out of school because they have to work and also because they are harassed by the other kids, so a segregated school (where they can also preserve their culture – now I understand why the Mangyan have a segregated school) is another priority, as is adult education. They have had some help from outside – a basketball court, a tribal hall with a toilet, and cementing of the hilly pathway – but nothing long-term. They also want a culture-sensitive health program.

It took about three hours to get there (and the day was made longer by stopping for breakfast, merienda and dinner, which made for a nice family outing but a long day – so we left at 8:30 am and got back at 10:00 – and remember, I had woken up at 5:00 for the run). It rained for most of the day; it hasn’t rained in Manila in what seems like months, but there is a different weather pattern here. We crossed a rickety bamboo bridge and climbed a steep hill. All of the houses are made of wood – nothing out of concrete, in case they have to relocate. We sat and talked with the tribal council for a couple of hours – that is, my supervisor talked with the chieftain, with occasional comments from others. His wife and the doctor quietly translated for me. My supervisor may be in a position to get them land and maybe meet some of their needs; nothing was expected of me, but I think the thinking was that if I saw for myself, I could describe it better if I find someone who is in a position to help. It was an interesting day and another aspect of the Philippines - and once I realized I had seen Bajaus, Mangyans and Aytas three weeks in a row, I wrote about all of those visits to my World-Wise Schools class!

Habitat Build and the Run for the Economy

2010-01-18T05:48:00.000-08:00

I had wanted to do one more build before I left. Three reasons - to see the progress on Pasig from the beginning to the middle to the end, to give people who couldn’t make it in November a chance to come (especially Hanna), and maybe to see homepartner Grace, who was so friendly to me that first time (and who was still my best tutor!).

Seven of us in all went to the build site. The first building is now complete – painted, with doors and windows. The units are unfinished – that’s for the homepartners to do when they move in – but they’re ready. I think three families live there now, with more moving in next month. The skilled labor doesn’t work on Saturday so there was no real construction going on. We were the only volunteers, and there were lots of homepartners. Grace was one of them! It was nice to see her – and some of the others that we met were sweet as well. Our task was to clean up the site in back of the finished building – there was a big pile of dirt and garbage, which had to be shoveled into sacks and moved to the front. With so many people, we had an efficient “bucket brigade” line – not too much foot movement, but enough heavy bags moving down the line to make our arms and backs sore. It was a good group. We shifted around so that those who wanted to dig had a chance to do that, and switched up who was next to whom so everyone had a chance to talk. Fun! And exhausting. I skipped going out with them afterwards and went to bed at 9:30 – and I don’t know how I stayed awake that long!

And then it was rise and shine at 5:00 am Sunday to do another 5K. I didn’t know when we would be leaving for the Ayta village until Friday afternoon, so I missed my chance to register. I have never run as a non-registered runner (I don’t even remember the term for it) and I felt a little bad about that (especially when I saw the cool shirts the runners were wearing!). The sponsor was the Philippine Stock Exchange and the race was called the Bull Run Para Sa Ekonomiya. Does that mean the Philippine economy is a charity? If so, I have done my part for the Philippine economy in other ways. And then I realized that this is a brilliant idea – maybe Obama can help the American economy by staging a series of 5K runs!

Instead of a starter’s gun, the race started with the ringing of the stock exchange bell – cool! And then – thanks to Julie running just ahead of me (until I told her to go on ahead when maybe a K was left), I ran if not a personal best, a personal best since 1997 – 33:24! That was fast for me. I was glad to have the chance to do another 5K before I left, but all the more glad because I did so well! All that training of walking to and from the mall and moving heavy sacks the day before paid off!

No Coasting to the Finish

2010-01-15T06:45:00.001-08:00

This has turned out to be a busy week! I did get all of my Peace Corps paperwork done – one big report per day – but I also had a lot of Habitat work to do! I somehow knew not to count the USAID chickens before they were hatched, and (at the risk of mixing my metaphors) that’s still up in the air. I had sent them the first disaster response proposal and by the time they said they would fund it, it was not only funded but completed. The latest proposal wasn’t going to be funded unless they said yes, but now that a month has gone by, Habitat has other priorities, and we’re going back to them to see if we can change the terms and still get the funds. In the meantime, they have a LOT of forms for us to fill out. And I might want to work for USAID? Well, yes, I might.

As long as I am on the subject of disaster, I should mention the Haiti earthquake. Habitat for Humanity is getting more and more involved in disaster relief, so a contribution there would be a good way to help! In addition to the immediate needs for relief, Habitat will help with transitional shelter and then, when the news cycle has moved on to other, more immediate disasters, Habitat will still be there, moving people into permanent housing years from now.

Which is why I am glad to be organizing that March build in New Orleans! I have a few takers so far – almost as many friends of friends as friends of my own, but at the end of the build I am sure we will all be one happy group! I read all the information on the web sites last month before setting everything up, and then the first people started to register, and I had to change the process. I think I have it ironed out now, but I will be spending more time on it next week to make sure. USAID and Habitat for Humanity New Orleans – lots of back and forth and forms and emails. So when I wasn’t working on Peace Corps paperwork I had more than my share of other bureaucracy!

I picked up the eyeglasses with my new prescription this week. Drum roll please – oh, no, nothing I was in love with, so no new frames. I also had my hair done – a trim, but it was all I could do for the past couple of weeks’ worth of posts not to write, “I have Peace Corps hair!” Thankfully, I will look more presentable from here until I get to my hairdresser in Chicago than I did last year.

I decided to stay in my digs until COS. I felt I had promised Mary and Mercedes that we’d all be together in the pension at the end, as we were at the beginning, and deciding that it would be easier for me logistically to stay here was tough. Of course, they understand and are completely fine with it – I just spent quality time with both of them and I’ll see them for dinners and at the Peace Corps office next week – but it was a reminder that when I get back all sorts of choices and obligations and commitments and demands and conflicts await, and that I still want to simplify my life. I wish I could stay here until I leave the country – leave my big suitcase here while I travel on the mainland, and go surfing with Julie from here that last weekend – but Tony has plans for my room. Oh well – I’ll probably stay in the pension, where it all began, which is fitting too!

I’m having my last rounds of favorite foods. The mango shakes, of course. The sushi place (not that sushi will be hard to find at home, but I feel it’s among the healthier things I eat here). Fresh-cut pineapple from the fruit guy. And a quick scan of this document indicates that I have been remiss in discussing one of my favorites – Shakey’s pepperoni crrunch pizza. The crrunch (yes, two r’s) is provided by potato sticks, an underrated snack food. Pepperoni and potato sticks – maybe I need to bring that back and share Filipino culture with Americans! Last night I had Inasal (grilled, Visayas style) chicken and that kangkong tempura I loved so much early on; hadn’t had it in a while. Julie, Charlie and Bill came too, and it seemed like old times at the Shangri-La food court! Tonight, it was fitting to go to Chow King for fried rice and lumpia – Julie and I went to the theatre for opening night of the new Jackie Chan movie! He has become our shared thing. The big screen! I can’t give it four stars, but she pointed out that it’s opening in the U.S. today too, so we saw it while people back at home were only dreaming about seeing it later in the day!

I’ll close by saying that the size of the regular Peace Corps program is going to double next year. This year, 70 trainees arrived in August – next year, it’ll be 140! That’s the impact of the new budget. The Peace Corps Response program here will be 50 percent larger next year as well, but of course on a much smaller base. This afternoon I had an exit conference with Milo, the Peace Corps Response Coordinator, and Tony, my supervisor. Three-way mutual admiration society for Peace Corps, Habitat for Humanity Philippines, and me! I really think things have going excellently here, and so did everyone else. It’s nice to be leaving on such a good note!

Some Pictures from Week Twenty-Four

2010-01-14T10:25:00.000-08:00

Bajau houses on stilts:

Living under the bridge:

Bajau kids:

The old theatre, taken in August:

Mary and the new theatre:

The seating section:

Close-up of the roof, from inside:

Solartube, paid for with a Peace Corps grant, with one of the contributors:

Mangyan baskets (note, I bought flat ones):

Hiking up the creekbed:

The waterfall:

Another Mindoro sunset:

Farewell to the beach:

A Last Weekend in Mindoro

2010-01-13T22:24:00.001-08:00

We’re not supposed to take vacation in the first 30 or last 30 days of our assignment, but I asked for and received permission to take my last day this past Monday, so that I could have a long weekend in Mindoro. It was great to see Mary, to be back at Stairway Foundation, to see the theatre that Mary designed, to be back on the beach, and to do all of that without feeling rushed!

I left Saturday morning with a stop for my new go-to travel food, the Goldilocks butter slice. They would never call it this in the United States! It’s pound cake. But few people know that pound cake is called that because it used to be made with a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, and a pound of eggs! Let’s not think about that too much; I’ll just say that I discovered the butter slice recently and it’s very tasty.

There was a lot of traffic on the way down there, and the ferry seemed to take a while, as did lunch on White Beach when I got there – the Universe knew that last time we had only one night there so it facilitated speedy travel, and it knew that I had two nights this time so everything seemed to take a little longer. But that’s okay! I walked over the hill and got to Stairway around 2:00 pm, put my things in the Yellow House, and had a detailed tour of the theatre from Mary. It’s quite a building, and both she and Stairway have reason to be proud. Then we went to the beach for a swim and for sunset – what a site she has!

For dinner, we went to a place called the Pie Shack. Run by a Brit, its wares are pretty authentic - taste sensations I hadn’t had in a while. We had cottage pie (and I learned that shepherd’s pie is made with lamb and cottage pie is the same thing, with beef) and apple crumble. The next morning was leisurely – a long walk on the beach, breakfast in Mary’s hut (homemade granola that someone had sent her - I remarked that my support team seemed spent after sending me things in Morocco; she said that her Macedonia support team was spent as well but that she had a whole new support team this time around!).

Then we walked to the waterfall. Same hike as back in August, but very different in the dry season! With the water so low, we hiked up the creekbed for much of it. When we got to the falls, there wasn’t enough water for swimming, but it was a nice place to sit and talk. We went through the Mangyan village on the way back and I bought more baskets; I had promised myself that I would return back in August. It turned out to be an emotional moment – something about the plight of indigenous peoples tugs at my heart, and maybe more so after visiting the Bajaus. Mary pointed out that the Mangyans here, though segregated, have a lot of support and a lot of visitors coming through and buying things, but I still needed to compose myself. I’m going to an Aeta village on Sunday – that should be enlightening too (though I hope not too emotional – I’m going with my supervisor and his family). We then had a relaxing beachfront dinner; no Milky Way but still stars in the sky and the sound of the surf.

On Monday, Mary had to work. I took a beach walk and had an American breakfast (also a taste sensation I hadn’t had in a while) at the hotel next door. Then I had a chance to talk to Lars, one of Stairway’s founders – in August I casually asked him if he needed marketing and he said yes and this was our first opportunity to speak. Upshot is that I may consult remotely when I get home while I am looking for the next thing; it could be very interesting.

And then I had a last – though I didn’t dwell on that aspect of it – long swim in Philippine waters. I borrowed Mary’s snorkel and mask and did my first snorkeling here (I could have done it much more and probably should have, but this opportunity was the only one literally handed to me) – there’s a whole new world under the sea! Farewell to Mary and to the people I’ve met at Stairway - including the boys, who have blossomed since I first saw them - and then the ferry and the bus and back to reality, refreshed and ready for what is turning out to be an even busier week than I thought it would be!

On to the Home Stretch

2010-01-11T16:09:00.000-08:00

I spent the first part of last week updating my status report and finishing up the marketing strategy document that I’m leaving behind; I’ll continue to fine-tune those until my last day (I wrote my monthly report for Peace Corps before I went to Palawan – after writing every other monthly report at the beginning of the following month – so it was a “blue moon” monthly report – in the same month as a celestial blue moon; I thought that was kind of cool when I realized it!). And I found out when my last day is! January 18. On Thursday I received an email with all of my COS information. I already knew about some of the required documents – a Description of Service (the formal document that eventually is the only record kept at the Peace Corps office in Washington), a final report (same format as the monthly report – so maybe I can cut and paste from those), a PNVSCA form (Philippines National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency) – there was one of those at the beginning and one in the middle so this is the one at the end, and a final evaluation for Peace Corps. I could have gotten started on those earlier but I liked the idea of starting them after the holidays – I think I can churn them all out this week.

I had forgotten about all of the other forms – something saying I leave no debts, closing my bank account, a thank-you note to my agency (actually, I don’t think Morocco had this one), a privacy waiver, a home-of-record form, my post-service travel itinerary, an authorization for use of personal material, a final site form, a Corps Care (like COBRA) signup form, my WHO card. And then there’s a checklist – I need signatures attesting that I’ve returned any books I borrowed, my life vest and my medical kit, and then there are other signatures for other things. None of those is especially time-consuming, but taken together, they somehow fill the time between COS appointments.

It’ll take longer to exit than it did for orientation! Next Tuesday I have a dentist appointment and a physical. On Wednesday I have an appointment at the PNVSCA office. On Thursday I have an exit interview with the Country Director, and on Friday an interview with the Peace Corps Response Coordinator. That’s next Friday – first, this Friday there’s an exit conference with him, my supervisor and my counterpart. I’m not going to do any formal presentation of my plan or my status report; we’ll just meet. I’m not printing anything out; just emailing everything. That’s good! If I have time after doing all of the paperwork, I want to work on my Third Goal presentation (already tentatively scheduled for Peace Corps Week, the week of March 1, to the Princeton Club of Chicago, and my World-Wise Schools class is interested too) and a Philippines photo slide show to show to friends that I see along the way home.

And I have one last – big – accomplishment. At the end of the day on Friday, I got a call from USAID. They’re going to fund a big portion of the latest relief effort (the first relief effort was funded before they had gotten back to us, but they said to submit other proposals, and I did). There are still people living in tents and evacuation centers up north, and now they will have USAID-funded Habitat-built toilets! I feel especially good about this because at the Housing Forum back in September, the president (may he rest in peace) said that his one hope for me was that I would bring in USAID money. Now I have!

It’s hard to believe that next Monday is my last day at Habitat. I will miss people, and I’ve enjoyed the work, but I don’t feel sad, really – certainly not as anguished as I felt when I was leaving Morocco last year. At the same time, I don’t feel I’ve emotionally checked out. I’m finishing up, but I’m still engaged in what I’m doing. I’ll continue to follow up on things, and if there are small projects that I can work on while getting everything else done, I’ll work on them. I’m looking forward to my post-COS travel – last year I couldn’t plan anything beyond buying the one-way ticket to Bangkok. This year I have an itinerary (after looking at the distances I decided that short flights would be better than long - longer than overnight, that is - train or bus rides, so it forced me to plan) and even some hotel reservations, but I’m going to figure out what to do in each place as I go.

I’m sending a box home – one big box. It has craft items I’ve picked up, gifts for people I see as I travel home, and some clothes, just to lighten the suitcase load. Almost all of the clothes I brought to Morocco is staying behind here (maybe going to the Bajau community). They’ve had just about three years of wear and tear, and they are worn and torn. But I’m glad I had them to wear here!

I felt some sense of finality when I changed my Northwest reservation (a difference between Peace Corps and Peace Corps Response is that for the latter, when you depart, they also give you the return ticket – mine was for my COS date, January 23) – I’m leaving Manila for good on February 15 and will land in Los Angeles, also on February 15 – but that sense has since turned into mild annoyance that I don’t yet have the email confirmation. I have the rough timing of my Amtrak trip across the country (glad I will be seeing some friends along the way!) and now I have the known of what life will be like when I base myself in Southampton again. I’ll get settled and then go to New Orleans for the Habitat for Humanity build that I’m organizing. I don’t feel anxious about what’s next after that, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it either. It just is. So maybe I’m manifesting my (so far, one – and it might stay that way) goal for the year – to live more in the moment!

Bits and Pieces

2010-01-09T00:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve been pretty healthy here so far; one morning a couple of months ago I felt a little icky but that’s about it. Until this week. I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for cold remedies and thinking, “why would this be a time of year for people to get colds?” And then I got a cold. Not a bad one – it’s just unfortunate that I didn’t feel all that well on my birthday. I would have had to be much sicker to miss work that day though – after all, the tradition is to treat the office. Someone had a January 1 birthday and he bought lunch, so my pizza was moved to merienda time. I was a little worried that with so much food at lunch, people wouldn’t be able to eat two huge pizzas in mid-afternoon, but my worries were for naught. It was like lowering a chicken into a pool of starved piranhas. Those pizzas were gone quickly. And much appreciated! I made it through the day, went to bed at 8:30 at night, sneezed most of the next day and coughed most of the day after that, but now I’m fine.

The big news is that we now have a hot water heater! A new intern has come to live in our building – she’s working for our supervisor on his other businesses, not for Habitat – and since the water has been colder (and since she’s French? No, just kidding) I guess he decided to spring for it. Fine with me! Especially with feeling a little under the weather it was nice to take a hot (well, warm) shower (the hot water didn’t work on Tuesday night, and there was no water at all on Wednesday morning and a trickle on Wednesday night, but since then it has been pretty nice). I’m not sure we need it anymore – an RPCV emailed that he looked at the weather forecast and it appears the cool season may be over already (which would be early). But I’m happy to have it and will enjoy it for my remaining time!

And I should mention a new recipe – I had this at New Year’s dinner at the center where Mercedes works. It’s called Refrigerator Cake. Ingredients – graham crackers, cream, condensed milk. You layer the graham crackers (maybe 24 layers) and between each layer you pour some of the mixed liquid. Put it in the refrigerator overnight and the graham crackers soak up the liquid. Serve it cold the next day and it’s quite tasty. Another no-bake recipe!

I was reminded that I’ve been meaning to talk about the synchronized “Thriller” dance of the prisoners in Cebu (you can find it on youtube). If I were here for two years and not just six months, I’d make my way to see it. The jury is out (pun intended) as to whether this is cruel and unusual punishment, according to Lonely Planet. But now that I have been through the holiday season I think it isn’t – most holiday parties include some synchronized dancing, and on my daily walks for December I often spied groups practicing! It’s part of the culture, like videoke. I also read more about the fireworks – some Filipinos believe that the noise and explosions will drive away evil spirits and misfortunes.

A recent (for me) New Yorker contained a story by Paul Theroux about an older gentleman who goes back to the African village where he once was a volunteer. Paul Theroux was once a PCV! As was Chris Dodd; it was sad to read about his decision not to run for reelection – he was a big advocate for the Peace Corps. I also read about a play called, “Imelda, a new Musical.” Its run is over in New York but maybe it will be staged again somewhere; the review sounded good! More Peace Corps news – I was asked to do a writeup of the Habitat build for the Country Director’s quarterly report that goes to Washington. She texted me for my birthday! The CD in Morocco never did that.

I did an alumni interview this week (too bad it was the day I kept coughing…). It was good to put on my Princeton hat. I have another one next week as well. And while I am discussing alma maters I should mention a Wharton classmate who found me; we’ve been having occasional coffees. He’s the one who gave me the Asian Development Bank contact and he’s been giving me other tips about working in the region. You never know.

Now it’s on to Mindoro for a last weekend on the beach and quality time with Mary. The first time I visited I came back depressed about living in Manila while she’s in paradise. The second time I fantasized about what I would to if her foundation wanted a PCRV to do marketing. As I get ready to leave now, I’m grateful for my life in Manila. It was an adjustment, but I think it’s worked well for me. Working in an office has been a good transition to what is a likely next career move for me (i.e., working in an office). Working five minutes from the beach would probably have led to more culture shock upon my return (as it is, I am not looking forward to winter). I like going home to my own space at the end of the day – it’s been great for Mary to be immersed, but seeing Mercedes’s situation reinforced for me that I like separation. From Manila I have had easy access to other parts of the country – Mary’s left her island only for the two spa days. She may not have needed to travel as much living in paradise, and while she was supervising the construction it was hard for her to leave, and she’s had other reasons, but one of them is that she would have had to travel for several hours just to get here as a jumping-off point for anywhere else. Finally, I’ve grown to like Manila. It may still be the hardest place I’ve ever lived, but I’m glad I’ve had the chance to live here.

The Sea Gypsies Under the Bridge

2010-01-08T00:28:00.000-08:00

At International Volunteer Day, I met Phil, a newly-minted PCV who is working with indigenous Bajau people. They’re sea gypsies who used to live in the Sulu Islands off of Mindanao, fishing and pearl-diving, but with the unrest there (and, ironically, tourism, which brought development to their traditional spots), many have relocated to Central Luzon. Phil works with a small NGO (it’s the pastor and pastora and him) called God’s Love for the Indigents Ministry (GLIM). There’s a lot he can do with them in terms of teaching basic life skills – sanitation and hygiene, importance of education and the like. The people support themselves in two ways – begging, and/or selling pearls. Phil invited me up to his site for some Small Business Development consulting.

Just getting there was interesting – I took all three train lines (with three pat-downs!) to get to the bus station, and then a crowded, non-air-conditioned bus. Some people have commutes like that every day. Phil said he’d meet me at the bridge – as we crossed, he talked with many of the men who were fishing from it. The Bajaus don’t fish from it though, because they were used to fishing in the sea, and fishing in a river is too different for them.

I’ve seen people living under bridges already, but I’m still not used to it. The Bajau houses are built like the ones they had down south (that is, those who didn’t live on boats) – woven (and/or made of scrounged materials) and on tall bamboo platforms. The height worked to the advantage of 22 of the 27 homes when the river flooded in October – five homes were swept away (and have since been rebuilt) and the GLIM center was flooded to its roof.

The Bajaus had originally been displaced to parts of Metro Manila, but development forced them to move to ever more undesirable lands. Paraphrased from the GLIM profile: They were moved under the bridge with the consent of the department of Public Works and Highways; the bridge served as a remote area away from local residents and therefore allowed the Bajaus to live peacefully as an isolated yet organized community. But without any programs and projects to empower them, just relocating them wasn’t enough. The pastor and pastora, who had served as missionaries with other Bajau populations and who were therefore familiar with the culture, set up the ministry in their hometown to help them assimilate into the community, advocate for their rights (since they traditionally did not own land, they are not recognized as an indigenous group) and give them opportunities.

Some of the realities they are dealing with – they had a CR for the community, but someone got sick and the people thought it was due to the CR, so they destroyed it. They go in the river instead. They don’t have electricity or running water. They speak a different language. The adults can’t read or write and they don’t see the value in sending the children to school when they can send them out begging. Other Filipinos marginalize them and have negative perceptions and attitudes about them.

