I have some extra time this week so I'm throwing up an extra blog post for all my fans out there. Need to ask a question to everyone who reads this blog first though... If you have a skype account please leave your account name on the comments. I just bought a webcam when I was in the city last weekend, so I would like to be able to see and talk to you all. But back to interesting things going on here....not much as happen since my last post on Saturday/Sunday. My cluster has a current Peace Corp Volunteer that is spending the week with us. He is stationed up in Northern Luzon (the island where Manila is) so it took him 12 hours on a bus to get to Manila. Then he took a 1 hour flight to Iloilo for those of you who still dont understand Iloilo is the BIG city next to my site. Then my site is about a 1 to 1.5 hour bus ride from Iloilo. The Philippines is not that big, but if your site is rural then traveling makes for a bitch. Anyway he is a great resource for questions because he has been here for two years already and will be extending his service for six months to see some of his projects through. He speaks the language fluently and told us to not rush with the language, that it will come in due time. Tips from people who have been through the "ringer" are always very welcomed.
Monday was U.N. day so our local high school put on a parade during the A.M. Our language class went out to watch the parade, which was cool. Every time there is a parade, party or "pisto" there is a beauty competition. So, the end was brought up by MISS U.N. 2009 and in the car in front of her were the candidates for this year. Filipinos love these pageants, parades, competitions and the like. During the afternoon we of course had our tech training and Elliott presented on the Bantay Dagat (coastguard) who protect MPA's (marine protected areas) if your site has one. Ben presented on fisheries management, both presentations will be very important in my day to day routine at my final site. I am going to be setting up and maintaining an MPA and the Bantay Dagat is responsible for protecting it. I also will doing alot of fisheries management, doing a fish census when I get there in November.....Comparing the results to the data that they currently have and see how the fish are trending...
Tuesday we had GRAMMER day which is always very tiring. We learned how to use the affix PA which designates a command. We went through which is called "actor, object, and beneficiary" sentences all in the past, present, and future. We were given example sentences and then we had to write our own and present them to the class. Grammer is definitely the most challenging part of Ilonggo because the verb always is the first word in the sentence, the structure is completely different from English. Tuesday afternoon we got more shots and had a lecture from the PCMO (peace corp medical officers) on nutrition and drinking. Drinking here in the Philippines is a way of life. I have walked to my language class NUMEROUS times at 745AM and there are fishermen in barkadas' (drinking circles) trying to get me to take shots of rum. The alcohol is extremely cheap here and is quite plentiful, many volunteers develop drinking problems during their service.... The vast majority of locals do not comprehend the concept of alcoholism, so it can make for a deadly combination. However, drinking with co workers and government officials is a great way to bond and develop personal bonds/friendships which go a long way in getting things done. If you don't develop relationships with your co workers and other officials who are put in charge then you will never see tangible results. The Irish think they have a legendary drinking reputation, I challenge any Irishmen to come to the Philippines...
I will be presenting to my fellow trainees on Thursday on Solid Waste Management. So, I have been doing quite a bit of research and using our current peace corp volunteer for advice. He spend the first year he was at his site planning and implementing SWM programs and had tremendous results. Tomorrow we got more language training and then we will be going out to interview the local fishermen on what types of gear they use, how much their average catch is, and other fishery related questions. I can't believe I wrote this much because nothing much as happened here in the last three days. The heat is still completely crazy and the humidity is never under 90%, but some things never change.
Dason lang
Rob
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
My new Haircut
Well I am now back at my training site (Banate). I returned home on Sunday afternoon after about a 2 hour trip from Buenavista, Guimaras (my permenate site). This week was filled with lots of activities for language and also CRM.
