Tallest Man On Panay

NW Vietnam, and Hanoi

2008-09-24T18:51:00.007+08:00

Well this is it...I'm leaving on a Jet Plane tomorrow for San Francisco. My last two weeks in Vietnam have been awesome but I'm definitely ready to get home....but before any of that I would like to update on what I've been up to the past few weeks.

I rolled into Dien Bien Phu near the northern Laos border and took a rest day to check out the War Museum. The town is known as the last stand for the colonial French and after they were defeated in 1954 France withdrew from it's colonies in Indochina. Martin Windrow claimed Dien Bien Phu was "the first time that a non-European colonial independence movement had evolved through all the stages from guerrilla bands to a conventionally organized and equipped army able to defeat a modern Western occupier in pitched battle."

The Vietnamese used bicycles during the war to transport food and supplies to the soldiers. After riding around with a loaded bike for 3 months I felt like I could relate with this guy...that is until I read the card that said they carried up to 300 kilos. That's a hell of a lot of weight for a bike and I'm still wondering if that's a typo.

After looking at maps and photos in the museum it was cool to know that I was riding the same stretches of road they had used during the war. I tried to imagine how crazy it must have been 55 years ago.

I seemed to have a love-hate relationship with Vietnamese during my time here. Some moments like this one were just incredible. These kids rode with me for about 15km through the mountains on my first day leaving Dien Bien Phu. It was awesome to have some companions on the road after being solo for so long...we didn't need to say anything but only smile when we came to a climb or fun downhill descent...yeah, amazing cultural experience...On the other hand I've had more people to try to rip me off (even for bananas) than any country I've visited on the trip...but for the most part the highs far outweigh the lows...you just learn to be on gaurd.

My pictures on the road in NW Vietnam never seemed to turn out as well as Laos...there always seemed to be a little more haze. This one wasn't too bad though on my second day riding along a river valley.

Can you tell the difference between Laos Ian above and Vietnam Ian below...

That's right...I finally got rid of the beard I had since Cambodia (but I didn't let the street barber touch my hair). You'll also notice that I learned to put a piece of banana between the butter milk cookies for a roadside snack...INCREDIBLE!!!...oh, yeah and I also ditched my helmet (who needs that discomfort anyway)

My first two days leaving Dien Bien Phu I felt amazing. I managed over 100kms both days through mountain roads and surprised myself with how good of shape I was in. However, the end of my second day was a tough 20km climb with 10 degree slopes after I had already gone over 80km. Views like this (which the picture doesn't really justify) inspired me to keep on climbing.

Made in Vietnam the Choco Pies were my reward after a long day...Delicious marshmellow chocolate cakes (only about $2 for a dozen)

Another reason I loved the Vietnamese was that they just showed more interest in me and my bike than any other country. These 12 or so guys watched me get ready on what would be my last day of riding.

The goal of my whole trip was to reach the Mountain town of Sapa. There were times early in my trip I debated in my head whether to try to climb this road or take another route to Hanoi...It turned out it really wasn't as a hard as I thought it would be but I had almost 3 months of conditioning. On the way up I didn't want the ride to end...I knew this was pretty much the end of the cycling and started thinking about all the places me and the Philippine Stud (that's what I started calling my bike...call me crazy but you get lonely on the road and I liked thinking of my bike as a horse) had been. This is a picture looking back at the mountain road to Sapa.

Me, the Philippine Stud, a Choco Pie in my mouth, and a helmet on my head (just kidding about not needing the helmet. Safety first kids) at Tram Ton pass (1900m elv, highest road pass in Vietnam)...We had made it. I became quite attached to that bike but had been planning to sell it from the beginning. In Sapa I got a good deal for it and said my goodbyes...It was hard :(

After arriving in Sapa I decided I would attempt to climb mount Fansipan (3143 m, 10,300ft). I met an Austrian couple Stephan and Gadriela who were also looking to climb the mountain and we teamed up to get a good rate on a guide/porter.

It was a two day climb so our first night we stayed in a small shack at 2800m and our guide Chu fixed us an amazing dinner and then made us some chopsticks from the bamboo outside...sweet...It was a challenging hike but for me the hardest part was the sleeping the night in shack. As you can imagine I didn't have my warmest clothes after packing light for hot weather the past couple months...basically I froze my ass off.

Then next day made the long night all worth it. We got extremely lucky with very clear skies and views as we made our way to the top. All the pictures I had seen of the summit had people shrouded in clouds...

Like I said we got lucky. Here I am at the top of Fansipan, the highest point in Indochina (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam).

My man Chu taking a rest at the top

Back in Sapa I spent time roaming the streets and visiting with Hmong Hilltribe women like these. I got to see lots of different Hilltribes on the road but the thing I liked about Sapa was that these women were able to speak pretty good english since it's a touristy town and they make their living selling products. I had heard from other travellers they were pushy but I found them quite friendly (maybe because I bought stuff from them) and willing and able to have a conversation.

After a day in Sapa to recover from the hike I took the night train from nearby Lai Cai to Hanoi. I've been here for the past 4 days and have spent my time walking the streets, visiting museums, eating some good local food, and yes, even shopping for special people back home.

Here's a pic from Hoa Lo prison museum that housed Vietnamese when the French were in power and American pilots, including John McCain, during the American-Vietnam war.

This was a good time...Guys are always asking if you want a motorbike or cyclo ride around the city. After not being able to bike for a few days I was eager to pedal and asked this cyclo driver if I could give him a ride. He accepted...I cruised around for 5 minutes...then he felt like I should pay him so I gave 2000 Dong

I visited the Museum of Ethnology which was really good and helped me get a grasp on various hilltribes I had seen before and their way of life. This is a shot of some water puppets at the museum and later that night I watched a performance in the city.

American Plane at the war museum...

Chaotic traffic jam at night...

For some reason I've really enjoyed Hanoi and I don't really like big cities. I realize I've been fairly brief with my description of things (as usual)...but I've got to go pack my bags because tomorrow I'm going to America! See you soon.

Laos

2008-09-12T12:00:00.000+08:00

It was a full 30 days in Laos (the "s" is french and silent) and I had my highest of highs and lowest of low moments of the trip thus far. In no way do I have time to explain everything I did or saw but I've posted a few pics of some memorable moments...others will be best explained over a beer when I get back to the states...only 2 more weeks until I fly back!

My first day in Laos I crossed over from Thailand at Tha Khaek. I planned on visiting some caves in the nearby Limestone Karsts but what I didn't know was that it had been raining heavy throughout the country causing some flooding. It was impossible to visit the caves but I took a ride through the hills which was quite beautiful with the Karsts reflecting off the water.

My first two days of riding I was impressed that the road was always elevated above the flooding. However, on my third day I ran into about 7 sections of flooded road that I had to cross by either boat (like the picture above), tractor, or ferry...it was trully adventurous but also took forever having wait around to cross for sometimes 20 or 30 minutes...guess it's good I developed some patience living in the Philippines for 2 years.

The same day I made the most crossings of flooded road I had planned to stay overnight at an elephant tower where you can sometimes get lucky and witness wild elephants come to eat at a salt lick...I was about 3 hours late (not to mention exhausted) by the time I reached the village of Ban Na where my hired guides led me through the forest to the tower. Swimming in the pool shown above (view from tower) was quite refreshing after my long day.

My guides Paul and My chilling in the tower. Later that night at about 2:30 AM my guide Paul grabed my foot and whispered, "Elephants"...We could just make out the shadows of 3 swimming and lounging in the same pool we had swam in earlier that afternoon...Awesome

I stayed in the capital Vientiane for a few days and took in some of the sites and got a little work done on the bike...but I was eager to cycle again as I had heard from friends and other cyclists that the road from Vientiane to Luang Prabang would be a highlight for sure...As I approached the mountains I started getting excited.

Arriving in beautiful Vang Vieng

Other than the cycling I think my favorite activity of my trip thus far has been rock climbing in Vang Vieng. I had done some indoor climbing on walls before but never the real thing on a real rock...it seemed a lot different to me and I loved it. I think it might be something I'd like to get into when I get back to CO. I managed to do 4 climbs for only $18 by jumping on with a group of 5 other travellers...great deal and good times.

View from the elevated spot we were climbing

Making my way up one of four routes we got to climb...I really enjoyed this

When in Rome...Among other things, Vang Vieng is kind of known for tubing and stopping at bars along this river for a shot of lao lao whiskey or a beer lao. I heard some backpackers will do this 5 or 6 days straight. I was happy to meet a fellow American, Ben from New Mexico, to share a few beers with on the river.

At some of the bars they have swings and ziplines that are just pure fun...here I am taking my first go at the zip line.

I ended up staying an extra couple days in Vang Vieng in order to meet up with a PCV buddy Sherry who was also traveling throughout SE Asia. We did some caving and had some great conversations. We found it interesting how our Peace Corps experience seemed to shape our views on traveling.

After leaving Vang Vieng the cycling just got better and better...I was finally getting to some mountains and I loved slowly climbing my way up hill for 20 km to race back down...views like this on my way up always had me in awe.

I owe my buddy Lloyd a beer for recommending this place I stayed at my first night after Vang Vieng. The pool below comes from a hot spring and I stayed in the second bungalow from the right...the view from my deck of the surrounding mountains was incredible.

Sunrise at the hot springs.

Luang Prabang was a cool little town. I arrived two days before the Dragon Boat races and spent an afternoon watching them practice with a few locals.

I took a day trip ride to Kuang Xi waterfalls 30km south of town. It was impressive. I put it in my top 3 waterfalls of all time...but had some issues with some leeches when me and an Australian climbed to the top...good times

While in Luang Prabang I signed up to do a 2 day hiking/1 day kayaking trip in the surrounding mountain areas. I was in a group with 6 other travelers and we got the opportunity to stay overnight and learn about the Hmong and Khomu hilltribe people. All meals included traditional Lao food and I couldn't get enough of the sticky rice. Unfortunately I didn't get pics of our first night which included a "spin the bottle" type of game with a chicken head and taking shots of Khomu whiskey from a pot with bamboo straws...yeah, I'm kind of upset I left the camera in the hut but below are some shots I did take.

Hiking in with our guide Kong leading the way

This made my day...Micro-hydro turbines providing electricity for one of the villages we passed. I'm such an Enginerd but that's just cool.

The first Khomu village we stayed out had some guys playing this awesome game which is a cross between volleyball and soccer...I'm pretty sure I had seen this played once in the Philippines but I got to participate here which was fun...I was really only good at heading the ball since I'm so tall...basically I sucked compared to these guys...

This guy had an unstoppable spike kick...you can't stop that man

The next day we fought off leeches on the path but were rewarded with views like this

Our last day of the trip we got to do a little kayaking...since we had an odd number of people I got my own boat...it started filling up with water at first but once I rowed it back to shore, emptied it, and my guide Kami plugged the hole in the back with a piece of plastic and a stick (see back of kayak in pic below) I was good to go.

Ellen and Laurie on the Nam Ou river

Paddling along these Limestone Karsts was awesome...especially laying down on your back and looking up at the wall and overhangs as we slowly passed by.

Along the kayak trip our group stopped at the Pak Ou caves along the Mekong River that contain several buddha images inside.

I had some issues with my rear hub on the way to Luang Prabang, which made me miss a day of incredible riding (fortunately I got the bike fixed later). I was happy I got a lift to the town but sad I had to witness two amazing 20 km+ sections of downhill road through beautiful mountains in the back of a van. This made me appreciate the fact I get to experience so much more from my bike. After getting back from the trekking/kayaking trip I decided to throw my bike on a seungthaew and do the 75 km I had missed a few days before.

Views like this made me happy I went back for that ride

Here's a shot of the road ascending into the clouds from Pak Mong to Oudom Xay...It's hard to describe the feeling of being on a road like this with no other traffic other than the occasional motorbike or truck...it's just fun!

On this day I found myself passing through a whole lot of mud at landsides and depressions in the road...this pic was from my first troubled section of road. By the end of the day I had three shades of mud up to my mid calf...good times

This trio stopped me at the Provincial Border of Oudom Xay and Luang Prabang...the guy in blue informed me that all vehicles had to get sprayed down including bicycles...I wasn't too excited about this considering whatever they were spraying required a mask and suit. I also was expecting some high powered pressure that might damage my bike. I tried pleading to let me pass but they weren't having it. Finally I relented and was pleasantly surprised with the very light spritzing they performed and I was back on my way...although I'm still not quite certain what they sprayed or for what purpose.

This is a typical scene of some village girls I saw while eating some lunch (nothing but beef and noodle soup on the road but it fills the hungry stomach)

A nice view on the final descent to Oudom Xay

Well that was a lot of the high moments...some of the lows include issues with my bike...actually a lot of issues with my bike. There have been quite a few times I thought I would have to give up the cycling and continue on as a backpacker taking the buses or planes. Fortunately I've been able to fix things myself or find someone with tools and knowledge for bigger problems. My last two days before crossing into Vietnam had me facing the roughest road of my journey. I met two German's who had come down the same road and it had quite literally ended their cycling until they could get some work done on their bikes (they were completely covered in mud). From the sound of their problems I suspected they had gotten some water in their rear hub (same problem I had earlier crossing the floods). As I set out the next morning I was determined to protect my bike from the same disaster. Between the two days I carried my fully loaded bike more times then I could count through mud and streams. Since the road wasn't paved there were no trucks but only motorbikes on the road (later I found out a big truck was stuck in the road for a few days that was blocking all other traffic). For the first time of my trip there would be nothing that could bail me out if something went wrong...I would be walking a long ways if it did. After climbing a rocky steep portion to the top of a mountain I reached the Vietnam Border and the road went from gravel to beautiful pavement. I had an incredible 25 km descent followed by a flat 10 to Dien Bien Phu. I am excited about my last 2 weeks in Vietnam. I've only got about 350km of cycling left (on pavement) until I reach the mountain town of Sapa and I'm feeling optimistic my bike will hold up until then. If not, I consider myself extremely lucky with what I've already experienced and how far the bike has taken me (just over 3500 km) and like I said before, only 2 weeks and then I fly back to America!

Look forward to seeing you all soon!

ian

Cambodia and NE Thailand

2008-08-12T15:06:00.009+08:00

Welcome to Cambodia!

After getting through the border and passing up the shady characters in Poipet I opened up my shocks and got ready to really feel this road...no more nice Thailand pavement. Fortunately this terrible stretch only lasted about 10 km and then I was on some flatter dirt roads that were about to be paved and a few stretches that already were. In a way it was kind of refreshing to enter Cambodia...it felt like things were going to be a bit more adventurous and challenging than Thailand (aka land of 7-11's, snickers bars, and really delicious cheap food).

My first day was a light 50km to a town called Sisophon (at least that's what it was called on my map but there are no road signs anywhere in Cambodia so who knows). The following day I headed to a town called Battambang. On my ride there I noticed all these barbershops on the side of the highway. It was a hot day and I was feeling pretty shaggy so I thought a Cambodian haircut might be nice...my haircut didn't turn out quite as nice as this guy's...or maybe it did but it just looks goofy on a 6' 7" white dude. Regardless, it felt good to lose some hair, it only cost me $1, and he used a straight edge razor around my ears. Good times.

I stayed in Battambang for a day and a half and I really liked this town. My first night I got some grub at the night market in a park by the river. This lady was nice enough to let me try one of her deep fried grasshoppers for free...crunchy and deep fried flavor but I didn't end up buying any more.

My time in SE Asia so far hasn't afforded me too many nice sunsets due to the fact its rainy season and mostly overcast but I got lucky my first night in Battambang.

My second day in Battambang I rode to the nearby Wat Ek Phnom. It was a great ride through a tree lined road with no other traffic other than the occasional motorbike. It was also fun to crawl around Ek Phnom with no other tourists around. The kid below and his sister acted as my tour guides through the Wat.

Before I left for Ek Phnom the guy below asked me if I would be interested in teaching some english that afternoon in his small village south of town...Uh, YEAH! His name is Narreth and he was inspired to set up some English classes for kids in his village after a monk had taught him as a youth. It was really great to hear his story and see some of the rural life of Cambodia that is not on the typical tourist path. It is trully a war stricken country that is just now beginning to get back on its feet. Here is a shot of some kids that me and a couple from the U.K. got to work with for a few hours.

One of my main reasons for going to Battambang rather than directly to Siem Reap (Home of the Ankor Temples) was to take a boat ride across the Tonle Sap and through this floating village. It was a long 6 hour ride on a packed boat but it was really enjoyable seeing the life of the people on the river. It looked similar to most of the other villages I had seen in Cambodia but everyone got around on boats and homes floated. Instead of a shop selling motorbike rims they sold propellers.

Well, I didn't come to Cambodia for the cycling...I came for the temples of Ankor and it was worth it. It quite simply blew my mind and if you find yourself in this part of the world you should make the effort to swing by Siem Reap and experience it for yourself. I took about a million pictures and just picked these ones out at random...Ankor Wat below.

