Another Day at the Office

10.18.2011

Someday we’ll be back in the US, working in offices that contain computers, printers, and internet at the touch of our fingertips. But that is VERY much not our daily reality. Although our work demands us to write grant proposals, draft memorandums, print documents, and send these via email or fax on at least a weekly basis, these tasks can most definitely not be accomplished in the span of one day. I’ve often remarked that although I may start a day with a long to-do list, it will be a productive and pleasant day if, for example, I am able to find a printer with enough ink to properly print my document and then find a stapler to attach the pages to one another.

To illustrate this, we’d like to give you a glimpse into a sample project and the many steps we work through to see it finished. At home, this would be a mundane series of office tasks, maybe given to a clerical aide and completed within 20 minutes…

The Task at Hand: Type, Print, and Submit a Budget Report for our Latest Grant-Funded Project

Step 1: Type the Report

Day 1: This should be straightforward. We brought a laptop computer with us from America for just this type of task. The night before, when reviewing the next day’s to-do list, this is at the top of the list. Must be done tomorrow. Alas, we are woken abruptly at 6am when the blades of the fan at the foot of our bed stop spinning. “Brownout!” No electricity today, as is often the case. The power company has decided there will be a 12-hour shutdown for conservation or to repair a broken pole somewhere on the island. Power returns at 6pm but we are too tired from the day of sweating. We pass out in front of the fan as soon as it starts spinning. Day 2: Type the letter first thing, just in case the power disappears!

Step 2: Add Information to Report from Internet

Go to internet café. This one has no empty seats - it is full of schoolchildren playing Halo.

Go to internet café #2. Log on, get info, pay for one hour of usage.



Step 3: Print the Report

Day 2, continued: Back at the office, the most dreaded part of the document process begins… Find a printer WITH ink. Several offices have computers, but do not be fooled!

Computer #1 – Our counterparts’ office: sorry, “motherboard broken” today.


Computer #2 – Brandon’s supervisor’s office: very new printer! Alas, no ink. (or if you’re lucky, you can print in blue or purple ink if they are out of black:)


Computer #3 – Mayor’s office: as the only remaining functional computer in the municipal hall, there is quite a line. We will have to wait until tomorrow.

Day 3: With the line still long at the mayor’s office, we resign and decide to go across the street to our trusty backup – Smiley’s.


First though, we have to put our document on something portable…a USB maybe (but this is always very risky, given the abundance of viruses at public computers) or, our preferred-yet-probably-archaic-in-America choice, the CD-RW.


Smiley’s is a one-stop shop, a common sight here in the Phils – they do xeroxing (as copying is always called), photo printing, document printing, ID card making, button printing, and lamination. They also sell random bobbles associated with printing: lanyards for your work or school ID to hang around your neck, key chains with that picture of your special someone inside, CD-Rs, gold jewelry (oddly enough), and so on. They know us by name here and we know who just had a baby, who hasn’t been to work in awhile, etc. since we’re there every few days.

We hand over the CD-RW to our favorite printing lady and a few minutes later a crooked copy shoots out.

Step 4: Fax Report to the Manila Office

We return to the mayor’s office – the site of the lone municipal fax machine.

It is working, but the one woman who knows the outgoing passcode is absent today. Sayang (too bad). Will have to wait until tomorrow when she returns.

Day 4: The fax code bearer is still out. We will have to send a hard copy instead – after all, it should have original signatures anyway. In the meantime, however, we will resort to an awesome new method we have discovered here and that is suggested by PC staff: Take a picture with our digital camera and email it - our very own PC fax system.

Step 5: Return home so Brandon can take pictures on our digital camera of each page of the report.

Step 6: Email photos to the office.
(First we must wait until 2pm when people [us included] wake from their mid-day day heat stupor/nap). Return to internet café and upload pics. This takes 1 hour with our dial-up speed connection.


Step 7: Photocopy original document before sending via mail (just in case the original disappears along the way…)Return to Smiley’s! for xeroxing.

Day 5

Step 8: Mail the Completed Report

Thankfully, our town is large enough to have a courier company – similar to UPS or FedEx at home. We can send docs one-day delivery to Manila. (This is also the only place in town that has air conditioning, so we really enjoy sending documents).


Step 9: (Very Optional and Avoided at All Costs)…Reimbursement

If by some horrible circumstance we need to recover the costs we’ve incurred, we must go through this:


To process a reimbursement request through the municipal hall, we have to ask one of our officemates (a municipal employee, which we are not officially) to prepare an expense report on this typewriter. With no carbon paper available, each of up to nine copies of each page must be typed out on this bad boy, which could easily consume a couple hours. We then sign each of nine identical pages, submit to the budget officer for approval, and perhaps receive our money within a week. Clearly, we never do this. We just say it’s our financial gift to the community.

