Dan Joseph is in the Peace Corps

         In the Philippines it is the custom that on your birthday you treat everyone else! But note that the treating is all in the form of consumables, food and drink, as opposed to gifts. So all afternoon on the 7th and the morning of the 8th I baked (in my amazing, albeit rather small, toaster oven) and cooked. I had some help from two neighborhood kids. We cranked out 6 loaves of banana bread, 4 chocolate cakes, a bunch of lemon cookies, and an obscene amount of macaroni with tomato sauce. Spaghetti is a special occasion dish here. I think macaroni is easier to deal with and eat. By obscene I mean 3 kg (6.6 pounds) of macaroni and 3.5 kg (7.7 pounds) of tomatoes in the sauce. Thankfully, tomatoes are only about 45 PHP/kg (~0.50 USD/lb). In the afternoon of the 8th I invited a bunch of kids and neighbors to come partake. Then, later in the afternoon, some of the barangay officials stopped by. Luckily, I had reserved some food. Everyone raved about the taste. Even the macaroni got a lot of praise despite the tomato sauce being very ‘American’ and not ‘Filipino’ in the sense that it wasn’t 75 percent sugar and MSG.

        That evening I grabbed a couple bottles of Emperador and joined up with a group at the Barangay Captain’s house (also my neighbor/landlord) where we sang videoke until 11pm (don’t laugh… in rural Culasi this is considered pretty damn late).

       Then Monday was a work holiday. No office! So I slept in a bit and then spent all day baking things to take into the office on Tuesday (my actual birthday). Lemon cookies, a cake, a chocolate cake, oatmeal raisin cookies, banana bread. It was yet another impressive spread and my office mates complimented me on both the quantity and quality. Horray!          

         ”Muck-muck” (holding a makeshift fly chaser-awayer in the left of the above picture, and p.s. that’s how you pronounce his nickname and I’ve never heard him called anything else) and Jonas (white T-shirt, standing in the below picture) were the two kids who helped me out. I was especially grateful for their help in dicing tomatoes.   

         Looking at my past posts, I noticed that the posts about work were starting to get pretty scarce. Work can be slow at times. In discussing different perceptions of time Professor Philip Zimbardo makes the following statement at about 1:45 in:  

The closer you are to the equator the more present oriented you are. The more you are in an environment where climate doesn’t change, it gives you a set of matching sameness rather than change. Protestants everywhere have higher gross national product than Catholic countries. 

Hello Philippines! A favorite activity here before seminars and workshops is a leveling of expectations. PC volunteers sometimes joke that it should be a lowering of expectations. Since coming here I have definitely needed to adjust my expectations about scheduling and times and such. I do manage to get stuff done occasionally. Last year sometime I received funds for solar cooker workshops. Earlier this year I held the first one. I just held the second one. This wraps up what the LGU funded. We held this workshop in the barangay where I live. Below, I am with 8 of the 9 beneficiaries after we finished building the solar cookers. Some of the reflectors are just visible at the bottom of the frame. My shirt is kinda mottled… yeah, that’s sweat. Gross.

P.S. It will be weird when I am back in the United States and not an albino giant anymore.

         Language is a complex topic here. There is English. There is Tagalog. There are lots of languages/dialects and then regional variations of those dialects. English abilities vary wildly depending on affluence, exposure, desire to learn, etc. In areas where Tagalog is not commonly used, people can have trouble when it is used. I have observed people from Culasi at a workshop having difficulties learning from a resource speaker presenting in Tagalog; in so much as they need to iron out the specific meaning of words fairly often. The local dialects generally lack things like conventionalized spelling, dictionaries, etc. I place very high value on dissemination and exchange of information and ideas, something that the language situation here seems to sometimes impede. Needless to say I can find it… frustrating, at times. 

         From what I’ve observed, there is often a weird obsession with the English language. At workshops I have had people insist on getting my help to create outputs in English while I insist that they should write in whatever language with which they are most comfortable. My limited observations of education in the schools has shown wide use of English learning materials, submission of projects in English, etc. If you thought education could be just rote memorization in America, imagine compounding such problems with the issue of poor comprehension of the language used for instruction. This is exceptionally frustrating for me when I consider what this means for science and environmental education. It is one of the reasons for my documentary dubbing projects I’ve mentioned in previous posts. It is why I rail against Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) efforts that are in English. It was why I was dismayed to see the signs that the neighboring municipality put up recently. The effectiveness of a sign telling you not to do drugs is questionable enough. Do you really need to put it in a language that a lot of people don’t understand well?

