oh traveling

i guess that thinking that all four of my flights to buenos aires would go off with no problems was stupid. got to LAX just fine (previous) only to find out my flight to chicago was delayed. no huge worries, but then just before we landed, they announce that those of us going to buenos aires need to talk to a representative when we land because the flight is leaving, not at 8 pm tonight, but at 8 am tomorrow. huh? so i get off, look for a representative, and, in the madness that always ensues when one gets off a plane, i couldn't find anyone. so i headed off to the gate and there's no one there either.

so i start wandering around trying to find someone who will tell me what the hell is going on, and eventually end up at the baggage claim where they tell me my luggage will just be on the next plane, and no i can't get retrieve it. and still no info about why the flight is delayed, what's actually going on, nothing.

by this time ... i had been traveling for somewhere around 30 hours. i was tired, hungry, confused.

and in these sort of situations all i want to do is talk to my parents and have them tell me what to do.

but i don't have a mobile anymore. which makes calling rather difficult. no one could change my pesos, so i had to get money out and then buy something to get change to use a pay phone (who uses pay phones anymore?!?!) because no one would open their cash register until i bought something. and then the freakin' pay phones kept saying that my parents' number was invalid (what?!?!) and i wasted a good $3 trying to call them. the wireless in chicago uses a different wireless than that in los angeles, so i had to pay another $9 to get online so i could call my parents. who knew not having a mobile could be such a pain in the ass? thank god skype exists.

by the time i finally got a hold of them, i was a wreck.

thankfully i have the best parents in the world and they called american airlines and found out that it wasn't a weather delay but a mechanical one and that i should have been given a hotel, food vouchers, and so on. so where exactly were all these people to help me when i actually got off the plane? who knows ...

i finally tracked down someone (it was past 10 at this point) and they gave me a free room at the plaza. and i took TWO half hour burning hot showers (beginning the process of washing off the grime from the past six months. you just don't feel as clean with a cold bucket shower) and slept on the most comfortable bed in the entire world (only for about four hours, but still).

and my meal voucher bought me starbucks this morning.

so in the end, i suppose it's all ok. i'm losing a precious day in buenos aires, but ... now i'll be able to just go to sleep when i arrive and wake up refreshed the next day.

in transit

i am currently in los angeles.

oh my god i am so close to home.

i just signed onto instant messenger and i feel like i'm in another world. i'm online on my own computer. oh my goodness this is so weird.

you know you're back in civilization when the bathrooms have SEATS on the toilets and there's TOILET PAPER and you don't have to throw it in the trash can and then there are sinks and they actually work and hot water comes out and there's soap and EVERYTHING.

plus there are so many white people around i can't believe it. i've gotten so used to doing the "hello fellow white person" nod that to have so many around is really overwhelming. i'm also a good four shades darker than everyone else around here.

i think i've been gone too long ...

one 15 hour trip down, one more to go!

goodbye

i am leaving the philippines. incredible, really. after wishing so much for this day to come, now that it is actually here, i am quite sad to leave. somehow in the midst of all the challenges and frustrations, i actually fell in love with this place.

i feel strange about leaving. and i don't know how to express most of my thoughts or feelings about it. i am excited about going to south america and beginning something new, the next phase in my life, but sad at leaving this place that has in many ways become another home.

the past six months have been such a mixture of good and bad experiences. i don't know if i'll ever be able to convey how much they have meant to me. these little lists will suffice for now:

things i won't miss:
- "let's eat" and "eat more"
- that beautiful girl song
- roosters
- the general lack of responsibility and accountability
- no one asking how i am or how my day was
- instant coffee
- all the bugs and having to wear insect repellant all the time
- no seat on the toilets / toilet paper / flush / ability to wash hands after
- the smell of copras
- being leered at / the men in general

things i will miss:
- ate cecille's laugh
- high-fiving sally and mycel over inside jokes
- sitting behind bagyo on his trike and chatting
- coconuts
- walking out back in the morning to watch the sunrise
- the resthouse
- "ate (big sister) alexis, what is your name?"
- ken kissing my cheek and giving me a big hug when i come home
- being ate
- the dogs following me everywhere
- meeting new volunteers
- the deli / romblon / mango shakes
- the sanctuary
- the outline of bangkas against the water
- travel by boat
- foods: sarsa, kalamansi, wing beans, mungo beans, jackfruit, atis, mangos
- my multiple families
- the kids in sugod yelling at me every time i go by