To make this crazy process bearable, we are so glad there are two of us. We now divide tasks almost without thinking: one of us writes the report, one spends their morning at Smiley’s. One hunts down a functional fax line, while the other copies files to CDs.

We do not write this post to complain. We knew what we were signing up for, and these are the daily realities of working in a country that is trying to move forward. Although, there are definitely moments when I’m battling through this process where I wonder “Why am I doing this? Couldn’t my time and skills be put to more efficient use at home?”

But now, even to us, this has become normal, and only in writing it out do we see the stark contrast to our work lives at home. We write these things down to remember. To remember when we are back in America and can log on to high speed internet at the touch of a button. Print or fax from the same desktop. We write it to remind ourselves of all the technology we so often took for granted and for the vast luxuries of efficiency.

When you start to reflect on the complicated nature of doing work here, you can see, if only slightly, why places like this lag behind. People get tired of fighting against the current. Our coworkers struggle against these barriers to work and productivity and SO many more every day, and impressively, they continue. And we are proud to be working alongside them.

Piece by Piece

Fiesta has come and gone once again, and as we slowly wake up from our food coma, we’re beginning to prepare for our big trip to AMERICA. With a third year extension now approved, we’ll be staying on here in the Phils til December 2012. In the meantime though, we’re taking a much anticipated one-month trip home for the holidays.

While we start to pack bags full of pasalubong (as Filipinos call souvenirs, delicacies, and local gifts) for everyone back in America, we’ve also started to reflect on the day-to-day things that seem so normal here but were once so foreign to us. The trip home will provide plenty of moments where we’ll think, “Well that’s not how they do it in the Philippines!” but for now, we want to share some of those things and start to record them for ourselves.

At the top of the “you see this in the Philippines but NOT in America” list is the sari-sari store. Found on every street corner throughout the country, the sari-sari is a small convenience store that sells items in micro-quantities. One recipe worth of vinegar in a plastic bag-tube, one pack of crackers for your long van ride to the city, one foil “sachet” of shampoo for your bucket bath, one sachet of 3-in-1 coffee drink. one cigarette. one match. one piece of menthol candy.


Those sari-saris located further from the town center also carry staples like eggs, rice, sweet rolls, soft drinks, and beer. Sari sari owners who have a good amount of money and therefore electricity sometimes also sell cold drinks and ice. Sari-sari translates as “mixture of” and you can easily see why when you peer behind the chicken wire facade and see countless sachets hanging from the ceilings and candies filling plastic jars in every nook and cranny.


During an informal survey-stroll last night, we estimated that at least 1 in every 10 houses has a sari sari store out front. They range in size from plywood cubby to spare front room of the house, to walk-in cement minimart. New ones seem to pop up all the time, with seemingly little concern for supply and demand. (There's perhaps a broader application and commentary on this concept, but we can save that for our long chats back in America...)



From our front door, I can see 4 stores. From the street corner, 10. Sometimes these stores are opened to earn extra income for the family of course – we’ve heard that an average sari sari earns 100 pesos (or $2) per day. But equally often, the stores are opened to provide entertainment for elderly members of the family or serve as a gathering place for neighborhood friends.

[next door]

At our host family’s house, they have a sari-sari store to meet the sundry needs of their boarding house. When visiting, I frequently play the role of “tindera” or saleswoman at the sari-sari, much to the amusement of the host fam and the customers. The exchange goes something like this; the purchaser yells “maupay!” in the direction of the sari-sari (meaning, hey! I want to buy something). Then I emerge from behind the strands of hot chocolate mix and soap packs, saying “Ano iton?” (what is it?) This is followed by a surprised/frightened gasp when the buyer realizes the tindera is not a little old Filipina lady, but “Oy, Amerikana!” They then shyly ask for a cigarette or two (cost is 1 peso each, or 2 pesos if they want Marlboro) or a mosquito coil and match to get a good night's rest without a mosquito net.

One morning we woke up to the sounds of vigorous sawing and hammering outside our window. When we opened the door, we saw a man building a cart inside our gate. When we asked what it would be, we were told “sari-sari.” Clearly. And when we asked where it was going to be located, they said “right here, of course!” So now there is a sari-sari at our house. It doesn’t bother us at all, aside from having to keep some blinds drawn to ward off curious customer stares. Plus, there’s always an emergency tube of soy sauce or toothpaste packet at arms length.