For our language class we are starting to get out of the classroom and interact with the people on the streets. In my opinion it is a superior way of learning because we are forced to speak Ilonggo. It also is always nice to get out of the classroom and outside anyway. On Monday our assignment was to go to the local high school and just talk to students. So our cluster, six of us walked over to the high school and sat down and tried to have a conversations. Filipinos are very shy, especially the girls. When I would try to talk to one and ask them their name they would just smile and put their hand over their mouth. I had to keep repeating myself until they would finally answer. Once they start to talk though it is hard to get them to stop. There was a fundraiser going on at the school to raise money for their audio visual room. They had "weddings" for 5 pesos. As per usual, all eyes were on us being the only Americans in the entire school. A girl approached us and asked if we would get "married." So, Lindsay and I went up for fun and we were given rings and I had to put on a jacket that went half way up my wrist. Lindsay didn't even attempt to put the wedding dress on. After the fundraiser was over we walked around the school some more and played kick kick with the kids. The game involves a .25 sentablos coin and they wrap it around a piece of plastic and it is held together by a rubber band. You kick the coin in a circle and try not to let it hit the ground. Think hackey sack, but instead of a ball you use this coin. On Wednesday we were all assigned to go to different place in the town and interview people. I drew the Pali Pali which is the fish wholesale market. I had to ask a guy who worked there what kind of fish they sold, where they came from, etc. I was speaking to him and the next thing I know there is a crowd of 30 people standing around me watching me interview this guy. I have been here for about two months and I still haven't gotten used to the attention that I draw. People constantly stare at me, adults and children both. I'm pretty sure in Filipino culture staring is not considered rude because they don't even try to hid it. People literally turn their entire heads as I or a group of fellow volunteers walk by.
On the CRM front we had our big presentation to the mayor and other government officals on Thursday. We have been compiling tons of data: soci economic surveys, coral reef, seagrass, mangrove assessments, fish census, etc in order to implement a community project at the end of October. So Sam and myself were assigned to present the fish census that we conducted about a month ago. We had a pretty good turnout, about 30 people came listen to our presentation. It went ok... We found that 77% of the population here think that trash is a major issue, but when we asked what kind of community project they wanted us to do they all said alternative livelihood projects. Example of an alternative livelihood project would be making a purse or bag out of trash and then trying to sell it at the local market. Since we are supposed to do something C.R.M related we were very hesitant in agreeing. We put in lots of work and all of our data pointed to Solid Waste Management. So, we ended our meeting with no community project that we could all agree on. We had another meeting last night and we finally convinced them that we would help set up a MRF (materials recovery facility). So, the next few weeks we will be trying to find a site, holding community meetings, and teaching people about our MRF. We will be trying to get the community to segregate their glass, aluminum, scrap metal, etc and bring it to the MRF. When a family gathers enough items to bring to the MRF it will be weighed and logged in a book. We need to coordinate with a local company to establish a regular pick up for the MRF. Once the items are picked up from the MRF they will be given pesos depending on how much "scrap" there is. They will consult the log book and money will be distributed to each family based on the amount of scrap they brought to the MRF that week or month.
On Thursday evening after our presentation, all the male volunteers decided to shave mo hawks. I was the last one on the bandwagon because my hair is not exactly ideal. But I included a picture below to show everyone the hair that I am now sporting.
Ok that is all for now, new post to come next week I think.
Dason lang-
Robert
For our language class we are starting to get out of the classroom and interact with the people on the streets. In my opinion it is a superior way of learning because we are forced to speak Ilonggo. It also is always nice to get out of the classroom and outside anyway. On Monday our assignment was to go to the local high school and just talk to students. So our cluster, six of us walked over to the high school and sat down and tried to have a conversations. Filipinos are very shy, especially the girls. When I would try to talk to one and ask them their name they would just smile and put their hand over their mouth. I had to keep repeating myself until they would finally answer. Once they start to talk though it is hard to get them to stop. There was a fundraiser going on at the school to raise money for their audio visual room. They had "weddings" for 5 pesos. As per usual, all eyes were on us being the only Americans in the entire school. A girl approached us and asked if we would get "married." So, Lindsay and I went up for fun and we were given rings and I had to put on a jacket that went half way up my wrist. Lindsay didn't even attempt to put the wedding dress on. After the fundraiser was over we walked around the school some more and played kick kick with the kids. The game involves a .25 sentablos coin and they wrap it around a piece of plastic and it is held together by a rubber band. You kick the coin in a circle and try not to let it hit the ground. Think hackey sack, but instead of a ball you use this coin. On Wednesday we were all assigned to go to different place in the town and interview people. I drew the Pali Pali which is the fish wholesale market. I had to ask a guy who worked there what kind of fish they sold, where they came from, etc. I was speaking to him and the next thing I know there is a crowd of 30 people standing around me watching me interview this guy. I have been here for about two months and I still haven't gotten used to the attention that I draw. People constantly stare at me, adults and children both. I'm pretty sure in Filipino culture staring is not considered rude because they don't even try to hid it. People literally turn their entire heads as I or a group of fellow volunteers walk by.