A face at Bayon.

My first day I got really lucky with hardly any tourists around...I rode around Ankor Thom on some dirt paths that were loads fun discovering trees like this one and ancient temples that would magically appear in the forest.
I tried to take this one with the tourists in it to give an idea of how massive these trees are that have grown right into the structures...amazing stuff

I bet you didn't think I was going to show off my new haircut. Here I am at Ta Nei which was off the beaten track on my last day...I got to crawl around this one with absolutely no else around (not even the guys that check your ticket) which really made me feel like Indiana Jones...Awesome

I bought a guide book while I was there and the more I read the more interested I became in the various bas-reliefs. Here is one depicting a cock fight for my Filipino friends.

Here is face I noticed that the light was catching just right through a crack at Bayon

I think my favorite temple was Bayon seen below. How many faces can you count?
I ended up buying an extra day pass in order to see Banteay Srei which was on the road leaving Siem Reap towards the Thai border. It was well worth it...the carvings were by far the most intriquite from the Ankor group...hard to believe that is sandstone below.

After Siem Reap it was back to the road...and there was absolutely nothing on this one heading north to the border town Anlong Veng. I spent two days riding about 140 km on what primarily is seen below (had a few good stretches of asphalt)...fortunately it didn't rain those two days or it would have been a muddy mess.
I think that Cambodia might actually have more naked kids than the Philippines...I rested at one house that had 8 kids and none of them could have been more than a year in age apart...crazy.

Other than Siem Reap this man-made lake in Anlong Veng was maybe the most scenic view I had in Cambodia. But overall I really enjoyed my time there and loved the people I met along way.

Back in Thailand the first thing I did was get myself some delicious cheap khao pat khai...the next thing I did was stop at the 7-11 for a snickers bar...or two or three. Being back on those beautiful paved Thai roads I managed 130km my first day back.

In Far Eastern Thailand I was fortunate enough to meet up with Pete, a former Peace Corps Volunteer from the Philippines. He is now a PCV in Thailand and was helping with an English Camp the day I passed by. It was really great to talk with him about the similarities and differences between being a PCV in Thailand and the Philippines. It was also great getting to help out a little with the camp and meet some other volunteers.
Tomorrow I'll be crossing over into Laos...the country that I'm most excited about and have been dreaming of for a year and a half. I'm thinking it's going to be pretty Awesome.

Northern Thailand

2008-07-25T13:05:00.011+08:00

Hi Everyone!

I've been in Northern Thailand for almost 1 month now and I'm leaving on a train to Bangkok tonight followed by another to Cambodia tomorrow. It has been an amazing time and a beautiful place to visit and cycle. I started my trip going directly to the city of Chiang Mai to spend some time with my girlfriend Kelly. She was living in Chiang Mai for a month training in Muay Thai (Thai Boxing). We spent 11 days seeing the sights and having a lot of fun. Here's some pics from our time together:

Kelly in front of a beautiful lake at the Night Safari...we saw all kinds of animals here including Rhinos, Giraffes, and Lions.

Here we are in our cool "zip-lining through the jungle gear"...awesome views and fun flying from tree to tree

This was Kelly's favorite day I think...We got to ride an elephant on a jungle tour followed by an elephant show where they painted a picture and performed a little dance.

Here are some paintings we saw at the Sunday Night Market while doing a little shopping

Bamboo raft ride :)

On July 11th Kelly headed home to surprise her family in Utah...i was sad I wouldn't see her for almost 3 months but the bike trip was something I had been planning to do for almost a year and a half and I knew I would regret it if I didn't do it while I was on this side of the world...I'm lucky to have such an understanding girlfriend.

Since I was already in Northern Thailand I elected to do a loop that would take me up to the Golden Triangle where the borders of Burma, Laos , and Thailand meet and then back down to Chiang Mai.

My first day on the road I got to see some elephants crossing the road near a training center...that's just cool to be riding your bike and all of a sudden you see some dudes riding elephants.

This is one of a few side roads I took that had no traffic and monster trees...Awesome :)

I checked out this Cave in Chiang Dao...I had not been caving in awhile so it was enjoyable crawling through some tight spaces and checking out the formations. Also there were some pretty cool buddha statues inside.

Here is my German cycling buddy Tobias that I met on the road. I'm not sure we would have met had I not had 3 flat tires in one day (turned out I had some cheap tubes from the Philippines...no problems since) ...usually that's not a good day of cycling but it was nice to run into Tobi and have a cycling buddy for 4 days. We found this restaurant where you could grill up all the meat you wanted for only 95baht (3 dollars)...the German definitely had his share of meat and I had about 5 plates of fried rice (still addicted after living in the Philippines). Good times.

You see a lot of Buddas and Wat's everywhere here. This was the coolest Buddha I think I saw on the trip. It was situated on mountain side outside of the town Tha Ton.

This a pic from my hardest day of biking on the road to Mae Salong...Maybe the steepest grade of roads I've ever seen in my life. Me and Tobi found ourselves having to take breaks just from walking and pushing our bikes. The route also made for some fun downhill rides but it became a little demoralizing going straight up and straight down over 3 mountains in only about a 25km stretch...felt good to take this picture and look back at the road we had climbed and we definitely deserved our lunch when we arrived in the town.

We took a rest day in Mae Salong and spent a lot of time drinking tea and eating Chinese food. It reminded me of my brief 6 weeks I spent in China three years ago. The town was settled by KMT refuges from China after the Communists won the war. It was really interesting talking with this tea shop owner who speaks English, Mandarin, Thai, and Burmese about the history of his family and the town...I think Mae Salong was maybe my favorite place I saw in Northern Thailand.

The day me and Tobi left Mae Salong we had some pretty heavy rain and more biking through the Mountains. This picture doesn't do justice to how amazing the views were riding along the ridge with the mist in the mountains.

Here is one of the cooler looking places I stayed at on the road near the Golden Triangle area.

I've really enjoyed the roads, people, and places but I think what I might miss most about Thailand is the food. My two favorite thai dishes are kao phat kai (fried rice with chicken...doesn't sound too exciting but it's always good) and pad thai (delcious noodles). Other favorites are the curry dishes and these fried dough things with banana inside called Rotee...DELISH! Me and Kelly also took a thai cooking class in Chiang Mai so hopefully we can recreate some of this goodness back home.

Here I am being a dork in front of Khun Kon Waterfall...the ride there was worth the 24km detour...this is shot is for Sherry :)

I'm leaving for Cambodia tonight. Looking forward to Ankor Wat followed by Laos and then Northern Vietnam. Its gonna be Rockin. Since I left my house in San Joaquin I've biked just over 1100km when you combine my ride around Panay and this loop through Northern Thailand. So far I'm really loving the whole experience of touring with a bike and I'm feeling myself getting in better shape day by day. If I have time I'll try to post another update further down the road. Take care Everyone!

Goodbye Philippines

2008-06-30T10:20:00.006+08:00

I'll be leaving the Philippines tonight on a plane heading for Bangkok. My last few weeks here has been a rollercoaster of emotions.... Saying goodbye to my friends and people who felt more like family was not an easy task. In many ways I'm not sure I fully realize yet that I won't be returning to my simple nipa hut life. It was also very tough hearing the news that my Grandfather had recently passed back home. We were very close and it was a difficult for me being so far from family.

To help me process and clear my head a little I elected to continue my planned bike ride around my island of Panay despite a recent typhoon that passed to the north a day before I was set to leave my home of Balabago, San Joaquin. I didn't really know just how bad Typhoon Frank was (that might sound strange to someone back home but we have several that pass here all the time) until I actually started biking. Had I known of the damage I would have stayed in my house for the week but as it was I'm happy I pushed through. The trip helped prepare me more mentally than even physically with the various challenges that I may encounter biking around SE Asia.

Here's some pics of the tour de Panay:

Section of asphalt completely sheared off road from the flooding of a river

Crossing over a destroyed bridge in Antique

Washed up shipping crate on beach of Pandan

I saw hundreds of downed electical poles. Some places on Panay may not get electricity back for months.

It wasn't all destruction...this is a nice shot of scattered islands off the Northeast coast of Panay in a town called Estancia. Seeing the NE and Eastern Coast of Panay was a big reason for the trip since I'd never visited.

Kid riding a carabao

Shot of the bike crossing a river in Antique...my favorite Province of the ride

When I was all done I had rode 450km (~280 miles) in 5 days and had no electricity or cell signal. I had rode through, around and over ankle deep mud, fallen trees and downed power lines. In my opinion the worst hit areas of Typhoon Frank were the western and Northwestern areas of Panay. Kalibo was the by far the worst hit city that I saw.

Well this is it...these last 3 pictures are some of the people I will miss the most:

My Nanay Erlyn and co-worker Rodel

My migs...we killed 2 goats and 4 cases of beer at my despidida (going away party)

My closest Friend Bong

Although I'm excited to leave for Thailand tonight I'm most excited about seeing my girlfriend Kelly in Chiang Mai tomorrow morning...the past month has been harder than most since we haven't been able to communicate as easily or frequently. We are spending 12 days together in Northern Thailand and I can't wait. Afterwards I'll be starting my bike trip through SE Asia. I'll be sending out brief emails rather than update the blog to keep you all updated.

Halong gid Pilipinas! Mabalik ko sa pira ka adlaw

-Yan

I'm Done

2008-06-13T11:52:00.009+08:00

Yes…I’m officially no longer a Peace Corps Volunteer. It’s kind of weird to be honest but I’m getting used to it. As of now I’m still behind in tying up a few work things and next week will no doubt have me packing up and saying a lot of goodbyes…it’s not going to be easy I’m sure. However, a lot has happened since the last Blog (like always), but since I’m short on time I’ll be as brief as possible.

We’ll start with Cagayan 2. If you recall from last year I took a 5 day live aboard trip to the Cagayan Islands with a few Peace Corps buddies. Since that trip I had been planning to go back before leaving the Philippines and got my opportunity last May. The crew this year was PCV friends David, Ambush, and Ward, David’s sister Beth, and of course my good buddy and dive instructor Gert.

Last year we had an amazing sunrise at Boombong Island...this year I thought the sunset was better.

We were fortunate enough to have four underwater cameras onboard and my dive buddies got some pretty sweet underwater shots:

This was a Devil Ray that came right up to Ambush and David that I saw from a distance...its wingspan was roughly 4ft.

Here's a nice shot that David took of his sister Beth. It really shows how vertical the walls were that we dove...often times it feels like flying through a canyon or floating down a steep mountain cliff.

This is another great shot by David. I got to see this school of 30+ Bumphead Parrot fish (3-4ft long) on two different dives. The second time I came within a few meters and the school circled around me. Awesome to see so many big fish at one time.

Although we saw a few sharks it didn't seem like as many as last year and this is big reason why. Fishermen catch them, cut the fins off (to sell to the Chinese to make shark fin soup) and then throw the rest back. We saw this dead juvenile in the "Marine Protected Area"

Here's Ambush behind a giant sea fan, or Gorgonia.

Gert proving that he is indeed a fish with no regulator

Our first mate Moy Moy caught this Giant Traveli with his toe (seriously..he had the fishing line tied to his toe...that guy is so cool). It made an excellent breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Another thing I didn't do on last year's trip that I'm happy I did this year was visit the island of Calusa. This is a small island out there in the middle of nowhere where people live off Kamote (root crop), coconuts and rain harvested water...oh and fish too..lots of fish out there :). I was able to talk with a guy who spoke Ilonggo and he told me that there were about 300 people on the island of which maybe 3 had been to a major city like Iloilo...I'm sure they thought we were from outerspace in our fashionable dive suits.

When we weren't diving we ate...

slept...

and made goofy pictures.

Last year when we saw something INCREDIBLE, or Ongelooflisk! in Gert’s native Dutch, we had an underwater wave. This year’s underwater symbol was “That just BLEW MY MIND!!” It involved both hands starting as fists at the temples and then spreading open and out, as if an explosion just took place in your brain. Simultaneously you would exhale a lot of bubbles to enhance the effect. For me personally the diving was a lot more enjoyable this year than last. I just felt so much more comfortable underwater and wanted to stay down as long as possible. I wasn’t running through air as fast and I never felt like death on the boat. Last year I did 15 dives in 5 days and it took my body two weeks to recover from the pounding. This year I did 17 and I felt 100% in a couple of days. I’ve really come to enjoy diving since I’ve been here and I’m really going to miss it.

Well, a big reason I’m still here in the Philippines is that I had quite a bit of work last month which didn’t allow me time to wrap things up. It started the week before leaving for Cagayan. My counterpart Rodel was once again in charge of the summer student employees and asked me to help him conduct a three day Project Design Management (PDM) workshop for the student employees and their respective barangay counterparts. Rodel and I had participated in a PDM workshop as a Peace Corps training over a year ago and I thought it was one of the best trainings I had as a volunteer. His idea was to have small groups of the student employees facilitate month long community based projects in barangays throughout San Joaquin. Sounds like a great idea but I was honestly skeptical whether the kids (17-21) would be able to follow through on projects. But regardless, I helped do the PDM with Rodel which went extremely well (but planning is always easier than doing in the Philippines).

During the PDM about four of the student groups had identified water projects as a need for their barangay, two of which were interested in constructing storage tanks. I held a mini-water project design session for these groups, which included talking about the Ferro-cement tank technology. If you recall, I had a training on these tanks last November with my municipal engineer. Essentially the Ferro-cement tank technology can save time and money (almost 50% of material cost) compared to the traditional hollow-block tanks. Two of the groups really wanted to build these tanks but I wasn’t sure if there would be enough time, especially since I was leaving for Cagayan the next week. I made it clear that if they wanted to build the tanks they would need to get the reusable mold built first that Engineer Pascascio could help them with. I also gave them a list of materials of everything they would need to construct the tanks. If they had the mold built by the time I got back we could probably build some F-c Tanks. I left for Cagayan thinking that the mold probably wouldn’t get built and the students would decide on a simpler project to complete in such a short amount of time. Well, I was wrong. I came to work the next Monday shocked to see the mold nearly finished constructed out of recycled rebar from the old Municipal Building (double points for recycling and saving money!). Only problem now was that my girlfriend Kelly would be coming to visit for two weeks right when we would begin construction. Fortunately my girlfriend RoCkS! Not only did she completely understand, but she also helped us build the first tank for a few days. Another bonus to this whole thing was that the project was completely the summer student employees and I only had to act as a technical advisor. During the construction of the first tank I taught Wristly everything I knew and he was able to do the same thing for Dex’s group without me even being there. This allowed me to spend some more quality time with just me and my girlfriend before she took off for Thailand. Yes, life is good.

Rare shot of yours trully working :)...laying the foundation.

Putting the mold together

Using my girlfriend Kelly as slave labor to hold tie-wire in place

This is Writly installing one of the nozzles. I taught him how to build the first tank and then he taught Dex and his group how to build the second (below).

Pic of Kelly playing with some local kids outside my house.

I'm not amused but Kelly and her friend Katie who came for a visit thought it would be fun to put laundry clips in my hair.

It all worked out and now I’m done…well sort of. Still have a few loose ends to tie up like I mentioned before. Then I’ll say my goodbyes, bike around my island of Panay, go to yet another PCV wedding in Manila, fly to Bangkok, catch a train to Chiang Mai, spend some more quality time with my amazing girlfriend (who is currently learning Thai Boxing…not making that up), ride my bike around SE Asia for three months, fly from Hanoi to San Francisco, watch the Rams play Cal with a few friends, and finally fly home to good old Colorado to see my family (yes you, the only people that read this thing). That’s the plan right now anyway…don’t hold me to anything as it seems to change all the time but I’m excited for what lies ahead. If I have time I’ll MAYBE update with one more Blog before I leave the Philippines. I honestly don’t see myself spending a lot of time at a computer during my travels through SE Asia, but I’ll send a few emails and pics when I get the chance.

See you all sooner than later.

Ian

Quarterly Update

2008-05-01T14:33:00.024+08:00

Well, I guess I’m still struggling to keep this thing updated on a regular basis…Anyway, let’s just get to what happened in the past few months. February was good. It started out with yet another Peace Corps Volunteer marrying a local Filipina (as of to date there are 6 volunteers from my original group that are either married or have plans to get married to Filipinos…talk about the Peace Corps experience changing your life). It was good times at Dustin and Cheng’s wedding which was held in beautiful Tagaytay. Besides giving me an excuse to see my fellow PCVs it also was great timing for me and Kelly to meet up (we’ve been managing to see each other once every 6-8 weeks since we started dating at the end of August).

