Sacrifice, Strength

Sacrifice

 There are days I wonder how much I’ve actually sacrificed. True, I haven’t seen family and friends back in America for over a year and a half. I’ve left behind many modern conveniences such as a gym, a pool, a grocery store, driving. However, I’m still living comfortably enough. I’m eating well, I have my own place, I love my work. I’ve made new friends and have faced challenges that have made me realize how trivial many of my complaints before my service were. I have a good life right now.

However, I’ve been reminded of that sacrifice. I sent an email to my Aunt telling her goodbye. She’s been fighting cancer for years, and the news from home is that we’re to the point of counting days. I’m thankful I live in an age where email exists, where I can communicate back and forth with my family because I know 51 years ago when Peace Corps started they wouldn’t have heard the bad news until weeks after. Still, it’s closing in on a year and half in the Philippines and some of those days I could have spent with my Aunt. Some of those days I could have spent with my two best friends from college, both of whom have recently been married. There are things I wish I had been able to do back in America, but couldn’t.

 

It’s times like these that force me to weigh the value of my service compared to what I’ve given up. Although I cannot undo the choices I have made, I can still look back and ask myself if I would have made the same choice knowing what I do now, because I know there will be similar choices in future, some of them very soon. And my answer is yes, I’m still glad that I joined the Peace Corps, because my loved ones at home understand why I’m doing this, and although I can’t be as close as I want to be to them, I can still drop a note from time to time. That, and there are people here in the Philippines who I can make a difference for as well.

Mustaches and Moments

 

Last October my Batch had its Mid-Servie Training (MST), a chance to commemorate being halfway done with service, to reassess our current state at our respective sites, and as it’s last time we’ll see each other as a whole group until our Closing of Service next year. We all have our highs and lows, and at MST there were as many different perspectives and opinions about service as they were volunteers. What we did share in common was a love for the food, and that it was a chance to breathe.

I had a great time personally, and the highlight of our week was the time honored tradition of “Stash Bash”. The men grew out their facial hair, and we had a fun competition. I learned several important life lessons. First, I can actually grow a decent beard. It took about four weeks until it filled in well, but I was happy with the results. I did have to stand strong against peer pressure though. My community loved or hated it along gender lines with the men in favor and the women against (and my office is almost all women). I also learned that a glue stick is “more gluey” than a bottle of glue. When trying to curl my mustache for the competition I tried the bottle of Elmer’s glue to limited success, but upon the advice of another volunteer used the glue stick which worked perfectly.

 

Yes, I’m perfectly aware of how classy I am.

 

This is my first (successful) beard. Then again, last time I tried was six years ago.

 



 

And here is me for the Stache Bash!

 

 

Me and two other classy gents.

 

The Project

 

As I talked about before, my main project right now is coordinating a comprehensive series of changes to help the out of school youth have more opportunities in life, to be able to have more control over their own destiny. Suffice to say this isn’t an easy project, but after talking to dozens of people in the community, I have a starting outline as follows.

 

ORGANIZATION AND REPRESENTATION: At the very heart of this project is to get a group organized of out of school youth leaders. This is a group without any core to it, without a strong voice in the community, and setting up a youth group for them is going to be vital to their future.

LIFE SKILLS TRAINING: Self confidence, self expression, communication, maturity, hope. These are but a few things which most of the out of school youth don’t have. There’s a lot of different ways to impart these values and skills on the youth, and it’ll probably take most of them from camps, to regular activities, to getting them involved in the other facets of the project.

TECHNICAL SKILLS TRAINING: It’s difficult for a school dropout to get a decent job, especially in a rural town where jobs are scarce. The first challenge is going to be to determine what jobs can actually translate into getting the youth working, and then to find people who can assist with the training.

HEALTH: Drug use, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, and a lack of family planning are all contributors to out of school youth, and making their situation worse. In regards to family planning, poor families can easily have as many as ten or fifteen children whom they cannot support, forcing the children to stay at home and work.

EDUCATION: There is an Alternative Learning System created for out of school youth, however it doesn’t have enough teachers for the population. Part of our efforts need to be reintegrating what youth we can  

Back into school, and trying to take preventative measures for current students.

COUNSELING: Many of these youth come from broken families. Some have suffered abuse. For some of the youth to deal with their current situation and their past, we need to find better ways to connect them to the professional counseling the LGU provides.

SUSTAINABLE FINANCING: Some of the youth will need to be self employed. The organization for out of school youth will need to be active. They need working capital for both. As I said before, we cannot train the youth to be tailors if they cannot afford the cloth or fabric. We cannot give them better farming techniques if they cannot afford the equipment and land. My first approach will to be to search for sources of income within the Philippines to promote the sustainable part of it.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: For every adult that helps volunteer, for every group that assists with the project, that many more people become invested in the future of these youth. The more people who take action, the stronger the project will be.

OUTREACH: If this project is successful, it can be duplicated. I will try to keep extensive notes as I go along, and am already connected to the Provincial and Regional focal person for youth.

 

Although I’ve putting it all in my own words, and organized it as best I saw fit, everything I just listed has come from more than one person in the community. These are their ideas, which is why this project has a shot of working. It’ll take slow, gradual work, and it’ll take the commitment of a lot of Filipinos. As time goes on things will likely be tweaked and changed as find out more.

 

Choices

I spoke before about similar choices to joining the Peace Corps itself are coming up sooner than later. Although I still have some months left, I have to think about whether I want to extend my service or not. The project with the out of school youth is not going to be finished in 10 months. I feel in many ways like I’ve just gotten started. Besides, I think I have adjusted enough to where I feel I could stay for longer if things work out.

 

However I am trying to keep my options open. I still am taking the Foreign Service Officer’s Test this February. I just created a LinkedIn account in case someone browses my profile and say “I need to give that a man a six-figure-salary!” (that’s how LinkinIn works, right?) One of my goals is to have a job ready for me when I return to the states. My student loans will be taken off deferment, and I don’t want to be kicking myself in the foot knowing that there’s a lot I can do to look for work over the coming months, whether I extend or not. Recently our Volunteer Leader (a volunteer who extends a full year and takes on some staff duties on top of being a volunteer) strongly suggested that a Masters is important for a lot careers. I really don’t want two more years in a classroom, and I really don’t want to have to have more student loans, but I have to respect the advice and consider it.

Strength

 

So… when tragedy strikes, or days bog me down, how do I handle it? Well, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I need the extra day off, sometimes I need to step away and focus on other things until I get my head wrapped around it, whether it’s dealing with sad news, or figuring out how I’m going to get things moving at my site with the limited experience I have. It’s only a temporary solution though.

