Christmas in Iloilo&Guimbal

Christmas has finally come and gone here in the Philippines.  Filipinos have a real affinity for Christmas and you start to hear the Xmas music in the malls around September.  So, the build up to the actual day is wild.  On Christmas Eve, I went to Iloilo city with a few guys from my barkada.  I got there around 1 in the afternoon and walked into a house filled with 60 plus Filipinos from infants to lolas and lolos.  We ate some lunch which was a couple pork chops with rice.  It was nice to finally eat some pork because my host family here in Buenavista does not allow pork because of their religion.  We played some games (basketball treasure hunt) until it was dinner time and then ate a giant dinner.  The friends that brought me had to return back to Buenavista because they are married with kids so they were spending Christmas day with their in laws. 

Some PCV’s from my training group were already in Guimbal for Christmas, which is a municipality about 45 mins from Iloilo city.  So, I took a bus to meet up with them after my friends had left to go back to Buenavista.  Guimbal was in the middle of fiesta that lasted until Chirstmas day…great timing!  So, we went to the town proper and did some drinking and catching up with each other.  We ended up staying at the PCV’s (Elliott) host families’ house in Guimbal on the night of Christmas Eve.  The girls got the bed and guys got the floor…the tile floor.  On Christmas we got up and roamed around Guimbal looking for a resort/pension house to stay at because there were more PCV’s coming so we all couldn’t fit at Elliotts house.  After going to three different places we decided on the cheapest one, no surprise there. The place was 250 pesos for one night and it was one of the seedier places I have had the pleasure of staying in.  Concrete floor, an electric fan that was so loud that you could hear from outside the room, all sorts of interesting bugs who took offense that we invaded their space, no windows, and a bathroom with mosquito larva in the toilet…  We reserved the room and went to meet some of Elliotts Filipino friends to play some soccer at the local high school.  We ended up playing for a few hours and it was good to get some exercise in since all I have been doing for the last few days was eating and drinking.  After soccer we all went back to “resort” to bucket shower.  The other PCV’s arrived and we went back to the town proper for the last day of the town fiesta.  There was a dance competition going on when we arrived and there had to be close to 1,000 people watching.  There were no seats left so, we stood for a while to watch and ended up back in the same area as the night before….hanging out drinking and shooting the breeze.  After the dance competition was over the dance floor was opened up for the disco.  There was 6 PCV’s that made the trip, so needless to say we stuck out a little bit.  We decided to go out on the dance floor which also doubles as a basketball court.  As soon as we all started to dance a giant circle started to form around us.  We kept moving around the dance floor, but wherever we went we couldn’t seem to prevent another circle forming around us.  After dancing we met the vice governor of Iloilo province, Guimbal is a municipality in the province in Iloilo for those of you readers who are confused.  He had his own table with a waiter and everything.  He fed us lots of free beer and snacks until about 2 AM then we decided to head back to our rooms to pass out.  Woke up the next day feeling a slight pain in my head and I do not think I was the only one either.  5 out of 6 of us made it out of the rooms for lunch and we spent the day at hanging out at the beach listening to music.  2 of the PCV’s headed back to their sites because they had a long trip ahead of them, but I decided to stay on more night since I was only about 2 hours from my site.  The last night in Guimbal (day after Xmas) was very uneventful compared to the first two.  We went to a Multi Sectoral Christmas party to eat dinner and start the night.  Then we all went with Elliotts host sister to a resort to meet and hang out with some of her friends since we all are very close in age.  We called it a night pretty earlier because we all had to travel back to our sites the next day. 

