Training
Thursday, 12 Feb. 04
We had a lively intro to the asset-based approach to community development today. Tom, the Program and Training Officer, covered many of the concepts discussed in my International Development anthropology course last semester. The only phrase I didn't specifically remember hearing before was "asset-based, or asset, approach" Though I have read some of the texts in his bibliography (probably different terms were used or no label was placed on the concepts). Anyway, "the asset approach focuses on utilizing the resources that are present in the community and builds on these exisiting resources. Community members, who can best identify their own cultural parameters, create the most socially appropriate settings to make things happen!"
Tomorrow, CCIBA is going to camp at the Tarsier Foundation, on Saturday night we have a Valentine's Day dance, and on Sunday I'm going scuba diving!
Monday, 16 Feb. 04
The CCIBA fieldtrip was so great! First we hiked a little ways up a hill/mountain(?) and then into a bat cave. Okay, so slipping and sliding on guano wasn't so fun, but it was really cool to see all the bats roosting. Then when one of the guides was ready to catch one in a net, he ended up flushing all of them out of the cave. We were surrounded by flying bats. The air temperature dropped in the cave from all of the flapping wings fanning the cooler air out from the depth of the cave. Again, the guano part was not so fun, but I made sure to keep my face tipped down and my mouth closed so nothing bad happened.
Next, we all walked around the tarsier area. Tarsiers are these tiny primates with gigantic eyes. They are adorable. Unfortunately because of this, people keep them in captivity as pets or so people can pet them / get pictures taken with them. Those tarsiers live only a matter of months. Others can live up to at least 20 years. Hopefully the pictures I took of the tarsiers will turn out decent.
Next we set up mist nets to try to catch some bats. The first net we took out was a ripped and tangled mess, so we set it aside and did a nice job of hanging a much newer one. The current Volunteer who helped us set it up and provided a lot of info was concerned that maybe out location for the net wasn't too good. Then after much struggle with out other net it was eventually hung close to the Tarsier Foundation building. That old net managed to catch two bats. One of those two bats managed to catch a trainee in return. Claire was bitten. And then she was bitten again by one of the 9 bats we caught in our good net -- this time through one of the "protective" gloves. Corey was also bitten through a protective glove. Thus we began referring to ourselves as the "Bat Bites" group.
Obviously our net location wasn't too bad since we managed to catch so many bats -- more than our other two groups plus last year's groups combined. Anyway, it gave each of the trainees in our group the opportunity to untangle a bat from the net. It's a long and tedious process, and it it weren't for the presence, patience, and encouragement of Julie, the Volunteer helping us, I definitely would have cut the net to free the bats sooner. I understand that the nets are very expensive, but I can't stand to see an animal struggle for freedome like that. I did manage to work my bat out of the net though, and was so relieved when he was out.
The main way the Julie uses mist netting in her work is for community education rather than to gather scientific data about the bats themselves. She said it's much easier to have a concrete example of biodiversity to show people than to try and explain it as an abstract concept. As the kids she works with are removing the bats (or watching), she can educate them on the important role bats play in the ecosystem. She said it's also good to show the community that bats aren't these nasty, scary creatures. They are actually amazingly designed and very expresive.
After a campfire and sleeping out under the stars, we headed to the beach. We had language lessons, lunch, and free time there. During the free time, I actually got prodded into joining in on a videoke song (karioke with the words displayed on a T.V. screen). Never in a million years did I think I'd do anything like that. I suppose more people would feel that way about working with bats.
After a quick trip home to shower after the camping trip and beach, I headed back to Dumadag Farm for our Valentine's Day dance. It was a lot of fun, but the highlight of the evening was a traditional Filipino dance / party game. Imagine musical chairs with some very key differences. The game starts out with 13-14 men in a circle surrounded by a circle of 15-16 women. The men were each given an eggplant, which are basically zucchini shaped here. The men put the eggplants between their legs and had to dance in a counterclockwise direction as the women danced in a clockwise direction. When the music stopped, the snatching began. Any women left without an eggplant were eliminated. Then a guy or two were removed form the game and the remainder repositioned their eggplants for the next round. This continued until there was a single winning female holding the last eggplant. What's this we heard about the Filipino culture being repressed?
On Sunday, a group of us went scuba diving off of Cabilao Island. The water was so clear (especially compared to my muddy certification dives); we could see for about 16 meters. The first dive was by a lighthouse and we saw many soft corals and a lionfish (as well as many other fish that I couldn't identify). After lunch we dove at a second site near a sanctuary. This one had hard corals down a deep wall. We saw another lionfish and I also saw a clownfish in an anemone (and again, many, many other fish). It was a lot of fun, and I was happy that I felt so comfortable diving given that it was my first time since certification. Hopefully its the first of many dives while I'm in the Philippines.
Sunday evening my host family had a birthday party for their grandson's first birthday. Another Peace Corps Trainee was there because her host mother works with my host mother. I'm glad that Dawn was there because otherwise it would have been awkward to be at such a big event and not know anyone besides the hosts who were busy with their other guests. I guess I should get used to it because it's bound to happen numerous times when I first get to my post (until I get to know people).