         T-shirts of exceptionally questionable taste or with arrangements of words that simply don’t make sense are pretty common. But I think that is almost a global phenomena. Official communications can sometimes be amusing just because the grammar, although making perfect sense, is different from what a native English speaker from America would use. Official documents usually make sense even if no one, myself included, really understands the legal mumbojumbo. However, every now and then I see something that really puzzles me…   

         The SK is the youth representative sector of the government. These kids are generally going to be smarter and more driven or from a wealthier family. They should have a higher level of English comprehension and exposure. Was the above pictured sign the result of a broad google search, a definition of herb from the dictionary instead of this one, and not putting two and two together when seeing that the quote is attributed to Bob Marley? Or was the sign the result of some mischievous kid? The world may never know…

         Fiesta was February 28- March 3. This meant I got to listen to a lot of loud music blasting from the walls of speakers setup in the plaza outside my office. Several hundred is a conservative estimate for the number of times I got to hear this song.

         There was drinking and ‘cultural’ presentations (if choreographed dances to loud techno remixes is cultural) and, as previously mentioned, lots of loud music. My main work duties consisted of helping at a booth sponsored by the Agriculture Office where local products were being sold. Items included machetes, dried fish, bamboo fans, and salabat (instant ginger tea).  I used my mad photoshop skillz to make some product labels. One lady was so impressed with my labels that she asked for copies of the files so she can start using them instead of the ones she had done and was using previously.

         I also had a little display consisting of a solar cooker, rice hull stove, solar bottle skylight, and an advertisement about my environmental movie showings. I put up my cell phone number so that people could contact me to arrange a movie showing in their barangay; don’t ask me how I thought for even a moment that it would be a good idea. I got a lot of messages from people wanting to be textmates. I got no inquiries about movie showings.

         But enough about work, I also decided it would be fun to enter in a bicycle race and a swimming race! The bicycle race was Wednesday. There are a few guys from Culasi who I know bike somewhat regularly. I figured I might be able to hold my own against them and there would be at least a few folks I could beat. It didn’t turn out quite like that.  You might embarrass yourself in a bicycle race if… (1) You expect a range of local competitors but almost everyone is from outside the municipality and serious bikers. (2) You show up in running shorts, a white T, Chacos, and sun sleeves. And everyone else is showing up kitted out in complete bicycling outfits. (3) You show up with a ‘made in China’ mountain bike. And everyone else is showing up with road bikes. (4) When your training consists mostly of 13 kilometers a day, split across two commutes. And the race turns out to be 52 kilometers. And you thought it was going to be about 35 km up until the morning of the race. (5) You quietly remove the rack from the back of your bike after a fellow entrant inquires about whether you plan to race with it attached. (6) You decide carrying water might be a good idea so get cardboard and duct tape from your office to jury-rig a water bottle holder before the race. (7) The rear ball bearings on your bike need to be replaced but you haven’t done anything about it yet.

         As with all things Filipino the 7:00 AM ‘start’ time meant we started around 9:45. This gave the day plenty of time to get hot for the race. Out of about 30 racers I finished dead last. About 5 dropped out for various reasons including exhaustion, bike problems, cramps, etc. One of the motorcycle escorts told me I needed to cut off a spur in the course towards the end. I think he just wanted to stop accompanying me, which he ended up doing before I finished anyway. I could have ignored him, but I didn’t. So in reality I was 2.1 km short (I measured later) of the full 51.7 km course. But I finished.  I had my GPS with my so I know it took me 2 hours and 14 minutes to go 49.6 km at an average speed of 22.1 km/hr. Or 30.8 miles and 13.7 miles/hr for all you non metric folks in America. Personally, I like the metric numbers, mostly because they are bigger and make me feel faster. I was considerably faster during the first half of the course and much slower for the latter half. The race started in town and went to the southern municipal border, to the northern border, back to the southern border, and then back to town. All paved. A few minor hills but nothing terrible. My performance wasn’t stellar but I felt good about it. My lower back started hurting before my legs so I think I would be better off with a better fitted/adjusted bike and better biking posture.

         Langoy sa Malalison (Swim from Malalison) was the next morning. They boated us out to the nearest island barangay and the race was back to shore. As the crow flies it is right at 3 kilometers. Between the waves and the current the route I took was more the way a drunkard stumbles. I ended up placing 5th out of 5. Although I am relatively fit, especially when compared with a cross section of an entire population, my physique can probably best be described as lean/trim/slim. The other guys were representative of a very small fraction of an entire population. They were all from the small island barangays and I think were mostly spear-fishermen, making their living swimming in the water. They were definitely more in the built/toned/buff category. I finished more than 20 minutes behind the slowest of them. I did still qualify for a 500 PHP (~10 USD) consolation prize. The start of the boat races was only slightly delayed while they waited for me to finish. But the actual start of the swimming race was on Filipino-time and gave time for the day’s winds, waves, and currents to build. Also, there were unclaimed consolation prizes. Others could have won prize money just by entering and finishing, regardless of whether they could have beaten me. I don’t feel bad for making the crowd wait a little bit. Felt much more accomplished than after the bicycle race. The red flag icons on the image below show the start and finish points.

