Pas Pas Pacquiao!

So now I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! Woohoo! This past week was spent in Bacolod City again, for our counterpart’s conference followed by the swearing-in ceremony on Friday. It was tough to leave our host families in Banate but I promised to visit soon and will definitely keep in touch! The conference was pretty good and the hotel was great, with delicious food, comfy beds and aircon. With all of the amenities I almost forgot I am in the PC.  It was really good to see our friends from other training sites again too and catch up with them. My counterpart is pretty cool, he likes to cut up and have fun but he has a lot of good experience doing CRM so hopefully together we can get a lot done in the next two years.

Pretty much the entire week, we spent the evening time hanging out and having fun with each other, celebrating the end of training. And Thursday was Elliott’s Birthday so we celebrated his birth in true Grupo Grabe fashion!

Of course these evenings were always followed by an early start the next morning for conference session  but we managed. We had a lot of sessions split up into our sectors. The CRM sessions were really great, giving us information about the marine ecology here and various funding options we will have at our disposal. Joyce, the current CRM sector manager, announced that she is leaving PC and moving on to other things. We were all really sad to hear this, although I already knew from talking to current PCVs, it was still upsetting when she sat down to tell us the news. She was emotional as well. PC will have a hard time finding someone to replace her. She is so passionate and dedicated to CRM and PC and making sure that our two years here are spent well. She worked especially hard for us to make sure we were matched up with the best sites possible and has high hopes for our group. She will be sorely missed.

The swearing-in ceremony was fantastic! It took place at the historic provincial capital building, which was decorated in red, white and blue for us! We were greeted by sounds of drums and instruments playing native music. The special guest who actually swore us in was the US Ambassador to the Philippines. It was pretty neat to have him there and his speech was inspiring, telling us that we were the actually ambassadors to the Philippines and the great impact we will have on American-Filipino relations.

Batch 269 with the US Ambassador to the Philippines. We made it!!!

That night more celebrating ensued by going out on the town. I also decided it was high time that I ate balut! For those who are not familiar with this cultural delicacy, balut is a fertilized duck egg which has been boiled after a few weeks of incubation. So the duck is partially formed and the yolk is very big. For a PCVer, it is sort of like a rite of passage to eat. So what better way to celebrate swearing-in as a PCV in the Philippines than to partake of balut! I will say it was not that bad but the key to eating it all (and I did eat it all) is not to look at it while you are eating it. Namit!

Saturday was time to leave Bacolod. My friends and I decided to spend one last night together in Iloilo, before heading to our different sites. Our PC Filipino friend, B, who has all the best connections, hooked us up with great and cheap accommodations. Instead of staying at a pension house (hostel), we stayed on a family compound in the city. They have extra houses that they rent out so we rented one for the night, complete with aircon! We got their number and definitely plan to stay there during our future reunions in Iloilo. It is really great that the city is so close to all of us. It will be a great place to get together and catch up with each other.

A big reason we wanted to stay together one more night was also to watch the fight Sunday morning. World Boxing Champion hailing from the Philippines, Manny Pacquiao, was challenged by Mexican Boxer Antonio Margarito. This was kinda a big deal. It was a terrific fight and even more amazing to watch it among Filipinos in the Philippines! We went to a hotel that was showing it and the place was packed with people! Filipinos are known for being very hospitable and friendly, but during my three months here so far, I have also come to know that Filipinos are also very proud to be Filipinos. This pride seemed to culminate around Manny Pacquiao. Every time he threw a punch people cheered. And when he was hit, there were screams of panic. However there was much more cheering than panicking. Pacquiao is a small man and he is very fast! I’m not really into boxing, but I could not take my eyes off of the fight. It was so exciting! And of course, Manny defended his title successfully!

After the fight it was finally time for us to part ways. It was tough to say good-bye but we know we will see each other soon enough. Now I am at my host family’s house in Guimaras am starting work as a PCV! The next few months will be challenging for me, but I am anxious to start.

Halong!

What part of the duck is this?

