it's like the past before my eyes nothing is going my way

in the first week that jeremy and ben were here, they proposed holding a community day at the fish sanctuary, just involving the two barangays (carmen and cabolutan) it falls in, to promote the sanctuary and to get people out there to enjoy it and hopefully to foster some pride and community involvement in it. we suggested it to the agriculture office and they agreed it was a good idea and suggested we also give a bit of an educational lecture during it. during the community meeting we held at the beginning of november, we brought up the event and everyone agreed it was a good idea. for jeremy, ben, and i, it was a goal, a final event, a big "to do" for us before they left (the 30 november is their last day and the event was on the 27) – all of us had really high hopes for it. i think we all felt that it would reflect on the work we've done since they came.

it did not go as planned.

the past two weeks have been very rainy, with an almost constant threat of typhoons, meaning that we have been unable to plant mangroves and do our underwater survey (and my foot injury has only contributed to our indoors confinement). so we've spent these past ten days or so doing a lot of planning, organizing, writing speeches, making informational posters, and spending a fair amount of money to organize this event. we had originally wanted it to be run primarily by CERV, but the agriculture office seemed to want to take a bigger part in it – they wrote out the notices and said they would post signs, which we had originally planned on doing ourselves. our idea was to invite people who actually care about the environment, so we wanted to focus on science classes in the schools, or environmental groups, in addition to the barangay officials, municipal councillors, fish sanctuary development council members, and other appropriate adults.

tuesday (the day of the event) was a bit rainy – kinda drizzling on and off – so we were a bit worried that the weather would keep people away. the event was scheduled to start at 1, and a few students and adults started coming a few minutes before. by 1:30, there were probably about 60 people – a few adults and students from cabolutan – no agriculture office (who had told us they'd be there at 12 to help set up) and no students from carmen. while filipino time drives us westerners crazy, we had expected there to be a bit of delay, but had intended to start at 1:30 at the latest. so at 1:45, we decided we should just go ahead and get started, without the agriculture office. and right then they came. only two hours late. they wanted to go and set up all the things they'd brought and we were like, "uh no, you're really late and some people have been here for an hour already and we need to get started" so we just went ahead. i spoke first, as an introduction, just about coral reefs and the importance of marine protected areas like the fish sanctuary. then, jeremy got up there to talk about trash and the environment (the trash situation here is appalling, i'll post pictures sometime), and right then, at 2, tons of people and students from carmen started showing up. and they were all talking and disruptive right in the middle of jeremy's speech. it didn't help that it started to rain pretty hard right then, but still – he was speaking about something very important and everyone was just standing there talking anyways, not even trying to be subtle or listen to him. so he stopped and waited for a bit, and then continued and finished, trying to talk over everyone else. and then we sent them off to pick up trash along the beach and roads and they took the plastic bags that jeremy had bought with his own money and didn't pick up trash, but used them to block the rain and the few who did pick up "trash" picked up sticks and leaves and things.

it was ... unbelievable. jeremy was, rightly so, pretty angry about how rude everyone was being right during his speech. and what really gets me is that the trash thing is something that everyone can actually do something about ... they can not throw their freakin' trash on the ground or into the water and can take it to the dump in san agustin or at least bury it or something.



[jeremy speaking]




and then we got word that there was a typhoon warning, so we decided not to plant mangroves. ben got up and talked about mangroves anyways and the exact same freakin' thing happened, with no one listening, but just talking among themselves and being rude and disrespectful. i understand that 200-ish people is a lot and that it can be hard to hear, but ... i don't think that's an excuse for being so rude and not even pretending to care or to be interested.