At the reception me and fellow pcv Dave got our Rock on...this was the last of my long locks as you will soon see

After the wedding me and Kelly headed down to Donsol in the Bicol region to swim with the biggest fish in the world: the Butanding or Whale Shark! Donsol is well known as one of the few places in the world where whale sharks come to feed on a regular basis from January through March. I should note that these big guys, which can get up to 20m (60ft) in length, only feed on plankton and shrimp so we weren’t worried about being eaten alive. We flew into Legaspi and hoped to see the perfectly coned shaped volcano of Mt. Mayon. Unfortunately it was rainy and cloudy, which honestly had me more worried about getting to see the whale sharks the next day. We took a van from Legaspi to Donsol and the weather didn’t look much better…we were just going to have to hope for the best the following day. Well, the next morning came and although it was still overcast the rain had let up a little. We went to the whale shark center to get some fins, sign up for a boat, and of course pay a hefty sum of Pesos. But honestly I felt it was all going to be worth it if we just got to see one…all I wanted was a chance just to see one. We rode around in our boat full of tourists for about an hour. Then suddenly group on another boat spotted one and was preparing to dive in. The captain of our boat then lined us up to be dropped off based on the direction of the snorkelers from the other boat. Once we were in position our snorkeling guide gave us the cue to jump in. Our group couldn’t see a thing at first due to the poor visibility. It was rather chaotic. I peaked up from the water and watched the direction of the approaching snorkelers and then started kicking my fins as fast as possible to swim where I thought the big fish would pass by. I kept my head down in the water and just kept kicking. Suddenly there it was…it’s mouth was roughly 4 ft wide and it was cruising about 2 meters below the surface. My adrenaline was really starting to kick in and I found I was keeping pace with his speed rather easily. I attempted to turn my underwater camera on and capture the moment on film but my display informed me my batteries were low…BLAST! I decided to just keep kicking and let this incredible moment sink into my brain as long as possible…the giant fish became more clear as it slowly raised up to a depth of only a couple feet. I was tempted to reach out and touch the enormous creature but just kept swimming along side. It had felt like a long time and I looked up to see if Kelly was nearby. I discovered it was just me and the Butanding with a trail of a dozen snorkelers behind us. I kept swimming until it seemed to me it was the next group’s turn from another boat. As I slowed my pace it became obvious that this fish was at least 3 times as long as me and I’m 6’7” (the captain later told us it was between 7 and 8 m…just a baby :)) Its tail was the size of an average Filipino. It started to pull away and I lifted my head out to see that an Englishman from our boat had been on the other side of the whale shark. We both looked at each other with a huge grin and all I could say was, “That was Incredible!”…our captain informed us to quickly get back in the boat and get ready to make another run. I asked Kelly if she got a good look but she said just a glimpse. We swam with it a few more times and I took the opportunity to dive down and observe the underbelly of the beast which had two little cleaner fish swimming alongside. The gills were big enough to slip a hand into (of course I didn’t do this!). After 3 runs Kelly still didn’t feel like she was getting to see it very well since it was rather chaotic with 7 of us from just our boat as well as snorkelers from other boats. People were learning quickly how to get a good position and Kelly was often getting a fin to the mask. The fourth run (and what proved to be our last) I grabbed her hand and pulled her through the jumble of the crowd. This time I was certain she was getting a good look since it was right below us and we were hand in hand. It was really special for us to experience something like that together.

This could be a picture of me and Kelly if my camera had been working and visibility was that clear...but its not...just got it off the net, but it gives you a good idea of what they look like and I would say our whale shark was roughly the same size.

Ok…so I realize that was quite a long story and I’ve still got a lot to tell from the past few months so I’m going to try and keep it more brief with pictures to maybe explain what’s been going on…

We managed to get some water testing done on the Biosand Filter and the results turned out awesome. We tested two filters from owners who were certain their water was unsafe for drinking before getting a Biosand Filter. One filter removed over 99% of bacteria (518 colonies before BSF, 4 after) and the other 95%. All the studies you read on the BSF state that if installed correctly it should remove 95% of bacteria but it was certainly reassuring for me to see the results first hand from filters I helped install in San Joaquin.

Colony counts of Bacteria Before BSF (all those white dots)...

...and After!

Also my friend Bong has now sold 6 filters all on his own which is encouraging. It’s still a slow process but I think that’s just the Philippines and the fact that he does have other work. I’m hoping the water testing we did further promotes the BSF’s effectiveness.

Me, Gert, and members from the LGU finished up both the environmental presentations at the High Schools as well the Coastal Resource Management (CRM) presentations for the barangays. I alluded to this in my last blog that I think issues with CRM are maybe the biggest problems in San Joaquin. I’ve decided not to go into detail to explain the precise problems but it basically comes down to a depletion of resources through unsustainable fishing practices by both local fisherman but especially by commercial vessels. For all the fish lovers back home this isn’t just a problem in the Philippines but all over the world. Next time you’re buying some fish at the grocery store look for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) sticker to ensure that your fish was caught in a sustainable manner. If you are more curious about this topic check out the website http://www.msc.org/

The rest of February and the beginning of March had me attending two solid waste management seminars with my counterparts from the LGU and helping my PCV buddy Erin out with an Environmental Camp for 4th and 5th graders that her NGO conducted…that was indeed a rocking good time…by the way my team the Bearcats dominated the camp, Bearcats ang galing!

At the end of March I was fortunate enough to have my old college buddy Scott out for a visit as well as his buddy Cory, or the Doc as I like to call him since he is a newly practicing chiropractor.

The plan was to meet up in Dumaguete which is small city in southern Negros (big island next to my own Panay). I had been there over a year ago for a training and did some spectacular diving at nearby Apo Island. Since Scott was certified and Cory was looking to do his four open water dives in the Philippines to get certified, it seemed like an excellent starting point for the trip.

Scott and the Doc’s Philippine Adventure is best told through pictures…

Since it was Sunday when they arrived we started the trip out with some gambling on fighting cocks. Both the Doc and Scott proved to be winners at the bulang, however I still think one guy might have ripped us off a 100 pesos claiming we made 8-10 odds on the bet…funny how my Kinaraya/Ilonggo language skills was sufficient for our communicating purposes of placing the bet, but after losing money my pinoy friend could only speak the local Cebuano, which I of course know very little. The important thing was that both Scott and the Doc won on the two bets they made because like all things winning is what matters :)

The diving began the next day. We did two dives in Dauin just south of Dumaguete. I really enjoyed the second dive which was underneath a pier. The footers were covered by corral and it was fun weave in between and around them. The sunlight had a cool effect similar to looking through a forest.

Not too interesting from the surface but pretty awesome underneath...

The next day we did two dives at Apo Island where we saw lots of good corral and a few sea turtles up close…yeah, that never gets old.
Cory geared up and ready to dive.

Scott confused why his gauge to his tank reads zero...he managed fine without air

The Doc practicing the Pinoy custom of watering coconut trees

Later that night we met up with these crazy German guys and feasted on fresh fish.

Then the Doc did some work on our backs…apparently being a 6’7” dude in the Philippines can create some bad posture…I’m working on keeping my back straight as I type this Cory :)

After the diving we elected to head to Sipalay where we had heard of an amazing place called Sugar Beach. I tried making us reservations but all the places I had numbers for were booked due to holy week. I figured if we showed up maybe one of the resorts I didn’t have a number for might have a room…it was a gamble but my mates were willing to roll with the Philippine motto of “We’ll see what happens”

After riding a bus for 6 hours we took a trike from the town of Sipalay to the road to Sugar Beach…and we started the long walk...I was getting worried that if we couldn’t find a place on Sugar Beach my companions were not going to be to happy with the gamble…

The walk in was pretty scenic and it felt like we were discovering some secret place. I bargained with this small boy to ferry us across a river for 20 pesos

As we arrived at Sugar Beach it definitely became clear that this place was special. There were only 5 resorts total and the first two confirmed they were booked. We kept walking and I was really getting worried. Fortunately the 3rd resort had a room and a separate tent available at a good price. We checked out the other 2 resorts which were also full and came back to check into Driftwood Village.

My friends were happy again and like the cock fights are lucky streak continued…

We enjoyed some much needed delicious food.

Then watched a gorgeous sunset

Had a lousy Margarita…and then I went to bed…However, the fun had just begun for the Doctor and Scott...

They made lots of friends that first night in Sugar Beach

They proceeded to sleep the next day away in the duyan

Then it was back to learning about another culture and making friends :)

The next day we left Sugar Beach and the Love Doctor and Scott’s good friends waved goodbye from the beach (if you look closely you can see about 6 Filipinas waving goodbye in the center).

That day we traveled up the west coast of Negros and took a boat back to Iloilo City where we met up with some of my Peace Corps friends and videoked the night away.

My PCV friends were impressed with the Doc's videoke skills...

...And Scott's sweet moves. DANCE OFF!

The next morning I took the fellas to my house in San Joaquin. They bought a goat for us to feast on that night...somebody had to kill it

A few hours later we were feasting on Caldereta and goat skin (don't knock til you try it)

Dinner was followed by a classic drinking circle with Tanduay Rum and some special liquor Scott had picked up in Taiwan…compliments of BMcD, much obliged migo.

Unfortunately Cory had to leave the next day so we all went back to Iloilo where they could get an hour long massage for $6. Later that night the Doc texted us from Manila that he was continuing to make friends.

Me and Scott headed back to San Joaquin where he spent the next day relaxing and going for a bike ride while I went to work. The following day we did a dive with my friend Gert where Scott sported this hot little number:

I think Scott just jumped off the sexy scale…from 1 to 10 that’s got to be a 12

Lab puppies at Gert’s

The following day the two of us set out to climb Mt. Napulak with our fearless guide Marlin.

Scott feeling the Philippine Heat

Me checking out the Mountain range that is the border for Iloilo and Antique Province

Only one way to the top...

We camped out at the top and the following morning made for some awesome views with the rising sun.

We headed back down early to beat the heat.

Thanks again to Cory and Scott for coming to visit and experience a little of the Philippines…good times guys.

The next weekend I headed to the Farver's for their Despedida, or going away party. It was good times and a reminder that my own time here is almost up.

I then went up to Manila and teamed up with my old buddy Lee to present a session on solid waste management for In-service Training of the new batch of volunteers. I was pleasantly surprised how many of the new PCVs were interested in working with SWM issues at their site.

While there, Kelly and I helped our friend Dave build a clay oven as a separate training. If I have time in May I might help my friend Bong build one of these in San Joaquin.

The last thing to update on was my Close of Service Conference. This was kind of crazy to think that it is indeed almost over. We had some sessions that are supposed to help us readjust in returning to the States as well as a lot of free time just to hang out with everybody…after all this is probably the last time a lot of us will see each other for quite some time. My official Close of Service is scheduled for June 6. My plans after that are to hang out in San Joaquin for another month to start work on my technical paper for grad school and possibly ride around my island of Panay…it will be good training for when I leave to bike Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam at the beginning of July. I’ll be sure to have one more blog entry before I take off. Next week I’m going back to dive the Cagayan Islands in the Sulu Sea one last time…

All the best to everybody!

Happy Belated Holidays

2008-02-08T15:03:00.000+08:00

I’m not going to go into detail of why its been since November that I last updated my blog. I think it basically comes down to the same reason I tend to be writing less and less in my journal- things just feel too normal. Nothing really seems all that exciting or adventurous like it once did, hence I feel less inclined to write about it. But there was a lot that happened the past few months that might excite the few people who still check up on this blog.

Thanksgiving Rocked! We got together at the same house (MANSION) on the beach that my parents stayed at. There was about 25 volunteers total which mostly consisted of my Western Visayas homies. I also had two very special guests come all the way from the US of A, Cam and Brady. It was really a special time for me personally to have not only all my PC buddies and two friends from the states, but also people from San Joaquin like Bong, Gert and my Nanay Erlyn to share in the feast. Basically we had all the usual Thanksgiving trimmings as well as 6, count them, 6 pumpkin pies….eat your heart to those PCVs that went north to Sagada…WV ROCKS!...and we did rock the videoke. It was good times.

Brady helps Lloyd pluck the feathers from 1 of our 4 turkeys

I Love Pie

We were satisfied with the meal

...so was Scott

The fun continued with Cam and Brady’s Philippine Adventure. First on the agenda was a cock fight. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before this is the closest thing to a sporting event here and they both seemed to get into it.

The next day included an intro to diving with Gert. The visibility was poor and only worsened when Cam managed to throw his lunch up under water (he was ok after a few hours back on land). However, I would say my two friends were pretty lucky getting to see a sea snake, Napolean Wrasse, Baracuda, and a nice size Parrot Fish on their first dive. I consider myself lucky to get to see Brady in this sexy little number:

Cam practices breathing with a regulator

Yours truly enjoying the underwater world

Then next morning we decided to hike the little mountain Lipdan Bulan in my barangay.

Me and Brady wanted a pic of Cam on a Carabao since he did a little bull riding back in his college days…he’s still got it.

At the top of Lipdan Bulan

I was a bit of bone head and didn't bring enough water for the three of us but we soon quenched out thirst with fresh buko juice

Later that night my friend Bong prepared a meal of caldareta ayam (dog). I should let my readers know that we don’t usually eat dog here in the Philippines. People down here in the Visayas only eat dog when there is nothing else to eat, which does happen when times get tough. Brady and Cam had passed through South Korea before visiting the Pines and were disappointed when they could not find a restaurant in Seoul offering dog. So my friend Bong obliged and found a disobedient canine that warmed our bellies. After the meal we sat down to a classic drinking circle of Tanduay Rum with a little Balut (10 day year old incubated duck egg…we do eat this regularly and its not that different than a hard boiled egg). Cam downed his like a champ and I had to finish off Brady’s.

The next day we did a little spelunking in the nearby island of Guimaras….actually this wasn’t a real cave but we still took lots of action shots. That night for dinner the options were grilled fish or grilled pork…we chose fish…and the next night chose pork. Throughout the whole trip both of these guys were totally adaptable with the food choices and were up for trying lots of new things, which was nice.

Brace yourself for sexy waterfall pics:

I think this one truly captures the essence of Andrew "Cam" Amend

The last night before Brady and Cam headed back to Manila was spent in Iloilo City. I took them to a place you can get a nice hour long massage for only P250 ($6). We then proceeded to have some beers and videoke the night away…Overall their stay was really good for me just to spend some quality time with two of my closest friends from back home. Thanks for visiting guys!

I somehow got ringed into playing on the Municipal Government’s basketball team last December. Our record ended up being 2-5 (I was only able to play 3 games since I left during Christmas and New Years…but yes that means they still lost one game even with me). We were the “old guy” team with an average age of about 35…here is a nice shot of one of my teammates.

Christmas was also Rocking! My girlfriend Kelly and I decided to spend a little time on the island of Bohol. We did a little relaxing and swam in the Loboc River at a resort called Nuts Huts. Then we checked out the Chocolate Hills but it was a little rainy so we used a pinoy umbrella (banana leaf).

After mainland Bohol, Kelly and I headed to the island of Panglao to do some more relaxing and a little diving. We headed out to really nice dive spot called Balicasag Island. The coolest thing we saw was an enormous school of Baracuda that almost seemed to be following us as we drifted with the current. Alona beach on Panglao was truly a beautiful place to spend Christmas together.

After Bohol we headed back to my house for a few days and then went up to Boracay to meet up with some other Peace Corps Volunteers. Much like last year this was one big party complete with fireworks, and a white sand beach

As if that wasn’t enough fun, the month of January equals Fiestas galore on the island of Panay including my own town San Joaquin. I’ve seen enough dance performances with drumming over the last two years that the memories are beginning to run together. However, one thing about my own town’s fiesta that is quite special is the Pasungay competition with the carabao, bull, and horse fights. This year I made sure I went out on the field and got some pretty good shots.

Battle Wounds

Last year I wasn’t able to attend the Iloilo city festival of Dinagyang due to a training I attended. It was a good time this year…

So now that I’ve updated you on all the good times I feel I should mention what I’ve been up to with work. Me and Bong started making Biosand filters at the beginning of December. We were able to make 10 using the tools and left over materials from last summer’s training with the students. I’ve been making brochures and other little things to help him out but he still has not made a sell. I haven't been able to devote my fulltime to helping him due to other work at the Local Government but I feel I've taught him everything he needs to know and its up to him to make the project his own. In his defense he’s been quite busy with his usual livelihood of selling puto for the various fiestas. We’ll see how the next couple months goes (it is the Philippines…things tend to move slowly here :)).

Arvin and Bong placing the concrete in the BSF mold

I also helped out a little with a Biosand filter training in Iloilo City conducted by the NGO A Single Drop that trained me. It was fun and I think I learned a lot more than I actually helped with. One of the things I talked about with the trainers from A Single Drop was the success rate of their trainings. I was surprised that despite cooperatives soliciting the NGO for a training, and then having the start up funding provided by Rotary International, the trainers estimated that only about half of the projects proved to be sustainable. And even those that were sustainable often had subsidies provided by Local Government Units or Rotary Clubs (i.e. development work is hard even with money and an organized cooperative). I plan on following up with the group in Iloilo when I can.