Since our community project is completed, we were finally able to relax this weekend and get ready for Halloween in the Pines! Traditions in the Philippines are becoming more and more Americanized, but Halloween is for the most part celebrated as All Souls Day on November 1. Filipinos visit the cemetery with candles and flowers in remembrance of loved ones that have died.

We decided that we wanted our own Halloween party so Dan's host mom was gracious enough to let us party at her house. There was also going to be a Halloween party at our favorite Banate establishment, Kites, on Nov. 1 so we were going to need costumes of course! Friday afternoon Sam, Laura and I went into town to see what we could find in the way of costumes. Now Banate is a small town after all so there really isn't that much, especially since most Filipinos here don't dress in costume for Halloween anyway. But we found a gown rental store and thought we would check it out. 

Oh dresses dresses galore! Now the three of us aren't exactly what you would call 'girly girls', I mean we are coastal resource management, but we don't really have much opportunity at all to dress up here and the mere sight of these dresses got our estrogen flowing! The dresses were a little expensive to rent (at least on PC salary) but we decided there was no harm in trying them on. As we were trying on various gowns, we came across three dresses that were all styled the same with flowers, butterflies and sequence (ok that sounds really lame but I promise they were pretty). We had to try them on! And they fit each of us perfectly, which is really weird considering our larger stature when compared to that of the average Filipina. So of course we rented them for Saturday's party, going as.. a garden. (I know.) 

And of course we could not wear these gowns without also getting our hair and make-up done. So Sam called up her Filipino friend who works at a salon in town and he jumped at the chance to do our hair and make-up saying he had never done make-up on a white face before. He wanted us to meet him at Sam's house at 3pm to get ready. The party was a 8pm. Yeah it took that long. But the end result was really great. The guys all stopped by and we inturn put make-up on them since they were going as the Spice Girls, haha. Once we were all done-up we made our way to Dan's house and party party!

We are a garden!

The following day (after recovering from the previous days activities) we went to play soccer. Instead of going to Borotoc Nueva like usual to play, we went to a PC staff’s hometown of Pototan. It is a very nice town with clean streets and mowed lawn – the first I have seen in the Pines! There were even signs around warning people the fine for littering. The FINE for LITTERING!  This is a crazy thought to me here since everyday in Banate I watch as people casually throw their plastic trash in the streets. The mind set of these two nearby towns, Banate and Pototan, differ so much and the result is just as dramatic. However Pototan gave me hope that if behavior change can happen there then it will be able to happen other places as well. Do I hear a side project calling my name? Perhaps Jordan is ready for an anti-littering campaign as well J

But I digress. Soccer at Pototan was great! The field was green and mowed and … Muddy! All of the rain the past few days had left the field utterly soaked! But we definitely weren’t going to let that stop us! It was a muddy good time and Bobbit's friend who lived down the road let us go to his house to hose off afterwards.

After the game we decided to check out the pizzeria that we noticed on the way into town. Pizza has kind of become our go-to for comfort food. That being said there are two types of pizza here: American style and Filipino style. This was definitely Filipino style. One of the options was hotdog and sausage and the supreme pizza included pepperoni, ham, hotdog and sardines. I decided to stay simple and ordered a pepperoni and cheese pizza. The sauce was very sweet and the cheese gooey but tasted good to me! Afterwards we made our way back to good ole Banate.

The next day was Nov. 1, All Saints Day and day of the Halloween Party at Kites! The whole town was in celebration mode. Shops were closed, people were spending the day at the cemetery, Kites was decorating  for the party, and there was a giant wall of speakers in the middle of the road. That's right, as I was making my way into town I had to go around the giant wall of speakers while trying not to go deaf from the BASS BASS BASS BASS. Apparently there was going to be a street dance party that evening competing with Kites party, oh and they decided to go ahead and start blaring music around 7am. That the Pines for you!

When evening time came around we all got together to get ready for the party. The girls came over to my house. Laura and Lindsay dressed like gypsies while Sam and I decided to go 80's (thanks mom for that wide-necked shirt :). A side ponytail, some impromptu leg warmers made from a cut up sock, and some purple eyeshadow and I was ready! We went to Tyler's house to dinner, because as usual we were invited over to feast.