Thursday, 19 Feb. 04
This morning started out rather strangely. I had to be at training a half an hour early so I woke up 45 minutes early (just to be on the safe side). By the time I was ready to leave I was running about 40 minutes earlier than usual. This would have gotten me to training in plenty of time were it not for the fact that I was locked in the yard. There's a high concrete wall with glass shards in the top surrounding my host-house. The gate is usually latched shut, but everytime previously that I've needed to leave it has not had the padlock locked in place. This morning it was. And I had a hard time finding anyone to open it for me. I finally found the maid, and she came out to the gate, realised what my problem was, and ran back to get the keys. Then none of the keys seemed to work. Finally I was set free and hustled to catch a jeepney or trike. Of course today was one of the difficult days to get a ride. So I ended up arriving 10 minutes late. Everyone had already left for the morning's activity except one of the trainers, a trainee who was left behind when he went to change clothes, and another trainee who came in after me because he also had problems catching a ride. It's very strange to be expected to be on time in a culture where that just doesn't happen and the infrastructure is not set up to allow it.
Anyway, we made it to the field trip site, and really didn't miss out on too much. The activities were mangrove planting and a beach clean-up, happening simultaneously in two groups. I was in the mangrove planting group. We waded out into what looked like a tidal flat. The propagules looked very much like sticks with a small growth on the end. First we stretched out a rope with markers on it to space the plantings, then we poked a hole in the much for the propagule, and stuck it in. As one rope's plantings were finished, we moved the rope a meter away and planted the next row. Things quickly became disorganized as one end of the rope was planted faster and moved before the other sections were ready. And people's concept of a "meter" could use some help. Some "meters" were about a foot. But all in all it was fun and the work got done one way or another. Several people topped it off with a mud fight. Then it was back to Dumadag Farm for more classes.
In the afternoon, CCIBA had a scavenger's hunt. We were given 50 pesos (less than one U.S. dollar), the name of a government agency, NGO, or academe, and an hour and fifteen minutes. In that time frame and with only the name of the place (no address or phone number), we were each supposed to find our respective location, ask them about the type of services they provide, and see what they could tell us about Sierra Bulliones (where we'll be going next week). I actually had great luck in that my jeepney driver said he knew where my place -- Dept. of Labor and Employment -- was and dropped my off at the end of the block. At the time I wasn't sure if I was supposed to catch another jeepney going "that way" or if it was walkable, and if so, how far it would be. I decided to walk a ways and ask in a couple of the local shops or businesses. When I decided it was time to ask, it turned out I was at the correct building and just needed to backtrack a couple of meters to the staircase leading up. Several people had much harder times looking for their site and some had to give up.
When I walked in the office, I said good afternoon and immediately offered that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer to try and explain my presence there. That seemed to be a good way to start because one of the employees asked me if I worked with Irene. I answered with a strange "um-hmm" that was sort of a cross between a yes and just an acknowledgement that I was listening to her. Well then I had people falling all over themselves to get me to the person I needed to talk to. I should mention at this point that I have no idea who Irene is. Hey, whatever works.
Anyway, with time to spare after my office visit, I stopped for some ube ice cream before heading back to Dumadag. Ube is a bright purple sweet potato. Within the past week I've tried it as a mashed dessert sort of preparation, as a cake-like ube bread jelly-rolled with ube jelly, and now as ice cream.
During the second afternoon session I got to cuddle with a little kitten the whole time. One of the Trainees, Shelby, rescued the kitten who was motherless, and obviously dehydrated and hungry. It's been at Dumadag for a couple of days now. With all of the people here looking out for him, he's doing much better now. And he is a great source of entertainment during long meetings. Sometimes he wanders from person to person, and sometimes he just sacks out on one person's lap or chest. He's so small that as he slept I could scoop him up and hold him with just one hand and not disturb him.
Saturday, 21 Feb. 04
Yesterday the trainees all got the second installment of our "incidentals" allowance which is supposed to last us until the beginning of March. We get PhP 85 Philippine pesos) per day. That's the equivalent of US$1.50. I keep thinking of those commercials where you can sponsor a child for only 75 cents a day. Well double that and you can support an Peace Corps Trainee. Of course our housing and meals are covered, but even so, 85 pesos doesn't get you very far. All of the Volunteers say that it's better after swearing in, so we hope they're right. Even so, I have managed on such a tight budget. For a while I was thinking that the payment for scuba diving last Sunday was the only thing that came out of my own pocket. Then after talking to someone else, I realized that even that was actually covered by money I had leftover from the allowances we were given for staging in San Francisco. Any future recreational activities like that will have to come out of my own pocket though.