[ben speaking]




the only part of the day that anyone seemed to care about was the snack and the poster making contest – food and money (cynical thought of the day: and that sums up humans just about perfectly). we had asked people to bring posters that they had made about the marine environment and actually got some really amazing and beautiful entries that we're going to put up in the sanctuary hall, which is pretty cool. but ... i was just in such shock about the entire situation and people's behavior.

afterwards, all three of us sat and talked about it and ... i don't really have anything insightful to say about it. we were appalled and felt really let down by the situation. i am so sorry that ben and jeremy's stay had to end with that sour note.

but ... at the same time, i keep thinking about how hard it is to get things to happen here. and the truth of the matter is that even though it didn't go as planned, or how we wanted it to go, it did happen and people did come and that's the big thing.

you do learn – i know now not to rely on the agriculture office so much. my perspective of them has changed a lot in the past three months: at first they seemed like the only thing i could rely on, and was so dependent on to tell me what was going on; i have a lot of respect for ruby, the head of the office, although i think most of the people who work there are incompetent and am surprised at the lack of a work ethic there (how do they get anything done?! sort of thing). but after seeing looc and how jessie's office works, i am a bit appalled and their inability to get things done and think that a lot of the problems in san agustin with regards to the fish sanctuary have to do with them. and now, after they insisted on taking care of all the invites and then did exactly what we asked them not to do (i.e. invite tons of students who don't give a rat's ass about the environment, rather than a smaller group of students who actually do give a shit), i am just very hesitant to rely on them in the future.

the scratch-and-dent kid

when i was growing up, my parents referred to me as the "scratch-and-dent kid" since i was inevitably always coming home with some new scratch or wound or bruise or whatever it may be. this characteristic stopped for a while, but i seem to have re-acquired this trait since coming to the philippines.

i say this mostly because i am always coming home all muddied up and with some new blister or scratch on my legs, much to the chagrin of my host family. it makes sense to me – i ride my bike everywhere, there is always mud due to the almost nightly rainstorms, and inevitably, since i am always wandering around outside and in and out of the water and climbing into mangroves and so on that i hurt myself somehow. i was also getting blisters fairly regularly from my shoes and i have a bad habit of scratching mosquito bites until they bleed. i've also had multiple run-ins with jellies and a bad introduction to fire coral (there's a reason it's called that).

problem is ... everything here gets infected if it's open. or at least this seems to be my problem. and you don't really want to use band-aids because it's so humid that you run the risk of your skin rotting. i've gone through practically a whole tube of neosporin, but i still have all these gross pus-filled things all over my legs.

i'm not writing this to gross you out (well maybe a little) – i swear i do have a point.

last weekend at the looc marine sanctuary (see previous entry), i had a run in with a crown-of-thorns (COT) starfish. well, i think that's what it was. i was out snorkelling and saw a COT eating some coral when i was in a real shallow area and got a great picture (stupid starfish ruining everything),



[don't be fooled by how pretty they are – these starfish are eating healthy coral and destroying reefs worldwide.]


and then when i was swimming away, managed to kick something that immediately began to throb and hurt like nothing i have ever known (as in, i was cursing out-loud into my snorkel in pain). i immediately returned to the floating house and looked down at my foot and had about eight puncture wounds. the guys out there with us swore it was a sea urchin, but i'm pretty sure i managed to kick that damn COT.

everyone told me not to worry about it – that the pain would subside in a few hours and suggested everything from kalamansi juice (a lime-like citrus) to vinegar to pee and the whole time my foot is throbbing and i can't walk or get on my shoes because it's right inbetween my big toe and ring toe. and it's the foot i have a toe ring on and my foot immediately began to swell up.

i tried to dig the spines out, but was unsuccessful. and i returned to long beach with my grotesquely swollen foot.

by wednesday, i was starting to get a bit nervous – my foot was turning purple and hurt more than i can possibly describe and ... there was so much pus and my poor bottle of neosporin didn't seem to be making any difference. jeremy had been to the health clinic in san agustin and said it was quite nice, so i bit the bullet and decided to visit the doctor. when i arrived, i was told that the doctor was at a seminar and to go to the hospital instead.

so ... i walked down the dirt road to the hospital – a rather dilapidated looking building and feeling, to be honest, quite terrified at the prospect of visiting a hospital in a third world country, on one of the more isolated islands, in one of the more isolated municipalities.





