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.