Fiesta and traditional Waray songs

A newly purchased pig tied up by the side of my house, colorful flags and street vendors everywhere you look, a crowd of beauty pageant contestants filing into the mayor’s office…what does it all mean?

Fiesta!

Each town in my province has a patron saint (ours is St. John the Baptist) and once a year, each town has a fiesta in honor of their saint. I’ve been to fiesta in my sitemates’ towns, and my experience involved following them around as we went to the houses of all of their site friends, supervisors, coworkers, and host families. We are expected to eat at each house we visit- and we were invited to >7!

My sitemates’ fiestas were during the first 3 months of service when I wasn’t allowed to stay away from my site overnight, so I didn’t experience the dances, performances, and beauty pageants that mostly occur at night.  Or the early morning parades- so I was excited to see these in my own town this week!

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in an office located right next to the senior citizens center, and I’ve heard them practicing a couple of traditional songs that they for a fiesta performance. A couple of my coworkers (attempted) to teach me to sing them, showed me some YouTube videos, and helped me translate them into English! It’s interesting that these two traditional songs are named after the two of the strongest forces in shaping and sustaining life here: rice, the staple “filler” food, and the ocean, another primary food source as well as the source of a lot of fear and destruction from typhoons.

 

So far, I have learned 11 words for rice in the local language, depending on how it is cooked and the stage it’s at in being grown or processed. The title of the first song, “binglad”, refers to rice that has been harvested and is now being dried under the sun. After rice harvests, streets are lined with tarps covered in binglad. People use rakes to mix the binglad every couple hours or so to make sure that all of the rice dries evenly. The song compares life to the mixing of binglad. Here are the Waray lyrics followed by an English translation:

BINGLAD

An tawo sugad san binglad

Diri dayuday an kamutangan

Tinitipon, tinatatag

Mahibawbaw, mahiilarum naman.

 

Ayaw tapod san im hibawbaw

Kay an Diyos gud la an madadayaw

Sugad san binglad mahibawbaw naman

Sugan san binglad mahiilarum naman.

 

Anhon ta man kay an palad burobaliskad

Diri mapugngan an limbag-limbag

Inuukay an ngatanan nga kapalaran

Basi an tawo waray indigay

 

Mao na daw sa kalibutan

Diri dayuday an kamutangan

An masurub-on, magtatawa naman

An malipayon, magtatangis naman.

 

Inuukay an ngatanan nga kapalaran

Basi an tawo waray indigay

 

Mao na daw sa kalibutan

Diri dayuday an kamutangan

An masurub-on, magtatawa naman

An malipayon, magtatangis naman.

 

An tawo sugad san binglad.

 

 

Translation:
A person is like rice drying in the sun

Status is not permanent

Gathering, spreading

Going to the top, going to the bottom (sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down)

 

Don’t be proud when you’re at the top

Only God is to be worshipped

Like rice drying in the sun you will go to the top

Like rice drying in the sun you will go to the bottom

 

What can we do because fate/destiny flips

Everyone’s destiny is mixed

So people should not envy.

 

That’s what happens in the world

Your status is not permanent

The sad will laugh

The happy will cry

 

All have a fate that is mixed

So people should not envy

 

That’s what happens in the world

Your status is not permanent

The sad will laugh

The happy will cry

 

A person is like rice drying in the sun.

 

 

Aaaand here’s a melodramatic love song- romantic stuff is big in the Philippines. This one is called “Balud”, or “Waves”. Waray, then English.

 

 

BALUD

 

Mga balud

Nagpapasibo ha kadagatan

Kakuri gud mahidakpan

Inin balud

Ha baras napulilid

Kon diri hira nag-iisog

Hay Intoy,

Kamakuri mo pagdad-on

Baga-baga ka gud la

Hinin balud

Kon nasisina nalakat ka

Mag-uusahan ako, tabi.

 

Kay ano nga ginbaya-an mo ako?

Waray na balud inin lawod ko

Hain na an mga haplas mo?

Nailiw na an baras ngan bato

 

Bisan la

Danay di’ nagkaka-asya

Sugad han langit ug tuna

Kon an gugma

Nga marig-on o masarig

Di mapapara hin balud.

 

Kay ano nga ginbaya-an mo ako?

Waray na balud inin lawod ko

Hain na an mga haplas mo?

Nailiw na an baras ngan bato

 

Balik na kamahidlaw na ha imo

Waray na balud hinin lawod ko

Hain na an mga haplas mo?