[the "surgery" room]


i limped my way to the entrance and a guy showed me to the nurses station. everyone in the vicinity (about five nurses, a few janitors, a few other patients, the cat) gathered around while i showed them my foot and was immediately met with suggestions to pour kalamansi juice on it. i just said, "please, i just want an anti-biotic. it's turning purple." so they called over the doctor, a very nice young woman who spoke excellent english (thank god, if she hadn't i would have just run). and she said she wanted to "go in and see" so we walked to the surgery area of the hospital and i sat on one of those normal examining bed things which had cat hair all over it and they poured some sort of sterilization thing all over my foot. i was ... pretty terrified, especially when they brought over the tray of tools. have these been sterilized? where have they been sterilized? why is there cat hair on the bed? why is there a man staring at me through the window?

when she mentioned anaesthetizing my foot, i just sort-of nodded in shock, but did see that the needle was sterilized and wrapped in those plastic things, just like in the states, thank god. they just ... seemed to sort of stab around in my foot (ahh so painful!) until it was numb and then dug around trying to remove the spines, but "all she found was pus"

i did get my antibiotic prescription though, along with a painkiller and a list of "medical supplies" to get at the botica. and when i asked about payment, they pointed to a donation jar. it had a few five and ten peso coins. i had ... absolutely no idea how much was appropriate and only had on me a few 500 peso bills and about 100 20 peso bills, but i put in 100. i feel like i should have probably put in more. i mean, i am alive, and she was very good.

so, although a bit scary ... i have survived my first hospital experience in the philippines. first and hopefully last. i figured a run-in with something with spikes was inevitable – hopefully i'll continue to avoid scorpion and stone fish!

27 november note: my foot looks a lot better, although it still has all the spikes in it. i won't gross you out with pictures of it.

an island in the sun

november 16 and 17

this weekend, jeremy, ben, and i travelled to looc to visit the marine sanctuary there (looc is one of the cities on the southern side of this island) at the ROMANGA festival i went to at the very beginning of my time here, i met a woman named jessie who worked in looc and talked to me very enthusiastically about their marine sanctuary and said i really must come and see it. the lonely planet also mentions it, so the three of us figured it would be good to see how things are done down there. i texted jessie about our arrival and we met up with her on friday and went out to visit the sanctuary on saturday.

the sanctuary is 48 hectares (compared to the 25 here and as small as 5 in romblon) in the middle of the looc bay, so that all the barangays have a say in it. it is ... spectacular. jessie has done some truly amazing things there: she is basically solely responsible for the huge success of the sanctuary and because of her work, looc is up for all sorts of coastal resource management awards. the guard house is manned entirely by volunteers called the bantay dagat (guardians of the sea) 24/7. it seems like people have really made it their cause and take great pride in it.



[view from guard house]


it's quite shallow in the center of the bay, allowing a great coral reef to build up. honestly, i think the reef is the healthiest i have seen since arriving in the philippines: there is a huge variety in the species and size of fish, there are hundreds of giant clams (most of them transplanted, but still), a lot of coral species and big coral structures (and it's alive which is more than i can say for around here!). they have a floating house out there next to the lighthouse that you can snorkel from and enjoy the view. because they feed the fish (mixed feelings about this...), they all swarm around the house, which is actually kinda cool when you're snorkeling.











jessie also allowed us to stay in her beach house in looc friday night. it's a beatiful traditionally built nipa hut in one of the neighboring barangays and right near looc's second marine sanctuary (the 4-hectare buena vista sanctuary), which we also visited.



[beach house]


[gecko!]


[jeremy and jessie]


[view from buena vista sanctuary


jessie is an absolutely lovely person. she encompasses the hospitality that people speak of in this country. she allowed us to stay in her beach house and then invited us to stay at her home in odiongan (the "big city" on tablas) the following night. we were all completely overwhelmed by the amazing amounts of kindness and welcoming she showed us.

on sunday, ben and jeremy went down to boracay, but i had decided not to go (been there, done that), and so stayed an extra day with jessie and her husband. i went to church with them on sunday for their thanksgiving service, complete with the these "true thanksgiving is thanksliving" which i got a big hit out of. they are baptist and right at the beginning of the service were singing a song (give thanks with a grateful heart) that we used to sing at the church i attended in high school. and ... even though i'm not a very religious person, it was very touching to sit there, in a church on the other side of the world, and hear this very familiar song and allt he words came back and i just felt this connection with the place.