I spent most of the day at the center. First we had lunch – I never ate couscous with my hands in 27 months in Morocco, but here I ate chicken and rice with my hands. You kind of ball up the rice the same way Moroccans ball up the couscous; I can’t say I did it well but I managed to eat and not make too much of a mess. Then we talked about the pearl business. They already had some posters and brochures that tell the story of the tribe and they have some fancy boxes for packaging. They design and assemble their own pieces and already have a reputation for quality. So there’s some competitive advantage already. We suggested that they include a card with the story in or on every box. We talked about market segmentation (locals, who know the Bajaus, think they get a deal if the pearls are in an envelope; tourists like the pretty boxes), selling locations (they do some fairs and in the summer migrate to tourist spots for weeks at a time to sell on the beaches, but the rest of the year go into local neighborhoods – and maybe sell one set of pearls a week if they are lucky. Are there places where they could be more successful, for example near shopping areas or bus stations, where people either come thinking about spending money or have time to spend?), occasions (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day), sales techniques and holding a workshop to discuss them (who are the most successful among them, and why?), pricing strategy (everything’s negotiable – if they can overcharge someone and get away with it they will, which might be all right for one sale, but then someone feeling taken advantage of could tell his neighbor… so would you rather sell one at a high price or more at lower prices and maybe even get repeat business?), and other ideas.

I felt in my element until we went out to tour the community. And then I remembered that I’m shy. Much as I would love to play with the kids, I have a hard time when they look dirty and need their noses wiped. More than in other places, I was quite a curiosity – the girls touched my hair and clothes and jewelry and bag, and I’m not comfortable with that either. At least I took pictures of and with the kids, which is a winning strategy here. And I didn’t have to regret my lack of Tagalog, since they didn’t speak it either. And the adults were nice (shy also!) and I enjoyed meeting them. I was glad to see it for myself, but I’ll admit I was relieved to get back to the center, where despite being full from lunch, I mustered up the appetite for merienda, and even more relieved when I got back to my home turf. I felt a little bad about being hands-off, but once again I reminded myself that some people have the skill set for interaction with the poor, and mine is in the brainstorming. I hope I gave them some ideas that will help them with their business, which in turn can help them with getting their many needs met. Overall, I’m really glad I had the opportunity to visit, and I will keep in touch with Phil to see what happens in his two years here!

Month Five in Haiku

2010-01-07T05:28:00.000-08:00

Reviewing status
Everything I’ve done so far
Proposed next steps too

Water proposal
A charity found my blog
And they’re funding it

Tying up loose ends
Starting strategy memo
Two monthly reports

Embracing the malls
My world – Shangri-La, Mega
Greenhills for more pearls

Holiday parties
It’s a festive time of year
In the Philippines

Nutcracker ballet
Int-l Volunteer Day clean
Third Goal Power Point

Bicol Express (bus)
Caramoan island hop
Carried off the boat

Making future plans
COS trip and beyond
March New Orleans build

Let’s go surf again!
Afternoon and morning waves
Bus films – Jackie Chan

Detour on return
For dark, bittersweet chocolate
Yes, it is that good

New eye prescription
So much cheaper than at home
Might yet get new frames

To Bohol Bee Farm
Relaxing in a hammock
Organic salads

Tarsiers, Chocolate Hills
Tourist highlights of Bohol
For me, it’s Nuts Huts

Walking up river
Swimming to the waterfall
Mountains surrounding

On to Palawan
They call it the Last Frontier
It’s off on its own

Underground River
UNESCO Heritage Site
Natural beauty

Hiking to and from
Monkey Trail and Jungle Trail
Plus I took a boat

Puerto Princesa
Center where Mercedes works
Quiet New Year’s Eve

Honda Bay islands
Firefly mangrove paddle
And a city tour

Two thousand nine ends
My time here will end soon too
I have loved it here!

Some Pictures from Week Twenty-Three

2010-01-06T05:18:00.000-08:00

Flag ceremony:

The beach at Sabang:

Underground river:

Monkey:

Monitor lizard:

Jungle trail:

Snake Island:

Pandan Island:

A maximum-security prisoner:

Ready to roll on the river:

Iwahig River mangrove paddle:

Palawan

2010-01-05T05:13:00.000-08:00

December 30 was Rizal Day – with New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day off as well (not sure if they are holidays every year or just this year to make a five-day weekend) I made my way to Palawan, the island nicknamed “The Last Frontier.” The most beautiful parts, El Nido and Coron, with their limestone outcroppings, were not on my itinerary (I have to leave some things for another visit!). What was – the underground river and a visit to fellow PCRV Mercedes.

I landed at 9:30, and not wanting to wait for a noon jeepney, I took a two-and-a-half hour tricycle ride to Sabang. Found a cottage at the end of the long white-sand beach and got my park permit. I had heard that the best thing about the underground river was hiking the rugged trails there and back and I found that to be the case – though due to the timing, I walked out along the Monkey Trail in the afternoon and took a boat back, and then took a boat out in the morning and walked the Jungle Trail back. I’m glad it worked out that way; hiking both ways in one day would have been a lot. The paths take you through several ecosystems – coastal forest, karst forest and swamp to name a few – and I did see monkeys, though I saw them by the restrooms and not in the forest. Monitor lizards, too!

The underground river itself is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It may be the longest navigable underground river in the world. We took a paddleboat inside the cave, with dripping water, hanging bats, flying swiftlets. I had planned to stay in Sabang for two nights, but when Mercedes said that she was coming back from Manila and that we should spend New Year’s Eve together, I tore myself away from the beach.

First we went to the center where Mercedes works – she is training the teachers, who work with autistic and Down’s syndrome children. The center is in need of just about everything, and her living situation is rustic (no mattress and no privacy, for example!). I don’t know if I could have done it. She said that she missed having other PCVs nearby, so I am glad I at least visited. The people who run the center are one big extended family (with its own soap opera), and they invited us to New Year’s Eve dinner. I learned that another tradition is to bring something round, for prosperity in the new year, and we brought some pastries. We stayed for a while and then went back to our hotel, where we played the Filipino version of mancala, called sunka; I haven’t played it enough to be good at it, so tips on strategy would be welcome! We also played a version of Syzygy/Bananagrams with Scrabble tiles, and I played some solitaire – the first games I have played since I got to the Philippines! We didn’t go downtown for the big fireworks, but our hotel had some firecrackers.

The next day, we went island-hopping in Honda Bay, on the Sulu Sea. When I was in Indonesia last year I learned about the Wallace line, which separates more Asiatic flora and fauna from more Australian ones, and Palawan is on the other side of the line from the rest of the Philippines. Sure enough, I did see things I hadn’t seen elsewhere – colorful fish, starfish, sand dollars and sea urchins, to name a few. I’d say the flora looked different too, but that might be only because I knew I was on the other side of the line. The islands differed from those in the Caramoan peninsula – for one thing, I didn’t have them all to myself! Long beaches – on Snake Island I took a long walk (collected trash and now I am retired – I gave the rubber gloves to Mercedes for her center) and on Pandan Island I walked all the way around. On those and Cowrie island, I also took long swims in the beautiful turquoise water. That night, we took a firefly cruise – paddling under the full moon, with fireflies flashing like holiday lights in the trees.

The next day we took a city tour. First, we went to Iwahig prison, known for having inmates roaming freely (they wear shirts labeled with the severity of their crimes), and then we went back to the river where we had the firefly cruise, this time doing a mangrove paddle in the light of day. There are so many species of mangroves! Hard to believe the Pasig River might have looked like this before the Spanish came! We went to a WWII memorial (Americans were in the tunnels – the Japanese poured gasoline in them and killed the people who didn’t just burn to death), the cathedral and the Baywalk. With that we saw the highlights of Puerto Princesa!

The next day, we went to a small and faded resort on the other side of the city – with a mangrove shoreline and a tiny swimming pool, it was a place to relax and read. We also went to a western-style café for lattes and a Mexican restaurant for dinner. This wasn’t the perfect trip – I was overcharged for transport several times (failure to negotiate well?) and one of the hotels had lost our reservation – but it made me appreciate all the more the mostly-smooth travels I have had on other trips here. I got more bites (sandfly, I think) than I got on all other trips combined – or maybe it just seems that way. Palawan is the one place in the Philippines with chloroquine-resistant malaria, but since the PCMO ran out of chloroquine a while ago, I have been taking the other medication (it wasn’t prescribed for me in Manila, but since I have been traveling so much they put me on it). I don’t think I got any mosquito bites there, but I got several on Sunday night when I came back and went out for a drink with Julie, Jonathan and Charlie! I might otherwise have gone straight to bed, but it was a chance to see Julie before she left for a two-week vacation with her sister, and it was nice to see the others too and compare New Year’s stories. Happy 2010!

Some Pictures from Week Twenty-Two

2010-01-01T00:33:00.000-08:00

Bohol Bee Farm cottage:

Bohol Bee Farm salad:

View from the hammock:

View from the deck:

Tarsier:

Chocolate Hills, looking brown:

Peace Pole at the Chocolate Hills:

Loboc Church:

My Nuts Hut:

The coco massage reflexology walk:

View from the hut:

Loboc River waterfall:

Loboc River swim:

Traditions

2009-12-31T00:33:00.000-08:00

To say that Christmas is a big deal in the Philippines is an understatement. The malls have been decorated and the holiday tunes have been playing for months now. December was a month of parties, and for many there is travel to one’s home province. I haven’t really heard people talk about gifts, though that’s a part of it (at the office there were some little gifts exchanged). The devotions and prayers are prominent year-round, but they have escalated with the Christmas theme. There are also lots of random fireworks and gunshots this time of year (not a good thing).

Filipinos celebrate Christmas with a novena – for the nine days before Christmas, they rise early for 4:30 am mass. Christmas Eve itself is the big night, Noche Buena. Families go to midnight mass and then come home and have a big feast. Presents can be exchanged that night or the next day. People also text all of their friends and family on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day (which is another family day). There are Filipino-specific decorations – big, colorful stars and round balls made of abaca fiber, capiz-shell lights hanging from the trees.

Another tradition is the weekly flag ceremony; on the way to the Habitat build last month I passed the ceremony that was taking place at Pasig City Hall; one of the PCVs told me that every city, town and village has a flag ceremony every Monday morning at 7:30 am. I thought it would be interesting to go back some time, and this week was the time! I had the bonus of seeing City Hall all decorated for Christmas. Different groups of municipal workers stand in different spots – the city police here, the traffic enforcers there, the “green police” elsewhere, etc. While we were waiting, a marching band played Stevie Wonder tunes (unexpected) and “Nobody, nobody but you” (not sure if hearing it in marching-band version improved it). Then city officials came out (I was hoping to see the mayor, whose picture is everywhere, but he was on leave this week). They played the national anthem and raised the flag, while everyone saluted. Then there was some sort of oath that everyone took. And then there was a prayer. Then, members of the band took the stage to sing what sounded like a Pasig City anthem, and many of the workers sang along, full of emotion. There were some speeches, and then everyone went to work (including me!).

I’ll add that my travel last week was stress-free – no holiday mob at the airport, nobody confiscating my bottle of water, nobody caring that my sunscreen bottle was more than three ounces. I was already thinking about how unpleasant it is going to be back in the U.S. when I heard about the latest threat that was thwarted. Being frisked before you get on the plane? Hey, I get that every time I go to the Mega Mall or take the MRT!

An interesting side note, from the owner of Nuts Huts – he’s been in the business a while and he thinks travelers – even backpackers – aren’t as independent as they used to be. He said they want everything taken care of for them, and while he can arrange trips on Bohol, he’s not a travel agent for the rest of the Philippines. This echoes what the long-time Peace Corps Program Manager said about PCVs these days compared to years ago. If backpackers and Peace Corps Volunteers want everything handed to them, what does that say about the rest of society?

Another tradition here is that when a person celebrates a birthday, he or she treats everyone else. On Monday I’ll buy pizza for the office; earlier this week I treated some of my fellow PCRVs to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. It was fun!

Oh – and Water Charity agreed to fund the smallest village in the Mindanao proposal, as a start. Check out http://watercharity.org/node/125. Donations welcome!

My new Tagalog phrase of the week – Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! New Year’s is also marked with fireworks. Happy New Year, everyone!

Tarsiers, the Chocolate Hills, and Nuts Huts

2009-12-30T00:32:00.000-08:00

Bohol is the best place to view tarsiers, one of the world’s smallest primates (they'd fit in the palm of your hand). And the best place on Bohol to see them is at the Tarsier Sanctuary and Breeding Center. These 45-million-year-old primates have eyes that are bigger than their brains or stomachs, a rat-like tail twice as long as their bodies, and are totally carnivorous (they eat insects). One picture on display was split down the middle – half of the face of a tarsier, half Yoda. They are also nocturnal – which means they don’t do a lot during the day other than hang onto a tree and sleep (hm, sounds like me in the hammock). But that makes them easier to see and photograph! These creatures are endangered, due to habitat destruction and the illegal pet trade. Tarsiers are easily stressed when caged – their lifespan can shrink from 20 years to 12 months! – and when handled, their bones are easily broken. Amazing wildlife!

And then I went on to Nuts Huts, a tricycle, jeepney and boat ride away (well, you don’t have to take the boat, but then you have to walk 750 meters on a rough path and down 278 steps!); this was Kate’s recommendation and another unique place to stay. My boat ride on the Loboc River went past Nuts Huts at first for a bonus trip to a waterfall. I checked into my hut and went for a swim in the river, surrounded by mountains and palm trees. I had said I wouldn’t swim in any fresh water but I think they would have told me if it wasn’t safe!

The next morning I went on to the Chocolate Hills. The name alone might have been enough to pique my interest. Hearing that it was a unique geological formation might have been enough. But a unique geological formation called the Chocolate Hills, with a classic postcard shot used on many of the Philippine tourism office’s advertisements? Sign me up! It was a bus ride away and then a walk up to one of the hills, from the top of which you can see others all around. The formation is thought to have been caused by coral rising up and eroding down; there are 1268 mounds. They were given their name because of the brown color that the hills turn in the dry season; they were mostly green when I was there, but that’s okay. Since you were going to ask, the Bohol Bee Farm did sell hill-shaped chocolate truffles, and I had one.

That afternoon, I hiked along the river, though rice fields, and past houses into the town of Loboc, where I saw the second-oldest Spanish church in the Philippines. That night, I stayed up in the restaurant after lights-out to see the fireflies gather under the roof (there was an ad for a firefly cruise some ways out of town, and I thought about going, but it would have been difficult logistically – plus the owner said the fireflies were down this year because it wasn’t as wet as usual, due to El Nino – and also, there were irresistible hammocks here too).

Nuts Huts had some wonderful touches – CDs on the wall with painted country flags representing the nationalities of the guests currently staying (each day that I was there, flags of at least nine different countries were displayed!), a coconut-shell barefoot-reflexology massage walk that I took every time I went to or from the restaurant, an herbal steam sauna. Many people come thinking that they will stay overnight and end up staying for several days; truly a backpacker haven. But my favorite thing – maybe of the whole weekend – was swimming across the river and walking upstream on the dirt path (barefoot – another thing the health manual might take issue with…) towards the waterfall. Where the path ended, I jumped in and swam against the current – my own “endless pool.” I made some headway and passed the first waterfall but I couldn’t fight my way all the way to the second waterfall. Then I drifted for a while and, when the current weakened, swam back to the hotel!

In my idle moments I thought about what I would do if I ever came back to the Philippines to show it to a theoretical friend who might not have been able to visit me during these six months but wanted to go another time. Up to the Cordillera for sure – Baguio and maybe Sagada, Banaue and Batad or another rice terrace hike, and maybe San Juan for more surfing. Maybe a couple of spa days at The Farm! And a beach place. Until Bohol, I’d have leaned towards seeing something I hadn’t seen yet – Coron and El Nido, on Palawan, are supposed to be spectacular, with island-hopping and limestone outcroppings. Or Donsol, with whale sharks (and the better-known firefly cruise). But now I might consider Bohol, for these two special places to stay and to swim up that river again (there’s also horseback riding and bike riding from Nuts Huts, a long white sand beach that I didn’t get to, dolphin-watching, and more….).

The Bohol Bee Farm

2009-12-29T00:31:00.000-08:00

The PCVs I got to know when I first got here gave me some good travel tips, and both Travis and Kate highly recommended Bohol, in the Visayas. So months ago, I made my plans to go there for the weekend (Christmas Eve was a holiday here, though it may not be one every year – it made for a four-day weekend, which was nice).

Travis had recommended the Bohol Bee Farm. It was a bit of a splurge for those on a PCV budget (i.e., the equivalent of $40 a night) and a wonderful place! This small organic farm has some delicious food – my favorite was the organic salad with edible flowers and honey-mustard dressing. It has some great products – I had to take home some of the pesto spread, honey spread and mango spread, plus some royal jelly moisturizer and papaya soap (they also gave me a little Christmas gift bag with some honey). And I found moscovado sugar! This makes me two-thirds of the way to the Dark, Bittersweet Chocolate recipe from Café by the Ruins, so I’m reprinting it here. I don’t have much hope for finding fresh carabao milk when I get home (in fact, I don’t think it’s that easy to get fresh cow milk!), but maybe store-bought heavy cream will do. I think tableas can be found in a Mexican grocery store. And moscovado sugar? Maybe it’s easy enough to find too! Here it is:

Dark, Bittersweet Chocolate
9 tableas unsweetened tablea chocolate
1 cup heavy carabao cream
¾ cup moscovado sugar
9-10 demitasses
Scrape chocolate into flakes
In heatproof bowl, mix with sugar
Bring cream to boiling point – that is, when it rises up and threatens to boil over
Immediately pour over powder
Tap bowl to settle the chocolate into the cream – let it sit for one minute
Using rubber spatula, slowly stir in circular motion, starting from the center and working out, until all chocolate is melted – 2 minutes
Make sure it is smooth
It can be kept for two weeks in the refrigerator or freezer
To use, warm amount needed in double boiler
As beverage, serve hot in demitasse

I had a couple of treatments at the Bohol Bee Farm, too, in their spa by the Bohol Sea. The evening I got there, a traditional hilot massage (I had been hoping to have one of these – nice, but I can’t tell you what made it different from a typical western massage), and the next morning, a scrub with honey, coconut and ginger. There wasn’t a beach (so no beach cleanup!) but there was a deck over the sea, and there was a pool. I spent an unusually short amount of time in the water – mainly because I found a hammock and, once there, I didn’t want to leave it! When it got too sunny, I moved from the hammock down to the deck and sat there for a while. And then I sat in a lounge chair by the spa. And then I went to a hammock chair – I read and napped and lived in the moment. My vacation to the north, while not frenzied, was quite active – this trip was more about relaxing and doing nothing! After dinner, I went down to see the stars – Orion is on his side here.

Cat's Tongues and Fancy Sweets

2009-12-28T01:14:00.000-08:00

When I was in Baguio in September, I bought some cookies called Lenguas de Gato (cat’s tongues), a specialty of the region. Somehow (I don’t know why) I didn’t open the package until recently and they are yummy! So not only did I buy more this past weekend, but I also looked up a recipe. I’m ovenless here, but looking forward to making them.

LENGUAS DE GATO RECIPE
http://www.applepiepatispate.com/filipino/lenguas-de-gato-cookies/
Makes about 70 small cookies
Ingredients:
Unsalted butter 8 tbsp
Confectioners sugar 3/4 cup
Salt pinch
Vanilla extracts 1/4 tsp
Lemon zest 1/8 tsp
All-purpose flour 3/4 cup
Whites from large eggs 2
Notes:
Have all of the ingredients at room temperature before continuing.
The use of confectioner’s sugar maximizes the cookie spread and minimizes the amount of aeration in the cookie dough when mixing. It also gives the cookie a finer texture.
Special Equipment:
A pastry bag
A #11 or #12 round pastry tip (about 1/4-inch opening)
To Prepare Lenguas de Gato – “Cat’s Tongue” Cookies:
Preheat Oven 400ºF / 205ºC
Prepare two half-sheet pans or cookie sheets lined with parchment or silicone mats.
Mix - Using a rubber spatula, mix together the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and lemon zest until smooth.
Gently fold in half of the flour. Slowly mix in the egg whites followed by the rest of the flour. Continue mixing only until thoroughly incorporated.
Pipe - Put the cookie dough in a pastry bag fitted with a round pastry tip (about 1/4-inch opening). Pipe the dough onto the prepared pans in 2 1/2-inch lengths.
Space the piped dough at least 1 1/2 inches apart to allow for spread.
Bake - Bake at 400ºF / 205ºC for 6 to 8 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned and the middle is still pale.
Cool - Immediately transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. The cookies will be pliable straight from the oven but will crisp within minutes.
Chocolate Lenguas de Gato Variation:
Omit the lemon zest and replace one-fifth of the flour with unsweetened cocoa powder.

While we were in the store buying the Lenguas de Gato, Julie noticed Alfajor cookies; her mother is Argentinean and her sister makes these cookies. So I bought some of those and they too are delicious! Web sites say they are South American but they can also be found in Baguio! The name is derived from Arabic (as I could have guessed – the archetypal cookie is from the Middle East and it made its way to Andalusian Spain) and it means fancy or great sweets. These seem more complicated to make (though Julie says it’s easy; when her sister makes them she buys the dulce de leche) but I am eager to give it a try!

ALFAJOR RECIPE
From dianasdesserts.com
For the Dulce de Leche Filling:
2 cups milk
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons brown sugar
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 stick (1 oz/28g) unsalted butter
For the Cookie Dough:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 stick (2 oz/56g) butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Few drops of rum (optional)
Pinch of grated lemon peel (optional)
For Garnish: (optional)
Confectioners' sugar
Dark chocolate, melted
Milk chocolate, melted
Instructions:
Prepare the Filling:
Boil the milk with the sugars, salt and baking soda. Let it cook for about 1 1/2 hours on a very low flame (if cooking on an electric stovetop, cook on low heat), stirring regularly. Cover the pot with plastic wrap and place pot inside a larger pot with boiling water. Cook for another 1 1/2 hours. The mixture should get sticky and become caramelized. Remove from heat, add butter and vanilla extract, stir and allow to cool.
Prepare the Cookie Dough:
Mix all the ingredients together to make a thick dough. If it is too dry, add some water. Refrigerate the dough for 2 hours. Remove and let stand to soften. Roll out dough to 1/8 of an inch thick and use a floured 2 to 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter to cut cookie dough into circles.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 C). Bake the cookies for about 8 to 10 minutes, until the tops are a very pale golden brown. Cool completely on wire racks. When ready to eat, spread dulce de leche cream between 2 cookie rounds. If desired, cover with melted chocolate or confectioner's sugar.
Cook's Tips:
If you opt to cover the cookies with chocolate, melt the dark chocolate and milk chocolate together on top of the stove (over very low heat) or in a microwave oven.
You may prepare the dulce de leche ahead of time and store, covered, in the refrigerator.
In place of the rum, try using rum extract or add an extra 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the cookie dough.
Recipe makes enough cookies to serve 4 people.