Nailiw na anbaras ngan bato

 

Hain na an mga haplas mo?

Nailiw na an kasingkasing ko

 

 

THE WAVES

Racing in the ocean

Really hard to catch

This wave

Rolling in the sand

If they’re not angry

Hey Baby

You are very difficult to deal with

You’re like a wave

This wave

You’re leaving when you are angry

And I’ll be alone at the seashore.

 

Why did you leave me?

There will be no you in my life.

Where is your touch?

The sand and the pebbles are yearning.

 

Anyway

Sometimes we’re not on good terms

Just like the sky and the ground

If love

Is strong or sturdy, resilient

It will not be faded by the waves.

 

Please come back, because I miss you

There will be no ocean/you in my life.

Where is your touch?

The sand and the pebbles are yearning.

 

Where is your touch?

My heart misses you so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 things I hope to bring back

The three goals of Peace Corps are 1) to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women, 2) to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served, and 3) to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

It will take a while to see the products of goal 1. In my service and my friends’ services, I see the most daily progress towards goals 2 and 3. Every volunteer is learning from the people in their communities, and every community is learning from their volunteer. People who live and work together can’t help but absorb a bit of one another’s worldviews.

Working cross-culturally is hard, and full of misunderstandings and miscommunications, but the small daily bridge-building keeps me motivated through the frustrations and constantly grows my admiration for this country and its people.

Here are a few things I’m learning from the Filipinos in my community.

1. Creativity

When I was little, I spent hours coloring, writing stories, and acting out very detailed stories in high-pitched voices with my sister and our Barbies. Creativity came naturally and anxiety-free until we started to notice who was “good” at these things, and we began to label some people as creatives and artists while most of us joked about how we couldn’t even draw a straight line. As American children become aware of our achievement-oriented culture, they become afraid that they won’t be able to achieve. This fear hinders their creativity.

From my perspective, this fear isn’t present in the same way in the Philippines. The arts are embroidered into daily Filipino life.

My counterpart and I handed out an attendance sheet after giving a presentation on solid waste management to a classroom of >100 3^rd-5^th graders. To get the students to sit quietly as we waited for everyone to finish signing their names, a teacher asked for a student volunteer to sing a song into the microphone. I listened to four students joyfully sing pop songs in English and Tagalog for their applauding classmates, with no preparation and no hesitation.

At the local government employees’ Christmas party every year, each office choreographs and rehearses a group dance to perform in a municipality-wide competition. It’s difficult for me to imagine a group of American young adults doing this without hiding behind irony or humor, and with no sense of self-consciousness.

I’ve seen beautiful and functional things come together from trash: Christmas trees made from plastic bottles and masquerade ball costumes made from old rice bags and seaweed! Check out these pictures from the masquerade ball and a balsa boat design competition at the Santo Nino Festival in Catubig, N. Samar. The one on the left is a fish, the one on the right is a rainbow rooster!

The best part of these activities and creations is that everyone participates, not just the “artists”.

These boats are called balsas. One of the competitions at a festival I attended in January included a balsa design contest- this one is a fish!

Another balsa competition entry. Rainbow rooster!

2. Resilience

I live in the Eastern Visayas, a region especially vulnerable to typhoons. People in my community have told me about typhoons destroying their homes and belongings with a shrug of the shoulders and a smile on their face.

This one is difficult to describe, because I don’t want to downplay the struggles and devastation that these communities face from natural disasters that hit year after year. The people here struggle, but they don’t get stuck there. They handle it, then they live through it and despite it.

One of my sitemates teaches at the local university. Last semester, she taught one of her classes outside on a covered balcony because her assigned room was not large enough to fit all of the students. During one of her classes, it began to storm: strong wind and heavy rain. The class continued uninterrupted. The students pulled out their umbrellas and continued to take notes.

3. Selflessness

Over 12 million Filipinos live and work abroad to support their families back in the Philippines. In 2008, they contributed 12% of the country’s GDP.1 The most common countries where Filipinos migrate include Saudia Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Singapore, and Qatar, followed by countries in Europe and the Americas.2 This is one of today’s largest diasporas, and it’s difficult to find a Filipino family with no members working abroad.3

Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are willing to spend lifetimes away from their families and culture, working jobs that are least desired by locals, often in countries where they are negatively viewed (and sadly, often mistreated and abused). This work benefits OFWs’ families immensely: they build houses, feed families, and send children to school. However, the OFWs themselves often live off of very little so that they can help their families as much as possible.

