perm. site

Hello all its been a little over a week since I did my last posting I believe.  I have a lot to catch up on so I will try my best to share all the details of the last 10 or so days.  So, we had our supervisors conference last week in Bacolod City which is on the next island south of mine.  We departed on Monday morning, we took about an hour jeep ride, not bus, but jeep we had to cram 16 trainees into this jeep which made for a horrible experience going to the port.  We arrived at the port at around 8 AM for our "jet boat/fast craft" to go to Bacolod City.  As per usual here in the P.I. we left about 1.5 hours late and it was stifling hot.  Since, we were supposed to meet our supervisors that same day I wore some nice jeans and a dress shirt.  I thought the boat would have some A/C, think again... We were enclosed in this cement oven with MINIMAL air blowing out of the "vents."  I got up to go to the bathroom 1/2 through our voyage and the back of my button down shirt was completely wet.  Americans here are already stereotyped as stinky and sweaty and I did not help quell this notion.  We finally arrived in Bacolod city after about a 1 hour boat ride from Iloilo harbor.  We then were picked up by the hotel shuttle and taken to Sugarland Hotel.  This was by far the nicest place I have stayed in since my arrival in the P.I.  The A/C was cranking at a high level the rooms had zero roaches or insects to speak of.  There was even hot showers and flushing toilets!  Not to mention the food was unbelievable..pancakes, omelets, eggs for breakfast.  Acutual cuts of real meal, all the meat we get here is 60% grizzle and 20 % bone so you need to be extra careful about how you bite into the meat you are liable to crack a molar.  We had shots, met our supervisors, sat through boring (albeit necessary) lectures on safety and security.  It was the first time since Initinal Orientation that we were able to see most of the other CRM volunteers who are doing their training South of us.  There are three clusters of CRM trainees the Luzon group(northern most) Panay group (me, Central) and Dumagete (South).  SO we were all reunited except the Luzon group which was kind of a bummer.  In true Filippino style we went out drank copious amounts of Tanduay rhum and sang videoke...great times.  My supervisor seems to be a good guy who does not speak much English, but really cares about CRM. 

We left for my perminate site on Thursday morning.  We took that "jet boat" back to Iloilo harbor then a banka (pumpboat) across the Guimaras straight to MacArthurs Wharf to my Municicpalty of Buenavista on the island of Guimiaras.  We arrived at the Wharf and we walked to my supervisors car and of course it didn't start so we sat there for about 2 hours trying to start this thing.  I had to get out and push start it and I was meeting the mayor later that day so again I was dressed to impress.  Jeans and a dress shirt and they were soaked in sweat within 30 mins.  The car never started and we called for some guy to pick us up and he dropped us off at the municipal hall.  From there I met the Mayor who is a M.D. he said he was going to try to get us some scuba equipment which was great news.  I then went back to the office where I met some of my co workers, they all seem nice.  I then went to meet my host family who is really nice, but are 7th day Adventist which is an Evangelical Christian religion.  So, needless to say we do not see eye to eye on many things.  But, moving on... I met my counterpart (the guy I will be spending my day to day with) and he is friggen awesome!  He is about 30 years old and speaks really good English.  We spent the entire day on Friday roaming around my municipality in his mother in law car because our car was still dead.  He took me around to beaches, where the marine protected area will be, where they want to reforest mangroves, and just gave me a great tour.  Friday evening I went to church with my host family.  Saturday I did some more roaming around and my counterpart introduced me to some of his friends in the 'hood.  They are all really nice guys and we spend the latter half of the afternoon cooking SI SIG.  We all went to the market to buy the SI SIG and ingredients.  Si sig is pig face for all of you in the states, I watched the pork vendor carve this pigs head like he was cutting bread.  We bought 2 kilos along with eggs, garlic, peppers, clams, and shrimp for side dishes.  We first boiled the pig face and then grilled it then the chef of the house diced it up into little pieces and put it on a sizzling platter along with garlic, peppers, and topped it off with a  fried egg.  Think like hash browns, but instead of potatoes it was pig face.  Trust me it was AWESOME and would eat again in a heartbeat. I returned to my site on Sunday afternoon and was happy to return.  I did miss my host family and the friendly people of Banate.  I definitely have developed a close relationship with my current host family and am not looking forward to leaving.  My neighboors are burning tons of trash I can barley breath so I'm cutting this short.  Post again soon
Dasong lang-
Robert 

SI SIG!