On the CRM front we had our big presentation to the mayor and other government officals on Thursday. We have been compiling tons of data: soci economic surveys, coral reef, seagrass, mangrove assessments, fish census, etc in order to implement a community project at the end of October. So Sam and myself were assigned to present the fish census that we conducted about a month ago. We had a pretty good turnout, about 30 people came listen to our presentation. It went ok... We found that 77% of the population here think that trash is a major issue, but when we asked what kind of community project they wanted us to do they all said alternative livelihood projects. Example of an alternative livelihood project would be making a purse or bag out of trash and then trying to sell it at the local market. Since we are supposed to do something C.R.M related we were very hesitant in agreeing. We put in lots of work and all of our data pointed to Solid Waste Management. So, we ended our meeting with no community project that we could all agree on. We had another meeting last night and we finally convinced them that we would help set up a MRF (materials recovery facility). So, the next few weeks we will be trying to find a site, holding community meetings, and teaching people about our MRF. We will be trying to get the community to segregate their glass, aluminum, scrap metal, etc and bring it to the MRF. When a family gathers enough items to bring to the MRF it will be weighed and logged in a book. We need to coordinate with a local company to establish a regular pick up for the MRF. Once the items are picked up from the MRF they will be given pesos depending on how much "scrap" there is. They will consult the log book and money will be distributed to each family based on the amount of scrap they brought to the MRF that week or month.
On Thursday evening after our presentation, all the male volunteers decided to shave mo hawks. I was the last one on the bandwagon because my hair is not exactly ideal. But I included a picture below to show everyone the hair that I am now sporting.
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| NEW HAIRCUT |
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| Sam and I presenting our fish census. |
Dason lang-
Robert
Monday, October 4, 2010
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
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
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| SI SIG! |
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
updates
Lets see here quite a lot to update since my last post. On Saturday my neighbor across the street who is also hosting another volunteer (Dan) had a birthday party. It was the the third consecutive weekend that I have attended a birthday party. I am sad to say that my streak might end this upcoming weekend, but another volunteers host brother is having a b day party. So, I will remain optimistic to keep my streak going. I have lots of pictures from the party, but the Internet connection is so slow here that it just takes way to long. It took me over an hour for my last post (balut) because of all the pictures I uploaded. We made a trip to the city (Iioilo) in the morning to attend the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center. It was basically a place where they raised fish, sea cucumbers, seahorses, etc to either study and gather research or to release back into the wild. It was pretty insightful, but the other trainees and I had a long night drinking so we were anxious for it to end. After the tour we went to the mall to get some supplies. I bought some floss, soap, deodorant, etc. And after we all did our shopping we sat down for pizza and beer which was great although it costed an arm and an leg (400 pesos per person). You can buy a whole chicken here in my town for 90 pesos. We arrived back home in Banate in the late afternoon and I took a nap before the party started. I was woken up to the videoke machine blaring out lyrics to "yeah" by little jon. So, I quickly showered and made my way across the street. Like always...there was a ton of food and I wasn't really hungry because I had gorged myself on pizza at the mall. But, Filipino culture dictates you not only eat at these parties, but go back for seconds and thirds. There was lasagna, spaghetti (always present because it dictates long life), beef ribs, fish, and some tasty desserts. After we all finished eating the videoke started around 730 745PM. Amie (birthday women) turned 28 and she is really cool I get along with her very well. I had joked about her getting us a bottle of Tanduay (rum) and I guess she had one of the helpers go fetch one because there was a bottle waiting for us outside. The men drank the rum while the women drank beer and we all sung videoke all night. Some longer than others I think I called it quits around 1145pm, it was a blast.