I’ve been really interested in doing some water testing on the BSF at the local University in the neighboring town of Miagao. There have been numerous water testing studies conducted worldwide on the filters to prove their effectiveness but I think a local test might help prove its validity to Filipinos. A very supportive professor has offered to help me do this, pending incoming funds for a separate project he’s working on.

The past few weeks I’ve been working with members from the Municipality, Department of Environment and Nat. Resources from the Province, and my good buddy Gert to do Coastal Resource Management Planning for the coastal barangays. There are a lot of problems in San Joaquin but this one really hits home for me since most of my friends in my barangay are local fisherman and their livelihood is in serious jeopardy. I’ll have a lot more to say on this in the next Blog.

Last thing to mention in this update is that my good friend, and in many respects mentor, Lloyd Banwart finished up his service last December. Lloyd was a PCV from the previous batch and was assigned in the neighboring town of Miagao. He was always willing to meet up and offer his words of wisdom when I really needed a fellow ‘Kano’ to talk to. We had a lot of good times diving, biking, and sharing our love for Filipino food. Lloyd is currently biking SE Asia with his buddy Tin Tin for the next few months. It’s something we both daydreamed about and I’m hoping to take a similar trip when my service is over next June. You can check out the current adventures of Lloyd and Tin Tin on Lloyd’s blog http://www.lloydbanwart.blogspot.com/. There is also a link on his site to a series of short videos that are pretty entertaining.

Ok that’s all I got for now. Hope everyone had a good Holiday season and you’re starting the New Year off right.

This Carabao fight gave me a little scare :)

Jaded Green

2007-11-20T10:12:00.000+08:00

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

Way Too Long

2007-10-09T10:52:00.000+08:00

WOW…so it really has been way too long. Ok, quick explanation of what happened with the delay in the blog. Upon returning home to the states my old engineering email account at CSU was forced to change. No big deal as I got a new gmail email…or so I thought. Apparently Blogger was switching over to a new format and I was unable to logon to my Blog without switching account names which was only possible with the old email address which no longer exitisted…ugh…so basically I had to wait for blogger/gmail to verify I owned the blog and then give me access to it. This took awhile and probably even longer than usual with my limited internet access. Anyway I’m BACK BABY! So here is my entry that was supposed to appear at the end of July/beginning of August:

“Cha Cha Cha Changes…turn and face the strange”

So the trip back to CO was awesome. I know a lot of volunteers who save up vacation time so they can go home for a whole month but 2 weeks seemed just right for me. It was enough time to catch up with both family and friends without having to feel gone for too long from San Joaquin. Its funny how it really did feel like a vacation home but yet I was ready to go back to my other home.

Well, like the title of the blog suggests (I was going with a David Bowie theme), there were a whole lot of changes that happened for a lot of people over the past 15 months. Some of you are in pretty serious relationships, some of you are now married, some of you now have kids, and others were nearly unrecognizable from all the weight you’ve lost. It was great seeing all those changes and getting a chance to really catch up on what’s going on in YOUR lives.

There were also a lot of good times had. I pretty much covered all the things I wanted to do on my original list: Spend time with family, spend time with friends, eat some of my mom’s homemade cookies, drink some quality Fort Collins beer (I still can’t get over $1 micros), play some golf with my Grandpa Bob (he still kicks my ass on the course), go to a Rockies game (bonus with the amazing fireworks after game), eat a lot of ‘Kano food (well I did a lot of this but realize how much I need rice to stay ‘regular’ now), go for a quick CO hike (awesome hike with Brady and Cam up to Gray Rock). I also had an amazing day out with friends on Horsetooth Reservoir doing some wakeboarding and cliff jumping (thanks Jed). And of course the wedding was an amazing time…we kept the dance floor rockin until they shut it down. It was really fun and we all agreed that we can’t wait for the next one of us to get married. Congrats again Chris and Jenna! and thanks for giving me an awesome reason to come back for a visit.

I was pretty bad at taking pictures when I was back but here’s a few:

Jed teaches Brady the finer points of wakeboarding

So fresh and so Clean

Trying to get some action from the groom

So upon arriving back in the Philippines I met up with Christi (a friend from high school) and her friend Dana who were both PCVs in Morocco. They had just finished their service and were doing a little traveling. The rain limited our activities but they had already done a lot of ‘vacation’ type stuff so they were cool with just hanging out and talking. It was really great getting to discuss the similarities and differences between our PC experiences. Between visiting CO and talking with those girls it really hit me that I’ve only got one more year here. Returned Volunteers say that going back “home” is the hardest part of PC and it seemed that both Christi and Dana were struggling with this fact…Changes

The day before I left for the states I received a disheartening text from my good friend and fellow PCV Allan who lives on the nearby island of Guimaras. He was being Medically Seperated for migraine issues, which essentially means he had two days to pack up all his things and then they were putting him on plane back to the States...Grabe (crappy)…He’s doing his best to appeal the decision and we are all hoping he makes it back…Changes

After you leave “home” for a vacation somewhere you don’t really expect a lot of things to change over 2 weeks. Upon walking to work that next Monday I was surprised to see a brand new roof over the corridor of the market (good change). Then as I got to the Municipal building I was little saddened to see the enormous Mahogany tree that used to sit in front and provide lots of shade being cut down. Apparently the powers that be felt it was obstructing the view of the new building…Grabe (crappy). Fortunately they decided to only cut down half the tree (at least for now). Hmmm, it had already been quite a morning and I hoped that was it. As I got to the office I saw that my remaining 11 Biosand Filters that still needed to be delivered had been moved out into the rain while I was gone…Grabe. The wooden lids were water logged and would need to be replaced, some of the finishing had been knocked off which would need to be fixed and repainted, but worst of all my cleaned sand was mixed with un-cleaned sand…Grabe, Grabe gid (very, very crappy). But no worries, it can all be fixed. It would just take a lot of time, which we have a lot of in this country. As I entered my office there had been some rearranging as well as a missing face. Hmmm, “Diin ang gamit ko? Diin si Rodel?” “Where’s my stuff? Where’s Rodel” (at least I still knew a little language). Well, it turns out my good buddy and counterpart Rodel had been promoted to Secretary to the Mayor. He was no longer going to be working in my office and he was going to be a lot busier with a lot of other things. It was hard for me to accept right away that the working relationship and plans we had developed was pretty much over. He was definitely my guy, my “change agent” as PC likes to call them. Hmmm, well I guess that’s life…that’s change.

Those were some serious lows for my first day back but I realized afterwards that this past year has certainly made some changes in me as well as everyone and everything else. I’m pretty sure a year ago I would have flipped out…probably starting with the Mahogany tree before I even saw the filters or heard about Rodel’s promotion. Maybe I should have…I don’t know. Instead, I was pretty calm about everything and accepted it for what it was. The filters and sand could be fixed. My original plans for work the next year were probably not going to happen but that didn’t mean we couldn’t figure out something else. This was just another challenge in the life we call Peace Corps. Rodel’s promotion is a good thing for him and San Joaquin. He’ll be able to have more of a direct influence on big decisions that could have much bigger impact on the town.

Fast-forward to today and things are good. The filters and sand are ready to rock again. My good buddy Bong as well as some other friends from my barangay Balabago, are interested in possibly doing a community project with the biosand filter. Lantaw-on ‘ta (we’ll see what happens) as we like to say. Rather than sulk about his misfortune my friend Allan has stayed positive about the appeal process and is using his opportunity back in the states to spend some quality time with his family. Christi was sad to leave her community and host family in Morocco but is rolling with the changes with a new job and life back in the states. My Nay’s daughter Claudine who was hit by a van before I left is now almost fully recovered and back in school (Ayos! -Rockin!).

Change is inevitable. I think one thing I’ve learned is that it’s more important to roll with it and stay positive. I’m going to do my best to get a lot of things done this year but I’m also going to enjoy it. There was too many times this past year I got frustrated by lack of “progress” (or what I recognize as progress from my American upbringing) rather than just enjoy myself when the work is slow and enjoy it when it’s busy. I’m planning to roll with the changes and live it up this next year…Lantaw-on ‘ta.

View from a Hike in my barangay Balabago

Dead Snake we saw on that hike that apparently is more deadly than a cobra...if it gets you you're dead in less than 2 minutes...Posted this one for my Dad :)

Me and My Migs hiking behind my house

Ok. So that was my entry for 2 months ago. Since then a whole lot more change has occurred. At the end of last August I decided to take a little vacation up to Northern Luzon for the reason that things were really slow at work (rainy season kills “progress”), I was going to have to go to Manila anyway for my Mid Service Training and Medical Check up, and lastly my friend and fellow PCV Dan was getting married. After the rockin marriage back home I couldn’t resist the opportunity for more wedding fun and just the experience of a Fil-Am wedding. I was also extremely eager to visit the mountains of the North. All I had heard was that it’s like a completely different country compared to the lowlands of Southern Luzon and my Visayan islands. As I rolled into Baguio City after a rather quick 7 hour bus ride from Manila, I certainly didn’t feel like it was the ‘Pines I had learned to love for the past year. The music changed from pinoy pop to classic country. The people dressed in coats, beanies, and shoes. There were no Coconut trees but plenty of Pine...crazy, at least in my head. As I got off the bus I hopped in a cab that wasn’t a car but more of an SUV. Then the cabbie starts having a conversation with me in perfect English!- I mean he understood everything I was saying and most importantly I understood everything he was saying. It’s not that people don’t understand and speak English where I’m from it’s just that they are usually very educated and even then a lot wouldn’t feel comfortable carrying on a complete conversation like this cab driver was doing. It was cool and felt way too easy. As I traveled around other places in the north it seemed like a lot more people spoke fluent English which is most likely due to America’s colonization until the end of WWII. Baguio City was actually developed by the Americans in the early 1900’s as a place to escape the summer's of sweltering Manila.

While up North I was fortunate enough to travel with my good buddy Lee. To sum up the trip the highlights included: tree planting at PCV Sherry’s organic farm; hiking into PCV Dustin’s site Asipulo, Ifugao where we were treated with gorgeous views and lots of fresh organic fruit; a quick day hike in and out to see the rice terraces of Batad, Banaue; a couple days stay in Sagada where we did some more hiking, awesome caving and saw some hanging coffins; and lastly we attended Dan and Berlin’s wedding which was indeed a special day. Overall it was an awesome trip…

Me and Lee at Rice Terraces of Batad

Ridin d Jeep

PCVs at Dan's Wedding

…and then things really got interesting as a group of us headed to our Mid Service Medical in Manila. I got lucky and managed a seat next my good friend Kelly for the 6 hour bus ride. We had been text buddies for the past year but have had little time to hang out with the distance between our sites. Despite having the Oscar Nominated “Snakes on a Plane” for our viewing pleasure we couldn’t stop talking to each other for the whole ride. It was an amazing conversation and we surprised one another with how comfortable and open we were. As the week progressed a little flirting here, a good conversation there, and the next thing you know we are “dating”. It’s been really good so far and I’m amazed how well we have been able to get to know each other just from texting. Last week she was able to come visit my site and things continue to only get better…I can’t get over how smart, funny, hardworking, and cute she is. It’s been difficult with the distance but we are finding ways to make it work and see each other when we can.

We're so Happy :)

Me and Kelly Biking San Joaquin

This is a picture from my 26th birthday which needs a little more explanation. In the Philippines when you have a birthday party you don't recieve a lot of gifts but rather provide a feast for your closest friends and family....I can't tell you the countless bday and fiestas that I've eaten at for free and didn't even really know the host. This year's birthday was an opportunity to give back a little. That's a 90kilo (~200lb) pig that we lechoned (roasted) over some open coals. Since living here I've killed a few chicken and goats but this was a whole other experience with the pig. I'll spare you the details but esentially it took 5 of us to pin that bad boy down and do the deed. I also bought a goat for the occasion and we made my favorite dishes Caldaretta, KBL, Mongo, Dinuguan (blood soup :)) and or course every filipino's favorite the Lechon ng Baboy. It was quite the feast and for P10,000, or $200, and lots of help from my migs we managed to feed (stuff full) over 200 guests. Good times.

…Ok that’s all I got for this entry. Again I apologize to my readers (i.e. my fam and some of their friends and co-workers that they force to read this) for the long delay. Keep on Rockin

Ongelooooflisk!!

2007-06-07T12:34:00.000+08:00

Last month I took a much needed break from work to do some diving for 5 days in middle of the Sulu Sea. Six of us PCV’s shipped out of San Joaquin the night of May 11th. As my friend Lloyd said it best, “It feels like Christmas Eve”. We were all giddy to spend 5 straight days diving in a place that we had only really heard about. If you Google Cagayan Islands Sulu Sea, not a whole lot comes up, but that’s what makes it so special. Two weeks before our trip my instructor Gert was diving there and sent me a text that read something like, “Just been a joy riding a whale shark with 4 hammerheads alongside.”…yeah, so hearing things like that kind of gets you a little excited. There’s a lot of luck associated with what you see when diving so I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much. However, Gert has done nearly 3000 dives in his life and says Cagayan is his favorite so I was bound to be a little hopeful.

After a 12 hour boat ride through the night we awoke to a glorious ‘christmas’ morning. I’ve seen a lot of beautiful sunrises and sunsets since being here but this one was INCREDIBLE –or ONGELOFLISK in Gert’s native Belgian. This soon became the theme word for the trip and we even came up with an underwater hand wave for all the ongeloflisk moments. We were in the middle of nowhere with nothing around us but crystal clear water, the uninhabited Bombong Island and a friendly sea turtle who came right to the boat to welcome us. We got ourselves a little Nescafe and then let the diving begin.

Straight up Ongeloflisk

Before this trip the most dives I had done in a single day were two and I remember feeling pretty tired afterwards. Well, this trip took diving to a whole other level (a level I’m not sure I could handle again). After day one I put in a full three dives during the daylight hours followed by a night dive giving me a total of four within about a 12 hour period. I slept like a rock. The next day I was still feeling it and limited myself to three. The problem is that your body is telling you to take a rest but when you sit one out you hear all the stories of what the group saw and you can’t help but want to get back in the water and try your luck again. When it was all over I had done 15 dives in 5 days and more than doubled my dive experience. As hardcore as I like to think that sounds there was a guy from our crew who did 19.

Well as you can imagine doing that much diving in only 5 days the moments and things you see underwater tend to blend together. However, there was one dive in particular that will be engrained in my brain for life. It was the second day and we had left Bombong Island for Calusa Island. Along the way we stopped at a spot called Dauisan that looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere. Three of us dropped in off the boat to find ourselves along a huge vertical wall of coral. Wall dives tend to be some of my favorite because you get that feeling of heights like looking down over the side of a tall building or mountain cliff. The only difference is when your diving you kind of feel like you’re just gradually floating or flying down. This particular wall was full of coral and we managed to have some good current which meant tons of fish. I just recall going deeper and deeper watching these huge schools of all kinds of fish running up and down the wall all around us. Me Lloyd kept giving each other the Ongeloflisk underwater wave…It was INCREDIBLE. As we continued to go deeper we spotted a white tip reef shark (my first) about 10 meters below us. I was eager to get a closer look and started to go for it until my dive master Shawn informed that we were already at 45 meters (about 140 ft), which was already a little beyond my limit until I get some more experience. We continued to flow with the current and slowly worked our way up. Along the way I spotted four more sharks cruising below us...Amazing DIVE!

After Dauisan we continued on to the inhabited Calusa Island. This was probably the nicest overall place for diving in the area. We stayed for two days and had amazing weather above the surface but only a little current below. This made for less aquatic life (still way more than any other place I’ve been) but was probably a good thing since our boat was full of beginners. From Calusa we headed to Cagayan Cillio and then back to Nogas Island near Panay for the last dive of the trip. Things I saw over the 5 days included 6 sharks (3-6ft long), lots of baracuda (3ft+), lots of bump head parrot fish (3-4ft), a few napolean rasp (3-4ft), 1 large sea turtle (but from a long ways nothing close for me), a few moray eels, lots of lobster (one we ate)...that's pretty much the big stuff. There were millions upon millions of little things (2ft. or less). To give a little comparison I used to think there were a lot of Banner Fish around Nogas Island and Panay when I would see schools of 5 -10 at a time. At Calusa you could easily spot schools of 20+ and you wouldn't even really be wowed by it because there was so much else to see. It seems that I was experiencing 3 to 5 times as many species compared to anywhere else I had dove here.

