another week in Banate & brownouts

Maayong adlaw!
Another week down here at my training site here in Banate and two more weeks left until I leave for my permanent site on November 6th!  It was another ordinary week for me, with the only highlights being that our community project has started to finally come together.  As I have said in my previous posts our cluster is working on an MRF (Materials Recovery Facility).  So, we have been meeting with the head engineer at our municipality to see if we can work together.  Since, we only have 2,000 pesos as a budget for our project we have been trying to get the municipality to at least match our contribution.  But, since elections are happening on Monday they could not free up any funds for our project.  We drew out a "blueprint" of the MRF and got the ok from the mayor and head engineer late last week.  So, on Monday we went out to find a carpenter who actually was at my Host Family's house last weekend doing some paining, unbeknownst to me.  He speaks absolutely no English so it was rather difficult to get our message across of what we wanted him to build.  We showed him our sketch and he went out and purchased some materials (bamboo, nipa, and some sheet metal).  The MRF is 9 feet wide, 4 feet deep and 8 feet tall with the nipa roof sloping at a downward angle.  There is room for 8 rice sacks to collect 4 reusable materials that the community can bring.  It is located at Barrangay Hall, for those of you reading and don't understand what a Barrangay is I'll try and explain again.....The Municipality or city that I'm living in is Banate and it is made up of over 10 Barrangays or "neighborhoods."  Our cluster is living in Bularan Barrangay and every Barrangay has a hall where they conduct meetings and the like.  So, we built our MRF inside the walls of the hall which is sort of a central point for our Barrangay.  Next week we will be having an Educational Activities like trash segregation, information on backyard composting, the reasons why recycling is a positive activity for communities, etc.  I will be posting pictures of our activities and our MRF next week so everyone can see what I am fellow trainees will  be leaving behind here in Banate.  Our ultimate goal is for them to improve on the MRF when we leave and they get more money freed up.  Then finally set some sort of way to pay back the people who bring in the scrap or pool the money for projects for the greater good of the community.

I don't think I have touched on this subject and if I have it hasn't been in depth.   We have brownouts here in Banate on a regular basis which means NO electricity.  I know some of you out there think that because I'm in the PeaceCorps that I shouldn't be complaining.  Like my host mom says, "brownouts..its a part of life for the Filipino."  But, I am going to do some venting here..... I don't mind  the brownouts that are even every day because they usually only last a few hours.  But, on Wednesday and Thursday we had back to back brownouts that lasted from 8 AM to past 5 PM.  Our classrooms are cement houses that trap in heat and when you have six large Americans in a small room sitting in Filipino chairs with no electric fan it becomes very uncomfortable.  Let alone trying to pay attention and comprehend a foreign language, your brain tends to shut down quite fast.  I will be purchasing a sweat rag tomorrow when I go to the city because at this rate my white t-shirts life span has been cut in half.  Looking forward to implementing the MRF into the community next week and my next post will include some pictures.
Dason lang-
RObert