Tyler's host mom had prepared for us pancit (noodles), rice (of course), pork and duck. Now I haven't tried duck yet but had tried goose and wasn't really a fan of it. But the others kept telling me that I had to try the duck because it was so good. So I told them to pass me the bowl and I picked out a piece. I usually like to know what part of the animal I am eating but couldn't really tell so I just went with it. There wasn't much meat on it but it tasted pretty good. As I was chowing down on the duck a form slowly took place. It was then that I realized exactly what part of the duck I was chewing on. I turned to Laura and asked "what exactly does that look like to you?" She busted out laughing as she realized what I already knew. It was the head. Yes I was gnawing on the skull and neck of a duck head. Needless to say I put it down and was done.

I tend to avoid animal heads in this country, there is just something about eating an animal head that weirds me out. So whenever I eat chicken or fish, I always avoid the head. It usually works out because the head happens to be someone's favorite. Too bad this time it was left for me. 

I don't think I will be trying duck again for awhile.

After my interesting dinner, we made our way through the rain to Kites. It was already rocking when we got there! Shortly after we arrived, Jane (our friendly server) asked us in true Filipino fashion, what song would we like to perform to. Being Americans we are invited to many events. And most of the time we are asked to stand up and say a speech or perform a dance or song without any preparation. This is pretty scary to the typical American but our time so far in the Philippines has given us many opportunities to become better at improvisation. So I guess we shouldn't have been surprised at the request.

We quickly made the decision that we should dance to.. Thriller. Duh. As they started the music, we made our way to the center of the dance floor, walking as zombies, and then taking a few moves from MJ's music video we managed to last the whole song and our audience LOVED it! They wanted us to do another, but we were able to persuade them otherwise and danced the night away with our Banate friends.

Of course the night was not over since on our way back home we had to pass the giant wall of speakers. In front of which there was a huge gathering of people dancing in the street and in the rain. Why fight it, right? So we danced our way through.

It was an exhausting but fun weekend and now we are busy preparing for our language interview taking place Thursday morning. 

Only one more week in Banate!

Happy Birthday Baby Mangroves!

So our community project is well under way and going great! Tuesday we got the local kids together and after giving a short talk about why mangroves are important, we went together to the local mangrove nursery ground and picked up trash. There was so much plastic and other household trash everywheree in the mangroves, but the kids went full speed ahead to pick up everything. After only 45 min all of our trashbags were full and heavy and it started to rain so we called tapos na (all done). They were all so into picking up the trash that we had to tell them several times that we were done! And they all pitched in to carry the bags to the street to be picked up. The mangroves looked great and ready for the next days's activities: planting!

It has been a rainy couple of days but thankfully the rain held out for our planting day Wednesday! The kids again congregated and we showed them an educational powerpoint and video about the importance of mangroves and how to plant and take care of them... all in Ilonggo of course. They were very excited to start planting!

First we had to carry all of the mangroves to the beach. We had a line of kids and adults carrying mangrove seedlings two at a time to the beach and then back for more. Once we got all of the mangrove seedlings there the real fun began! The adults lined up all of the seedlings and spaced them out and they began digging holes with the two shovels they had. We trainees looked around at each other, then at the two shovels, then to the seedlings lined up in a row, and it didn't take us long to decide what to do. We found a plant and started digging in the mud with our hands. About 10 seconds later every kid on the beach was also digging holes in the muddy substrate and planting mangrove seedlings. In about 30 minutes we had planted over 200 mangrove seedlings in nice rows. It was a beautiful sight!

Tomorrow we are having a celebratory fiesta with all of the kids and adults that helped out with both the mangrove clean-up and planting. Our theme is 'Happy Birthday Mangroves', complete with fried limpias, homemade pizza, and of course, cake! We are putting together a slideshow of pictures from the clean-up and planting and are hoping to instill a sense of pride and ownership of the mangroves so that after we are gone they will continue to be protected and monitored. All-in-all our community project has been a huge success and lots of fun in the process! I look forward to having similar projects once I get to my site.

