Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Jaded Green

Last September was the annual “Clean and Green” competition where essentially every Municipality takes the time to clean up a few certain locations they plan on taking the judges to show just how “CLEAN” they are. I remember last year when I really didn’t know how things worked in this country and was quite upset at how openly dishonest the entire competition was. One example from past years is my very own Nanay Erlyn who took photos of the same two trash bins (one for biodegradable one for non-biodegradable) at different locations giving the appearance we had bins placed all over town. But things like this go on all over for the competition and not just San Joaquin. I remember wanting to sabotage the whole thing last year and offer to take all the judges up to the dump on the hillside that is conveniently out of sight out of mind…but I didn’t.

This year I was just as skeptical for the competition and had no desire to go around and see the preplanned locations before the judges arrived. However, one of the sites held a soft spot in my heart. It was a high school that Rodel and I had conducted 6 presentations with regards to solid waste management last year. This was followed by a planning workshop for the student government on ways they could ecologically manage their school’s waste. I’ve discovered that working with kids can be tough (mad props to all you teachers out there). I remember getting done with a presentation last year only to watch a student throw his plastic bag on the ground right in front of me. He didn’t realize that I was there and did it out of natural habit, but I couldn’t help but wonder if one word of our presentation had sunk in. I flipped out (in a funny way…we all laughed :)) to hopefully make him think about what he had done, but instances like that really make you wonder if what your doing is even worthwhile.

Well it turns out a few other students did get our message and maybe more importantly a few teachers. As we entered the school site with the judges we saw they were segregating their trash properly in the bins. They had a simple compost pile of biodegradables. They were now packing their residual waste in old rice/cement sacks to be buried in a pit rather than burned. So that was all great but maybe they threw it all together in 3 days before the competition like what is usually done for Clean and Green. At least they had understood the proper way to manage their waste. The thing that really got me excited was the shed they had constructed as an MRF (Materials Recovery Facility), which neatly stored their various recyclables in different bins. That was definitely something they couldn’t just throw together in 3 days and demonstrated that there had been some prior commitment to change rather than just please some judges. As we left I talked with Sir Thomas who was the teacher that spearheaded the SWM activities and told him how great of a job they did. He and the principal asked me if we could come back and give another presentation…Umm…YEAH!

So that’s my feel good Peace Corps success story…you should all realize that for every one success there are at least five failures that accompany it but that’s what makes this job so rewarding when things do happen to work out. So from that little tidbit of a success I was inspired to go back to the high schools and opted to present something that encompassed the whole environment. I solicited the help of my Belgian Dive Instructor and good friend Gert to lead a session on Coastal Resources Management. He had already been giving presentations to his barangay’s local high school on marine wildlife and had more enthusiasm about the presentations than even me. The Natural Resources section was teamed up by our Municipal Environmental Nat. Res. Officer Gloria and a Volunteer Forester Gemma. While me and Rodel (when he was available) rocked the trizash (seriously people cheer us we rock so hard) with a shortened version of our SWM presentation of a year before.

Gert Rockin the Mic in his pimped out Coast Guard Aux Uniform

Over a few weeks we gave presentations to 6 of the 9 High Schools in San Joaquin and the remaining 3 are interested in us coming after fiesta (schools tend to be busy preparing for their performances before the annual fiesta this time of year). The best news is that Gert is really excited about continuing the presentations on a yearly basis as well as finding a way to get the Coast Guard Auxiliary involved. Good stuff.

Students at Pitogo NHS making their promise to the Environment

Other work as of late is that I just got done attending a training on how to make Ferro-Cement water tanks. Ferro-Cement is essentially just the method of combining iron and concrete to produce an efficient system of compressive and tensile strength…blah, blah, blah,…engineering jargon…essentially these tanks are a method which can save up to 40% material costs compared to typical Hollow-Block water tanks that are most commonly built here in the Philippines. Instead of Hollow-Blocks and rebar we make the tank completely out of concrete and tie wire. I had told Bobot, our Municipal Engineer, about the technology last July and he was extremely interested. At my Mid-Service Training last August there was enough Volunteers that expressed an interest in the FC tanks that Peace Corps elected to hold a training at fellow PCV Tom’s site in Camarinus Sur, Bicol. It was a rockin good time and after only 4 days we had built a water tank for a school. It was a perfect site for the project since the surrounding groundwater was completely brackish and the tank was set up for rain harvesting using the school building’s tin roof. Both me and Engineer Bobot had a good time and he already has some ideas of where some water tanks in San Joaquin might be needed. I would love to build some tanks before my service ends but I’m most excited that Bobot was able to learn a new technology that could be very cost effective for future projects he may design.

Bobot hearts FC Tanks

I heart Bobot

My Father hearts this Picture :) (only in the Peace Corps...You Rock Page!)

For my personal life things are still going unbelievably well with Kelly. I had a three day weekend (barangay elections) followed by a four day weekend (all saints and souls day) that allowed me to go visit Baguio for her birthday. We had an awesome week of scrabble, chess, yoga, shoe shopping (come on…it was her birthday), movies, waterfalls, and incredible meals. We just have fun together no matter what we’re doing.

Here's a nice pic for my Mom's sake

My girlfriend is on the right

Crazy Kano jumping off waterfall


Things I’m looking forward to that will surely be discussed in the next update include two of my closest friends Brady and Cam coming out to visit d ‘Pines; a 3 day live-aboard dive trip where one of the two sites is known for lots of sharks!; and the possibility of building some more bio-sand filters in December (which seems more than a maybe at this point but we’ll see what happens).

Later


3 Comments:

At 5:23 PM, Blogger Scott Farver said...

Clean and Green is no good?
CSU is Green?
CSU is no good?

Is that proper logic??
:-)

Looking forward to sharing some turkey with you this weekend

 
At 6:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Ian! Finally found your blog. Hope you had a blessed Christmas and we hope and pray for the very best for you in 2008! We miss you, but we're fired up about what you are doing and how passionate you are about it. Love ya, buddy-

Troy, Christa, Logan, TJ and Ashley Steinbach

 
At 3:25 AM, Blogger Erin said...

Hey Ian!

I finally caught up on your blog. I'm glad things are going well for you!! Good luck in the new year. I'm pretty sure 2008 is going to rock. Take care!

Erin

 

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