Before language classes began yesterday afternoon, Tiffany (another Trainee) and I were asked to go to the office to talk to Joe, the CCIBA director, on the phone. As we waited and waited for the staff here to get a call through to Joe, Tiffany and I started to get the nervous feeling of school kids sent to the principle's office. To ease our nerves, we joked that they must have finally checked our references and discovered that we're not at all qualified to be in the Peace Corps. In my mind I was trying to concoct a plausible, yet worst-case scenario for why we might need to talk to Joe like this. The only thing I could come up with was that for some reason I don't get to go to Espanola, Palawan. Yeah, turns out that that's basically the reason for the call - we each might not get to go to our site and might have to go to alternative posts. Each of our sites is in what is currently considered a restricted travel area. Therefore, the Country Director decided that an additional security check is in order. Joe, my APCD, and John, the Safety and Security Coordinator will travel to my site next week. If it passes inspection, things will proceed as planned. If not, Joe said that Conservation International still really wants to work with me. Therefore, I would be stationed in Puerto Princesa, the provincial capital of Palawan, and do various field visits from there. He also said something about doing some work in the park with an underground river. My biggest concern with the possible switch of posts is the change from a "very rural" site to a city. I cannot fathom living in a city for any significant length of time. Hopefully I wouldn't live right in the city though. I still have my fingers crossed for Espanola though. I still don't even know where it is exactly because it's not on any map I've seen so far. I love the very idea of that. The suspense is going to be hard to bear for the next week/week and a half while I wait for a verdict.
Last night after having dinner at my host mother's sister-in-law's house, I met up with Quincey, one of the LCFs - Language and Cultural Facilitators. First we went to her grandfather's house just outside of Tagbilaran in Baclayon. I met her grandfather, aunt, uncle, cousin, and her cousin's son. The little boy is about the same age as my niece and at sort of the same language level as I remember Vivienne being the last time I saw her (end of Dec.). He points to everything and wants to know its name, he can respond to many "where is.?" questions by pointing to the object or person, and he knows just a few words. By the time I get to see Vivienne again, she'll probably know more words in English that I'll have learned in Tagalog.
We had a hard time in Baclayon getting a jeepney or tricycle ride back to Tagbilaran. Quincey had to keep explaining to all the friends she ran into that wanted to help out why we couldn't do the easiest most obvious thing - take a motorcycle back. It's a Peace Corps policy - no motorcycles. I was afraid that this morning when we went to Baclayon for a field trip that I would be known by everyone as the girl who's not allowed to ride motorcycles.
We eventually found a ride that not only took us back into town, but directly to Kilumkilum bar where we met up with a lot of the Trainees, LCFs, and tech. trainers. I had a great time, but left rather early (midnight) because I knew I wouldn't want to get up in the morning for the field trip if I stayed much later. Plus it took me a half an hour just to get home.
Today's field trip brought us to the Bohol Museum, Baclayon Church and Museum, Sandugo, and Mag-aso waterfall. The first museum had all sorts of artifacts from the area on the first floor and personal belongings of President Carlos P. Garcia on the second floor. They Baclayon Church I believe is a Spanish colonial era church. Sandugo is the blood compact made between the Spanish and the Filipinos. At the site, there is a statue portraying the blood compact and a wood carving and sign explaining more about it.
The waterfall was gorgeous. We had to go down 197 steps to get to the pools at the bottom. (I didn't actually count; there was a sign at the top telling us.) I ran out of film after just two pictures and didn't get a chance to reload until later, so I hope the shots I took do the falls justice.
Many people climbed up into the cave/ledge behind the falls and jumped into the pool below. I eventually built up the courage to do the same - twice. I was honestly more afraid that I would slip on the rocks trying to get in position and end up falling than I was about the idea of jumping. The second time around I was much more sure of myself.
Saturday, 28 Feb. 04
This was a very busy week (as they all have been, really). We started out on Monday morning with a progress check on language skills. I drew a blank on some basic things I that I really should have remembered, but managed to remember a few things I didn't think I would. The progress check was basically a private, tape-recorded interview with our language teacher. It started with a bit of small talk: Good Morning, How are you, etc. (Magandang umaga, kamusta ka.) Then my teacher, Yoly, asked some questions about autobiographical info (age, place of origin, education, etc), family/host family, and the training site. I did fairly well with that stuff. Then she asked what I did yesterday. I understood the question, but we've only just begun using verbs and I really don't know enough vocab to say much of anything. The one verb that I've managed to remember best, langoy = swim, I forgot and I used sakay = ride (which I didn't know that I knew) instead. So instead of saying I went swimming at Valencia yesterday (a town where my host family brought me yesterday), I said that I rode to Valencia. Which was true, I had to ride in the car to get there, but it's not at all what I was trying to say. Also, while Yoly was asking me questions, I completely forgot the meaning of maganda = good/beautiful. I had used it myself at the beginning of the session during greetings (good morning) and used it later on, but for some reason when she used it in a different context it stumped me. Yoly moved on and then used it again later, hoping that my mental block had gone, but I still couldn't remember.
