Shortly after I first found out I was going to be assigned to the Philippines, I remember picking up a newspaper and reading "Bomb in crowded mall kills Christmas shoppers in Philippines." Not long after, some boat somewhere sank because of yet another bomb. In the month before I left there was news of both a landslide that killed hundreds, and pesticide poisoning that killed nearly 100 school children.
Imagine you are about to leave to a foreign country and you read these things: bombs; natural disasters; mass poisonings; unsafe transportation. How excited are you to jump on a plane to a tiny country where typhoid, dengue, and falariasis also abound? Falariasis, for those who aren't in the know, is the irreversible swelling of certain body parts to gargantuan size; my island is tested positive for the mosquito that carries it. If I wouldn't be killed, I would be deformed for life. Awesome.
Worried that I'd made a fatal choice by simply wanting to be good and volunteering in a foreign land, I decided to settle my fears. I decided to look at the causes of fatality of former volunteers to prove that they were completely implausible.
MISTAKE.
Acute pancreitis. Scorpion bite. Swimming in typhoon. Motorcycle crash. Bus robbing.
Having never left my own country with questionable security to live in a country with even greater questionable security, I was concerned. Not visibly, but emotionally very concerned. I was going to die. I'mgoingtodie I'mgoingtodie I'mgoingtodie I'mgoingtodie. This was my thought on the entire 18 hour flight.
Upon arrival, however, I found myself able to walk around without being jumped from behind by a masked assailant. Nothing fierce with teeth or claws mauled me - only mosquitoes bit. And water? Poisoning? We drank bottled!!
Did you know that people don't die in freak accidents all the time here? Because the way I figured it, they did. But no, they don't, and in fact most people live long enough for the high-fat diet and lack of exercise to kill them. It's amazing!
I consider myself a fairly bright kid. I know that the beautiful actors who die in medieval war movies aren't actually dead in real life and stuff like that. I know you can't believe everything you see, and I'm smart enough to know that sometimes you have to find truth instead of having it shown to you.
All of these things I understand, but when it comes to my health and safety I become a bit irrational. Anyone would, and many have. Blinded by my own concerns and fears for my health, I lost my "filter" button and didn't put what I was reading into context. My concern with the many ways I was going to die became an irrational fear. Don't you laugh, because I have had more than one e-mail from home that mirrored my past sentiments: Katrina, a landslide hit somewhere. Are you okay? Katrina, a boat sank, were you on it? Etc. and so forth.
I'm not writing this to mock anyone who cares about me. I write this now because a typhoon is coming, the 21st of the year, and I just want to make sure that everyone knows that this is one of those times when they should check the functionality of their "pointless worrying" filters. The warning I got went something like this: To hit land today. Distance 185 kilometers. Winds 240 kph. Waves 41 feet. Signal 4 Camarin Del Sur, Catanduanes, Albay, Sorsogon....
Forty-one foot waves?!?
The typhoon will be hitting today, apparently. Last night, they called it a SUPER TYPHOON on the news, although today the status is downgraded to just the really strong variety. Signal 4 it is, which is one signal away from signal five, which is super. But not good super. Bad super.
I've never been in a typhoon, probably never will be. I'm not even concerned by the warnings much anymore, because so rarely do they come this far south. Whenever there is a warning, I try my best to be on the mainland and use the opportunity to mag-internet all day.
Someone somewhere just sent me a concerned e-mail about how long I could hold onto a palm tree in the impending storm before blowing away to my horrid and tragic death. I call that excessive. Remember always that the news tends to get people excited and fearful by reporting everything with EXCLAMATION MARKS AND CAPITOL LETTERS!!!! The truth remains that even small countries are big, and also that I'm better prepared than one might think. We have warning systems and emergency action plans, and when all else fails we can use the tin can-phone system that I ingeniously devised.
It's probably a better idea to channel the energy that it takes to worry into the energy it takes to send me a bar of chocolate. I'm fine, and as much as I appreciate the concern, I much prefer chocolate.