I’m almost certain I’ve talked about how I try to read (not doing so well on that right now), exercise (doing a bit better with this one), drinking hot tea or cocoa (now this one I’m on top of). However, I think the thing that encourages me the most is learning new things. I joke with people that I only started to appreciate learning my last semester of college as I realized for the first time that I wouldn’t have people telling me what I’m supposed to learn any more, that I had freedom to decide what was important to know, and that there was still a lot left out there to find out. Here’s a video I stumbled upon the other day about the golden ratio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?kkGeOWYOFoA

My aim is to try to have a blog post once a month, though once every month and a half or two months might be more realistic. Next month I have the second annual leadership summit. I’ll be using it as a stepping stone for the project with the out of school youth, as I’m hoping over half of the participants this year will be made up by them. I also am going to go back to America for two weeks around Christmas time. I’m anxious to see how things have changed, and to see how my perspective has changed after being gone for so long.

‘Til next time.





Adventures in Humility

Adventures in Humility

 

As I’ve crossed the one year mark at my site, and things are finally active and underway, a lot has changed. Whereas before I kept adding on more and more hobbies and interests to eat up the time, I’m now trying to prioritize what’s important and what I can drop as there’s not enough time to do it all. Whereas before my main effort was poking around the community to find potential projects, I now find myself looking at an ever growing task set before me.

If you look around the web, you’ll see scores of stories of Peace Corps Volunteers who realize that their Peace Corps service isn’t what they expected it to be. Bureaucratic systems that weigh you down like a sea of molasses, working at a job where soon can mean a week and later can mean months, and struggling with cross cultural communication where knowing the local dialect is only half the battle are all common aspects of service. Dreams of helping with true development become more and more distant. For many, the journey becomes more of a personal one, than one about their adoptive community, and in truth there is no shame in that. It’s defined most of my service so far.

As I stated last time, one of my major projects coming up has been to organize the out of school youth. I’ve met with seven out of fifteen barangays, and introduced the program, recruited to people to help lay the groundwork, and received a lot of input about the situation with out of school youth. I’ve tried to emphasize at the meetings that the Unlad ng Kabataan (name of the project) isn’t a set in stone program. I want it to adjust to the community’s wants and needs. As such my role has been more of a facilitator than a manager, and the direction of the Unlad ng Kabataan is being shaped by the local officials and community members. When left to their own devices, they’ve chosen development as the main purpose, addressing the poverty in Dupax del Norte.

So, it appears that I have stumbled on the Peace Corps dream in many ways. On a project focused on underprivileged youth, the task set before me is to help coordinate the Unlad ng Kabataan to address the cycle of poverty that is stagnating the community in some parts, and in others making it worse. After being in the Peace Corps for over a year, and learning about development work in a much more profound way, I find myself filled with a great sense of humility, not because I feel honored, but because I do not have the ability to do this as things are now. I can organize youth, I can train them, I have both the knowledge and experience. I have neither when it comes to what is now being asked of me. However, I do have the ability to learn what I don’t know, and I have a lot of resources at my disposal starting with the Peace Corps. The Unlad ng Kabataan has grown much larger than I thought, and I feel a deep calm as I know that it’ll take the very best out of me for this to have a fighting chance.

Sally Forth!

I’ve learned a lot more about my community in the past weeks simply by travelling to as many barangays as I can. When geographically most of the barangays don’t have phone service, I have to resort to paper notices to communicate. Without a clear cut system to distribute notices, I’ve had to wait between half a day and a week for those notices to get distributed as people come and go to the municipal hall.

I’ve also seen first hand the transportation problem. Roads are not cheap. In fact, read any Econ 101 and you’ll see that when discussing the purpose of government, it always lists roads as a bare necessity as they are too costly for individuals to pay for, but roads are necessary for a thriving society. Dupax del Norte is doing what it can to make roads, but as we are far from the richest municipality and the mountain barangays make for some serious challenges for road construction, not everywhere is easy to get to.

One such case was Barangay Bulala. Our head officials were off on a budget meeting the other week, and with them went the municipal vehicles. Try as I might I could not find a transport, until one of my coworkers got a trike driver to agree to take me. So off we went the next morning. First we climbed the steep, steep road. Then we crossed what to most Americans would appear as a hiking trail when rocks and grass jutting up. Finally we went through the stretches of mud, having to get out and push the tricycle through it. Oh, and what is a tricycle you may ask?

 

 

A tricycle, or trike for short, is a normal motorbike with a side compartment welded onto it. Not exactly the most ideal vehicle for rugged terrain. Still, we made it, and got back. Most of my community thinks I was crazy for making the trip.

Foreign Service Exam… or Not

I talked to our Country Director (head staff person in Peace Corps Philippines) about potential jobs after my service. I know I’m at least a year out, but I really don’t want to leave the Philippines without a job knowing that student loan payments will be coming, and knowing the economy’s probably still some years away from being smooth again. First, he verified what I had been thinking all along and that it is hard to get a more career oriented job right out of the Peace Corps. To be fair, several of the volunteers in my batch who ETed (early termination) found work quickly, one getting their old job back, another two doing different things for the campaign season. Still, I feel the need to look around while I can.

One of his suggestions was to look into the Foreign Service, the people who work at embassies worldwide. To get in, there are several steps to take, the first of which is the Foreign Service Exam, a three part test, one of General Knowledge, then English Comprehension, then an Essay section. Luckily for me, I tend to do better on essays than multiple choice, and I do have a Writing Minor (I took a writing minor in college on the advice of a friend on what would be useful for a career, I think the advice was solid [because even if your job is technical, you often still have to write for it, and explain it to others]). The General Knowledge test, at least for me, is probably the most challenging covering things like US Politics, History, Culture, Management 101, geography, world events, and more. Luckily, most of that fits into my International Relations degree.

The real challenge was to decide on a career track. As you sign up for the exam, you have to choose one of five career tracks, and that career track sticks with you for your entire career (and therefore lives up to the name ‘career’ track). I had little interest in consular (the people who do visa work and work with Americans living overseas [even though almost all Foreign Service Officers start off doing consular work]) or management (pretty much typical management work only in a very different environment). However Economic, Politcal, and Public Diplomacy (works with the press, does a lot of outreach programs) all had their strengths and weaknesses to me. Of the three, economic is the least competitive, and the more I learn and read, the more crucial economics seems to me (just look at the Unlad ng Kabataan and what that’s turned into). Politics really goes to the heart of what people think diplomats do, and are the people who provide information to our policy makers. Public diplomacy is the one where cross cultural communication comes to play the most, something I’ve learned to revere and respect. In the end I chose political for several reasons I may go into at a later time. However, by waiting I missed out on getting a seat for the exam at the end of this month held in Manila. They almost got me in, but not quite. It’s okay though, there’ll be another one end of this year, or early next year. It’ll give me more time to study for the general knowledge section.