Next, I had to ask Yoly questions. We don't know how to ask very much, and I asked it in such a random, nonsensical sequence that I felt schizophrenic. Finally, I had to introduce myself as if speaking to a barangay captain. So I had to use a formal greeting and closing, give some autobiographical info, and talk about my Peace Corps program and assignment. This is a speech we had each prepared last week, and I finally managed to memorize it. The one caveat is that I often mispronounce "goals" and it some out sounding like "wind." So if I'm not careful, I say that I want to help the community reach your wind instead of saying reach your goals. If the person/people I'm talking to laugh or look confused, I know I've screwed it up. With much practice, I've managed to get that response less often. That either means that I'm pronouncing it better or that I'm at least sounding less like I'm saying wind.
Monday night I woke up with diarrhea and cramps several times throughout the night. By morning I had decided that I would go in to the training site, but go straight to the nurse's office instead of to class. I was afraid I would be kept from going on the 5-day field practicum we were to leave for that afternoon, but by that point I didn't care. However, just before it was time to leave the house, I was hit by such a wave of nausea and cold sweats, that I asked my host family to call the training site and say that I was too sick to come in. They immediately rushed to my aid and did everything they could think of to make me feel better.
The Host Family Coordinator, Boni, brought the nurse, Mary Ann, to my house. By then I was recovering from the nausea and cold sweats and felt well enough to move. So Boni and Mary Ann escorted me back to Dumadag Farm so I could be monitored. Mary Ann gave me a liter of Gatorade to drink within 3 hours and Eloi, the Medical Officer, started me on an I.V. drip to help me recover from the dehydration faster.
After a nap, all of the Gatorade, and half the bottle of I.V. fluid, I was feeling much better. By the last quarter of the I.V. fluid I was antsy to get moving. I had to wait it out though. After a small lunch and finishing the I.V. drip, I was cleared to go on the field trip and was able to join the afternoon session of training. The only residual problems were some weakness, stomach pain, and a headache. All of which came and went for a couple of days, but didn't hold me back from anything.
The objective of this week's field practicum was to gain experience in conducting a PACA - Participatory Analysis for Community Action. "It is a methodology designed to communicate information, identify needs, and lay the groundwork for community action to solve problems. It facilitates the development of an effective and open partnership between the development agents and the representative segments of the local community to design, implement, and evaluate development programs." PACA was developed by Peace Corps and integrates other approaches such a Rapid Resource Appraisal (RRA) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), both of which I learned about in my International Development anthropology class last semester. The new spin on Peace Corps' traditional PACA is now to make it asset-based: "starting or building on the community successes, assets and collective resources."
PACA is a process that takes a minimum of many months to carry out correctly. During our field practicum this week we made an attempt to do a run-through of the key tools in essentially 48 hours. This micro-PACA was just to get our feet wet and give us an idea of the tools used, roadblocks we may encounter, and strategies we may want to incorporate.
We arrived in the barangay of San Isidro in Sierra Bulliones, Bohol on Tuesday evening. Our first "courtesy call" was basically a community meeting in the barangay hall to exchange introductions between the community members and the CCIBA trainees. We were then matched up with our host families (2-3 trainees and one LCF - Language and Cultural Facilitator - per host family) and went our separate ways. I stayed with two other trainees, Dawn and Erica, and Sheila, and LCF, at the home of an older couple and their three grandchildren. Dawn and Erica are each learning languages similar to Cebuano, spoken in Bohol and elsewhere, and I'm learning Tagalog, spoken throughout the Philippines, so Sheila helped us form questions in our respective target languages to practice conversing with our host family. The eldest granddaughter seemed to get a kick out of helping us to phrase our sentences correctly before she responded. She is really intelligent and was instrumental in contributing to the PACA process.
On Wednesday and Thursday we met with community members divided into different sectors: youth, men, women, and senior citizens + people's organizations. I was in the group working with the youth sector. The trainees all helped facilitate the development of a community map, 24-hour activity chart, and a seasonal calendar by each of the sectors. After each sector presented its results to the community, the sectors each worked on an aspiration/mission statement. Again the results were presented to the community. Finally, key points were pulled from the sector mission statements and synthesized into one statement by reps from each sector. The final statement was read in unison by the community, and they all appeared very proud of the work they had done. The Peace Corps Trainees, PCTs, collected all of the outputs to use in writing a PACA report. Everything, including the report, will be delivered to the community by the end of training.
Next stop during our field practicum was Bilar. We were supposed to visit the Chocolate Hills for sunset, but it was pouring down rain so that visit was postponed. We spent the night at the Soil and Water Conservation Foundation, Inc. in Bilar. This organization is working on the conservation of karst caves, bats and biodiversity, and livelihood projects. This is where Julie, the volunteer who helped with the mist netting on our first field trip, and another volunteer are currently working. One of our trainees, Pete, will join them after we are sworn in. Next week we should be returning to Bilar to learn more about the work they do there.