         This past weekend I went down to San Jose to meet up with Ben Martin (another Peace Corps Volunteer) and go on a hike to see Rafflesia in Sibalom, another municipality near there. Also known as carrion flower, it has a smell intended to attract pollinators such as flies and scavenging beetles. Combine this will its alien appearance and it’s a pretty neat-o species! Along for the hike were an American expat, an Australian, and the Australian’s Filipina fiancee. The expat was the one with directions and they weren’t very good so getting to the right barangay was a bit of an adventure. But we made it, and accomplished our mission of seeing the Rafflesia in bloom. If you’re not as lucky as we were the flower is either still a closed ball or a desiccated, black mass. There were about 20 in the patch we visited. Two were in bloom and the rest in various other stages of their life cycle. The hiking took about 2 hours total. Also, we spent about 2 hours taking short breaks, looking at the Rafflesia, drinking tuba (coconut wine) that we purchased from a guy who had tapped some of the trees along the way, and wading in a river to cool off.

         There was a small entrance fee of 35 PhP/person and a guide fee of 300 PhP/group. It was a great deal. Our guides were two, super-friendly people from the small rural barangay. In the picture below the “Bantay Gubat” on the back of his vest translates to “Forest Patrol.”  It was great to see how the rural village was working towards environmental protection and eco-tourism. Unfortunately there is still room for improvement as they aren’t able to advertise very well and the local government doesn’t seem to be assisting much in that realm.

         If you have a really good memory, you’ll recall a post from long ago when I talked about solar cooking. Well, something finally came of it. This last weekend, January 28-29, the Local Government Unit (LGU) funded a solar cooker workshop out at Malalison Island. More than forty residents came out to learn about solar cooking and participate in a raffle for one of nine units I was given funds to provide. Here I am talking about the concepts of solar cooking.

         The attendance list was numbered and slips of paper with each number went into a pot for the raffle. The Barangay Captain drew the first number, and jokingly called his number before announcing what was actually on the slip of paper.

       Everyone was good-humored about the raffle and the announcement of each winner.

         After the raffle we got to work. Here are the beneficiaries painting the pots black to better absorb the heat of the sun.

          Arman Acupan and I mixing up some polyurethane sealer to paint the cardboard of the reflectors. This provides a measure of waterproofing and strengthens the cardboard.

         The beneficiaries building the chicken-wire pot stands that prevent heat loss due to contact between the pot and the floor of the cooker, and also allow reflected sunlight to hit the bottom of the pot.

         There’s no electricity on the island and the barangay generator, which used to provide power for a few hours each evening, is broken. But some people have private generators. The Captain is one such person, so I had brought my laptop and a projector, had made plans to stay the night on the island, and we had a film showing outside his house after the first day of the workshop. I showed BBC Planet Earth: Ocean Deep and BBC Blue Planet: Coral Seas. I’ve worked with Sam Sandig, the husband of my counterpart in the Dept of Agriculture, to dub the films. The first in Kinaray-a, the local dialect, and the latter in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines. He provided the translating and narrating work while I took care of all the technical aspects.

         Ang pinakabahul sa tanan nga isda. Treinta ka tonelada ang kabug-aton, dose ka metro ang kalabugon, ang butanding. (The biggest of all fish. Thirty tons in weight, twelve meters long, a whale shark.)

         The image could be seen on both sides of the thin white sheet used as a screen and enough people came out that open areas on both sides of the screen were occupied. Men and women. Young and old. It was great to hear little comments of understanding, amazement, and wonder. It made the tedious process of editing out the original voice-over (sorry Sir David Attenborough!), and replacing it with Sam talking in a language people here can understand, worth it. 

       During day two of the workshop we finished up building the solar cookers. Most of the rolls of aluminum foil, because of a factory defect or the way it had been stored, had darkened and non-reflective sections. It took a little longer but we cut up the rolls and mosaic-ed the good pieces together.

         The beneficiaries were excited to test out their new solar cookers. Some people tried instant noodle packets. I lacked the language skills to explain that pasta products don’t cook well in the slow-cooker conditions of a solar cooker, and the noodles turned out soggy. But the eggs, or rice and egg, that others cooked turned out well. No one seemed dissuaded or disappointed, but rather excited to continue trying and experimenting. I had cooked banana cake as a demonstration the day before and everyone eagerly copied down the recipe.