momma

my mom was here visiting last week, and even though the weather was cloudy and miserable (no lying on the beach or island-hopping, sigh), we had a wonderful time. i was so grateful that she was able to come out (albeit sad that my dad couldn't come as well). it just means so much to be able to share all these experiences and places with people back home – i can write in here, post pictures, and talk about it, but ... it doesn't even begin to compare to having someone actually here. there is something much more intimate about having her meet all these people, see all these places, and maybe get an idea of what life here is actually like.

i hope she had as good a time being here as i did showing her around.

and she definitely got a good picture of what life here is like – planting mangroves, facing frustration with the agri office, awkwardness of meeting people, "what's your name?", "where are you going?", having buko, boat trips, big waves, hanging out at the deli, san miguel, having happy hour out in the rest house, trying halo-halo, lots of food, jeepneys, visiting schools, wandering through romblon, tricycles, mosquito nets, rain, parties, meeting volunteers, the cacophony of noise in the mornings, and so on.



[planting mangroves with scott]


[at the deli]


it was good for me to have her here. one of the problems for me is that i have come to actually care a great deal about this place, but that all the continuous frustrations and challenges were starting to really eat away at me. the week before she came i was in one of those "i just can't handle this anymore" and then the first morning she woke up here (she was sharing my room with me), to the chorus of roosters, barking dogs, squealing pigs, and just general noise in my house, she said, "think of it as a symphony" and we both lay there giggling.

romblon

i said goodbye to romblon on wednesday. it was ... quite sad. romblon has been my haven: a place to relax/escape; feel normal; eat "western food"; my connection to the outside world (oh internet).

it's such a lovely place, charming really.

and i realized that i've hardly posted any pictures of the actual town in here – and that's surprising, since i have spent heaps of time there, wandering around.

so, a tour of romblon:

the first stop is inevitably the deli





how much time have i spent here? hours and hours – sitting and chatting with the owner, david, an ex-pat from the UK. wonderful guy. there's also BREWED coffee ... and mango shakes. and pizza. oh my gosh i miss mexican food. anyways ...



[they just finished construction of this central plaza a few months ago]


marble is huge here. apparently romblon marble is just as good quality as italian marble, albeit with less color consistency. and it is everywhere – heaps of marble lying around, marble gravel, marble shops, marble factories, etc etc. when mom was here, david took us on a marble tour to the factories, and then a wander through the shops. since the rise of ceramics, the demand for marble tires has fallen dramatically, which has subsequently closed a lot of these factories to close. so there are just piles of tiles lying around. it's ... mind-boggling.







so the shops have turned mostly to selling figurines. a mortar and pestle costs about 80 pesos. that's two dollars. yes, for marble.

and then of course there is the market ... all sorts of weird vegetables and fruits lying around – wonderful colors.





[shoe of choice in the philippines]


and just in case you forgot the philippines was a spanish colony, there's fort san andres and the catholic church.







i will miss romblon so much.



[view from above]

i look back to the tree and the wild

sibuyan island, another island within romblon province, is heralded in the lonely planet as the "galapagos of the philippines". separated from any other land mass since the last ice age, a collection of endemic plants, insects, mammals, and reptiles have evolved there. it also has the famous mt. guiting-guiting, 3000-something meters rising basically straight out of the sea. most of the island is still natural forest/jungle and preserved as a national park. i've been wanting to visit it since i got here, but never really managed to get it together until two weekends ago when dee, scott, adam, bec, and i headed over there for the weekend.

since we were limited by time, we decided to just stay in the main port town and visit mt. guiting-guiting national park and go for a long hike on saturday (well that was my plan). due to a bizarre set of events, we ended up staying at an ex-pats beach house – a gorgeous house complete with kitchen, couches, cable tv, and really comfortable beds. these are such unique comforts in my life now – and it makes me laugh at myself at how excited i get over them. if nothing else, i have certainly learned to appreciate a lot of the comforts we take for granted in the states.