We also saw a few kids swimming above us at Calusa one time which was pretty cool. It was hard for me to imagine them living their whole life in that remote tropical paradise. No electricity, no fresh water (only rain catchments), and even no rice! (their staple is kamote which is essentially like wood shavings), yet there are tons of fish and it is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

Besides the Ongeloflisk diving other special times were had spending 5 days on a boat with 5 other PCVs, 2 Pinoy crewmen, and 1 awesome Belgian Dive Instructor...oh yea and Fea who is a native of Calusa that Gert and his wife are helping support to go to college on Panay…but basically it was just a bunch of guys which made for a lot of testosterone induced humor…good times. It was especially nice to spend some time with 2 guys who had not just completed 2 years of service but had extended for 3. Both Kevin and Chad will be missed and I relish the rare moments I got to talk and learn from them.

So you might have been hoping for some incredible pictures but my underwater case only goes to about 3 meters (10 ft) deep so I never took it on the dives. I considered doing some snorkeling but when you do 3 or 4 dives a day it’s not too appealing to just swim around and check out what’s on the surface (especially when you are dead tired). We did take some pictures though and one common theme I discovered is that we all drank a lot of Nescafe on the boat. Enjoy...

Kevin contemplates life after PC...

Scott hearts coffee

Lloyd and I toast are good fortune

Shawn at the crack of Dawn

Gert enjoying the brew with Chad just being Chad

One last Ongeloflisk Wave!

As you can see in that last picture we look like hell and I felt like hell for about a week and a half afterward. I had terrible sinus congestion and my ears took a while to recover as well. The funniest thing for me was that I never got seasick on the boat but experienced a little land sickness when it was all over. When nature called the first few nights back at my house I was swaying all over the place and had to hang onto the door to keep myself from falling in the John.

Other news:
We are done making the biosand filters with the student employees. It was definitely a long last couple of months but all our hard work has paid off. We ended up making 21 filters and have installed 4 as of today. I’m hoping I can get most of the rest installed before I head back to the States. We had a nice little end of summer party with my students which consisted of lunch at one of the beach resorts in San Joaquin followed by videoke at my landlords. It was fun working with those guys and I’ll miss those smiling faces.

My migs from left to right: Jean-a, Abad, Lot Lot, Jo-Ven, Don Don, Lucy, Kim, Zel, Sioy, and Jenny Lee

Some bad news as of late is that my pinoy mom’s daughter Claudine was hit by a van while walking about two weeks ago. She took a pretty bad blow to the back of her skull and was in the ICU for a week. I spent 3 nights in Iloilo that first week going back and forth between the hospital and a pension house to try and help out my Nay Erlyn. It was a real scary time for everybody but especially for Erlyn. I’m happy to report that Claudine is doing much better and has been moved out of the ICU. She is beginning to eat solid foods and walk around a little bit. She’s got her mom’s blood so I’m hopeful she will be out of the hospital soon. I am heading over there after posting this to deliver some much needed Snickers Bars.

One last thing…the day before Claudine’s accident I managed to finally get that bike ride in around my peninsula (through the mountains then back around the beach…the one I was going to do for Christmas but crashed). It was a solid 100km (67miles) and I felt pretty good afterwards. It’s given me a lot more confidence to try some longer rides and maybe do some touring around Panay.

Sorry, one more final thing. I’ll be back in CO June 26th –July 10th. For everyone that’s going to be around please email me your phone numbers so I can get a hold of you and we can catch up. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see everyone. It’s going to be good times. See you soon!

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

2007-05-05T13:46:00.000+08:00

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)

Diving with Sea Turtles

2007-02-22T13:13:00.000+08:00

So after my town fiesta last month I headed to Dumaguete City, which is located in southern Negros, the big island just east of Panay. I had two Peace Corps conferences/workshops to attend. The first was the Solid Waste Management Conference attended by about 60 people consisting of volunteers and their counterparts working with solid waste. The theme of the conference, funded by USAID, was “Keep it Simple,” in an effort to remind us to do the little things that can help rather than get overwhelmed with the huge problems. The sessions were set up as an open forum where people could express their ideas and opinions of what projects have been successful and which haven’t and why. Every group was also given an opportunity to present what they had been working on at their sites. It was great because some people were experts in one topic while others could listen and learn, while the next topic would have the roles reversed. It was really just a great opportunity to gain a wealth of information from people all over the country. At the conclusion of the conference we took a field trip to one of the few sanitary landfills in the country as well as a livelihood center that exported quality products (like wallets, purses, and bags) made from “trash.” Overall, the conference was awesome but I was a little sad my mig/counterpart Rodel couldn’t make it (he got hung up doing some post-fiesta work in San Joaq).

Volunteers love those crafty bags.

The good news is that Rodel was able to attend our PDM (Project Design Management) workshop which was also held in Dumaguete City. This workshop focused on how we identify community assets and needs. The main emphasis was to keep the project community driven in order to maintain sustainability. Our example project focused on improving the health and water quality of San Joaquin. It started off small but ended up snowballing into a very ambitious 9 month project with fairly detailed time management planning. Rodel loves the whole plan and is eager to get started…I’m a little more skeptical with the way other projects have gone but we’re going to give it our best shot and “we'll see”- lantawan ‘ta –feels like I’ve been using that phrase a lot lately. We definitely have a need for a project like this according to new statistics gathered by Doc regarding cases of reported water borne diseases which have progressed the past three years. I’m going to see an engineer in Iloilo City this week about hopefully obtaining a Bio Sand Filter (that thing I was talking about a few months ago) as a demo for the town. One of the goals of our plan was to start building these filters but like I said, lantawan ‘ta…

So after the SWM conference and PDM a lot of us figured we should take advantage of being in southern Negros while we were there. This included a trip to Valencia, the site of fellow volunteer Peggy. In Valencia we took a nice little walk to the 200ft drop of Casaroro Falls. This was pretty much the most impressive waterfall I have ever seen. It seemed like something out of a movie. A few of us took a quick swim (quick because the water was freezing) and then headed back to the Dumaguete in order to leave for Apo Island. Apo Island is a protected marine sanctuary off the coast of southern Negros. Apparently a PCV assigned there in the 70’s was a big part of converting the island to a sanctuary. Because of this, and the fact the owner of the dive shop was a former VSO, we got a big discount on both diving and lodging, which was nice. We were only able to get in two dives but we managed to see 3 sea turtles (two hawk-bills, and one green) as well as two sea snakes. There was also a plethora of coral and tropical fish but I was most excited about the turtles and snakes since I hadn’t seen them before. There was one moment when a turtle decided to take off from his comfortable resting spot to grab a quick breath of air. I decided to swim alongside about 4 feet away. He didn’t seem threatened by my presence and just kind of floated through the water like a bird floats through air. It was definitely a memorable experience. After the two dives I was beat and it felt good to sit down to a hot meal, a couple beers, and best of all some good conversation with friends.

Casaroro Falls

Well, I’m really excited about next month. My Mom, Dad, Quinn, and Brad (who might as well be our brother) are coming out to the ‘Pines for a 12 day visit. Right now the plan is to spend a little time at my site in San Joaquin, then off to Boracay, followed by Palawan. It’s going to be real exciting and I’m sure I’ll have some good stories for the next post. Until then, Keep on Rockin!

Pasungay!

2007-01-22T11:49:00.000+08:00

It was a good Christmas. On the 23rd I went diving and camping at Nogas Island with fellow volunteers Lloyd and Chad. It was great day of diving but even a better night. Chad whipped up an amazing meal over our campfire and we relished our solitude of being the only inhabitants on the tiny island.

This is a shot I took while snorkeling the next morning at Nogas...it's a whole other world under the surface.

My plan for Christmas morning was to bike around the small peninsula that makes up the southern tip of Panay. I left before the sunrise at around 4AM since the ride would be around 80-100km. My headlamp was a little bit dim from the night of camping but I felt I knew the first portion of the road well enough until the sun came up. Well, apparently I didn’t since I crashed at around 4:15AM at a section undergoing construction. Luckily I walked away with only a bloody knee, a few scratches, and minimal damage to my bike. I headed back home with a few lessons learned. The most important being don’t ride your bike if you can’t see more than 10ft in front of you (seems rather logical but apparently it took a crash for me to learn). The discrasia turned out to be one of those Christmas blessings in disguise since I had one of the best days ever getting to know people in my barangay.

New Year’s was spent in Boracay Island – the vacation destination of the Philippines. It was my first trip to the island, which is just off the northeast coast of Panay. As soon I stepped off the boat I no longer felt like I was in the Philippines, or at least how I have come to know it. There was a variety of tourists from all over Asia, Europe and America. There were Greek, Indian, Japanese, Italian, Korean and Mexican food restaurants. The beach is said to be one of the nicest in the world and it was certainly the nicest I had ever been to. The sand was as fine as flour. As wonderful as this all was, my primary purpose for going was to get my hands on a Guinness Stout. Well it turns out Boracay not only has Guinness Stout but Murphy’s Irish Stout which I savored to the last drop. New Year’s Eve night included some fireworks and dancing on the beach with friends to a live Reggae band. As fun as it all was it felt good to get back home to San Joaquin where I could buy a week’s worth of dinners for the price of one in Boracay.

This past week was my town fiesta, which like all fiestas was full of good food and performances. San Joaquin is especially known for the bull, horse and carabao fights that is referred to as Pasungay. The animals square off until the victor forces his opponent to retreat. Like the cock fights, there is a lot of pisos bet on these animals but they don’t fight to the death. The carabao fights were the most impressive due to their sheer massive size. Probably the most exciting part of Pasungay was when one of these big fellas got loose and started heading to the surrounding crowd. I’m used to only seeing them plowing a field or wallowing in a water hole so it was quite exhilarating to watch one outrun five guys and then crash through a fence…No worries, no people were hurt.

This Picture shows one of the 8 performances put on by the highschools of San Joaquin. It depicts the 'Bartar of Panay' where the Malays firt came to the island and traded a golden hat and necklace to the native Atis for the lowlands...This is a pretty big part of history on this island and even islands more to the north where the Malays continued to spread out. The actual rock where the bartar took place is located in San Joaquin.

Thankful for being in the Philippines

2006-12-13T14:53:00.000+08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

I’m a little bit late with that first greeting but like the title suggests I’ve got a lot to be thankful for this year. I spent the holiday with about 15 other volunteers in Pandan, Antique, home of my RVC (resource volunteer coordinator-the volunteer who helped train me) Kevin. It was quite the feast with 4 turkeys stuffed with lemon grass and lechoned (roasted) over coals. We also had loads of pumpkin, blueberry, pecan, and apple pie. I ate until it hurt…but it hurt so good :)

I’m also thankful for my recent trip to a few hinterland mountain barangays. Since I arrived in San Joaquin I had heard of a possible Micro-hydro power rehabilitation project deep in the mountains- so deep that I would need a guide and the trip would definitely require an overnight stay. I was eager to go in July, August, and October but all my scheduled trips were canceled due to weather or other conflicts. Finally, I was able to make the trek this past November. I went with my counterpart and Nanay (pinoy mom), Erlyn, as well as about 10 teachers who would be evaluating the schools of the mountain barangay’s. We arrived in Barangay Bad-As that overlooks Mt. Bulu-tinaw, which is one of the few areas left on Panay with natural rainforest vegetation. Our rest house was right next to the school and gave an amazing view of this mountain and valley of rice terraces below. I spent a few minutes giving the kids of the school a quick geography lesson of where I was from and I why I was there. Most kids in my town are pretty amazed to see me but these kids were even more shocked by my presence. I later found out that I was the first “kano” (despite its AmeriCAN roots essentially means “white person”) to ever visit the area. That afternoon Erlyn and I headed to Bulutinaw with a few guides to get a glimpse at the world’s biggest flower– the Rafflesia. When in bloom the Rafflesia can be a meter wide in diameter. Unfortunately, we only got to see the bud of the world’s largest flower as none were in bloom, but hopefully I can make a return visit.

The next day Erlyn and I broke off from the teachers and headed to barangay San Mateo Norte which had the possible Micro-hydro project. The barangay captain took us through a rough hike along the river they diverted for their irrigation and Micro-hydro. We then walked back along their impressive manmade earthen canal which hugged the mountain and was stabilized by fruit trees. After the 2-3 kilometer hike back to the barangay we came upon the 10-12 meter drop off for the Micro-hydro. I was surprised to see that the turbine was placed to only utilize about 2 meters of the potential head. After returning and researching the turbine/generator unit purchased, I discovered it was a low head model that could not exceed 1.5 meters of head but required a minimum flow rate of 130 liters/second. It was then obvious why the unit never worked since the flow rate of the canal was only about 38 liters/second (and it was still rainy season) according to some rough measurements I had taken. The barangay had shelled out P70,000 for a system that was essentially never going to produce electricity for their set up. I’m hoping to contact the supplier and explain the situation to see if we can’t get a different model turbine/generator that utilizes the site’s head. One major challenge is that this system was put in about 5 years ago so it may be difficult finding exactly who installed it. As much as I would love to work on this project it will be up to the barangay captain and people of San Mateo Norte whether they decide to continue seeking Micro-hydro power.

Other work this past month includes visiting the water systems of three barangays who have quantity issues in the summertime. We should be able to help more with these projects in the dry season when we can get a better idea of their exact needs. We also visited another high school to talk some trash.

Life is still rocking in the Philippines but I have to admit I’ve been really missing my family and friends lately…I imagine that’s probably got a lot to do with the holiday season. This will be my first Christmas away from home but I’m hoping to make it a memorable one. I plan on doing a dive the 23rd and maybe a really long bike ride Christmas day.

Wishing YOU ALL a VERY MERRY PINOY CHRISTMAS!

Ian

Peace Corps Legends Kevin and Lloyd showing off those beautiful birds

Kids from Bad-As elementary school with Mt. Bulutinaw in the background. Some of these kids have to walk 2 hours to and from school everyday.

This guy was our guide when we were passing through barangay Igpayong. You'll notice he's not wearing any shoes or tsinelas (sandals) which made me feel like a chump for stumbling behind in my hiking boots...yea this guy is hardcore.

Mt. Bulutinaw at sunset

Busy

2006-11-08T12:50:00.000+08:00

Work is finally here and it feels great. The week after my last post things began to really get rolling. We had an information education campaign (IEC) on solid waste management in a barangay and then two days of presentations at the local High School. I was working with my younger counterpart Mr. “Guapo” Rodel Sedantes for these presentations. After doing the same hour and half presentation 7 times we really began to play off each other well. Our presentation included some interactive games as well as a few skits we made up. The kids really seemed to enjoy it and I’m hoping some of what we taught sticks. The last afternoon we gathered the student government to form their own Ecological Solid Waste Management Plan for the school. This was not only a lesson in solid waste management planning, but planning in general. A lot of times these kids are just told what to do rather than taking what they’ve learned and getting creative with it. Rodel and I were there to make sure the students developed there own plan, which I think turned out pretty well. We will be making a follow up visit to see how the plan is working and if the students feel amendments need to be made. Between these presentations and doing some other work with and irrigation system, I think I put in close to a 60 hour week. This felt great after those first few stagnant months. This is a view of what we saw for two days straight...trying to keep their attention makes me appreciate all the work my own HS teachers put in.