On Friday morning we were going to have language class at the Chocolate Hills since we missed out on seeing them the night before. But the bridge we needed to take was too flooded from the night of hard rain. So we stayed put for language lessons. When the bridge was less flooded - only about a half a meter of water pouring over it - we finally made it to the Chocolate Hills in Carmen.
The hills get their name from the brown color they turn during the dry season. Even though it was the wrong time of year to see them looking chocolate-y, the hills were amazing. From a high lookout point we could see miles of the numerous steep, rounded hills surrounding us. It's believed that the area was once covered by a shallow sea and with differential erosion after uplifting, the hills were formed. The sign at the look-out point said they are considered one of the natural wonders of the world. Someday I'll have to look up the list of the wonders and see how many I can make it to.
After the hills, we were supposed to have lunch at a swimming pool in Logarita. However, when we got there, the pool had been drained for cleaning. It was still a beautiful site to spend the afternoon though. There was a cool stream running down the mountain. I walked through and stood in it several times while we were there. It was nice to have cold water running across my feet on a hot day. It was raining off and on while we were there, but I think we're all getting pretty accustomed to that.
Our final stop of the trip was at Nuts Huts on the Loboc River. It's a cute backpacker's place run by a Belgian couple. We had some time to rest and relax, and then it was back to work on PACA stuff. I forgot to mention that on Thursday night while the experience was still extremely fresh in our heads we all worked on lists of what we thought worked, what didn't work, and lessons that we learned. So on Friday night we discussed these lists so that everyone could benefit from the observations and experiences that others in the group had.
This morning we had trainee-directed language lessons. Two of the Talalog students, Linh and Tiffany, taught the other 4 of us. They've been working with a differnt LCF, so some of the things they've worked on have been different from what we've learned. But they did a great job getting us up to speed on some things we hadn't learned yet (numbers) and then reviewing previous lessons. Tiffany prepared a jeopardy game for her part of the lesson which made class a lot of fun. Then Linh had us practice our "safety and security related expressions" with some role playing and skits. We need to know these expressions not only for our language evaluation, but also gor our safety and security competencies test at the end of training. There are about 20 different phrases we were given to use if someone is harassing us, messing with our stuff, or steals something. So our skit was a jeepney ride enactment in which we were all poking each other, grabbing stuff away from each other, and bumping into each other. We are all very happy that most 5 minute jeepney rides do not entail that many annoyances. Probably the most useful phrase that we learned is asking someone to scoot over (or "move!" depending on the tone of voice we use).
To leave Nuts Huts, we took a boatride down the Loboc River. We had about 5 people per banca -- small boats resembling outrigger canoes only with large bamboo poles on each side for balance. Bancas are tradition fishing boats, only now they are often motorized, like the ones we were in today. Unfortunately, all of the boating businesses along the Loboc River tend to have captive tarsiers at their docks for the tourists. Our tech trainer, Sonny, explained to the owners at the dock we used that we did not like to give business to anyone with captive tarsiers, so in the future, we would not be their customers again if they still had tarsiers. Sonny said that they understood and "would not do it again." I seriously doubt that they will change anything from just that conversation, but it is important that they know not all "tourists" want to see captive tarsiers. Many do NOT want to see them captive for the tarsiers' sake. I hope that Sonny will follow through and will or will not give the boaters business based on whether of not they have tarsiers.
When we returned to Dumadag Farm, there was a message for Tiffany and I to call Joe, our APCD. He gave us each an update on the status of our site placements. Joe and John went to Palawan and checked out Espanola and Brooke's Point (apparently Conservation International also wants me to do some work there; and Brooke's Point is on the map so I don't have to guess where it is!). Joe said that everything seemed to check out fine, but nothing is final until he meets with the Country Director on Monday. It is good to know that it's still highly likely that I'll get to be in the rural areas. I can't wait until Monday to find out for sure though!
Wednesday, 3 March 04
I finally, finally, finally got to find out my site assignment for sure. I'll be in Espanola, Palawan as initially planned. On Monday, Joe updated me that he had met with Bill, the Country Director, but no decision had been made yet. Then he told me that Bill had to return to the U.S. for a couple of weeks for a personal matter, so if no decision was made by the end of the day, I might not find out for another two weeks! Not only would that cause a ridiculous amount of suspense, it would also mess up the site visit scheduled for next week. Joe told me to think about what I might want to do that week while everyone else was away. I asked if I'd still be able to go to Palawan and just stay up in Puerto Princesa since that's my alternate site. On Tuesday I found out that the alternate site visit option had been approved and that Jeff would be making the site assignment decision in Bill's absence (still no indication of when though).
So I really wasn't expecting to get any news this morning before we left for our three-day field practicum. But just before I got on the bus Joe told me that my site had been approved and that I'd be able to visit it during the site visit week. The news turned around a rather crappy mood I was in and I've had a blast for the rest of the day.