For now we are enjoying the slightly cooler climate of the rainy season, finishing up our CEP (Coastal Environmental Profile) for the town of Banate, and studying our Ilonggo in preparation for our Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) next week! Wish us luck! Only one more week till counterparts conference and swearing-in!

Enjoy these pics because my camera broke

Typhoon Megi has finally left the Philippines! Thankfully for all of us in the Visayas, the typhoon stayed north of us, however we did feel the affects of Megi's hard rain and wind. But today the sun is out and the heat is on its way back!

Also thankfully Megi did not interfere with our weekend in San Joaquin either! We traveled a few hours around the southern end of Panay Island for our coral reef destination. San Joaquin, where one of our PCVs will be staying for the next two years, already has three MPAs (marine protected areas) established. So we visited each one to practice coral reef assessments. It was amazing! Each MPA was better than the next, with expanding coral reef and many colorful fish!

Traveling south!

All of us and our local counterparts outside of a MPA guard house.

A giant clam L and I found at our 2nd MPA. SO cool!

We did two assessments Friday and one Saturday before heading back to Banate. But no one was ready to return yet! San Joaquin is a very beautiful and large town. They have many Barangays, including 18 that are coastal. They also have a lot of funding, which is where the PCV who is stationed there comes him. He will be able to work with the municipality to make sure funds are allocated and used in a way that is beneficial to managing the MPAs and increasing community awareness about why it is important to protect these areas. So far there is a lot of community support for these marine sanctuaries due to environmental education efforts. I hope to be able to use San Joaquin as an example when I go to my site as I attempt to raise awareness about marine conservation and protection as well as the management of an MPA. 

This week we are finishing up our technical training and getting ready for our environmental project taking place next week (for my cluster it is mangrove training and planting). For our language training we are continuing to learn about local customs, practices and beliefs. 

I have been living with my host family here in Banate for about 2 months now and have really become a part of their family. This has really helped me in getting to know the culture and language and becoming a part of the Filipino community. I never thought I would be so comfortable eating with my hands and taking bucket showers, but the local way of life has really become my way of life now too. I really love and appreciate the closeness of the family too, especially my host family. My parents are very close to their children, helping them with their homework and playing with them. Most of the men in my community seem to be a little detached from their families, usually spending time with other men in town, drinking and playing cards. However my host dad reminds me more of my dad in the states, he is more of a family man. He is always helping his wife cook items to sell in the market, working on household projects for other family members living in the compound, and making toys for the kids. I guess family life in the Philippines can be just as dynamic as it is in America. I will truly miss my family here in Banate though. I wish I could take them with me to Guimaras. 

For now, my days as a PCT are quickly coming to an end and soon I will be sworn in as an official PCV!

Halong!

Grupo Terrible/Great

Another week and weekend come and gone in the Philippines! I really can't believe it is October already and my two month mark is coming up fast!

This past week was focused on Environmental Education and coming up with our community project to take place here in our training site of Banate. For the Environmental Education bit, the two CRM clusters split up into pairs to teach hour long sessions on either Solid Waste Management or Marine Ecosystems. There were four sessions this past saturday and there will be two more on the 23rd. Elizabeth and I lucked out and we are teaching on the 23rd so we have a bit more time to prepare for our lesson. We will be teaching Marine Ecosystems to grade 6-7 youth.... oh boy!

We also presented our bio-assessment (mangrove, coral reef and seagrass surveys) findings to the community this week and discussed with them what type of project they would like us to do for them. This was a little more difficult that I expected. We constantly have to deal with the perception that because we are American we have money and access to so much funding. We had to stress to them over and over that we only have a small amount for the project and that the main purpose of PC is not to fund projects (because we have no money really) but to lend our skills and expertise. I have a feeling that I will be explaining this concept a lot over the next two years!