         I have the supplies and funds to repeat the workshop in one more barangay. For easier future implementations I am rethinking various elements of the design. I’m trying a different reflector design. I am also working on using reused or recycled materials for the ‘greenhouse’ heat trap. The glass box of the current design is the most expensive component. Even though it’s manufactured locally it still makes up around half of the 800 PHP (18 USD) cost of each solar cooker. Sometimes when explaining solar cooking to people here they marvel at my “invention” but I am quick to deflect credit. I am supported by the work of many. Especially useful have been the resources produced by Solar Cookers International (SCI) and the contributors to their Solar Cookers World Network Wiki.

         If you’re a kid in Culasi, one of the more popular things to yell at the white guy as he passes on his bicycle is, “What is your name?” You’re yelling it either because it’s the first English that came into your mind or because you’re actually curious about the guy’s name.  There are a couple groups of kids who I regularly pass on my way to and from town. When they still shouted the same question after innumerous responses from me in various forms and languages telling them that my name is Daniel, I gave up and tried a different tact. I yelled back that my name was Danilo. It was much easier for them to understand a Filipino name. The next day their shouts became “Hi Danilo!”

         In late December, at the request of LIPASECU (the local environmental management council), fellow volunteers Ben and Molly Martin got involved in organizing a sort of fact-checking mission. I got to help out. There is a lot of controversy surrounding some recently started mining operations in the province of Antique, in part because of the proximity of the operations to the Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park. But there are also broader concerns about the environmental impacts, how and why money is changing hands, etc. A temporary port area has been setup in Pajo, Libertad as part of the operations. There were reports that various incidents had occurred including the grounding of a barge on corals inside a marine protected area. Ben Martin and I went to Pajo to observe the area using SCUBA equipment, underwater cameras, and GPS. Included in our report is the following image I worked up:

         The facts of the matter are that the barge was never inside the marine protected area and only affected a small area of near-shore reef that was already in poor condition. There are still possible concerns surrounding the port area but the inflammatory  reports being propagated were exaggerated and not accurate. I support the anti-mining side of things but building an argument on falsehoods doesn’t help anything.  I am kind of proud of the final remarks I drafted for the report:  

This report was concerned only with the conflicting reports as to the proximity of the port to the Pajo MPA and damage, both actualized and potential, to the coral reef ecosystem in the area. This report does not address the mining operations. Nor does this report address any of the many issues surrounding mining operations in Northwestern Panay. Issues which include: effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (“Ridge to Reef”); potential for loss of biodiversity; changes to hydrology; environmental justice for residents; and many other matters. Real world situations are rarely simple and the most appropriate course of action is often a compromise between two opposing viewpoints. As events proceed, we encourage all parties involved to strive for open dialogue, transparency of proceedings, appropriate fact-checking, liberal dissemination of information, and respect for their fellow Filipinos.

       Things can be slow. Maybe it is the holiday season, and remember that it runs through all the -ber months or September to December, so everyone is more concerned with Christmas parties. Or maybe it is one of numerous town or barangay fiestas so everyone is more concerned with dancing and drinking in front of walls of speakers. Or maybe government bureaucracy needs a couple more weeks to lose process your request. Or maybe things are just running on tropical island time. The absence of seasonal change like those of us from northern climes are accustomed to means that this month is kinda like last month and next month promises to be kinda like this one, so why rush things. Or maybe you’ve gotten tired of the shouts and the stares and the awkward/painful cultural differences and the social isolation; you end up spending the weekend hiding out in your nipa hut with a jar of imported peanut butter.

       Regardless of the reason, I think most Peace Corps Volunteers end up becoming prodigious consumers of media. Books, TV shows, movies, etc. The lucky ones have an internet connection and can download at will. Either legally or through more dubious means (while promising to pay back the media industry when they have a job that doesn’t pay in pesos). Others rely on file swapping when visiting fellow volunteers.