Some Pictures from Week Twenty-One

2009-12-27T05:01:00.000-08:00

Habitat holiday party:

Manilenos holiday party:

La Union sunset:

The San Juan hotel strip - about as unpretentious as it gets:

Julie and I are ready to shoot the curl:

This may or may not be me, but that's what I looked like out there:

Dark, bittersweet chocolate at Cafe by the Ruins:

Status, Santa and Surfing

2009-12-26T01:13:00.000-08:00

When I was at the Peace Corps office I asked Milo, the Peace Corps Response Coordinator, for some facts and figures on the program so that I can incorporate those into the Third Goal presentation that I’ll start working on one of these days. I learned from the info he gave me that there are 29 Peace Corps Response Volunteers currently serving. And ten of them are here in the Philippines! I would have guessed that there were more elsewhere. Well, now I feel I am a part of an exclusive club! Not as exclusive as the one of men who have walked on the moon, but close! PCRVs are currently in ten countries; since the inception of the program in 1996, over 900 have served.

I thought I might start that presentation soon after giving the Morocco one, with Third Goal fresh in the mind, but work has been busy! I still haven’t really met with my supervisor about the status report I put together but I know what I would do next, which is a more formal marketing plan for the organization to use going forward, so I am working on that. Somewhere in my memory are the elements of a formal marketing plan, but it’s been a while, so it’s taking a while. My supervisor also gave me a small project – writing up a Power Point presentation that will be given to foundation that funded community centers. I’ve spent some work hours looking into the Katrina-area build that I’m hoping to organize for the spring while also working to set up more PCV builds here. A PCV I met at International Volunteer Day invited me to his site on work-related leave – he wants to do small business development with indigenous tribes – and I wrote up the leave request for that. But the most exciting thing is a breakthrough on the water system proposal for Mindanao. I wrote about it here a few posts ago, and someone from Water Charity (watercharity.org) found me! He searches blogs for PCV water projects and then he funds them! I passed his comment on to PCV groups in the Philippines and in Morocco and then it occurred to me to send him our proposal. One skype call later and he agreed to fund the water system for the smallest community immediately and to look for funding for the rest! When our project is on their web site I’ll post again so you, too, can donate to it! I’m thrilled.

We had a Christmas lunch at work last week, sponsored by the Board. The usual food – lumpia (spring rolls), pancit (noodles), fried chicken, buko (coconut)/gelatin dessert. And there were games – good, clean office fun, as Julie said. We had to identify the Christmas carol from pun-cartoons (I won a prize for that one). Teams had to guess the board member (one person had the name taped to his forehead so he couldn’t see it, and he asked yes-or-no questions), teams raced to unwrap Hershey’s kisses while wearing oven mitts, each board member chose an animal sound and popped up from behind a wall while team reps made the sounds (I tried to imagine the board of any other organization I have been involved with doing this), and then someone read a story while we passed presents around, and when the story ended, that’s what we got – as in a five-year-old birthday party, everyone ended up with a prize. It was really nice. I am on the silent side of a quiet office – everyone is usually at their desks working, so I don’t chat much with people here, but over the course of these months I’ve gotten to know most of the them at least a little and it’s a really nice group. I’ll miss them!

Last Wednesday night, Drew cooked Jamaican food for us (that’s where he served) – he ET’ed and this was his farewell dinner. He’s going to grad school starting in January; the original timing would have worked perfectly for him but once our departure was delayed, he knew he would be ETing. End of an era! As for me, I’m glad for the timing, now – more summer back home, less winter here, and it’s nice to experience the holidays here. Friday night there was another party at the guys’ place – combination birthday for Jonathan, final farewell for Drew, and holiday. It was fun but it went late! May Lynn, a regular PCV who I’ve become friendly with, stayed over, and we stayed up even later, exchanging pictures; she also gave me some music – both Filipino music and some of the overplayed music that I hear all the time and that will always remind me of my time here – Nobody, Nobody But You, Pokerface, and Jai Ho are probably the top three.

Going to bed late made it hard to get up early but it was worth it to be surfing on Saturday afternoon! Julie and I made it up to San Juan, La Union in time to surf for two hours before the sun set. I love it! It’s fun, and I’ve got a bit of a knack for it. It took a while to get into a rhythm, but then – with help from the same instructor – I rode lots of waves! We went back to the same place where I’d had the Bicol Express and had it again. And then we surfed again in the morning! She’s from California and she noted how nice it was to surf without a wet suit. I hadn’t thought of that! So now I’m wondering if I can go again before I leave the Philippines! I do have unscheduled time and can swing the travel – if Julie (and possibly the rest of the gang?) can go, I’m up for it! When am I going to have the chance again – especially in warm water and especially for the price (two-hour board and lesson, plus transport, for around $20!)?

Our bus trip up to San Juan featured several movies. They’re almost always action movies – I don’t think I have ever seen a romantic comedy on a bus. We endured “2012” and then became big Jackie Chan fans with “Rush Hour” and “Rush Hour 2.” I’m not much for pirated DVDs, but when I saw the Jackie Chan collection for sale, I bought it as a present for Julie. “Shanghai Noon” awaits! Our trip back to Manila featured a major detour to Baguio for late lunch/early dinner at Café by the Ruins. More mango shrimp curry and this time fresh strawberry juice – but of course the raison d’etre was the dark, bittersweet chocolate, and as far as I’m concerned, it was worth the detour!

I found the DVD in yet another mall; my reason for going there was an appointment with the Peace Corps-approved eye doctor. My glasses were scratched to the point where the lenses needed replacement, and as long as I’m getting that done I’m updating the prescription. I’m thinking of buying new frames at my own expense when I go back to pick them up – as a stranger mentioned in a blog comment long, long ago, glasses are MUCH cheaper here (I paid $714 last time in the US – the number sticks with me because of Babe Ruth – and here, the doctor showed me a nice pair of frames for $60). I needed to get back to Julie with the DVD so I didn’t want to spend the time looking and trying frames on, but next time I’ll allow time for it. It might be fun to have a new look!

I learned two new phrases – just in time! Maligayang Pasko (Merry Christmas) at (and) Manigong Bagong Taon (Happy New Year)!

I’ll close with a link to an article that talks about the sobering reality of politics here - http://www.slate.com/id/2237774

Month Four in Haiku (Better Late Than Never)

2009-12-25T07:05:00.000-08:00

The Farm – what a treat!
Gourmet vegan, some treatments
Meditation too

A peaceful setting
Yoga, time with friend Mary
The Farm – com – p – h

Makati respite
Run for the River 5K
Greenhills for more pearls

Some email appeals
U-S-A-I-D and more
Funding proposals

Day for Veterans
‘Merican Cemetery
The Ambassador

H-F-H-I guests
Some sustainability?
Global Engagement

Calauan again
Marikina repair kits
Along the floodway

On to Mindoro!
Rescheduled due to Santi
Friends, food, sun, sand, swims!

The Habitat build
Peace Corps Volunteers and friends
Three days of hard work!

Gravel and sand moved
Concrete interlocking blocks
Painting the stair rails

Recreation day
Pristine forest at Subic
With Aeta guide

A long vacation
North – coast and then the mountains
The transition point

Vigan – old Spanish
UNESCO World Heritage
Colonial town

Then, still farther north
Lighthouse, windmills, beach
Malacanang north

San Juan, La Union
Afternoon reading, walks
Bicol Express – yum!

Let’s go surfing now!
Baguio – night in a hut
Bittersweet choc-late

On to Sagada
Cordillera hippie town
Some breathtaking views

Coffins- hanging, stacked
Thanksgiving with PCVs
Hike, shop, eat, relax

Bontoc stop – mus’eem
Ricefield rest – then bouncy ride
On to Banaue

Ifugao rice ter-
-races UNESCO World Site
Tasty fried rice, too

Trekking in Batad
Across the rice terraces
Maybe favorite day

Amphitheatre
Down to waterfall and back
I felt so at peace

One last plate of rice
And then a long trip back home
What a great country!

Build – nice PCVs
Trip pals – Mary, Julie, Bill
And Sagada – lots!

A wonderful month
People, places, things to do
Took four weeks to tell!

Some Pictures from Week Twenty

2009-12-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

Another view of Shangri-La:

Our T-shirt:

The fruit vendor:

Island-hopping:

Offloading bags – and people! – from the boat:

Mt. Isarog (closer to where I was than Mayon is):

Some Pictures from Week Nineteen

2009-12-23T05:32:00.000-08:00

International Volunteer Day:

This is a critical habitat and ecotourism area!!!

All these people and we barely made a dent:

PCVs picking up:

Shangri-La Mall:

Mega Mall:

Milo and his peeps:

Some More Pictures from Week Eighteen (Banaue and Batad)

2009-12-22T05:19:00.000-08:00

Bontoc footbridge and rice field:

The 1000-peso view:

The scale of Banaue:

Ready to trek:

The view from the top:

Actual Ifugao hut:

The steepness:

The path:

The amphitheatre:

Tappia Waterfall:

Rice at the rice terraces:

Bulol and Buong:

Some Pictures from Week Eighteen (San Juan, Baguio, Sagada)

2009-12-21T04:44:00.000-08:00

My afternoon spot:

Surf's up!

San Juan sunset:

Bicol Express:

Hut sweet hut:

Rice guard and me:

We're in the mountains now!

More scenery from the bus ride:

Thanksgiving morning:

Sagada town:

Echo Valley:

The start of the hike to the small waterfall:

Hosing myself off:

Rice terrace view:

Woodland path:

if you look closely in the middle towards the bottom, you can see hanging coffins:

Stacked coffins and me, for scale:

Museum artifacts:

Sagada Weaving (and other) treasures:

Batad, Belting and Back

2009-12-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

When we got to the view at the top of the amphitheatre, Rachel told us the next part of the hike was optional – down through the village, across the rice terraces, and then another optional part down to the Tappia waterfall and back up. Well, since we hadn’t had to climb the steep uphill between the Junction and the Saddle, I was game, and Bill was persuaded as well. We picked our way through the terraces along the stone walls, sometimes going up or down stone steps that jutted out just enough for a toehold. We went past fields in all stages of rice production, from flooded dirt to sprouting to growing blades to ready-to-harvest. The intensive labor required to keep these is amazing – people spend all day tending the fields, and also eat snails and fish that they catch there. We passed some traditional Ifugao huts and Rachel showed us the poles with discs to keep rats out, the big mortar and pestle, the winnowing baskets, the chicken coops, the retractable ladders, the grass roofs (though more and more there are corrugated-metal roofs now).

At the other side of the amphitheatre, Bill decided to stop for a rest, and Rachel and I went down some steep steps (they became even steeper on the way back up) to the waterfall, where Johnny, Janet and May Lynn had spent the morning (Janet is the Australian volunteer I met in Baguio way back when and I have seen May Lynn several times – I am glad that they were the volunteers here at the same time). So never mind the small waterfall in Sagada – I had a nice view here! No dip though – I didn’t want to leave Bill alone for too long (though he was fine, chatting with all the trekkers that came through in both directions). Reunited, Rachel took us up the back of the amphitheatre so we had another way to get back to the top (my camera battery died at the waterfall, but I’ll get copies of everyone else’s – this was quite a vantage point). We had pre-ordered lunch – more vegetable fried rice for me! – and then we hiked back up to the Saddle and then down the steep slope to the Junction (no jeepney hitchhiking – which I’m glad about! It was a nice walk down the part we hadn’t walked up).

I had thought about it when I planned the trip, and a Filipino mentioned it to us on the jeepney in Baguio, and PCVs were talking about it in Sagada, but somehow, on that hike down into Batad, I completely forgot that it was on that trail that PCV Julia Campbell was murdered a few years ago (maybe it was the female mojo, or other Batad magic; interestingly, some of the volunteers who had gone on the way to Sagada said they felt spooked. I felt anything but). She was alone, out of site, and it was random violence, but it’s hard to fathom.

Back in Banaue, Bill went off to shower and Johnny took May Lynn, Janet and me shopping. Then he offered to serenade us with a friend at a local restaurant. The friend, Derek, had a guitar and a beautiful voice. I haven’t done any videoke yet here but now was my time to sing. Derek sang a few songs and asked for requests. He looked at me and I went completely blank (my second time here – the first time was when Mr. Jugo asked me to speak at a Monday devotion). Janet went blank too, and May Lynn asked for some Beatles. Good answer – why didn’t I think of that? We were pressured/encouraged to sing, and it was fun to sing along, though I realize I am really shy when it comes to singing in public! Other than The Star-Spangled Banner and Take Me Out To The Ballgame, I can’t remember the last time I sang with a group of people.

The owner of the restaurant joined us and also played and sang, and he had extra food brought out for us. We made our way through Beatles songs. I love Simon and Garfunkel but realized that many of the songs require key changes that I couldn’t handle well. I found myself singing alone in a pin-drop-quiet restaurant when it came to “Words,” the old Bee Gees song. I think if I’m ever asked to sing again here, that’ll be my song! They sang some “OPM” (Original Pinoy Music – I would like to get some, but most of what I hear here is our music – for example, I don’t know if it’s big there, but the big song here is “Nobody nobody but you”). It was a great way to spend our last night of vacation!

Bill, May Lynn and Janet left early the next morning; I got up to see them off. Bill had been with me from the beginning but wanted to get back and do laundry etc. I decided I wasn’t in such a rush. I had another massage in my room and walked around the town. Then I went to another museum, this one connected with our hotel (and with the Yale anthropologist). Katie and Theo, who we had met at consolidation – and she came to the build while he was in the hospital – and who we had seen in Sagada – came into town on their way back to Manila. Drew was up and around by then, so we all went for a late breakfast for the guys and early lunch (more vegetable fried rice!) for the gals. Drew and I then took a jeepney to another jeepney to maybe the coldest air-con bus yet (but since I had thought it would be cold in the mountains, at least I had things to wear – I hadn’t used them much otherwise!). I finished my mystery just after it got dark (thanks to the flashlight on my phone and then Drew’s headlamp). We got to Manila around midnight, which was perfect. It’s taken a while to tell the tale – I hope I’ve conveyed that it was a wonderful trip. Now for some pictures!

The Ifugao Rice Terraces

2009-12-19T00:46:00.000-08:00

We left Sagada early in the morning for the jeepney ride to Bontoc – another twisty mountain road with magnificent views on both sides. We went to the local museum - more huts, weavings, baskets, carvings, photographs of tribal elders – and a nice gift shop, where I bought a buong (good luck symbol) necklace and earrings and a bulol (rice god or rice guard, depending on who you talk to – either way it keeps out pests and prevents calamities). We headed for a 10:00 jeepney only to find out it was a noon jeepney! Did the travel luck run out? No – we walked to the edge of town, where I had spied a footbridge on the way in, crossed it and sat by a terraced rice field, talking, eating Yoghurt House cookies and be-ing. The driver had said to check back at 11:00 and when we did, they were waiting for us – we got on and took off, on yet another fun ride, this time to Banaue.

From the UNESCO site (and also from an entry posted long ago): The Ifugao Rice Terraces are the priceless contribution of Philippine ancestors to humanity. Built 2000 years ago, reaching a higher altitude and being built on steeper slopes than many other terraces, the Ifugao complex of stone or mud walls and the careful carving of the natural contours of hills and mountains to make terraced pond fields, coupled with the development of intricate irrigation systems, harvesting water from the forests of the mountain tops, and an elaborate farming system, reflect a mastery of engineering that is appreciated to the present [sic].

Banaue’s rice terraces are featured on the 1000-peso bill (so now I have seen the kasbah on the back of the 50-dirham bill and the view on the back of the 1000-peso bill); we took a tricycle up to the view point (actually several view points) and marveled. We’d seen rice terraces already, all along, but this was on a scale we hadn’t seen yet – a huge valley with the mountains all around terraced. And they’ve been doing this for 2000 years! We then went down to the tourist office, where we arranged a hike for the next day (some of the PCVs in Sagada had gone to Banaue on the way up and recommended two guides – two volunteers left Sagada earlier, didn’t stop in Bontoc and were trekking overnight with one, Johnny, and we took the other, Rachel, who had, as the volunteer who recommended her said, “good female mojo.”) Then we went to a restaurant with a terrace view (hard not to have one) and I had vegetable fried rice! It’s a special – tasty – red rice that grows there. We then went to our hotel, the Banaue View Inn (the other Tam-awan hut-guest had recommended it, but description of the owner as the granddaughter of a Yale anthropologist had already piqued my interest). It was time for single rooms – the pension was fun but I didn’t sleep that well there. It was also time for a hot shower, but due to some heater mixup, there was none to be had that day….

The next day, Bill, Rachel and I went on an hour-long tricycle ride to Batad Junction – after that it gets too steep for the tricycle. Luckily, Rachel hitched us a ride on a jeepney up to Batad Saddle, and she had brought along walking sticks. We hiked down the trail to the top of Batad village, and I decided it was my favorite place in the Philippines so far, if not my Best New Place of 2009. The amphitheatre of terraces – this with stone walls as opposed to Banaue’s earth ones – made it seem a magical, special place.

Another Day in Sagada

2009-12-18T06:45:00.000-08:00

On Friday morning, someone made French toast with pumpkin topping, and then I joined a group that was going out for a little hike. We went to a mountain viewpoint and a rice terrace viewpoint; all of the walks and meals were nice opportunities to talk with different sets of people. The group was then headed for the small waterfall, but stopping at the pension first. I decided to check in with Bill and Drew – have to look out for my PCRV peeps (Julie was originally going to join us, but she had an opportunity to attend orientations for new Habitat relief communities in Pangasinan, a Pepeng-affected province, and decided that that would be a meaningful way to spend Thanksgiving. She also went to a beach on the Lingayen Gulf, where MacArthur had landed on his Luzon offensive. I had that opportunity as well but did not change my long-standing plans for it. We kept texting for her to join us, but she went on home instead. Charlie and Jonathan went to the Country Director’s house for a multi-cultural Thanksgiving; that also sounded like fun!). They were just going out for coffee, so I went to join them. We walked through the cemetery to the Echo Valley overlook to see the hanging coffins there, and then on to lunch at a Sagada favorite called the Yoghurt House.

One of the main attractions of Sagada is caving, but I decided I didn’t feel like doing that (ironically, one of the reasons is that I didn’t feel like getting all dirty – that is, I had decided this before falling in the mud). There were others who also didn’t want to (the beauty of a big group); we went to the cave mouth, where about 150 coffins are stacked. The coffins are small, because people are put there in a fetal position. When they die they are put in a chair, a party is held around them, and then they are transported to a waiting empty coffin. The tradition is dying out though (I couldn’t resist). Our little group then went on for lemon pie and split up to do some other things in town.

First I went to a museum, which had not only artifacts of the region but an owner who walked around the room explaining how everything was used. Baskets, woodcarvings, weavings, beads – how resourceful the mountain tribes were (and, in some places, still are)! One thing that stuck in my mind, though – she said that everyone ate out of a communal dish and turned the bowl over; with no water for dishwashing, the cockroaches cleaned the rest of the food out of the overturned bowl. Okay, thanks for the tour! The Yoghurt House has great chocolate chip cookies and I bought some for travel food. Sagada Weaving has bags and accessories that it seems every PCV in the Philippines has, so I got a couple of things there too.

I then started towards the small waterfall, on a path from the other side – no mud. Instead, three or four dogs came towards me, barking. They seemed determined not to let me pass. And I was alone. So I decided the small waterfall was not meant to be! Finally, another small group went out to dinner, and then with everyone (especially the cavers, but the rest of us had done a lot of walking too) tired, it was another mellow evening of conversation by the fire.

Sagada Thanksgiving

2009-12-17T06:45:00.000-08:00

We walked to the bus station and once again got right on a bus – I don’t know how often the buses for Vigan, San Juan or Baguio leave, but I was told that the Sagada buses left Baguio hourly, and we were lucky that one was just leaving. Non-air-con, but chilly in the mountains, so not a problem. About 40 PCVs/friends were set to converge on Sagada between Tuesday afternoon and Thursday evening, but Bill and I were the only ones on our bus. And a beautiful bus ride it was! It wended its way through some of the most magnificent mountain scenery I have ever seen, lush and green with occasional farms or villages, sun and clouds and fog and sky. The journey took about six and a half hours, but it didn’t seem long because the view was so breathtaking.

I had wanted to arrive before dark, and we did – there were a few volunteers there already, but not many. We decided to take a little walk through the town. It’s a quiet, backpacker/hippie place, but it’s even quieter than that description may suggest. It doesn’t feel like any other part of the Philippines I’ve seen – little houses and some shops and nice hikes and mountain vistas. The first week in country, some of the COSing volunteers said that Sagada was their favorite place, and early on, I heard about the Thanksgiving gathering; we hadn’t had gatherings like this in Morocco so I was eager to be a part of this one. The PCVs take over a pension and cook everything! The organizers made a big pot of chili that evening, and more people arrived. We sat by the fireplace and talked – no rowdiness (but also no card games…), just a nice bunch. I had met some of the volunteers before and I made some new pals! I helped cut up apples and wash what seemed like (and might have been) hundreds of small potatoes.

Thanksgiving morning brought quiche, and I went with some early risers to the bakery for some cinnamon rolls (and for bread to go into the dressing). I helped make apple pies (conveniently avoiding the turkeys on the chopping block). I then wanted to take a little walk, and was asked to bring back clothesline wire for binding and hanging the turkeys (we had been sent for butter and eggs on our walk the night before). I saw a sign for hanging coffins and started to walk on a path through the woods. The path was beautiful but I didn’t see the coffins (the next day I would learn, and see, that you could see them from the road) and I got deep into the woods until finally I decided I had gone as far as I should go alone; I found the wire and came back.