So don't worry, if that's what you were doing. I got two years of worrying done with way back when I was researching the many ways in which I can die here. Like I said, the high fat diet is far more dangerous. Perhaps you shouldn't send the chocolate.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Job Description
I thought the readership of this blog was a solid four – including my parents, my brother, and about six other people who so seldom look at it that they all count as one.
Recent e-mails and letters have indicated, though, that maybe I underestimated the number of people who are actually kind of interested in my life. And when I say “interested”, I don't mean to sound arrogant. I know that most of you are just checking to make sure I'm still alive, and also to make sure that I'm not writing about that time where you did that thing and the cops came. Don't worry, I won't ever write about that.
Considering that the number of people who read my blog is actually “four plus”, I now feel that perhaps I haven't been fair in the telling of just what I do here. Perhaps some of you want to know more than the current state of my bowel movements and other bodily functions. So here it goes, but just the once.
This country has tremendous aquatic resources and, in fact, more shoreline than the entire United States, even though it is only the area of Arizona (36,000 km of shoreline as opposed to 19,000 in the U.S.). There are about 1,000 populated islands of 7,000 total, and sixty percent of the population resides in the coastal zone. A majority of the population is dependent on coastal resources in some way shape or form, especially as a direct food supply.
Small islands are especially succeptible to environmental degradation because their ecosystems are smaller and more likely to crash when overexploited. Moreover, these smaller systems are indicators for larger and longer-lasting problems that are happening in the greater oceans. Enter Katrina. Essentially, my charge was to teach islanders of a small island group, the Cuatro Islas, why the marine resources they have been thriving on and exploiting for years need to be protected, in the Cebuano language no less.
For nearly a solid year, I lived on one of the islands, Himokilan, full time and tried to develop programs that could be replicated on the other islands. Living there was important to both me and the islanders, because it helped me fully integrate into a foreign place and learn the language, while simultaneously building their trust in me. I beg you to imagine being the only English speaker on an island with 600 people, no water for four months of the year, and nighttime electricity only. This was a big change for me. It took me nearly a year to deal with the many rashes and lack of electric fan, let alone figure out my assignment and how to do it best.
During that first year, I taught all grades of the elementary school weekly about the marine environment. I used to work on gardening projects, composting projects, solid waste management projects, and adult environmental education. I started one environmental group comprised of out-of-school youth called the Green Team, and I also tried to re-organize the island matweavers into an active people's organization. I used to and still do get asked daily about when I am going to marry a Filipino.
Today, all that exists of my early attempts is one adult education program that, as it turns out, is the right formula for success. After five months of the program, a lot of my targets have been met, like recycling and composting in 50% of homes, and it has been rewarding to see some very positive changes.
Many of the other projects I originally pursued turned out to be the wrong formula, and I stopped them. I refocused my attention in other areas, namely solid waste management in high schools and ecotourism development, although I do have side projects that I attend to about once a month like art clubs and the like. The other stuff failed for a reason, which I now see with clarity, but am not disappointed because I had to try things that didn't work in order to find the better formula.
In essence, failure has been a very big part of my experience here. I have failed a lot, and have also had a lot of successes, though nothing compared to the failure. I won't remind myself of the Great Duck Experiment of 2006. Why the failures have been so valuable to me is because I learned this very important concept: the way they teach you to save the environment in college doesn't work.
“Saving” the environment is not about picking up trash; it is not about replanting trees; it is not about land-use-planning and point source pollution and habitat restoration. In a developing country, is about addressing fundamental education, health, political, social, and livelihood problems. It is very complex, and many people who I work with don't see the need to target these problems in the context of the environment. That makes my job very difficult and very exhausting, not to mention one I am wholly unqualified for (though the internet has taught me a lot...).
The time I spend actually doing community trainings is a small percentage of the total. The amount of time I spend preparing for presentations, writing documents, and creating educational aids takes most of my time, and it is always hot which makes the work that much harder. So it's not like I don't do work ever. I do. Lots.
The reason I don't write about it is because that stuff isn't interesting at all. And, furthermore, since I don't get paid for it, I do a lot of it during evenings or early in the morning, which leaves the majority of daylight hours open for great adventures like caving and napping. Be thankful I don't write about work more, because something like Building a Solid Waste Management Framework for the Integrated Protected Area of the Cuatro Islas really is as boring as it sounds.
