Wednesday, September 15, 2010

weekend updates

My room



RJ and his cakes


So some updates and pictures from this past weekend.  Our CRM group (12 of us) went out on a banka to do seagrass and mangrove assessments on Saturday morning.  Our survey sites were much nicer than last week, not too much trash and pretty decent visibility.  For the seagrass assessments we had a grid with 16 squares on it.  We randomly drop the "quadrat" and then dive down to see what % is covered with seagrass.  Our results average to about 18 % coverage which is pretty poor.  Healthy coverage is over 60%.  But enough of the boring technical stuff that most of the people reading this do not care about..

We arrived back home around 11 A.M. and I had to go straight to a birthday party for R.J.  He is the nephew of my host mother.  If there is one thing I've learned about birthday parties here in the Philippines it is that they are a BIG DEAL.  The two weekends I have been in Banate I have attended a birthday party each weekend.  I will be going to another one this Saturday, so that makes three weekends in a row.  My host family went to Iiloilo on Thursday to buy cake, gifts, and the other necessary materials.  There was massive amounts of food, drinks, and of course videoke.  7 P.C.T's were in attendance and we were looked upon to provide the majority of entertainment (i.e. singing and dancing).  I think I did about 6 videoke songs ranging from the Beach Boys, Micheal Jackson, and Hall and Oates.  It was alot of fun, but I had to leave a little early to go home and take a nap because we were up really early doing assessments.

Food spread at party, NAMIT GID!
Sundays here are pretty standard.  My host mom and brother go to church from 8-9 in the morning.  When they come back we all eat breakfast and then pretty much lounge around all day.  I do most of my language studying on Sundays where I can ask my fellow host sisters for help on the assignments I do not understand.  Everyone I live with speaks some English so communication is not really an issue.  Also, Sundays are spent doing laundry too.  I think it took me about 3-4 hours from the soaking of the clothes to the washing then rinsing and hanging.  It started to rain in the late afternoon so my clothes did not fully dry until Monday afternoon.  This meant wearing jeans on Monday because I had no other clean shorts to wear to class.  I think I have adjusted pretty good to the weather here, but definitely not enough to wear jeans throughout the day.  I have started negotiations with Lynn to help or have her do my laundry because she would be able to do it in 1/2 the time and get my clothes twice as clean.  So, we will see where that progresses as the week goes on.. 












Lynn and I doing my laundry
Host sister (Lynn), me, and our helper (Freezy)

Tapos na...

Rob

3 comments:

  1. Bert,

    So glad you are having such a good experience.. how was the Balut? You've got some balls, I don't know that I could go there haha. Looking at the pictures, reading your stories, I am so stoked for you man.. it makes me wish I had interviewed with you like we discussed that night in newport beach with our dinosaur tshirts on haha.

    I had minor surgery today at Hoag. Finally had that gnarly growth removed from the back side of my head. I'm rockin 10 staples at the moment instead of sutures and feel like Frankenstein.

    Anyway buddy be safe out there, keep posting they make good reads.

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  2. Robert,

    Well, you seem to be adjusting pretty well. I like the photos. Man, you thought washing clothes was a pain back home. I want to hear about your Balut experience! I've seen that on travel shows about bizarre foods and Balut is freaky! I've got to give you credit for trying it because I don't think I could get it down. Sprinkle a little salt on it and it's just like eating a hard boiled egg, right? It looked nasty!

    You must be pretty popular in town with all the birthday parties. Bears are 1-0, but I wouldn't get your hopes up for them. They almost, and should have, lost their home opener to DETROIT!!! White Sox season is officially down the tubes. And the Cubs, well, you know that story.

    Keep the posts and photos coming. Very interesting. Take care of yourself and watch out for over-developed Balut!

    Charlie

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  3. Good to hear from you Bob! Like to see you have a tall fan for that tall heat! Keep those folks entertained I would love to see you doing Hall and Oats with the glove attached for Mike Jackson. Keep working at the laundry it will get easier and quicker with more experience. That spread for the bash looked filled with growl! I will check with Wells Fargo next week. Colin had a goal today they beat LMU in sudden death in the Nor Cal tourney. Zac wedding Saturday and uncle Steve landed a real nice job up in Deerfield starts Monday. We love you Bob

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