daniel bowman simon

Herb Hunting

Today I spent the morning hunting for medicinal herbs with papa. I had no idea exactly what we were trying to capture, but we made it home in time for lunch with some nit-nit, good for joint and muscle pain. Papa plans to learn how to grow his own. Then I spend another hour in the afternoon helping him peel the skin off peanuts. He explained to me he would have become a seaman had he not forgotten a piece of paperwork when he went to Manila 20 years ago to find work. And he explained “homesick versus the dollar” to me. There are so many overseas workers who barely know their spouses and children because they are elsewhere trying to make ends meet. Or buy an SUV.

And then there was yesterday. Peace Corps decided to give us the day off, kind of. We were taken to the Bohol Museum, a former home of the 4th president of The Philippines. ‘Twas a hodgepodge museum. Stuffed birds, old maps, foreign currency, General Macarthur’s cane, and an old toilet with a please don’t sit here sign were on display. But the strangest thing was a certificate of honor presented to a man who refused to denounce his allegiance to the United States during the Japanese occupation of The Philippines during WWII. For this loyalty, he was beheaded. I just can’t conceive of pledging loyalty to an ousted colonist with my life on the line.

From the museum we drove 18 kilometers to Mag-Aso Falls, a pristine example of the beauty of unpolluted waters. Jumping off the waterfall provided quite a rush. Twice. I have pictures to prove it, but please just take my word for it until next week. (As per the request of my sister, I’ll post photos more often as time permits.)

Tomorrow twelve of us trainees will head north fifty-some kilometers to Tubigon where we’ll spend three days helping the community identify their resources and prioritize improvements they can make to their community. I am particularly interested, because this will likely be the town where I'll end up spending two years. So yes, I plan to shave and wear a nice shirt. First impressions are clutch here.

Composting Egglants

People will do anything here for an education, including selling their last water buffalo. There’s a big hit on the radio sung by a young female and it goes something like this: “I want to be in university…where I can truly open my mind.” (And in Japan, every girl knew where superstar Utada Hikaru went to college.) Does anyone know if Britney Spears or any of our MTV starlets has gone to college? And if they did, could you imagine them singing about it?

One of the newer philosophies of Peace Corps the integration of various volunteer sectors. I’m in the biz sector, but most of the volunteers in my training are here to tackle specific environmental concerns, such as water/sanitation (i.e. latrines and waste treatment) and coastal resources (i.e. dynamite fishing and beach erosion.) We all have skills and experience we can share with others, regardless of our differing disciplines. It excites me tremendously to have been placed with a group so dedicated to making this earth a place where all living things can carry on happy and healthy until the next Big Bang.

Today we had two integrated activities. We began a coastal cleanup and mangrove planting at 7:30am. I gathered lots of broken glass, rusty scrap metal, and an empty blister pack that once housed birth control pills (a rarity in this country where any unnatural form of “family planning” is heavily discouraged.) The students from Taloto Elementary dropped by to help out as well. I went through my flashcards with them. They impressed me much with their knowledge of almost all the English translations. I amused them by repeating “tawong tambok” which can mean either “fat person” or “large eggplant.” (I also go through my flashcards with the armed security guard at the farm every morning.)

After returning to the farm, we had a sweet spaghetti (tomato sauce with sugar) merienda, and a lecture on the scientific process of composting. After lunch, we built five different forms of compost heaps. We will watch these heaps over the coming days and weeks to better understand the outcomes of these systems.

Composting is quite essential in a country that is already overpopulated, whose population shows no signs of slowing (save for the blister pack on the beach), and where there is a lack of controlled dumpsites. Apparently households produce well over half the waste in The Philippines. Reaching out to communities, teaching them how easy and important it is to compost, and hopefully exposing them to opportunities to sell their compost (or use it for their own gardening and farming) will have a remarkable effect on sanitation and environmental sustainability.

I’ve seen composting in action, and even tried to get a composting program going at University of the Pacific (where plenty of food is bussed to the dishwashing station untouched due to eyes bigger than stomachs) but until now I’d never been exposed to the process. Now I’m on my way to being able to teach others to how and why composting is the way to be.

Maayong Hapon

Yes, it is indeed now Sunday afternoon in The Philippines, although I won’t be able to post this until Monday at earliest.