That being said, I’m not sold on whether it’s something I want to do. It definitely has my interest, but I’ll continue to look for alternatives as well. More than anything, the challenge of getting in is enticing. Even if the Foreign Service isn’t right for me, I still want to be a qualified and capable enough individual to be able to do it if I want, and I’ll only know if I take the exam.

Money, Money, Money

Financial, number one. That is what every barangay has told me so far as the cause of out of school youth. It is not the only one as broken families, lack of interest, negative encouragement from peers, and a few other things are also contributing factors. However, most youth drop out of school because they cannot afford to go. It’s not that school costs too much, it’s that their family does not make enough to support them unless they pitch in as well. It’s that a high school diploma, unlike in America, rarely offers a better job with more income than if they drop out in the second grade.

Six barangays told me this, and my response was the same. I encouraged them that yes, money was needed, but that first we needed organization. We don’t need money to get organized, but we need to get organized before we can get any money. We need to be organized so we can get money from the local government or a NGO. We need to be organized so we’ll know exactly how much we’ll need, and what exactly the money will be going towards. I also assured them all that no, I do not have oodles of American dollars just waiting to give to them.

Then came the seventh. This barangay receives the plurality of aid work. It is the third furthest barangay away. They are all too familiar with projects and aid, and when I met with their officials, I found we were all on the same page. It was refreshing for them to denounce a single, one off program, how what they need is something more consistent, a project that follows up, that is year round. However, they also brought up funding, but they did so in a way that wasn’t just asking for money, or assuming the American was there to give them funds. They’ve organized the out of school youth before, even as recent as last year. They’ve had trainings before. Their youth have been trained to be tailors, but they cannot afford to buy the fabric and materials needed to start. They’ve learned about farming techniques, but do not have the resources to get things started. No one follows up with them, and the project dies. It’s like the old Chinese saying ‘catch a fish for a man and he’ll be fed for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll be fed for a lifetime’. However, they haven’t been given a fishing rod.

I found myself in a room of people who not only knew more about their community (which is what I expect, and why I need their assistance every step of the way), but people who knew more about development work in general. So what do I say to them? What can I offer them? Clearly I’m in over my head.

Or not. Maybe, just maybe, this is where it starts.

They convinced me, and I told them exactly that. And then I told them what I can do, and that’s to use what resources I have. First and foremost to that is being a Mr. Whitey, Mr. American. Although they are the ones who know better, if I’m the one to speak as their voice, to give their reasoning, potential funders might just listen to me more as the ‘foreign expert’. I can learn. I just read a book last month about microfinance. As I’ve grown older it seems like everything I’ve learned has a practical use that shows up quickly. I don’t think it’s fate, I think it’s that once we learn something new, we see the possibilities and potential for its use in our daily lives that otherwise was no different. I can, and have emailed my Sector Manager for what resources Peace Corps has. I can talk to other volunteers. I can get connected to not only my municipal office, but the provincial and regional offices as well. Once again I go back to how I’m filled with a sense of humility, that I will need a lot of assistance to make this possible.

And Me

I said earlier that for many volunteers, their journey becomes focused on the self. Just because I have stumbled upon this new project doesn’t mean my own life is suddenly out of the equation. As my life has become busier, I’ve struggled with my own schedule. I’m trying to learn Tagalog but I’m seeing how much more difficult it is now that I have my work and my own place to maintain than it was to learn Ilocano when I had formal classes and a host family. I’ve had trouble finding both time to work out and time to read, as I increase one to the level I want, the other drops.

And I’ve been tired.

However, I do feel with this new sense of humility I may be on the right track. I started the Unlad ng Kabataan in a big hurry. I was trying to go full steam. Study for the foreign service exam, get in better shape, keep reading, get the barangay meetings done quickly and move to the next step. Now I hear this voice telling me to wait, step back, and look at what’s important. I’m now fully invested in a project which is beyond my capabilities. What do I need to do to make up for that? What do I need to do to support myself so that I’ll stay healthy, ease my stress, and generally just enjoy life as I move forward? I’m still working on those answers, but I feel they’ll come in time.

I’m so not a perfectionist. Heh.

So What’s Coming Up

More barangay meetings. Seven down, eight to go. I have a date set for my training of the youth government this October 18^th. Our Mid-Service Training (MST) where we get our medical and dental exams after a year in country, and where my batch of volunteers will all meet together for the last time until the end of our service is the week of October 22^nd. Hopefully some answers on what’s important and not so I’ll have an active (but not too active) life beyond the work. No doubt a lot of learning as I into the full swing of this development gig.

Oh, and facial hair. We’re doing the time honored tradition of “Stache Bash” for MST. I’m growing a full beard out which after almost three weeks grown, and a little over three weeks to go, is filling in well enough. At MST I’ll shave the beard and leave the mustache which I’m sure will be quite the look. Yep.

 

 

Walking with Fire

One of the twenty or so Peace Corps mottos for its volunteers is that our attitude is the most important thing in our work. I don’t know if it’s true for other countries, but in the Philippines I have to agree. I think I have the opportunity to get a lot done now because I’ve established relationships. I can get involved with the community because I do have a good reputation. Even when I was going through my low points, I tried to keep it confined to my apartment. When that was impossible I tried to throw myself into a book or online, and let the day pass me by. Basically, anything but to take my low points out on others.

I feel that I have the potential to get a few very special things accomplished at site. From my experience over the past year, I know it might not happen. The projects I’ve lined up could fail like half of what I’ve tried to run already. However, the potential is there, and I think I’m up to the challenge to do my part.

Disclaimer

In my last post I didn’t revise or edit it, and I accidently worded a sentence very, very wrongly. If you’re curious to read the sentence, you can check it out yourself. In the event anyone read my last post before I edited it, and didn’t check back in, it was a typo.

Not only did I relearn the importance of revision, but I also discovered that there are people I don’t know who read this blog, which is actually pretty cool. In the vast ocean of the web, I’m a bit surprised I’ve gotten a few readers. Since some of you don’t know me personally, I ask that you give me the benefit of the doubt if I write something you find offensive. Point it out to me certainly, but wait until I respond before you think less of me (though feel free to think less of my typing skills). Also, I’m curious to how people found the blog. As I said, I think it’s a positive that people are reading my blog, but I’m interested to see what brought people here.

Standing Up

As I’ve said before, one of the challenges in the Peace Corps is the unfamiliarity. Back in America when you have a hard time, you fall back on friends, family, food, and habits, things that have been built over years. Abroad, not all that is available. So when I hit my slump back in April, and let all my good hobbies and stress relievers slip away, it didn’t leave much to go besides stubbornness (luckily my stubbornness is as vast as the night sky). I did have two things on my side though. One was time, and lots of it. The other was an increasing familiarity with my home in the Philippines.