Because so many Filipinos move abroad, many people here understand and empathize with my experience. This is a humbling realization to have as an upper-middle class American who struggles with homesickness and culture shock even through this temporary experience that was a choice made from want, not need.

OFWs embody a level of selflessness and dedication that I can’t comprehend. Can you imagine the strength of a love that sustains people as they work for a lifetime for the benefit of people who are oceans away?

Thanks for reading; ingat, paghinay, take care!

1. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~baron22p/classweb/filipinosabroad.html
2. https://psa.gov.ph/content/total-number-ofws-estimated-24-million-results-2015-survey-overseas-filipinos
3. http://globalnation.inquirer.net/13127/the-filipino-diaspora

KAIN NA=EAT ALREADY

Since arriving in the Philippines, I’ve eaten things that would make my 18 year old mostly-vegan seafood-skittish self cringe.

I’ve scraped off scales, dug out bones, and pulled off heads of fried, dried, boiled fish at all times of day, munched the crispy skin of roasted pig (and eaten way more pork fat than I ever want to acknowledge or admit), pulled the flesh of “a thousand thousand slimy things” out of spiral shells, consumed a smorgasbord of internal organs from a variety of animals, eaten shrimp pancakes including eyeballs and shells and legs and antennae (these are SO GOOD), and watched the process of butchering a carabao just a few minutes before slurping the soup made from its blood (I had pictures of all of these foods but the internet connection is not good enough to upload them, oh well).

I still haven’t worked up the courage to try balut (semi-developed chicken egg) or beta-max (coagulated pork blood on a stick). But hey, baby steps, right?

I became a vegetarian when I was 16. It was definitely an informed decision. I did a lot of research and watched a lot of disturbing factory farm videos. Whenever anyone asked me why I made that choice, I had a list of reasons prepared.

In my rural remote island, there are obviously no factory farms. The area that was introduced to me as the “slaughterhouse” is just a flat square concrete area maybe 10x10m. I witness the lives and deaths of many of the animals I eat. And this does not bother me nearly as much as I would have expected before coming here.  I know where my food is coming from, so much of the guilt and ethical beliefs driving my food choices back in America isdissipated.

I don’t know any vegetarians in Northern Samar, even though a vegetable-based diet would be healthier and cheaper than the meat-heavy meals that many people prefer. However, meat is a luxury. It’s a sign of generosity when offered to guests, and a source of shame if refused by those guests. Filipino culture is communal and cultivates generosity. Food (and lots of it) is usually the center of any social gathering. Many of the same dishes are present at these events, whether they are birthdays or wakes or Christmas or graduation parties: lechon, sweet spaghetti, pancit, fried chicken, rice cakes, cassava cakes. Not partaking in these foods would mean, to an extent, removing oneself from the shared joy or grief of these social gatherings.

The way to the heart is truly through the stomach, at least in the Philippines.

A local friend told me about a visit from her relative’s German husband. He declined to eat the sweet spaghetti and rice cakes that her mother served at a party, and as a result of his refusal to take part during this one event, his reputation among this huge extended family was tainted.

I also recently attended the birthday party of my coworker’s Ate (older sister), a doctor at the local hospital. We sat around her kitchen table and feasted on two types of noodles, rice, vegetable lumpia, fried chicken, chop suey, and jackfruit cooked in coconut milk. Then, dessert: cake, ice cream, leche flan, a delicious frozen chocolate mousse, Filipino fruit salad, turon (fried banana with sugar in a lumpia wrapper). Ate’s eyes widened in surprise and her face lit up with a huge smile when she saw me load my plate with a little of everything.. She has worked with groups of short-term foreign medical volunteers from the West, and she announced that I am “different from most foreigners . They do not usually do not want to eat our food”. Her statement led to an enlightening conversation about Filipino perceptions of foreigners, and built a tangible sense of trust between us.

Taking part in a shared communal diet has been a big change for me, coming from a society filled with vegans and vegetarians and locavores and gluten-free and Paleo dieters and whatever other else is trending over there in the Western Hemisphere these days. As a health-conscious former vegetarian with the typical American female body image worries, this dietary shift has often been a source of stress for me. Beginning in my teenage years, my food choices have been intentional decisions driven by ethical and health concerns. Here, I don’t have many choices, and my number 1 job as a volunteer is to integrate. For the first time since childhood, I put very little thought into the foods I choose to eat. I eat what others are eating, when they are eating. This is sometimes frustrating and limiting, but it serves as a way to strengthen the bond with the person who cooked the meal and the people I’m eating with.