anyways, our first afternoon the clouds lifted to give us a view of mt. guiting-guiting. gorgeous.





it makes the backpacker in me regret that i don't have more days left here – it's a day up and a day down to get to the top, so i didn't have enough time, but eesh it was calling to me.

so even though i knew i wouldn't be able to get to the top, i still figured i'd be able to do a long day hike on saturday and dee and adam decided to come with me. we went to the visitor's center to be met with ... a lot of empty buildings and a "ranger" who informed us that we must have a guide and there are no day hikes and there was an entry fee to the park as well even though we wouldn't actually be able to really do anything. i don't know why i expected something different, especially after traveling around this country and constantly facing a general lack of tourist-friendly things, but i was really quite disappointed. the ranger man could see, i think, our disappointment and frustration with the situation and told us we could wander over to a river and then around the complex but not go past the "barbed fence".

so off we go, to a rather boring river and then down a path. and we never saw this barbed fence, so we just kept walking. and after a while we realized that we were probably on the trail up the mountain that we weren't technically "allowed" to be on without a guide (what is it with this country and guides?! the trail was nothing challenging). but, we hadn't seen the supposed fence, so on we went anyways.

and it was cool to see some real jungle. most forest around here has been cut down and replaced with coconut trees. and this jungle is thick - we couldn't see a thing outside our immediate vicinity which meant no views, but still, cool forest. and one of the most interesting bits is seeing all the "house plants" we have in the states growing naturally.





we didn't see any of the weird mammals or reptiles that live around here – but we did see this crazy worm:





bright neon blue! how bizarre.

so it wasn't the day hike i had envisioned, since we figured that we couldn't wander too far up the trail since we probably weren't supposed to be there at all. when we got back we made a quick get-away to avoid being questioned about where we'd been for the past three hours. haha. whatever, we never saw the barbed fence.

a day in the life

the life of alexis and scott in the marine sanctuary:



[spearing COTs]




[our signs (that were then stolen)]


[mangroves with their tags]


[trash]


of course i can't take pictures of myself, but if there were photos of me, i'd either be sitting in a mangrove tree doing observations, wading around in waist deep water, writing away in my notebook, planting mangroves, walking around with a transect line, or any of the above.

the state i am in

the feeling of accomplishment (or lack thereof) has been a struggle for me right from my first few days here. almost immediately i realized that little of what i do here will have any tangible results. it's just the way the country works and the way which my work here plays out. there isn't anything tangible about it. that's hard for me; i really thrive off of finishing something.

it's been a bit of a constant internal battle.

a lot of my frustration in being here has centered around the lack of people to be action-oriented (see previous entry). so many times i have heard, "yes that sounds like a good idea; we should do that" and i reply, "yes! let's! when?" and they say, "yes! we should!" and it's ... it makes you want to tear your hair out. i had this wonderful vision that in my last few weeks here we would have a seminar about monitoring and how to do it and then go out and monitor the sanctuary.

because the sanctuary has been surveyed twice: 2003 and 2005. it's 2008. and it's only been surveyed for coral and a general fish census. twice. ever. in it's five years of existence. as a scientist, this makes me want to cry. not only should coral and fish be surveyed at LEAST twice a year, they should also be monitoring mangroves and seagrasses. how can you possibly tell if something is working if you don't monitor it? forget that they don't keep track of fish catch at all, which would, you know, probably be a good indication of how quickly the stocks around here are falling and how the catch per unit effort is quickly falling (i can tell this just from looking at the fish on my plate and listening to the guy who catches it talk. that's one guy, one family, not the whole municipality). but geeze this is a marine sanctuary! the very reason it exists is to allow coral to recover and fish to grow up – how can you possibly tell these if you're not actually checking up on how it's functioning every once in a while? and this includes coral, seagrasses, mangroves, and fish!

ok so the vision of my great seminar about monitoring just fell apart. forget it. six months isn't enough time to get anyone to get their act together enough to do this.

so, i figure, i'll just do it myself.