i had a great conversation with jessie about marine sanctuaries and volunteers as well. she and her husband founded an NGO in 1999 called EMBRACE that promotes marine conservation and began all the stuff in looc (because the local government wasn't doing anything, so they decided to organize themselves), and they host a lot of international (mainly peace corps) volunteers. she was asking about my work here in san agustin/carmen and i really didn't know what to tell her. i explained the situation – just that i was brought here, introduced to a few people, and left to work things out on my own with no set projects or anything. she asked in the agriculture office gave me projects and i told her i had asked them what they needed help with, but was never given an answer and she just said, "oh my god that's awful".

and ... it is one thing for me, brad, my parents, friends, and jeremy and ben and i to say those things. but it is quite another to here it from a filipino.

even though i am stuck here regardless (she did invite me to come help her in looc, but ... i've paid to be here and i can't desert it (as much as i want to sometimes)), it felt really good to hear from someone here that the situation i am in is not ok. she even said that a lot of peace corps volunteers would back out – and they are here to set up projects for two years; it's quite different when you are only here for between one and six months and have to organize all your own projects. she was, however, encouraging, and said that i could do an underwater coral survey, shoreline profile, mangrove assessment, fish visual census, et cetera and then to just leave the data with the local government unit for them to do "what they will with it".

she invited me back to odiongan to stay with them whenever i would like. i felt so welcome and comfortable in their home, so i think i'll be taking advantage of that offer a few times.

a good day

9 november

today was a good day.

our meeting with community members in carmen and cabolutan (the two barangays the fish sanctuary is in) happened today. this is a meeting i suggested when i first arrived, and it finally happened. i'm so proud of the three of us for actually making it happen! honestly, i really doubted if it would, and then in the hour before it was supposed to begin, i just kept thinking, "oh my god, if ten people show up i will so thankful" and then people started coming, and coming, and coming. and we had 61 people come! i really thought i was going to burst with happiness. the agriculture office told us to plan on about 30 people and we doubled that number.

and, to top it all off, i think the meeting went very well. we had a lot of students come (about 20), in addition to teachers, barangay officials, COOP leaders, and lots of other people's organizations so a good range. and they all seemed to agree that community involvement was crucial to the success of the fish sanctuary and seemed to want to be involved and to take a more active role in it. this is exactly what it needs – marine protected areas do not work if the community does not have pride in it and takes some responsibility. and i was given the impression during the meeting that people do want to help out (whether that be through regular coastal clean-ups (the most suggested idea), or guarding, or attending regular events, or just promoting local tourism there), but that they just need a nudge to get it going. i hope that this meeting was that spark. we really tried to pass the torch onto the san agustin fish sanctuary development council (SAFSDC), which has always existed but doesn't seem to have actually been functioning. they are holding a meeting the first week of december that jeremy and ben will be gone for, but i will definitely be there to try to help them keep this going. we've also planned a "community day" (we are in desperate need of a better title if anyone has ideas?) for just before jeremy and ben leave – including a brief educational lecture thing, mangrove planting, and trash pick-up. oh my gosh it's so exciting to actually see something happen.





and then that evening, ben and i (not jeremy, he has some sort of flu-thing and was feeling crappy after our meeting so stayed at home) went over to robert and ning's house. robert is an american who was in the military and stationed here and married ning, who is from here in long beach. they've lived in america the past ... 15 years with their three kids and then just moved here at about the same time i did when robert retired. we met them on all saint's day (i'd heard rumors about "the american", but hadn't met them) and went over there for drinks once and then they invited us over for dinner. it was just great. they are really nice and most of ning's family showed up and we ate a ton of great food and drank some tuba and beer and watched a movie and sat around chatting. it was one of the first social events that i didn't feel mostly awkward at and just a great way to spend an evening. i really hope we can keep going over there – i think robert and the kids like to have westerners around and ning is wonderful to talk to. it is nice to have friends.