The bad mood stemmed from the fact that this morning, the only morning we've had off in forever, I didn't manage to accomplish anything that I wanted to do. I did get to sleep an hour later than usual, and had a leisurely time getting ready. But the plan after that was to spend a good chunk of time at an internet cafe to get caught up on typing up my journal entries to be posted online. I did all the typing, but the cafe lost its internet connection so I couldn't send the file. After over an hour of typing I lost all that work because I couldn't seem to explain the concept of saving the file to a floppy disk to the employees there. The individual computers don't have drives, but they are able to access files to print them for people, so I thought they might be able to save the file from their workstation. After asking for about a half an hour, I was sick of being told to "just wait" or "we can print it for you." All I needed was a yes or no answer to if it would be possible to save it to disk. I ran out of time to be patient after 30 minutes, so I said I wanted my money back for the time I had spent working on the file if they couldn't help me. That took another ten minutes. I was so frustrated about the whole situation. Then to make matters worse, I had transportation problems on my way to Dumadag, so I got there just barely on time. Coupled with the underlying frustration of being jerked around so much about my site placement made for a grouchy mood. The news that my site was approved came just in the nick of time.
Friday, 5 March 04
The field trip was fun as usual. We stayed at the Soil and Water Conservation Foundation in Bilar again. On Wednesday morning we got up super early to go birding. I didn't see any birds, but we heard many and the hike was beautiful. The hike ended at Logarita pool, and this time there was water in it. We had language lessons, and then I went for a swim (more to wake myself up than to cool off I think). In the afternoon we went caving.
It wasn't technical caving with repelling or anything, but it was fun and at time challenging nonetheless. First we climbed down into a hole in the ground and through a narrow tunnel. The only way that several of us could figure out how to make it through the narrow passage was to slide on our butts in the mud. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who used that technique and ended up with a muddy butt. Once we were in the main part of the cave, there was a stream and stalagtites and stalagmites. There were also a few swifts using a rudamentary form of echolocation. That adaptation could use some further refinement because most of us got hit in the head or neck at least once or twice by the clicking birds.
My foot slipped into a deep narrow hole up to my knee and in my scramble to try and prevent it I managed to knock a rock in to wedge my leg in even tighter. It wasn't dangerous or painful, but it did take some concentration and effort to pull my leg free without losing my footing on the other side. I was already very muddy, but I didn't want to end up rolling around in the mud or twisting my knee. Needless to say, I got out okay.
The hardest part of the excursion was climbing back up the tunnel I had slid down and out of the hole at the mouth of the cave. Fortunately, there was a stream outside of the cave so we could wash off most of the mud. Then we walked down to the swimming pool to cool off and clean up simultaneously.
On Wednesday evening, the PCV's serving as resource volunteers for the trip organized a game. They were very secretive about what the actual game was, but promised it would be lots of laughs. Everyone had to pay 10 pesos in order to play, and the winner would get all of the money. Once we found out what the game was, it was clear why we had to commit to play in advance. No one would have agreed to play butt darts otherwise.
Butt darts was invented by some very bored and drunk cowboys in the U.S. midwest/west. The game is played by holding a quarter (or here a peso) between your butt cheeks. The objective is to navigate through an obstical course and in the end deposit the coin into a half cup of water on the floor. Not only that, but "style points" are important too. So you have to dance and spin your way through the obstacle course. After the first round, about half the people were eliminated and the rest moved on to the second round (mostly because of style points, very few managed to get the coin into the cup). In the second round a chair was added and contestants had to sit and then stand up again without dislodging the coin. A handful of people made it to the third round (again, mostly because of style points) where the challenge of touching your toes after sitting and standing was added.
I came close each time to getting the coin in the cup. That, combined with style points for managing to cross my legs while seated, advanced me through the rounds. In the end, I finally dropped the coin squarely in the cup during the final round and won the game. All those months of backpacking and squatting in the outback last summer really paid off! So now everytime some people see me, I'm hailed as the butt-dart queen. A title which hopefully everyone forgets about immediately. The PCVs who organized the game are mostly from Palawan -- when I got there and meet the other volunteers I don't want introductions to be followed by, "oh, so you're the buttdart queen!"
This morning, we worked on trail building. We helped to get a bridge and some steps built. I'm sure that the work didn't get done any faster beause we were "helping," but it gave us an idea how to go about doing the tasks.
Exhausted after the field trip, we had more training sessions back at Dumadag in the afternoon. Preparation for our site visit!
I've reached a saturation point with my language lessons and feel like I've gotten progressively stupider for the past week and a half. It seems like everytime I learn something new I forget five things that I used to know. So even though the site visit is a great time for immersion in the language, I'm looking forward to the time off from language classes. My brain needs time to process and sort out what it can remember before I try to cram more in.
Tonight we're going to Kilumkilum again. My host father informed me that it means "dusk" in Cebuano. He teased that I'll have to find the Tagalog version of Kilumkilum when I'm in Palawan.