and then the weather has sucked and blah blah blah excuse excuse excuse. BUT this week, at the start of summer (supposedly begins here on february 1?) the weather has dramatically improved and the winds have changed and the sanctuary is once again snorkel-able and visibility is good.

so last week i did a mangrove assessment. and let me tell you – it felt freakin' wonderful to be out there wading around in water waist deep (whoops i miscalculated the tides a bit), counting trees, using transects, estimating height, percent crown cover. and then i came home, entered the data in excel, and poof! out came real tangible data about the condition of the mangroves (it's inbetween fair and good, by the by. better than i expected to be honest).

what can i say? i don't seem to be cut out for all this community organization stuff. i was doing real science and out there investigating the real situation and it was the best i've felt about any work i've done since i've been here.

and then this week scott and i have spent in the water – first doing a giant clam survey and then a coral one. and once again it feels like magic. it's a finished product.

what i hope, really hope, is that people here will see my poster with all the graphs and information on it and be like, "huh maybe that's important" and then go out and do it. it's not hard – there's nothing horribly technical about it and can honestly be done by anyone – it's just that someone needs to actually do it.

maybe it's selfish of me to just go ahead and do these things without the help of the community. but i feel like i've spent five months watching people not give a shit about anything that i've been doing in the sanctuary (ok there are a few exceptions as always, but the overwhelming majority). i feel possessive of the place. the agriculture office does nothing – they only use the hall when they need the space or it's convenient. and the local community just needs a strong local leader to get them to get it all together ... and they don't. and i'm transient, white, female, and i can't get them moving.

it has felt good this week.

so the struggle continues. i am ready to leave this country – sometimes i feel like i can no longer handle it, like i can no longer just laugh about how freakin' ridiculous this place is. but then i wonder how can i leave behind these problems and this sanctuary that has really become a large part of me; it has taught me a lot. and yet in two weeks i will leave this place and its problems will continue but will no longer be a part of my life. it feels weird.

sun sun sun here it comes

i've written briefly about carlos, the american guy over in romblon who has become a good friend since i've been back. he's here on holiday and actually lives in new york, which makes for amusing conversation. his family owns a house on romblon island, and last weekend he invited scott and i to stay there and said he'd take us on a bit of a tour and to a few beaches. romblon supposedly has really nice beaches, but i usually just stay in town and worry about internet, so haven't visited any (well we did visit one on australia day, but not the best ones).

it was a great weekend. and carlos' house is ... really nice. scott and i stayed in the guesthouse:





yes. the guesthouse. my room was probably bigger than my entire house back in long beach. and i got a few hot showers and let me tell you, there is nothing in the world like a hot shower. i think that brings me grand total for the past six months to fourteen. glorious. i'm going to stand in the hottest shower ever when i get home for a good four hours. wash off all the permanent grime and dirt that has likely accumulated on my body in the past six months. and then soak in disinfectant and kill anything weird that i've probably acquired in the past six months. and soak all of my belongs in disinfectant and get rid of all the mold growing all over everything.

anyways (how's that for a tangent?), it was lovely. our first day we visited bon-bon and tianbian beach, which are really close to each other (that's the same little islland in both pictures).



[bon-bon]


[tianbian. yes, same little islet in the background as at bon-bon]


so unbelievably pristine, with white sand and clear water. and absolutely no other people. what a wonderful thing to lie on the beach with a good book and occasionally wander down to the water to "cool off" a bit. ahhh what a life. the first night we had dinner at his place and had a bottle of real red wine and real chocolates and good music and conversation and it was just fabulous. what a wonderful break from long beach – it felt like momentarily stepping into another world (and sort-of was in a lot of ways).

the second day, we walked from his place over to a secret beach which was ... gorgeous. absolutely beautiful. and so secluded. we bbq-ed fish on the beach and ate off banana leaves and with our hands in "traditional filipino style". haha, i love it.





wonderfully relaxing weekend.

becoming a filipina

i don 't really realize how tan i've become until new volunteers arrive:



[scott, denise, me, carly planting mangroves]


dona touches my skin and says, "ate alexis. you are coming a filipina. now just dye your hair black!" haha, how ridiculous i would look with black hair :)