daniel bowman simon

The Road To Nowhere.

So yeah, as I was saying, I live on the highway. It’s the kind of highway that is not dangerous for kids to cross by themselves. During rush hour – which is a misnomer cuz nobody in the Philippines is ever in a rush – a motorcycle passes every 30 seconds. A truck comes by every five minutes. In my neck of the palm trees, the road is paved nicely. In other parts it is not. I suspect that as in America, politics is the deciding factor in smoothness of the roads.

The highway is not much of a problem for me, although the exhaust it delivers means I must constantly dust off my belongings. I am fortunate to be able to take a cold 1-gallon water bucket bath every morning and evening. At night is when the trouble starts. I don’t understand motorcycles in the least, nor am I permitted to ride them as per Peace Corps policy. However, there are different levels of engine power. The super-charged ones come out at night. Whenever I think I’m about to fall asleep, obnoxious thunder passes by my window. And if the motorcyclists are all taking the night off, I can always count on the dogs, HOWL HOWL HOWLING regardless of the moon phase. Last night I was still rolling in bed, staring at my very yellow walls and ceiling, when the roosters began their morning prayers.

The people I live with are remarkable. Nang Juaning is 73 years young. She tends the counter at Sanny Pharmacy, which she started decades ago. I imagine it was the first place in town to get medicine. When business is slow, as it usually is, she plays 3-card solitaire at her desk. (By the way, Sanny Pharmacy is connected to the house, and I’ve started helping customers as best as I can.)

She has a helper named Regine to help with laundry, cooking and cleaning. Regine is 20, and was never able to afford schooling past elementary school. (Elementary school is free, beyond that you gotta pay.) Anyway, Nang Juaning decided it was time for Regine to continue her education and is now sponsoring Regine’s high school tuition. (There’s no middle school either. Straight from elementary to HS.) My sister Nicole will be happy to know that Regine always eats her meals with us. She sits right next to Nang Juaning. I have yet to convince either of them that I want to help clear the table and clean the dishes.

Nang Juaning has been blessed with six kids, a daughter plus five sons. (There is a push to the big cities. Go where the jobs are. It’s a worldwide trend. Just look at Manhattan. People didn’t originally move there for high rent and indie rock.) As a result of the preceding parenthetical reference, Sanny (the namesake of Sanny Pharmacy) is the only kid who still lives in Inabanga.

Sanny happened to be born a month premature back in 1959, and has suffered some physical handicaps. But he is not one to let a little handicap interfere with enjoying life. He minds the famous Sanny Store, a sari-sari store his wife owns, across the street, or rather across the highway. Walking is a difficulty, so Sanny rides his custom tricycle back and forth from our house to his store. Every now and then Sanny offers me a glass of tuba, the local homebrewed coconut wine. And if any of you come visit, Sanny will surely pour you some tuba and challenge you to a mean game of chess.

Next time I’ll tackle the work I’m supposed to be doing, contaminated groundwater, and the Coca-Cola tax.

Have a nice weekend everybody. It’s gonna be hot!

Shminternet.

The other day a girl called Allison signed my guestbook. “OhymyGod! You did visit inabanga? I hate to be a stalker-person, but yeah, I know Uncle Blair! And the mayor of inabanga is my aunt Josephine (ROygie) and I'm willing to bet that you visited Princess Artcraft (well, at least it used to be called that..now its something like Inabanga Loomweaver's Assoc.) The people who own it are my grandparents. Wow...this is really weird.” Yeah, I’ve met the mayor, who’s a really nice, jolly lady. And I spent a few nights at her grandparents’ house. I wondered how she’d found me. So I sent her an email.

Turns out quite simple. Last week, I’d emailed Sassy Lawyer, a Filipina blogger outside manila to tell her about my site. (I discovered her site through Lane’s site---another Peace Corps volunteer. Sassy Lawyer dug it and posted this . So, according to Allison, a.k.a. Princess, “when I realized you were in Bohol, I started reading your entries, and when I saw Inabanga, I was very surprised. Anyway, I've only been here for 5 years (since I was 15)...my grandparentsraised me so I grew up in Inabanga.”

I cc’d Blair on the email to Princess, and the next thing I knew, my phone beeped. A text message from Nimfa at DTI. “We r now clusterd round da pc reading accounts of ur xperiences. U r now da most wanted person at dti. Nene said u beter wear an armor suit wen u come hir :)” I was confused. So I inquired. “U told da whole world bout us making chika round da clock n da pandemonium wen it strikes 5:01” Oh, so that’s what happens when your co-workers read the blog. I’ll have to show them the Mother Jones article that claims 71% of Americans consider themselves clock-watchers too. (Sorry, no link, it’s a print article in the May/June 2004 issue.)