I arrived back here in Buenavista on Monday afternoon for the last regular season basketball game which we won 90-83 which gave us a regular season record of 6-3.  Playoffs start after the New Year and there is a cash prize for first and second place, but its not about the money its for the love of the game!  This week has been really slow for CRM work because of Christmas and New Years sandwiched together.  I will be going to Boracay for New Years as I mentioned on my last post.  Since it is about a 6 hour trip some PCV’s from my area and I will be stopping in Tibiao which is about 2 hours from Boracay on Thursday evening…..then heading up to Borcay on Friday morning.  Looking forward to returning here to my site after New Years with some work to do because it has been really slow at the office.  I also plan on getting an Ilonggo tutor when I get back to site next week to advance my language skills.  They are improving, but not at the rate I would like them to.  My goal is to be able to not use any English by the time August comes around, which would mark the 1 year anniversary of my arrival here in the Philippines.  My comprehension is far ahead of my speaking skills which definitely need improvement.  That is all for now, I hope to be able to write about more CRM related tasks in the near future. 

dason lang-

Robert

barkada, fiestas, and some CRM work

Since I have returned from Manila from Thanksgiving break CRM related duties and tasks have been moving at a mind numbingly slow pace.  My counterpart and I have been continuing to make appearances and surveying the 17 coastal brgy’s (barangays) that make up my municipality of Buenavista.  The two major CRM related tasks that we have accomplished in the month of December has been two proposals.  The first one I wrote by myself to my supervisor asking for funding to bring two PCV’s to my site for a few days in January.  Our office is trying to set up a MPA (marine protected area) and since nobody here at my office has ever done a coral, seagrass, or fish stock assessment I will be needing assistance.  My proposal was accepted about two weeks back, but there really hasn’t been any conversation since then to go and get snorkel gear and set specific dates.  We were told in training that not much gets done in the office during the Christmas season, so right now I am chalking it up to that fact.  Hopefully when the new year arrives we can start having conversations again to get these assessments done so we can move forward with our proposed MPA.  The second proposal my counterpart took the lead on because it was to the provincial government.  There is a specific format/template that needs to be used when requesting money from the provincial government.  We requested php50,000 ($1,150) for cages for our tilapia hatchery.  The proposal was about 7 pages and we had to explain the reason for the cages, the dimensions, the direct benefit, etc.  The total costs of the project is php 67,000, so our municipality is going to have to shoulder the remaining php17,000 if the proposal gets approved.  We sent that proposal into the provincial government about 10 days ago.  However, much to my chagrin, the proposal will not be approved or denied until 6-8 months from the date of submission.  This is a little bit frustrating because the hatchery was supposed to help the fishermen from the brgys within the proposed MPA.  Once the MPA is up and running it will affect two brgys.  The fishermen from these two brgys will not be allowed to fish within the parameters of the MPA and therefore their fish catch and ultimately their income will be taking an enormous hit.  Fishermen in the Philippines depend on catching fish to support and feed their families and most of them already live very meager wages.  So, the hatchery was an alternative livelihood project for the fishermen affected by the implementation of the MPA.  They could raise fish in the hatchery and then sell it to the local market or to the community to sustain their income.  So, it is crucial that we coincide the opening of our MPA with our tilapia hatchery for the benefit of the many fishermen in the two affected brgys.  If there is one thing I have learned here it is that nothing ever goes according to plan or runs smoothly, so one needs to always be conscious of this fact because people’s livelihoods are in the balance. 