I worked through my problems one by one, starting with the easiest such as getting the kitchen clean, to harder issues like getting the rest of my apartment clean, and then I fretted over the big stuff like personal relationships, and my role here. As my good habits from reading, to keeping up with the news starting to become regular again, it made filtering through the list of problems I was facing a lot easier. As for the familiarity within my community, still getting better in Ilokano bit by bit, and just getting outside more helped a great deal. I still don’t have what I’d call a very active social life in Dupax, but I’m friends with my coworkers, and there’s quite a few members in the community I stop and talk to when I see them. I also have plenty of me time before and after work to just relax and pursue my own interests. Whereas when I first got to my site, a party or fiesta was even more stressful than work, with everyone staring at me, and having to stretch my Ilokano to its limits, I think I can actually sit down and enjoy a social event now.

So really as I think about it, time and being comfortable in your environment is pretty much the same way I dealt with problems back home. It’s just tweaked here to fit the culture.

Birthday

My birthday was last July. I first celebrated with other volunteers on a Sunday, at our favorite restaurant. I got three gifts that day. The first was vegemite from an Aussie volunteer. I haven’t tried it yet, but from what I’ve heard it’s something else. Perhaps I’ll spread some on Balut whenever I get around to trying it.

The second gift was a cardboard, laminated, dress up clown. There was clown outfit, tux, casual, and prison uniform. So I thank fellow PCVs Becky and Amber for that gift. I had received a text the week before whether I wanted a clown or a stripper for my birthday. Naturally I said both in one, not realizing that it would actually have any impact on my life at all. Oh, and did I say it’s laminated? It’ll be lasting for awhile. Woot.

The third wasn’t exactly a gift, but it came the same day. At the end of our pre-service training last year we wrote a letter to ourselves for the one year mark. I had no idea what I had written, and I was expecting something fairly goofy. However, I was floored by what I had written to myself. I was on cloud nine at the end of training. I was one of the top trainees at learning one of the dialects, I had a good relationship with staff, and with many of the PCVs. I excelled in a way that I hadn’t before in any other job, and certainly not at school. Yet, despite having every reason to pat myself on the back, and to say well done, my words were brutally honest and humbling. I’ll give a small sample of what I wrote.

“Humility is said to be the greatest virtue and it feels like anathema to me. It fills me with great joy, yet a deep troubling feeling given compliments such as that all of me impresses, or I light up someone’s life. Perhaps I am just scared that if I accept these compliments, these friendships too willingly I will falter from myself and no longer deserve this love that has been given to me.”

At the time I wrote it, I was expecting that perhaps in one year’s time I would be arrogant having ridden that cloud the whole way. I was trying to tell myself that even though humility is hard to swallow sometimes, not to lose myself to pride, and to always make sure I earn people’s respect, and don’t abuse it. Suffice to say I wasn’t on that cloud any more when I read it, but it was a good reminder to who I was, and to who I wanted to be.

On my actually birthday the next day I went to work as usual. I skipped the flag ceremony cause well… the flag ceremony’s boring and it was my birthday. For lunch, I cooked up some non-Filipino spaghetti. Noodles, Italian style sauce, ground pork, and oodles of spices. Whereas in America we get treated for our birthday, in the Philippines you treat others. When I told people at my office about American-style birthdays, they thought I was joking at first. They liked the spaghetti, and that was it. I’m twenty-five now.

Two Big Projects

So I mentioned that I now feel like I have the potential to really get things done. There are two projects I have that will be great if they can be accomplished.

The first is the training I’m training to arrange for the youth government (SK) in the province. I got a list of ten things that the SK is struggling with. Most of them are ways of self improvement such as communication, time management, ningas cogan which I’ve mentioned before and will talk about below. A few are from outside their organization such as lack of funding, and no guidance from those who know about governance. The first part of the training will be to create a list of strengths and resources the SK has, and using those trying to come up with a solution to their challenges one by one.

The second half will be a modified project design and management session. I’ll give them as many organizational methods and strategies I can, give them hard and digital copies for reference, and try to give them the confidence to give them a try. I feel confident the training will happen, the question is how many members I can get to come. I’ve asked two from each municipality to attend. Hopefully most or all will. If successful, I have a feeling I’ll be asked to help organize a similar training for the different municipalities which is a step below the province. That’s a lot of trainings, but we’ll face the hurdle if it comes.

The other project is to help build a PYAP from scratch. The PYAP is an organization similar to the SK, but for the out of school youth. It’s an organization that is supposed to help out of school youth get opportunities for leadership and critical thinking, and for them to use those skills to help younger youth as well. It’s an organization that is mandated by law to exist where there are out of school youth, but sadly there is no enforcement. This is a project my supervisor at site and I have talked about a lot, and I’m going to start now. I’m going to work with all fifteen barangays (perhaps just fourteen as our furthest one may not be reachable right now due to the rainy season [barangay=community that has government officials]) and to facilitate the organizing of the youth in the coming months. I’m going to need partners in every barangay to help me, and to eventually be the adult leaders that assist the PYAP once its formed. It has to be every barangay individually at first because I’ve come to learn that each one is unique, and each will need its own approach. If we can get this to be successful, it will give opportunities to the youth who currently have none, and create leaders out of many of them. I think many of the future successes of the Philippines are going to have to come from the out of school youth, and this is the best organization for that right now.  

Batch 271

I had the privilege of being a resource volunteer for Batch 271 during their Supervisor’s Conference. In part because I have a great supervisor who came with me, in part because I have really close beliefs to the Peace Corps staff about our work in the Philippines, and in part because staff has yet to find out about my mysterious, dark, and alluring secrets, I was chosen to help facilitate some of their sessions. There’s quite a few changes that have been made in the past year. One is a focus on getting more older and experienced volunteers. Another was to only teach Tagalog this year as opposed to half Tagalog, and half other regional dialects. At the request of PNVSCA, the Filipino agency that coordinates all foreign volunteers, and the Department of Education (in the Philippines), the majority of them will be clustered in Romblon, Bicol, and Negros. None of those are close to me. The nearest volunteer is in the province of Tarlac, and is probably about a four hour drive away. So on one giant positive, it was great to actually meet them, and talk a bit, knowing that I wouldn’t have met many of them otherwise.

I think the session went well. Some of them were pretty dry (the importance of monitoring and evaluation!!!), but I tried to joke when I could, and to be as casual by treating the trainees as equals to me rather than the new kids. When you’re in the position of training others, it’s very easy to slip into a dominant role and to talk down to the people you’re teaching, but I did my best to avoid that and make it more like I was having a conversation. I’ve had a lot more success with that approach. For me, my job that week was fairly easy. Many of the session were conducting by our staff in Manila. Some of the sessions I ran were to simply give instructions to the new CYF volunteers and their supervisors, and then to let them work one on one. My last session with the new CYF volunteers was a forty-or-so minute question and answer, giving them a chance to clarify things, and to get an honest answer for some of their concerns.