Sunday was uneventful just kind of sat around and hung out with the host family. Went to the local resort with some other volunteers and went swimming in their pool. Monday and Tuesday were just regular days as far as language goes. For technical we spent Monday and Tuesday making a soci economic survey for Wednesday.
So today is Wednesday for all of you in America....I have just returned from interviewing 5 households with Dan along with the help of our teacher for translation/facilitation purposes. It was very interesting to see the different answers from the various people we interviewed. We had questions such as: Do you think trash is a problem in your community? Where do you get your drinking water? Has the potable drinking water improved or declined in the last 10 years? Please rate condition of your beach, reef, mangroves, seagrass... The people who we interviewed who lived within 500 yards of the beach all had opinions on coast and the people who lived over 1000 yards from the beach (still really close) had no clue or idea what was going on with reefs or seagrass. We will be analyzing all the data this weekend to put into our coastal environmental profile which is the culmination of all the assessments and surveys we have done. We will leave a copy behind for the mayor/municipal hall so they can identify their assets/resources, where they need improvement. It is a blueprint of their city and how their citizens perceive problems and resources. And if another volunteer is stationed here in the future it will be a valuable resource for them to consult. I hope my final site has some sort of a coastal environmental profile or else I will be repeating this again...not to the same degree tho. My hands hurt now so I will be signing off. I will try to post some pictures on my next post.
Dason lang...
Robert
Sunday was uneventful just kind of sat around and hung out with the host family. Went to the local resort with some other volunteers and went swimming in their pool. Monday and Tuesday were just regular days as far as language goes. For technical we spent Monday and Tuesday making a soci economic survey for Wednesday.
So today is Wednesday for all of you in America....I have just returned from interviewing 5 households with Dan along with the help of our teacher for translation/facilitation purposes. It was very interesting to see the different answers from the various people we interviewed. We had questions such as: Do you think trash is a problem in your community? Where do you get your drinking water? Has the potable drinking water improved or declined in the last 10 years? Please rate condition of your beach, reef, mangroves, seagrass... The people who we interviewed who lived within 500 yards of the beach all had opinions on coast and the people who lived over 1000 yards from the beach (still really close) had no clue or idea what was going on with reefs or seagrass. We will be analyzing all the data this weekend to put into our coastal environmental profile which is the culmination of all the assessments and surveys we have done. We will leave a copy behind for the mayor/municipal hall so they can identify their assets/resources, where they need improvement. It is a blueprint of their city and how their citizens perceive problems and resources. And if another volunteer is stationed here in the future it will be a valuable resource for them to consult. I hope my final site has some sort of a coastal environmental profile or else I will be repeating this again...not to the same degree tho. My hands hurt now so I will be signing off. I will try to post some pictures on my next post.
Dason lang...