Since, the CRM related tasks having been going relatively slow because of the Christmas season I have been doing some serious cultural integration.  My host family here has not really introduced me to anybody outside of their street/compound.  This has been both good and bad because it has forced me to go out and talk to people and make friends in my community.  I already have developed a barkada/grupo (group of friends) here in Buenavista.  There are 7 of us including myself and when I am not doing work here I am hanging out with them.  They have been influential in showing me around and introducing me to people not only in my brgy, but throughout my municipality.  We all are between the ages of 23-30, so we have a lot in common even though I am the only non Filipino in the group.  They have taken me to three fiestas already in different brgy’s throughout Buenavista.  The most recent one was brgy Ban Ban which was this past Sunday.  They picked me up at around 7 and we went to one of their friends house to of course eat eat eat and also do some drinking before we went to the brgy hall to dance.  At these fiestas the whole brgy is involved and it is a giant party with people drinking all over the streets, a dj is present with literally a wall of speakers that play music at deafening levels, and the fiestas are usually good for 4-5 fights because everyone is inebriated.  However, one of the guys in my barkada has a very influential and well off family here in Buenavista.  His dad and brother are members of the police, so whenever I go the fiestas he never lets me get more than 10 feet away from him because everybody is afraid of his family (think Sopranos).  I think one can imagine the stares and looks I get when I go to these fiestas because I am the only foreigner among 300-400 people.  While the vast majority of people here are very friendly there is always a couple who are not happy to see an American at their fiesta.  So, my barkada is always looking after me and makes sure nobody gives me a hard time which is pretty awesome.  This last fiesta was memorable because of the three new foods I ate, or maybe forced to eat.  The first was called soup #5 which was cow penis and testicles with some veggies.  If I wasn’t told what it was BEFORE I ate it there was no way I could tell what it was.  The taste was chewy and sort of bland; I have eaten far worse dishes here.  The second dish was my favorite of the night and was cow stomach in soup with potatoes, chilies, and carrots.  The stomach was cut up into long thin strips and was cooked in the broth until it was less chewy than it would be if eaten raw.  The third dish was the bone marrow of a very big fish for Philippine standards.  I got about 4 notches of vertebra off the fish and broke them off one by one and had suck out the marrow located inside the bone.  All these dishes are called sumsumain which means food you eat while drinking.  So, we were all sitting in a circle and in the middle of the table was a bottle of Rhum (that is how they spell rum here) and these three dishes that everyone was picking at throughout the night. 

Some other highlights over the last two weeks: I was able to release 6 sea turtles in the first week of December with another CRM volunteer at her site in Jordan which is the municipality just south of mine.  They have a turtle rehab center there and we released the turtles in front of a news team and the governor of Guimiars was in attendance as well.  I made a trip back down to Jordan last weekend for another volunteer’s birthday which was fun.  We cooked chicken tacos with real cheese, onions, tomatoes, and salsa it was an awesome dinner.  It is always nice to see familiar faces and hear native English speakers because I am the only PCV here in Buenavista, so I don’t get to see other PCVS too often.  We had our Christmas party last Friday and it was for all the local government workers here in Buenavista, so there were about 100 people at the party.  We did a gift exchange and I got a cup and a wash cloth that I will be using as a sweat rag because the one I bought during training is getting a little foul.  There was tons of food prepared for the party and lots of beer as well.  I think we went through 50 kilos of rice, 25 kilos of fish, 2 pigs, and 40 cases of San Miguel pilsen.  There was bingo, dance numbers from employees (thankfully I wasn’t forced to do anything), and the gift exchange.  It was a lot of fun because since I am working at the municipal agricultural office I don’t really have much interaction with the other arms of the government.  So, I was able to talk to and meet people from the accounting dept, engineering, etc.  I plan on going to Iloilo for Christmas with two guys from my barkada because they have family with a house there.  I will be leaving Guimaras on Friday morning (X mas Eve) and will be spending the weekend there eating and drinking.  I hope to be able to meet up with some other PCVs during the evening to catch up.  For New Years’ I will be going to Boracay which is a tiny island about 7 hours from me.  Since, there are no flights available I will be taking a 6 hour bus ride to the northern tip of Panay island and then a boat to Boracay.  I am really looking forward to it because there is going to be about 60 other PCVs from all over the Philippines descending on Boracay.  I have been reading some news and there is massive flooding in California and tons of snow in the Rockies… It is been about 88-95 degrees here everyday with minimal rain, so I cannot complain too much.  It is much better then my college days in Milwaukee not seeing the sun for days on end.

Dason lang

Robert

first few weeks at site

To all back home, I am sorry for the lack of consistency of my posts the last month. I have been trying to get on some sort of a routine now that I am here at my permanent site. Today, Tuesday, is the start of my third week of work here. The first two weeks have been interesting to say the least. My first week was the most difficult week I have had here since arriving in country. I definitely took for granted having other Americans around me during my training in Banate. It was nice to have multiple volunteers with us in training because it seemed we were all in it together. When one is at their site, you are all alone and need to depend on yourself for everything.