Monday, 8 March 04
I'm actually spending half of my "site visit" in Manila. About 18 of us flew in on Saturday morning, and then we hit the town. That basically means we wandered around a bit and made a requisite trip to the mall. We had great pizza for dinner -- real cheese! (hard to come by in Bohol.) About half a dozen people left that night on an overnight bus to their sites in Northern Luzon. The rest of us are staying at the Natividad Pension. That's where PCVs almost always stay when in Manila, so we ran into a few Volunteers each day.
On Sunday I got to sleep in! It was awesome. I had a late breakfast and wandered around town with a couple of people. Manila has a lot of gigantic malls and a few other things to do. So basically after two days you've exhausted most of your options and are ready to leave. I on the other hand have to stay until tomorrow. Many people flew to their sites today, but a few of us remained in Manila to make courtesy calls to our NGOs' Manila offices. The Conservation International (CI) office is near, you guessed it, another mall. So I wandered around there after I was done at the office.
Thursday, 11 March 04
Tuesday morning I flew to Puerto Princesa and met Pauline, my counterpart, and the rest of the CI-Palawan staff. For dinner we met some of the other Palawan PCVs and the two trainees assigned to Puerto (Tiffany and Shareema).
On Wednesday we drove down to Espanola and made courtesy calls, and I met my host mother. Then we continued further south to Brooke's Point for a meeting about mining. We made a few more courtesy calls in Brooke's Point and then returned to Espanola. I spend the night with my host family there. My host mother is very excited to have me there, and got a kck out of intoducing me to people as her daughter who's been living in America all this time.
Southern Palawan is beautiful. There is a large mountain range to the west and then almost perfectly flat land stretching out to the Sulu Sea on the east. On the drive down to Espanola the road is sometimes right along the water. CI will be setting up a field office in the building that houses the Southern Palawan Planning Council. It's a beautiful airy building overlooking the mountain range. It's been such a whirlwind tour that I haven't taken any pictures, but I'll make sure to when I return for good in April.
Wednesday, 31 March 04
Catch up time!
The week after site visits we spent some time at Nuts Huts on the Loboc River again. Last time we were there the water was a muddy brown because of recent rains. The second time, however, the water was a beautiful, and almost eerie, clear emerald green. We had a chance to go swimming in it - so refreshing! During the time at Nuts Huts we had seminars on how to run a Youth Environmental Camp (YEC).
On Saturday, March 27th the CCIBA and CRM (Coastal Resource Management) Trainees ran a one-day YEC. The themes were: Water, Land, and Air. I worked on the Land component along with 4 other trainees. First Kristin and Linh presented ecosystems and habitat through a lecture and reforestation game. Then Reins, Summer, and I presented watershed and landuse issues. We spent almost every spare minute during the week prior to the YEC preparing a watershed model. The model demonstrates infiltration, erosion, pollution runoff, etc. for 5 different landuse/landcovers: natural forest, deforested area, agriculture and grassland, developed with poor design, and developed incorporating better management techniques such as buffer strips in the riparian area. The model works really well and was pretty cheap to make. We had so many people ask us questions about it and other ideas for improvements that Reins and I are going to work on a document to serve as a resource for those interested. The actual model we made will be left in Bohol where it will hopefully be used again and again. Reins and I each plan to build our own once we get to our respective sites.
In addition to the watershed model, our YEC presentation consisted of a lecture and a landuse impact simulation. We drew a river system on posterboard cut into 16 blocks. We gave each block to the students and asked them to draw whatever landuse practice or livelihood activity they chose to on their plot of land. We made sure to have more plots than students so we could add some variety into the watershed as needed. Then we reassembled the watershed. We put equal amounts of candy on each plot to represent "natural resources." Each plot of land was not effected by their own pollution-producing activities (if any) but effected all of the plots downstream. Most plots were assigned one "pollution point" for agriculture activities and/or small scale development. Plots incorporating buffer strips etc were assigned no points, and natural areas like forest reserves were given a negative point since they helped to clean some of the pollution from upstream. There were also some plots that got 2-3 pollution points for being over-developed or having smog spewing factories.
Starting from the furthest upstream plots, pollution points were added and candy was removed from the natural resources pile on each plot and put into the river as pollution flowing downstream. So the first few plots of land didn't lose very much, but downriver students could lose a half a dozen or more pieces of candy because of the cumulative impact of their neighbors. The big pile of candy, i.e. pollution, at the end of the river really drove the point home. I think the activity did a great job of emphasizing the importance of managing a watershed as a whole. (And then we gave the candy back to the students who it had been taken from.)
In other news.
I finally caved in a bought my very first cell phone. I was the third-to-last Trainee to do so. After finding out that there are no land lines, but a decent cell signal in Espaņola, I just couldn't hold out any longer. It has made coordinating activities with other Trainees and informing my host family of my whereabouts so much easier. The Philippines is a nation of text-ers. So you rarely ever see anyone talking on a cell phone, but people are constantly typing away. I'll have to send out an email with my number and a way to text me from a website. I don't want it posted on my online journal for any web surfer to read, but I do want people to be able to contact me.
Let's see, what else? I went scuba diving a couple more times. Reins had his underwater digital camera with him once to I'm going to try to get some pix from him to post on the website.