No romance for me that week. I say this because several volunteers from my batch asked me, so I figure it may be a question out there for people. I kept it professional. Over seventy volunteers applied for like twenty or so resource volunteer positions. Being there was a privilege, and I was there to help  the new volunteers get through the trainings and to be a resource for their concerns during a stressful time, not to put out a single’s add for myself. Besides, I’m holding out for Toni Gonzaga, famous singer, and talk show host in the Philippines! It’s destined to be! :P

I found myself at the end of the conference questioning how good of a job I did despite glowing feedback from many of them, though. I think that in part it tied back into my letter to myself that although the compliments meant a lot to me, I always am hesitant to let it get to my head too much.

There is one compliment I received in particular though which was moving, and which does make me think I’m on the right track, is hard to fully accept. The oldest volunteer in the new batch is in his early 80s. Whereas I was working mainly with the Child Youth and Family volunteers, he was an Education volunteer. However, he spoke to me in the hall when I was walking out of my room and going to the lobby. He told me that I had a way about me, that there was a subtlety there. The expression on his face was the same as if he had said that I’m going to go far in life. It was an indirect way of him telling me I was a good person, but the way he said meant a lot more. I don’t know how to fully capture that compliment, but I think I’m doing a lot of things right to have gotten it, and hopefully I’ll continue to earn it.

If I had one regret from the conference was that I didn’t get to know the new volunteers well enough. I got to know some of my fellow resource volunteers a lot more than before, as well as the staff, and I did have many conversations throughout the week with the new group. I suppose it’s that I’ve gotten to know people from my own batch so well after over a year, that meeting a new group and only having five days felt like it wasn’t enough. Obviously I can’t be best buddies with all 67(?) of them, but hopefully I can stay in touch with many of them, cause we’re all in the same boat, just not with the same timing.

Fire

I’ve mentioned ningas cogan a lot before, but I only just found out its literal translation. It means buring grass in Tagalog. The fire is there, but grass burns quickly. I learned that there’s also an expression for the opposite, ningas bao. Bao is the tagalong word for coconut shell, which takes a long times to burn. I had been debating internally on how much I wanted to talk about ningas cogan. I do think it is one of the biggest challenges at site, and it is an acceptable excuse for things not to get done in the Philippines far too often, but I felt a lot of the times when I brought it up, I was giving power to the term, that I was giving people an excuse by telling them I knew what I was asking for might not happen. I think ningas bao gives me what I want. Using that term instead can help me address the issue, to do it with the positive instead of the negative, and it will be a term that was coined by Filipinos to inspire them.

For my projects with the SK and the PYAP, I feel like I’m walking with fire. I’m trying to ignite to interest and the enthusiasm of the community to accomplish more. I’ll encourage them, motivate them, get them together, help them think through challenges, help them organize, but they are either the grass or the coconut shells, the success is up to how long they’re willing to let the fire burn.

And that’s the Peace Corps. To offer my unique skillset and perspective, but to ultimate let the real work lay in the hands of the people themselves. If there was another way where I could put it all on my shoulders I would in a heartbeat, but I’m going to trust the people I’m working for and with, and if these two projects fall through, I’ll go back to the drawing board and try again.

What’s to Come

I’ve just started learning Tagalog. My Ilokano isn’t perfect, but I can run just about any session I want in Ilokano, and I can communicate pretty naturally as I go about my errands, or talk about work, or even joke with people. However, when I travel down south to other sites, or to Manila, I feel pretty much like a tourist. Between that, and knowing the national dialect is a good talent in and of itself, I’ll give it a whirl.

I took a look at a T’ai Chi book. After reading a bit more on it, it seems to be quite difficult to get good at, so I’m going to hold off on that one, and maybe get an instructional video for Christmas or something.

Mid Service Training is in October. It’s the last training we get, and the last time the entire batch is together until our closing of service.

My dance instructor moved to Baguio. Need to get a new one.

Also got an email saying that I’ve finally been matched with a teacher in America to communicate back and forth between me and their students. It took a year about for it to happen as I heard most teachers want volunteers in Spanish speaking areas. So we’ll see how it goes.

As always, thanks for reading. Hopefully another update in a few weeks. Maybe one with a lot of short stories. 

One Year and Thoughts

This post is going to be a little different. It’s going to be more stream of consciousness. I’ll talk about some of my thoughts on being in the Philippines for over a year now, about development work, and about me. I’ll give a forewarning that a lot of it’s not positive. Then again, if everything were bright and sunny I wouldn’t exactly be doing my job. Whatever I say below are challenges I’ll either be taking head on, trying to move around, or accepting as a part of life, probably in that order.

I’m still committed to being here, and I don’t regret joining the Peace Corps at all.

One Year

I’m not the kind of person to hold a lot of weight to anniversaries. I’ll probably celebrate my birthday but only because my coworkers are insisting. The one year mark in the Philippines came and went, and the day wasn’t that different than any other. I’m of the mind that if you want to celebrate or party, do it for the sake of itself when you want. Don’t wait for special days, and don’t be afraid to make days that aren’t special more meaningful.

So of being here a year in and of itself hasn’t really offered any revelations, no deep insights to pull from.

My Role as a Development Worker

The first thing is that the Peace Corps's primary goal is not development. Of three goals the Peace Corps has worldwide, only one is sustainable development, and it’s the least important to its mission. The other two are about cultural exchange. The Peace Corps is primarily about improving relations, about making a better cultural awareness on both sides. During my service, I will be an ambassador for the US, when I come home I’ll be an ambassador for the Philippines.

Of course to many of us volunteers as individuals including me, it’s the development aspect that drew me to the Peace Corps. However, whatever I accomplish on that front is really extra credit to my organization.

Most of the projects I have proposed on my own have failed, or are still having trouble getting off. From morning stretches, to teaching about presentational skills, to trying to youth to do service projects, they’ve yet to be successful. Those that have worked, or show more promised have come from my coworkers and community. It makes sense. They know a lot more about their culture and wants and needs than I do. My best bet is to use the people of Dupax to come up with what they want changed, what they want the end result to be. My role then is going to be to show them HOW to do it. How to organize, how to recruit volunteers, how to create a system of responsibility to ensure people go through with what they say. It’s the one area where I have more experience than them, running successful programs and projects.