Also, got a comment from Melissa a.k.a. pinayexpat, a Filipina blogger in Germany. Checked out her blog for a second, saw she mentioned cia_b. cia_b was my awesome “buddy” when I interned at bolt around the turn of the century. (I host this site on DreamHost cuz that’s where she hosts hers.) cia_b was one of the select few Filipinos I had before coming over here. I can almost count them on one hand.

There was Renato Geslani back at West Hempstead High School. The kid was crazy. He drove an old tan station wagon and listened to music ahead of the curve. Someone in a bar on Long Island told me he moved out to San Francisco, but I forgot to look him up when I spent 2003 in Stockton. In college, I was in constant awe of Solito Reyes’ mp3 collection. (I guess the pinoys abroad took all the good music and left us with Mandy Moore and Neil Diamond.) Sol says he’s coming to visit his 800+ relatives here for the first time ever, and maybe he’ll make time to visit me. (It’s VERY expensive to visit The Philippines if you have relatives here. The plane ticket is the least of it. EVERYONE expects a present.) Then there was Michelle Reyes, not related to Solito. She was the class president, I think. I definitely voted for her for something. I’m sure there were other Filipino classmates, but I was oblivious. On Semester at Sea, almost all the crew were Filipino. I remember none of their names, but they always seemed jolly, they’d sit out on the deck at sunset strumming acoustic guitars. I’m hoping I run into one of them here. That would be rad.

Since I’m carrying on about the internet, and since my dad asked me and it’s father’s day, I’ll explain my internet connection. I rely on a 2001-era Apple iBook. I compose offline, then go online to upload posts. I use Entourage to access my hotmail account. Microsoft monopoly on a Mac. Who’da thunk it. Oh, but the important part is the connection. I buy these prepaid internet cards giving me 5 hours for 100 pesos (about thirty cents an hour.) Then I connect to Bohol Online at 33.6 kbps. The speed is reminiscent of my pre-pubescent Prodigy connection.

All this equidistant from the “provincial highway” and the pigpen…in wafting range of both. I promise next time to explain the highway thing. It’s not what you think it is.

Fake Plastic Hat.

We had our swearing-in way back on April 12th, but I just moved to site yesterday. I won’t get into all the reasons for the delay, but I’m happy to finally live in Inabanga, site of my project for the next two years.

Of course it was bittersweet to leave the Ramos family, my caring hosts since Februay 8th. (I was only supposed to stay for 8 weeks.) They gave me a surprise despidita dinner on Tuesday night. Mama cooked my favorite: chickpeas. Papa even came home from his peanut stand early. They know and I know I'll be back often; I left my mosquito net there. Be it meetings, birthdays, fiestas…I have no excuse. It’s only ninety minutes or two hours away, depending on how stealthy a navigator the driver is.

I was escorted to site by Nimfa (our DTI Provincial Caretaker who affectionately calls me my son, my son) Blair (my mustached comedian "counterpart" who wears those funny Nike SHOX sneakers his brother sent him from Florida) and Stella (from Peace Corps, who travels all over The Philippines taking care of us.) Roy drove us in Rusty Maroon, the DTI 1982 Corolla.

We arrived at the Municipal Hall by 11am, and waited about an hour for the mayor to arrive for the meeting where we would talk about my plan for the next two years. An hour isn’t a bad wait, especially when you’re waiting for someone who has an entire municipality to run. The wait allowed us to chika-chika a bit. I also started browsing through two and a half months of New Yorker issues that had accumulated at the post office. (Abu-Ghraib scoop and all.)

When the mayor arrived we ate and discussed. If I were to write my résumé in advance, it would probably say “Oversaw construction of an environmentally-friendly vegetable dyeing facility, hired a bunch of eager local people to work there, and then co-managed the whole shebang and sheboozle for a couple years.” It would also say “Helped the public school install of computers donated by the Japanese government. Familiarized teachers and students with the computers so the machines would not suffer the same fate of neglect suffered by so much technology bestowed upon the 3rd world by their first world benefactors.” Finally it would say “Motivated Inabanga to win the Clean and Green Municipality award for all The Philippines.”

If I can cut and paste any of this into my resume come 2006, I’ll eat my fake plastic hat. For now, it’s time to get dinner cookin.

The Anti-Tan.

I accidentally used my host sister's skin-whitening soap. We'll see what happens.

