Compare and Contrast

The United States and the Philippines are two completely different places, each with their own rich culture. One question has come up a lot recently: which one do I like better. I have really been analyzing my relationship with the Philippines, and I have been relating it to the United States. I have come to the following conclusion: The United States does a few things better than the Philippines, the Philippines does a few things better than the United States. Most things, however, are a simple choice of preference and familiarity. For example, who has the best food system? The Philippines. Who has a better transportation system? The United States. Who has better food, or desserts, or college system, or 90% of the things you can think of? That answer depends of where home is. People naturally enjoy the things they are familiar with. It’s why I will always take a slice of pie over halo-halo, and why every Filipino thinks I’m crazy for saying that. It’s also why everyone considers the scenery in their hometown underrated.

Therefore, I prefer the United States. But, if I were born in the Philippines, I would prefer the Philippines. And if I were born in India, I would prefer India. However, I chose to spend this year outside of my comfort zone, and I chose to live in the Philippines. I choose to stay every day when I don’t fly back to my comfortable life in the United States.

This does lead to a more important issue. The issue is the few things that are actually legitimately better in one country than the other. It hurts my national pride a little to say it, but the way we get food in the United States is overcomplicated and vastly inferior to the Philippines. The US would do very well for itself if we stopped engineering our fruits to look bright and colorful 12 months a year. Rather, we should be selling 90% of our fruit only when it is in season. Our fruits would go back to actually tasting like fruit. Also, if the US government stopped paying everyone to do nothing, people would find jobs for themselves. Jobs like hunting deer and selling the meat at a market, or raising ducks for slaughter. This would greatly increase the availability of meat that has never seen a slaughter house.

Another thing they do better in the Philippines is small scale banking. In the United States many people rely solely on banks and payday advance loans when the need money. In the Philippines, there is another very attractive option: Co-operatives. Basically, co-op is a community bank where you can invest your money or take out a loan. It is only available to a certain group of people, usually just one barangay. (A barangay is a sub-city usually large enough for one small elementary school.) The key to co-ops is that the money stays in the community, rather than go to banks, who will decide what everyone’s interest rate is. Since the co-ops are made for community well-being instead of shear profit, they are able to offer almost similar lending and investing interest rates, with only a small difference to go towards paying one or two employees. Credit unions come close to accomplishing this goal, but they tend to be inclusive and drastically underutilized. 

When I return to the United States, I intend on supporting the implementation of some of these ideas. I think both of these ideas have huge possibilities in an economically struggling city like Kingston, NY.

I am encouraged by beer, but not in the way beer usually offers me encouragement. When Americans and Brits visited mainland Europe, they realized that Belgian and German beer was vastly superior to the stuff we had in America. Next, people started brewing craft beef in micro-breweries. Now, American craft beer is on the same level as European beer(Of course, I think it better for the reasons stated in the first paragraph). 

The tricky thing for me has been to try to introduce American improvements to the Philippines. Nobody wants to be told by an outsider an aspect of their culture is inferior. However I will, with all due respect to the other 99% of Philippine culture, give one quick example. The addition of more organized physical recreation into Philippine culture could do wonders for community health and camaraderie.

Sagada, Saliuk, and the Toledo Mud Hens

I spent holy week in Sagada. Sagada is a kind of touristy town in the mountains that gained popularity due to its hiking trails, caves, and American landscape. It is also one of the home bases of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines. The Mountain Province and Baguio are the only places where Episcopalians are the dominant denomination. In fact, most of the Episcopalians elsewhere in the Philippines are migrants from that particular region.  I really enjoyed my time there. I was able to spend the whole day hiking and come back to a big meal and a cold beer. The inns were all sold out, so I stayed with some local Episcopalians who had made friends with Melanie, the last YASC volunteer. They were the best hosts I could have ever asked for.

I had started to go a little stir-crazy in the office, so I took some time last week to get back to my roots, and help teach a week of VBS in the very rural village of Saliuk. I say get back to my roots, because I really got my start in mission work at St. Christopher’s mission in Bluff, Utah. For 6 weeks since 2000 I have flown down to the mission on the outskirts of the Navajo reservation to assist in teaching a vacation bible school to the Navajo children there. I learned many great lessons there that came in very helpful last week, such as the attention span of 10 year olds and the expansive definition of the word “projectile”. My job in Saliuk was songs, memory verses, and games. I introduced some of the Navajo’s favorite songs such as “in right out right”. I also taught them a classic game with a twist. It’s called pato, pato, gezu. If you don’t know what that means, read my last blog post. I spent the week living in Saliuk, where I had the opportunity to eat ants, ant eggs, and snake. Anyway, I must not have screwed up too bad, because I might get a chance to help with help with another VBS week in the nearby village of Abra soon.    

My aunt bought me a Toledo Mud Hens hat so that everyone in the Philippines would know where I came from. Sadly, in Benaue, I lost my hat. The next week I search through all the 2^nd hand clothes and hat shacks in Baguio to look for a replacement. I actually found one! I've been wearing it with pride ever since. I didn't put the hat there. The thorns were so sharp on my hike that it actually took my hat right off my head while I was hiking.

