Month 1

12.17.09

The first month at site has found us very busy and not busy at all. We haven’t done much “real work,” other than a report on a Coastal Resource Management plan. But we HAVE judged two beauty pageants and learned to dance the cha-cha and local traditional dance, the “amenudo.”

Thankfully, Brandon’s counterparts have community organizing backgrounds, and they’ve emphasized that our first month and a half should be spent integrating into the community. Indeed, if community members don’t know and trust us, we won’t get anything done anyway. So we’ve spent our first weeks meeting public officials and leaders of people’s organizations and attending social events. People are starting to recognize us, and we’re treated less and less as formal guests.

[take 1: a rare clear day, view from our room at low tide]

[take 2 (this isn't a black and white photo): what it looks like most of the time right now. december-january is rainy season in our province. the dreariness actually reminds us of home! and has really cooled things off]

On the work front, we’ve had the opportunity to meet several fisherfolk organizations – groups of fishermen and their wives (who often sell or process the fish) who are organizing to access capital and funds for projects and equipment and help stabilize prices. One group lives right on the Pacific and is starting a pedicab (bicycle taxi) business as an alternative livelihood, while the women make and sell beautiful shell craft necklaces. After our meeting, they took us for a walk along the beach and showed us a former sand quarrying site. As an organization, they were able to put pressure on law enforcement to stop the quarrying (by local construction companies) that was destroying their shoreline.

We also attended the induction ceremony of a second fisherfolk organization. Before the ceremony, the members attended a three-hour environmental education session about marine ecology and the dangers of fishing with dynamite. We were highly impressed with their attentiveness – I can’t imagine a group sitting through a three-hour lecture and showing such interest after working all day back in the US! The officers of the group were sworn in by the mayor, the president looking very proud, and we all ate a wonderful dinner and danced for several hours.

When we asked our counterpart if she was tired after such a long day (it was 10pm and her day started at 6am), she remarked that she felt energized by working with communities who were so committed and enthusiastic. Before the ceremony and lesson, the group had held a thanksgiving mass, thanking God for their new organization and its promise. “This group really gets it. They see the big picture. They’re doing this holistically and they have their priorities in order. I really like working with them,” she said. We felt the same way.

[one of my favorite things, colors on the line]

We don’t have many photos to help tell our tales, but we’ve had some great cultural moments. Our town’s fiesta was this month, with nine nights of cultural shows, concluding with the much-anticipated “Miss Tourism 2009” pageant. We were asked to be judges months ago, so we’ve had time to mentally prepare. There were five contestants competing in five rounds. The scariest moment came during the sportswear competition, when one contestant, dressed as an archer, continually pointed a sharp, metal-tipped arrow right at the crowd with a trembling arm. One girl twirled fire and another did an interpretive dance that concluded with releasing a dove into the audience. It all finally wrapped up at 1:30am – they take pageants very seriously here.


We were also invited to take part in a great tradition called the “mananita,” where a group serenades a friend in the early hours of her birthday. A flat-bed truck full of our coworkers dressed in their pajamas picked us up at 3:30am. We drove to the birthday gal’s home with guitars and tambourines and proceeded to sing our way into her house. After a half hour of cheery songs – all with the basic theme of “you’re a wonderful person and we love you because you’re you” (how great this made everyone feel – smiles all around!) – the celebrant fed all of us! We had a filling but quick meal (by Filipino standards), then loaded back into the truck. Most folks went on with their morning routines, but we went back to bed. Look out friends and family – we’re bringing this tradition back with us!

The Hardest Part About Being Away

12.10.09

We haven’t had to endure many hardships during our time here in the Philippines. Most of the Peace Corps stories about going without haven’t really applied to us. But the hardest part about being away has been the time spent apart from family and friends. This became most apparent recently with the loss of my grandmother, Annabelle. My family said goodbye to her the day after Thanksgiving. It was expected, as she has struggled against cancer for many years and has recently been in the care of hospice. Nonetheless, the pull to be home with our loved ones has been particularly strong, and it was difficult to not be there to grieve with my family. We are thankful for the support of PC staff and friends here, but it is not the same as being with all of you. My grandmother was committed to serving her community and helping others, and we hope that our service will honor her memory.