I am the only volunteer in Buenavista (my municipality) and as far as I know the only American/foreigner as well. So, my first week was hard to adjust to new co workers, a new municipality, etc all without any really support from anyone. On my first day, I introduced myself to the mayor and numerous other government officials in Ilonggo. They were all very surprised that I could communicate in their native language, even though my speech was less than 5 mins. I am working for the Philippine government at the municipal level. There are 4 steps of government here in the Philippines: Barangay’s (make up municipalities), Municipal level (make up a Provence), Provencal level, and finally National level. My office is the municipal agriculture office or M.A.O. We are responsible for obviously agriculture, fisheries, solid waste management, and numerous other environmental concerns. There are about 10 people in my office and I have been assigned a counterpart, Gerard and a supervisor, Jonathan. Jonathan is the M.A.O or head municipal agriculturist for Buenavista. I will be concentrating on fisheries management, setting up a marine protected area, and doing baseline biophysical assessments my first 6 months or so.

My first two weeks I have been going around to the 17 coastal barangays that make up the coastal part of my municipality. I come to the office everyday around 8 and meet my counterpart and we usually make it to 2 coastal barangays and interview the barangay captain. We are gathering baseline data..such as the number of motorized and non motorized bancas (boats), number of fish pens, types of fish coral, mangrove coverage area, number of fish ponds. We have finished about 10 barangays and today I have been making a template and doing some serious data entry.

Some other interesting events that have happened in the first two weeks of work include: Meeting the governor of Guimaras (the name of my Provence/island I am on), getting on the basketball team with the mayor and other government workers in a league; our team name is WHITEHOUSE with jerseys, referees, scorekeepers, etc.. trying to explain to tons of Filipinos that I am NOT a mormon or some sort of religious missionary, buying a mountain bike to get around since were not allowed to ride motorcycles, eating lunch everyday with the 6 or so women that work in my office, some of the meals we have had dinguan (pig innards soup with the blood as the broth), and kinelaw (raw sardines soaked in vinegar).

Since we had a three day weekend for Bonfacio Day this past weekend I had booked a flight to Manila to meet another volunteer for Thanksgiving. We were not able to get our hands on any turkey, but we had a great weekend roaming around the city. It was the first time that I was able to get to Manila. We had initial orientation there, but we were outside the main city proper and not able to go out exploring. I am not even going to try to explain the complete and utter chaos that is Manila. I have never in my life seen a city like this and I have been to New York, Chicago, London, etc. The sheer size and scope of the city is completely mind-boggling. There are so many restaurants and bars that choosing one makes for a difficult task. We made a trip to the PeaceCorp office which is in a different part of the city, so we took the LRT (pubic rail system) and we had to literally squeeze into the train, 12 cars all shoulder to shoulder. We picked up some materials for our sites and walked around for hours checking out the sites. We also made it to a PBA game, which is the professional basketball league in the Philippines. The stadium holds about 12,000 people and since we showed up a little late we were relegated to the upper view seats for 30 pesos per seat (less than an American dollar). The game was awesome..back and forth the whole time with a last second 3 pointer that missed, but would of forced the game into overtime. Filipinos really have a passion for basketball and the atmosphere was really excellent. We wrapped up all of our nights going to bars and checking out live bands which seem to be everywhere. I have some pictures from the weekend, but I left my camera in her purse because I was in a rush to catch my flight. I will be getting it back for New Years, so I’ll have to wait to post them here. Ok my lunch break is now coming to an end..gotta get back to more data entry.

Dason lang

Robert

Training is Tapos na!

The last few weeks here in the P.I. have been by far the busiest and most exciting since I have arrived wayyy back in mid August.  I think I will start with the LPI... We took the LPI a few weeks back during our last week of training in Banate.  It consisted of a lady from the PeaceCorp office whom none of us have ever met giving us our exam.  She was born in an Ilonggo speaking region, but grew up speaking Cebuano or another dialect.  It was a little difficult to understand her because she had a little different accent than my teacher and the people in Banate.  It was about a 35-40 minute conversation between the two of us and it was also tape recorded.  She asked me things like: "tell me what you do for fun."  "Describe your host family and your family in America."  "what is the role of the PeaceCorp" "explain your training and permanent site"  I came out of the gate really well and about 20ish mins into the conversation I started to struggle a little.  She gave me a card and we did a role play in which I had to ask about the important spots in town. (Home,Market, Bus station, where to get clean water, etc.).  When we stopped it was a great relief to finally be over and I wouldn't get my results until the next week.  Also, she refused to say ANYTHING in English, so I had to keep telling her to "hinay hinay lang" which means slow down and "liwat" which means repeat, quite often. 