When I return home, I still plan to stick to a mostly-vegetarian diet, and I still believe this is a healthier and more ethical choice in the context of the Western developed world. But my experience here has grown the thought that made me back away from strict vegetarianism the past couple of years: that there’s something sacred about fully sharing a meal with others, and maybe the bond it creates is more important than striving for moral and physical purity 100% of the time.

Food is just another beam of the East-West cultural balancing act that has become a defining theme of my service: when to sacrifice personal preferences for the community and for stronger cross-cultural relationships? And when to assert my voice and my individuality despite the fact that it may cause discomfort?

Rain, a roasted pig, and random dancing

(Wrote this post about Christmas a while ago, then never posted it amidst the crazy few weeks of being consolidated during Typhoon Nina and my first vacation away from site!)

Yesterday, it stormed, and I was cold. A rare sensation here in the Philippines. And appropriate, as Pambujan officially kicked off the Christmas festivities last night with our annual LGU Christmas party.

Beginning early in the morning, we were hit with heavy rains. I tried to wait out the downpour for a while, but with no end in sight, I walked to the office, umbrella in hand, and passed smiling faces saying “Sarah! Mauran (rainy)!”-people always seem amused by my American willingness to walk in the rain, or the hot sun! My jeans were soaked by the time I made it to work because of the strong wind that pushed the rain sideways and turned my umbrella inside out. Usually, I would have stayed home from work in that weather, and my coworkers would have done the same. But I knew this party was a big deal. I’ve been hearing about it since the day I met my counterpart in September. It was long-awaited and highly anticipated because last year, all Christmas festivities were cancelled when the region was hit by super typhoon Nona on December 15th.

When I arrived at the office, the preparations for the party were already underway. Lechon (roasted pig) is a staple at Filipino celebrations. My coworkers began preparing the pig early in the morning, at the office (I was relieved to find that the pig had already been killed by the time I arrived). The kuyas were shaving and cleaning it to prepare for hours of roasting over an open fire. I helped the ates make fruit salad: a mixture of canned fruit, apples, raisins, cheese, coconut gelatin, fresh coconut, condensed milk, and cream. We spent the day preparing dishes and eating many meriendas including pan de sal, a taste of the fruit salad, and freshly harvested corn prepared in two different ways (blackened and boiled).

In the afternoon, we had one last quick practice of our group dance to Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart. You see, the LGU Christmas Party, like many Filipino celebrations I’ve attended, includes dancing. In this case, a competition between the different offices in the LGU! We spent the entire work week practicing.

After our performance, the Agriculture Office snuck away to EAT! Every government office was given a budget to prepare their own food for the party, but we were the only office that showed up with food. Due to the heavy rains that started that morning and continued into the night, the party was held in a small room in the municipal hall instead of outside in the auditorium as originally planned. Because the party started later and was in a smaller space than originally planned, most offices gave up on bringing food- but the Agriculture Office takes eating and drinking pretty seriously. Our table was piled high with the lechon and fruit salad we made at the office, as well as dishes that my coworkers cooked at their homes including shrimp, carabao beef, spaghetti (with hotdogs and sweet sauce made with condensed milk), rice (somehow no one noticed that I didn’t eat any: victory), puto (rice cake), mais (corn on the cob), and cassava cooked in coconut milk. It was quite a feast, there were about 15 of us and we hardly made a dent in the mountain of food.

My favorite memories from my childhood, home, college, whatever, are the moments where I felt especially connected with the people around me, in the way that pulls me out of my own head. Living cross-culturally has solidified my belief that people are people, and we all have universal desires: a better life for the next generation, fellowship with those we love, fulfilling work to do, singing and dancing and eating and drinking! But living here has also taught me that the cultural and language barriers are very real, and can be very hard to cross- which makes these moments of connection rarer and sweeter. I had one of these moments during the Christmas party. My coworkers and I sat eating on the opposite side of the basketball court from the building where the party was actually taking place, but the music was loud and clear. After eating, we stood on the stage facing the basketball court,under a finally clear sky full of stars. We formed an awkward dance circle (the best kind) and laughed as we practiced our best supermodel walks for each other.  I felt joyful and at home in the awkwardness, and briefly lost the self-consciousness that comes with being (probably) the only blonde person in my province, and only being capable of speaking caveman-length sentences in the local language.