Recent e-mails and letters have indicated, though, that maybe I underestimated the number of people who are actually kind of interested in my life. And when I say “interested”, I don't mean to sound arrogant. I know that most of you are just checking to make sure I'm still alive, and also to make sure that I'm not writing about that time where you did that thing and the cops came. Don't worry, I won't ever write about that.
Considering that the number of people who read my blog is actually “four plus”, I now feel that perhaps I haven't been fair in the telling of just what I do here. Perhaps some of you want to know more than the current state of my bowel movements and other bodily functions. So here it goes, but just the once.
This country has tremendous aquatic resources and, in fact, more shoreline than the entire United States, even though it is only the area of Arizona (36,000 km of shoreline as opposed to 19,000 in the U.S.). There are about 1,000 populated islands of 7,000 total, and sixty percent of the population resides in the coastal zone. A majority of the population is dependent on coastal resources in some way shape or form, especially as a direct food supply.
Small islands are especially succeptible to environmental degradation because their ecosystems are smaller and more likely to crash when overexploited. Moreover, these smaller systems are indicators for larger and longer-lasting problems that are happening in the greater oceans. Enter Katrina. Essentially, my charge was to teach islanders of a small island group, the Cuatro Islas, why the marine resources they have been thriving on and exploiting for years need to be protected, in the Cebuano language no less.
For nearly a solid year, I lived on one of the islands, Himokilan, full time and tried to develop programs that could be replicated on the other islands. Living there was important to both me and the islanders, because it helped me fully integrate into a foreign place and learn the language, while simultaneously building their trust in me. I beg you to imagine being the only English speaker on an island with 600 people, no water for four months of the year, and nighttime electricity only. This was a big change for me. It took me nearly a year to deal with the many rashes and lack of electric fan, let alone figure out my assignment and how to do it best.
During that first year, I taught all grades of the elementary school weekly about the marine environment. I used to work on gardening projects, composting projects, solid waste management projects, and adult environmental education. I started one environmental group comprised of out-of-school youth called the Green Team, and I also tried to re-organize the island matweavers into an active people's organization. I used to and still do get asked daily about when I am going to marry a Filipino.
Today, all that exists of my early attempts is one adult education program that, as it turns out, is the right formula for success. After five months of the program, a lot of my targets have been met, like recycling and composting in 50% of homes, and it has been rewarding to see some very positive changes.
Many of the other projects I originally pursued turned out to be the wrong formula, and I stopped them. I refocused my attention in other areas, namely solid waste management in high schools and ecotourism development, although I do have side projects that I attend to about once a month like art clubs and the like. The other stuff failed for a reason, which I now see with clarity, but am not disappointed because I had to try things that didn't work in order to find the better formula.
In essence, failure has been a very big part of my experience here. I have failed a lot, and have also had a lot of successes, though nothing compared to the failure. I won't remind myself of the Great Duck Experiment of 2006. Why the failures have been so valuable to me is because I learned this very important concept: the way they teach you to save the environment in college doesn't work.
“Saving” the environment is not about picking up trash; it is not about replanting trees; it is not about land-use-planning and point source pollution and habitat restoration. In a developing country, is about addressing fundamental education, health, political, social, and livelihood problems. It is very complex, and many people who I work with don't see the need to target these problems in the context of the environment. That makes my job very difficult and very exhausting, not to mention one I am wholly unqualified for (though the internet has taught me a lot...).
The time I spend actually doing community trainings is a small percentage of the total. The amount of time I spend preparing for presentations, writing documents, and creating educational aids takes most of my time, and it is always hot which makes the work that much harder. So it's not like I don't do work ever. I do. Lots.
