April So Far (3)

4.19.10

Baptism


April 10th was a big day for our household – our goddaughter, Dana Briseis, was finally baptized on her six month birthday. A big difference from baptisms in the US is that only the parents and the godparents attend the baptism (not the entire family, even grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc). So it was just us, the other godparents, and the mother, Carol, who is our closest friend here in the Philippines.




[Before the ceremony, outside the 16th century Church of Immaculate Conception]



It was such an honor to be part of this tradition. Before the ceremony, we attended a short class on the responsibilities of being godparents. During the ceremony, we stood with Carol and Dana at the front of the church and held lighted candles as part of the ritual.


About a dozen babies were baptized at the same time. The priest prayed over them all and rubbed holy water on their heads. Little Dana slept through the whole thing.


There was a reception at a local restaurant afterwards. As ninong and ninang (godparents) we gave gifts: a photo album (which is a rarity here) and a stuffed panda (my family will like the significance of this…)

[Three generations: Carol (“nanay” = mother), Dana (“iday” = baby girl), Julie (“lola” = grandma). Julie also lives at our house and is the primary caretaker for the baby, because Carol is finishing her degree. These three ladies, plus our nanay, make up our family here and the six of us share lots of laughs together. We really enjoy living with these ladies.]

This was a big day for many reasons – for Dana, it was her first time to leave the house. (Here, the belief is that babies should stay in the home until baptized). For her mother Carol, it meant that her daughter was growing up and officially part of the Catholic Church. And for us, it was another step forward in becoming part of this community. We are constantly grateful for new inroads here and for the privilege to share in some of our friends’ most important life moments.

April So Far (2)

4.19.10

Birthday!

As we’ve explained before, the mananita (early morning birthday serenade) is our favorite Waray-Waray tradition. Knowing this and because of our past participation, the mananita troupe from our work arrived bright and early on Easter morning to sing Brandon’s 28th birthday praises.

As the tradition goes, the group sang outside our front door, complete with guitar, still in the early a.m. darkness, until Brandon came outside (and pretended to be surprised). [We say ‘pretended’ because the celebrant is expected to prepare a meal ahead of time for all the singers!]

The group came in, showered him with songs about how awesome he is, and then ate a simple buffet breakfast. We prepared the traditional mananita fare: pansit, boiled eggs, sliced white bread, chiffon cake, coffee and hot chocolate. After they left, we definitely had some fuzzy feelings, realizing that we’ve made some solid work friendships since being here and we’re making some headway on the cultural integration front.


[Outdoor serenade – 4:30am]


[ ‘Surprise!’]


[After the surprise outside, the singers come inside and the music continues. There’s a standard list of songs, which end with the traditional ‘happy birthday.’ Sometimes the guitarist also takes requests after the meal.]


[No celebration is complete without the cha cha. The cha cha partner here is Virgie, Brandon’s officemate.]


[Another important tradition: on your birthday here, you provide a snack for your office. It’s the complete opposite of the US tradition, where the birthday boy or girl gets gifts, a cake, etc – here it’s your big day to provide food and entertainment for friends and family. Ice cream is a popular bday treat, but expensive here and outside our PC budget. So we brought a classic Filipino mid-afternoon snack of spaghetti and coke.]

April So Far (1)

4.19.10

Work has been slow-ish here due to the election season and all the corresponding bans and restrictions. For example, community organizing by municipal employees is not allowed, so our counterparts haven’t been able to work with us on community projects. Also, all funds are frozen, so our proposals are sitting on a desk somewhere. There are good reasons for this, like keeping corruption in check, but it has made it difficult for us to get our new projects off the ground. But we are trying to focus on all the unique experiences we get to have here. To keep spirits up this month, we had been looking forward to several big events, which all converged over the course of two weeks:

Volunteer Invasion

First, almost all of the other volunteers in our region came to visit Guiuan for Holy Week. We were nervous at first about how to accommodate 16 people here, keep them entertained, and still remain sensitive to the religious holiday and our community. But somehow the nearly week long visit was practically perfect.

We used their visit as an opportunity to see some sites in our community that we hadn’t yet visited and also took them to some of our favorite spots:


[We rented this sweet ride on the first day. We squeezed 17 giant Americans into this thing.]



[First stop was the wave watching point on the Pacific side. This was a new spot for us and is now one of our all-time favorites. We were here at low tide and explored the many tidal pools full of little creatures.]


[We brought a picnic lunch and avoided the midday sun under this overhang, which is underwater most of the day]



[Second stop was the famous tuba (palm wine) brewery. A local fisherfolk group produces and bottles this stuff as a secondary livelihood project. We’ve become pals with the president of the association, whose house doubles as the brewing headquarters. In his backyard he’s constructing a “tuba resort” for folks to sip tuba while watching the sun set over Leyte Gulf. He and his wife were amazing hosts, showering us with all kinds of food and tuba concoctions. Their favorite: mixing tuba with grape Tang…]


[Last stop for day 1 was another of our favorites, Sapao Beach. Right in front of this little island there’s a great natural swimming hole, with rocks set in a circle around it to perch on. We’ve heard that soldiers during WWII set up a diving board on this spot. While we were here I stepped on an octopus, which retaliated by latching onto my foot, sending shrieks of ‘There’s a CREATURE on my FOOT’ echoing off the nearby cliffs. It ended well for me, but not so well for the octopus, RIP.]



[On Friday, most places were closed, so we relaxed at a small local resort and kept up some American Easter traditions as well]


[The mayor graciously offered us a boat to use for Day 3, so we took a trip out to the islands in Leyte Gulf. The local bantay dagat (coast guard) served as our three man crew for a half day on the water.]


[Our main destination was tiny Pearl Island, a giant clam sanctuary run by our regional Bureau of Fisheries.]





[Folks spent the morning snorkeling the sanctuary and checking out the clams, which were the biggest and healthiest most had ever seen. Giant clams don’t produce pearls (so I’m still confused about the whole ‘Pearl’ Island thing), but they do act as great ocean filters.]

[Pearl Island is also a great spot for napping and picnicking, our other two major activities for the day].

On Good Friday, we woke early to watch the “stations of the cross” procession, where scenes from the last days of Christ were reenacted in the streets. Unlike in the US, emphasis during Holy Week here is on Friday, not Easter Sunday. Most of our community spent Thursday – Saturday in their homes or attending daylong church services, and almost all businesses were closed. On Sunday, the town came alive again and families picnicked at the beach.

After the visit we realized just how lucky we are with our site – many thanks to the Peace Corps Placement gods. Compared to other communities, we have plenty of transportation options (some sites have none), internet access, plenty of outdoor activities to keep us busy (as you can see), and even a small grocery store. On the other hand, we have one of the most “isolated” sites in our group – it’s three hours to get to the nearest city and an hour and a half to the next nearest volunteers. With everything we need here at site, we rarely have to leave, which has been great for getting to know our community better.