We had a problem at my house for the past few weeks. The neighbor's chickens kept coming over to dig for termites in our yard. I observed they always entered through decorative holes in the gate. The rest of the yard is enclosed by cement. I explained my observation to papa. He put up a slat of bamboo, and the chickens are gone. I hope the termites don't eat the bamboo, or we’ll have to find another poultry blockade.

What else? Oh, besides the chicken neighbors, a new family just moved in across the narrow mud road. Their favorite activity is definitely trash-burning. When the wind blows north, my bedroom gets a good dose of burning plastic odor and smoke. I cleaned under my bamboo bed the other day. The amount of ash was ridiculous.

Burning trash is not a good thing. Call me selfish, but I especially don't like when it has a direct effect on my lungs and me. I like to take a nap sometimes, but if I close the window, it's too hot. What’s a man to do? I expressed my dissatisfaction to Mama. I discovered she’s not happy with our neighbors' pastime either. But, she says "If you don’t like something the neighbor will do, and you will confront them, they will call you 'mean' or 'strict.'" There must be a way.

Moonlight kayaking was amazing. The night was somewhat cloudy, but the nearly-full moon made a spectacular entry over the bay. It was orange and looked something like a sunset. We sat in our boats and waited for the tide to rise. When we were sufficiently lifted we began paddling. I lasted about 20 minutes before I capsized. Not bad for a rookie.

Twenty of us slept on the beach (three or five kilometers from our starting point.) Then we woke before dawn to head back. The kayak I paddled in the morning had a hole. I capsized many times. I was the last person back. I forgot my sunglasses, water, and sunscreen. I can't wait until next time. But I gotta teach my paddle-mad friends a thing or two about Leave No Trace camping.

I was on the phone with my family the other day and someone mentioned Reagan died. I guess my first political memory is being carpooled to school and learning that Walter Mondale lost the election. It was a definitely a bad Wednesday at Washington University Nursery School. I probably wet my pants. Here in the Philippines, Imelda Marcos laid a wreath at the U.S. Embassy last Sunday. She and Ferdinand were good friends of the Reagans. (I must give props to Nancy for her dedication to Ronnie during the past decade, and express my sympathy to her. I also realize how much a boost Alzheimer's research has been given due to Ronnie’s illness.)

Fat Plastic Chairs.

Tony Tan Caktiong, the founder and principal owner of Jollibee, was awarded the 2004 Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year this week. Jollibee is the largest fast-food chain in the Philippines, (with branches in far flung nations such as California and Viet Nam.) In other news, a report issued last week by the Asian Food Information Center, claims more and more children in Asia are having trouble maintaining an appropriate body weight.

I failed to mention plastic seating devices in my last post. If the photo of Britney is still there, please notice the plastic benches upon which the TV-captives are seated. Plastic seating is as ubiquitous as ubiquitous can be. Somebody told me he saw the president of the Philippines sitting on a plastic chair. I’ve met a few people who have relatives working in Manila at plastic chair factories. Personally, my rear end finds plastic uncomfortable, but it will just have to get used to it. After all, when I signed up for Peace Corps, I figured it might not be the most comfortable two years for my T-hiney.

I also meant to mention a troubling statistic in my last post. According to Lonely Planet:
“An incredible 80% of tropical marine fish sold worldwide come from the Philippines. A massive diversity of fish, combined with cheap labour and export-friendly air-freight costs, means a veritable rainbow of species pour out of Philippine waters and into aquariums around the world each year.

Apart from the obvious damage to the local fish populations and ecosystems, many of these fish die from severe liver damage within days of being transported. Such damage is common in marine creatures poisoned by sodium cyanide – a chemical first introduced in The Philippines in the 1960s to stun fish and now widely used as an easy way to catch large numbers of fish for both domestic and foreign markets.”

So if you have a pretty fish tank, please keep this in mind and ask questions next time you go to the pet shop. Perhaps educate the pet-shop owner. Also, if you know people who collect these fish, like perhaps your local dentist, please share this information with him or her after he or she sands your teeth.

Yesterday, as I was floating in the Bohol Sea, I thought about my future! Maybe I will consider opening a dive shop somewhere. I’ve only been on eight dives in my life, but I enjoy it sufficiently to think I might be interested in making diving a larger part of my life. I love teaching and love the ocean and the fish. There are countless opportunities to interact with the locals. It seems like the perfect opportunity to teach environmental awareness and responsibility. (Dear Mom, Don’t worry yet. Scuba exists in your own backyard.)

I will try my hand at kayaking this weekend with PROCESS, a local environmental NGO. I hope to drag along papa, who used to be a fisherman, but who has not been in a small boat in over a decade. Next week I’ll be quite busy traveling around Bohol to participate in product development meetings with various rural cooperatives. So it might be a while before I post again.