Other notable work this month includes my presentation on the biosand filter. After talking with the Barangay Captains and the Doctor there seemed to be considerable interest in the filter. However, after the presentation was over I was left a bit confused on whether San Joaquin actually has enough water quality issues and where. Half the people claimed there were no problems and the other half claimed there were plenty. I know I have been personally drinking the water at my house for the past month (from a spring source) and I feel fine. Then again, I made sure my water was boiled when I lived in town considering the CR and well were about a meter apart. The problem is that to get this project going there has to be a sufficient amount of interest in order to justify the purchase of a steel mold and other materials. The good news is that I might be able to get a filter that is already made for demonstration purposes. I made a follow up visit to our training site in Tigbauan and both the school and cafeteria that we installed filters are using them everyday. We made 6 during our training and the 4 we did not install are just sitting right where we left them. My hope is that Seafdec will allow me to have one of these for San Joaquin and we can install it in either a school or household that we know has water quality issues. Then we will test the water before and after being filtered to demonstrate the effectiveness. We will see what happens and whether this generates more interest. For those of you interested in reading about the filter you can check it out at www.cawst.org

As nice as having work felt there were also some good times (like always). First of all Lloyd had his Barangay’s Fiesta which enabled me to try my first ever goat brain...delicious, but I have to say I prefer chicken brain (still on my list is cow and pig…fish is always fried so it just tastes crispy). A few weeks later about twelve of us volunteers headed to Bacalod City for Mascara Festival. I was told this was one of the top 3 festivals in the Visayas, which are considered the best in the Philippines. The masks were pretty cool but I honestly was more impressed with the choreography of my small town training site in Guimbal. Maybe it was because it was my first time. I still have Ati Atihan in Kalibo, and Dinagyang in Iloilo this January, which are considered the other two big ones. Mascara Pics Below

The last weekend of October I was set to have a relaxing couple of days with no work, fiestas, or festivals. Just me in my house on the beach and a good book. Instead I opted to start my diving certification with Lloyd. I had been getting pretty jealous of hearing about all the other volunteers heading up to Palawan and Borocay to get their certifications. Especially when all I had to do was hop on my bike and ride 10km south to Gert’s place. Gert Heinz is a Belgian Diver that has been living in San Joaquin for about 4 years with his wife Aruba and their two awesome dogs, Scuba and Tubig (water in Kinaray-a). We were able to split up our training over two weekends which was nice since we didn't have to take time off work. Our training was a little different than most since we got a CMAS (most common in Europe) certification rather than the usual PADI (more common in US and World). For one thing we have already gotten in six dives as opposed to three with PADI. Another bonus is that if we ever become really hardcore at this stuff, CMAS allows you to do decompression dives beyond 40 meters, which is the max depth for PADI. Anyway, it is an amazing experience and I highly recommend it to anyone. It really is a whole other world down there and it is the closest to nature I’ve ever been. I’m hoping to save some of my monthly allowance and try to get in at least one dive a month. There is also talk of possibly taking a trip to the Cagayan Islands in the Sulu Sea next May. Gert has done almost 3000 dives all over the world and puts the Cagayans in his top five. It should be quite the adventure if it happens. My boys Gert and Lloyd getting ready to go under

I’ve been in my new house for a little over a month now and it already feels like home. Despite being so busy I have been doing my best to make some new friends in my barangay. I will just say that a bottle of Tanduay (local rum) and a few hours of conversation can go a long way. I also find this not only effective at making friends but also improving my language considerably. For some reason if I get a couple of beers in me I can just relax to the point where my sentences flow a lot easier without having to think about everything. Well, I’ve been getting a lot of requests for pictures of my RoCkIn’ house so here are a few…Also, writing this blog has become a bit of a chore so for those of you that check this everyday (this means you Mom and Dad), don’t bother, because I’ll probably only update about once a month. Peace.

View from my backyard...yes that is a kiddie pool. Who wants to swim!

This is my kitchen and and a good look at my sweet bike.

My living room/patio areaMy bedroom and a peak into my bathroom/tub

My Bathroom. You might be wondering about the stacked cans. Well that would be my dinner for the past month. They make these amazing different flavors of tuna soups equipped with vegetables and spices. My favorite tend to be the tomato based flavors Mechado, Afritada, and Calderetta...DELICIOUS. Pour it on a cup of cooked rice and you got yourself not only a meal, but a meal in less than 10 minutes time. I decided to stack them like beer cans in college until recycling. My bathroom sink also acts as my kitchen sink for the mean time...some people like to read on the can...I do my dishes.

This is the picture of the month. Thats my landlord's helper Bo-boy on the left and my landlord's son June-June on the right. A lot of people saw me carrying my compost bucket and a bag of recyclables to my IEC's when I would leave the Barangay. This created some discussion on what exactly I was doing and more specifically on solid waste management. Well, to make a long story short these two guys decided to gather their residuals in a rice sack for burial rather than doing the norm of burning their trash (happens everyday here). The best part is that I didn't tell anyone to start doing this we just had a conversation about how burning plastics can produce dioxins and furans. These chemicals can lead to birth defects, respiratory diseases, and some studies suggest cancer. Sometimes you wonder if you're making a difference and images like this can really make one's day.

My September

2006-10-06T14:32:00.000+08:00

Well it was a crazy month…I ate Mexican Food and drank draft beer in Manila, climbed Mt. Everest (ok not really but watched an IMAX on it), got my phone stolen, got my phone back, helped build a Material Recovery Facility, helped build a few Biosand Filters, rocked d’ mizike videoking with 14 fellow volunteers, swam to some waterfalls, hiked through some caves, canoed down a river, kissed a Tarsier, bought a bamboo guitar, had all you can eat pizza and drink beers in Cebu (for only p150…$3), moved into my nipa hut on the beach, and turned 25 years old…That’s the short of it, read ahead for the long version…

I left the 6th on a boat bound for Manila with fellow volunteers Tim, Scott and Erin. We had Warden Training in Cavite but were able to get a full day and night in Manila. We headed to the Mall of Asia, which apparently is the biggest mall in Asia…I’m not sure but it was definitely the biggest I’ve ever been to. Our one day goal was to find Guinness Beer and Taco Bell. Neither was available in the biggest mall of Asia so I settled for some Nachos at an ‘American Style’ restaurant and San Miguel Draft (which was actually pretty good…although I’ve probably lost all concept of what quality brew should taste like). We then went to an IMAX movie about Mt. Everest, which was nice after reading the book Into Thin Air a couple of months prior (solid read by the way). That night we hit the streets looking for an Irish Pub in our ongoing quest for a good Stout. We found a place called Harry’s that looked like a Pub but was actually a GRO bar…whoops…Tim fought off the prostitutes while Scott and I played some pool until we finished our beers (again just San Mig Draft). We were rescued by another volunteer from Northern Luzon who took us to the Hobbit House, which is a Lord of the Rings theme bar run by midgets…Awesome! Apparently it was started as a livelihood project by a volunteer in the 80’s. We headed to the second floor, which is a PCV hangout, and met up with about a dozen other volunteers who we hadn’t seen in 6 months…I’m not old enough to know what a High school reunion feels like but I’m guessing this was pretty close. People had changed dramatically. Some were skinny that used to be fat, some had big hair that had no hair, and some people who never said a word during those first couple weeks were the most talkative in the bar. We had a good time catching up with everyone and had a few Negras (the only dark beer brewed in the Philippines). I never got my Guinness but later found out it was down on the first level of the Hobbit House the whole time…next time.

The next morning everyone that was in Manila for Warden Training (about 30 of us) headed to Cavite. The training was two days and covered our responsibility as Wardens to contact the volunteers in our region if a disaster occurs. The training was alright but it was really good just to see some people and share our stories (good and bad). It is good to know that other people are out there going through similar struggles at work.

After Warden training I jumped on a plane back to Iloilo and my home island of Panay. My next training would be at Seafdec in Tigbauan which was my hub site during my initial training in country. I was actually pretty excited to get back home where I could talk to people in my language. At the airport I hopped on a jeep to Molo where I could transfer to another jeep to take me to Seafdec. As I was about to get off the jeep I felt something grabbed from my left pocket…I feel my shorts…I still got my wallet…where’s my phone!!! “Isnatcher Ikaw!” (You Thief!) I yell at the guy next to me. “Diin ang cell ko?!” (where’s my phone). As I’m searching him he tries to go out the side window and the driver grabs him around the neck. Then I notice the guy that was on my right is off the jeep running away…damn, I got the wrong guy…the cops hear the commotion and are there within seconds to cuff the guy still on the jeep but the runner is long gone. At this point I think the guy cuffed might be innocent but I know that I felt my left pocket grabbed and only he could have done it. The police search him but find nothing. They tell me I have to go to the station and fill out a report. Great…how long is that going to take?…if I go straight to the city now I can buy a new phone and still make the last jeep leaving for Seafdec. You might think I’m crazy to consider just leaving the scene of crime to buy a new phone, but volunteers lose or get their phone stolen more often than you think (one volunteer had to buy 6). The police tell me the station is close so I decide to go with them. As soon as we get there I explain what happened, where I’m from, and where I’m going. The cops do a little interrogating and find out that the guy in custody was in cahoots with the runner. The thief hears that I’m assigned in San Joaquin and feels bad because he has got an aunt there or something…I’m kind of mad at the guy and don’t really want to hear what he has to say. Then the police tell me that if I don’t press charges they can make a deal to get my phone back. I’m trying to see the justice in this deal but then remember I’m in the Philippines and what I really want is my phone back, not justice. I say deal and within an hour I’ve got my phone with all those precious numbers I would have lost (not to mention the P3000 for a new one). I get on a jeep heading to Seafdec with my hands permanently clasped to my pockets.

Nothing quite as exciting as that story happened at my technical training but I did learn a lot. The Wat/Sans covered aspects of water distribution systems, sanitation systems and solid waste management. This was kind of a lot to go over in a week and we felt a bit short changed since the batch last year got a 2 week PST2 and the year before that got close to a month. During the week, we helped build a Material Recovery Facility and compost bins for the Seafdec Campus. We were stressed for time and only managed to get in a day of proper solid waste management education to the employees of Seafdec. Since I’m the closest volunteer to the campus I am planning on following up on the progress starting next week.
I think the most important aspect I got out of my technical training was the practical advice on water distribution systems from our trainer Kiwi. Kiwi was a former PC volunteer who built a level II distribution system that involved laying more than 5km of pipe. Projects like his were what drew me to the Peace Corps in the first place. He is currently creating his own NGO here in the Philippines that he hopes to hand over after two years. I’m thankful that he will be around for awhile in case I need to pick his brain some more.

After PST2 I had one more training regarding how to make a biosand filter. I had read about sand filters before and had my doubts since they usually require a lot of maintenance. However, this filter required little work and its sustainability and effectiveness has been proven worldwide with over 500,000 operating in 37 developing countries. They remove more than 99% of protozoa, helminthes, and other bacteria that cause water borne diseases. There are regions that have had the same filter in use for 15 years. They are capable of producing 200 liters of drinking water a day. We built four of them for our training and installed one at the local school and cafeteria of Seafdec. I’m also planning on checking up on these when I swing by for the MRF and compost visit.
When I got back to San Joaquin I talked with the local Doctor about the filter and he seemed pretty excited about the possibility of implementation. Our water quality is not as bad as some areas of the Philippines but he says there are barangays that experience water borne diseases every rainy season. As soon as I receive the materials from training I plan on giving a presentation to the Municipal Health Workers and anyone else interested. I am pretty excited about the possibilities of this filter but I will have to wait and see if people from the town share my enthusiasm.

As busy as we were that week and a half I still got in some quality good times with other volunteers. The highlights included a Reggae Party at a bar in Iloilo with some pretty good bands, a Sunday at the beach in Guimbal, and our last night together videoking in Iloilo. Videoke is extremely popular in the Philippines but the Pinoys really love to sing slow love songs the majority of the time. That is why it is a special time when you can get together with just Americans and really ROCK OUT! We went to a place where we could rent an air-con room with leather couches, plenty of beer, two microphones, and a big TV all to ourselves…good times.

After being away from home for 15 days I was ready to get back but I had already planned a little vacation with my fellow wat/san volunteer Lee. The following day we took the overnight boat to Cebu and then hopped on the fast boat to Bohol Island. We stayed at a place called Nuts Huts along the Loboc River in the middle of nowhere. When we arrived we decided to swim up the river to some waterfalls. The locals assured us there were no snakes or crocs in the water, but neither of us spoke Cebuano so we weren’t a 100% positive if the words we were using were the same. We built up our courage, took the plunge, and were rewarded with a refreshing swim and some beautiful falls. The next morning we hired a guide and hiked up to some caves loaded with bats. Then that night we canoed down the river to see some captive (approved by the government) Tarsiers. They kind of reminded me of a cross between Gremlins and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings. We left the next morning to head back to our sites but before we left the island we had one more stop, which was the real reason we had come in the first place. We had both ordered handmade bamboo guitars from June- “The Guitar Guy”- Reputana. It cost me P7250 (only $145) with the hard case, which is close to a month’s living allowance but it was worth every piso and definitely the nicest birthday gift I’ve ever spent on myself. As good as the day was going it got better with phone calls from home including my sister Quinn who had just turned 20. Her birthday is the day before mine but since I’m a day ahead on this side of the world we shared ours at the same time. We thought that was kind of cool. Once we arrived in Cebu, Lee and I headed to a place that serves all you can eat pizza and all you can drink beer from 2 to 6 PM everyday for only a 150 pisos ($3). I was skeptical at first but there really is no catch all, which meant I was eating and drinking for two and half straight hours until I was forced to leave in order to catch my boat back to Iloilo. The two of us decided that if they were to play football on the TVs it could be the greatest place on the planet for 4 hours everyday. If you ever find yourself in Cebu City the place is called Regasta’s (or something close to that) and it’s in the Ayala Mall.
I’ve been back in San Joaquin for about two weeks now and I am all moved into my nipa hut on the beach in barangay Balabago. Things are going pretty well so far. My new landlord has been nice enough to provide me with a gas stove and an electric fan. He also built me a table and some shelves in my bedroom. I am still buying things as I need them but as of now my two big purchases have been my rice cooker and foam mattress. I spent the first week sleeping on just the bamboo bed and decided I wasn’t hardcore enough to handle that for 2 years…I love my bed now. There have been typhoons passing since I moved in so I don’t really have any breathtaking photos of my place yet, but here is a nice shot of my new guitar and rice cooker looking out from my living room. That’s all I got for now. Keep on Rockin wherever you may be!