After A LOT of talking to the community, it was decided that our community project will focus on mangrove planting and training. We will have a week of activities including awareness and education about mangroves, training people how to plant and maintain mangrove forest, and have a clean up and planting day as well. I really hope everything goes well, especially since the Barangay Captain elections will be right before our project begins!

Only four weeks left at our training site, before we leave for our counterparts conference, swearing in as official PC Volunteers, and then off to our sites for the next two years! And we are all really lucky that we really won't be that far from one another, which makes it much easier for collaborating on projects together and just generally supporting each other! Just to give you an idea, below is a map of Panay Island (where I have been training) with all of the sites where PCVs will be... and this is just one island of many in the Visayas where PCVs are/will be.

The future PCVs of Panay Island!

None of us can believe how fast time is going by! We are enjoying our time left here and are already planning holiday get-togethers. I am definitely excited about going to site and start getting things done, but I sure am going to miss Grupo Grabe! We have so much fun together :)

Playing soccer with some locals, including ex-national players.
Just one of our weekly routines :)

J, S and E having fun at Supervisor's Conference.

E, L, S and T hanging out in Bacolod.

The guys of Grupo Grabe decided to start a trend of mohawks, and the trend has already spread to our TCF. Next Banate, Panay Island, the Philippines, and then the world!

Getting ready to run in the Milo Marathon (the 5K part that is)!

Grupo Grabe - I love these guys!!!

That's all for now!

Halong!

Site Debriefing

So I had my site visit this past weekend and as excited as I was before about my site being on Guimaras, I am even more excited now!

We left Thursday morning for the ferry from Bacolod back to Iloilo (and by we I mean me and my Supervisor, and Rob and Jensen and their supervisors). Our CRM Guimaras group had bought tickets for the 9:50 ferry, but when we got to the wharf at 8:20, the 8:00 ferry hadn't left yet. So we quickly exchanged our tickets and made a fast run to the ferry, getting upgraded to first class (not sure how that happened actually).

When we arrived in Iloilo, Rob and his supervisor went their separate way, since his town in Guimaras has their own wharf. Jensen and I continued on with our supervisors to the Jordan wharf and boarded the pump boat for a 20 min ride across the sea to the island paradise of Guimaras.

Guimaras, as I mentioned before, is known for the sweetest mangoes. Mangoes from Guimaras have been served to President Obama in the White House and in Buckingham Palace. And the people of Guimaras take their mangeos very seriously! They don't allow any mangoes to be brought from outside onto the island so as to not "contaminate" the sweet Guimaras mangoes.

Once we arrived to Guimaras, Jensen and I parted ways and I went with my supervisor to the municipal hall, where the Office of Agriculture (my office) is. I met all of the people who work there, who were all very welcoming and friendly! My counterpart seems very motivated and knowledgeable about fisheries; he has also worked with PC volunteers before so I look forward to working with him. I also was able to meet the Mayor and Vice-Mayor and some of the SB (town council) members. I am very fortunate that our vice-mayor is very proactive and my supervisor and the mayor are on very good terms. This will all be important when I go to them to get projects approved and funded. My supervisor already talked to the mayor about getting me my own transportation to take me around to the different coastal barangays (barangays are basically neighborhoods or parts of town) and it sounds like I can count on my own transportation starting in Jan!

That brings me to the next part of my tale, getting to my host family house, it is no short trip. First I have to ride on a jeepney for roughly 10-15 minutes depending on how many stops it makes, then take a tricycle (motorcycle attached to a side car) for another 10 min up the mountain. I definitely foresee the travel from home to work as a potential pain, both for times sake and money. PC is giving me money to buy a bike once I get to site but it would be one rough bike ride back up the mountain! Because there is really no main road through the island, it can take awhile to get even short distances as the roads wind around the mountains. This could make getting around the different barangays a little time consuming!

My host family is really nice though and they have a really nice house. My host mom works at the LGU as the treasurer, and my host dad works the farm. They have a hog farm in the back, along with dogs, chickens, pet parrots and a goat. They have two kids, ages 8 and 5, who warmed up to me pretty quickly, especially after I let them play games on my computer.