The reason I don't write about it is because that stuff isn't interesting at all. And, furthermore, since I don't get paid for it, I do a lot of it during evenings or early in the morning, which leaves the majority of daylight hours open for great adventures like caving and napping. Be thankful I don't write about work more, because something like Building a Solid Waste Management Framework for the Integrated Protected Area of the Cuatro Islas really is as boring as it sounds.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
They Don't Give Us Guns
Has anyone noticed that my full name is never written on this site, aside from the web address? That was a stupid mistake that I can't seem to undo, but if I could go back in time I would change it to something far more clever and original. Has anyone also noticed that I always say "volunteer" and never name my organization? Rarely do I use last names, and I avoid naming any of my companions here in country.
The reason for the secrecy is that we're not actually supposed to reveal any of that stuff. Kind of like CIA but totally different, it can be dangerous for me to give too much information. The higher ups say it's because we know where a lot of other volunteers are located, and furthermore, we are privy to information that crazies might find valuable. All that considered, the real reason I am discreet is becasue I really don't want any of my ex-classmates on MySpace to find this site and mock me for it.
But regardless of all the web secrecy, I am not a spy. This is to the dismay of Reno at the Municipal Hall, who is convinced that I am prospecting for the U.S. government on the island I live on.
Were I a spy and writing a report to the motherland, I might present my findings as such:
The reason for the secrecy is that we're not actually supposed to reveal any of that stuff. Kind of like CIA but totally different, it can be dangerous for me to give too much information. The higher ups say it's because we know where a lot of other volunteers are located, and furthermore, we are privy to information that crazies might find valuable. All that considered, the real reason I am discreet is becasue I really don't want any of my ex-classmates on MySpace to find this site and mock me for it.
But regardless of all the web secrecy, I am not a spy. This is to the dismay of Reno at the Municipal Hall, who is convinced that I am prospecting for the U.S. government on the island I live on.
Were I a spy and writing a report to the motherland, I might present my findings as such:
- 50 hectares of rock
- Rich in trash production
- Above-average albedo from the white sands
- Soil apt for producing weeds and burying trash
- Lots of kids
Sharing Too Much
Things that I consider strictly off-limits for use by others in a communal household include: toothbrushes, expensive hygiene products (like facial cleansers and hair product), my underwear, shoes, and razors.
All of the aforementioned are user-specific goods that should never, ever be shared without express permission from the owner because such actions fall into the categories of “gross,” “weird,” and “expensive to replace.”
I've learned, however, that rules of common courtesy seem to have no weight in a land where men can piss anywhere, chickens and goats roam free to graze and bellow at unspeakable hours of the morning, and travelers can walk up to a stranger's front yard and pitch a tent for the week. Likewise, enter any home and all that you possess will become at once a new curiosity or tool for another, free to use and destroy at will.
Now, my host family is incredible and very respectful toward me – they don't make me eat if I don't want to, they leave me to myself when I am in my room, and they took down all of the spy cameras before I moved in. They don't even have the habit of going through my garbage like the host families of my many counterparts do (with often embarrassing results, I might add).
Considering their wonderful success in “getting me” as an American, I suppose I should forgive them for their single lacking: they use things that I deem “for private use” and, possibly, have my bodily fluids on them. But perhaps I shouldn't forgive them. You decide.
Some examples:
I developed the habit of counting my underpants that I hang to dry after I learned about the panty thief on my island site. The thief, named Tibo, is one of a family of thieves, a band if you will. His brother likes to steal my jewelry and wear it obviously in front of me, pretending all the while that it was his to begin with; his sister is fond of my flip-flops and other people's money; and his dad probably would like my pots and pans, but I can't know for sure because years ago he was put in prison for stealing and subsequently murdered in a fight. So this Tibo is a legacy, really, and I was told to guard my panties as one does Spanish Gold so long as he was around, because stealing panties is his “thing.”
On the mainland one day, I stepped outside to check on the state of my drying laundry, and lo! I was two pair short. Did Tibo swim across from the island and take my panties? I spent a week eyeing his underwear lines suspiciously, looking for the tell-tale signs of my underpants: frayed with holes and reading “Wictoria's Secret” along the top (a Filipino Original Brand). As it turns out, my host mother mistook the tattered underpants for hers, and I only learned of their whereabouts upon seeing them hanging during her next laundry day. Ew.