I recently reached a small landmark point in my time here: the first 3 months of service are over, and my overnight travel ban (so that we can’t escape adjustment struggles at site) is lifted. I’ve realized I had an incredible amount of independence in my life in America, and I hope I won’t take it for granted when I’m back- it’s exhausting to be the foreigner, and to constantly feel like I’m on display! But I’m also experiencing the strength of community in ways I never have before. I never struggle to find a kasama to walk me home, I have awesome women friends and coworkers who look out for me and each other, the whole town knows when I’m sick and gives me theories about how it happened (it’s because I sleep with my cell phone in my bed, or I’m still not used to bathing with cold water, or because I went outside when it was raining- take your pick), and people are coming to accept some of my weird habits like playing tennis with men and not eating enough rice. It’s a constant balancing act figuring out when to assert my individuality and when to compromise for the community, but I’m taking it little by little and feeling more at home here as time goes on.

A “typical” day in the life…

Most of what I’ve shared in conversations with people back home consists of the highlights and the lowlights of my life here at site. I realized that I haven’t talked much about the average daily stuff. And that’s most of what life is, right? So here’s what a typical day looks like.

AGA (Morning)

I wake up sometime between 5 and 6 AM every day. The rest of the town is already awake and preparing for the day. Roosters crow and vendors ride by on their motorcycles shouting “ISDA ISDA ISDA (FISH FISH FISH)” in fast auctioneer voices. On Saturday mornings, the house across the street blasts American and Filipino pop music, in all the languages that are used here: Waray and Tagalog and English. So I don’t sleep in on weekends!

I’ve found that my mood is better and my mind is calmer when I start the day moving (#ENDORPHINS #SEROTONIN). So, most mornings, I go on a walk or run. If it’s raining, I work out on my yoga mat  using the exercise videos stockpiled on my external drive thanks to my fellow volunteers. I’m lucky to live steps away from a walkable/runnable beach, and less than half a mile from the school which has a track I can run on without being stared at!

I’ll take you on a virtual walk from my house to the beach:

I walk out the gate and sometimes by a neighbor’s trash-burning fire…

then past another neighbor’s fighting rooster…

Almost there…every time I walk by this house, the little girl in the picture shouts my name, waits for me to wave and say “hello, maupay nga aga (good morning)” and then immediately runs and hides behind the fence

And here it is, THE BEACH! A CRM volunteer’s dream.

After exercising I come home and eat my oatmeal and drink my coffee and get ready for the day.

TRABAHO (Work)

I bike to the office, just a few minutes away, by 8 AM. Kada-adlaw (every day) my workmates ask me what I ate for breakfast and then ask if I’m still hungry because I ate only oatmeal and no rice or meat and then I assure them that I am busog na (full already).

I work at the Local Government Unit’s (LGU’s) Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO) (the acronyms never end). The image brought to mind by the words “Peace Corps Volunteer” often seems to be a dirty hippie living in the boonies, in a nipa hut with no running water or electricity, wearing backpacking clothes and growing beards/not shaving legs and climbing coconut trees and foraging for food and walking miles to work uphill both ways…. I exaggerate. Anyway, the truth is, many (not all) volunteers live in some of the nicest houses in our communities because those are the families with the space to house us. Most of us have intermittent internet access. I live in a rural area 8 hours from the nearest big city, but I’m still only an hour away from a small mall with air conditioning and pizza and ice cream, and many volunteers do live in or near more urban areas. In my experience, the hardships don’t come so much from physical things, but from being the foreigner, learning how to work and make friends despite language and cultural barriers, and struggling to find productive, realistic, sustainable ways to help our communities.

Anyway, that being said- I think my office fits the rugged rural Peace Corps stereotype pretty perfectly. I LOVE IT. It’s bordered by demonstration fish ponds on one side and corn fields on the other. There’s a beautiful view of a hill behind the rice fields. We have chickens and ducks and sometimes we spend our afternoons shucking corn. Our most common afternoon meriendas (snacks) are mais (corn), kamates (sweet potatoes), and cassava, all grown nearby. If we forget to close the windows before leaving the office, chickens find their way inside and my counterpart must chase them out with a broom upon our return. A few minutes ago, a rat fell from the ceiling a few feet away from where I’m sitting writing this.

The office

Despite the ruggedness of my office, we do have a TV which is always playing Showtime, a Filipino variety show, or Double Kara, a very dramatic show about twins named Kara and Sara who were separated at birth and who are now in a custody battle over one of their daughters. At least that’s what I understand from my limited Tagalog.