The Hardest Part

The hardest part of a Peace Corps service isn’t cross cultural communication. I just try to learn from my mistakes, accept that I won’t always be right. Not a big problem. It’s not the work. Once again, not everything I do is going to be successful. Things get pushed back, things turn out differently. It’s all okay too. The problems that really plague us are the same personal issues that affected us back home. Strained relationships, dealing with our own personal shortcomings, losing faith now and then. In the end the thing that kicks our asses the most is just daily living. There’s one small twist though.

In America I have family and friends to fall back on. I have my favorite food and relative luxury to cushion me. I know my place in America, and that supports me. Here it’s not so easy. When I’m so clearly on outsider by my appearance if nothing else, when the food’s for sustenance more than comfort, when sometimes all I have is the four walls of my apartment, I have only myself to look at, and my own thoughts to dwell on.

And boy do I make amazing company to myself!!!

But seriously it has made me question a lot of myself. My own hubris for one. Questioning my passion for both development work and politics and the general direction I want to go after my service for two. Whether I’m up to accomplishing my goals personal and professional for three. I know these question are a hell of a lot better than if I’m going to have enough to eat, how can I pay the bills, the sorts of things many people here, and back in America are asking. Still, it does weigh me down from time to time.

Then there’s unrequited feelings. I’m not going to go into a lot of details, but just to say that in the Peace Corps, there’s only so many people you know who share your culture, your dreams, and who can understand you when you talk about the challenges you face. We’re not the saints the media sometimes likes to portray us as, optimistic (or naïve) young people giving up our luxury to live in squander. Most of us are here to build up professional experience, and though we’re lacking a lot of luxury from home, we have more going for us than you’d think. However, there are still a lot of special people here, and though we’re not saints, it does take a special kind of person to do this. It’s a shame that things don’t work out sometimes, and it’s damned hard to find peace within oneself and the world when the wind stops pushing your sails, but it’s those times when I can see myself more clearly.

And boy am I perfect!!!

Or far from it. Regardless, the past few months have been the most challenging, but I think I’m getting myself back up. In fact…

What I Want to Do

I really want to get cracking and work right now. The whole municipality is pushing the Child Friendly program now that we have some regional evaluators. Naturally I did not find out about it until the day before, still needing a week to get my own ideas together. My goal is to push the municipality towards dealing with problems I’ve had the local youth tell me about. Youth alcoholism, lack of opportunities, child illiteracy. If I can point the Mayor and the others to speaking about that, I can help. If not… back to square one.

I also want to really pick up on my reading. Fiction and non-fiction. Use the time I have here to learn as much as I can. I have some books on entrepreneurship, appied economics, work with children, ecology, and a couple others. Break it up with some fiction, and hopefully I’ll start reading more and more.  Also, want to make my dance lessons more regular. Really want to get good at that. Enough to where I can show off some stuff and look good and confident while doing it. I want to pick up some capoeira cause that stuff looks really fun (though that’ll be on my own, we don’t have it in Dupax). Finally, I’m going to try to be modest with my working out, and build it up slowly. It’s a far cry form my usual push myself until I burn out, but I am trying to adapt and learn from past mistakes.

To do it I’ll have to drop time on the internet. Having regular access to internet at my site is a blessing and a curse. Drop most (but not all) of the frivolous stuff, and replace it with being more productive. Need to sleep earlier and quit staying up late cause I’m thinking about too many things. Also going to need some more self discipline to pull from somewhere.

The Philippines

Never, ever underestimate anyone. It’s one of my credos. Filipinos are NOT* stupid, they’re not ignorant. The Philippines is infamously known by the development community as not growing in proportion to the aid given compared to other countries, like Mongolia who’s soon looking to end the Peace Corps because they’re doing so well.

A lot of the problem is corruption. I feel confident saying this because it’s what Filipinos tell me. If you look it up on your own I’m sure you can find more information on it.

There’s also ningascogan, a Tagalog word that describes people saying they’ll do a project, or act interested, but then don’t show up or give up. There’s not a strong emphasis on getting the job done. The intent is there, the ideas are there, but following through takes a commitment that isn’t taught to them. It’s the thing I keep stressing to people in my community as the problem, at least the one I can help with.

There’s also critical thinking. Ask an American child their favorite animal or color, and they’ll go off on what it is and why. Ask A Filipino child the same question and they’ll be confused, or they’ll point to whatever color they’re wearing. Once again, it’s not that people don’t think critically, but to do so one has to step outside of what they’ve been taught.

I’m not sure how to address the above yet. The corruption I can’t touch, it’s strictly against Peace Corps policy. The other two… I’ll be having a lot of conversations with the locals to get some ideas.

It’s About Making Things a Part of Who You Are

It’s not a big deal to go to ride in a jeepney, or to have a conversation in Ilokano. I went to a 4^th of July function where the Ambassador was. Shook his hand, and took a picture with some other volunteers. That wasn’t that big either. Definitely cool, but not eye popping or jaw dropping.

I’m trying to live as part of the Philippines to the best of my ability and background, as opposed to living opposed to it, or even beside it. It’s by making those little things day to day natural, that I can focus on what’s really important, like all of the above. Cause frankly, if I let the little differences weigh me down to, you may here of  a case of spontaneous combustion in the Philippines.

What’s to Come

More than any other time I’ve been here, I’ve had less of an idea of this. Knowing the unpredictability of things, and with so much potential for success and failure with projects, and choosing my priorities for my own goals of self improvement and growth, a lot’s up in the air. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll help train the new batch which have arrived already at the end of August. Humility will be the word I’ll emphasize.

I don’t think my second year in the Philippines is going to be anything like my first. I do think it’ll be better, and I think I’m heading in a good direction.

Also, send me recommendations for music. I’ll check it out on youtube. Music’s antoher thing I’m trying to get more into.

‘Til next time

PS And forgive any typos, I’ll try to edit those out next time. Figured I’d post it now while I have the time, and revise later.  

*My original posting of this update lacked the word "not", which made it look like I was calling Filipinos stupid, the exact opposite of what I was trying to say. Suffice to say my experiment of posting without revising proved why my English teachers were right all throughout grade school.

Still Moving Along

My Place

Finally some pictures of my place! It’s a lot like the apartment I had back during my Senior year of college. Rent is 2500 pesos a month, and it falls under the rent allowance by Peace Corps Philippines. I just recently cleaned it up, and rearranged things. I have a lot more room now.

Due to odd formatting reasons the pictures are on the bottom of the post.

Piercing the Veil

Community work is all about building relationships. Doing my job eight to five doesn’t cut it. I’ve been trying to open up more and more with people, and it’s paying off. I feel I’m finally getting truthful and in depth answers about my town, and I’m starting to understand the challenges they are facing and why. As much as I wanted the answers to be clear and cut, the people here are not ignorant. They live in a situation where there are no easy solutions for progress.