[dancing at wedding, 2006]

Since Then...

[our training group and technical trainer]

11.25.09

After completing our community project, we took our Language Proficiency Interview and both passed – we are officially “intermediate” speakers of the Waray-Waray language after three months! We then packed up our things, said farewell to our first host family with a goodbye party, and headed to Manila for a conference and our swearing-in ceremony.

[Arki, the comical baby who shared our home. We're looking forward to returning to Leyte in January to attend his first birthday party]


[saying goodbye to our neighborhood gang - these kids followed us to and from class each day and loved getting rides from Brandon. hanging out with them was a highlight of our training]

[at our host family thank you party with Nanay - we already miss her a lot!]

Each volunteer has a Filipino counterpart who will work alongside us for the next two years, so they attended the conference to do some basic planning and “getting to know you” activities with us. We were scheduled to have our swearing-in ceremony on Friday afternoon at a Manila hotel, but on Thursday evening, PC staff announced that we would be having a special morning ceremony at the US Embassy, and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be the one addressing us and giving the oath!

We boarded a bus early Friday morning for an embassy security check point and then proceeded to the embassy to rehearse the ceremony. We practiced for maybe three hours for what was only a 15 minute ceremony with Secretary Clinton, but it was well worth it! She gave a brief speech about Peace Corps’s role in frontline diplomacy and the Obama Administration’s commitment to expanding the Peace Corps worldwide. We then raised our right hands and took the patriotic oath of service. It was an honor to be sworn in at the embassy by Secretary Clinton, who has been someone we’ve admired. This was a really unique opportunity for Peace Corps volunteers and will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of our time here.

[Cameras were not allowed in the embassy, but Peace Corps will be sending professional photos and video along soon; we will post when available.]

[the 20 Leyte trainees, our trainers, and PC staff]

Later that afternoon we had our originally scheduled ceremony and reception. The mayor of our site came all the way to Manila to attend this, which was very kind and demonstrates our community’s commitment to the Peace Corps partnership. (Only a handful out of 60+ mayors made the trip). In the end, 63 trainees swore in as volunteers (69 began the journey in San Francisco in August).




Swearing in was the exciting beginning of our service, but it also marked the end of our time spent with our fellow trainees. We spent a brief weekend in Manila together, stocking up on dive equipment, eating LOTS of good/unhealthy food, and saying our temporary goodbyes. We have become close with the 18 volunteers assigned in our region, and it was bittersweet to head off on our own.


We boarded the plane for Eastern Samar on November 16th and have been settling in nicely ever since with the help of our work counterparts and new host family.

What to Do with All the Stuff...

[finished community project]

11.6.09

All PC trainees complete a community project before beginning service. Because we saw firsthand the waste problem in our community during training, our training group decided to focus on waste management education for both our community project and our practicum in a local elementary school.

In week 7 or 8 (they’re all blurring together) our training group planned and taught waste management lessons with children in grades 5 and 6. We led an activity about decomposition and how long it takes for different materials to break down. We then taught a short lesson on recycling and held a litter relay race, where the kids sorted waste items into different categories (reuseable, recyclable, or residual).

[after the elementary lesson]

I think we were both surprised by how much we enjoyed these activities, since neither of us has much experience working with youth education. The kids were enthusiastic, and their energy was a good boost for us at the end of training. Because we’ve been working in the same village for over two months, we’ve also enjoyed seeing some of the kids who come to our events regularly and have become our fan club.

During our early focus group discussions in the village, the adults said they’d like to have waste bins on the beach, so for our community project, we decided to hold a workshop for building waste bins in the village. Brandon took the lead on design and construction, and I worked on the planning/reporting and education activities.

[waste education on the beach]

[community build]

A highlight of the project was strengthening a partnership between the village council and a local manufacturing plant, which agreed to donate waste bags for the bins on an ongoing basis. After construction, the fan club painted the bins a bright green, and the council made plans to place 7 more in the village.

