3, 4,....8 updates in one

Ok, so it’s been a real long time since I’ve updated the old blog but I’ve been busy as you soon will read. I guess I’ll start from the beginning when my family came for a visit last March…here’s what I started writing on my laptop last month but never finished:

Update #1: Fam Comes to the ‘Pines

Fam in Boracay

Sunday, March 11th – Mom, Dad, Quinn, and Brad arrive in Iloilo City at 6AM. Hugs were had by all and everyone got to meet my Pinoy Mom Erlyn. I was a little worried everyone would be extremely tired from the 20+ hour flight but apparently they were all fairly rested since there were only about 40 passengers on a plane for 250. From the airport we headed straight to the only breakfast joint in the city that’s open that early – McDonalds. Here the fam got to enjoy the wonders of a Filipino Micky D’s where you can still get an Egg McMuffin but also have the option of trying a McRice Burger, or Taro Pie. Then we took a quick driving tour of the city where Erlyn gave us all a history lesson on the old homes and buildings of Iloilo. Next it was off to visit my first host family in Igcocolo, Guimbal. It was exciting to watch my real fam meet the one that took care of me for my first 2 months in the Philippines. Everyone confirmed that my little host family cousins are indeed the cutest kids on the planet. After lunch we said our goodbyes and headed to Miagao to visit the town’s church which is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Again, Erlyn played the role of tour guide. Finally we headed to San Joaquin and the house (essentially this place is more like a mansion right on the beach) we had arranged to stay at. Relaxed and talked…

Monday, March 12th – Headed into town of San Joaquin and the fam got to experience their first jeep ride along with the sounds of kisses which locals use to signal where they want to get off (seriously people do this and I kind of forgot how weird it is until the fam pointed it out). Visited the town church then we ate lunch with some co-workers and friends from town. We walked through the various offices of the Municipal Hall distributing salt water taffy which scored me points with the office mates. Next we visited my 2nd host family and the first place I lived when I moved to San Joaquin. Then it was off to see my house in Balabago. I can’t express how often I think about people back home and what they are doing at the exact same moment (almost certainly sleeping)…but there was my Mom, Dad, Quinn, and Brad sitting in my house when they are usually on the other side of the planet – Awesome! Everyone got to meet my good friend Bong over a couple of fresh coconuts, star apples, and puto cheese (one of my Mom’s favorite foods discovered along with ube ice cream). Brad shared a moment with Bong discussing the finer points of his expertise in Kung Fu…then it was back to the Beach Mansion to take a load off.

Tuesday, March 13th – Since the waves were rather big in San Joaquin we opted to forgo the snorkeling until a later time and instead I thought it might be nice to take a leisurely 30 minute morning hike…this instead turned out to be a 2 hour roundtrip excursion in the mid-day tropical heat that none of us were real prepared for. Led by Erlyn, Brad, Quinn, and Dad made it to the top, while me and Mom stopped at about 30 minutes in. It was actually really nice to get some alone time with just my Mom and catch up on things. After the hike from hell (just kidding of course…I’m sure they somewhat enjoyed it), we got lunch at a local restaurant where I was planning on making them try some crazy Pinoy foods like dinugu-an (blood soup…one of my fav’s that I eat at least once a week…seriously, no joke), but instead ordered pretty safe stuff since I think I had already subjected them to heat stroke. Then it was back to the mansion for some much needed rest. That plan for the night was to have the fam meet some of my fellow volunteers. At first it seemed like it was going to be a pretty quiet evening of just the Farvers and Lloyd despite invitations to all my Western Visayas homies. But then the word got out that A) we would be eating bratwursts purchased from the city (a true treat for any ‘Kano in this country); B) free beer; C) mango float for dessert (second only to my Mom’s CC cookies for all time favorite desserts); D) Videoke (yes the mansion even had it’s own videoke machine); and E) a free nights stay in an air conditioned room. For some reason, 8 PCV’s made the effort to meet my fam and share in the good times. Bong and Erlyn were also able to make the party. Highlights from the videoke included my Mom’s rendition of Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and my little sister’s version of Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye…hmm, I’m not sure which of the two made me more uncomfortable but it was funny all the same.