Another group was just leaving, headed for the small waterfall, and I joined them. I suggested we see some close-by hanging coffins first, and we did. Hard to photograph but interesting to see. The coffins were on the other side of Echo Valley, so of course we had to confirm that it’s named that for a reason. We then went along a path that then led along some rice fields. The fields were newly flooded and quite muddy and I slipped and fell in the mud. Splat. Luckily I was not alone here – one of the guys helped me up. I was so covered with mud that the promise of swimming in the waterfall was not enough to keep me from going straight back to the pension and then hosing myself off – and THEN taking a bucket bath with the bracingly cold water (I couldn’t wait for them to heat a kettle of water).

I helped with more cooking and setup, and soon it was time for the feast – three turkeys, dressing, mashed potatoes, cornbread, gravy, cranberry sauce, salad, shepherd’s pie for the vegetarians (there had been onion rings and fried zucchini to snack on while the turkeys were deep-frying on the outdoor fire), apple pie, pumpkin pie, no-bake pies (plus, Drew had come up that morning and texted to ask if we needed anything – people mentioned marshmallows and cream for whipping and he found both). It was good! And while it seemed like a lot of food, with all of those people, we didn’t stuff ourselves, and there weren’t many leftovers! Later, someone came to the pension to give massages; I got one (300 pesos!). I always try to do something memorable for Thanksgiving and this was a good one!

I realized it was a year to the day from my Morocco COS (which was followed by another great Thanksgiving). What a year this has been! I wonder if I will say the same this time next year (well, at least the part I know about – the next couple of months – will be interesting!)….

Be-ing in Bicol

2009-12-16T06:07:00.000-08:00

When I went to the Asian Development Bank I went by a new (to me) upscale mall, not far from where I live, called The Podium. Different stores and restaurants! And on Friday night on the way to the night bus, I met Julie at a mall in Cubao, where there was a Taco Bell. I was depressed when I had to stop at a Taco Bell in order to keep moving on the Drive Across America – at least Taco Bell hits some sort of Mexican craving, but it’s still fast food. Now I have too much mall food! Cubao is a happening area – if I were going to be here long-term I might branch out. But I’ll probably stick close to home with Shangri-La and the Mega Mall. Is it sad that this is just a big part of my life here?

What a difference it makes to be able to take a night bus! Having to be home before dark (not to mention having to leave places and friends earlier than I would have had to if there hadn’t been such a policy) was one of the more stressful aspects of life in Morocco. To Vigan, we left at 11 pm and arrived at 7 am – and I slept reasonably well. Buses to and from Naga leave at around 9 pm and arrive around 4:30 am – not an ideal time to leave or to arrive, and when I wondered why, people answered, “that’s the Philippines.” I also don’t know why the buses are so over-air-conditioned. They are way too cold. What a waste of energy! I wondered why Filipinos don’t complain about it and people answered, “Filipinos never complain.”

I arrived in the wee hours and took a taxi to a hotel that my supervisor told me was a safe place to hang out until daylight. I asked if they had a three-hour room rate (the hotels near where I live do, but I think for salacious reasons) and they did! So I had a nap and a shower and felt much better.

Beryl is a Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Naga. But for a visa snafu, she’d have been part of our little group, but she arrived a week later and has been off on her own. She’s doing interesting things, working on disaster preparedness for children, and we had breakfast. I thought I allowed plenty of time to get the air-con van to Sabang for the next leg of the journey, but they had all left for the day – I took two jeepneys instead. I got to Sabang to discover that the last ferry had left as well. They offered me a private boat for 2000 pesos and I said that was all right, I’d just stay in the town and go the next morning. Then I walked over to the beach to mull over my options. Brown sand beach with lots of trash – and did I mention that it was raining? Just then someone offered me a private ride to Caramoan for 600 pesos. When he got down to 500, I said, “let me see the boat.” Judging it seaworthy, I said yes; it was quite nice to have a private boat ride across the Lagonay Gulf (Bodies of Water for $1000, Alex) to Caramoan town.

A well-traveled Princeton acquaintance said that the northern end of Bicol had the most beautiful wilderness beach he had ever seen; I was looking for places to spend my last vacation days (I had saved days for Shanghai but my friend there went and got named Ambassador to New Zealand!) and that seemed as good an endorsement as any. I found a nice bed-and-breakfast in Caramoan town, walked the one street, and had – no Bicol Express on the B&B menu! – chicken curry (still spicy and made with coconut milk, so in the spirit of the region). My hotel had a shower with hot water so hot that I had to lower the temperature! What a pleasure.

On Sunday, I went island-hopping. I was the only guest at my B&B and I might have been the only guest in town. I had a boat to myself – we went to three islands, and I had them all to myself. We (the captain, his mate and I) spent 2-3 hours on each island – all with small and intimate white sand beaches. I swam, sat and read, picked up trash (there wasn’t much of it), watched fishing boats go by, had a box lunch that the B&B made for me, noted the changes in the sky as rain came and went, and had a wonderful day. As I was going from place to place occurred to me that it was December 13 and here I was in the Philippine Sea. Three more islands of the 7107! At the end we went to a shrine – a statue of the Virgin Mary built on a hill of 527 steps (they thought if they built it, people would come – so I decided why not. Tough climb, that’s why not! But it had a nice view from the top). I found Bicol Express at the one restaurant in town, but the only option was pork, so instead I had another regional specialty, laing, which is like creamed spinach but a little stronger-tasting.

And Monday I said farewell to the Caramoan Peninsula. I had learned one word of Bicolano – mabalos, or thank you – and felt as far away as I had yet. There wasn’t as much English spoken, the people looked different (maybe darker? Maybe quieter?). Bicol gets the worst of the typhoons, and there was a sense of the land that time forgot – or that Manila forgot. It felt remote. This time I caught the ferry and the air-con van – they weren’t as much fun, except for the end of the ferry ride. The boat got as close to shore as it could and then it was surrounded by men wading out in chest-high waves. They yelled for people to hand them their bags, which they carried to shore, and then they started to carry the people to shore. A man told me to sit on the outrigger spur and then slide down onto someone’s shoulders – rather than go piggyback, as others were, I was carried by two men (one of whom told me I was a very heavy woman – how much was I supposed to tip him for that?). That was a priceless Philippines moment. I went to an internet café and then had dinner with Beryl and also Katie and Theo, who were just relocated there. And then I got a luxury air-con bus back – big, wide, reclining seat – and had a nap in my own bed before going to work in the morning.

Other things to do in Bicol – well, you can visit Mt. Mayon, the volcano shaped like a perfect cone. Not this time though – it started to erupt on Monday morning, and yesterday they evacuated thousands of people who live in the danger zone (see http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/15/world/AP-AS-Philippines-Volcano.html?scp=1&sq=mayon&st=cse). They’ll spend the holidays in an evacuation center. On the other side of the peninsula there is whale shark watching – it’s a little early for it now though; February or March is peak. There is a boat ride you can take at night to see so many fireflies it lights up the sky – that sounds like fun. But I was happy with my remote, unspoiled peninsula and white-sand-beach island-hopping day, and with my spicy non-express Bicol cuisine!

Back to Baguio

2009-12-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

In just six months, there aren’t many places I’m going back to more than once. Mindoro, to see Mary (and her project, and her nice beach, which might be the closest one to Manila anyway). San Juan, to surf again. And Baguio. The last time I was there, it was cold and there was a downpour. I went to that great museum and to Burnham Park, but there was more that I wanted to do.

We ate lunch, showered, and got on our first non-air-con bus. The air-con buses are way too cold, and the non-air-con was quite hot, but it was leaving, so we hopped on it. That is, it was quite hot until we got closer to Baguio – it was cool in the mountains, and rainy again! We got there late in the day, but we did get to what was next on my list – Tam-awan Village, a collection of mostly Ifugao huts, some of which you can stay in. Except that all of the Ifugao huts were washed away in Pepeng! There were people staying in two of them that weekend, but because of the rain, they decided to leave early. And in the wee hours of the next morning, their huts slid down the hill, along with the wishing pond. When we arrived, there were still two Kalinga huts – octagonal wooden structures; we were able to stay in one of them – and the art gallery. They are getting more Ifugao huts and were supposed to have everything rebuilt by this week – I hope they managed it!

We went back into town for dinner at Café by the Ruins. I had eaten here the last time – maybe you’d call it Filipino-fusion-healthy cuisine? Last time I had a salad and a sticky bun (all right, it’s not all healthy) – this time I had mango shrimp curry and dark bittersweet chocolate, maybe the richest hot chocolate I have ever had, decadent and dreamy. Why didn’t I have that last time? Big mistake on my part is the only explanation I can think of. I wrote down the recipe for that too, but since it calls for carabao milk and moscovado sugar, I think I won’t be able to really duplicate it, even though I bought the tablea chocolate (which, it turns out, is a Filipino specialty product – blocks of cocoa powder made from cacao beans…maybe I should get some for folks back home!). However, I can look at the recipe and dream.

Back at Tam-awan, the artists were sitting around and talking with the other hut-guest, huddled around a fire. We joined them for a while, everyone relaxed and laid back. And then slept in a hut! It was quite cozy. The next morning, I walked the Tam-awan grounds and just sat for a while, enjoying the moment. In the light of day, an early start didn’t seem that important. In fact, I had a brilliant idea – to go back to Café by the Ruins for breakfast. Of course, it was self-serving, so I could have more dark bittersweet chocolate, but it was also a good idea, since we had a long bus ride ahead that turned out not to have good lunch options at the rest stop. I had not only the chocolate but French toast, fruit, and a taste of civet coffee (supposed to be especially smooth after the beans go through the civet cat’s digestive tract, but I am not enough of a coffee person to have really tasted a difference). I suggested to Julie that we go back to Café by the Ruins on our way to or from the surf weekend (I’d like to see more of Baguio, too, if we catch a non-rainy day – but if we spend more time at the beach, that’s okay too) – it’s a little out of the way (about an hour and a half to two hours out of the way, that is) but worth it!

San Juan, Surfing, and Bicol Express

2009-12-14T18:42:00.000-08:00

We left Vigan on Monday morning and got right on a bus – throughout the trip, we never waited long for transportation. About three hours later, we were in San Juan, the surf capital of the Philippines, at the beach. We found a hotel – utilitarian compared to the beautiful B&B, but right on the beach – and walked to the other end, where there was a building that said “resort – restaurant.” There we ate lunch and met Lemon, the head surf instructor in San Juan. He said it was too windy to surf that afternoon, so we made an appointment for the next morning.

That left us with a free afternoon on the beach. Bill wanted to send a work email; there were three guys at the bar using wi-fi on their own computer; I asked if Bill could send a quick email and while he did that I pulled out my mystery book and sat in a lounge chair by the water. Some time later, I was still reading, and Bill was having beers with the three guys. I then took a walk, and later Bill joined me, holding the bag while I collected trash. There really wasn’t much trash though – I later learned that the surf instructors formed an NGO called Green Zinc and they do beach cleanups every Friday. They started the beach cleanup and realized there was no place to put the trash, so they lobbied for trash pickup. And then they lobbied for trash cans along the beach. Good for them!

We watched a beautiful sunset that night, and I had Bicol Express for dinner. Both Drew and Julie had raved about this dish – one of the spicier ones here. Yum! I liked it too, so I looked up a recipe, which I’ve copied below. Note, the recipe I found called for pork – I used creative license and changed it to chicken. I didn’t change “Baguio beans,” which are what green beans are called here. What I ate was tilapia, so you can really use the sauce with anything! Did I have Bicol Express in Bicol this past weekend? Find out soon!

The next morning, we woke up early for our surf lesson. Two hours board rental at 200 pesos an hour (about $4). Two hours lesson at 200 pesos an hour. And an additional 100 for shared transport to the beginners’ break, and 100 pesos tip – so a morning of surfing for $20! Just a little less expensive than my lesson in Waikiki (or what it costs in Southampton – I considered taking lessons there but it was too expensive!). I had thought we’d surf Monday afternoon and leave for Baguio on Tuesday, so I was thinking about when the lesson would end and that we’d then order lunch and shower and eat and – all of a sudden I realized I was NOT living in the moment! Here I was surfing, something I really wanted to do, and I was looking past it! Luckily I realized this early, and after that, I just enjoyed. As I did in Hawaii (I do promise to write that up in my other blog…but realistically, it may wait until this one is finished), I got right up and rode many a wave. Sometimes the waves petered out and sometimes I lost my balance, but I did pretty well (a good instructor and easy beginner waves helped) and I had a great time. Every time I looked over at Bill, I saw him falling down, but I was just pleased that he was game to try it. Surfing here in the Philippines was really Julie’s idea (I had seen it in Lonely Planet but until she brought it up I hadn’t planned on it) and I said I would go back with her on another trip – we’re going to go this coming weekend!

BICOL EXPRESS recipe
Estimated preparation time: 30 minutes
Estimated cooking time: 30 minutes
1/4 kilo chicken, thinly sliced
1 cup Baguio beans
3 cups long chili or jalapeno peppers
1 onion, minced
1 head of garlic, minced
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup coconut cream
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
Salt to taste

In a bowl of water with salt, soak chili peppers for 30 minutes then rinse and strain.
In a cooking pan, heat cooking oil and cook sliced chicken for a few minutes.
In another pan, sauté minced garlic and onion.
Add to the sauté the cooked chicken.
Then add the coconut milk, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the chili peppers, Baguio beans and cook until dish gets a little dry.
Add the coconut cream and simmer until the sauce thickens.
Salt to taste.

Stories from the Past and Thinking about the Future

2009-12-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of other things from the trip north that I wanted to mention: The Villa Angela in Vigan is where Tom Cruise and Willem Dafoe stayed when filming “Born on the Fourth of July” nearby. Also, in San Juan, an artist came around selling his paintings. On White Beach in Puerto Galera, they try (pretty aggressively) to sell you pearls and massages, and when you say no they will tell you about themselves or otherwise try to converse. This artist was quiet, but he showed me several paintings. Beach scenes, hut scenes – I didn’t buy a lot of art in Morocco (just plenty of rugs!) and while I liked the art he showed me, I didn’t consider buying one, because there was no way I could carry a painting around. He took one off of its frame and rolled it up – but still, I couldn’t have carried one! He said he was trying to earn money to exhibit in Baguio. And then my heart went out to him and I started to cry – I thought of the shoe shine person in Morocco who was working so hard for just five or ten dirham per shine. There are so many people here who are poor and desperate – I see the Habitat people and I know they will have better housing, I see beggars (not as many as in Morocco) and occasionally give them money, the Salvation Army bellringers are out this month at the malls and I drop in some change every other day or so, but it was the artist who got to me. I gave him some money and told him it was to support art. If I see him again this weekend.... Well, I am going home and I could potentially carry a rolled-up canvas with me...but then I would have to fall in love with a piece.

And a story that I didn't tell at the time, but continues to have legs - as the Veterans Day reception wore down, I'd thought the Ambassador had long gone, but someone told me she was still there. I thought it would be cool to meet her, as did Drew, so he and I walked towards her. She was headed to her car, so we broke into a sprint, while Bill and Julie watched in horror, waiting for us to be taken down by her security force. She was too fast for us (I might get a chance to meet her next week when she says goodbye in the Peace Corps office; a new ambassador has been named), but now the image of us running after her makes me laugh. What were we thinking?

Another story – I was in the elevator at work the other day, with the 26th floor button pressed. Someone else got on the elevator and said, “Where are you going?” Could I be going to 26, maybe? I realize that it’s the equivalent of, “how are you?” but in that setting it just seemed so odd.

And – the story I put together is on the Peace Corps web site – find it at http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.returned.response.volstories.philippines

Speaking of the Peace Corps office...being there on Friday brought out all sorts of emotions. The last time I was there it was early in my service - now it is close to the end. The time has really flown. If I don't go next week, in all likelihood the next time I go there will be for the COS paperwork. I realized how sad the thought of leaving is for me. I like it here! Intellectually, I'm getting ready - transitioning to finishing up work, for example - but emotionally, it's not that easy. I had said I wouldn't plan my next travels until I was back from the Thanksgiving trip, but now I have to - brought my, "Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and the Greater Mekong" book with me this weekend to map out a trip - the one-way ticket to Bangkok worked last year but it's not going to work this time, with flights between destinations and multiple countries in mind. The end is near.... I didn't seriously consider extending (this is an assignment that could never end, so I thought it would be best to end it at the original set time to end - besides, with all the changes at Habitat, I'm not sure it would have been possible from their end). I'm not as sad as I was at the thought of leaving Morocco - for the final three months, I was bursting into tears at random moments that would strike me - and maybe sad is the wrong word entirely (is wistful better?). In addition to the Peace Corps staff - I don't know them well, but the ones I do know have been friendly and helpful - I saw several PCVs I've met before, in for their mid-service medicals. I don't know if I will see them again. I didn't make many close friendships, but there are some that I like quite a lot. I'll miss people here. Hanna told me that she doesn't want to be by herself when Julie and I leave - she is thinking of going home to Mindanao when her contract ends, and finding something there. She was alone for a year and a half before I arrived - working at one end of the building and then staying at the other end, cooking her rice three times a day and watching her TV.

The COS trip is taking shape. A weekend in the Philippines - maybe hiking Pinatubo or whitewater rafting or visiting another beach, depending on friend availability. Then fly into Saigon (all right, Ho Chi Minh City), slow boat to Phnom Penh, fly to Vientiane, fly if I can or bus to the Plain of Jars, fly to Hanoi, a couple of days on a boat to Halong Bay, fly to Hue - there are three UNESCO sites near there, but depending on the timing, one may have to do. Then back to Manila for a day or two to detox at The Farm. All of this is subject to air fares and flight times, but at least I have a plan now. Then I'll fly into Los Angeles, spend some time there, get (via car?) up the coast of California, and Amtrak across the country, along the same route and with approximately the same stops as last year's Drive Across America (which is still to be posted...as will this year's once-in-a-lifetime trip for the second time in two years...in travelsintheoffseason.blogspot.com).

Meanwhile, Back in Manila...

2009-12-11T02:56:00.000-08:00

We interrupt the trip writeup (even though there will be more travel to write up – I am going to Bicol, in Eastern Luzon, this weekend – if Luzon is an L, my trip up north was to the top of the L and Bicol is the far end of the side of the L – and, in fact, I now have plans to go away for the next five weekends!) to talk a little bit about what else is going on.

Work things: I realized as I was writing my monthly report last week that November was a really good month. The work highlight was the Habitat build – in a way that could be considered a secondary project, but it also fits into my primary work, since it gives me another way to appreciate what Habitat does. The visit of the HFH International people was also a highlight – they offered some good suggestions that I can work on and/or incorporate into my final report. And I took other projects either to completion (email appeals to US affiliates and Filipino-American organizations) or to a point where if information came while I was gone it could be sent out (USAID appeal, American Chamber follow-up, water system proposal for Mindanao). So that took me to a good breaking point right before vacation. I wrote up, “How to Organize a Habitat Build” with the idea that future groups of Peace Corps Volunteers would make this a tradition. I also received a side project that I’m enjoying working on – a fund-raising proposal for an indigenous group, to send to the contacts I’ve made (and to look for others to send it on to). This week I’ve been writing a summary of everything I’ve done to date – which will turn into my final report, plan and recommendations. I’ll review that with my supervisor and then we’ll see where I should focus my remaining time. On Tuesday, I had a meeting with the Asian Development Bank/Cities Development Initiative for Asia. We talked about Habitat, myself, Peace Corps Reponse – it could lead to something in all of those directions or none, but at any rate it was interesting to hear what they do! Next week we have a Secret Santa exchange at work – or, as it is called here, “Monito-Monita” (boy-girl); items have to cost less than 150 pesos (about $3). Also exciting – we have a new addition to our routine – on the way from the jeepney to the bus in the morning, we pass a vendor selling cut-up fresh fruit (big pieces; he then cuts those into bite-size pieces to order). I saw a lot of these in Thailand but not so many here. The pineapple is great!

Peace Corps things: Last Saturday was International Volunteer Day, a UN-sponsored day for local and foreign volunteers to work together. This year’s theme was “Volunteering for our Planet” and the activity was a Manila Bay cleanup – right up my alley! This was in the Las Pinas-Paranaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area, and there was SO much trash there. A bunch of Peace Corps people were there, some of whom I had met but others who had just sworn in. All in all there were maybe 70 people – we filled 1-2 bags and/or several large baskets each, and barely made a dent. But a dent is a start, and the day was about inspiring people to volunteer as much as it was about the activity, so in that sense, it was a success. I also designed and ordered Peace Corps Response T-shirts! Our group has been talking about this for a while and I was wondering if someone else would take the lead.... and I finally just did it. We never had t-shirts in Morocco, but each batch (in Morocco it was a stage, in other countries a group) here has one and some of the other Response people had them in their original countries of service, so now we have one! Also, on Sunday night, Milo, the Peace Corps Response Coordinator, had the Metro Manila PCRVs to his house for a little party, which was nice. And today, I gave a brown bag talk at the Peace Corps office, with my Third Goal Morocco presentation – sharing Moroccan culture with PCVs and staff, and showing PCVs an example of a Third Goal presentation. It was fun!

Other things: I managed to survive up north without going to a mall, but I was happy to be back, especially for the mango shakes. I went to Shangri-La for a shopping trip too, and got some slacks at the Gap and some blouses at Marks and Spencer. I went to the Cultural Center of the Philippines on Friday for a production of The Nutcracker – the former Miss Universe who is co-chair of Friends of Habitat is also President of Ballet Philippines. She gave us the tickets and she also danced! It was a beautiful performance. I can’t remember the last time I saw The Nutcracker, and it felt festive (the streets and malls are decorated, Christmas carols play everywhere, and it is actually a little cooler after all, at least in the morning and at night. It hasn’t rained in a while, though while I was gone, Urduja was headed for the Visayas. The cooler weather is more evident in the air conditioner – now I set it at a higher temperature to be as cool as I was before – and in the noticeably-colder cold showers; the water’s not as cold as it was up north but it’s not as uncold as it was before I left). I went back to Greenhills for more pearls, too, and once again thought of still more people I could get pearls for if I take another trip there!