I had an idea for the out of school youth. If the municipality would pay for poor youth to go to school (reimbursement for not contributing to the farm or shop), then the kids could get a high paying job after high school and the money would come back in taxes. However, the answer I got from everyone was that kids don’t make more if they graduate high school. College maybe (though jobs are competitive for college graduates too). No doubt going to school still has so many benefits, but when trying to convince people to send their kid to school which won’t give them more money, when they could learn their trade now isn’t easy, especially considering the lack of quality in education here.

I’ve also learned a lot more about corruption in the Philippines. I’m not going to go into too much detail on this one as you can read up on it pretty easily on the side, and it’s something I can’t really address in my work as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Politics is a no-no for volunteers. One example I’ll cover briefly is the illegal mining. In the mountainous, rural areas, there’s a lot of illegal mining going on, it’s the best source of income for people there, but the environmental damage is quite tangible as flooding over the past years during the typhoons have sharply gotten worst due to deforestation. However, without a strong enough infrastructure to enforce the law, and without a strong desire to enforce it either, it continues.

Also related to learning about my community more, I asked our new interns to make some SMART goals (specific, measureable, acceptable, realistic, and time bound) for our child friendly municipality program. As youth form Dupax I thought they were most able to come up with ideas. I finally got them to create goals that met the criteria, but I still didn’t like them. The issue was that there wasn’t a lot of passion behind the goals. So, I’ve asked them not to focus on the goals, but to think about what changes they want for youth in their community, what do they feel strong about. We’ll see if that yields better results.

The Hardest Part of Service

You’d think that typhoons, inter-cultural communication, or living in a hut in the middle of nowhere would be the biggest problem a volunteer faces. At least in my case, the typhoons are manageable, communication is steadily improving, and as you saw from the pictures above, I do not live in a hut in the middle of nowhere. The hardest challenges I’ve had to overcome have been just regular life problems that can happen at home. Struggles of friends, news from back home, personal feelings, all make the new problems I’ve faced in an unfamiliar place pale in comparison. Life is still life in the Peace Corps. Things don’t go on hold just because I’m somewhere else.

Where the change of scenery comes into play is when life hits hard, the safety net to fall back on isn’t as strong back home. It’s why it’s that much more important to keep doing whatever’s good, whether it’s working out, reading, learning new things, getting projects underway, and talking with friends made in service.

I’ll admit that I’ve had better days than as I write this, but I do have enough going for me to turn it around. Still wouldn’t trade in my service for anything.

What’s Happening and What’s Coming Up

A few knew hobbies I’m picking up. Started dance lessons. One of the interns (the bakla of course [look up what bakla means]) knows how to dance, and I’ve been learning from him. So far just the cha cha, and a little swing. Mostly it’s so I can participate during the intermissions at our functions, but also dancing’s one of those things that is pretty cool to watch when someone’s good at it, so why not be good at it myself? Also want to pick up Capoeira and T’ai Chi. Got a T’ai Chi book from our resource center in Manila, and I’ll scrounge through youtube to see if I can’t find some videos for the Brazilian dance fighting. I got seven other books mostly about development work and entrepreneurship ship to get through as well as a draft of a story my sister’s working on. Start with the latter, and start binging on reading to get through them all.

For my birthday July 30th I’m asking my mom and dad for an I-Tunes gift card. Since sending packages from there to here have gotten more challenging, I think the gift card will suffice. I’m all ears for any recommendations on what I should get.

Also, I’ve been selected to be a resource volunteer for the incoming batch. The new volunteers show up the first week of July. I’ll be facilitating the Child Youth and Family sector of volunteers during their Supervisor’s Training in late August. It’s when they’ll find out their permanent site and meet their new boss. My own supervisor Nereo will be helping me with the sessions.

Besides that I’ll just keep plugging away at getting things done at site. On Monday I’ll try to start three days of morning stretches for anyone who’s interested. An easy way to improve health in the municipal hall, or if no one comes, just an excuse for me to get to work early and get off on a good foot myself.

Oh, and yesterday was my one year anniversary of coming to the Philippines. I’ll have another post in a week or so about my thoughts on that. I’ll try to get some pictures of the community too.

Cheers.


PICTURES!

 Here's a look at the main room from the front door. I just rearranged things a bit to have more space.

 

Above is a closer view.

Below is a look into the bedroom. I cut my mosquitoe net into piece to cover the windows. I need to find some duct tape to secure it on the walls though.

The kitchen. On the left are the plastic bags I use to put trash in, and behind that my rack where I keep spices and a few other things. The fridge at the end doubled my electric bill, but that's the sacrifice for not needing to go to market every day.

The outdoor deck. You can actually see the street from here. Whenever I take a shower in the bathroom (or as they call it here, Comfort Room), I have to crouch really low so anyone driving or walking by can't see it.

And here's where the magic happens! On the right is the basin I fill up to shower, and in it is my dipper I use to pour the water on. The smaller green bucket on the left is for the mop when I clean, or to pour water into the toilet to flush it down.

Here's the view outside from the front. If you see the mountains in the back, that's where the far flung barangays are.

Here's a look at the building. On the ground floor there's an internet cafe and small snack shop. My place is on the second floor, furtherst on the left.

And below is a look at the street heading to my workplace. It's about a minute and a half walk away. Now that the rain's coming again, the proximity is nice.

Things Coming Together (For Now)

They say in the Peace Corps it normally takes at least six months to really get things started, a year isn’t uncommon. What happens in all this time? Getting used to the people, the people getting used to you, trial and error, building reputation, taking a week here or there for a Peace Corps training which works as half training, half a chance to catch up with the people you got to know during training and swap stories (and realize that almost all your issues at site are shared by dozens of others). Probably the biggest thing for me was figuring out what exactly I wanted to do for my community, based on their wishes, and what I can provide. I think I’m starting to get a handle.

As for pictures, I’ll save those for when I get up into the far-flung, mountain barangays again. At least, if I can get up there sometime this week or in May.

Three Things I’ve Done

PSK Training

I started my informal training with the Provincial Sanguniang Kabataan (the youth government). Although my site is only one of the 15 municipalities of the province, this project is covering a much larger area, or at least has the potential too. This was the Saturday before Easter (prompting me to cancel my Easter plans). We met in a small restaurant. There was the Provincial SK Chairman, and three others of the 15 municipalities. Four out of sixteen isn’t a lot, but it’s a good start.

I started with learning more about them, their current and previous projects. I also explained who I was, and what my job entailed. We then discussed critical thinking and its importance along with a few exercises such as describing objects without mentioning any physical characteristics. Next we talked about how to determine what project you want to do based on what the target community wants. Finished it off with discussing different leadership roles such as facilitator, mediator, teacher, advocate, etc.