…Well that’s as far as I got with that so I’m going to have to summarize the rest (plus you’re all probably bored with this by now). After visiting San Joaquin we headed to Boracay where we did some Para Sailing, snorkeling, eating (really good food), and Brad and Quinn bought enough pearls to start a business back in CO. From Boracay we went to Palawan where we did some really good snorkeling (we saw a huge school of Jacks that was bigger in size and numbers than I had even seen diving), visited a crocodile farm, stopped by a prison (it was a packaged tour…we bought some crafts the inmates made), took a boat inside an underground river, and ate some more really good food. From Palawan we had a quick afternoon and morning in Manila then we said are goodbyes…Ok, so I’m obviously leaving out a lot of other details here but for me the highlights of my family’s visit was just getting to spend some time talking and being with everyone. I got some good one on one time with my mom during the hike in San Joaquin, with my Dad over a few beers (served by midgets at the Hobbit House) in Boracay, and with my Sister and Brad at various times throughout the trip since we usually all shared a room. You don’t always realize how important family is until you spend an extended period away from them.

I miss this stuff

Brad and Dad Para Sailing...Notice the difference in their expressions

This just makes me smile :)

Update #2: Healthy Obsession with Work
I’m not gonna lie, being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a hard job. One week you’re sitting around just trying to find meaningless tasks to accomplish for the shear fact that you’ve already spent the previous two months telling yourself to just be patient, the work will come eventually, it has to…right? The next week your coming to work an hour early, leaving an hour late, and putting in 12 hours on the weekend…but believe me, I am definitely not complaining and I’m definitely loving my job.
The week before my fam showed up, Rodel, Dr. Elgario, and I developed a water/sanitation/solid waste management survey to be conducted by the Municipality’s Barangay Health Workers (BHWs). We decided to have each of the 160+ BHWs conduct 10 household surveys (avg. 6pax/household) in their respective barangay to obtain a fairly good representative sample of nearly 20% of the population of San Joaquin. With over 85 barangays the purpose of the survey was to help us identify and prioritize the areas that needed the most help with these issues. It seems to me that when things do get done here they always get done last minute. The day before the BHW meeting Rodel, Erlyn, the Doc, and me were all working on printing out 1600 surveys and another 320 sheets of survey instructions. When it was all over we went through about 20 sheets of carbon paper (we don’t have a Xerox so were printing about 3 sheets at a time by hand) and I rolled into bed at midnight. The next morning we gave the surveys to the BHW’s and after lunch I headed home for a nap.
After my nice little two weeks with my family I came back expecting another dry spell at work since that was what usually happened anytime I was gone for more than a week at a time for a Peace Corps training. There was also another matter that was troubling me. Every year the Municipality hires 40 summer college student employees. My counterpart Rodel is always in charge of the summer work program and said he wanted to give me 10 of the 40 for a water related project. I was ecstatic when I heard this news in February but now that it was almost April, and I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with these kids, I was a bit apprehensive. My first Monday back at work I checked the water system of my own barangay Balabago which was having supply issues and then spent the rest of my afternoon just brainstorming what in the hell I was going to do with 10 student employees. After much contemplation I decided we would attempt a pilot project making the biosand filters (BSF)…this of course was only if I would be allowed to borrow one of the Peace Corps’ BSF molds and if I could obtain a small amount of funding from the LGU to pursue the project. The first goal of obtaining the mold was easy enough after a phone call to PC headquarters and a long day’s journey to the opposite side of Panay and back. The funding was another one of those Filipino last minute deals. I had the project proposal on the Mayor’s desk for a full 8 days but she never made it in to the office (of course it is election time and she’s a bit busy right now). I was forced to hunt her down at her campaign headquarters to get a signature the Thursday afternoon before the week this project was to start. The next day was spent going through all the other loop holes in the LGU to actually use this signature to get me some money for this project. I was told it was some kind of a record to get that money in one day (one day I thought?…I had my proposal in for over a week and it was a rather modest sum??). Basically it wouldn’t have happened without my Nay Erlyn pulling the right strings which she’s pretty good at. I spent that weekend running around the town and Iloilo City buying all the tools and materials we would need for the next month and a half.
Fast-forward to today and I’ve got 10 kids working hard to build and install 20 biosand filters by the end of May while at the same time inputting the survey data from the BHW’s into the computer (I actually got to use some of my college education to build an easy input program using VBA and Excel…I loved it, and it confirms I’m still an enginerd). So far it’s all going pretty well. We’ve made 14 BSF casings from the mold but still have a lot of work to do on finishing, painting, cleaning gravel, and of course installing them. Our plan for this project is to sell the filters at half price of P700 ($14) since the labor is provided by the LGU. With the profits generated we are hoping to purchase our own mold and tools for future barangay projects or a small business livelihood. People have been stopping by to see the kids making the filters and asking lots of questions about how its works. We started with 20 people who said they would buy one without even seeing the product and in just two weeks the list grew to almost 40. Since this is just a pilot project I’m hoping it leads to bigger things with the BSF but like I’ve said before lantaw-on ‘ta (we'll see). In the mean time I’m loving work, using my hands, getting dirty, and joking around with my kids.