Robert
Saturday, September 18, 2010
BALUT experience
I had an interesting last couple of days here in the Philippines. On a previous post I said I was going to eat Balut for dinner... My host brother decided to save it for dessert and after dinner we went outside ready to conquer this duck embryo. Unfortunately, the egg was not yet mature enough so we were not able to eat it. I was not that disappointed, but I had hyped myself up so much it was kind of a let down. The topic was put on the back burner for a couple days and I kind of forgot about it. But, on Thursday my brother went to the city to run some errands. I am getting ahead of myself tho.. Thursday for lunch I had dinuguan- which is the innards of the pig in a soup with the broth being the blood of the pig. The smell was much worse than the taste, I actually did not mind it and would be happy to eat it again. After dinner on Thursday my brother informed me that he had picked up two balut eggs in the city and we would eat them immediately. So, again we began the process again... we brought out salt, vinegar, and of course I had a tall glass of tubig to help wash it down the hatch. The process is very tedious, you need to find the top of the egg where the embryos head is located and gently crack the shell. You then peel away the shell and then you encounter a membrane which then you need to break and then your ready to eat. (see picture below). I could see the little head on the embryo which was quite intimidating. My brother told me to shoot it like a shot of whiskey, but as a judged the size of the egg there was no way I would be able to do that, so that meant chewing. I threw back the first 1/2 of the egg via shooting technique and got it down rather easily. The embryo is surrounded by the "yoke" kind of like the yoke on a hard boiled egg. So there is that solid texture accompanied by the mucus/chewy texture that the duck embryo has. Then I applied more salt and vinegar and had to dig in with my hands and physically pull out the rest of the embryo/yoke out (see last picture). I finished the entire thing until there was only the reminisce of the shell. Took me about 2 mins. from start to finish. I was being routed on by my family and without their support the task might have been futile. I brought pictures into class the next day and everyone was completely horrified. Out of the 12 volunteers here I am currently the only one who has 1. tried and 2. finished an entire egg. I wear this accomplishment like a badge of honor. So, Thursday was the most interesting culinary experience of my life and I have lived to tell about it. So, I encourage you all out there to try balut if you are every afforded the opportunity. They said it is good for your joints...haha not quite sure how but this is the Philippines, dont ask questions just eat.
Cheers-
Robert
Cheers-
Robert
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| My brothers egg, left. My egg, right |
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| the egg (vinegar in the bottle) |
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| EXTREME CLOSE UP |
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| The last quarter of the duck embryo mmmmm |
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
weekend updates
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| My room |
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| RJ and his cakes |
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.
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| Food spread at party, NAMIT GID! |
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| Lynn and I doing my laundry |
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| Host sister (Lynn), me, and our helper (Freezy) |
Tapos na...
Rob
Friday, September 10, 2010
Pollution is a problem here...
Hello world...
Its been about a week since I last posted I believe. The days are finally staring to move a little faster now that we are getting into the rhythm of school, tech class, and studying. It is Friday afternoon here and I have some free time so I figured I throw up an update. The week was relatively routine with language classes in the AM and tech sessions in the afternoon. Some highlights...Food: I had pork chops for dinner one night which was probably the best meal I've had since I have been in Banate. My host family went to Iloilo (the city) on Thursday to buy various items for a birthday party on Saturday. They brought back me a Philippines T-shirt and 1/2 of a roasted chicken, which was quite delicious. Lastly on the food front I have discovered the best street food since I've been here...Fish balls. There is a batter composed of fish (don't ask me what type) and the vendor takes about a tablespoon scoop out of the pot and throws it in a wok full of oil. They are 50 sentablos per ball, so I ordered 20 for 10 pesos. They have a sweet sauce as well as a spicy sauce to dip the balls into, excellent. I will now be a sukisuki (regular customer) at the fish ball vendor.
As far as language goes we have been learning numbers, how to order/get food at the market, composing simple sentences, and going over some culture things. For instance, how Amercians are geared towards a monochronic time system while the Philippines is geared toward a polychronic time system. We all went to the market as a class on Thursday and identified veggies, fruits, various types of fish, and meats. I'm glad we were able to go with our teacher because the market is one of the most interesting places in town. Getting there early in the morning is a key because everything is freshly butchered/caught. There is an array of 20-30 different types of fruits and veggies. Enormous hunks of pork and beef hanging from nails, whole chickens available for sale accompanied with their feet, intestine (which I've already sampled), liver, etc. Some foods we can bargain down and sometimes they will throw in some extra when you say "pa aman." But, I don't think any of my fellow volunteers and I are quite good enough to drive down a price/kg yet. However, I was successful getting a few extra rambutons thrown in my bag.