In another incident, I came home to find my running shoes missing. Thinking they ran off, you can imagine my surprise when my host brother returned from an afternoon playing tennis wearing a brand-new-used pair of trainers: mine. Though flattered I was that he thought my shoes worthy to wear, I could only wonder what mathematical calculation could predict the stink that would come from those things after our combined athletic pursuits.
The day my toothbrush was in the mouth of Papa was just as surprising. I guess I didn't know people here actually brushed their teeth all that much. And do toothpaste/toothbrushes work like antibacterial soap? As in, even if you are using them to clean something, are the instruments, in effect, self-cleaning at the same time....?
Probably my least favorite of all, though, is the repeated use of my razor by the men in the house. Yes, I shave my armpits, and no, I can't tell you why it's gross to share razors. It just is. Especially when you pick yours up, and you find all eight of your host brother's beard hairs embedded in the blades, having been removed just earlier that day.
It's weird and I don't like it, and maybe you're wondering why I just don't tell them that all of this borrowing makes me uncomfortable. The reason is because I already have told them, at various times, and they just don't get it because this is how things are. They share. Everything. And if that sharing results in me getting a new fungus, or me having to replace my things constantly, or new embarrassing material for my blog, then so be it. Existentialists beware: this is how things are, and apparently it is true that some things never change.
All of the aforementioned are user-specific goods that should never, ever be shared without express permission from the owner because such actions fall into the categories of “gross,” “weird,” and “expensive to replace.”
I've learned, however, that rules of common courtesy seem to have no weight in a land where men can piss anywhere, chickens and goats roam free to graze and bellow at unspeakable hours of the morning, and travelers can walk up to a stranger's front yard and pitch a tent for the week. Likewise, enter any home and all that you possess will become at once a new curiosity or tool for another, free to use and destroy at will.
Now, my host family is incredible and very respectful toward me – they don't make me eat if I don't want to, they leave me to myself when I am in my room, and they took down all of the spy cameras before I moved in. They don't even have the habit of going through my garbage like the host families of my many counterparts do (with often embarrassing results, I might add).
Considering their wonderful success in “getting me” as an American, I suppose I should forgive them for their single lacking: they use things that I deem “for private use” and, possibly, have my bodily fluids on them. But perhaps I shouldn't forgive them. You decide.
Some examples:
I developed the habit of counting my underpants that I hang to dry after I learned about the panty thief on my island site. The thief, named Tibo, is one of a family of thieves, a band if you will. His brother likes to steal my jewelry and wear it obviously in front of me, pretending all the while that it was his to begin with; his sister is fond of my flip-flops and other people's money; and his dad probably would like my pots and pans, but I can't know for sure because years ago he was put in prison for stealing and subsequently murdered in a fight. So this Tibo is a legacy, really, and I was told to guard my panties as one does Spanish Gold so long as he was around, because stealing panties is his “thing.”
On the mainland one day, I stepped outside to check on the state of my drying laundry, and lo! I was two pair short. Did Tibo swim across from the island and take my panties? I spent a week eyeing his underwear lines suspiciously, looking for the tell-tale signs of my underpants: frayed with holes and reading “Wictoria's Secret” along the top (a Filipino Original Brand). As it turns out, my host mother mistook the tattered underpants for hers, and I only learned of their whereabouts upon seeing them hanging during her next laundry day. Ew.
In another incident, I came home to find my running shoes missing. Thinking they ran off, you can imagine my surprise when my host brother returned from an afternoon playing tennis wearing a brand-new-used pair of trainers: mine. Though flattered I was that he thought my shoes worthy to wear, I could only wonder what mathematical calculation could predict the stink that would come from those things after our combined athletic pursuits.
The day my toothbrush was in the mouth of Papa was just as surprising. I guess I didn't know people here actually brushed their teeth all that much. And do toothpaste/toothbrushes work like antibacterial soap? As in, even if you are using them to clean something, are the instruments, in effect, self-cleaning at the same time....?
