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.