[new view from our porch]

Since March

Our updates have been on hold lately, namely due to housefuls of amazing visitors, lots of work and GRE studying, but here’s what has been keeping us busy recently:

Fish Sanctuary Project: We received a grant for over $2000 to improve the fish sanctuary! Our first activity using the grant was Manapag Reef Day – a celebration to promote pride in the village’s marine resources and educate folks about the sanctuary. It was a fun day filled with poster and poem contests, sea creature crafts, and snorkeling. For the 20 kids who snorkeled, it was their first time ever seeing a coral reef, although they can see the sanctuary area from their homes. The community had a great time and is already looking forward to planning Reef Day 2012.






[our counterparts judge the coloring contest]

[poem contest about coral reefs; we had 6 great entries]

Community Profiling: We are working with 10 villages to create environmental profiles of their communities – identifying their concerns and brainstorming solutions. Tori is leading workshops about fishing and livelihood practices, while Brandon is doing surveys of the mangrove areas and reefs. So far, the biggest environmental issues are lack of access to potable drinking water, coastal law enforcement, and waste management. We’ll be working on the Coastal Resource Management Plan, hopefully having a draft by October.

[Tori and counterpart conducting workshop for environmental profile]

[Brandon and fisherfolk friends doing a mangrove survey]

[resource mapping activity]

Visitors! Amy, Fabrizzio, and Steve came for 3 weeks in March-April. We did the “Epic Philippines All-Star Tour,” snorkeling with the whale sharks in Donsol, visiting the white beaches of Boracay, trekking the rice terraces of Mountain Province, and exploring the caves of Sagada. Liz came to Eastern Samar in May and we did all the ES highlights: snorkeling with the giant clams, investigating the tidal pools, swimming on the Pacific, and taking in the local vibe. Liz was a quite a trooper, joining us for fiesta celebrations and all the eat-a-thons and dance-a-thons that come with it. (Photos from our visitors’ adventures posted later).

Having visitors from home is a great reminder of how amazing it will be to return and spend time with everyone. It’s so nice and reassuring to know that we have wonderful friends and family on the other side of the world.

Most recently, Brandon took his advanced scuba diving certification, so he can now officially dive to depths of 120ft and do cool things like night diving, cave diving, and ice diving (although why would anyone want to do ice diving??...)

[scuba class]

Coming up: We’ll have our final PC-sponsored conference in just a few weeks. We’re also working on a water safety training program for deep sea fishermen, with training support from US Coast Guard staff. Hopefully we’ll be seeking support from you as well through an online giving program, but that’s still a few weeks away. We’ll keep you posted.

We’ll leave you now with a few snapshots of daily life:

[Choco: our half-adopted dog. He actually bums around at many houses in the neighborhood, but he has a knack for making you feel like YOU are his owner. Very tricky. Anyway, he sleeps on our porch when it’s raining.]

[Ant.bomb. A consequence of life in the tropics: any tiny bit of food left on the table, floor or counter will draw hundreds of ants. (And who knew there are so many KINDS of ants: little red ones, little brown ones, biting ones, really painful biting ones, big red ones, big black ones, and so on). One time though, we came home after a week away and found this ant colony had been constructed in our bathroom doorway…]

[officemates at a fiesta meal]

[The Manapag Reef Day team]

Return to Homonhon

3.20.11

[Coming ashore]

Last March we made the trip to Homonhon Island, the most remote part of our community, to celebrate Magellan’s landing. Last month, we journeyed there again with our five workmates in the municipal agriculture office for our “Homonhon Island Education Tour for Farmers and Fisherfolk.” It was a 9-day trip, where we, along with our Filipino counterparts, traveled to each of the eight villages on the island to provide agricultural and fisheries services to the communities there.

We started with the most inaccessible barangays (villages) – the ones only reachable by boat. After three days of nomadic living and sleeping in the homes of village captains, we moved on. We traveled by dump truck, a community service of the two mining companies currently “exploring” the island, to our home base – the house of one of our officemates, in the barangay where we stayed last year.

[Our sleeping quarters in one of the villages]

[Our memorable sleeping arrangement and bonding moment]

Every day followed a similar schedule. We’d wake up and travel to the designated village for the day’s activities. In the morning, two of our coworkers, the Livestock Technicians, would vaccinate dogs and cats against rabies, thanks to a 3-year grant from the Gates Foundation. The Fisheries Technicians would register fishermen with the Bureau of Fisheries and take their ID photos.

[How to vaccinate a very resistant dog: put him in a basket]

[One of my all-time favorite photos of the Philippines so far: my coworker Efren force feeding vitamins to a carabao (water buffalo).]

[My counterpart, Concesa, talks informally with kids about marine protection]

[Fisherfolk registration]

During this time, Brandon and I were mostly free to explore the beautiful, remote shorelines of the island. In one of the villages where there’s a fish sanctuary, Brandon did a quick snorkel survey and took underwater photos, while I conducted a perception survey with the residents.