That's a lot of Bukol

2006-09-01T12:34:00.000+08:00

As you could probably tell from my last blog I was feeling pretty helpless regarding the recent oil spill of Guimaras Island. Here I am a Peace Corps volunteer, sent to the Philippines to help people, and the most I could do was write a few organizations and my senators. The later of which sent me the typical automatic email response confirming they had received my email and, “looked forward to addressing the concerns of Colorado citizens” (they probably get hundreds of emails everyday).
Then last Friday I got a text from my good buddy and former language instructor Roli Del Carmen (cool name too), that they were building booms from natural materials to help protect the coastlines from further damage. He was volunteering with several organizations from Iloilo city and they were looking to gather rice straw, corncobs, and coconut husks. He asked me if there was any way I could get a hold of such items being that I was in one of the more rural municipalities of Iloilo Province. I was immediately overcome with excitement at the opportunity to truly do something to actually help with the problem…then I remembered that I was living in the Philippines and that if this was going to happen it would take some time. I asked a few office mates about the rice straw, corncobs, and coconut husks. They informed me that the first two were unlikely due to the timing of the planting seasons. However, there was plenty of coconut husks washed up on the beaches from the last storm. I figured that since it was Friday I might be able to get a dump truck’s worth load together over the weekend for delivery on Monday or Tuesday. I texted Roli back and let him know that I was going to do everything I could to make it happen.
Five months ago I would have been naïve enough to consider that this task would be no problem at all. But since living here I continually learn day to day that things will take more effort and time than my American perspective might lead me to think.
I had quite a few things working against me before I even got started. First of all, and most importantly, I would not have my Nay/counterpart Erlyn to help. She was off in Aklan giving a tour and wouldn’t be back until Monday. She has a way with motivating people, not to mention her contacts and fluency in the language that I still lack. I then looked to Rodel (my other counterpart), but he was tied down with work…and probably thought I was crazy to even consider trying to get something like this done in such little time. Maybe he was right, but because I had seen the mess up close I had extra motivation to at least try to do something. Another challenge would be getting Filipinos to work on the weekend. Similar to the States, the weekend is for relaxing here. If that wasn’t hard enough it is also the rainy season right now. The weather had recently been nice but there was still a 50/50 chance it would rain on any given day. Last of all, I would need approval for the use of the dump truck, gas and a driver to transport any materials that we could gather.
The transport seemed to be the number one priority to me since it would actually cost money and not just time and effort. I was in luck that the mayor was in that Friday and had time to see me about the matter. She approved the use of the truck, gas and driver but also thought I should wait until next Thursday when I could inform all the Barangay Captains at their monthly meeting and they could then respectively organize their communities. A week before any action seemed too long in my mind and I asked if we got the materials by this weekend could we use the truck Monday morning. She said yes but I could sense her doubt that I could get it done.
I then headed out on my bike to spread the word. I had thought about it over lunch and decided to focus my efforts on 5 coastal barangays that were also along the National Road. I figured these would contain a lot of coconut husks being along the beach and also provide easy access for the dump trucks. That first afternoon was a bit frustrating. Language has been one of those things that on certain days I feel really good at and on others I’m completely lost. Explaining that you need people’s coconut husks for an oil spill is fairly complicated just in English. I only knew the word for coconut-nyog, but soon discovered there were at least three descriptions for the coconut husk in Kinaray-a: tapas kang nyog, bukol, and one other that I’ve already forgotten (bitok maybe). Through trial and error I discovered the word I needed to use was bukol, which implied the dried out hair-like portion that would be good for absorbing the oil. I talked with some residents of Purok 1 as well as the barangay captains from Purok1 and Crossing Dapuyan right before a heavy downpour started and I was forced to head home. I felt like it was a good start.
Saturday morning I rode out again to inform the captains of the three other barangays I was hoping to involve. Two of the three seemed eager to help while the third felt like the beach was too far from the road and probably couldn’t get much bukol. I also passed by a guy with a huge pile in Purok 1 who said he would only be willing to sell it. Because people use the bukol for cooking fuel it would be another challenge to get them to freely donate (despite there being more than enough available and a lot of it eventually rotting). I attempted to shame him saying, “Matisting kami magbulig kasimanwa mo. Wara akon. – We are trying to help your countrymen. Not mine.” I figured I had a few more days to let it work on his conscience.
After lunch I headed to Crossing Dapuyan to see if any progress had been made. To my surprise there was actually a small pile of coconut husks gathered in front of the barangay hall. This was a very good sign. The pile was by no means huge, but it was a start and they had done it all on their own. I figured it was about time I got a little dirty myself and decided to spend the rest of the day at Crossing D filling rice sacks with bukol and hauling them from the beach to the road. Of course it started raining again but we worked through the drizzle and rested during the downpour. There was only six of us that consistently worked that afternoon, the barangay captain (a 60 year old woman), the captain’s nephew Edwin, myself, and three little kids that couldn’t have been older seven. Nothing was quite as inspiring as watching those three kids fill a sack half full, and then as a team each grab a corner and haul it to the road. After the day was done I bought them each pamahaw, a soda and some sweet bread as a reward for the days hard work…best 70 pisos I’ve spent in the Philippines.
As rewarding as Saturday was, things only got better on Sunday. For one thing there was no rain until late in the evening. The efforts of spreading the word had paid off and people were more willing to both donate and work. My hardest workers were again youth. Erlyn’s teenage son Huey and a few of his friends helped me transport a huge donated pile to the side of the road. The other three barangays had also managed to gather some husks and a sack of corncobs. By the end of the day I was sure we had at least a dump truck’s worth to deliver.
That night Erlyn texted me a forwarded message from Johnny Diaz of Aksyon Radio. They would be coming to San Joaquin to gather relief materials for the people of Guimaras with four dump trucks provided by the Provincial Government. I thought this was a stroke of luck and that if we filled up the San Joaquin dump truck maybe we could use the Provincial Trucks if they were not full of relief supplies. It turns out that this was more than just a stroke of luck and more like a miracle. The next morning my supervisor informed me that we could not use the San Joaquin truck because its registration needed to be renewed; a very important detail that no one bothered to tell me last Friday. If Johnny Diaz and his caravan hadn’t shown up, by pure chance, I would have been looking at my first major failure…gathering all that bukol with no way to transport it.
As it turned out, we ended up filling all four dump trucks with just husks and then piling up other supplies on the top. As soon as people heard that Johnny Diaz and Aksyon Radio were in town they were doing everything they could to donate and get their name over the air waves. The guy from Purok 1 that wanted money for his bukol donated 1/3 of his pile. I also gave my first radio interview ever, which I was a bit mayha (shy) about. Johnny had been informing Joel, the main DJ, that I could speak Kinaray-a. Of course he decided to ask all his questions in the dialect, despite the fact that he knew English and even used it quite often on the air. I did my best to keep my answers in Kinaray-a but it’s hard to express one’s self in another language, not to mention the self-coconsciousness of hearing your own voice over the radio. I tried to extol the credit to people of San Joaquin, especially the kids. “...Nagkarga ang rako mga bata kang bukol halin sa baybay pa kasada – ....Many children carried coconut husks from the beach to the road.”
By the time the caravan had passed through Miagao (neighboring municipality) all the trucks were completely full of husks, rice hay, clothing, and all sorts of other random relief supplies. We had a crew of about 12 guys working to fill the trucks. At first I thought all these guys were just employees of the government and were getting paid for their services. It wasn’t until halfway to the city that I found out they were just volunteers. Upon hearing this I promised I would buy each of them a beer once we were done.
Once we got to the fishing port where they were constructing the booms, I almost was not able to deliver to Roli. There were two groups building booms, the Philippine Coast Guard and Roli’s group of volunteer organizations. The Provincial Government was to deliver to the Coast Guard but I managed to do some quick negotiating to have them give me at least one truck for the other group. The Coast Guard group seemed to be producing a lot more booms but Roli’s crew seemed to making more durable ones. Either way, I’m hoping it’s all put to a good use.
I’m sorry this turned out to be such a long story but I really was pretty excited about this and felt the need to share. Currently the tanker still containing 450,000 gallons of bunker oil is still 3000 ft below. The good news is that the U.S., France, Australia and Japanese are now working on the problem. A sonar-equipped and remote-operated vessel of the Japanese firm Fukada Salvage and Marine Works arrived this Wednesday to work on the tanker.
Other highlights of late include a 75 kilometer bike ride, my first chicken kill (it was a bit sad having to slice the guy’s throat…but he sure was tasty), and my beach house was approved by Peace Corps. It is a pretty awesome place and I’m really looking forward to moving in and living on my own. I have three trainings in a row starting next week. The first will be my two day Warden Training in Manila. A Warden is basically in charge of contacting other volunteers in their area in case they need to consolidate for some reason. After that I’ll be going to Seafdec in Tigbauan (where I had my first training PST1) for PST2, my technical training. I was a little upset that Seafdec was selected for my technical training because I was looking forward to visiting somewhere new (Seafdec is literally a 30 minute drive from my site). However, I’m looking forward to seeing some old faces and discussing the challenges of the work with other water/sanitation volunteers. After PST2 I’ve got another short little wat/san training involving the construction of a bio-sand filter. Since I’m already going to be gone from site for at least 15 days I’m considering doing some traveling to Bohol afterwards but I’m still not sure. Bahala na – Come what may.

Some Extremely Bad News...

2006-08-23T10:43:00.000+08:00

On August 11 the Motor Tanker Solar-1 Petron went down 16.5 nautical miles off the southwest coast of Guimaras (the neighboring island to Panay). The tanker leaked an estimated 50,000 gallons of bunker oil that has thus far affected 220 km of coastline, 1,100 hectares of mangroves, and the livelihood of nearly 10,000 people who rely on fishing. Last weekend I went to Nueva Valencia, which is considered the worst affected municipality, with fellow PCV’s Lloyd and Allan. The scene was truly gut-wrenching. Oil was covering everything on the shoreline and the smell was enough to make you sick to your stomach. We talked with some locals and the clean up crew about the problems. It was obvious a lot of work had been done from the piles of rice sacks filled with oil covered vegetation. Still, it will take years before this area can fully recover. When Allan asked one of the clean up crew about an area of rocks completely layered with oil, the response was, “This area now clean,” when it was painfully obvious to us more work was needed. It is truly tragic that this island was on the rebound from being one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines. It was specifically mentioned by the president as a priority province for tourism and infrastructure before this disaster.
As bad as this incident is, it has the potential to become even worse. The M/T Solar-1 is estimated to still contain 450,000 gallons of bunker oil 3000 feet deep in the Guimaras Strait. Philippine salvage teams are limited to depths of only 120 feet. Without foreign assistance to contain the oil, the tanker remains as a colossal environmental threat to a country which is considered to have the richest marine biodiversity in the world. Currently there is no assistance being provided by the U.S. and minimal from Japan, Malaysia, and Great Britain. The three of us have written to our senators and have also attempted to contact other organizations. We are not sure if any of this will do any good but we all felt helpless, angry, and distraught standing on that beach. I talked with my Sector Manager today to see if Peace Corps was going to get involved somehow. As of now it is doubtful they will send volunteers due to the health and safety issues concerned with chemical dispersants being used to treat the slick. This news is frustrating to say the least.
I guess I'm a bit lost for words on this matter...Here are some more pictures of the mess

2006-08-04T14:43:00.000+08:00

Farmers in the hinterlands delivering their rice and the town dump.

2006-08-04T14:17:00.000+08:00

The Job, Family, and Dengue Fever…

It’s been two months at my site now and in typical Filipino fashion I’m just now getting around to updating the details. To start off I will talk about my work. It’s been real slow thus far and I now understand why Peace Corps informed us not to expect much output in the first three months. Although there are several problems in San Joaquin I’ve decided to focus my primary efforts on solid waste management and water related projects.
Solid waste management (SWM) is one of the biggest problems throughout the entire Philippines and my town is no exception. In fact, it was the reason my host agency, Local Government Unit of San Joaquin, requested a volunteer in the first place. I have spent most of my time researching different SWM topics including waste segregation techniques, composting, and landfill design. I’ve also been spending time in the community observing the current practices and problems. As of now there is no waste segregation at the market or household level. We currently have an open dump for the town. Its problems include that it is a great source for dengue breeding mosquitoes, it is inaccessible most of the year (in which case the trash is dumped along a river bank), and it located in a natural water shed on a steep slope. There is no regular collection schedule, or segregation of collection by the LGU or barangays. As a result, many people choose to either burn or dispose of their trash in the rivers. One of the most disheartening things I discovered was that two years ago the town and most of the municipality was actually practicing proper solid waste management. Each barangay had an established Material Recovery Facility (MRF) where waste was segregated at the neighborhood level for re-use and recycling. The former mayor had made it her platform that San Joaquin be known as a model SWM community. However, none of these programs were sustained with the arrival of the current mayor and her administration. It’s not that the mayor does not care about the SWM problems; it’s just that it was her opponent’s platform and as a result she seeks to pump money and effort into other projects to make her own name. This has already begun to make my job difficult but I’m doing my best to work through it. I managed to hold a meeting with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Board (ESWMB), department heads of the LGU, the five barangay captains of the town proper, and the school principals within the town proper. Although the ESWMB existed (due to an ordinance created by the previous mayor) it was the first time they had convened for a meeting in two years. I gave a brief presentation discussing the various SWM problems I had uncovered along with backing pictures. Many people at the meeting had failed to recognize how serious the problem was until they saw some of the photos (no one had ever seen the open dump). After the presentation I did my best to facilitate an open discussion…this was rather challenging since people can understand English but prefer to speak Kinaray-a and I was using something in between the two. I made sure to try and get everyone’s opinion especially the barangay captains’ since they often feel neglected by the LGU. Overall it was a good first meeting but just a small step in a big process to come.
As big as the solid waste problems are, I have too much time on my hands to focus solely on just that. This is because I’m constantly waiting on others or meetings to be finalized, and in the Philippines these things happen slowly. Therefore, I spend a lot of the down time either studying my language, going out and meeting people in the town, or visiting barangays with water issues and giving consultation. For the most part, the latter has consisted of doing simple hydraulic calculations to determine necessary pipe sizes for water supply systems. I also visited a barangay deep in the mountains that was looking to build a small dam for the use of irrigation in the summer months. This was one of the best days I have had here given that this visit required a two hour hike through some gorgeous country. It also provided me with an opportunity to see some extremely rural areas where life has changed little in the past few hundred years. Farmers still plow their fields with carabaw and walk miles through the mountains to deliver their rice in town. I find it ironic that I can take a 1 ½ hour jeep ride into the city and basically have all the amenities of home or a take a 1 ½ hour hike into the mountains and have virtually nothing at all.
Although work has been difficult, I have managed to find two counterparts in the office that get things done. The first is my Nanay (mother) Erlyn. She likes to brag that I’m her "newly adopted blue eyed son". She’s about 46 and works as the community affairs and tourism officer of San Joaquin. One of her best traits is that unlike most Filipinos she speaks her mind if she thinks people are lacking in work productivity (which is usually everybody most of the time). She claims this gets her in trouble but it also seems to get people to work. She has also been my primary tutor for my continual learning of Kinaray-a. Rodel is my other counterpart and at 28 years old he is one of the youngest in the office. Unlike Erlyn, he prefers to avoid confrontation in the office but still manages to motivate others to get things done. I have been trying to learn from his example as best as I can.
My new host family has grown on me, but it is still not the sense of family I experienced during my training in Guimbal. My host mom Sally is about 70 and has one son of 35, Joe-An, as well as a 16 year old adopted daughter named Jeralynn. Sally is really a sweet little old lady who enjoys stuffing me full of Filipino food any chance she gets. Mealtimes are still a bit unconventional for me since I eat either alone or with Joe-An when he is around. The rest of the family, including the 17 year old maid Anna eats after us. I still don’t like the idea of having a maid (or ya-ya) wait on me but if she was not working for Sally she wouldn’t have a job to help provide for her family as well as three meals a day, a nice place to sleep, and the opportunity to still go to school. A lot of kids in this town would love to have that chance. At the same time it is difficult to hear everyone nag at her all the time; especially Jeralynn, who if had not been adopted would be in the same if not worse situation (a little reminiscent of Cinderella)…I guess that’s just life and its one more thing that makes me appreciate how lucky I had it growing up.
So like the title suggests I have experienced my first major bout with a virus serious enough to put me in the hospital. Two weeks ago I was spending the evening with my former language teacher Roli and some of his mountaineering buddies. The plan was to spend the night on a beautiful beach in San Joaquin and then hike a mountain the next morning. That night I came down with a major fever and the worse headache of my life. We were a bit secluded with no cell phone reception so I decided to try to sleep it off and see how I felt the next morning. After a sleepless night I headed out of there as soon as I could and caught a jeep back to town. From there my host brother Joe-An was nice enough to drive me to the city which made a usual 1 ½ hour drive only 45 minutes. Once at the hospital the rookie nurse struggled a bit to get my IV in (it took him four tries), but overall I felt relieved to be there after spending the previous night under an open cottage in a rainstorm. For the first two days at the hospital my fever fluctuated between 38-39.5C (99.5-102F). I also had minor joint and lower back pain but overall I wasn’t too bad. The third day they released me and informed me I had some kind of viral infection. I spent that night and the next day at home resting. The following morning I awoke with red rashes on my hands and arms. I went the clinic in San Joaquin to get a blood analysis and the Doc concluded that my platelets were way too low and I should head back to the hospital. So back to Iloilo I went and after taking more blood they concluded that I did in fact have Dengue Fever. They kept me there for another three days to recuperate. Overall my hospital experience was not too bad. I had cable TV and air conditioning for 6 days. The Peace Corps also provides you with another volunteer kasama (companion) and extra spending money beyond my regular allowance. Since I had no stomach problems I was living it up on fast food, deli sandwiches, and lots of ice cream (note: I think hospital food may be bad everywhere in the world). I have heard agonizing tales about Dengue from other volunteers so I consider myself lucky that my symptoms for the most part were limited to a fever and headache.
On a more positive note I think I visited my future home today. It’s a small cottage right on the beach in a barangay about 10 kilometers from town. Living in the town proper has been alright but I really miss that feeling of being in a small community like I experienced during training. I still have a few more places to see but this one will be hard to beat. It has running water from a spring, a nice indoor bathroom, electricity, two good sized rooms, and most importantly it is right on the beach. This may be the only time in my life I’ll be able to fall asleep every night to the sound of waves crashing. I still have another month to stay with my host family but then I’m free to move out on my own. Also, my bike frame that I ordered two months ago has finally arrived. By some miracle the shop actually found me a 23in frame…I’m excited!

2006-07-12T14:38:00.000+08:00

PICTURE TIME!!....Here's all those great photos I've been promising.

So I haven't quite figured out how exactly to caption these photos so here's a desctription in order of appearance.
1) Rice terraces on the way to Barangay Camia in San Joaquin (haven't had time tell about this yet but it was good day)

2) The kids from my host family in Guimbal (I told you these kids were the cutest on the planet)

3) Bantayan Festival
4) Sunset outside the farm in Guimbal

5) Me and Alice (the sweetest PCV in the Western Visayas) at swearing in.

6) Scott and Erin with kids at our community project in Guimbal

7) Me and the Guimbal host family gathering some sinigwelas (kind of fruit)

8) More Bantayan Festival

9) View from my first trike ride...man that seems like ages ago

10) Manilia...it's kind of a dirty city but I thought this shot by my boy Scott F was a nice one

2006-07-06T11:46:00.000+08:00

So I've decided to set up a blog so I can display pictures easily and won't have to send out a mass email everytime I want to update what's going on...this way the people that really want to know can just check it out on their own rather than getting stuck with a novel in their mailbox. Here's all the email's I've sent out for the past 3 months incase anyone wants to review... Who's that tall white guy in the back?

March 25, 2006

Thrilla in Manilia

Hey Everyone,
Just thought I would send out a quick one to let everyone know I made it to Manila safe and sound. The staging in Detroit was about what I expected with just a lot of general Peace Corps policy information. There are 76 of us volunteers in all and everyone has been real great to talk to. We have a real diversified group with ages ranging anywhere from 22 to mid 60's. I'm currently staying at a resort called Island Cove about 20 km south of Manila. We are in no way Peace Corps roughing it yet with air conditioned rooms and 5 meals a day (apparently Filipinos always have a snack between the 3 major meals). I've only had one full day here but it honestly feels like a week already. I'll remain at Island Cove until Friday morning and then be sent off to my Hub Site for my 10 weeks of training. I still don't where that is yet but I'm supposed to find out this afternoon. There are a total of 5 different Hub sites that we are broken up into and will be the region that we each work in.So far the weather has be real hot and humid but I feel like I'm getting used to it pretty fast. I've been filling a lot of my free time with basketball. So far we've only been able to get one Filipino to play ball with us but we are hoping to get a few more together for a game tonight. Well...I'm running out of my internet cafe time so I'll have to going. I can't wait to find out where my training site will be and meet my host family. I'll send out the next update from there. Hope things are well back at Fort C or where ever you all may be.
Ian

April 2, 2006

Kumusta Kamo!