More Pictures from Week Seventeen (Vigan and Ilocos Norte)

2009-12-10T11:47:00.000-08:00

Vigan street:

More of Vigan:

Capiz-shell windows:

Villa Angela sala:

Vigan cathedral:

Cordillera from the nearby bell tower:

South China Sea from the bell tower:

Another house/museum:

Museum shoes (not Imelda's, but I couldn't resist):

Lighthouse:

Windmills:

Pagugpud:

Malacanang of the North:

Lanterns in Vigan:

Ilocos Norte

2009-12-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

When I designed the trip, there was an extra day built in – I figured we would figure it out once we got up north. What I really wanted to do was go whitewater rafting – there’s a place in Kalinga province that offers it, but Kalinga province is in a safety-and-security forbidden zone. I’ll jump ahead to say that when I got to Sagada, I met some Americans (an RPCV who is starting a business and a West Virginian who is here for a couple of weeks to train guides) starting a whitewater rafting business there. I could have gone had a group of at least five wanted to go – but out of 40 PCVs/others there for Thanksgiving, only an Australian and I had the desire, money and time flexibility to do it. It’s just as well – it would have meant skipping the rice terrace hike, which I think was my favorite day and place of all – but I remember how much I loved it in Bali and I may think about going (in Sagada? In a forbidden zone? Near Boracay?) after I COS but before I leave.

I thought Vigan might warrant an extra day, but we covered it in one. There are a couple of other UNESCO World Heritage Earthquake-Baroque Churches nearby, but the one in Intramuros covered it. I looked at Lonely Planet to figure out options and decided that what I most wanted to do was go to Pagudpud, “the Boracay of the North.” Bill had already been there, but he was willing to go along.

We took the bus to Laoag, Ferdinand Marcos’s birthplace (his embalmed body is displayed nearby, but we ran out of day – which may also be just as well!) and from there a driver offered to take us around the province of Ilocos Norte. First we went to a lighthouse – the Princeton alum I had met in Makati had told me to go there. Then we went to a wind farm on the northern coast of Luzon – the sight of all of these windmills along the beach was quite impressive (as they are in California and Iowa, where I have also seen them). Further on was Pagudpud – a beautiful white-sand beach, not at all crowded. It was raining then but we took a little walk and had lunch (our other option was not hiring the driver and just taking the bus and spending the day at the beach – again, probably just as well if it rained all day, but it was still nice there). Then, back down south, we went to the Malacanang of the North, a Marcos palace. The exterior and the rooms were beautiful, but the furniture was somewhat worn (it could have come from a ‘70s American basement – I didn’t even take a picture) – you can’t photograph Malacanang in Manila (at least I couldn’t from the Pasig River boat ride) so this (and the
Imelda home in Tacloban) will have to do! It looks kind of like both of those, but is white.

Back in Vigan, we had some pizza and took a walk in the town center; there was a concert and there were a lot of people milling about. The park was decorated with colorful lanterns. Near the town hall was a holiday tree decorated with products of the region – tobacco leaves and wine bottles (nothing says Merry Christmas like alcohol and tobacco!). There was a relief map of the Philippines showing the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and a collection of sculptures of famous landmarks – Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Statue of Liberty, Great Wall, etc. – Bill said he recognized them all except the one in the middle, and I told him that it was a representative Spanish colonial home of Vigan. Oh well, I give them credit for trying.

Vigan

2009-12-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

From the UNESCO web site: Established in the 16th century, Vigan is the best-preserved example of a planned Spanish colonial town in Asia. Its architecture reflects the coming together of cultural elements from elsewhere in the Philippines, from China and from Europe, resulting in a culture and townscape that have no parallel anywhere in East and South-East Asia.

From a combination of Lonely Planet and my own observations: The architecture was influenced not only by Spain but also by Mexican and Chinese structures, and includes Filipino touches such as capiz-shell windows as well. The ground floor has stone walls and is for storage and/or work, and the first floor, made of wood to withstand earthquakes, has a large, airy sala for living. Bedrooms, a kitchen with outdoor space for cooking and washing, and bathrooms are upstairs. Founded in the 1500s, most of Vigan’s extant buildings date from the 19th century.

On Friday afternoon, Bill, the Gawad Kalinga PCRV who started at the same time as Julie, decided to come along with me. He was a good travel companion – good company, easygoing, fine with doing whatever I had planned. We met at the Starbucks at Shangri-La on Friday night and took the MRT to Cubao to get the overnight bus to Vigan. I actually slept decently on the bus – a combination of the hour, not feeling well and a Benadryl helped. We arrived in Vigan at around 7 am on Saturday and had a tricycle take us to the B&B I had reserved, Villa Angela, an old Spanish colonial house decorated with antiques. We put our stuff down and went in search of breakfast, through the quiet historic streets.

We hired a kalesa (horse and carriage), for a de rigueur tour of the town and environs. These included a 16th-century belltower, the Padre Burgos Museum with its artifacts of the region, a free zoo with exotic animals, a pottery factory that dates from 1824, a garden, weavers and the main church and streets of the historic district. On our own, we walked in the historic district, shopped a bit, and went to a couple of other small museums and houses. It was very pleasant to walk around – wide, clean, quiet streets and a very comfortable town. We had a nice lunch and a good dinner (highlight – they were out of mango shakes but I had a yummy grape shake) and retired early (we may have slept well on the bus, but not all that well, and the hot showers and antique beds at the B&B were quite inviting!).

Some Pictures of Food

2009-12-07T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Hewitt girls (and other commenters) asked about the food here. We took the Habitat for Humanity International visitors to a Filipino buffet, and I snapped pictures of some of the more typical dishes (that is, those I could identify – the staff member with us couldn’t tell me the names of some of the dishes!).

Chicken Adobo – soy sauce and vinegar:

Lots of stews – chicken, pork, beef or fish:

Lumpia, like spring rolls – vegetable or meat:

There is lots of fish here!

More fried fish:

Pancit – noodle dish with a variety of meats and vegetables:

Salted egg – made by baking:

Shrimp – often used as flavoring:

Sisig – chopped pork or chicken, onions on a sizzling plate:

Some vegetables!

World-Wise School Questions

2009-12-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

Before I launch into the trip narrative, I thought I would share with you some of the questions asked by my World-Wise Schools partner class, a seventh-grade history class at the Hewitt School in New York. Those of you who are or have children or are or know teachers might want to participate in this wonderful program! I did answer the questions and if you’d like to know what I said (some topics I have already addressed here in other posts), email me, but the reason for posting them is not that I liked the answers so much but that I liked the questions! I hope to visit the class and meet the girls when I return!

- They want to know more about the kids of the Philippines and also what the food is like.
- And they want photos of your journey. They are very intrigued.
- Is it that the Filipinos are Catholic that makes access to family planning limited or poverty? Or does the government have Church-influenced birth control policies?
- Are there nice beaches? Do you go swimming?
- Are you bringing back any sorts of gifts? What kinds of local handicrafts are around to buy?
- What sort of work do you do there?
- Why is the nation called the Philippines? Is the Spanish influence still visible?
- What American or Western perceptions have you shed due to your Peace Corps work?
- How has this service changed you?
- Are there any Jewish Filipinos? (The teacher told them this would be extremely rare, but they wanted my answer.)
- Why are there no vegetables?
- How are arranged marriages, arranged?
- What are the main Filipino sports?
- How long are you staying there?
- Does it ever snow there?

I should also mention the political massacre in Mindanao – this has made international news. There are still powerful family clans here, and as an opposition family and its supporters went to register, the ruling family gunned them down and then backhoed them into a mass grave. There’s a lot of outrage, but election time here means a lot is at stake. I’ll be gone before the elections take place in the spring, but the volunteers here will be on alert. Mindanao is where most of the violence is and it is off-limits to us anyway, but it was quite a contrast to be reading and hearing about this while in the peaceful and beautiful mountains of the north….

Subic and More

2009-12-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

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!).

Peace Corps Habitat Build - Part Two

2009-12-04T06:30:00.000-08:00

Day One of the build contained the most heavy lifting – was that by design? If so, it was a good idea! On Day Two, there was still some gravel to move, but just a few feet over, so there would be room for a delivery of new gravel. I hadn’t had a chance to shovel the day before, so I did that for a while. Other people were making concrete interlocking blocks – the Lego-like innovation of Habitat for Humanity Philippines. Volunteer-friendly and consistent. I rotated in to make these for a while and almost every block I made crumbled when I took it out of the mold. I decided to stick with it, and after lunch one of the homepartners demonstrated his method, pounding the sand in. I hadn’t been packing the sand in hard enough! After that tip, concrete-block-making was fun and productive! Other people painted beams, and then some of us moved scaffolding from one part of the top floor to another – those metal poles just kept on coming!

On Day Three, all of us painted, some rafters and some stair railings. I discovered something about myself – I am a messy painter! But then again, I didn’t miss any spots. I joked (at least I think it was a joke) that the next group of volunteers would come and remove all the drips and drops I left behind. Unfortunately, one of my pairs of quick-dri pants, my sneakers, and my Christopher Lesta Southampton 5K shirt will forever have paint on them, but at least they have a story to tell. At least the paint came off of my skin after a couple of days!

We ate lunches in a canteen in the neighborhood and I discovered a new dish that I like – pinakbet, a vegetable stew. None of that nasty bitter gourd! This was mostly squash and green beans (and the teeniest bit of meat). After our last day, we hung around in the streets outside the build site for a while, talking to the neighbors and having kids run and play all around us. Two of the regular PCVs said this was their favorite part about the Philippines – the smiling people and the happy kids. It wasn’t the elaborate party that Habitat had thrown for the Japanese group, but it was just as rewarding.

I got so much out of the build – it was fun to put the group together and fun to work as a team. It was a lot of labor but nothing we couldn’t handle. I had been thinking that I wanted to do something more for my birthday – I did what I wanted to do earlier this year by traveling, but as I saw my friends back at home I realized that I’d like to do more with them as well – so I am now thinking of organizing a build in the spring in a Katrina-affected area for whoever can come. I think it would be a wonderful way to celebrate with friends!

Peace Corps Habitat Build - Part One

2009-12-03T17:11:00.000-08:00

I had advertised it on the Peace Corps Philippines weekly update and in a couple of other places; some people had to drop out when the timing changed due to Ondoy, and others who couldn’t have come then were available now. Two of our PCV builders had to cancel at the last minute due to medical issues; both were husbands whose wives still came. One person brought a counterpart, one a fellow RPCV who is working in town but is not a PCRV. A Filipino expat who lives in Hong Kong and had always wanted to do this joined our group for a couple of days. All in all, we had twelve people on the build – five who came for all three days, and the rest for a day or two.

We went to Pasig I, where I had done the farewell day/little bit of sand sifting way back when. Lots of progress has been made, despite losing a month because there was still water blocking the way to the site (there is STILL water, but it’s navigable – and there’s a big mud line about waist-high on most of the buildings). The first building is almost finished, and they’re starting the foundation for the second one. The engineer and many of the skilled laborers remembered me – amazing.

We arrived in time for the morning devotion and then were given our assignment for the morning – moving a big pile of gravel from the front of the building to the back of the building. Shoveling, bagging, carrying and unloading were the assignments. We were getting in each other’s way until the break, when Charlie organized an assembly line/bucket brigade/rotation. His background is construction management, so he could see the efficiency in doing it that way. The skilled workers had just told us what to do and left it to us to figure out who would do what and how. It made me think about going back to school for a PhD in group dynamics, with my thesis on different groups of Habitat volunteers. Does everyone figure out a system eventually? Who assumes a leadership role? How do the volunteers work as a team? How does it differ with different types of groups (e.g. students, religious groups)? With groups from different cultures? I think this is an endless source of research!

In the afternoon, we moved sand – it wasn’t as heavy as the gravel, but by then, we were all tired. The women were dirtier than the men, probably from cradling the bags against their bodies where the men just carried them. We were all tired and sore and we went to bed very early and slept very well! The first night I had one guest in my room and three in the office – but then the couple went to the hospital and the pension, and the counterpart stayed one night by himself and then went home early the next day because people were fishing illegally in his jurisdiction. So the guest load was not only manageable but fun!

Some Pictures from Week Seventeen (Habitat Build)

2009-11-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

Fired up and ready to build:

Loading gravel:

The assembly line:

Making concrete interlocking blocks:

Moving the scaffolding:

Painting rafters (with a nine-foot pole):

Painting railings:

With homepartners and skilled labor:

After the build, hanging in the 'hood:

Recreation day in the Subic forest:

Our Aeta guide showed us helpful plants and trees:

With an Aeta elder:

Weekend in Mindoro

2009-11-20T04:13:00.001-08:00

The Typhoon-Santi-postponed trip happened last weekend and it was worth the wait! We would have had a three-day weekend two weeks ago, and this time it was just an overnight, but it was short and sweet and absolutely wonderful. The bus ride was smooth, and we got on a boat that went directly to White Beach rather than to the main town of Puerto Galera first – it was as if the universe knew we didn’t have a lot of time, so it provided easy travel there and back.

We arrived and stopped at a place for mango shakes and lunch – I had rosti, which was very good (a reflection of the number of German tourists who come!). Saturday is a work day for Mary, but she came to meet us and showed us the theatre-in-progress. It’s really coming along! I hope to go back one more time and see the finished stage. What a great project she has! Mary wrote a grant for solar lighting for the theatre – it wasn’t in the budget – if you want to contribute, check out www.peacecorps.gov/donations and then search for the Philippines.

Julie and I got settled at Stairway and went back to White Beach – she wanted to do a little shopping and I wanted to pick up some trash. As I was doing so, a restaurant owner asked Julie what I was doing, and when she told him, he invited me to have a cold beverage (and he also took the bags I filled!).

We then walked back to the beach by Stairway and swam for a while. Sitting on the beach, looking at the water and the islands on the other side, we wondered why it took so long to get ourselves there – Julie has been here since the beginning of September and this was her first beach trip! I’ve had others in between, but I hadn’t been to Mindoro since August, and something about it is very laid back and comfortable.

Mary joined us late in the day, and we watched the sunset (which she doesn’t usually do – I think I would do it often!) with Lars, the founder. I had mentioned brainstorming about marketing to him last time and he does want to talk – but he also is strict about not working on weekends. Maybe next time. I allowed myself to wonder what I would do if he decided he wanted a marketing PCRV who would stay on-site for a couple of months, starting in late winter. I didn’t ponder much beyond posing the question though.

We went to Luca’s for an Italian dinner – again, a nice walk there, under the stars. This time we stayed in the Yellow House, where Stairway guests stay, rather than in Mary’s hut; we went up to the hut for a leisurely breakfast. Both Mary and Julie had served in Macedonia – they didn’t overlap, but they know people and places in common, and although I have talked to each of them, listening to both of them talk to each other gave me more insight. I want to go to Macedonia now!

We might have been able to do the waterfall hike or at least go to the Mangyan village, but instead we just sat on the beach and took a couple of swims and relaxed. We had a final mango shake, and then it was time to go back to Manila. Great visit! Had to get back, though, because the PCVs coming in for the Peace Corps Habitat Build were arriving Sunday evening! I’ll write about that when I get back, but maybe post some pictures now.

Some Pictures from Week Sixteen

2009-11-19T19:00:00.000-08:00

The sign says A Walkable City is a Healthy City. Sigh:

Wreath for the Veterans Day ceremony:

The Ambassador wore red:

Bags for Life:

The floodway – the water was up to the tops of the homes:

Some of the homepartners:

To go with the Peace Corps map – the Habitat for Humanity International map:

Marikina home that used the repair kit:

Hillary wuz here:

White Beach, Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro:

Back to the Field

2009-11-13T06:57:00.000-08:00

I spent most of these last two days with people from Habitat for Humanity International – the person in charge of Global Engagement/Tithe (yeah, that’s the name) and her fundraiser for the Asian diaspora. We first went to Calauan. It’s the fourth time I’ve made that trip, but it really is a showpiece for what Habitat is doing, and the cleanup of the Pasig River is a good sell. I learn something new every time; we were shown around by a community organizer, who talked about some of the trainings that the new arrivals get. One of the livelihood projects there involves making bags from old newspapers and magazines – I finally bought one. The project has changed somewhat since Ondoy – in addition to the Pasig River squatters, other people who lost their homes will be moved there. There wasn’t as much traffic as there was on the Wednesdays when I’ve been there (Wednesday is a big church day), and with a lot of conversation, the four-hour round trip went quickly.

We then went to Pasig I – this is the build site where I went with the Japanese students, and where our PCV build will be next week. They’ve made a lot of progress since I was there! I’m looking forward to the build. We passed streets where there was a mudline to the second story. Then it was on to the floodway, from which the Pasig I homepartners will be moving. I hadn’t been there yet. First, we went under the bridge; 23 families live there. Everything was wiped away during the floods, and they have rebuild rickety homes with no electricity. Further along the floodway were some more substantial houses, but the ones that weren’t wiped away were still submerged. The people were very friendly; it was rewarding to go there and be reminded who this is all for.

Today, they met with people in the office – media relations, communications, resource development, technical and also with the board – in the morning. I probably could have learned something had I been in the meetings as well! Oh well. I wrote an article for the Peace Corps Response newsletter about the Metro Manila RPCVs’ role in and reaction to Ondoy; I had seen everyone a couple of times this week and interviewed or got a writeup from them.

In the afternoon we went to Marikina – I followed in Hillary Clinton’s footsteps, because we went exactly where she had been the day before! Unfortunately, that’s as close as I got to her (she swore in the new volunteers today, which is pretty cool for them). Unfortunately for her, that is! When I noted elsewhere that Hillary was coming, a friend commented, “is that another hurricane?” Might as well have been! We went to a barangay hall where the shelter repair kits are being handed out – the second phase of the disaster response is repair, in which Habitat is giving lumber and tools to people whose homes were damaged but repairable. We walked along the river and saw several homes with new construction thanks to the kits. The houses had been completely submerged – people spent a day on their roofs, waiting for the water to recede, or ran for higher ground. Then we went to a school that had been an evacuation center and had been the recipient of the toilet build. The toilets are now a permanent part of the school grounds – sustainability! From all those people hanging out on every floor of the school I went to for the toilet build to smiling kids in classrooms and playing in the yard…life goes on.

Swearing-in was here today; in Morocco the new SBDs were sworn in yesterday. The ones who were first-years during my second year are about to COS this coming week, and the people who were sworn-in just before I left are the second-years now…life goes on.

In other news – Mt. Mayon, in the Bicol region, known for its perfect-cone shape, started spewing ash this week. I was thinking of using my remaining vacation to spend a long weekend around there – just as well I haven’t bought a plane ticket yet! Of course, ash doesn’t mean an eruption will follow anytime soon, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Manny Pacquiao is fighting this weekend. The best boxer in the world, pound for pound, they say. I’ll be on the beach, but I think most of the rest of the country will be watching the fight!

I have an RPCV friend who has a job with the census. I have been worried that I won’t be counted – my stuff is in storage! My voter registration and driver’s license have my old Chicago address (this is fine with the state of Illinois). But when the census takers show up there they won’t find me. I wrote to Senator Durbin to ask about this and haven’t heard back. Well, my friend assured me that I will be counted as long as I am in the U.S. on April 1 (interestingly, Peace Corps volunteers overseas are not counted!). For example, if I’m at my sister’s, I’ll be counted there. So the question is – who wants me to be visiting them then? I can be bought!

Veterans Day

2009-11-11T07:10:00.001-08:00

The Metro Manila PCRVs were invited to the Ambassador’s Veterans Day Ceremony at the American Cemetery. In some countries, PCVs are invited to the Ambassador’s place for July 4 or for Thanksgiving; in Morocco we were pretty much told to stay away from Embassy people, so it was nice to get an opportunity like this here.

This was my third time at the American Cemetery, a beautiful and peaceful place. I was looking at the maps and saw a man in a wheelchair with an “Airborne” hat. I thanked him for fighting for us and asked him about himself. He said he helped to fight to gain the land on which we were standing now, and that he moved to the Philippines 25 years ago. He said he’s been to the cemetery many times – when he was lonely he would visit his friends here. He would like to be buried here, but right now the protocol doesn’t allow it – he had to have died in the war. It turns out that I was talking with the minister who gave the invocation for the ceremony! I also thanked fellow PCRV Bill, who had served in Vietnam (and hasn’t talked much about it other than to say it was a long year).

The ceremony itself was touching. Sousa marches while people were getting seated. Presentation of colors and the anthems of the Philippines and the U.S. The head of the VA here (the VA’s only foreign office) was the emcee, and we marked the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month with a moment of silence. There was the invocation and then a welcome, including recognition of all of the veteran’s groups present (I got a bit choked up at the Bataan and Corregidor ones). Then Ambassador Kristie Kenney spoke, followed by keynote speaker/former president Fidel Ramos. He got a laugh when he said that it’s said that the most honorable way to die is in battle, but that it’s also okay to die of old age after doing your civic duties, such as paying your taxes on time and voting in the next election. Then the he and the Ambassador did a ceremonial wreath laying (actually they just paused in front of wreaths), and the ceremony closed with “Taps,” which was extremely moving in that setting. All in all very special.

Some interesting things going on at work, too. USAID came back to us and said they would like to fund the relief toilet build. Habitat was past the relief stage and looking for funds for repair and resettlement, so I reluctantly thought it was time to move on, but then an assessment indicated the need for more toilets in Northern Luzon. So I’ve been working on the response to USAID; if we get funds from them it would be big. I was then asked to put together a proposal for water systems in Mindanao. The EU funded 1000 houses as part of a “Peace Build.” Muslims and Christians build together and then live in every other house. The EU grant didn’t cover all of the costs though, so Habitat is looking for a donor to fund the water systems. There are three separate proposals written in three different styles and my job is to put them together into one proposal. I’m really glad to be working on this, especially when I read in the Times that Muslim rebels beheaded someone the other day. We need the Peace Build! I’ve posted a link to the Peace Build web site for those who want to learn more. And for the next two days, I’ll be hosting some visitors from Habitat for Humanity International, taking them to Calauan, FTI (one of the communities in Metro Manila), and an evacuation center that had the toilet build (I haven’t been to that one yet). I guess I have heard the spiel enough that they trust me to give it now!

Another thing that has been taking some time is coordinating the PCV Habitat build, rescheduled due to Ondoy and now set for next Monday through Thursday. We may have as many an eleven people, not all of them every day – PCVs, PCRVs, and a friend. The logistics and arrangements have been time-consuming but I am glad to have organized this event! I don’t know how much time I will have to write, though. Julie and I are going to Mindoro this coming weekend. Then I’ll be hosting the PCVs coming from the south from Sunday through Thursday. Friday night I leave on an overnight bus, and I’ll be gone through November 30! I had been planning to go up to the rice terraces for Thanksgiving since I heard about it when I first got here; decided to take the whole week as vacation and see UNESCO World Heritage site Vigan and other places in Northern Luzon as well. Monday, November 30 is a holiday, so I can have one extra day of travel. When I do have a chance to write, I will have a lot to write about and lots of pictures to post!