don't be afraid i promise that she will awake

this past week (aside from all the below), has been quite crazy. so here’s the run-down of the week in abbreviated fashion and in pictures …

first, all of wilma's kids (she has four. totz has been here for awhile, but the other three daughters came, plus the eldest's husband and baby) were visiting. barangay elections were 29 october and wilma ran for barangay captain so they came to vote for her. 1 november was all saint's day; it's traditional here to travel home and visit the cemetery to honor your dead wilma's husband/the kid's father died this past april, and this was the first all saint's day since his death, so they were all here for that as well. the point being that there were 11 people sleeping in our tiny house. and with elections and holidays it meant a lot of food and running around and overall craziness.

so first, barangay elections: elections here are strange: corruption is everywhere and accepted - wilma's opponent was paying people to vote for him. this is cheating (duh), and everyone knew it. and yet ... there was nothing that could be done about it. in conversations with wilma, she just said that she would likely lose because she doesn't have the money to pay people to vote for her. i am ... shocked by this. obvious and open cheating and no one is raising a big fuss about it? i am just baffled. the campaign period is only one week and is was crazy – everyone posts signs all over town and wilma must have visited nearly every house in long beach to talk to people. she also had "guards" everyone to "protect" her voters from being bought out by her opponent.





the great news is that she won!!!! the day of the election we threw a huge party for her and all her supporters. they cooked 50 kg of rice. 50 kilograms of rice. killed a pig. and had pancit (like chow mein?) as well.



[there were two of those coolers full of rice and two of those huge bowls of pancit]


if nothing else, filipinos know how to eat. there wasn't any food left.

collie (one of the dogs here) also decided that day to have puppies. i have no clue what we're going to do with these dogs. we already have two (plus the three at rey and sally's). and there are so many stray dogs here who just look starved. it's so sad. needless to say, i'm glad i got my rabies vaccine. but the puppies are cute, even though i have no clue what will happen to them.





for all saint's day, everyone in town goes to church and then we walk up the hill to the cemetery. the cemetery is up the hill and overlooks the sea – really has a beautiful view





it's an interesting thing to see all of these families all at once gathered around graves. people are buried in cement structures above ground, not below. and you can tell how much money the family has by the headstone: some have one, and some are just the dates and name etches into the cement itself. people bring candles and flowers and food and sit around the grave reading prayers and talking and eating. like many traditions in the philippines, it centers around the group and support that way – no crying, no obvious sadness.







it is touching to witness. because everyone is so normal behaving – talking, laughing, eating – but then there is just a feeling in the air of remembrance. i was glad i tagged along.

the day we went to san agustin to plan out a meeting we’re having this week at the fish sanctuary (fingers crossed that it will happen), there was some sort of celebration going on, so we stopped by to check it out.



[filipino equivalent to a marching band. i would kill myself if I had to wear that outfit]


[high school group dancing]


it’s the first time i’ve seen a celebration of culture like this – with dances and music that seem more traditional. it was interesting to watch.

and finally, we planted a ton of mangroves this weekend in sugod. jeremy and ben turned this bamboo storage thing into a carrying device so we could bring 100 at once.





great idea, but i really thought they were crazy to try to carry that thing practically two km. they did it though (both complained afterwards of sore arms), so i was impressed.

as usual, tons of kids showed up (it was also a saturday, so none of them were in school) to help. it’s simultaneously nice to have them come and annoying trying to get them to not mess everything up. we tried to set up a bit of a system so that they could help, and were pretty successful. i hope that somehow, this simple thing of helping us stays with them – that they take some sort of ownership in this replanting project and that it makes them want to protect it. it’s all well and good for the three of us to show up and do it, but what really needs to happen here is for us to transmit our care and our wanting to fix the problem to the community. i do not know if this is possible. we may just be perceived as more white people telling them what to do, but i truly hope not. i try to convince myself that maybe we are touching one of these kids.





we’re really almost … done with all the mangrove stuff. the idea is to have a mangrove planting/trash pick-up day at the sanctuary on the 24 november before jeremy and ben leave, and we’ll probably use the remaining mangroves for that. we joke about how it leaves a big hole in what we’re “supposed” to be doing here – all CERV tells environmental volunteers to do is plant mangroves. but it feels good to get that done.