[the painting crew]

The project output wasn’t particularly grand (the community constructed 3 simple, bamboo bins), but community members worked together to address one of the needs they’d identified and it served its training purpose – we learned a lot about working with barangay councils and community members AND doing construction without power tools! (Our egos were bruised, when our instructors had to lend a hand with the very basic construction – oh, how we take drills for granted in the US…)

[training group and trainers, building the prototype]

All the STUFF

10.30.09

Solid waste is a problem everywhere. We all know there’s no ‘away’ place to throw our trash – it’s all sitting somewhere, outlasting us all. But several factors are converging here in the Philippines to push the problem to a crisis point.

In the US, everything is jumbo-sized; here, almost all products are sold in single serving bags or packets. Shampoo and laundry detergent in one-use metal sachets, just enough bagged soy sauce and vinegar for one meal, peanuts and chips in snack-size bags only. So tiny plastic pouches proliferate.

At the same time, population continues to rise (the World Bank projects the Philippines could soon have the highest growth rate in southeast Asia; currently around 2%) and municipal governments are unable to afford the expensive sanitary landfills we take for granted in the US. Instead, waste is normally dumped in open sites, with little on-site management and no barrier to prevent contamination into groundwater or nearby streams and neighborhoods.

With these constraints and without organized recycling programs in the provinces, communities have developed other systems for managing reuseables. Waste isn’t segregated before going to the dump site, so scavengers (often children) will comb through the waste at the site to pull out recyclables and sell them at local “junk shops.” These junk shops collect the reuseables/recyclables and sell them in bulk to factories in large cities or to companies abroad (mostly China, we’ve heard).

[touring the local dump site with municipal officials]

There is weekly, municipal garbage collection in our community, curbside on major roads, but often on a common neighborhood corner. An obstacle, though, for municipal waste management, is the mixing in of human waste with regular household waste for collection. Many homes here, particularly those in the fishing village where we’ve been doing our practicum, lack indoor plumbing, so the alternatives are to use the sea/seashore or the garbage truck.

Communities here are way ahead of us, though, in the realm of food waste. All food scraps are either fed to animals or buried for composting.

These are just our impressions at the 3 month point, so take them as somewhat uninformed observations –we have much to learn about waste management here, and it’ll be a big part of our work, particularly for Brandon. Our permanent site is fortunate to have a full-time waste management consultant on staff, who seems to really know her stuff and has many creative plans for engaging the community through waste education. We’re looking forward to gaining more experience in this area and hopefully making a small dent in this very large problem.

MPA Visit

[mangrove area]

10.24.09

Last weekend, we (CRM trainees and our instructors) traveled to Samar for our Marine Protected Area field trip. The trip was two days and one night of snorkeling, identifying fish and corals, conducting sea grass assessments, touring mangrove areas, and enjoying the many reefs.

There were several MPAs in the coastal community of Lawaan. The Local Government Unit (LGU) gave us a quick intro to MPA establishment in their waters and then took us out to see them firsthand.

Marine Protected Areas here are set aside to allow for conservation and repopulation of fish, coral, sea grass, and mangrove species. The areas are sometimes managed by the community or through people’s organizations, although the local government provides assistance with funding as needed.

[guard tower at the MPA site - volunteers will take 3-day shifts staying here, watching over the area and reporting any illegal fishing]

A big part of my work here will be monitoring and evaluating existing MPAs and establishing new ones, together with my many counterparts. Ideally, when managed well, these areas can boost fish populations, create spillover into nearby waters, and raise catch levels for local fisherman – which results in more income for the community, which is what it’s all about!

We knew going into the trip that we’d have many opportunities to practice our fish and coral ID, but the experience was better than I’d expected; on the reef, I found myself surrounded by numerous, colorful species of fish - it was an exhilarating experience.



Tori, on the other hand has vowed to never reenter the reef, because she probably did more harm than help, stepping/falling on the live coral and scraping up her legs pretty well in the process. We wouldn’t be surprised if they’re hanging this picture of her at the MPA right now – “keep this woman out.”


