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.