so although it has been a hard week for me on the personal level, on the work front it has been a good week. we’re holding a meeting this upcoming friday (9 november) at the sanctuary with community members from the barangay to try to encourage more community involvement (everything you read says that these marine protected areas will not work without the community). then, hopefully this event at the end of the month. and! also! delfin, a guy in the community who works(ed) for SIKAT spent one day with us and showed us how to do a basic underwater survey and monitoring of an area! and so now we’ll be doing that before jeremy and ben head back to new zealand! hooray! it’s a fairly simple methodology, but it is something. and i’m hoping that it’s something i can then show people here how to do (you just use snorkel, not SCUBA), so that they can monitor the area themselves as well.

you don't know how far you've gone or recognize who you've become how'd you get to be so hard

it's interesting to have jeremy and ben here to talk to – people from a western culture that has a similar work ethic and environmental attitude to our own in the states (well, my own). i find that we complain a lot, talk about the problems a lot. i am ... surprised to find how pessimistic and often judgmental i find myself to be.

i don't like that.

i never would have called myself a pessimist before coming here. sure, i definitely go through those glass-half-empty moments (of differing lengths), but as a whole, i'd say i am fairly optimistic about life, about finding solutions.

but here .... wow it is hard to be optimistic about the environmental situation here.

as we've (that being jeremy, ben, and i) discussed, the culture and the solution are at odds. the culture (as far as i can tell) is reluctant to change. they seem to be quick to blame, but slow (or resistant) to acknowledging their (as an individual, organization, whatever) contribution to the problem. and when you combine that with a slow-paced culture that doesn't seem to want to change, then nothing does. and these environmental problems need attention now. there is not time to be reluctant or complacent with what is happening. it is probably already too late for many of these communities.

and god it just is ... awful to say that.

i spend a lot of time wondering what it is that i'm trying to do here. before i arrived, when i thought i'd be stepping into a set program, i thought that i would try to help out with education of the people as much as possible. i thought the infrastructure would already be there and that people would be interested and eager to try to fix the problem. or that they would be open to doing something about it.

and instead ... i feel like i am trying to change something that cannot be changed. that no matter what i do, i will leave and anything i have suggested or done will be forgotten or ignored. because there is all this talk, but to actually do ... i still cannot figure out how to "do" anything here.

jeremy, ben, and i have made a list of things "to do" while they are here. and i think we may be able to do them. but in the back of my head, i keep thinking, "well i've been trying to organize that meeting for two months now and it still hasn't happened" or "they told me we'd put buoys in six weeks ago and it still hasn't happened" or "we were supposed to start collecting data for the CRMP a month ago and every time i bring it up they say, 'oh yes, next week'" or ... the list just goes on.

how does one stop being a do-er? i am a do-er and the time i spend in idleness here drives me crazy. i've read nearly every book in english i can find between the two houses, i've finished a book of crosswords, i've drawn pictures of fish to work on learning how to identify. i go for walks, i go for bike rides, i go for swims, and still i seem to spend a lot of time sitting around, staring aimlessly as people walk by the store.

am i even making a difference here? people back in the states tell me that yes, just my being here makes a difference, but man oh man it doesn't feel like it at all.

i feel like i'm at such a loss of what to do. and not just me personally, but everyone working towards conservation and sustainability. do we just give up? do we only focus our efforts on places where the culture is open to change and ready to do put in the effort to do what is necessary? and how can you make decisions like that? how can you just give up? the answer, i think, is that you can't, but this week it is hard for me to grasp onto that optimism.

i had a bit of a break-down, caused by these personal struggles and the fact that things have been a bit odd with my host family this week, and found myself crying on the phone to brad and then to my parents, trying to work things out. and although i am still unhappy with these above thoughts, my pessimism, and struggle with boredom (seriously, when was the last time i was bored?), they make me feel better and give me the strength to keep doing this. i would not be able to survive here without their support and hearing their voices. or without the e-mails from people back in the states and the reassurance such reminders that there are people out there who care hold. so, (not to get all sappy), but thanks for reading this; it means more than i can say.