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.
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