Technical training is going well. We had our first rounds of presentations this week. Dan did his on mangroves, Tyler on the coastal environmental profile, and Laura on seagrass. I have my presentation in October on solid waste management. Today we were finally able to get out in the water so to speak and do a mangrove assessment. We made a box, 10 meters per side and surveyed the mangroves classifying them into species, diameter, crown width, and other technical categories. It went well except for the fact the beach we went to was extremely polluted to say the least. Bags of trash, broken beer and liquor bottles, rats, human waste was scattered all over the beach/water. We had to go out 10 meters so we were about knee deep in the water and I have developed a little rash on my legs. After we finished our survey we were packing up and the local children that live in the nipa huts on the beach were chasing down something. It turned out to be a rat that they caught and beaten to death with a stick. Also, the kids were catching larva and trying to get them to fight, pretty interesting.... I just hope my site isn't like the beach we went to today, very sad and discouraging.
The kids on my street have fixed the basketball hoop that was blown down by the last typoon and are yelling at me to play with them. So I will be taking off. Lastly, I am going to be trying BALUT for dinner. For you who do not know what it is type it in google... Next update to come soon
Its been about a week since I last posted I believe. The days are finally staring to move a little faster now that we are getting into the rhythm of school, tech class, and studying. It is Friday afternoon here and I have some free time so I figured I throw up an update. The week was relatively routine with language classes in the AM and tech sessions in the afternoon. Some highlights...Food: I had pork chops for dinner one night which was probably the best meal I've had since I have been in Banate. My host family went to Iloilo (the city) on Thursday to buy various items for a birthday party on Saturday. They brought back me a Philippines T-shirt and 1/2 of a roasted chicken, which was quite delicious. Lastly on the food front I have discovered the best street food since I've been here...Fish balls. There is a batter composed of fish (don't ask me what type) and the vendor takes about a tablespoon scoop out of the pot and throws it in a wok full of oil. They are 50 sentablos per ball, so I ordered 20 for 10 pesos. They have a sweet sauce as well as a spicy sauce to dip the balls into, excellent. I will now be a sukisuki (regular customer) at the fish ball vendor.
As far as language goes we have been learning numbers, how to order/get food at the market, composing simple sentences, and going over some culture things. For instance, how Amercians are geared towards a monochronic time system while the Philippines is geared toward a polychronic time system. We all went to the market as a class on Thursday and identified veggies, fruits, various types of fish, and meats. I'm glad we were able to go with our teacher because the market is one of the most interesting places in town. Getting there early in the morning is a key because everything is freshly butchered/caught. There is an array of 20-30 different types of fruits and veggies. Enormous hunks of pork and beef hanging from nails, whole chickens available for sale accompanied with their feet, intestine (which I've already sampled), liver, etc. Some foods we can bargain down and sometimes they will throw in some extra when you say "pa aman." But, I don't think any of my fellow volunteers and I are quite good enough to drive down a price/kg yet. However, I was successful getting a few extra rambutons thrown in my bag.
Technical training is going well. We had our first rounds of presentations this week. Dan did his on mangroves, Tyler on the coastal environmental profile, and Laura on seagrass. I have my presentation in October on solid waste management. Today we were finally able to get out in the water so to speak and do a mangrove assessment. We made a box, 10 meters per side and surveyed the mangroves classifying them into species, diameter, crown width, and other technical categories. It went well except for the fact the beach we went to was extremely polluted to say the least. Bags of trash, broken beer and liquor bottles, rats, human waste was scattered all over the beach/water. We had to go out 10 meters so we were about knee deep in the water and I have developed a little rash on my legs. After we finished our survey we were packing up and the local children that live in the nipa huts on the beach were chasing down something. It turned out to be a rat that they caught and beaten to death with a stick. Also, the kids were catching larva and trying to get them to fight, pretty interesting.... I just hope my site isn't like the beach we went to today, very sad and discouraging.
The kids on my street have fixed the basketball hoop that was blown down by the last typoon and are yelling at me to play with them. So I will be taking off. Lastly, I am going to be trying BALUT for dinner. For you who do not know what it is type it in google... Next update to come soon
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