daniel bowman simon

Zigzags

Where to start? If only I’d stuck to a schedule, I’d have posted something last week and not have so much to report now. Regardless, I’ll try to keep it short. I know that whoever you are, you are a busy person. I don’t mean to steal away so much of your time with my lengthy posts.

Despite a self-imposed limit of one scuba diving adventure every two months, I couldn’t help a trip to Apo Island. Oh yes, the diving issue. Diving is significantly cheaper here than in the USA. Still, it’s not nearly cheap enough for most of the locals to afford it. (Although I heard today on the radio that some dive shops are introducing much cheaper local prices.) So I feel a little guilty spending $18-$25 on a 40-70 minute dive. Eighteen bucks can feed a whole lot of people, provide a number of vaccinations, etc, etc. I’m sure I’m not the first Peace Corps volunteer to feel this way, but if this is gonna be my guilty pleasure here, so be it. It sure beats some of the other available vices in this island nation.

Apo established a marine sanctuary at least a dozen years ago, and has begun to reap the benefits, as the fish are able to get older and reproduce. Therefore there are more fish in the sea. And the corals flourish when they are not victims of dynamite blasts and illegal nets.

So there I was again, diving, floating in underwater space, checking out all the fish and marine life I know so little about. (For a more colorful and sometimes technical report, visit www.tommyschultz.com. Tommy captured Apo beautifully in all his underwater camera glory. -- Sorry the link is dead. I seem to be having basic HTML trouble.)

My friend Jason, a British volunteer I met at the deaf camp, joined us, as he is a very experienced diver. I was delighted he and my Peace Corps friends interacted so well, if only using gestures and a pad of yellow legal paper. I hope to dive again with him before he completes his service in August.

Mario is the barangay captain as well as the divemaster. He is very forward thinking and is determined to restore perfect health to Apo and ensure it remains the paradise it deserves to be for all future generations. Right now he is focusing his energy on assuring success in family planning projects and figuring out what to do with the increasing waste on the island.

I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to be a volunteer in Apo. People already understand the issues and are as pro-active as pro-active can be. But then I got to thinking that half the challenge is lost in a site like that. It will be my challenge to get the folks at my site to focus on environmentally friendly, long-term thinking. I am still not at site, due to election issues, but I can’t wait to get started on these challenges. (And I’m sure I can escape to Apo from time to time to brainstorm ideas for my site. They understand that one of their roles as a pro-active island is to encourage and aid others in becoming more like Apo. We’re all one ocean!)

We had to leave Apo during a Signal 1 (low-level) typhoon. The waves were big, but Mario assured us they’d done the crossing with children aboard in much more torrential conditions. So, wearing my life vest, I felt a little nervous, but more so I found it thrilling. The local ladies going to the mainland to buy bread didn’t seem so thrilled. They were hadlok kaayo (very scared.) I’d do it all over again. Nothing like a storm.
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The other day I was on the slow boat from Cebu to Tubigon (2 hours, 80 pesos in 2nd class) and I saw the darnedest thing. An old wrinkly guy, decked out in tattoos was smoking a cigarette down to the butt. His shorts were sagging low, and I noticed he was wearing Hanes Her Way underwear. I went to get my camera, but when I returned, he was gone. So instead I took some pictures of my shipmates fascinated by the lewd new Britney Spears video. (Except for the lady in the purple. She was flirting with one of the rookie seamen.)
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Papa just told me that if he wins the lottery, he will buy many hectares of land to plant mangoes. He has 12 new mango trees growing at the moment, and he claims if you have a hundred, you will become a (peso) millionaire come harvest time. But about the lottery, I invoked the New York State Lottery scripture “You can’t win if you don’t play.”
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I acknowledge, the flow of this post is not so great. If anyone has any comments on how to get my thought process more linear and reader-friendly (or comments about anything else,) just click on the comment link and let me know. Of course, if you know me, you know I think in zigzags.

Hold On, Wait A Minute.

No update this week. But please come back next Tuesday or Wednesday and I'll do my best to regale you with stories of mangoes, coral reefs, and fabric-dyeing trainings from another planet. By the way, I got a bad haircut, and it's my own fault.

The Big Unbusy.

There are five Dunkin’ Donuts in this city this week. Last week there were none. The catchy and true slogan is Pasalubong ng bayan or “This country’s official gift to bring when you visit somebody.” Really? To this I say: wait for Krispy Kreme. Then you really won’t know what hitcha.

Nobody has complained, but I do feel I shortchanged fiesta in my last post. Sure, they eat a lot of pig, but it provides a great opportunity for friends and relatives to see each other. The mood is certainly festive.

And at least none of the pig goes to waste, cuz for those who can’t attend, bring-house, as doggie-bags are affectionately referred to, is “messengered” to them.

To coincide with fiesta, nature delivered papa a whole bunch of banana bunches. I couldn’t understand why they cut down the whole tree. But apparently I forgot what I learned in elementary school. Banana trees aren’t really trees, and once the plant bears bananas, it’s pretty much done for. So it’s chopped to allow the room for the little plants coming up all around it.

Sometimes the resourcefulness of Filipinos makes up for the horrific number of plastic bags this country goes through on a daily basis. In the case of the banana tree, the leaves are used to wrap sweet rice. It tastes and smells better that way.