My crew packing the concrete in the BSF Mold

Update #3: Hard to believe its been a year already
The last weekend of March I headed back to Guimbal to visit my host family and catch Bantayan. If you recall one of my first blogs was about this festival. My year anniversary of being the ‘Pines had come a week earlier but it was returning to watch Bantayan that really made me feel it had been a year. In a way I felt like any other ‘balik bayan’ (returning countrymen, homecoming). The familiar faces of Igcocolo were all excited to see the freakishly tall ‘Kano back to watch them rock out there dance of the invading Moor Pirates…It was good times and I’m sure I’ll be back again next year.

Update #4: Politics in the Philippines
Well, since this website is overlooked by PC and I’m an apolitical volunteer I can’t really comment about this but I will say it’s a crazy time here and I’ll tell you about it over a beer sometime.

Update #5: It’s summer time…tis the season for Fiesta!
Like the Town Festivals the Barangay Fiesta is similar but on a smaller scale. To summarize, everyone cooks a ton of food and invites family and friends from neighboring barangays or towns to stuff their faces, take a nap, have a few shots of Tanduay, and then dance the night away. Everyone here is always asking if we have Fiesta in the States and the closest comparison I can make is Thanksgiving (only in the ‘Pines you get like 20 of those a year). Although Barangay Fiestas occur year round they tend to be more frequent in the summer months due to the good weather. This past month I’ve easily hit up 5 (for just the eating part unfortunately) including my own barangay Balabago. In Balabago we have boat races the morning of the second day of Fiesta and I had an awesome view of the finish line which was right outside my house. I skipped out on the dancing the last night but managed to videoke until 2AM the previous night with 5 of my migs…Good times.

Update #6: It’s summer time…it’s hotter than hell!
This really isn’t an update…I guess I just felt the need to milk some sympathy since I really don’t have a whole lot to complain about…seriously it’s hot.

Update #7: Diving in the middle of the Sulu Sea
It’s going down May 11th…6 of us will be leaving San Joaquin on a live-aboard to go diving in the middle of the Sulu Sea near the Cagayan Islands. The plan is to dive 2 or 3 times a day for 5 days straight. I’m not going to comment on this too much because I’m really excited about it. We’ve got an awesome crew, awesome instructor, and from what I understand this is a special untouched place to see some amazing things… I’ll let you know how it goes.

Update #8: I’m coming home
That’s right, I’m flying back to CO. My good friends Chris and Jenna are tying the knot and their wedding is a once in a lifetime event that I don’t want to miss. I’ll be flying back June 26th and leaving July 10th. Besides rockin’ at the wedding I’ve got a few things I would like to do during my visit home. In no particular order: Spend time with family, spend time with friends, eat some of my mom’s homemade cookies, drink some quality Fort Collins beer, play some golf with my Grandpa Bob, go to a Rockies game (closest thing to a sporting event here is the occasional Cock fight and I’m a bad gambler), eat a lot of ‘Kano food, go for a quick CO hike, and maybe catch a concert…that’s all I got now but I’m sure I’ll come up with some more before I leave.

Halong Gid Sa Tanan (take care everybody)