      Some books I’ve read recently:

• A Song of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons) by George R. R. Martin – I found this series to be a good mix of political thriller, action, drama, and a slight dash of fantasy in a medieval setting. Individually these books are pretty long, combined they make a lengthy bit of reading, and the author is still writing the series! But don’t let the number of pages daunt you. The overall story is told by following multiple characters and this keeps it varied, although I often found myself hoping the next chapter would return to one of the characters to which I was more attached. Just like a long-running television series there are many smaller plotlines and stories that are born and then come to conclusion, while the overarching saga continues. In fact, the beginning of the saga has been made into an HBO television series.  There is one season so far, with a second season running soon. Interestingly enough, it was watching the tv series that got me interested in reading the books. I recommend both. (On the TV series: They did an excellent job of editing the book down into manageable episodes with a plot that flows well. I felt the acting, costumes, and sets were enough to make it good. Of course if you need a little something extra to hold your interest, it is HBO and there’s a healthy scattering of sex and violence.)       
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum – I had only seen the move before. The book reads like a childhood fable. Written so a young person can enjoy it but with plenty of subtleties to pick up on. Plus it’s the wizard of Oz… what’s not to love?
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Similar plot idea to Battle Royale and apparently “the parallels are striking enough that Collins’s work has been savaged on the blogosphere as a baldfaced ripoff.” Regardless, the plot is interesting and moves quickly and kept me engrossed. I didn’t feel that it was ever particularly deep but was a fun read. It’s like a good TV show, not an Oscar-winning film.
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe – Lots of interesting themes: change, clash of culture and ideologies, family relations, personal drive, and more. I would like to reread this at some point to try and pick up on things I missed the first time through.

      Some movies I’ve watched recently:

• The Brother from Another Planet (1984) – Haha, gotta love movies from the 80s. I would agree that this one could be vie for status as a cult classic but did drag at points. Watch this while drinking with a friend or while doing something else like cooking dinner. I agree with the critic comments highlighted on Wikipedia: “amusing but progressively erratic film” and “the movie finds countless opportunities for humorous scenes, most of them with a quiet little bite, a way of causing us to look at our society.”
• Eden Log (2007) – Confusing and rather boring. I guess there was an environmental message? The dark scenes (a majority) didn’t come across as arsty or suspense-provoking, but made me feel like they didn’t finish the sets and hoped no one would notice if they kept it all poorly illuminated. Not enough action to be exciting. Not enough suspense to be thrilling. Not enough story development to be interesting.
• Broken Arrow (1996) – John Travolta and Christian Slater in a bad action movie. And not in a so bad that it’s good kind of way.
• The Other Guys (2010) – Some of the jokes fell flat or made me cringe instead of laugh but overall I enjoyed this movie. Will Ferrell’s style fits pretty closely with much of his other work, so if you’re not a fan of his brand of humor you probably won’t enjoy this film.
• I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) – Nothing to do with the tobacco company. I’m not a huge fan of Jim Carrey’s comedic style, finding it too often over-the-top, but I thought he brought just enough of it to his role as a flamboyantly gay man perpetrating numerous cons and frauds. I thoroughly enjoyed this comedic drama.
• Waiting for Superman (2010) – Documentary on the education system in the United States. Follows a number of families as they strive to help their kids and several education professionals as they battle a broken system. Sobering and saddening but somewhat hopeful. I did get a little teary eyed at one point; watching cute little kids become sad and confused is killer.
• Battleship Potemkin (1925) – According to Wikipedia this film “has been called one of the most influential propaganda films of all time, and was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958.” And it’s true that despite being an old, silent, black&white film I was kept engaged. The soundtrack score has apparently been redone multiple times. I would be interested in knowing which I heard, and comparing it to others. The film is available for download (with a recent redo of the soundtrack) here: http://www.archive.org/details/ApskaftPresentsTheBattleshipPotemkin
• Ronin (1998) – Despite good actors this action movie falls flat. A lackluster plot. One of the “highlights” is an extended car chase which drags on for much too long. Frustratingly there are parts where the dialogue is French but the only subtitle option I could figure out turned subtitles on for all dialogue.

       The Pasundayag Festival is coming up in San Jose, the provincial capital. Part of it will be a showcase of all the municipalities, Culasi included. Each municipality gets a booth where they can display local products, hand out pamphlets, etc. Alma, my counterpart at the office, is in charge of Culasi’s booth. The committee for the booth decided to print a poster to serve as part of the display, and I was asked to design it:  

       I’m relatively proud of the strip at the top. The text is your typical tourism drivel. I wrote it. They wanted it in English. I suggested that they write something in Tagalog. They insisted I do it in English. The layout of the content is pretty uninspired. However, I did design it to display well enlarged to 8x5 feet and made sure that the resolution of all elements was high enough that they look good blown up to that size.

       Neat story… when Alma went to get it printed on a tarpaulin the guy at the shop told her that whoever made it did a really good job and knew what they were doing. I imagine he probably gets a lot of people who have done a poor job choosing text size, want to use low resolution photos that get really pixelated when enlarged to the target size, etc.  He even gave her a 200 PHP discount which I think worked out to be equivalent to about 10% off!