Work is slow because of the presence of said TV in my office and because the beginning of service is focused mostly on cultural integration and language learning. It takes time to find and organize projects and the importance of relationships in Filipino culture requires that friendships are built before productive work begins. So I struggle with patience and imposter syndrome. I spend a lot of my time reading documents and studying language and meeting people around the community- and these activities really are teaching me a lot. I also spend a lot of time talking to my coworkers. They are awesome and always make an effort to speak with me to help me practice Waray. They use very little English and to be completely honest this was TERRIFYING at first I felt like I had been dropped on another planet. But it makes them very good teachers and has helped me make a lot of progress in my language learning (still a long way to go, there will always be a long way to go :)). My highlight of last week was making my first successful joke in Waray!

KULOP & GAB-I (Afternoon and night)

I usually leave work between 4 and 5. Sometimes I stop at the outdoor market on the way home and sometimes I tambay (stay and hang out) at my neighbor’s house while she sells snacks like fried plantains and popcorn and bread with mayonnaise. Then I go home and make dinner. I cook my own mostly-vegetarian food now and am pretty happy about it!

After dinner, I journal or read (most recent book: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. Now reading Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food. Both recommended) and usually send some messages to family and friends at home. I watch the news most nights with my host nanay and tatay. A lot of coverage on drug killings and the recent controversial move of Ferdinand Marcos’ body to the national heros’ cemetery.

It was interesting watching the U.S. election coverage on Filipino news stations.

My 19 year old host sister Mae, who is a college student studying I.T., comes over most evenings and we chat or watch a movie. Often of the zombie genre. She laughs uncontrollably when I close my eyes during the scary parts.

My eyes start to get heavy around 9 pm and I’m usually asleep by 9:30 or 10.

SABADO & LINGO

Saturday mornings are usually when I wash my clothes. I sit in the choir loft during Catholic mass on Sunday mornings, and will hopefully begin singing with them after learning the songs. The music is beautiful and full of energy and mostly in Waray with some English and traditional Latin mixed in. On the weekends, I spend time with my sitemate Courtney. We often go to the capital Catarman (1 hour away, where the mall is located) to run errands and shop and visit our sitemates who are teaching at the university there. I also spend time with Mae and other women I’ve met at site, singing videoke or watching a movie or walking to the beach or eating at one of the few little restaurants in our town.

I was happily surprised to find that there is a tennis court in my town, so sometimes I go join a group of middle-aged men who play there every afternoon!

Just as I finished writing this, my coworkers started yelling at me to eat merienda, which was bread and ice cream. They put the ice cream ON THE BREAD. Blew my mind. An actual ice cream sandwich. I ate two (one unexpected part of Peace Corps: THE RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF OVEREATING THAT OCCURS). Then my boss made me play chess with one of my coworkers. I lost.

Thanks to anyone who read my ramblings and as usual please continue to keep me updated on what’s going on in your life as well!

SITE!!! first impressions

A little over one month ago, my batchmates and I stayed up all night together talking and dancing and feeling sentimental about our departures before I left a resort in Manila at 2am with three other volunteers and our counterparts to drive to the airport and catch the once-a-day 5am flight to our region. I boarded the little plane and tried to sleep during the flight but failed due to nerves and excitement and overzealous aircon. We landed on the runway which is actually a road that is closed every morning in order for the plane to land, and there we found two volunteers from the previous batch waiting for us! So we had a warm first welcome to Northern Samar, although I was in a sleepless daze. My sitemate Courtney and I and our counterparts rode the one hour from the airport to our site and I arrived at my house around 8am. I immediately bucket bathed and collapsed on my bed for a nap. I was awoken from my nap when my counterpart arrived at my house to take me to meet the mayor and local government workers. Then, a host family member who is an elementary school teacher took me to the school to meet her coworkers. A big provincial athletic meet was taking place at the school so there was no class and the teachers were hanging out eating a big meal outside while the sporting events were going on. So I was overfed delicious food and ambushed with selfie requests from all of the teachers!

Since that first crazy day, which was an accurate preview for the craziness of settling into life at site, I’ve met tons of people, learned some of the local language Waray (but there’s still a LOOONNGG way to go), and learned a lot about my site and the coastal resource management related problems here. The beginning of my service will be focused on observing and listening and learning as much as I can to see where I will fit. So it’s slow right now, which is frustrating for the American side of me which wants to move and work and be busy all the time! But I’m trying to be patient and take it one day at a time- there’s a lot to adjust to, and a lot to learn.