Pato

I though a nice light-hearted blog about my new hobby would be in order. After my mom went back to the USA, I started raising ducks. For the first few weeks I just had 2 ducks, a male and a female. I had been looking to buy 2 more females the whole time. However, nobody has given me a fair price on the ducks. Out here it is assumed that white people are all filthy rich, and don’t know the price of anything. Whenever I have inquired about buying ducks, everyone has doubled the price and explained to me how they were giving me a good deal. Finally, while I was visiting a wonderful local church, I found a house open to selling their ducks. When they found out a white guy wanted to buy 2 ducks, they didn’t see dollar signs, they just laughed. They loved the fact that I was raising ducks. They didn’t sell me the ducks for market price, or even Filipino price. They sold me two ducks for a friend price. They did this because they appreciated that I was raising them (They also said that I would be in big trouble if they find out I took them home for butcher). They really made my day.

Experiences like this are exactly why I came to the Philippines. I am here not only to assist as a technical advisor, but I want people to see me enjoying work they consider to be “below” white people. I can only imagine the amount of gossip that take place by people who have seen me raising ducks, harvesting rice, or walking down the road. They laugh because it is signs that you are poor or rural, and I am white, therefore I must be a rich city-slicker here to look at rice paddies and marry a Filipina. I don’t mind getting laughed at during times like these, because they are laughing at the absurdity of a white guy doing Philippine work.

I really have enjoyed raising these ducks for the last few weeks. They have subtle personalities and complex social structures. Plus, feeding and observing them actually gives me something to do after work. I find the ducks to be so low maintenance (and delicious) that I may continue raising ducks once I get back to the States.

Batad

As you could tell from my previous blog, I needed some time off. I left Santiago for the weekend to hearken back to my days as a backpacker (It’s been a long year and a half). I went to a rural community called Batud. I chose Batud because it’s famous “amphitheater” rice terrace and it has a nice day hike to a waterfall.  My weekend started by catching and early bus from Santiago to Banaue. Once in Benaue I caught a jeepney to the part of highway closest to Batad. After a two hour hike, I finally arrived in Batad and rented a room just in time for dinner. The next morning I had a quick pancake and was on the trail before 8am. Anyone who knows me knows how unlikely it is for me to wake up that early on a weekend voluntarily, but I had to if I wanted to get all my hiking in before dark. 

By 3 pm I finally made it back to the highway, where I talked to some locals and waited for the next Jeepney. That’s when I saw a white man walking down the highway. I asked him if he had walked all the way from Banaue. He said that he had, and it took him only 3 hours. He also pointed out that he was 59 and if I didn’t hike back to Benaue, I was a [wimp]. The man had a glorious Irish accent, and answered me with profanity laced excitement that only someone who has time with real Irishmen can recognize as respect. I hiked back to Banaue, caught a jeepney to the main highway, and finally took a van back to Santiago. After a well deserved McDonalds Cheeseburger (my first in a month) I made it home. 

Here are the pictures from the hike itself:

P.S. Dear 2011 YASCer who is going to the Philippines and is reading my blog while trying to decide if that is a good or bad thing, It's a good thing. Do it. And shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions. 

One Year Ago / One Week Ago

One year ago I got a call from my dad. He had just found out about the Young Adult Service Corps. A day later I called Douglas Fenton, who explained to me more details about the program. He also told me that even though the deadline had long passed, if I could get an application and references in immediately, I could go on the discernment weekend in two weeks. I told him to let me sleep on it. I woke up the next morning deciding to call him and accept. Before I could, I checked my e-mail to find my flight itinerary for Florida. Two weeks later I met about a dozen people that were shockingly similar to me. We were all crazy enough to want to leave America for the great unknown. I became fast friends with most of the guys. I also met a couple of former YASCers on that weekend. One of them described their experience by saying, “The tough times are really tough… but the good times are really really good, and at the end of the day, I’m glad I went.” That is when I decided to commit to YASC. This line has stuck with me a bit, because it is completely true. Christmas alone sucked. But my day trip to Lon-oy more than made up for it.

Lon-oy is a small barangay in the diocese of North Central Philippines. I was there to observe an ECP micro-hydro project that has been extremely successful since the early 90s. The whole time I was there, I couldn’t believe the natural beauty of the area. It is where a major river begins, creating corkscrew-esque carvings in the rocks. A felt like I was in a level on Tomb Raider. There were long handmade footbridges, giant spiders, and shaky ladders hanging over steep cliffs.

Another thing the really impressed me were the people. I couldn't talk to the locals as much as I would have liked, because they usually just ask me questions about how the heck I ended up in Lon-oy.  However, I did observe their dogs, and you can tell a lot about a person from their dog. The dogs moved towards people, meaning they get pet more than they get hit. They looked healthy, meaning they are well fed and looked after. Not one looked like they had ever been in a fight. Seeing that set a really nice vibe for the rest of the day.