Some Pictures from Week Fifteen

2009-11-09T03:17:00.000-08:00

The waterfall:

Sunrise silent meditation view:

Nice touches:

One of several meditation pavilions:

Underneath the mango tree:

What healthy blood looks like:

Spa pool:

Ready for a spa treatment:

Spa cuisine:

Rested and rejuvenated:

At the finish line:

Run for the River

2009-11-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

I had hoped to do some running while I was here – bought a new running shirt and shorts to bring with me in anticipation (my summer running clothes are in storage; my winter running clothes were fine while I trained for the Marrakesh half-marathon, and for the half-marathon itself I wore a quick-dri shirt and my quick-dri capris, to be conservative – but the winter running clothes were too heavy for the 5K I did in Southampton in June and I figured they would be here). Most of the runs here begin at 5:30 am (I’ve seen one that started at 7:00 pm, but I was away that weekend) in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City; when I saw one that was downtown, I signed up for it (not that I wouldn’t have gone to Fort Bonifacio, but I liked the idea of being downtown). And I liked the cause – a run for the Pasig River.

Habitat for Humanity Philippines is a partner of the driving force behind the river cleanup, the ABS-CBN Foundation (Habitat is building the homes for them in Calauan) - and Habitat formed a team to run the race, which made it more fun. There’s a track near where I live, but I’ve never been there – you have to get up early or go out late to run, or else it’s too hot and humid (hence the start times for the races). I don’t want to be out that late, and I don’t want to set an alarm just to exercise…all too soon I may have to wake up to an alarm again. So my training consisted of walking to and from the mall every day (or I might have considered running a longer distance).

Julie wouldn’t have gone with me if not for the Habitat team, and I’m glad she did – it was fun to have someone to go to the start with, and we ran together most of the time (we didn’t run with the rest of the team; everyone spread out – but we did have Habitat signage pinned to our backs). We woke up at 4:30 to get to the Quirino Grandstand to meet the rest of the team and pick up our packets (the Quirino Grandstand is where Filipino presidents are sworn in). We crossed the parade ground to check her gear and came back to the starting line just as the Chairman of the Board of Habitat for Humanity, a guest of honor, was shooting the gun for the 6:00 am start. We saw him run to the start line, asked him which race just started and he said the 5K. So we were there just in time! I have never started a race right at the starting line – usually I put myself towards the back of the crowd and allow for 30 to 60 seconds before I actually get to the start line.

I had gone shopping at Makati yesterday (looking for clothes…I just wasn’t ready when I was in the States. I didn’t find anything, but I didn’t run screaming into the night, so I consider that progress. I also had that yummy tuna sashimi appetizer I had had with the Princetonians and sat by the fountain and read for a while, enjoying the quiet and the greenery – it was worth it for that alone! I haven’t given up on the clothes – there are a couple of stores in Shangri-La still to try…another day) and had looked for GU (energy gel) in several stores without success before I remembered that I had brought some with me in anticipation of running! I usually power up right before I run, which helps, but I think three things were even more helpful (in addition to the daily walk to the mall, that is): one, the massage earlier this week at the spa, two, ibuprofen beforehand, which I wouldn’t have thought of if Julie hadn’t mentioned it, and three, Julie herself! The 6:00 start was also helpful – most of the time we ran in the shadow of the skyscrapers, along Roxas Boulevard, a nice, wide street (fun when closed to traffic!). Only the very end was in the sun – and it was so much hotter under the sun and on top of sun-baked asphalt, I didn’t have a finishing kick but I didn’t slow down much either. I finished in 42:36 – not bad! I felt so good afterwards that I spent this afternoon shopping too – this time at Greenhills for more pearls. More, I would consider doing additional 5Ks!

I do notice that the days are shorter than they were when I got here – sunset is at maybe 5:40 and when I arrived it was at about 6:15. No complaints though, after all those years at the very eastern end of the Central Time Zone! I’m still waiting for cooler weather – November is supposed to bring a shift from the habagat (southwest monsoon) to the amihan (northeast monsoon). According to the chart in Lonely Planet, this means the beginning of a long dry season in the Manila area, but according to people I’ve talked to, the southwest monsoon just brings different rains. Ah – the text accompanying the chart says that patterns have been screwy of late, with the rains arriving later and lingering into December. At any rate, it’s not a whole lot cooler – temperatures in the upper 80s most days, and very humid.

Hillary Clinton is coming to the Philippines this week. Last week she was in Morocco and she met with Peace Corps volunteers. Might she want to meet Peace Corps Response volunteers this week?

Thoughts (or Lack Thereof) on Meditation

2009-11-06T05:55:00.000-08:00

The spa trip was relaxing, though there wasn’t much downtime. Day 1 – arrival, lunch, massage, stroll on the grounds, live blood analysis, meditation, dinner, stroll, sit under the mango tree, bedtime. Day 2 – sunrise silent meditation, yoga, breakfast, guided walking meditation, lunch, cookies and herbal tea, stroll/sit by the waterfall, dinner, stroll, bedtime. Day 3 – sunrise silent meditation, yoga, swim, breakfast, stroll, sit by the waterfall and mango tree, time to depart. Everything was done at an unhurried pace, and the mealtimes and appointments, though scheduled, were flexible. I didn’t feel overprogrammed, and I did a lot of be-ing instead of reading or thinking or planning the next move. It was that kind of place. Each day also included two hot outdoor showers – ah, hot showers. We experienced all sorts of weather – warm when we got there, cool evening, windy morning (Typhoon Tino?), cool and breezy afternoon, rainy morning and departure - all made more dramatic with the mountains in the background.

Last week in the supermarket I saw a sign for a talk by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I didn’t think it was the Beatles’ one (it isn’t), but I still thought I would definitely have gone if I weren’t going to the spa - something made me notice. Well, it turned out that before his Tuesday Mall of Asia talk, he stayed at The Farm for three days and (by his own admission) did nothing! On Monday night, he offered to guide a full-moon meditation for the guests – so I saw him anyway! Look up The Art of Living to find out more about him.

As for the meditation – it was great. Joyful, I would even say. Here are some impressions and quotations after-the-fact, for anyone who is trying to incorporate more meditation into your life (and we all should!):
- be nothing, do nothing, want nothing
- embrace everything
- let thoughts pass, like the clouds passing over the moon
- three things – effortless, relaxing/comfortable, before food (or two hours after)
- get a meditation pillow (this one is from me, not him)!
- must be sitting – if sitting you are still conscious – lying down, you may fall asleep – still good, but not conscious (I was later told that this is also for polarity – head is positive and bottom is negative – when you sit, it balances out but when you lie down, it mixes up).

The guided walking meditation was also wonderful; James, the yoga (also top-notch) teacher, led it – and I was the only taker, so it was a private session. I had learned walking meditation before and often took walks along the lake to clear my head – needless to say, James told me to slow down. Take everything in – embrace everything. Use all five senses. When we turned around, he told me to look down in front of me and just use one sense, either smell or hearing, for the way back, and see how much more I take in. When I went back later on a stroll, I was shocked to see how short the path was – we had been on that meditation walk for so long! I really did take it slow.

I’ve been trying to do more meditation, but I haven’t consistently incorporated it into the day. Maybe this will be my transformation from the weekend. Though I could also see taking a quantum leap in eating habits, or dry brushing, or detoxifying, or yoga improvements (e.g., mountain pose with feet together instead of apart – makes a big difference) coming out of this. Or maybe I will just have lasting memories. Whatever the case, I said I would tell my friends – if you can make it here, it’s worth it!

The Farm at San Benito

2009-11-05T04:44:00.000-08:00

Mary left Mindoro and took the ferry and a bus – I took a jeepney and the MRT and LRT and bus – and we arrived at just about the same time in Lipa City, where we had some coffee at Starbucks and waited for a pickup. It was so good to see her – so much to talk about! Of course, that was only the beginning of a wonderful three days at the spa.

Nobody comes to The Farm by accident – so said the general manager. And everyone leaves a little transformed and ready to do something healthier for themselves. I had seen it in Lonely Planet and I’m glad it was there; it’s not a Lonely Planet kind of place. It was founded by a German, who envisioned it as a retreat for backpackers – he built a five-star resort, which is ultimately not sustainable on backpacker prices. I feel I found it just in time – I suspect the day will come when it will be priced out of reach.
On my own I would have gone for a day. I suggested it to Mary, and after reviewing the packages she suggested the midweek one – two nights; great idea! It was also wonderful to go with her – it’s the kind of place that’s much better shared. She proposed we meet here next year for two weeks – I told her that with the air fare from New York it would still probably be less expensive than many a spa in the States!

So what was so special? Well, everything. The setting is beautiful – winding paths, landscaped palms and ferns, a coconut plantation that produces food, drink, and toiletries, herbs organically grown on site, meditation pavilions in various locations, a mango tree that is an energy vortex, a waterfall grotto that I kept gravitating to, three swimming pools, a jungle path.

The spa was great – they had scheduled a relaxation massage for us, and I chose the dry brushing. I urge you to google dry brushing, buy a dry brush and use it – I will make this a regular practice when I get home. We were both glowing afterwards and I can’t remember the last time my body felt so good. The spa had many other treatments – massages, wraps, scrubs, and the like. Most of the other guests when we were there were expat wives doing multiple treatments every day for a week.

The food was incredible. I hadn’t thought much about the food, but Mary said it was like being on a cruise, and she was right. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and cookies and herbal tea break, one afternoon) took center stage each day and were made up of several courses of artistic vegan creations. Hard to say what my favorite things were – the carrot cake (a la crab cake, not a la the one with the cream cheese frosting), the yam burger, the pear ravioli, the coconut granola? Perhaps more telling, I enjoyed things I never eat – cauliflower, asparagus, beets, mushrooms. Everything was fresh and organic and interestingly prepared and beautifully presented. Breakfast was fresh fruit, granola with nut milk, and an a la carte choice. The other meals had appetizer, soup, salad, main, and dessert. Most of the food was raw, too. The herbal tea was fresh-cut herbs in hot water.

The health part of the spa was interesting. Included in our package was live blood analysis – a drop was pricked and examined under a microscope. My red blood cells are stacked and squished, not roaming free as they should – more water, more fruits, more vegetables are called for. I bought an extra treatment – a mineral clay detox. I am seriously considering going again at the end of my service – Manila is a toxic environment and I could detox before I come home! This was well-timed, just about halfway through.

To be continued….

Some Pictures from Week Fourteen

2009-11-01T05:30:00.000-08:00

Without a window, I spend a lot of time looking at my posters:

The Philippines and the neighborhood:

The Peace Corps has been in all the purple countries – and more!

This poster reminds me of Morocco:

The border between Mandaluyong and Pasig:

The wind from the typhoon downed this bus shelter roof:

The pool at the Intercontinental Makati:

With the Trip a No-Go, a Bonus Post!

2009-10-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

Well, Typhoon Santi came through and left quickly – with not a lot of rain but strong winds. Boats from Batangas to Mindoro were cancelled on Friday and Saturday. We heard that 700 people were waiting in Batangas pier. Boats were scheduled to run this morning (it’s already Sunday here), but with the rough waves, the holiday travelers, and having to leave early tomorrow to get to the spa, we decided to reschedule Mindoro for the weekend of the 14th (can't wait, but I'll have to!). Instead, yesterday I updated my resume – and I started working on a federal job application. That’s making the most of a “snow” (in this case typhoon) day! Our power was out from 6:30 am until the generator went on at 11:00; the downed power line was repaired by 1:30. Today I called Makati hotels to find day rates – this afternoon we’re going to enjoy this sunny, not-humid day (it might be the nicest day in Manila since I got here!) and go to a pool! I wrote some post-script haiku, so check that entry.

On a more serious note, something I’ve been thinking about – at the Asia-Pacific Housing Forum, then while researching the UNDP, and most recently while reading up on Stairway’s work, I keep running across the Millennium Development Goals. I’ll list them here, so we can all think about how much work there is to be done (and how lucky we are...):

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day
- Achieve Employment for Women, Men, and Young People
- Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
- By 2015, all children can complete a full course of primary schooling, girls and boys
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
- Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
- Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
- Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
- Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
- Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
- Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
- Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
- Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
- Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
- By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
- Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system
- Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDC)
- Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States
- Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term

Month Three in Haiku

2009-10-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

Disaster Response
Working on the proposal
Some iterations

Soup kitchen – helping
Evacuation center
Toilet build as well

USAID
Sending the proposal out
EU, UN too

Mr. Jugo passed
HFHP President
May he rest in peace

Any way I can…
I made my own donation
To help people here

Building target lists
Time-consuming but fun
With baseball playoffs

Brownout – it happens
Pepeng right after Ondoy
Life without A/C

My World-Wise Schools class
Got extra letters this month
They asked good questions

Packing relief bags
Rice, sardines, canned beef, noodles
Trucked up to the north

At the halfway point
Got lots done, lots more to do
Still glad that I’m here

Eggplant-pumpkin sauce
Sometimes instead of mall food
Princeton meeting too

Consolidation!
To the pension right away
It was just a drill

Weekend excursions
Again lots done, more to do
See the Philippines!

Greenhills pearl buying
The Chinese cemetery
And Old Manila

Samar – boat ride, cave
Leyte (MacArthur returned)
Imelda showcase

Bata-an – a march
Monument to World War II
Many people died

Embassy Bazaar
Pagsanjan canoe to falls
Mindoro, spa next!

NOVEMBER 1 POSTSCRIPT:

Typhoon Santi - wind
No boats from Batangas
Mindoro next month...

Worked on resume;
Hotel pool in Makati
To sit, read and swim

Coming Up: Rest and Relaxation

2009-10-29T05:42:00.000-07:00

Halloween is for kids here, not so much for adults – the same decorations and costumes you see in the US are available here (I haven’t seen as much candy, but I am told that kids do trick-or-treat). All Saints Day/Day of the Dead, November 1, is a major holiday in the Philippines – families spend the day, with major feasts, at cemeteries, honoring their departed loved ones. If I had a host family, I might have gone with them. When we toured the Chinese cemetery, the guide suggested that we come back for it – until that point, I wasn’t sure if it would be all right to come as an observer as opposed to a guest – but by that point I’d already made plans.

It’s back to Mindoro! Monday is a holiday, so it’ll be nice to be there for a long weekend. Whether there are any Halloween festivities with the boys or All Saints Day participation there remains to be seen. How much hiking we do also remains to be seen – Mary has been getting over an infection in her foot for about two weeks now – but even if we (provided she is healed) just swim and sit on the beach it’ll be great to get away. There was a clear night earlier this week in Manila – I think the first time since I’ve been here that there was a cloudless sky – and I saw a star; quite a contrast from seeing a sky full of stars, including the Milky Way, from Mary’s site! Julie and I are going – she and Mary both served in Macedonia so it will be fun to introduce them to each other! Julie has been here since the second week of September and hasn’t been to the beach yet! Typhoon Santi is on the way…I hope it doesn’t affect our ability to cross the passage.

I’ve reviewed all the Stairway materials in case there’s an opportunity to talk to the founders. They have a great residential program for the boys, but when I met with Lars he mentioned wanting to do more marketing of the advocacy part of their work. They’ve put together a package of animated videos – one of incest, one of pedophilia, and one of sex trafficking – to make it easier to discuss these issues. The award-winning package is a gentle way to approach the subjects – that is, if there is a gentle way. All three of those are so terrible – it amazes me that humans can treat each other this way, especially children. I think it would be fun to get work-related leave to do some consulting with them, or that they could use their own Peace Corps Response Volunteer! I don’t know if I’ll get the chance (I have so much to do with Habitat!) but I’m glad I studied the materials and I’m glad to be able to support Stairway by staying there (the price is a small contribution) and buying some pasalubong from them (you all want dreamcatcher keychains, right?).

After that, I’m going to a spa! There was some boxed text in Lonely Planet that mentioned that spas are a growing business in the Philippines. I asked Mary if she was interested in going to one and she’s coming along (I asked Julie too but she passed)! We frequently text and email, and I’m really looking forward to spending more time with her. Check out www.thefarm.com.ph - it’s conveniently located between Mindoro and Metro Manila. Our package is called Midweek at the Farm and includes:
• arrival welcome drinks
• 3 days/2 nights stay in a villa suite
• guided walking tour of The Farm
• live blood analysis with a medical doctor
• choice of two 60-minute spa treatments (relaxation massage, reflexology massage, anti-stress facial, little yin yang dry brushing – I haven’t decided on my two yet, but since I haven’t even heard of dry brushing, I might have to do that one!)
• three-course healthy gourmet meals (note – vegan – can it make up for the other 180-odd nights of mall food?)
• use of The Farm facilities: swimming pool, library, gym and meditation lounges/pavilions
• participation in complimentary morning and afternoon yoga sessions
I probably would have gone for a day on my own, just to experience another aspect to the Philippines, but not for the three-day package if not for Mary. I’ll be gone from Saturday morning through Wednesday night. These plans have been in the works for a while and I’m so looking forward to it!
P.S. There’s no time change in the Philippines. Enjoy falling back!

Some Pictures from Week Thirteen

2009-10-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin:

Eggplant:

Manila Bay, one month after International Coastal Cleanup Day:

Products made from juice packets:

They know my name at the mango shake place:

Cue "Ride of the Valkyries":

Being paddled - and dragged - up the rapids:

The gorgeous gorge:

Before - five mostly-dry PCRVs about to get very wet:

After - We went on this raft under that waterfall:

So What Else is New?

2009-10-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

My air conditioner became a fan early last week. Air came out, but it wasn’t cold air. It was quite uncomfortable – it made me tired, it was hard to get anything done, I had no energy for yoga. An attempt at repair failed, and I told Hanna that I would pay out of my own pocket to replace it if it couldn’t be fixed – it would be worth it for three months. But then I thought about it again – I didn’t expect to have air conditioning. Most Filipinos don’t have air conditioning. I could go to work every day and not work from home at all. I can go to the mall for air conditioning. I could sleep with just the fan. It’s only three months. This is the Peace Corps, after all – I could live without it. Fortunately, I do not have to – a second attempt to fix it was successful!

I was reminded of more of what I’m living without, though, when I went to one of the fancy restaurants in one of the fancy malls in Makati on Tuesday night, to meet the head of the Princeton Club here and another Princeton alum who is here for a Fulbright. We had a wonderful and intelligent conversation (as would be expected with Princeton alums!) and delicious food. California Pizza Kitchen every so often is a treat for me here, and this food (spicy tuna, shrimp, pasta, salad) was so much better and so much more expensive than that – it had been so long since I had food that good that it was almost a shock to my system. It had also been a long time since I had a conversation that left me so energized – though I don’t feel without it on a regular basis, I think this was just a special evening. In addition, it’s still culture shock to be in Makati – Shangri-La mall is one of the nicest here, as is Rockwell, so I didn’t think I was missing anything, but I was. I went to CPK the next day – not ready to go all the way back – and the next day made another batch of my now-named Shaw Boulevard Pasta Sauce (eggplant, pumpkin, spice blend, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, laughing cow cheese).

When we first arrived in the Philippines in late July and went to the mall near the pension for our cell phones, we encountered a group of current volunteers who were going to the mall for Mexican food. We left them – we couldn’t wait to get out of the mall, and we didn’t have that need for Mexican, preferring to eat in local restaurants (though we ended up with Korean one night and Indian the other, and not Filipino). Well, Friday night when we were back at the pension for the consolidation exercise, there we were, going to the mall for Mexican. I guess we’ve assimilated into the PCV community now! We then went out for drinks. I never did this in Morocco – it was not culturally sensitive, and the bars were loud and smoky. I now realize how much drinking is a part of PCV life (and it’s even more so in the countries where drinking is a big part of the host country culture, such as Eastern Europe). It was kind of fun, I’ll admit it. Really, I had fun in Makati, fun at CPK, fun cooking and fun at the mall and out drinking – expanding my horizons here and taking advantage of what’s here to have a complete experience (such as it is in the big capital city…).

And to add more of the Philippines to the experience – on Sunday a group of us went to nearby (i.e. two hours away) Pagsanjan, for a canoe ride to the falls. Boatmen transported us up the river; when I saw them get out of the boat every time we hit some rapids and drag us upstream, I was no longer disappointed that we didn’t have a chance to paddle. At the top of the river, we boarded a raft and were pulled under the falls – Julie likened it to being blasted with a fire hose – very wet and very fun. The boatmen then expertly guided us through the rapids back downstream, where we had lunch. The wider, gentler part of the river is where they filmed the final scenes of Apocalypse Now. Monkeys can be seen on land, but we didn’t see any. The canyon was deep and lush – quite a contrast to the dry gorges in Morocco but just as beautiful in its own way. Great outing. And then, another big (and rare) treat – I got home and took a nap! After a night of not a lot of sleep in the dorm and getting up early for the road trip, I needed it!

Consolidation Drill

2009-10-26T05:34:00.000-07:00

Things were moving right along last week. I finished building the list of Habitat for Humanity USA affiliates – that took much longer than I thought it would, but it’s good that I did it, because it’s possible nobody else would have ever had the time to do it. The list is much bigger than I thought it would be, which is also good. I’m still compiling the list of Filipino-American organizations; this work doesn’t require my full brain wattage, so it’s been perfect to do in the mornings while listening to the baseball playoffs.

I also had a meatier assignment, to help prepare cover letters for the now-ready-to-go funding proposal for the EU (European Union) and UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). This required some research into what they fund and how, so that I could target the letters. Even more exciting, I was invited to come with the Co-Chair of Friends of Habitat (the former Miss Universe) to the UNDP presentation.

I was preparing for that when we got the call from our warden – consolidation exercise; drop everything and go to the consolidation point. It was somewhat disruptive (in addition to the UNDP meeting, I had made pasta sauce the night before and hadn’t had time for yoga that morning – in other words, a busy afternoon and evening ahead!) but I take these things seriously – just in the time since I joined Peace Corps, they’ve evacuated several countries – Georgia, Bolivia, Kenya (those volunteers went back), Mauritania, Guinea and maybe others I am not thinking of now.

There are many steps to the Emergency Action Plan, consolidation being the final one before evacuation. We never had a consolidation exercise in Morocco but we had several other tests – cell phone drills and land line drills – and a couple of times I had to call people in my warden group to report a terrorism incident or see if people were all right after flash floods.