Probably my least favorite of all, though, is the repeated use of my razor by the men in the house. Yes, I shave my armpits, and no, I can't tell you why it's gross to share razors. It just is. Especially when you pick yours up, and you find all eight of your host brother's beard hairs embedded in the blades, having been removed just earlier that day.
It's weird and I don't like it, and maybe you're wondering why I just don't tell them that all of this borrowing makes me uncomfortable. The reason is because I already have told them, at various times, and they just don't get it because this is how things are. They share. Everything. And if that sharing results in me getting a new fungus, or me having to replace my things constantly, or new embarrassing material for my blog, then so be it. Existentialists beware: this is how things are, and apparently it is true that some things never change.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
My Plan to Revolutionize T.V.
A list of stunt ideas for Filipino Fear Factor:
1. Put six people on a 3-man motorcycle, with contestant sidesaddle on the handlebars, and ride to upper barangay X, distance 9 miles through mountains.
2. Eat a plate of kinilaw (raw fish) with only the hands while sharing with eight street children from Manila.
3. Don't wash with antibacterial soap for three days.
4. Bathe in a pool of stagnant street water in Tacloban
5. Swim laps in the canals of Baybay during the dry season when the fresh water has nearly all evaporated and the color and consistency of what remains is a thick, black tar.
6. Go on a date with a shirtless man who constantly rubs his overwieght belly and strokes his cock fighting rooster
7. Kiss a man for 20 seconds who has only two teeth and no toothbrushing implements
8. Give birth with no doctor or meds readily available
9. Sit in a dengue-infested shanty town and write a letter to a friend you haven't caught up with in a really long time.
Given the immense amount of time I have, I also wanted to try my hand at writing a screenplay, and I gave it a fair shot when I scripted my own episode of The Filipino Office. It went something like this:
Bong Bong: Dong, wa koy gusto magtrabaho kay nasakit ang akong lubot. (nag-papershred siya sa lamesa)
Dodong: Bong, ayaw ka reklamo. Dapat unta magandam ang imong report para sa karon buwan. Di ka mogamit imong lubot pagsuwat, di ba? (nagkatawa siya sa iyahang yaga-yaga)
Hahahahahaaaaaa!
The plot summary would go something like this: Boss doesn't show up to work. Again. Coworkers take naps on the tables and do Tai Bo in the office because they have no work. Again. Lots and lots of illegal logging cases go unfiled and thus remain unresolved for years at a time. Again. Katrina comes into the office and paints her nails with her coworker. Again. And two people lose their jobs because they got pregnant and cannot work to their full ability because their jobs are so demanding.
1. Put six people on a 3-man motorcycle, with contestant sidesaddle on the handlebars, and ride to upper barangay X, distance 9 miles through mountains.
2. Eat a plate of kinilaw (raw fish) with only the hands while sharing with eight street children from Manila.
3. Don't wash with antibacterial soap for three days.
4. Bathe in a pool of stagnant street water in Tacloban
5. Swim laps in the canals of Baybay during the dry season when the fresh water has nearly all evaporated and the color and consistency of what remains is a thick, black tar.
6. Go on a date with a shirtless man who constantly rubs his overwieght belly and strokes his cock fighting rooster
7. Kiss a man for 20 seconds who has only two teeth and no toothbrushing implements
8. Give birth with no doctor or meds readily available
9. Sit in a dengue-infested shanty town and write a letter to a friend you haven't caught up with in a really long time.
Given the immense amount of time I have, I also wanted to try my hand at writing a screenplay, and I gave it a fair shot when I scripted my own episode of The Filipino Office. It went something like this:
Bong Bong: Dong, wa koy gusto magtrabaho kay nasakit ang akong lubot. (nag-papershred siya sa lamesa)
Dodong: Bong, ayaw ka reklamo. Dapat unta magandam ang imong report para sa karon buwan. Di ka mogamit imong lubot pagsuwat, di ba? (nagkatawa siya sa iyahang yaga-yaga)
Hahahahahaaaaaa!