Our last weekend in Banate we had a handog which is a sort of thank you for all the families who hosted PeaceCorp Trainees for the past 11 weeks.  It was pretty emotional, there were a lot of tears and it was difficult to say goodbye.  We all have developed deep bonds with our host families and I know I will never forget them and the amazing hospitality they showed me.  My host mom gave a little bottle of Lambonog which is a distilled spirit from the palm tree as a going away present.  As I was saying goodbye the next morning I gave my host sister a hug (3 yrs old).  I picked her up and as I was pulling her away from me she slapped me right across the face and it wasn't a love tap.  But, you would have to know her to appreciate the "kind gesture."  I was sad to leave Banate, but also very excited to move on to my next site and challenge.

We went to Bacolod City which is about a 1 hour bus ride and 1 hour boat ride from my training site for our Counterparts conference and for our swearing in ceremony.  I think we arrived on Sunday and we got to know our counterparts and did numerous activities to try and plan out our next two years.  Swearing in was on Thursday afternoon at the capital.  It was really cool...we pulled up to a Filipino drum band playing and excitement filled the air.  There also was MAJOR swat and police presence because of the anti American sentiment and also because Harry Thomas; ambassador to the Philippines swore us in.  The ceremony lasted about 2 hours and we had a little reception afterward.  My camera died during the middle of it so I wasn't able to get that many pictures.  We found out our LPI results the next day, and I passed with a score of Intermediate Mid.  The highest score out of the 12 CRM volunteers was Intermediate High and there were 4 out of the 12 of us who did not pass the LPI.  They will have to retake it every 3 months until they pass it.

I am now at my final site in Buenavista, Gumiaras and have just completed my first work day!  I used a typewriter to do our weekly calendar that was most definitely older than my parents.  My counterpart  had to be teach me  how to use the thing.  I had to get up in front of the mayor and numerous other government officals and introduce myself and why I was here all in Ilonggo.  It actually went very well because nobody expected me to speak their language.  So, I got a crazy stares, laughs, and a good ovation.  My counterpart put me on a basketball team with other g'ment officals in a league which we play 2 times per week.  The mayor is on my team too, however we lost by 2 points tonight.  Afterward I was invited to have some soup and Coke with the other team (water district).  That is all and since I do not have to work tomorrow (hero's day) I will be going to some beaches.
dason lang
Robert 

MRF!

We finished our community project finally!  It was quite the process in which we began brainstorming and throwing ideas out the first few weeks we arrived at our training sites.  I believe I have described in previous posts that we had a budget of 2,000 pesos (46 dollars) in which to draw from.  The other sub cluster of CRM trainees here did a mangrove nursery while we opted for an MRF.  Partly because our barranguay does not have any mangroves, just an extremely polluted beach.  Like I said before, we hired Lenny the carpenter which cost us about 1250 pesos including labor.  He was able to construct our MRF in about 2 days which was pretty quick since he worked alone.  He finished our MRF late last week and we held two education sessions for the community...one on Tuesday and the other on Thursday.  The first session was very mediocre.....it rained like crazy an hour before and during our entire presentation so therefore only 10 people showed up.  Out of the 10 there were only two kids and we had planned a trash segregation race for the kids so that idea was tossed out.  But, on Thursday we got a break with the weather and the people came out in droves.  I think we had over 40 people at apex of our presentation.  I personally presented on four common myths here in the Philippines regarding burning ones trash.  We also touched on the lifespan it takes a banana, can, bottle, plastic, etc to decompose from the earth.  We talked about composting and we were able to have our trash segregation relay because there were plenty of mga bata (children).  Finally for the finale we sketched out some trees, "bularan mrf", etc on a big poster and had the community paint it.  We hung it behind our MRF and that was it.  It felt really good to know that we have left something tangible behind for the community to use and hopefully when more funding comes they can build on / improve our current structure. 