If we were really headed for consolidation, we would have packed two weeks’ worth of clothes and everything we would have wanted with us in case we weren’t going back to our sites. For the exercise, I brought clean underwear, my t-shirt-and-shorts PJs, and toiletries. I forgot my passport – the most important thing! – but to my credit I remembered it right away and texted my warden to find out whether I should go back for it or not (she said no, but I probably should have, because I felt that as a former warden I should live up to my own high standards). Our consolidation point was the pension where we stayed when we first arrived – ironically, my second time there in a week; I had come down on Wednesday morning to have breakfast with Travis, who was COSing. I hadn’t seen the PRCV guys in a while so it was nice to spend some time with them; also met some of the current PCVs whom I hadn’t met yet (including the ones who have volunteered for our Habitat for Humanity build week, now rescheduled for the week of November 16!). We had a really good meeting with the Peace Corps staff member who checked us in and the Regional Safety and Security Director. It’s interesting to think about all of the issues involved in keeping volunteers safe.

When we arrived, Mary, Mercedes and I shared the air-conditioned room. Now that we’ve been here a while, no more of that – instead, it was the dorm room, where there are eight sets of bunk beds. It’s not easy for me to sleep with that much karma in the room, but it was nice to take a hot shower!

It actually worked out well that I was at the pension, since I was planning to be in the area the next day. I walked over to the Embassy Bazaar – looking for (and finding) some craft items that might make lovely pasalubong (items that you bring home for people after you travel) and/or lovely things for myself! I also went to the Kultura Filipino store in the Mega Mall to buy some items I had scoped out earlier. I know not to leave all my shopping until the end! I’m not going crazy, though – so far everything I’ve bought will fit in one box.

Reflections at the Halfway Point

2009-10-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

I knew the time would go by fast – Motasim said six months was just enough time to get there, figure out what you’re doing, do it and say goodbye. This is week 13 out of 26 – a good time to reflect on what I have done so far and what I still hope to do.

Work is definitely front and center in a way that it wasn’t during my service in Morocco. There, I really felt that the technical assignment was but one of three goals, and that experiencing the culture and getting by on a daily basis were central to my service. Here, I spend much more time and energy on work – but that’s one of they key differences between Peace Corps Response and the regular 27-month program. The work has been exciting and rewarding – for a while now I have been saying that I wanted to do marketing for a non-profit and here I am confirming that (at least as one possible direction – government service continues to be another, as does other development work). I now see how marketing - both fundraising and communications – is a vital part of humanitarian aid. I may have gotten more than I bargained for with the typhoon/flooding relief effort, but I feel all the more that I am making a needed contribution and also getting some valuable experience. If I could find a job like this and an organization like this when I am finished here, I would be quite content. In the meantime, I am trying to make the most of it while I am here, because I know it’s a tough market out there and some compromises may be required. What would I give up in order to work on something I feel passionate about – Salary? Location? Leisure time? Responsibility? Organizational culture? I won’t know the answers to that question until I have an actual choice to make, but it’s a welcome experience for me to be passionate about what I am doing and it’s something I’ve hoped for, so I’m not taking this time lightly. I also have a lot of flexibility in my work – something I have also craved and will continue to hope for.

I feel I’ve gotten a lot done so far – solid prospect lists, appeals lists and inroads, with plenty of time left to explore more of the paths I initially came up with when I was brainstorming. At the same time, if the disaster response means that I don’t get as much of my initial plan done as I thought I would, I will have worked on that immediate need, and I will still leave Habitat for Humanity Philippines with some accomplishments and also some avenues to pursue that they may not have considered before.

I’m doing well at seeing the Philippines, too, with my weekend trips and vacations taken and planned. I did do research and I did make a list of what I want to see, but I think I’m a more relaxed traveler after my plan-as-you-go post-Morocco trip. That may also be a function of the nature of the Philippines – with hot weather it’s hard to go-go-go all day, and with beaches and nature, part of the activity is allowing for some inactivity. I still have several major trips planned and the majority of my vacation days yet to take. I haven’t decided on anything yet for post-service – I feel I still have time before I have to decide anything about that.

I don’t feel I have as much time on my hands as I did in Morocco (or Southampton), so I haven’t done all of the reading and writing I brought with me to do, but if it’s because I’m working more, that’s okay – I don’t feel the “you should be doing more” pressure I used to constantly put on myself. I feel both nutritionally-challenged and fitness-challenged, but I am working on both of those. I haven’t done as much language recently as I did when I was first here – I haven’t given up yet, but I have revised my goal down from comprehending most of what’s said around me to having a few solid phrases and being able to make light conversation, and I’m just about there.

I haven’t played a single hand of cards. But I’ve gone out more to restaurants and bars. I’ve spent more time with other volunteers than I have with host country nationals, but I still have some opportunities for cultural exchange. I realized something recently – I baked some brownies for Marilee in Thailand and a chocolate bread pudding for Martha in Los Angeles. After that, I never used the oven in Southampton because it looked a little daunting (and because my sister said she never used it either). I don’t have an oven here – so I could conceivably go an entire year without using an oven!

In the late innings of a lopsided game this week, with the Dodgers down, Vin Scully wondered if there was anyone at all out there listening, and why they would be (I wanted to scream back, “I am, Vin, and it’s because of you!”). I couldn’t help but think of this blog – who is really out there reading it? But I know that there are people out there – those of you who have told me so, and maybe some who haven’t? – and I thank you for reading. And for caring.

Some Pictures from Week Twelve

2009-10-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

The bus passed flooded fields:

The hike up begins:

In the forest:

View of the peninsula:

Mt. Samat Cross:

Mt. Samat Memorial:

Death March photo:

Packing relief goods:

Chinatown:

(Not Quite) The Amazing Race

2009-10-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve made it through DVDs of five seasons of “Survivor” and now I’m going through five seasons of “The Amazing Race,” thanks to my friend Gary; I lent him my TiVo while I was away in return for him recording these things for me. I could have used them in Morocco when I had more time on my hands, but they provide relaxation here as well. On Sunday I went to pack relief goods, and at one point I felt that it was like a task in that show. So, with some creative license, I’m going to write this post as if it were an episode (and if I inspire you to watch, don’t tell me what is going on this season!).

Julie and Sharon made their way via MRT and taxi to this warehouse, the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) operations center, near the airport. While there, they had to pack bags of relief goods to be trucked up north the next day. Each bag consisted of three kilos of rice, two cans of sardines, one can of beef, one package of chicken-flavored noodles, and one package of beef-flavored noodles. Using an assembly line, teams had to work quickly to accomplish this task. After packing over 1500 bags, the supervisor gave them their next clue.

Let’s call this Detour Pack It or Putter, and we chose Pack It. Meanwhile, Bill (and pretend he had a race partner) chose Putter. In this task, Bill and fictional partner slept late, read and generally puttered around, but they had to wait for a text message that contained their next clue.

All teams then made their way to Chinatown – Julie and Sharon via taxi, McDonald’s sundaes and LRT, and Team Bill via Quiapo jeepney. Using only the Lonely Planet map and their cell phones, they ended up at the same spot on Ongpin Street, in the heart of Chinatown. Usually a Roadblock is a task that only one person can perform, but since we’re using creative license, all team members ate strange Chinese food. Teams then looked through Chinatown’s streets until they found this shop, the Feng Shui and Good Fortune Gift Shop, where the owner gave them their next clue.

All teams then took the LRT to a tricycle to the Chinese cemetery, where they hired a tour guide, who showed them mausoleums of rich people, the building housing cremated remains, temples, memorials to the Chinese who fought in the war, and more. When finished, the tour guide gave them their next clue. All teams then raced back via LRT and MRT to Shaw Boulevard and then to their respective pit stops for a mandatory rest period. This was a non-elimination round.

Comments from one of the team members: it was fun to pack those relief goods; I’ve done a lot of envelope-stuffing in my time and this was one of the more efficient things of its type – no downtime. We got right to work and everyone worked together and the time flew by. Reinforcements came, so we didn’t feel too bad when we left at the lunch break. Chinatown wasn’t all it was cracked up to be (nor, sadly, was the food), but it was interesting to go back to the cemetery and get the tour this time. And I enjoyed the time with my companions!

Bataan

2009-10-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

The day before the Mt. Princeton climb, we got lost while on a nine-mile hike that ended up being around 13 miles long before we were picked up and brought back to the lodge, some people with blisters and all of us more exhausted than we wanted to be before the big day. At one point someone (it could have been I) referred to it as a Bataan death march. Well, obviously it doesn’t come close; I was eager to go to the memorial in Bataan and see what there was to see.

First of all, the pronunciation – “a” as in adios, each “a” pronounced, so Bata-an. It’s the peninsula at the north end of Manila Bay – but there are no longer ferries, so Bill and I took a bus ride to get to the provincial capital, Balanga (it took about three hours each way). There we met Kate and her friend Romeo, who had a car. We went to a local place for brunch (tapsilog for me) and then on to Mt. Samat, site of fierce fighting and of the memorial. Kate had visited during her PST, and she is COSing in a few weeks, so for her it was a bookend to her experience.

Romeo kept asking me if we wanted to walk (it would have been 7K if we’d taken a jeepney from town – I didn’t know until that morning that we’d have a ride) and I said I felt that we couldn’t commemorate a 100K march by driving all the way to the top, but that since he kept asking I could tell he didn’t want to! He and Kate let us out at the 5K marker and we started up. Bill had done the Taal volcano just last week with Julie and he said this was steeper. And it was really humid. While we were walking, I hummed the theme from “Patton” to myself – wrong theatre of the war, but great music.

Somewhere between the 3K and 2K markers, we encountered Kate and Romeo – they had found a path down from the top. So we left the blacktop and went up an even steeper (but more fun) shortcut through the jungle. At the top is a big cross (same height as the Statue of Liberty, which, I learned, is 46 meters of base and then 46 meters of statue – this was all 92), the bottom of which is sculpted with bas-reliefs of battle scenes. I’m told that on a clear day you can see the cross from Manila, and that it lines up exactly with the Rizal Monument.

We took an elevator to the horizontal part of the cross, where we could see mountains in the distance in both directions (behind the southern one is Corregidor), Manila Bay on one side and the South China Sea on the other, hills and trees all around (replanted with help from the Japanese), farms, towns. We then went down to a second memorial that had the story of the battle, stained glass, plaques for each division that fought there, and a museum with black-and-white photographs, guns and uniforms.

The story of the Death March is pretty gruesome, so if you want lots of details, look for them elsewhere, but the short version is that after Bataan fell, the men who surrendered were marched 100K over the course of five days and then herded onto trains to go to POW camps. Malnourished to begin with and given no provisions, anyone who fell out of line was killed and many others just couldn’t make it – maybe 20,000 of the 75,000 who started perished. Even more died in the camps. Each year on April 9th, thousands go to Mt. Samat on the anniversary (I can’t imagine where they all fit). Bataan was one of the places I most wanted to visit when I knew I was coming here, and I felt awed to be there. I should also note that while I looked this up to confirm my numbers I learned (or re-learned) that the bridge where State Street crosses the Chicago River is called the Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Bridge; I shall plan to go there when next in town!

Back to Normal?

2009-10-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

It was quieter this week at work than it has been since the flood. The disaster response proposal was being gussied up by the Board, so I worked on developing a list of corporations to send it to. I revised the appeals letters I had been sending earlier to include the floods and therefore create more urgency, and worked on building the email lists for those. I find myself smiling at the diversity of the names of American cities and towns, so I’m having fun (and listening to baseball playoffs and podcasts while I work).

Another low-pressure system (unnamed for most of the week, but today named Ramil here, Lupit internationally) meant heavy rain in the Eastern Visayas – where I just was – and the forecast was for more flooding this week; it is expected to escalate into a typhoon and hit North Luzon next week. I read in the paper over the weekend that two more big typhoons are expected this month, two next month, and one in December. I read in Culture Shock: Philippines that the fatalistic attitude of Catholicism helps people here cope with the frequent disasters. I guess things are returning to normal.

Life goes on, and Habitat goes on after the death of the president last week. He had a heart attack the Monday after the floods and things got worse from there. He was still working on the disaster response from the hospital; he had a chance to see his family. People at work loved him; there’s sadness and there’s confusion as to what’s next. Members of the Board have been in a lot anyway because of Ondoy/Ketsana – they’ve been in even more, working on keeping things going and on finding a successor. I work more or less independently so I don’t know if I will be directly affected by the change, but I do sense the mood. Julie and I went to the wake on Tuesday with my supervisor, the Peace Corps Country Director, and the Peace Corps Response Coordinator. It was nice to be able to pay my respects.

I worked from home on Wednesday – last week was the first week I was in the office all five days. I like working from home one or two days a week. I hope I can find a way to keep doing that! Wednesday was a rainy day – a good day to stay in. And it was cool! I didn’t think it would get cool at all! It’s back to hot now. The building where I live houses a bank, and people have been lined up all week to get calamity loans – it’s sad to see all the people in line, but it’s another reminder that people do what they have to do to keep going.

I made dinner – I hadn’t even cooked eggs since the refrigerator stopped working, opting for peanut-butter-and-apple breakfasts, mangoes and mall food. I couldn’t take it anymore. I bought some eggplant (Filipino eggplants are long and thin) and some pumpkin (that is, kalabasa squash) and some onions and garlic and made a pasta sauce (that also included some spices, tomato sauce and, for old times’ sake, Laughing Cow cheese). It was great! I am going to make it again and again until I am tired of it or until those vegetables go out of season. Maybe I’ll branch out and cook other things too – I still feel limited by logistics (not to mention time) but it is worth it!

Another thing that has been going on involves a job interview back in the States. I’ll spare you the details other than to say that although the interview did not come through, it made me realize how in the moment I have become, especially with the disaster response, and that maybe it was a hint that the search for what’s next might need some attention. I say that I am here for six months, but I am also here for 26 weeks, and this is week 12 – in other words, I’m almost halfway through. I had a hard time looking for a job last fall because I was so focused on finishing up my service in Morocco, and I promised myself that I would start looking while here. After all, it was only a few months ago that I was in job-hunting mode. It seems far away, but I know I have to do it! I’ll see what I can do to add that in to the routine…(and I want to get back to language too – haven’t done much of that since Julie arrived).

Other news – I went to the movies tonight! “Julie and Julia.” Fun to go to a movie theatre! Nice that they have almost-first-run movies here. Also, I’m continuing with World-Wise Schools, partnering with the same class at my nieces’ school that I had in Morocco. I sent a handwritten letter from Morocco every month but I wonder how many letters really got there; I didn’t hear much from them. This time I decided to email and they are asking some insightful and thought-provoking questions! I’ll list them in another post.

Leyte Pictures (from Week Eleven)

2009-10-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

Along the river:

The occasional riverbank village:

Compare to travelsintheoffseason.blogspot.com May 2 entry:

Sohoton Cave:

Sisters in the cave:

I still look at artisan products!

"I have returned"

Santo Nino Shrine:

The Golden Bear golfed with Marcos:

Imelda diorama:

Imelda's bedroom:

Imelda's bath:

After seeing government buildings in WWII black and white photographs, I saw them the next day, still standing:

MacArthur Landing Memorial:

Red Beach:

Leyte - Part Two

2009-10-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

Leyte is where Imelda Marcos hails from, and as a gift she built the Santo Nino shrine, a chapel/palace that nobody ever stayed in or slept in. It’s more a showcase for her collections. There are thirteen guest rooms, each with a different regional or traditional theme, each with some books and photographs of hers, and each with a diorama depicting some aspect of her life or her projects. Downstairs there is a big salon and a big dining room. Upstairs there is an even bigger salon and a bigger dining room, and big bedrooms for each member of the Marcos family and for the bodyguard. It was very interesting – opulent furnishings and beautiful things.

I went to a local café, bought iced coffee and a muffin, and read the Sunday paper – what a treat! I then took a walk around the waterfront – Tacloban is on a peninsula and I went from the gulf side to the wharf side, past some government buildings and some parks. And then I took a tricycle, jeepney and tricycle to Red Beach, site of MacArthur’s return. This wasn’t the purpose of the trip, but I am happy to have seen both the spot from which he said, “I shall return,” and now the one to which he returned! He landed on October 20, 1944 – almost sixty-five years to the day. It’s hard for me to imagine war – and to contrast that with being there the day after Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The landing spot is marked with a larger-than-life sculpture of MacArthur and others wading ashore. I walked over to the beach, too – no sugar-white sand and no surf to speak of – but I didn’t feel compelled to go in the water; the good news is that I didn’t see a lot of trash, either! I had the tricyle take me over to a hill where there had been a lot of fighting; now there’s a small Japanese memorial. And then it was time to go back! The taxi driver on the way home from the Manila airport told me that he was a soldier in Iraq, wounded in the head and the side, driving a taxi while he recovers enough to go back and fight some more. He needs the money to put his children through college. That made me think about WWII again and the peaceful island that saw bloody battles and all of those photographs I saw. In another sixty-five years, will there be peace? WWII, War in Iraq, Peace Prize, Peace Corps.

On another note, I am able to follow and listen to some of the baseball playoffs. Is it my imagination, or have there been more first-round sweeps since I left for the Peace Corps than there were before? I don’t like sweeps – I like as much baseball as possible! It’s hard to think about fall temperatures and even winter temperatures there – it’s just as hot here now as it was when I got here (and it might have been hotter in Leyte than it has been in Manila!).

One more note – the PCVs in Guinea were evacuated to Mali, and Turkmenistan refused to accept volunteers this year – the day before they were scheduled to get on the plane to go there. There’s a lot of instability in the world….

Leyte - Part One

2009-10-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

There are 7107 Philippine islands. So far I’ve been to Luzon, Corregidor, Mindoro, Negros, Siquijor…and this past weekend, two more, Leyte and Samar, in the Visayas.

I took an early-morning flight – always rough for me, but nice to have a full day. I landed, took a jeepney into the town of Tacloban and then took another jeepney to Basey, in southern Samar. There, I was quite a novelty – many stares and hellos. I went to the tourist office and arranged a boat ride to their national park – turns out it was eight Sisters and me. Nuns in full habit make for some great photographs! They were very nice, too.

Lonely Planet says that the boat ride is one of the highlights of trip to the park, and I felt that way – going up the river first in a houseboat and then a small boat, past mostly jungle but also the occasional village, was both exciting and relaxing. In high tide you can go to a natural bridge and a swimming hole, but our low-tide destination was Sohoton Cave. We were fitted with headlamps and shown stalagtites and stalagmites of various shapes and sizes. Something different from what I’ve already seen here!

Back in Tacloban, I went out for Mexican food. What is it about Mexican that makes you want it if you can’t get it? I craved it in Morocco too. The owner of the restaurant lived in California and gets all her spices from there. Megan, A PCV on a nearby island, was in town and met me there – it was her idea that I visit in the first place, and it was nice to see her.

The hotel I found was an old colonial home with a new addition containing rooms with air conditioning, hot showers, and a newspaper in the room. On the balcony of the original home, there are cardboard cutouts of Douglas MacArthur and Philippine President Sergio Osmena, below the words, “I have returned.” Of course I had to stay there! The hotel is decorated with lots of WWII photographs, and my evening’s entertainment was looking at all of them. I also started a book – as if WWII history weren’t absorbing enough – Tony Horwitz’s “A Voyage Long and Strange,” about the European explorations of North America before 1492 and between 1492 and 1620 – subtitle: “on the trail of Vikings, Conquistadors and other Adventurers in Early America.” Fun book.

One other note – Pepeng (international name Parma) did not reach Manila, but it did tremendous damage up north, with major floods and landslides, including one in the town near Baguio where I had stayed a couple of weeks ago (the volunteers I met there were both out of town). The road to Baguio was cut off! I almost went north this weekend; I may not be able to go up north for a while.

Some Pictures from Week Ten

2009-10-09T14:53:00.000-07:00

Jeepney:

Evacuation center:

Bathroom build:

Volunteers digging:

Flood mud and trash:

Not disaster-related but everyday life - public urinals are basically just privacy walls:

Chinese Cemetery mausoleums:

Fort Santiago gate:

Jose Rizal awaiting his execution (note brass footprints):

Manila Cathedral:

St. Augustin Baroque Church:

Casa Manila:

Pearls of the Philippines:

Capiz Shell home decor:

Mountain Province weavings:

Manila Shopping and Exploration

2009-10-09T03:52:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I stayed in Manila – there was to be an Embassy bazaar, with artisan products from all over the country; that was postponed because of the flooding and the forecast of a severe storm, but my PCV friend Kate was already in town before they limited non-essential travel, so she came over. Friday night we went to the nearby supermarket (the one around the corner, which is small and has nothing fresh or refrigerated) and stocked up; we ended up eating a quart of ice cream as our dinner – after all, it wasn’t going to stay frozen in the freezer so we had no choice, really.

It’s all right that the Embassy bazaar was rescheduled because I experienced shopping overload anyway! We went to Greenhills, a nearby mall (well, not that near – about an hour’s walk, in the rain, but it seemed like a good idea at the time), which has a flea market on Saturdays. It’s known among PCVs and Lonely Planet readers as the place to get pearls – there are stands and stands of strands and strands (I came up with that one on my own). She had found a stand that she liked and trusted, and I was happy to have her show it to me before she COSes. They have pearls of all shapes, colors and sizes – as I said before, get your requests in! You pick them out and the owner makes jewelry to order – necklaces, bracelets, earrings. While she was making them we looked around at the other stalls – weavings, batik, carvings; I bought a coin from 1944 that had United States on one side and the Philippines on the other. It was fun but exhausting! I have already thought of more people for whom I could buy pearls (or more that I would like for myself), so I’ll go back, but probably not the same day as the Embassy bazaar.

We were troupers, though, and went on to see something she had wanted to see before she leaves – the Chinese cemetery. There are elaborate mausoleums there – some with air conditioning and toilets! I had read about it, but even so was surprised by the opulence. Quite a contrast to the evacuation center I had been to the day before – the dead with conditions much more plush than the living!

On Sunday, Julie and I went to Intramuros, the walled city of Old Manila – it took me a while to get there and it was worth the wait! If you’re ever traveling to the Philippines, you don’t have to spend more than a day in Manila, but this is where you should spend your day! This was where the Spanish lived, keeping the Filipinos (who they called Indios) and Chinese outside the walls (i.e, extramuros). It was all but destroyed in WWII; only the walls and a few other buildings remained. In the 1990s they rebuilt some and made it into a tourist district and did a nice job.

