i arrived in manila for my orientation with CERV (that's the NGO i am working for here; the program is run by GVN). i am the only volunteer arriving this month, and the only environmental volunteer period. there are two education volunteers here currently although one is leaving today and the other leaves next week, so i am ... quite alone here. my orientation consisted of your typical information about the location, basic rules, and so on. raymund also gave me a tour of manila – both the more touristy areas and the slums. it was really interesting to hear the history of the philippines since i basically know nothing about it. the cathedrals here are straight out of europe; the philippines is the largest christian country in asia (something like 80%) and catholicism is very important here.
the slums are, honestly, everywhere. anywhere there is room – crammed between buildings, under bridges, etc – there are "houses" stacked on top of each other. in some places, they are just more concentrated than others and entire communities have emerged. the largest, called smoky mountain, was shut down a few years ago. it was a dump in manila that people lived on and was called smoky mountain because there were random combustions that made it so that smoke was always rising from the heap of trash. anyways, it is good that is was shut down, but now all along the roads near and around it there are slums. i really have no words for it, and my pictures come nowhere close to capturing in, but it is honestly houses upon houses stacked upon one another and absolutely jam-packed with people. and full of children who have known nothing else, but are somehow so happy. it is ... heart-breaking.
on monday, 3 september, eden took me to romblon province which is very very isolated and difficult to get to . first there is the two hour bus ride from manila to batangas, then buying a ticket and waiting in a non-air conditioned room packed with people, a 9-hour "overnight" boat ride from 5 pm to about 2 in the morning, a two hour jeepney to carmen, and then a 30 minute tricycle ride to long beach (where i am living).
ahhh it was crazy.
my first few days have been alright; things are moving very slowly so far. like i said, i haven't been given a whole lot of direction and feel kind of lost. thank goodness for the two other volunteers here, lucie and jen; they are absolutely saving me with their suggestions and advice and warnings and all of that. it is just so nice to have someone to talk to who actually speaks english and it is appropriate to ask honest questions about the way things work and so on. it is not acceptable here to display anger or frustration, and i think that will be difficult since it seems that things are rather unorganized. lucie is leaving today and jen next week ... i will be so sad when they leave.
i have been to the fish sanctuary and met the government people in charge of maintaining the sanctuary. the sanctuary is in carmen, about 7 km from where i am living, so i bought bike to get me there. i am not quite sure how my time here will be spent – there are a lot of mangroves to be planted, but i will go crazy doing that every day for six months. as far as i can tell, the sanctuary has only been surveyed twice (2002 and 2005), so i am going to try to write up a protocol and actually do that: create an inventory of species present (they don't even know what endangered species are here), information about coral cover and status, and so on. i am not quite sure how i will do this alone, since i will need to use SCUBA for the deeper areas and i really don't know enough to do it alone, but hopefully some of the staff here will be of some use. i am the only marine biologist (how weird, it is actually my job title now? how did that happen?) here and so i am considered the "expert" even though i really know nothing. i have so, so much to learn.
[the platform at the sanctuary that visitors can snorkel from. those are the mangroves on both sides. i live on the opposite side of the bay near that little island]
life in the philippines is good though. i am in the visayas region, romblon province, tablas island, san agustin municipality, long beach barangay. it is very hot and i am basically sweating all the time because it is so unbelievably humid, but it is stunningly beautiful. tablas island is very mountainous and full of jungle and i cannot wait to explore it more. my host family is two sisters (cecile and wilma) and two kids (genevieve (better known as bing-bing) and kenneth (a.k.a. kay-kay)).
[i don't know why my camera made it all wavy like this, but at least you can see them]
they are all so nice and so sweet. their business is in coconuts – although i couldn't give you the details, there are always coconuts chopped up lying in the sun around the house drying and then they are apparently sold somewhere to make coconut oil.
they are a middle class family, although would hardly be considered so in the states. they do have hired help to cook, clean, and do laundry (hooray! i don't have to do my own laundry by hand), but ... the house is tiny, full of mosquitos (as the many bites all over my legs will attest), and there is no shower. i've actually gotten quite good in the past week at taking bucket showers, and sort of like it (?) because there isn't any hot water and it feels good when it's so hot. the house is right on the beach (high tide literally laps at the back steps) and there is a small hut on stilts in the back overlooking the bay. it is quickly becoming my favorite spot.
eventually, i will swim to that island. i've been swimming every day - which is so nice. even though the water is warm, it is quite refreshing and feels cool compared to the air temperature.
i cannot begin to tell you how beautiful it is and haven't taken enough pictures yet to really show it.
there isn't any internet in san agustin, so to get to internet i take a boat to romblon town, romblon island for an hour – which is where i am now. lucie is leaving from here in a few hours and jen and i will stay the weekend. we are planning on going diving tomorrow (yay!) and i really want to wander around and explore the town. this is an adorable town, and so i'm glad i have an excuse (internet) to come here often.
so yes, life is progressing; i am adjusting and hopefully things will start to work themselves out soon.
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