Papa is very opposed to eating sour mangoes. He says when he consumes them, “it’s as if my face looks like you are watching a horror movie.”

I’ve been pretty unbusy lately, as The Philippines pretty much shut down for elections. (The miniature incumbent, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo seems to be the winner in the presidential election, but the counting is not official and might be contested by the sideburned Filipino movie legend FPJ, the closest of her four challengers.

Plus it’s been raining here every day, which helps keep me unbusy. If the Filipinos are afraid of anything more than raw vegetables, it would have to be the water that falling from the sky.

But unbusy is ok. I’ve read a bunch, started the compost pit in the backyard --using banana leaves and pig poop-- and listened to some very staticky shortwave radio.

I can’t stand it. On the surprisingly non-judgmental Voice of America, I picked up George Bush making a “statement” about his continued faith in his Secretary of Defense, when he probably should have been announcing Donald’s Dismissal. And hen he had the nerve to turn it into a stump speech. In case you missed it, the gist of it was “yeah, the soldiers who misbehaved are jerks, but let’s not forget that nobody argues that the world is not a better place now that Saddam isn’t able to torture his prisoners.”

I’ve never scratched so many mosquito bites in my life.

The Mayonnaise Aisle

I guess my life is becoming normal here, I don’t have all that much to report. Which doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying myself and learning more every day. Fiesta came and went. Basically it’s a big celebration where people stop by the house to eat freshly slaughtered pig (and caribou.) I discovered the city carnival where I rode a rickety Ferris Wheel for about seventeen cents, and watched a motorcyclist zoom sideways around an even ricketier structure (with a rooster tied up in the middle, for effect.) It’s really indescribable, but I must say never in my life have a I seen old ladies quite so petrified. I feared for my life a little too. Well worth the 15 peso admission. ($1=56 PHP)

The election is coming, May 10. Maybe CNN will cover it. One of the presidential candidates is a action hero here. One of his parents is American, I think. We’ve been told to stay out of politics. But the campaigning is relentless. It seems that every candidate has stolen an infantile pop hit for their theme song. So when the actual infantile pop song is not on the radio, the campaign ad is on. The message seems to be “vote for me cuz my name kinda sounds like the chorus of this song.” In case somebody misses the radio ads, funny old converted Japanese farm pickup trucks drive around town blaring these songs through second-rate speakers. I hope the drivers are getting paid handsomely to have a single song stuck in their head for days on end. (It’s even worse than working at The Gap, where the same CD repeats itself for a month. No, I never worked at The Gap, I just got that info second hand.)

Oh, and sometimes they play old Weird Al songs on the radio. And at the grocery there’s an entire aisle dedicated to mayonnaise products; not a single one of which is fat free. I’m often confused in The Philippines. There are more out of school youth than god could ever have imagined, yet there’s enough mayo to give everyone on the planet a free cardiac arrest...

Open Letter To Students of Mr. D

Here’s a pretty self-explanatory letter:

Hello Chesterfield Day School students who are in Mr. Dittrich's classes:

Mabuhay!

I am Daniel Bowman Simon, a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in The Philippines. Maybe Mr. D. told you I'd be writing. I was a student of Mr. Dittrich back before most or all of you were born. In other words, the early 90s. Back then, CDS only had one branch, in Chesterfield. (Believe it or not, I've never even been to St. Albans. See, after 6th grade my dad got a new job and my family moved to New York.) Mr. D. was my 5th and 6th grade Social Studies and Science teacher. I was not always the best-behaved student, but I learned a lot from Mr. D.

So when I found out about the World Wise Schools program, I asked Mr. D. if he would match me up with all of you ladies and gentlemen. He kindly agreed.

Peace Corps volunteers go to foreign countries for three main reasons:

1. To promote Peace (especially in times like these)
2. To let people in other countries get to know Americans better (mostly they just know what they've seen in American movies, and as you all know, the movies don't usually reflect reality. Believe it or not, some people think what they see in the movies is real.)
3. To let Americans get to know people of other countries better, and tell Americans back in America about these other countries and people.

So, anyway, I know you're about to go on summer vacation, but I wanted to introduce myself now.

I hope you'll all introduce yourselves, either now or when the next school year begins.) Let now what you already know about The Philippines, and what you'd like to learn about it. Let me know if you'd like to be pen pals with Filipino kids. It will have to be using pen and paper though, most Filipino kids don't have computers or email. And let me know you want me to send certain things such as Filipino money or empty junk food wrappers.

As time goes on, I hope you ask a lot of questions, and I'll do my best to give you answers. Also, I'll have questions for you, about CDS (like: Does Mr. D still have a beard?) and questions about what is happening in America while I'm gone. (Like if OutKast is still popular?) Two years is a long time.

Take care,
Your new Friend,
Daniel

P.S. I have a website where I tell stories about The Philippines and sometimes post pictures. If you want to visit, the URL is just my name: www.danielbowmansimon.com. I'll try not to use too many big words. And give Dr. Barb a hug for me, OK?

P.P.S. One more important thing, if you promise not to laugh at my haircut. Here's a photo of the 6th grade class of 1992, at our D.A.R.E. graduation. I am the one in the front row, second from the right, in between Glenn Hill to Brad Hoffmeister. Next to Glenn is Jennifer Notestine. I kinda had a crush on her in 6th grade, but I don't think she liked my haircut.