First, we went to Fort Santiago; the gate is one of the parts still standing and it is a grand entrance. Inside the fort is a shrine to Jose Rizal, the national hero – including the cell where he was imprisoned the night before his execution and where he wrote his farewell poem. The shrine had some other artifacts and the fort had warehouses and dungeons and ramparts – all good.

We went on to the Manila Cathedral – I lost track of how many churches were built on the same site and then destroyed in earthquakes and typhoons; the present structure is suitably impressive. From there, we went on to St. Augustin Church, one of the baroque churches that comprise the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built in the 1500s, it survived the war. It has a wonderful baroque interior and a very comprehensive museum, with religious articles, paintings, furniture, vestments, pottery, a crypt and more. We were there for a while and then took a lunch break – well-timed, as we missed the rain.

We went on to Casa Manila, a replica colonial house with real antiques, built by Imelda Marcos to showcase Spanish colonial life. First floor - salon and business area, with small bedrooms in which to rest or to house a bachelor uncle. Second floor - main salon for entertainment and then bedrooms, dining room, kitchen and bath. The antiques were local, European, Chinese, even some American, carved, elegant, tasteful. No photography allowed inside though!

We had the stamina for one last museum – the Bahay Tsinoy, which showcased the life of the Chinese in the early days and the contribution that Chinese-Filipinos have made in the history of the Philippines (which is substantial). Last but not least was a visit to the best Filipino crafts store I’ve seen here yet, and therefore an opportunity to augment the pearl purchases – with some placemats woven in the mountain provinces and some capiz-shell home décor (I knew it would grow on me…). Intramuros was great – now I wish I were having visitors so I could go back and show it to them! As we used to say on the See the World trips, thumbs up; a 10!

Reality Check

2009-10-08T02:51:00.001-07:00

I’m still writing up this past weekend, but I may not finish before the electricity goes out, so I thought I’d write about that instead. Perhaps a transformer blew in Rizal province, or there was trouble bringing Cainta back up (I can’t complain; I think they haven’t had electricity since the flood), but the power in Pasig went out at 9:00 last night. Our building has a generator, so we were up and running within half an hour, but the power has been out all day here (this is the first week where I haven’t been on a field trip or worked from home at least one day – I guess today wasn’t the day anyway!) and the generator has been running all day so that the businesses in the building can run – but the generator is being turned off at 7:00 tonight since it’s only Hanna, Julie and me. I usually go out for a walk soon after I get home, but I’m saving my mall trip for 7:00. Ironically, tonight’s errand is to get a new battery for my computer, which is no longer holding a charge. If it were, I could keep using it without electricity! Luckily, when we were told to stock up on food last weekend because it looked as though Pepeng would hit here, I also checked my flashlight batteries; sure enough, they needed to be replaced. I had read that brownouts were frequent in the Philippines and thought I might be spared since I’m in Metro Manila – but perhaps it was only a matter of time. I may post this week’s pictures first and then the narrative later.

As if that weren’t enough, I got followed this morning. As I was standing on the corner waiting to cross the street, a woman spied me and started staring at me. I told her to go away and she remained uncomfortably close. She followed me across the street, even as I weaved in and out and back and forth. I thought I shook her off but she was right with me, as close as you can get without touching. She followed me onto the bus; I had thought I would lose her there. I told the conductor she was following me – I’m glad he understood English; not all of them do. Another man on the bus told me to sit down and physically prevented her from following me to my seat, and the conductor managed to kick her off. I didn’t feel threatened, but I felt (and continue to feel) really disturbed. The day had gotten off to a bad start as it was with ants in my room; I usually have a killing spree every day when I get home (one to three small bugs meet their maker) but not in the morning. Maybe it’s just as well if there isn’t electricity – when I get back from the mall I can go to sleep and start over tomorrow (there’s an 8:00 am Disaster Response meeting anyway – that’s early for me, and it’s the second one this week – so again, just as well!).

P.S. (Friday morning my time) - more reality - the president of Habitat for Humanity Philippines passed away yesterday. He had a heart attack the Monday after Ondoy and things spiraled downward from there. He was quite a leader. Things have been running while he was in the hospital, but now we'll see what happens....

Filling in the Blanks

2009-10-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

With recent travels and the aftermath of Ondoy, I haven’t written a “regular” entry in a while. So to fill in the blanks, some of my recent doings that I haven’t talked about yet…. I went to the dentist for a cleaning – that went well! I was never sure what I was going to get with the dentist in Fes (though I liked the dentist in Rabat). Many people come to the Philippines for medical tourism; I can’t think of anything I would have done (other than maybe update my eyeglass prescription – I was given a new one in New York but didn’t fill it; heard glasses are cheaper here).

It turned out that I had to type up the notes I took at the conference – I felt as if I was working on a term paper! It took several days to type all of those notes (I guess to make it really feel like a term paper I could have pulled an all-nighter, but since I never did in college, I wasn’t about to do it now). And then I did my monthly report and some other Peace Corps paperwork – I’m glad I got all of that out of the way before the disaster relief kicked in. I haven’t had as much personal time as I had in Morocco or expected to have here – there are reading and writing that I thought I would have more time for, and I also thought I might work on my resume this month so that I could prepare for what comes next. I’ll have to find more balance.

Went out with some current PCVs for a couple of dinners, and met the last of the PCRVs that will arrive this year – I think that in the past couple of weeks I have been out in the evenings more than I’ve been in (which may be the reason why I feel the need to update). I also had a great massage (I thought about going to one of the hotels in Makati and then realized that the EDSA Shangri-La probably had a nice spa, and it did!) and got my hair done (I live behind a salon and Hanna is friends with the people there, so I felt I had to give them a try, and I think they did all right!).

I see real estate ads for high-ceilinged condos with lofts – this is an urban way to replicate the multi-level rural nipa hut. Somewhere between the hut and the condo, the Habitat homes are also high-ceilinged and many families add a sleeping loft – I think it would be fun to have a loft when I get back to the states! Of course, I could sleep on the top bunk of my bed while I’m here….

Wanted to comment on the travel – on the buses (even the city buses when there’s a lot of traffic), people come in and walk down the aisles selling nuts and other snacks, and then they get off. On the one long bus ride I’ve experienced so far, there were short rest stops every couple of hours – as opposed to one long one on the bus rides in Morocco. Did I mention that when the jeepneys load, people sit right next to the door first, so everyone who comes in behind them has to crowd by them? Toilets here often flush, and if they are squat toilets they are a seatless bowl, not a hole in the floor. About half the time, public restrooms have paper (this is stuff you wanted to know, right?) – that is, more often than in Morocco – and there is often soap by the sinks. Another different line mentality in this situation too – people stand in front of a stall that they think will empty, rather than in one queue, so it is not always the case that if you are there first, you get into a stall first.

I’ve been asked a couple of times to compare my experiences and I usually answer that I am having a completely different experience – it’s urban, there’s more work, it’s mostly in English, I have much less downtime (and when I do I often go to a mall), I have only six months. Comparing the countries? Well, both are developing and definitely have issues, but both are beautiful and interesting and worth exploring. Religion is important in both places and so is family. I might give the edge to the culture here and the food there, but I’m still learning. I’m really glad I was there and I’m really glad I’m here.

Last, I’m not sure I’ll so the scuba certification, but Julie wants to arrange a surfing weekend, and I’m definitely up for that!

Disaster Relief

2009-10-06T06:25:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of last week I just felt sad about the flooding – perhaps with a combination of survivor’s guilt and a wish to be more hands-on. A couple of productive days of sending out email appeals made me feel better – after all, the rebuilding won’t happen without the funds. I was reminded of a conversation I had with my friend Roberta, in which we talked about the people who work with the community and the people who raise the money so other people can work with the community – you need both kinds of people, and both kinds have different skill sets. More power to the people who work with the community, we said at the time. Serving in the Peace Corps in Morocco made me feel I was where the action was, and early last week I felt sad to be back to being behind the scenes. But by the end of last week I realized I was both and that I could serve an important role. The best use of my skill set is probably being in the office – I was pulled into a board meeting last week and asked to put together a one-pager of fast facts of Habitat’s disaster relief efforts, review a proposal that will go out to prospective donors and answer requests for information – so in the office I now feel on the front lines, working on immediate response. On Monday my responsibilities increased when I was pulled into a meeting with my supervisor, someone from Asia-Pacific who had flown in, and the head of Friends of Habitat and asked to put together a bunch of things for resource mobilization – proposals, budgets, timetables, prospect lists.

What also made me feel good about working on disaster relief in the office is a day I spent in the field. Friday we left at the crack of dawn to get to Marikina, one of the hardest-hit places. Habitat decided that its response would be to build portable bathrooms in the most crowded evacuation centers, filling an immediate need and also providing some sustainability (the evacuation centers chosen were all schools and will use the bathrooms later). We also held a soup kitchen there – to meet an immediate need and also to have some visibility (not sustainable, so not something Habitat would normally do). I had been told about the soup kitchen but not the bathrooms so I didn’t bring work gloves, and after slicing my hand open a couple of times on the metal frames, I hung back a little bit from the build, but I dished out soup (leading me to say, “mud, blood and soup,” which Julie thought should be the title of this entry). I’m glad I spent the day in the field – seeing the people and the mud and the trash and the remains of the houses that were swept away is different from seeing the pictures of the same – but it was somewhat disorganized and there was downtime and I thought about how many emails I could have sent. Now, that said, I would do another day in the field if I were needed, or pack relief supplies, or do whatever would be most helpful. I’m in Peace Corps Response, after all – and now I am responding!

There was a sobering article in Monday’s New York Times, noting that the infrastructure of Manila is particularly unable to handle the disasters – and with 20-25 typhoons a year, disasters are bound to happen. Read it at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/world/asia/05philip.html?scp=1&sq=manila%20philippines&st=cse. Fortunately for Manila, Typhoon Pepeng – for which we were told to stock up on food and water and avoid nonessential travel this past weekend – didn’t hit here, though it did cause major damage up north, and it is affected by the track of the next storm, Quedan, so it’s stalled there.

Month Two in Haiku

2009-10-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

U-S-A-I-D
The American Chamber
Important meetings

Asia-Pacific
Housing Forum – some long days
Of documenting

Housing for the poor
Breakout sessions – disaster
Cutting-edge thinking

Four hundred people
Attended the Forum from
Thirty-five countries

Day trip with big-wigs
Pasig River squatter homes
Then to their new homes

Leadership Conference
HFH in the region
Strategic thinking

Typing conference notes
It felt like a term paper
Now posted to web

Sending out emails
Fundraising appeals
Building contact lists

New PCRV
A big change in my routine
But she’s very nice

Ondoy/Ketsana
Metro Manila big floods
Major disaster

Now an urgent need
Working on relief effort
More storms on the way

Meanwhile, some travel
Corregidor Island trip
Key in World War II

American Cem
etery – nice to go back
And read all the maps

Summer Capital
Baguio – Burnham design
Museum, curry

To the Visayas
Circling Siquijor Island
Swimming, relaxed feel

Hong Kong getaway
City views, great food, good friend
Walked, swam, saw a lot

Now I’m one-third done
Time seems to be going fast
But still a lot left

Some More Hong Kong Pictures (Week Nine)

2009-10-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

Stanley:

Vietnamese coffee:

Stanley market:

Chinese lanterns:

Domestic workers' day off:

Government House (was British governor's residence - now Hong Kong chief executive's); tower was added by Japanese in the war:

The Museum of Teaware is in the oldest colonial building:

Mixture of old and new:

Causeway Bay:

Early parade for National Day:

Some Hong Kong Pictures

2009-10-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

The tram:

Temples are a combination of Taoist and Buddhist (with some Confucianism thrown in - and local gods, too):

I.M. Pei's Bank of China building - supposed to resemble bamboo stalks; known for bad feng shui:

From Victoria Peak:

The view from the top:

Symphony of Lights:

Vincent, a gracious host:

Star Ferry:

The view from Kowloon:

Dim Sum:

A familiar sculpture (to those who visit the Princeton campus):

World's longest escalator, to Mid-Levels:

Mao memorabilia on Cat Street:

Aberdeen floating restaurant:

Aberdeen sampan boatswoman:

Repulse Bay:

Hong Kong - Part Four

2009-10-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

On Sunday morning I went for a swim in Repulse Bay. I had brought my rubber gloves and a trash bag, but there was no trash to clean up! The wind was blowing from the wrong direction for trash, but even so, Vincent says there isn’t a lot (maybe it gets caught in the shark nets?). He went for a run and I walked to the next beach over for another great view – the bay, high-rises on our side, islands all around.

We then went to brunch at Stanley, another town on the south side of Hong Kong Island, this one with a market and with bayside eateries. We ate Vietnamese in an old colonial building that had been taken apart when they built one of the modern high-rises and relocated – sitting on the porch in rattan chairs looking out at the water, with iced Vietnamese coffee and four dishes – all with different flavors, standing out yet blending together. I think this was my favorite meal of a weekend where I ate very well! We were joined by the stepson of a Princeton friend (who is himself a Princeton PhD – so maybe class notes-worthy) and his wife. Vincent went off to a meeting, and the other three of us shopped in Stanley market for a bit. Hong Kong is known for its markets as well as its other shopping (I’ve always heard it was a good place to get a suit tailor-made – but now I hope not to have to ever wear suits!). I bought a few things, but shopping is also on the list for another trip (as are trips to the outer islands – more temples, more history, more nature – and maybe Macao?).

The bus ride from Stanley up over the hill back into town is billed as quite a roller-coaster ride – it was fun and had some more great views. I then went back to the historic part and to Hong Kong Park, where I raced through the Museum of Teaware (which is located in the oldest remaining colonial building), the conservatory (supposedly the largest in the world) and the walk-through aviary (both that and the tea museum could have used more time – the aviary had over 600 birds of all sizes, shapes and colors and it was a pity to rush). Then it was back to Causeway Bay to meet Vincent – so crowded! I guess it was good to experience it crowded to see what it was really like, but I didn’t want to stay for dinner. We went to a healthy food court and (so much for healthy) had more gelato – and then it was time to go.

I’ve tried to keep this account to a reasonable word count but I could go on – I had such a great time. First of all, it was good to be with a friend – so much to talk about. And to realize a day that was long in coming. More, it was good to be out of the Philippines for a change of pace. And in a clean, modern, Western/Eastern city. And to do all of the things I/we did! I don’t know if I’ll get back there before my time here in Asia is finished – I’d do it soon in a heartbeat but Vincent is headed into a busy season – but I’d like to think I am going back (my sister points out that I always say that – that’s because I always feel that way about places and especially people I visit!).

Hong Kong - Part Three

2009-10-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

Vincent had to work on Saturday morning, so I was off on my own. I took the ferry across the harbor (with more stunning views of the skyline) to Kowloon. There I walked along the waterfront promenade (which is also an Avenue of Stars of Hong Kong cinema – I said hi to Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan), pausing to hear the Noonday Gun on the other side of the harbor (the Noonday Gun was one of my favorite things in Cape Town – I marvel at the fact that since that pivotal conversation I have been to several outposts of the British Empire – Cape Town, Gibraltar and now here!) and then went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art (which had exhibits on colonial Canton, ceramics, calligraphy and paintings – and was an air-conditioned break during a hot day). There are markets, parks and other museums of interest in Kowloon (not to mention the New Territories – new meaning 1898, that is) but it was time to go back across the harbor to meet Vincent and some friends of his for dim sum brunch at City Hall. That was delicious – I’ve had dim sum before but this was the place for it – including a mango pudding that I polished off single-handedly, even though I tried several times to give the others at the table a chance to have some.

We then all walked along Hollywood Road, which is lined with antiques stores, to Man Mo Temple – a combination Taoist/Buddhist temple dedicated to the god of literature and the god of war (i.e. the pen and the sword). The temple has fortune-tellers who use bamboo – unfortunately they were on break when we were there, or I would have had mine done! From there it was on to Cat Alley, with bric-a-brac – my favorite items were the Mao memorabilia, but what spoke to me were carvings of the character for double happiness for me and the one for health for my sister.

We then went back to the south side of the island. Vincent lives on Repulse Bay (named for the H.M.S. Repulse) and we went down the hill from his place to the beach for sunset. I used to say that in Chicago I could live in the city and then go down to the beach and swim and where else could I do that – other than Honolulu? Well, Hong Kong! The water was a little cool though, so we went to his building’s pool instead and swam there.

Then it was on to Aberdeen, a fishing community, also on the south side of the island. We took a sampan (Chinese boat) ride around the harbor and then had a drink at a floating restaurant. It’s supposed to have great seafood, but rather than stay there and eat, we went for more exploration - back to Lan Kwai Fong for Thai/Malaysian food (I said I was open to anything, had been in the mood for Mexican but wasn’t feeling it there, and then decided I would veto Filipino…). We walked around some of the historical colonial area – very quiet at night and packed the next day, with (mostly) Filipino women who come to Hong Kong to be domestic workers and fill the parks and open spaces on their day off.

And then it was on to yet another hot spot, Causeway Bay. Shops are open late, but they were shutting down down. Vincent likened the area to the Ginza and Madison Avenue (lots of neon and lots of fashion shops!). I’ll admit that when I first got to Vincent’s office neighborhood I thought I must be in the Chinatown part of town because of all the signs with Chinese characters – and then felt like an idiot when I realized that that whole city would look like Chinatown because guess what! What can I say; I woke up really early to get to the airport….

Hong Kong - Part Two

2009-10-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

It is easy to get from the Hong Kong airport into town – there’s a train; from there I took a hotel bus that dropped me near Vincent’s office. He met me and took me back there to show me all of the things his company sources; he also gave me a moon cake, which is a specialty made only this time of year, for a festival (not only is the moon festival soon, but October 1 is National Day, the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China – I would have liked the fireworks and other celebrations but it was fun enough to see the signs and the setup). He had some work to do before he could take a lunch break, so he recommended I take a tram (double-decker, first built in the 1800s) to the end – it went from the business district to a residential one, and it was interesting to see the buildings change from modern skyscrapers to more dilapidated high-rises, with clotheslines and neighborhood stores. At the end of the line I went to a market and a temple, and then I tool the tram back and met Vincent for Western food.

Then it was on to the Peak. I took a different sort of tram (again, first built in the 1800s and still the steepest funicular in the world) to the top – breathtaking views of the city and harbor. So many buildings – but also so much green, with the mountains in the backdrop. From the top, one can take a walk around the peak – 40-60 minutes with stops – on a tree-lined path with not only that postcard-shot city view but also outer islands and the setting sun. My timing was perfect – as I got around to the tram again, the city lights were coming on, and I was able to see the view both in the day and at night.

Back down from the Peak, I waited for Vincent at the (original!) Mandarin Oriental hotel (afternoon tea, there or at one of the other hotels, is on the list for next time). We then went outside to see the Symphony of Lights – every night at 8:00 pm, several buildings on both sides of the harbor have lights that twinkle, sparkle, dance, change color, and shine spotlights into the sky. I loved it! Then we went to a nearby mall (there are lots of malls there too) for a Cantonese dinner – subtly-spiced but flavorful – everything cooked just so, made from quality ingredients. My favorite was the roast chicken. This was followed by a walk in the nightlife part of town, Lan Kwai Fong – expats from different countries frequent different bars, and everyone spills into the streets. We walked by on our way to Soho (South of Hollywood – to get there you take the world’s longest escalator) – to some excellent gelato.

Hong Kong - Part One

2009-09-30T06:53:00.001-07:00

My friend Beth worked in Hong Kong after college; I meant to visit her but with only two weeks’ vacation, I didn’t think I could manage it. And it seemed so far away! I feel I was close to going, but then she left. I was younger then and the world was bigger. Hey, I lived in Boston for almost two and a half years and never made it to the Garden or the Marathon – I had to make special return trips for both of those!

Fast forward to 2002 - I was pretty miserable at work. I had a conversation with my friend Vincent, who grew up in Hong Kong and was living there again. He asked what I would do if I could do anything, and I told him I’d travel – to Asia, to see him in Hong Kong. He asked if I could just quit my job and do it and I said I couldn’t. He looked at me and said, “but can’t you?” and that was a life-changing moment. It took me another year to be ready to quit, but that conversation started the ball rolling that eventually led me to where I am now.

Given Beth and Vincent, I did feel I would get to Hong Kong at some point. I tried to get there on my way home from Southeast Asia last winter, but I couldn’t find a flight that went from Bali to Honolulu through Hong Kong without other stops. However, once I knew I was coming back to Asia this year I knew I had another chance. It’s actually quite close to Manila – a two-hour flight! It was time to use some vacation days anyway (weekend travel in-country doesn’t use up vacation days, but any travel outside the country does) – two months have gone by since I arrived in the Philippines!

It was a good time to leave the country. Given the recent tropical storm and all the flood damage, I feel that my problems pale, but as I write this, a line of ants is crawling from outside to a spot under the light switch – I’m not sure what to do about that. I thought if I interrupted the line that would do it, but they keep finding a new line. Last week the refrigerator stopped working – I’d say it was a storage closet with a light, except that ants were crawling on the food inside (I suppose that if they are swarming on the shell of a hard-boiled egg, you can still eat the egg if you just rinse them off, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it) so it isn’t even a good storage closet. We’ve since decided that the freezer keeps things cold enough (without actually freezing them) so that’s not as dire as it seemed before I left. The toilet stopped working, too – that seems fixed now. But what made me really ready to leave was seeing what I hope was one but may have been two (in which case, one may still be at large) giant cockroaches in my room. I’d seen them outside, so I knew it was only a matter of time before I saw them inside, but I still jumped and screamed. I also don’t think I have to mention how much I was looking forward to hot showers. And it occurred to me that this may be the hardest place I have ever lived – Chicago in the winter? I still loved my apartment. King of Prussia? All right, maybe a tie.

Hong Kong is great – if you like architecture, history, nature, eating, drinking, traditions, temples, markets, museums, views, crowds, luxury, walking, swimming, the feel of a big city. I had a wonderful three days there! I had thought that if I didn’t make it by the 1997 British handover that it would be too late, but I think that as a Special Administrative Region it hasn’t missed a beat – it’s still a city of business and an interesting mix of cultures. I was happy to walk, walk, walk – and Vincent did a good job of showing me and/or directing me to a variety of places so I could get a good taste.

More Flood Pictures

2009-09-29T00:31:00.000-07:00

From Habitat for Humanity Asia-Pacific...all of this is not far from where I live and work, but I am on higher ground.

To donate to the relief effort, go to habitat.org.ph