We had to present out LTI (Language and Technical Integration) yesterday. I was so busy last week preparing for the YEC that my LTI really suffered. We had to present a topic in our target language. I decided to free up some time to work on the watershed model by also using it for my LTI. That way whenever there was time allotted for LTI preparation, I could work on it. I really couldn't decide what needed to be said until the model was finished, so I didn't give my speech to y language teacher until last Friday. She was a saint and had it translated by Sunday. I picked it up that evening and intended to start practicing it right then. However, I quickly realized that I needed serious help learning to pronounce almost every word. I decided it would need to wait until language class on Monday to begin practicing. I knew memorization would be out of the question, but I was hoping to be able to read it in a flowing manner by Tuesday.
So much for trying to pretend that I know some Tagalog! I couldn't tear my eyes off of my notecards or make it through more than a couple of sentences without stumbling big time on a word. At least my visual aid was damn good thanks to all the work Reins, Summer, and I put into it for the YEC. (Although for some reason the forest infiltration didn't work like it always has in the past.)
I just realized that I forgot to mention that after a week off from language lessons during site visit, I came back refreshed and ready to learn again. So I haven't been retarded all this time - not that you would have been able to tell from my LTI presentation! It was just poor timing scheduling the YEC and LTI so close together since they both required a huge investment of time. I feel that the LTI was a valuable experience though and wish that I could have gotten even more out of it. I plan on typing up the Tagalog translation of the watershed model presentation and bundling it with the other documentation we produce. That way hopefully all of the work Yoly put into translating it will hopefully be used again at some point.
Oh yeah, the YEC was held at the Bee Farm near Tagbilaran. It's an awesome place with beautiful cabins and access to the ocean. And they have the best vegetarian food that I've had in a long time. They grow their own organic produce and bake their own hearty bread. I didn't want to leave!
I've had so much fish since I've been here that I haven't been able to even think about eating any for the past couple of weeks. I'm not even interested in shrimp anymore - which I never thought could happen! Other than two times when I had a little crab meat, I've been strictly vegetarian since site visit. I'm still holding off on becoming strictly vegetarian because I do want to be more flexible given the limited options here. Anyway, the next step would be cutting out the rest of the vertebrates (fin fish are all that I still eat) and not all seafood. So I'm not sure, gut I may have taken that step. We'll see how things go once I get to site.
Sunday, 11 April 04
Happy Easter!
Well, we all made it - tomorrow is swearing in and all 41 of the original trainees in our group are ready for the next step - becoming volunteers!
It's only taken three years and a month from the time that I decided I would become a Peace Corps Volunteer. That time span didn't fly by, but training sure did.
Last weekend, on the 3rd, we had the "Handog sa Host Family" - a big party for everyone's host families to thank them for their hospitality. We had games like a costume relay, spin around the bamboo, water balloon volleyball, mango eating contest, karaoke musical chairs, etc. Lots of fun!
Also last week CCIBA had our last field trip. We went to Pamilacan for an ecotourism practicum - i.e. we went dolphin watching. We also heard from the ecotourism operator how Pamilacan went from a livelihood dependent upon fishing/hunting dolphins and whales to one that now relies upon their protection. Also, great snorkeling!
On Monday, April 5, we had our language interviews. I did a miserable job and worried that I'd have to be tested again during our in-service training. At least I could console myself that I really did know more Tagalog than my interviewer would ever have been able to tell during our session. I found out the next day that I had been classified at "intermediate - low" level - the minimum to squeak by as having met the goals of training. So, yay me! The main accomplishment is that I have a foundation to start from once I get to site.
We also had "commitment interviews" just to make sure that we really do want to become Peace Corps Volunteers. Oh, is that what I signed up for?
Anyway, in other news, I went diving yet again today. I'm not sure how much of an opportunity I'll have to dive once I'm at site, so I wanted to take advantage of the chance while I still can. These were my 7th and 8th dives in the Philippines (2 dives per trip) and my 10th and 11th dives including certification. I'm getting much better with buoyancy control and air consumption. Of course, none of my rental equipment leaked this time, which helped a lot! After last trip (second trip in a row with a major air leak) I decided I would look into buying some more of my own gear (BC and regulator). I'll have to see how often I'd get to use it before making up my mind about whether it's worth the hassle of hauling that stuff around and back home once my stint is over. Expense will of course factor into the decision as well. Then there's actually finding the time and place to buy it. We'll see if I ever even do look into it.
Meanwhile, back at the farm. preparations are in full swing for the swearing-in ceremony tomorrow night. Also tomorrow, CCIBA is taking our tech trainers, Sonny and Nellie, out to lunch. Everyone chipped in to get them some gifts as well. Each get a framed 8x10 of the CCIBA 263 group and there's a pocket knife for Sonny and a classy pen for Nellie each engraved. They've both made training so informative and fun, I can't imagine what it would have been like without either of them.
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Marla Chassels