For the coup d’grace, I gave them a task to find one or two community leaders who are not politicians or have anything to do with the local government. Just regular citizens who are helping the community in some way. Hopefully we can build a network of these people to help build a more sustainable support system for the youth leaders.

PACA

Participatory Analysis for Community Action. In English, it means activities that can generate more ideas and more accurate information for community projects than simply asking “What’s the problem?” One of the things my host agency asked for was stress management. It’s not my forte, nor am I particularly good at reducing my own stress when it matters (though getting better), but I don’t need to be an expert to at least run some activities to get a better idea of what the causes of stress are.

At our Monday flag ceremony, I told all the municipal workers about wanting to run an activity. I told them I’d put the signup sheet next to the place we all sign in and out. I did it all in Ilokano (save for the word “2^nd ” which I forgot [it’s maikaduwa]). I was planning on having it done the next afternoon. The next morning came and no signatures.

I was thoroughly annoyed, but decided to keep at it. I wrote on the signup sheet that I’d buy their meryenda (snacks) and that if I didn’t get any volunteers, I’d be sad, trying to egg on their hospitality. Something worked and I got enough volunteers. I moved it to Wednesday afternoon since I only got the signatures Tuesday. The next day came and I found out it was only a half day due to Holy Week. Crap.

So the following Tuesday (we had Monday off too), I finally got it done. I had four groups (women and men, single and married with each) write a normal 24 hour schedule, and write a yearly calendar with all the important seasons and events to them. The hope is to see if there are differences amongst the four groups, and if anything clearly shows why people are stressed in the office.

These activities work for other things as well other than stress.

Language Camp

This was an optional, not-quite-a-week, language training to give us a chance to learn a bit more specific to what we need at site (for example, I needed to learn how to describe critical thinking in Ilokano), and for the Peace Corps to gauge how our language is coming along. It was a regional event with only fifteen of the volunteers doing the northern dialect of Ilokano, or the more common Tagalog you can find around Manila and as a secondary dialect in most places. We had it in La Trinidad where I trained, and it was good to see some of the volunteers again, my old host family from training, and my language trainer, Ester. I also shopped for a blender, and a coffee maker (drinking 3 in 1 can’t be good for my health), but alas I think it’s cheaper in my province.

The highlight of it was getting the chance to talk to several of the volunteers in smaller groups, or even one on one. When all 50 or so of us in the batch get together, we form up in groups of eight and more. Although it’s nice to see everyone, I also relish the chance to talk to people and get to see how they’re doing more personally.

Three Things I Will Be Doing

Lecture at the Universtiy

If you recall, one of the potential projects that fell through in January was working with the nearby college of Nueva Viscaya State University (NVSU). I talked to Carlo, my contact point with the school, a few times on and off. I even visited the school and watched part of a day of presentations about the environment, where we talked some more. The plan was to have me present to X amount of students sometime early June. I discovered this last weekend that I will be giving a lecture to two different classes of education students, each about 75 in number, this Thursday. It’s a pleasant surprise to see something happen earlier than I expected.

Think I’ll cover critical thinking. More on this below.

Seminar on how to give a good Presentation

Poor PowerPoints, long lectures, and technical difficulties have been common themes here in the Philippines. It’s kind of like America in that way. I’ve taken the initiative to start helping people learn better ways to present. It’s set for this Friday for any municipal worker who is interested.

Child-Friendly Municipality

There is a country -wide push for places to be “child-friendly”. This hits its peak in October which is “Child-Friendly Month”, where there is a contest all across the Philippines. It’s a great idea, but the goals are very broad, generalized, and offer little direction. I’m hoping to work with my local SK to create some specific and measureable goals in a couple weeks when we have a small town fiesta. Not sure what the fiesta is for yet.

The Answers are Out There

The more I explore the web, and the more I talk to people in my community, I can see answers to our problems left and right. I’ve started watching a show called Earthrise. I see that the people her in Dupax are very aware and hold the same concerns that I do. I see the projects of other volunteers in the Philippines and abroad.

So why are things still bad?

Well first, consider that we have upped the bar on what’s acceptable and not in recent generations.

Second, think about how there are over 7 billion people now, each with their own set of problems on top of those issues shared amongst us.

This new theory of mine is actually hopeful. I feel now that I don’t have to worry about coming up with the answers to too many things in site, and for my work after Peace Corps. I just have to find out who already has it figured out and learn from them.

So What do I Want to Accomplish?

There are a few common themes I’ve seen that I’d like to help with. One of the big ones is critical thinking. I’ve discuss this with other volunteers, and it seems a pretty common situation where critical thinking just isn’t emphasized. I can get a youth to tell me information, but getting them to apply it, to use it in a different context, to conceptualize new ideas, I hit a wall. I’ve become pretty good at simplifying these things into Ilokano, and I’ve seen a little improvement in the responses. Critical thinking is something I’ll probably incorporate into almost everything I do from now on.

“Ningascigon” is a Tagalog word that describes it when people get excited to do something, but are nowhere to be found when it comes to do get it done. See? The Filipinos are more than aware of this cultural trait, they have their own word for it. This is something else I plan to address again, and again, and again, to try to change minds to make ningascigon as bad a word as I can.

In the Philippines there are a lot of out-of-school youth. It accepted, if not liked, for a child or teen to drop out. Starting with the Child-Friendly movement, and working with community partners, I want to establish a town culture that actively tries to minimize the number of dropouts, putting an effort into it that currently is not there.

Finally, PREPARATION! Cannot emphasize how much I want to push for more preparation.

A Final Story to Share

After language camp, I took a van ride through a winding road back to my province. Had a nice conversation with a bank manager who travels back and forth between home and work. It was dark by the time we got to where my stop was, and I got out… too early.

As the van pulled away, I picked up my bags to see that I didn’t know where I was. I knew we had passed the last town area before my stop, and I knew which direction to keep walking, but wasn’t sure on how far this walk was going to take. My first concern was since it was dark, traffic wouldn’t be able to see me. My second concern was that I was an American carrying a couple bags all by myself.

After five minutes I began cursing my stupidity.

After ten, a friendly young man offered a ride on his motorcycle (riding a motorcycle is a big no-no in the Peace Corps) which I declined.

After fifteen minutes, and realizing the next stretch of road I thought was my destination was not, I decided to call my supervisor and see if he knew how far I was as I told him what was around me.

After twenty minutes, and finishing the phone call, I knew where I was. It only took a few more minutes to get to the junction points where I could ride a trike the rest of the way back.

Lesson learned: Always be aware of my surroundings.

There are still bad days, but they have been becoming more infrequent. Health is up, and my daily routine of working out is getting close to what I want.

Keep you all updated.