The plot summary would go something like this: Boss doesn't show up to work. Again. Coworkers take naps on the tables and do Tai Bo in the office because they have no work. Again. Lots and lots of illegal logging cases go unfiled and thus remain unresolved for years at a time. Again. Katrina comes into the office and paints her nails with her coworker. Again. And two people lose their jobs because they got pregnant and cannot work to their full ability because their jobs are so demanding.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
Apparently I'm stressed out and that explains why I've gotten 16 collective hours of sleep since last September. Stress....I don't get it. You mean the constant wailing of neighborhood chickens and pigs, the trucks downshifting on the highway outside my house, the neighbor's obsessive watching of “Deal or No Deal”, and the general angst of being a foreigner in a foreign land is stressing me out? Is that what my doctor is saying?
She suggested I go to a counselor, to which I responded by asking if it was more cost effective to send me to Manila for a five-day trip where the counselor would tell me I'm stressed, surprise, or if it was better for her to just send me some sleeping pills so I could give them a shot. I really, really want to sleep, not talk about why I'm not sleeping. So tomorrow in the mail I'll be getting two, just to try them out. Yaaaaaaay. Hello, sleep. My name is Katrina and I LOVE YOU.
Strange that I'm not sleeping, really, because the amount of physical exercise I do these days astounds even me. I do nothing all day but bike and run and drink orange juice (the orange juice, incidentally, was gifted by God last month to the local Mercury Drug Store and now I drink real orange juice as opposed to sugar with orange flavoring). I owe thanks for this new and demanding schedule to the fact that local politics have taken a turn for the worse and I, consequently, have no work, ever (as previously communicated to loved ones back home in letters, phone calls, faxes, smoke signals, and falling leaf patterns). Being able to exercise not only kills hours and hours of my day, but it also has the added bonus of making me feel more like a single 24 year old instead of a lumpy toad girl.
Oh, my day isn't without challenges. Trust me, I'm challenged. The most challenging aspect in my day-to-day is finding a new and clever way to lie to my host family about why biking is work. “I'm just stopping by my office!” means that I'm going to the bakeshop across the street from my office for a snack. The same thing, no? “Oh, I'm visiting another volunteer to discuss work,” means that we sit in aircon in Jolly Bee and discus the lack of the aforementioned.
Another challenge has proven to be waiting an entire, excruciating week before I can read the episode recap for "The Office" on Saturdays at the Internet Cafe. I don't laugh as hard as I would were I watching the show, but I laugh pretty hard making up the episode in my head based on the recap.
I don't mean to imply that I do absolutely nothing. Fortunately, the inventions of both electricity and computers allow me to create brochures for ecotourism, proposals for said ecotourism, proposals for solid waste management, environmental education lesson plans, and lots and lots of photo journals. I have plenty to do and plenty to keep me productive during the times when I can rely on no one but myself. The problem, as it turns out, is that I find other people increasingly unreliable. Lack of funding and political barriers prevent a lot of plans from being implemented, and keeps a lot of people uninterested in aiding little development workers like myself. In consequence, a lot of communities like my own appear to stagnate, and my own work appears non-existant.
In truth, progress happens every day, if only in the sense that people keep tyring to devise new ways to implement change. After 20 months, that becomes hard to see; instead, it's easy to see failure and disappointment, and those thoughts tend to keep a person awake at night.
She suggested I go to a counselor, to which I responded by asking if it was more cost effective to send me to Manila for a five-day trip where the counselor would tell me I'm stressed, surprise, or if it was better for her to just send me some sleeping pills so I could give them a shot. I really, really want to sleep, not talk about why I'm not sleeping. So tomorrow in the mail I'll be getting two, just to try them out. Yaaaaaaay. Hello, sleep. My name is Katrina and I LOVE YOU.
Strange that I'm not sleeping, really, because the amount of physical exercise I do these days astounds even me. I do nothing all day but bike and run and drink orange juice (the orange juice, incidentally, was gifted by God last month to the local Mercury Drug Store and now I drink real orange juice as opposed to sugar with orange flavoring). I owe thanks for this new and demanding schedule to the fact that local politics have taken a turn for the worse and I, consequently, have no work, ever (as previously communicated to loved ones back home in letters, phone calls, faxes, smoke signals, and falling leaf patterns). Being able to exercise not only kills hours and hours of my day, but it also has the added bonus of making me feel more like a single 24 year old instead of a lumpy toad girl.