The next day we conducted sea grass assessments in another MPA. Healthy sea grass beds are essential for marine ecosystems, because, among other things, they anchor sediment and provide habitat. We learned several species and measured percent cover along a 50m transect. We all caught on to the methods quickly, so it didn’t take long. After the assessments, we checked out the neighboring reef for awhile before getting picked up and taken ashore.

Overall the trip was fun and it was nice to get away from our classroom training for a few days. We’re now looking forward to our swearing-in as official volunteers as the next big event.

Four Days in Eastern Samar (Part 2)

Tour day 2. One of my projects will be working with a newly formed entrepreneurs association, and one of the major players in the association right now is a fisherfolk’s organization.

Their primary project is mudcrab farming, but a secondary earned income projects is a coconut wine (“tuba”) brewery! They’ve built quite an operation and have won the title of best tuba in the Visayan region – due, they say, to their marketing and branding strategy (professional labels and tamper proof seals).

Our coworkers took us to the tuba brewing site, which is also being developed as a tourism spot – the fisherfolk’s organization hopes to create a platform overlooking the ocean, where folks can sip their tuba and watch the surf.


Setting up for some tuba tasting.


Prize winning wine at the on-site retail shop.


The brewery operation. Each blue barrel contains tuba at different stages of maturity.


Trying some fresh buko juice.


We think this tuba/eco-resort idea could succeed. We’d hang here.

We were scheduled to head back to training the next morning, but were convinced to stick around for the fiesta parade. It would be a great way to get our faces out there in the community, right?


Street dancers from the local university.


Parading through the streets.


My coworkers keep the sun away. I think this was right before the crowd started chanting “Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt” at Brandon…


Post-parade we went to the mayor’s house for a fiesta feast. Roasted pig (known as ‘lechon’) is a regional specialty throughout Leyte-Samar.


View from the mayor’s house.


With our sitemate, Eric, and our new host family, Nanay Dayot and Carol.

Our site is beautiful, but there is still much work to be done. We have some great natural resources and economic opportunities to work with, and there are tons of potential projects waiting for us. We’re very excited to return here in just a few weeks and get to work.

Four Days in Eastern Samar (Part 1)

10.10.2009

Our visit to our permanent site was packed full of activities and tours – we couldn’t have hoped for a better introduction to our new community. When we arrived, the town was gearing up for its fiesta, known as “patron,” so there were cultural shows each evening and lots of visitors in from out of town.

Our community has a population of just over 40,000. It’s located on a peninsula, bordered on one side by the Leyte Gulf and on the other by the Pacific Ocean. The community contains 60 barangays (neighborhoods/ villages), 44 of which are coastal. The town has both a newly renovated central plaza and a church built in the 16th century. We can get most things we’ll need right in town, with a bank, shipping center, plenty of stores, and internet cafes, so we won’t need to leave our site too often.

At the same time, Samar is one of the least developed areas of the Philippines, with some of the highest poverty indicators. Our community hopes to capitalize on its natural assets, ecotourism potential, and recent infrastructure developments to accelerate economic development and job creation.

Here are some highlights from the trip:


Our coworkers at the local government unit (LGU) planned tours and activities for much of our stay, including this welcome dinner at a local restaurant.


We visited the local Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) office. The BFAR in our community has a well-developed hatchery for bangus (milkfish), abalone, giant clams, snapper, and more. Cultures grown here are used to populate fish sanctuaries throughout the Philippines and as starts for aquaculture entrepreneurs. This is a great resource to have right in our community.


Brandon checking out the mature fish pens at BFAR.


16th century church (and pilgrimage destination) in our town plaza.


Brandon’s office – Municipal Planning and Development.


After checking out the sites in the town center, our guides took us out to the very tip of the peninsula to Calicoan Island, which is known for its beaches and surfing. Here’s the view from one of the small resorts (perhaps one I’ll be working with on tourism development), facing the Pacific.


That evening, we went to the town plaza for the nightly cultural show, leading up to fiesta. That night featured a famous Filipino ballet dancer and his young protégés. After this awkward warm up routine, they performed excerpts from Swan Lake. So random, but great.


Food vendors line the plaza, selling fresh roasted peanuts and barbeque pork on sticks.


Plaza at night.