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.