I am officially recovered from my cause of mumps.. However, I do have some sort of mosquito bite that got infected on the back of my leg that is “healing” I am really lazy with my blog updates and am consciously trying to make some extra efforts to keep them coming quicker.
Leaving off from my last post I was in Barotac Neuvo doing a lecture on CRM & PeaceCorps Philippines with some other PCV’s. I arrived back home and continued work at our tilapia hatchery with my counterpart. We sexted and segregated over 150 tilapia to cross bread the two different strains of fish we have in our hatchery (see pictures). It was very difficult at first to identify the difference between male and female tilapia because of their similar looking reproductive organs. My counterpart gave me some pointers and I eventually caught on, but we spent about 4 hours going through fish.
I was at PCV- Brads site in Buruanga, Aklan which is in Northwest Panay island last week conducting scuba bio physical assessments. Along with 4 other PCV’s (all male) we did 9 dives in three days assessing corals and fish. 5 guys in a nipa hut that is about the size of a kitchen in America was quite interesting. We rotated every night so everyone was able to sleep on the “bed.” It was my first time to get up there and it was quite different than my site… Lots of mountains areas that run along the beach, where as in at my site all the “hilly” areas are towards the middle of the island. It was great to finally do some diving in the Philippines. I came into that week with 1 local dive and left with 10 under my belt, so I am hoping my dive luck is finally changing.
As everyone knows I am setting up my sanctuary… We had our 2nd meeting this past Monday (see pictures) and it went great. I was able to set up a meeting on Saturday to elect a management committee to oversee the sanctuary and write laws/ordinances, scheduled a coastal clean-up in front of the sanctuary for next Saturday, and some environmental education for a local elementary school on Tuesday. My goal for our sanctuary to open sometime in December and it is looking like we will achieve that goal. Everyone that I have been working with through this process has been really motivated which makes my life a lot easier. I will be quite busy the next two weeks with the meetings/projects I have scheduled.
The last Wednesday in September all the volunteers on my island will be getting together to celebrate PeaceCorps Philippines 50th anniversary. There are 6 volunteers on my island and they included Coastal Resource Management, Education, and Child Youth and Family Development. We will be having an event with out of school youth that has an aspect of all of our respective sectors. For me, we will be doing a climate change lecture and teaching the kids how to build plastic bottle bricks with left over plastic and trash.
In other news.. I am thinking about transferring (moving) to another place. I am feeling very claustrophobic at my current place because of the lack of open space. I went and saw a nipa hut last night with on my friends that is a lot more rural than my current housing. The hut is made out of bamboo and nipa which is a local plant here they use for roofing. It is quite rustic, but with the necessary renovations I want to try to move in around November or December.
I participated in an indoor soccer tournament two weeks back in Guimbal, Elliotts site. There were about 12 teams that signed up to play in the tournament. Our team name was PCFC (peacecorps futbal club) and we had 8 PCV’s come to Guimbal to play. We made it to the semi-final game and it went into a shootout… Unfortunately I missed the penalty kick and we ended up losing and getting 3rd place in the tournament. It wasn’t my entire fault, I ended up led the team in scoring, so I didn’t feel too bad about blowing the penalty shot… At least that was my logic. Not too bad for a bunch of volunteers who are really out of shape and don’t play soccer on a regular basis. We will be back next year and are gunning for the title.
My parents made their flight reservations to come to the Philippines which is quite exciting. I am looking forward to taking them around my site as well as to Boracay and Coron. We are going to do some diving at some amazing places and I am sure they are going to blown away by the underwater beauty. I have been here for over a year now and have not had one visitor come from the States so I am really looking forward to it.
Hope everyone is doing well at home and I will try to be more diligent about posting.
Dason lang
Robert
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| Counterpart (middle) and caretakers in pond |
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| Sexting a tilapia |
Hey Robert,
ReplyDeleteIt was great to see you on Skype last week! You're doing some really awesome work. Glad you were able to survive the mumps despite the less than ideal conditions.
Hard to believe you've been there for over a year already, and I'd say you've done pretty well so far. I know your mom and dad are looking forward to seeing you. Well, good luck in finding a new place and talk to you soon. Take care.
Charlie