I am so many things at once right now. I’m a student, a guest, an explorer, on my way to becoming a volunteer. I am living two or three lives at once. Let me explain.

At 8am Cebuano lessons begin. We are expected to reach an intermediate level by end of PST (Pre-Service Training) which is mid-April. The class is held in a wall-free hut, taught by Eliezer, a recent college graduate. Justin and I are the students. If history has any say, learning a new language will be an uphill battle for me. You’d think being immersed in the language would help, but it ain't exactly immersion yet. For one thing, the majority of my day is spent with Americans. Only 14 out of 41 of us study Cebuano, and it’s not as if we 14 speak Cebuano amongst ourselves. Furthermore, although Cebuano is the native tongue of the locals, most people I’ve encountered speak pretty darn good English, and they’re eager to use it. And even if I felt like sitting in front of the TV to soak up Cebuano, tough luck. There’s only one Cebuano soap opera, and it’s on while I’m at the farm. The majority of TV is in Tagalog, with some random English phrases thrown in. In most countries, advertising is in the local tongue, so at least you get a language lesson out of the man trying to sell you stuff you don’t need, but here a good chunk of clear skin commercials are in English. (Isn’t it obvious I have a host sister?)

Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on for so long about language, but to paraphrase Mr. Nelson Mandela, if you talk to people in a language they understand, you speak to their mind, if you speak their native language you speak to their hearts. I’m here to help as much as I can, and it’s frustrating to not be able to beg “Please teach me how to flush the toilet.”

We’ve also begun technical training where we learn how to do our work better. Current volunteers will come tell us about their experiences thus far. Ambet is the BAYD tech trainer. He is an amazing person. In his early life, he became a street child in Manila. He imagined bluer skies, and educated himself enough to get off the streets. Then he went back to the streets, where he taught spontaneous lessons. If the kids were interested enough, he offered to show up again the next day. But he was only reaching a tiny portion of the population who are denied formal education, and he wanted to make a bigger dent. He harbored decidedly anti-American sentiments at the time he was tricked into working for the Peace Corps. (A friend only told him it was a Youth Development project.) Now, a few years later, he’s totally gung-ho, and teaching us about asset-based community development.

Essentially, it’s accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. We will not search for problems, rather accept challenges. We will not assume we know what the people need. (Tom, the associate director told of his experience in Africa, where he decided the people needed airtight storage for their grain. He set himself to work, digging holes and sealing them with cow dung. Word got around, and more and more people requested the holes. One day he asked a neighbor if the people liked the program. He replied “well, at least they find it amusing that someone is so eager to spend his days covered in cow dung.”)

Rather, we’ll help the community identify their local resources as well as dreams and aspirations. When they get the job done, they’ll feel they did it all themselves. Which will be the truth. I’m merely a facilitator. Of course this is easier said than done. There will be a lot of people expecting me to solve their problems for them, and it will be tough to not get swallowed up in trying.

My host family is cool. Mama and Papa both have siblings numbering in the double digits. They met when they were janitors together at their college. Papa was brave enough to “court” her for an entire year before she showed any interest. Long story short, they only had three children themselves. The youngest, Riza, is 21, and still lives at home. She is an special education major and a waitress at the pizza shop. Mama is a teacher for deaf high school students, and sometimes she hires them to come do yardwork. Papa had aspirations to be a seaman, but after schooling, decided he didn’t want to be away from his family. He became a peanut vendor. From 4-10pm seven days a week, he mans his stand outside McDonalds--right where the jeepneys stop, selling sugar-coated and garlic fried nuts to ever-snacking Filipinos. The other day I brought him some business from the Peace Corps. His English is a bit rusty since he doesn’t have much occasion to use it, but it’s quite poetic. The other day I asked him if he sees a lot on the street. Instead of telling me he ‘saw a fight’ he explained sadly that he ‘witnessed a rumble’ the day before. Mama told me Riza’s dream is to get a job paying enough to free papa from the consequences of breathing muffler grime day in, day out.

Yesterday my dirty old, sturdy old Nalgene bottle fell out of the jeepney I was riding in (jeepneys vary by locale, the ones I ride are converted pick up trucks with two bench seats facing one another.) I didn’t see it happen, but someone told the driver to stop, and I ran back fifty feet or so, while everyone waited and stared. It was embarrassing.