So I arrived on the island of Panay in the Western Visayas a few days ago. There are 15 of us in my hub group and we are currently all stationed just outside the town of Tigbauan (close to Iloilo city if anyone wants to check out a map). I'll be here until Wednesday and then be heading to Guimbal (my cluster site) with two other married couples for our intensive language training. I'm sure I'll begin to feel like a 5th wheel after a while but on the plus side both of the couples are my age and seem real outgoing...another plus is that today we visited the mayor and since I'm the only soltero (bachelor) of the group he asked me to be a judge in the beauty contest this Friday...so I got that going for me. I'll be living with a host family in Guimbal learning the language Kinaray-a for the next 2 and 1/2 months. Then I'll be sent to my actual site (which I don't know yet) for another 3 months of community integration. I won't actually recieve any technical training til September!...This was a little dicouraging when we first found this out because as Americans and volunteers our natural inclination is to "get things done" asap. But we are beginning to learn that things happen much slower here and nothing gets done without building strong relationships first.The best part of training so far has been talking with the RVCs (resource volunteer coords) and other PCVs at our site. They have really given a unique perspective on the type of cultural differences, the work will be doing, and places to visit. The worst part of training so far has been all the shots...so far I'm up to 6 and will apparently have had 18 before its all done.Some things I've had to learn the past few weeks include bathing with a bucket and dipper, learning how wash my backside with that same laddle after you know..., doing my laundry by hand in a tub, and hitch'n a ride on a Jeepney...all good stuff. That being said, there are a lot of amenities just like home including shopping malls where you can get just about anything and cell phones. My number is #######. I'm not sure how to dial out of the US or the country code but I've heard from other volunteers you can get fairly cheap rates on international calling cards. I can recieve calls for free but I get killed on the minutes dialing out of country. Just remember if you do call me I'm 15 hrs ahead of Mtn time. I'll try to keep you all as updated as possible but they are keeping us real busy and the only time internet seems to be available is not during our time off....There is a lot I'm leaving out but I got to get some igma (lunch)....oh yea so far being a 6'7" white guy who is pretty good at basketball seems to be helping me make some friends. Great to hear from all of you!Ian

April 16, 2006

Mayad nga aga

Hi everybody. So I've been living with my first host family in Guimbal for about a week and a half now. They are all really great. I have an hmom, dad, brother (16), sister(17), and 3 cousins (5,6,9) and the kids may be the cutest on the planet (the other PCV couples I'm with are all jealous). Our house is kind of out in the countryside and my fam has a few goats, chickens, a cow and a rooster that wakes me up at about 3:30 every morning (but I'm beginning to sleep through it now). The house is constructed of a concrete floor and exterior walls with an elevated tin roof for ventilation. We also share the house with all kinds of ants, cockroaches, and tikis (little lizards). My room is about 6'x8' and its real cozy. We have electricity and a fridge and get water from a nearby well. I think one of the coolest things about the house is that the kitchen is right next to the bathroom and the walls only go up to about my shoulder. So every morning while I'm taking my bath with the bucket I can see what my host mom is cooking for pamahaw (breakfast). I eat rice for every meal accompanied with either chicken, fish, or goat along with fruits and vegetables. The mangoes here are said to be some of the best in the Philippines and I'm averaging about 2 a day. The language is coming real slow but we can already have minimal conversations with locals. The hardest part for me has been the sentence structure. For example if you wanted to say "I will go to the store" in Kinaraya the words are ordered "Go will I to the store" and sometimes the emphasis is placed on the store so it could also be said "The store will I go"...its all really confusing but I'm doing my best to start thinking like Yoda. A lot of PCVs in my region never learn the language (since people also speak broken english) but those who do, like my RVC Kevin, really wow locals and can establish relationships much more effectively. I'm happy that everyone in my cluster group likes to push each other in class and I've heard our teacher is one of the best. My favorite part of the day is my 20-30 minute walk to class. Everyone in my barangay is real friendly and I get the chance to talk with new people while practicing the language.If I do have to go to town the main transportation is either jeepney or a trike. The trike consists of a motorcycle with a side car for 4 people. They can fit 6 adults rather comfortably but my family has had as many as 14 on my uncle's (3 + 1kid on bike, 4 adults [me included] + 3 kids in side car, and 3 teenagers on top or riding on the side of the s-car)...who needs an SUV? For those of you who asked about the beauty contest we didn't make it to town until the day after but we did have prime seats behind the mayor for the Bantayan Festival. The B-Fest consists of Tribes made up of about 3 barangays (including mine Igcocolo) competing in a dance with acrobatics, props, and drums to celebrate the construction of the bantayan(towers) that were used as look out points to spot the Moor Pirates in 1703. If pirates were spotted the drums were beat and the community would be able to organize and fight. Pretty amazing show these kids put on...think of west side story with pirates and teenagers being hoisted on bamboo poles 30ft in the air. So I'm back at my hub site today and I'm supposed to find out my actual site for my 2 years sometime tonight...through figuring out who speaks my language where I'm pretty certain I'll be on the west side of Panay Island in Antique Province or right next to it. I'm really excited because it means I'll be real close to both the beach and mountains...I was really hoping for either or but I can certainly live with both! Later. Ian

May 8, 2006

A Little Overwhelmed -

So it's been a while since my last update. I found out that my site will be in San Joaquin, Iloilo province on the island of Panay. I just had my week long site visit and I'm a bit overwhelmed. The municipality of San Joaquin is huge. About 85 barangays consisting of a total of 50,000 people. There are also a lot of different problems which consist of poor solid waste management (trash litters the beaches and roads everywhere in the Philips), deforestation (leading to erosion and sedimentation along the rivers and deltas), water shortages in the summer months (also a result of deforestation and water table dropping), and poor drainage along the mountain roads (not operational in rainy season and have to be regraded each summer). I'll be working for the LGU (local government unit) of SJ. There is one engineer for the entire municipality, two computers in the office I'll work in (Municipal planning and Development), no internet, and one hand held GPS system that everyone brags about having but no one knows how to use.

During my stay I already got started trying to help a Barangay re-route their water distribution pipe. They currently have one 4" PVC pipe that crosses a river at 3 segments hanging from a wire tied two coconut trees...it was something to see. The pipe used to go under the river at 2 points but it became unstable and forked ripping out the original pipe...Since then the current set up has worked but during a heavy rain the pipes get knocked loose from debris or the river itself. The pipes are already at their max height when they cross the river since the system is all gravity fed from a spring. They're planning on routing the pipe along the bank of the river so it never has to cross...there are a quite a few challenging spots but hopefully I can find a total station or level (to do some surveying) and see if we can't knock this out before the real heavy rains come in July. The community seems real motivated and hopefully there won't be any expenses other than the extra pipe we will need. Anyhow, I'll definitely have my work cut out for me in the next 2 years with projects like this and educating people on swm and deforestation.

My new host family for the next 3 months is quite a bit different from the one I have for training (which I really feel is like my second fam now). My Nanay is a 70 year old widow who lives with her 35 year old son (who works as an accountant at Municipality), and a maid (who is pregnant, and I feel really guilty when she waits on me) and her two daughters. They are all really nice people but they treat me like royalty and I'm pretty sure it's gonna be harder integrating in the community while I'm living in the "rich" house. Anyhow, its nice to know that my first fam is only a 30 minute jeepney ride away and can put me back in my place of doing my own dishes and laundry.One of the highlights of the visit was a trip to one of the more remote barangays in the mountains. My kasama was a real active municipal worker named Erlyn who's extremely motivated and I'm sure I'll be working with a lot in the future. We were going to take a jeepney but the chief of police insisted he would escort us since I was a foreign national and it could be dangerous (honestly I think he was just looking for something to do...but that reminds me that all the police here carry either a shotgun or M16 everywhere they go!). So we headed up to the mountains along a bumpy, narrow, and dusty road. The ride in itself was quite the adventure. When we got to the barangay we were greeted by the capitain and then hiked a short trail up the mountain to a beautiful spring which was the community's water source...it was seriously like something out a movie. After we cracked open a couple coconuts and rehydrated I took a few minutes to take in the view. It was pretty amazing with the mountains and the ocean as a backdrop but also a little sad to think that at one time those naked hills were blanketed with lush forest. Erlyn explained that this is where she grew as a little girl and it used to be completely covered with trees accompanied by monkeys. There really is a ton of work to do here and hopefully I can help make a little. We then sat down for lunch and conversation. My Kinaray-a is still pretty shaky but I'm at the point where I can make basic conversation and can get the jist of a conversation from words that I pick up here an there. However I was completely lost by the mountain dialect. Nothing sounded familiar at all...I was later comforted when Lloyd (PCV in neighboring municipality who's been here a year) said he still gets lost when he heads to the mountains.

The other awesome highlight was meeting Gert the Belgian Diver. He's lived here for about 4 years now and speaks fluent English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Kinaray-a and a little Tagalog. Him and his filipina wife own a dive shop but they basically only make money off there two jeepney's. Most of his guests are just buddies or relatives from Europe that he never charges. Me and Lloyd have been looking for a place to get certified and when Erlyn told me she knew a guy I jumped at the chance to meet him. He showed me his homemade video of some dives he's done and it got me real excited. He said he would give us a 5-10 day course to become certified at our leisure (so we can space it out over weekends) for just just 9900 pisos (only $200 which I'm told by many is a deal). Well needless to say I'm pretty excited about spending some of my weekends diving for the next two years. I have also been checking out the coastline for a good location to move to after my 3 months with the next host fam....there are really some beautiful beaches.Only a few more weeks of training and I'll officially be sworn in as a volunteer on June 1st.
Hope this one wasn't too disorganized.
Ian

May 29, 2006

Almost Done with Training

So I'll be swearing in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer this coming June 1, and completing my "training" this week. As always a lot has been going on. To start off I survived my first Typhoon in the Philippines about about 3 weeks ago. I was kind of confused whether is was a real bad storm or just a common occurence. My host family seemed to be laughing and joking through most of it despite 3 days of straight rain, no electricity, and the road outside our house converting to a river. The worst part was the wind. It definitely made me think twice about whether I want to live in a Nipa Hut (even though a nearby volunteer said she was fine in hers). In San Joaquin (my future site) the pipes I was planning on helping re-route were completely washed out. There was also a bridge destroyed and a landslide on the major highway. After talking with my supervisor it sounds like a lot of it has been cleaned up but I'm sure there will still be a lot of work for me when I arrive.

Me and the two married couples completed our community activity for training this past week at our cluster site in Igcocolo. Since our group consists of 3 teachers, 1 youth social worker, and 1 extremely tall american that kids like to climb on...we thought thought a day camp for kids would be a great project.We proposed the idea to the Barangay council and they loved it. The name of our camp was Kamp Kasadyahan (FUN) and we ended up having about 50 kids from 6-9 years old. We broke them up into 4 teams that each made a team name, handshake, flag, and cheer. My team was the "MAD CRABS" and we dominated the relay races! We also felt it was important to incorporate a lesson plan regarding solid waste management so we had a dance and song about the 3 R's, reduce, reuse, and recycle (never been a huge Jack Johnson fan but God bless that man for writing that one...the kids loved it!). Overall the day went great and the community really got behind the event with some women cooking lunch and teenagers acting as counterparts/translators with each volunteer.This was also our last week with our host families which was pretty sad. Last Friday I took the fam out to the nicest restaurant in town. They had never been there before and it was great to treat them to a night out (especially my host mom who never gets a break from anything...I swear that woman is always doing something from 5AM to 10PM everyday). I also gave some going away gifts to all my little cousins and brother and sister but the best was the photo album full of pictures from the last month (eventually I'll get some of those up on a site to share with all of you...when I get some more time). Then on Saturday we had a going away party with all the families and volunteers. It's hard thinking that I won't be waking up in that small country home again but I'm thankful San Joaquin is so close so I can come visit often.

We also had our LPI (language profiency interview) this weekend. It was a little nerve racking and none of us were not real sure how we would do. The LPI is basically a 30 minute one on one interview with a native speaker in your target language. I felt pretty good about mine and found out today that me and the couple I study with Erin and Scott (also my closest PC friends) passed/rocked the interview. We all got ratings of advanced low (which is the highest they give within training) so we all had that going for us. Our cluster definitely performed the best compared with the other cluster sites at our hub which is a testamant to our awesome LCF teacher Roli. Roli is also into hiking, caving, and lives in Iloilo so I know we'll be hangin out more later. Well...like I said earlier I'll be swearing in this June 1. It's weird thinking this is the last time all 15 of us at hub-site will be together and pretty soon we'll all be solo without the comforts getting to vent and confide in one another as often as we have been. However, I am really looking forward to getting to work and the closest volunteers to me are some of my favorite (Erin & Scott and Lloyd) so I feel real lucky in that regard.

I love getting emails from all of you and don't feel like your "taking up my internet time" because now that I'm out of the city its a lot cheaper (15P/hr or 30cents/hr) or free if I'm at a good library. Here's my address if anyone wants to send a letter and feel free to email me yours and I'll be sure to send you a post card. Hope you're all still doing well!

Ian Maycumber
Municipal Hall
San Joaquin, Iloilo 5024
Philippines

June 20, 2006

Good Times in Cebu

So I'm now a 100% pure Peace Corp Volunteer. Overall the swearing in went real well. My Western Visayas Hub crew decided to take the over night boat to Cebu in order to save a few pisos as well as spend some last minute quality time together. The boat had beers, chicken & rice, and most importantly videoke...what else could we need? Once in Cebu we met up with the other vol's from the Eastern Visayas (Northern Luzon, Central Luzon, and Bicol had their event in Manilia). It was good to see some "old familiar faces"...its funny that we had really only spent 2 weeks together in Detroit/Manilia but we had this strange PCV Philippines bond like we were longtime friends. We spent some time sharing our experiences and discussing the differences and similarities in our languages. For example I found out that "karon" which means LATER TODAY in Kinaraya and Ilongo means NOW in Cebuano. It's tough knowing that I can't travel all over the country and speak to people in their language, but it seems the dialects are similiar enough that I can still get by with the basics. Some of the highlights of the swearing in ceremony included the presence of the U.S. ambassador, a slide show of pics from our training, and the tiniklik dance performed by my cluster mates (the two married couples). The tiniklik is basically a traditional philipino dance that involves a pair of dancers stepping in between two pieces of bamboo that are clapped together to the beat of the music....it's also been refered to as the "ankle death dance" since a foot often gets caught inside when it's not supposed to. Anyhow, I was one of the bamboo players, which was definitely better than having to dance, but also required countless hours of practice. It all came together for the ceremony and I was real proud of my cluster mates, particularly Eli who is a big guy with big feet and really fought his way through the whole thing. As fun as that all sounds the best times in Cebu for me personally were the videoke nights with the Eastern Visayas crew. On Panay I really didn't get to do a whole lot of this since both my cluster and hub sites had no videoke bars. The Eastern Visayas had made it a weekend ritual and it showed. The final night we took over a bar with about 20 of us in all. We sang all night and used the San Miguel beer to soothe or weary throats. I managed to even belt out a Tagalog song (only cause I hear it about 3 times a day on the radio) which really got the Pinoys excited. However, the highlights for me included Allan's (this kid is really shy) rendition of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" and a duet of Destiny's Child "Say my Name" by Erin D. and yours trully....hilarious. About 10 of us lasted from 9pm to 2:30am (only cause they were closing). We had heard of a 24hr McDonalds and we made it our mission to find it...and find it we did. I've never been a fan of the organization or their food for that matter, but we had made it an American night and the fast food was calling. I'll just say I was in Mcflurry heaven. The next day I slept in til 10! I don't think I've slept past 7:30 since being here.

Wow...so this was supposed to be an update on how my work and new life in San Joaquin is going (since swearing in was 3 weeks ago). Unfortunately I've got some errands to run and I will have to update you with those details another time. In general I'll say it's gotten a little better everyday...meaning that my first week was pretty rough. There are some serious solid waste management issues that will require a lot of work. Right now we have no waste segregation or landfill...the dump is basically a huge pile of trash on the side of a cliff. At the same time I'm also trying to help a barangay get their pipes re-routed. The typhoon completely wiped out their system that crossed the river which has resulted in about 900 people trying to manage their daily use from a few wells. The good news is that the rainy season is coming so their should be more water available. The bad news is that a lot of those people will try to store that water in buckets and tubs which can lead to mosquitos and dengue fever. I've certainly got my work cut out for me.
Haw lang (take care),
Ian