Now about my site! There are about 30,000 people living in my municipality. Municipalities are ranked 1^st to 7^th class based on economic condition, and Pambujan is a 4^th class municipality.  I live in the town center very very close to an amazing beach. Agriculture is the biggest part of the economy here, the major crops are rice and corn. I am assigned in the Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO) in the Local Government Unit (LGU). My office is bordered by rice fields on one side and fish ponds on the other. Most of my officemates focus on agricultural work, only a few of us are specifically assigned to fisheries.

There are a lot of fisherfolk in my municipality, but due to Northern Samar’s long rainy season and vulnerability to typhoons, fishing is only feasible and safe for about half of the year. For the other half of the year, fisherfolk must find another source of income, and many travel to Manila to find work for part of the year. Additionally, illegal fishing practices are common in this area. Dynamite and cyanide fishing have destroyed much of the nearby coral. Compression diving and spearfishing have removed the largest fishes with the highest reproductive potential from the area. Data collected by the local government has shown decreases in fish catches over the last few decades, likely as a result of these activities.

According to community members I’ve spoken with, fisherfolk here are often living hand-to-mouth: they work each day to ensure that their families have food that day. The unreliability of fishing as a livelihood here makes it difficult for families to pay to send their children to school consistently. The local government has been working for a while to establish livelihood projects among fisherfolk as well as within the women’s organization and within barangays. It looks like this is where I will be asked to focus some of my work.

So the current state of affairs here, all summed up: I have no idea what my service and life here will look like yet (most of the time I am following people around without understanding what they are saying or knowing where we are going!), but I’m learning a lot about this beautiful place and the warm welcoming people who live here and the language they speak and the culture they live. And, I have a wonderful support system among my new friends, workmates, and fellow volunteers J Glad and grateful to be here.

Mabayo and Site Placement

I’m two months into Pre-Service Training and the time has flown by! For Community-Based Training, 9 other Peace Corps trainees and I have been living in a crowded, small coastal community: Mabayo, Morong, Bataan. My house is near the basketball court and the Independent Filipino Catholic Church. There are sari-sari stores lining the streets, tons of stray cats and dogs, and smiling high-fiving kids playing pogs everywhere I go. Sounds I’ve woken up to include roosters crowing, dogs and cats fighting (sometimes on the roof above my head), eggs frying, little kids laughing and crying, music from the neighbors (good music is definitely appreciated here), and rain falling on the tin roof of our house.

I have a wonderful host family with a nanay and three younger sisters, ages 15, 10, and 5. The tatay of my host family is an Overseas Filipino Worker in Japan. I spend a lot of my time at home with the kids- they aren’t afraid of the language barrier and are very helpful in teaching me Tagalog!

The Mabayo Peace Corps staff (2 language trainers and 1 technical trainer, all Filipino) are living in a house where our training classes are held. The staff house sits right on the beach of a bay surrounded by green mountains. There is no waste collection service in Mabayo, so there’s tons of trash scattered on the sand and in the water, a dramatic contrast with the natural beauty. There are interesting and pretty shells and little hermit crabs which don’t live up to their English name- they’re unusually outgoing and come out of their shells fairly quickly after you pick them up. The kids told me they’re called “umung” if I remember correctly. They pick them up and say “mung mung mung” over and over again which for some reason causes the crabs to emerge from their shells more quickly. There’s also a large abandoned bangka named Yumiko. I often see kids climbing and swinging and jumping from it.

Our training schedule has been very busy. We’re at the staff house all day Monday-Saturday. We study Tagalog in the mornings (but now I’m learning Waray-Waray, the language spoken at my site!), go home for lunch, and then return in the afternoon for technical training. We’ve learned how to conduct seagrass, mangrove, and coral assessments, conducted activities to record and utilize local knowledge about the community’s issues and resources, interviewed fisherfolk, learned about environmental education- so a lot! It’s exhausting having such a busy schedule while also adjusting to a new family, friends, culture, food, climate, and more. However- I’ve found a really supportive group of people in the Peace Corps trainees and staff that I’m spending my days with, as well as my host family and the Mabayo community, and I’m very grateful for them.

and what we’d all been waiting for since receiving our invitation letters to serve in the Philippines….SITE PLACEMENT!!!