Love and geckos.

Excuses, Excuses

I’ll attribute my lack of updating to a few factors. 1) Positively busy. Peace Corps is training our butts off…in a hot climate. We start at 8, go ‘til 5, with lunch and a few sugar breaks thrown in. 2) lack of internet. We train on a farm outside the city, so I’d have to invest 8 pesos on a roundtrip on the jeepney. As I mentioned, exhaust fumes in The Philippines are stifling. If you want to play along at home, get as sweaty as you can and then cover your face in dirt. Would you use the Internet after that? So far it’s my biggest pet peeve I dislike about The Philippines. The other thing I don’t appreciate is the roasted pigs that have appeared and will appear at important celebrations. How can people just yank an ear off a dead animal and chew it down? Mike Tyson anyone? 3) Inoculations. They give us as many jabs as possible. The forearm tenderness makes it uncomfortable to type. But at least I won’t get Japanese encephalitis.

I know this communiqué ain’t terribly informative, but I figured if anyone is worried, the worrying can stop. Maybe on Sunday I’ll find time and initiative to fill you in on my homestay family and their pets as well as how I got lost going to the farm, and why I’m trying hard to avoid Coca-Cola.

I will never eat at Franks.

Here are a couple of contrasting shots of Los Baños, my home for the past four days. The people are very friendly, but both water and air are heavily polluted. (Environmental concerns are an area where many PCVs are helping.) Jeepneys, the cheapest and most prevelent mode of public transport, modeled after US military jeeps, are built in the Philippines, but run off old Japanese diesel engines. Whatever emissions laws that exist don't seem to be enforced, but it would be neat if I and other volunteers could investigate alternative fuels (such as biodiesel or recylced veggie oil) for these exhaust spewers. Imagine being in a city pioneering such a project. The whole country would be greatful. Nobody wants to live their lives coughing, wheezing, sneezing, and soot-covered.

Today we found out our volunteer locations and assignments for the next two years. (Not all PCVs find out this information so soon after arrival. But we have to begin specific language training and in any event, our sites were pretty much determined before we arrived. No point in delaying when everyone is eager to find out.) Coincidently, tomorow morning we all fly to the island of Bohol for ten weeks of pre-service training (PST) which is where I will be volunteering for the next two years.

I've been assigned to work with the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) in Bohol. For my "anchor project" I will work with women weavers who are trying to market their wares. Last semester, I did a domestic microloan feasibility study for Katalysis Partnership (an organization facilitating microloans to Central American women) which is why Stella, my Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD), placed me in this position. Also, I think the DTI requested an MBA, and in the business group, I'm the closest one to completion, having completed my coursework. Sounds good to me. I'm sure I'll learn more details after I read through the monsterous packet.

I also hope to work with youth and on environmental/eco-tourism projects. This office has had foreign volunteers before, and my only fear is that some of the things they'll ask or expect me to do will be beyond my capabilities. (That's where self-taught on-the-job training comes in!) My initial 3-month homestay may be with the vice-mayor. I hope I'm not too spoiled.

The Manila Experience.

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.

What's Going On?

Arrived to Manila 11PM Saturday night. Met by Peace Corps country director and cohorts. They bestowed a very warm welcome, including flower necklaces (blue for guys, pink for the ladies). Took a bus ride about an hour to Los Baños...we are staying at a hotel with a pool...so a midnight dip was in store for all of us. Then to bed. Sleep was much needed.

Early to rise on this scorcher of a February Sunday morning, lots of roosters and jeepney engines causing quite a stir outside our window. A walk down Lopez Street with my midwestern pal Chad (he was in search of a haircut) brought 4 Non Blondes to our ears. There's a body of water nearby and we spotted a hut built out in the water where folks were doing Tai Chi...we didn't know if it would be rude to intrude...so to the basketball court, where snoop dogg was snizzlin' on the loudspeakers. the kids asked us to play...maybe later, i'm waiting for someone to remind me how to play before i embarass myself on the court.

Official training starts in a few hours. So far we've been in the lap of luxury, which is fine for a little while, but we're here to help and join into everyday Philippine life. (Photos forthcoming when i figure out how to hook up the camera to the computer. I know it's ironic, in one line i'm waiting for everyday life to begin, and next line digital cameras. Bear with me!)