I get my own bathroom complete with shower. The family also has a fridge, oven, two TVs and a room with AirCon. They also have their own videoke game, which we played all Saturday evening! On Saturday they took me to a famous monastery in town where they grow mangoes (one of many places on the island). They  told me about the Mango Festival every April. There is a mango eating contest and all you can eat mangoes for 50 pesos (roughly $1). Last year's champion ate 12 Kilos.... maybe I can be a contender ;)

All in all my site visit was great! There will definitely be a lot of down time (including the hour "rest time" from noon to 1 in my office, where the lights turn off and everyone takes a nap). But there will be other PCVs near me and there is so much of the island to explore. It is so beautiful and far less trashy than Banate. Needless to say I think I am really going to enjoy it there!

Well now I am back in Banate to finish my training for another month and a half. We will be working on our community project here, and I will enjoy hanging out with Grupo Grabe (as we call our training group) before we all go our separate ways to site in November.

Halong for now!

Mango Heaven

This past week has been a very busy one! We did our socio-economic training in our community, which involved doing interviews with community members and holding a focus group community meeting. My host mom was good enough to go with me and Jensen when we went to do our interviews which ended up being a HUGE help so she could translate for us. We had our questions written in Ilonggo but sometimes she needed to rephrase the question for people to understand and she was great to translate their responses for us since we are still learning the language.

The Community Meeting was a huge success too! So many people showed up and they were very excited to participate. We had them draw a community map, identifying resources in their Barangay, make a list of needs, and give us their daily and yearly schedules. All of this information will be vital as we plan a project and continue to seek their involvement! 

Saturday my cluster plus a few from the other CRM training cluster went to the nearby town of Baratoc Nueva to play soccer on an actual soccer field. This has become a weekly event for us! Our PC driver, Bobbit has a lot of friends who play soccer so we usually meet up with them to play. Most of the time the Filipinos beat us pretty badly but in our defense some of them are ex-national players... no lie!

Sunday some of us traveled early in the AM to IloIlo City, about an hour away. to run in the annual Milo Marathon. The actual marathon is held in Manila, but in Iloilo there is a half marathon, 10k, 5k and 3k, so we all ran in the 5k race. Even though I was feeling a bit under the weather I mustered up some strength and ran. It turned out to be a really great race and a lot people came out for it. The starting line was packed but everyone took off as they sounded the buzzer! They had water stations along the way and also handed out plastic string necklaces at every kilometer. There were quite a lot of PC volunteers and trainees running in the race and many many Filipinos! We all had fun and already plan to re-unite every year in Iloilo for the race :)

So this week we are all in Bacolod, a city in the next island over, for our highly anticipated Supervisor's Conference. We are staying at a really nice hotel with showers, flushing toilets, AirCon and really really really good food! It is almost like a vacation for us.... except we are still training.

Yesterday we found out our permanent sites and met our supervisors. Ever since the first week of training we all heard about the CRM site of Guimaras, home to the best mangos in the world and lots of coastal resources. Since we heard there were two CRM volunteers going there we sadly assumed it would be the married couple. But surprise, there are actually going to be three CRM volunteers there and..... Drumroll please.... I will be one of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guimaras is a small island south of the large island of Panay that I am training at. I will have two site mates, an education and youth development volunteer. Two of my CRM friends are also going to be on the island in neighboring towns about 20 min on either side of my town too! We are really excited to be so close to each other and to the city since we are only a 20 minute boat ride to Iloilo City, where there is a mall and theater!

All three of our supervisors get along too and are already talking about our three towns working on projects together! When it comes to coastal resources management the more towns and provinces you have working together, the more effective the management is so we are really fortunate that our municipalities get along!

My town in Guimaras is the capital and also home to coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass and a Sea Turtle Conservation Center! These will be the things I will be working on for the next two years! I will be going to my site for a visit later this week so I am really excited to meet the host family I will be staying with there and the office people I will be working with! Then back to Banate to complete my training for another two months!

More to come later!

 

Halong :)