Earlier this week, all of the Peace Corps trainees and staff spend 2 days at a resort with big soft beds, showers, and our friends from all sectors! We had our Tagalog interviews (I passed!) and learned where we will be living and working for the next 2 years.

My new home will be a coastal municipality east of the capital city Catarman in Northern Samar! I will be living in a rural, 4th class municipality. I’ve heard there are caves to explore and good snorkelling/diving sites nearby. The language spoken in the area is Waray-Waray, so I began learning a new language this week. I am the only Coastal Resource Management volunteer from my batch moving to a Waray-speaking area, which means that I’m getting private lessons!

I am living in the same municipality as an education volunteer placed at a high school, and 45 minutes from a married couple of education volunteers who are placed at a university. My new sitemates are very warm and kind and enthusiastic about working on projects together. I’m looking forward to getting to know them better. There are also 2 CRM volunteers from last year’s batch near my site, so I’m excited to meet them as well.

I don’t know much about my site, my host family, or the work I’ll be doing, so I’m in one of those “dealing with ambiguity” stages that Peace Corps loves to talk about. But exciting things are coming!

 

 

Week 1

I have been in the Philippines for a little over a week staying in dorm-style rooms at a conference center near Manila. These first two weeks of training feel a lot like summer camp. My days have been filled with early morning workouts, followed by technical, safety, and language training sessions from 8-5, and evening activities which have included a disco-disco, movie night, and videoke (my personal favorite). It’s exhausting, especially for the introverts like myself, but I feel so lucky and grateful to be here. We are well-fed with 3 big meals and two meriendas (snacks) per day! The 74 other trainees and I will stay here for one more week before heading to Bataan to stay with host families for the remaining 2 months of pre-service training.

I’m very excited to be diving into Tagalog lessons, coastal resource management (CRM) training sessions, and cultural activities. I’m looking forward to getting out of the secluded center where we are staying (I’ve been referring to it as “the compound”…) I’m enjoying my time here and am glad that I’m being eased into full cultural integration, but it does feel a bit like I am stuck in a bubble.

I was able to escape the compound for a few adventures this week! I went on two trips via jeepney to the nearby mall (which is three stories and HUGE). On Sunday, I attended Catholic mass with some of the other trainees and Filipino Peace Corps staff. The entire service was conducted in Tagalog, except for a couple of English sentences the priest very kindly threw into the sermon because he saw our large group of Americans sitting in the back.

After mass, I joined a few trainees and Filipino staff member Jo (she is a technical-cultural facilitator working with the Children, Youth, and Family volunteers) on an outing to a nearby honeybee farm which sold some organic soaps and essential oils. It was a lot of fun and probably the best day of my first week! The farm had the most beautiful outdoor bathroom and the smallest cutest puppies and kittens I have ever seen. Ever.

We took group selfies everywhere we went. At this rate I will be very good at this skill two years from now.

…

On a more serious note, I wanted to acknowledge the recent shootings  in the U.S. It has been strange being away while knowing that things are chaotic and sad and hard at home. I’ll be praying and will try to seek out and listen to the voices of the individuals and communities who are affected by these incidents, and I hope others will do the same. I don’t know what else to do and feel lost like everyone else but am open to suggestions. Our Peace Corps country director acknowledged the shootings in front of our group and reaffirmed that we are each other’s support system when tragedies like these occur at home. She reminded us that our goal in being here is to build world peace and friendship. We haven’t achieved these objectives at home or abroad and we are far from doing so. The daily commitment that people all over the world have to restoring and improving and rebuilding and healing the communities that make up the world, and the belief that love conquers all and light always shines through darkness, makes me hopeful anyway.

Hello

A few short months ago, I accepted an invitation from the Peace Corps to serve as a Coastal Resources Management (CRM) Volunteer in the Philippines. In two days, I’ll be on a plane heading to my first day as a Peace Corps Trainee! I will spend Friday in Los Angeles attending a day-long orientation and meeting Peace Corps staff and the other 75 volunteers travelling to the Philippines, and Saturday morning we will leave as a group to fly 11 hours to Tokyo, followed by a short layover then the 4.5 hour flight to Manila.

I have decided to start this blog as a way to keep in touch with family and friends, to hopefully be able to convey what my life, work, and relationships are like in my new home in the Philippines. I really have no idea what to expect!

The next two days will be filled with last minute packing and as much family time and good food as possible. I’m incredibly excited, nervous,  etc etc to be heading out so soon after months of waiting!