Oh, my day isn't without challenges. Trust me, I'm challenged. The most challenging aspect in my day-to-day is finding a new and clever way to lie to my host family about why biking is work. “I'm just stopping by my office!” means that I'm going to the bakeshop across the street from my office for a snack. The same thing, no? “Oh, I'm visiting another volunteer to discuss work,” means that we sit in aircon in Jolly Bee and discus the lack of the aforementioned.
Another challenge has proven to be waiting an entire, excruciating week before I can read the episode recap for "The Office" on Saturdays at the Internet Cafe. I don't laugh as hard as I would were I watching the show, but I laugh pretty hard making up the episode in my head based on the recap.
I don't mean to imply that I do absolutely nothing. Fortunately, the inventions of both electricity and computers allow me to create brochures for ecotourism, proposals for said ecotourism, proposals for solid waste management, environmental education lesson plans, and lots and lots of photo journals. I have plenty to do and plenty to keep me productive during the times when I can rely on no one but myself. The problem, as it turns out, is that I find other people increasingly unreliable. Lack of funding and political barriers prevent a lot of plans from being implemented, and keeps a lot of people uninterested in aiding little development workers like myself. In consequence, a lot of communities like my own appear to stagnate, and my own work appears non-existant.
In truth, progress happens every day, if only in the sense that people keep tyring to devise new ways to implement change. After 20 months, that becomes hard to see; instead, it's easy to see failure and disappointment, and those thoughts tend to keep a person awake at night.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Embarrassing Things You Should Know About Me
There are a couple of things that happen from time to time, very specific to this country and my life in it, that cause me an unspeakable amount of embarrassment.
1. Butt Sweat [buht swet] n. The extreme sweat generated in the gluteus maximus region, which seeps through ones pants when sitting in raging heat
2. Wrong Word Choice [rawng wurd chois] v. The act of unknowingly using the wrong word instead of the right one, often with unintentionally rude implications. Example, mistaking the local word for chile with the local word for the male genetalia; mistaking vinegar (suka) with vomit (suka).
3. Diarrhea [dahy-uh-ree-uh] n. The thing that happens to anyone living near a questionable water source and consuming a deep-fried-food-rich diet.
The last of these happens to us all, and I want it known that WE SHOULD NEVER BE ASHAMED OF SUCH THINGS. Really, Embarrassing Thing Number Three only proves to be a cause of embarrassment when bathrooms are inacessible (which, I've found, they usually are), or your entire municipality shuts off the water when you really have to go.
I have a terrible, horrible story to about Embarrassing Thing Number Three, but because no one will ever want to hear it, just assume that it's terrible and horrible. There are some things about living in this country I would just assume forget, except that I've kept a very detailed journal to remind myself that, when I'm having a bad day, things really could be much worse.
1. Butt Sweat [buht swet] n. The extreme sweat generated in the gluteus maximus region, which seeps through ones pants when sitting in raging heat
2. Wrong Word Choice [rawng wurd chois] v. The act of unknowingly using the wrong word instead of the right one, often with unintentionally rude implications. Example, mistaking the local word for chile with the local word for the male genetalia; mistaking vinegar (suka) with vomit (suka).
3. Diarrhea [dahy-uh-ree-uh] n. The thing that happens to anyone living near a questionable water source and consuming a deep-fried-food-rich diet.
The last of these happens to us all, and I want it known that WE SHOULD NEVER BE ASHAMED OF SUCH THINGS. Really, Embarrassing Thing Number Three only proves to be a cause of embarrassment when bathrooms are inacessible (which, I've found, they usually are), or your entire municipality shuts off the water when you really have to go.
I have a terrible, horrible story to about Embarrassing Thing Number Three, but because no one will ever want to hear it, just assume that it's terrible and horrible. There are some things about living in this country I would just assume forget, except that I've kept a very detailed journal to remind myself that, when I'm having a bad day, things really could be much worse.
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