[The gorgeous Homonhon scenery; probably the most beautiful spots in our area, but too inaccessible for tourists for now. This might be a good thing...]

[Coral reef in the the Inapulangan Fish Sanctuary, thanks to our new underwater camera case. We showed this and many other photos and videos to the community during the night's program so they could see the awesome stuff that's just below the surface of their waters.]

Our main contribution came in the evenings, when we’d host an educational program at the village plaza. As soon as it was dark the program would start with brief talks by our coworkers about the benefits of organic fertilizers and planting a variety of crops. Then Brandon and I would have the stage for about two hours, during which we’d show videos about climate change (in Tagalog) and coral reefs and talk about the dangers of fishing with dynamite and cyanide, which is common practice here.

[Setting up for the night's show]


[Brandon giving a talk on climate change. Although you can't tell, we agree this was THE hardest presentation of our lives. The generator-provided power turned off 20+ times and we were being SWARMED by these crazy little beetles. The man with the pink fan was furiously fanning them off of us as we spoke and tried to keep our composure...]

[Coral reef video and talk]

[Climate change video]

These videos captured the full attention of the town. It was routine for over 150 people to come out each night and stay glued to the screen. There is no electricity in these villages, only a generator which runs lights and maybe a few tvs for several hours a night. So having two hours of videos shown in the middle of town is a big event. At the end of the program we’d have a game show-style review for the kids. We’d ask basic questions like: Coral is: A) rock B) plant C) animal and cross our fingers that they answered correctly with letter C. Our counterparts got really involved in this portion of the program, the kids fought over who would get to answer the questions, and we were able to see if our message was clear.



[Quiz game snapshots]

After our portion, our coworkers would take the stage again and manage a vegetable seed giveaway. One of the political parties in Congress here that represent the Waray people provided funds to promote gardening on Homonhon Island by providing seeds and organic fertilizer for every household. This is in response to a crisis several years ago: Because this island is so far from the mainland and the sea becomes too rough during the rainy season, the people on Homonhon actually ran out of food completely, and they had to receive airlifted packages to sustain them. This is a shame, because although they have plenty of farmable land, they aren’t producing enough to feed the people. Hopefully this seed program will help change that.

After the evening’s program we had the challenge of getting back to our home base. There is literally no transportation on this island other than the mining company’s trucks. Hard packed dirt paths crisscross the island linking the operations for the mining company and narrow footpaths link the villages where possible. So for many of our programs, we’d have to hike in with our coworkers in the morning and hike out at night. This was particularly entertaining one night when we were trapped by a downpour and had to cross the mining area in the rain with just our cell phone lights to guide us!


[Hiking in]
[Night trek out]

In all, 1,128 community members attended the education events, 195 fisherfolk were registered, 483 animals were vaccinated, and all the households on the island received seed packets due to the efforts of our work team. It was an exhausting trip, but these accomplishments feel really great.

By far though, the best thing about this trip for us was the bonding we had with our work team. We spent 24 hours a day with our Filipino counterparts, for 9 days. We slept alongside each other, ate all our meals together, hiked all over that giant island together, braved the waves together, and shared a ton of laughs. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect cross cultural opportunity, and after all, two-thirds of our role here as PC volunteers is cross cultural. Our friendships with each of them are now much stronger and I think we’ve proved ourselves as real extension workers by coming on this adventure to the outer barangays with them. I continue to be impressed with how hard they work, with little recognition or compensation.

[The team, with village leaders]

[Buddy shot - Brandon and his counterpart, Cres]

[During our downtime, we introduced UNO to our coworkers - it's now their favorite group activity and the games can get pretty feisty.]

[Our last night on the island was actually Valentine’s Day, and so to celebrate that and to celebrate our hard work together, we of course went to sing videoke].

Getting off of Homonhon Island always proves to be tricky. After our videoke night we all eagerly woke up and hiked across the island to meet our getaway boat, or so we thought. Evidently that boat was not leaving that day after all. But we had just hiked with all our gear and no one wanted to head back. So my wonderful counterpart put in a plea to the municipal hall and begged for a special boat. Six hours later, our rescue boat arrived! (We’ve developed all sorts of ways to pass long stretches of time like this. For instance, you can wander around and take pictures of the village wildlife, giggle with the schoolchildren, play more Uno, or just stare longingly out at the waves and pray for a boat!) It was a wild, wavy ride back to the mainland, but we made it eventually. We’d never been so happy to see our adopted home come into focus on the horizon, but we also came ashore feeling really satisfied.

[Headed out]

[Happy to be on our way home; not happy to face the waves]