painting banner

MRF shot w/ community

This week is pretty much free for us except for the fact that we have our LPI on Thursday afternoon which nobody is looking forward to.  Cannot wait to get that thing done with and move on to my permanent site on November 7th.  On the 6th all the trainees and their host families will be going out to a restaurant to celebrate the 2.5 months we spent here and to say thank you.  We will be presenting a slide show, videoke of course, with lots of food, and games.  Tonight my neighbor is hosting a Halloween party at 8 PM, so it will be fun to celebrate with my fellow trainees.  It will be interesting to see what everyone dresses up as because our resources are quite limited here in Banate...  That is all for now!
dason lang-
Robert

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

san joaquin trip

Hello to all out there,
I have been pretty busy over here in my little corner of the world.  A lot has happened since my last post on Tuesday I think it was.  First off.. I added the address you all can send packages and mail to.  If you really feel generous and want to send me a package of some kind there are some instructions... First being, ANYTHING that gets set to me goes through Manny (the mail guy) in Manila.  He opens up everything; letters, packages, etc. So no illegal contraband of anykind please.  Second, when sending a package the sender needs to PREPAY taxes, duties, and customs and make an itemized list of the contents of package.  If not, I will be stuck with the bill and when your making 120 american dollars per month it...lets just say it will be difficult for me pay.  I also added a picture to show some sort of contrast because life here in the Philippines is not all clean beaches and sunsets.  The poverty here is very real, my Nanay(host mom) told me the Philippines ranked as the 7th poorest country in the world in a study done this month.  So, I felt like I needed to show everyone who reads this blog what a "ghetto" looks like in a 3rd world country. 

Wednesday was like any other day here, same old thing with language and tech sessions and copious amounts of sweat.  Thursday was my day to present to our tech class... Every trainee had to pick a topic back in August to research and present and I presented on Solid Waste Management.  Luckily, last week we had a "resource volunteer" come and stay with us at our training site.  He has been here in the P.I. since 2008 and has helped to implement a great Solid Waste Management program at his site in Northern Luzon.  Sidenote...for those of you who have been following the news, his site is currently getting hammered by typhoon Megi.  I'm not sure if he was evacuated or if he stayed to ride it out, but all volunteers/trainees have been receiving tons of text messages warning us about the typhoon since Friday.  But, anyway he helped me give the presentation to our tech class and we used examples of what has worked at his site. It went really well and he gave us all lots of ideas and resources we can now use when we all go to our finals sites on November 6. 

On Friday, we went to San Joaquin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Joaquin,_Iloilo  It is about a three our van ride to the south of our training site.  We were put up in a nice resort for one night too!  But, we were there to snorkel three MPA's (Marine Protected Areas) and to conduct coral and fish assessments.  We did this for extra practice because our training site only has one MPA.  Even though it was only a three hour ride on the SAME island, the people of San Joaquin speak a different dialect than the one we are learning.  It was similar to Ilonggo, but there were definitely some different nuances.  It was a great trip because we were able to get back into the water and as I said above practice identifying fish and corals.  Most of us will have to conduct these assessments when we make it to our final site.  At least for my final site...Buenavista Guimiars their last assessment was done in 1997.  So, it makes it difficult to see if your reefs and fish are in decline or improving if you don't conduct assessments for over 12 years.  We returned to Banate on Saturday evening and I spent Sunday hanging out at the "resort" in town with some other trainees.  We did some swimming and I got some reading done too.  We only have about 3 weeks left here in Banate and the rest of the time will be spent implementing our community project for our tech class.  We also have an LPI (Language proficiency interview) between November 2-5 to see what "level" our language skills are at.  Someone from Manila will be comming down to interview us for about 20 mins in Ilonggo... which is going to be very challenging.
Dason lang
Robert