A lot has been going on in the Philippines. We started off Monday morning with a Super Bowl breakfast, but fortunately training began right before the halftime debacle.
Tuesday was another early rise, as we tried to beat traffic into Manila. The highway billboards are even more immense than those we're treated to in America. Filipinos are definitely consumers. The latest trend is skin-whitening creme. Here it's thought lighter skin is sexier. They can't understand why we want to get a tan. I have no idea whether these cremes are safe, and they probably don't either. TV requires obedience. (I remember a Nat'l Geo special about skin...there's a similar trend in Kenya, and the treatments there come with health trouble.)
Anyhow, we beat the highway traffic, but our driver got lost, so we were treated to a tour of some destitute streetlife. My discomfort was intensified by my very comfortable seat on an air-conditioned bus. We arrived late to The Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency (PNVSCA) but the director commended us for so quickly adjusting to Filipino tardiness. The PNVSCA is an incredible agency most developing countries don't have. They coordinate all government-related volunteer work in the country, screening both requests for volunteer projects and volunteers themselves. I was particularly impressed the director had obviously read though all 41 of our CVs and "aspiration statements." The PNVSCA staff sang the Phillipine national anthem, a beatiful song I hope to learn, and then they invited us to sing ours. We mucked it up pretty good. Then the first merienda of the day...a sugary snack which will make me fat if I keep playing along...this particular merienda consisted of cake, papaya, and root beer.
We left there to visit the US Embassy, right along Manila Bay. Security was tight, mirrors searched the bottom of the bus and we all went through metal detectors. After lunch (about an hour after merienda) we were seated in the ballroom and had the privledge of hearing a lot of informative, sometimes humorous talks. The ambassador has been sent to work on the Iraq self-governance project, so the Chargé d'Affaires, David Letterman-lookalike Joseph Mussomeli welcomed us. He has a love/hate relationship with the Peace Corps because after he dropped out of Rutgers, he applied to and was rejected. He dubbed us anarchists.
The media analyst told us to be weary of the sensationalist media here, and was asked what the most reputable paper here is. He recommends The New York Times. The USAID Mission Director Michael Yates outlined many neat programs they are tackling here, some in conjunction with Peace Corps. Because of the terrorist threats in Mindinao, the budget here has not been cut. (Iraq, the "war on terrorism" and AIDS are the priorities for USAID right now. Many countries with other serious problems have experienced large budget cuts.)
One speaker quoted former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who explained "To make the Peace Corps an instrument of foreign policy would be to rob it of its contribution to foreign policy." Our visit was dubbed a courtesy call, and it seemed pretty obvious that our contact with the embassy and offical government business would be non-existent. I feel very comfortable here so far, and feel like my work will be much more seen as a human being helping out than seen as government assistance.
On the same page, it was a pleasant suprise to find that freedom of speech is excercised at the embassy. I asked one of the speakers if he speaks to George much. (I won't mention him by name...freedom of speech obviously has it's limits with this administration.) He remarked "You mean the White House occupant? I shook his hand when he came here to visit. Once was more than enough." 'Nuf said.
Posted by dbs at February 4, 2004 04:44 PM