Tuesday, January 22, 2013

In a Stride

Been awhile since I posted, and I have some new stories and insights to share. All in all things are going well for me, and ‘m still in a stride. Still have good days and bad days. Still trying to change my sleeping schedule so I can get morning workouts in, but I feel comfortable in my community, with my work, and with my Peace Corps experience.

The Leadership Summit… or Not

Several of my projects last year were busts. It’s normal. However, I was really confident about the Second Annual Youth Leadership Summit. We had it last year, they created an ordinance mandating the summit. We had a date picked out. The module was improved and revised to accommodate out of school youth as well as students. We sent all the invites out.

The following day three Barangay Captains visited me to ask me to postpone the summit. The students were still in school during those dates. Having the privilege of knowing several volunteers who work at the school, I was aware that there are many reasons students get taken out of class. Environmental/health/etc week, for a marching band competition, for a song and dance routine, are just some of the examples. I thought asking for a score of students from each school was reasonable, but in the end I had to relent. It’s been pushed back to March, though still working out the exact dates. My hope is to have it before harvesting season which is usually the last week of March through April.

However, I had one more curveball thrown at me. That afternoon, I wrote up a quick notice to inform everyone about the postponement of the summit. A week later, one of the schools still arrived because they never got the second notice. It was a frustrating moment. In a week’s time the communication should have been received. The school that came is at the heart of the mountain barangays, about an hour away from me, and one of my targeted places for where I want to do a lot more work. My supervisor explained what had happened, while I whipped up a few activities so that they didn’t leave empty handed.

For about an hour we ran through some leadership tools and strategies such as the tree model (trunk is the problem, roots are the causes, branches are the effects, leaves are the people affected). I also promised them that if they wanted I could come to their school specifically and do more. Since I haven’t heard back it’s something to follow up on.

The first lesson to come out with it is to turn defeat into victory. Make a bad situation and turn it into something even better than you originally had planned. In this case, I attempted to build a stronger relationship with Belance High School than I would have if the summit had gone according to plan. I’ve found this strategy extremely useful at site. I make mistakes, sometimes its legitimate cultural misunderstandings, sometimes it’s just on me, but as often as not I’ve used the moments to try to get closer to my community, to tell them “hey look I’m a crazy American, this is why I need all of your help on this too.”

The second, and more important lesson came after I waved goodbye the kids and their teacher. I was upset about the miscommunication in the first place, and I was even more upset that I felt unsupported when they came. My supervisor was an exception, and he bought me some valuable time, but I also wish that another couple of people had assisted as well. However, I didn’t make a big deal of it. I didn’t criticize anyone. Biggest of all, I didn’t try to make a point. During my service thus far, I’ve reached the conclusion that trying to prove a point isn’t really all that important. If I want my coworkers to take a more active role in things I’m doing I’ll include them. Getting frustrated when it doesn’t happen is more likely to push people away than have them turn around. It hasn’t been always easy to let go of my pride like that (and truth be told it doesn’t always work), but it has been rewarding when I do.

America

Having the chance to live in a developing country has made me appreciate the things I had back home. Although the streets in America are certainly not paved with gold, they are paved with tar, which is but one of the many, many small things that I experienced again during my two week vacation back to Colorado for the holidays.

Living in another culture is far from easy no matter where you are from, and no matter where you are going. I hear Filipinos speak of family and friends who struggle in America. The food, the customs, the language, the expectations both professionally and personally are different. One of the most noticeable things about my trip is that life felt very, very easy because it all came natural. I didn’t have to consider whether my words would be taken out of context or not, didn’t have to remember how to say a certain word in Ilocano, I didn’t have anyone staring at my awkwardly or thinking that trying to get my attention was funny simply cause I’m a foreigner. And yes, having my favorite foods that aren’t around in the Philippines like alfredo, Five Guys Burgers, and bacon was magical.

A term used in the Peace Corps is reverse cultural shock, describing volunteers who go home for the first time and are surprised by how different things are. I didn’t really feel any shock per se, and I don’t think I saw everything as different. I certainly appreciated Colorado even more, and I did find that people were really impatient. Like honestly Americans, you all look silly with how rushed you are.

Christmas was great. I got a kindle (the original, black and white one), a t-shirt, a CD of rock bands covering Muppets songs, a few other things.

I’m really happy I had the chance to go back to America and see my family. It’s a bit different in this day and age with the internet and skype than it was for volunteers back in the day. However, I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again anyways, face to face trumps all still. Yes, phones, e-mails, (blogs) are all still valuable and necessary, but I’ll still take face to face when I can.

No big New Years parties. No big exciting things I did. Only interesting thing I did was take cheese and butter making class. I’ll try to make some at my site, but we’ll see if their milk works (it’s the kind that has a year shelf life).

Updates on the Big Project

My comprehensive out of school youth project is still moving slowly but surely. Some highlights…

The youth organization aspect: There’s a young man, former intern of my office, who is primarily in charge of organizing the out of school youth now. It takes a good chunk of the workload off my shoulders, and it’s exactly what the project needs: Filipinos taking charge. We’re working on getting the local youth government on board.

Health aspect: The Reproductive Health Bill (RH Bill for short) passed in the Philippines. It’s an extremely controversial bill here in the Philippines, and I’m not going in depth here. However, part of the work I’m trying to get started is to work on the problems of teenage pregnancy, and family planning, particularly for households that cannot support several children. I’ll be meeting with the Municipal Health Office again to see how the bill’s passing may affect our own work in the community.

Job creation: We’re going to still need to find sources of funding. However, before that we need to document and organize the kinds of jobs we’re looking to create, the expenses to provide a job, and the breakdown of those expenses from materials, to land, to training. There are currently programs in the Philippines for job trainings, but it only covers a small percent of the populace. I’m hoping to start a similar program in our municipality, and making it as large or small as we have the resources to provide for.

Things to Come

I finally am going to take the FSOT on February 2nd. For a while it looked like I wasn’t going to get in yet again, the spots filled up in less than a day. However, more spots did open up. I don’t think taking the test is usually that tricky, I think it’s just trying to take it in the Philippines that made it harder. I’ll try to re-look over some world geography, make sure I don’t mix up the amendments, take a closer look at US treaties, and continue to keep up with the world news.

Hoping to grab a punching bag next time I’m in Baguio which will probably be sometime next month during their Flower Festival. Yes, I just said punching bag and Flower Festival in the same sentence. I was surprised when I wasn’t able to find one in my own province since Manny Pacquiao is the biggest sports celebrity here. It’s a great workout though, and I’m willing to spend my living stipend on one.

I’m pretty sure at this point I’ll look for an extension to my service. The work is still at the beginning stages, I’m happy here, I don’t have a job lined up for me back home. If I’m able to beat the odds and get accepted as a Foreign Service Officer, I’ll definitely accept, but it’s a long process and I still need to pass the initial test.

 

Thanks for reading, and I’ll try to get an update in February

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