In the United States, I am quite interested in politics. The reputation of Filipino politics is that it is even more corrupt than in America. However, I saw two things that give me a great deal of hope for the future of the Philippines. In Lon-oy many people have to travel a great distance every day to tend to their farms. Some farms are on the top of the mountain. In the middle of town there is a large green fertile field. The grass was greener than anything I have seen in the Philippines. It was not a farm, but rather a field for elementary school kids to have recess on. Its presence means that no politician or leader has ever taken the land for himself, and the people put an extremely high priority on education and recreation.  

The second thing came from my time in La Trinidad. La Trinidad is not like Lon-oy. It is a big city that has to deal with a lot of big city problems. They invested a lot of time and money in a environmentally friendly landfill. This is a truly rare sight, even in the US. Most environmental project concentrate on everything the public can see. However the leadership of La Trinidad installed a collection system to collect and quarantine the environmentally hazardous runoff from the slowly degrading plastics in the land fill. Even in the US this stuff usually finds its way to the water when nobody is looking.

Here is what happened Friday at the landfill: The director of development for the ECP, Floyd Lalwet, knew La Trinidad had a highly advanced system for producing wood vinegar (aka liquid smoke), but they did not know what to do with the carbonized byproduct. My charcoal project utilizes carbonized material, but we have struggled to produce very much wood vinegar. So on Friday I met with a Japanese volunteer who designed their wood vinegar production system and an engineer from the mayor’s office. I left La Trinidad that afternoon with about 3x the knowledge of wood vinegar, as well as a rough design for a more efficient production system. I left them with training on how to grind, mix, and mold their bio-waste to produce eco-friendly charcoal. Within a week or two, La Trinidad should begin production of this charcoal. 

December Report

I guess when I delay my blogs like this, I end up having to write about things that happened weeks ago. However, I really do need to talk about the completion of phase one of a major solar project in Catubangan. Catubangan is a remote village that had previously been without electricity. They still have cell phones, but they have limited light to study under and no TV to gather around at night. They used to have to travel 10 kilometers, often by walking, to charge their phones and lanterns. The old school was heavily damaged by last fall’s typhoon, so now they study at the animal feed warehouse/ temporary Episcopal church/temporary Elementary school/ solar charging station. The project is still only in its initial stage. Within a month or two we will be installing a piping system of my design to provide the village with clean potable water.

I’m designing a solar powered water pumping system that uses one imported pump instead of two local pumps. By using one efficient submersible deep well pump we will keep the costs low and the system simple. Most of the local engineers have initially told me (and more importantly, my boss) that my design will not work. I then show them the pump specs and I can usually ease their concerns. However, this project will represent my competency as an engineer. A lot of people have at least a suspicion that I will fail, but I’ve done the calculations, and I know this project will be successful. Hopefully I can use the success of this project to gain more respect as an engineer instead of only as a volunteer.

I am also writing to you for the first time since Christmas. It was a tough Christmas for my family and me. There was no snow, no Christmas tree, and no hot wax fight with my sister during silent night at midnight mass. Instead, I spent Christmas alone at a hotel in Manila. I did however get to Skype with my whole family for about 3 hours on Christmas morning. December 26th was a different story entirely. That is when I started my new year’s vacation to Japan. My first stop was Kamakura. It was a beautiful old style Japanese town with a long woodlands hiking trail around it. On these trails were dozens of temples and shrines. I was able to spend the whole day hiking (which I love to do, but haven’t been able to do hardly at all since August), looking at wonderful Japanese shrines that were unlike anything I had ever seen before, and eating sushi. The guesthouse I stayed at even offered me the opportunity to eat a sushi dinner with them. The coolest part was after the meal, we ALL rock paper scisored for dishes duty. I can think of no better way to make me feel at home than actively trying to get out of doing the dishes. It was a wonderfully refreshing change of pace. That’s not to say I didn’t miss the Philippines. The fast food noodle places in Tokyo were convenient, but they have nothing on Mang Inasal. Tokyo itself was a really cool city, but the best part of the trip was meeting up with 3 of my fellow YASC volunteers. Exploring Tokyo, while sharing experiences and stories with my friends was a special experience. I already miss chatting with Steven, Christine, and Spencer. Chatting about nothing in particular is something I miss. It was very nice and refreshing to be able to do that for a week.

This is me at the fish market. Yes, that is grilled octopus. It was very cold in Tokyo compared to the Philippines. I usually had to wear all my light weight jackets I brought to the Philippines at once.

This is a giant bronze statue of budda.

This is the dinner I was talking about. All this food was shared by a Japaneese couple, their baby, a Japaneese girl, two Scots, one Spanish man, and myself.

This blog was not originally going to be about Christmas or Catubangan. It was going to be about Mickey. Mickey is a puppy that belongs to my neighbor Auntie Andrea and her family. Every dog in the Philippines acts more like a guard dog than most American dogs. They have to be a little mean to keep from being stolen. Mickey was different. Every time I opened my door he came running to my porch to greet me and play with me. I jokingly called Mickey my nephew. I travel too much to get my own dog, but I could always play with him for a couple of minutes whenever I wanted and then send him back home. Much like hockey was in New York, playing with Mickey was often the lone highlight of any tough days. I was heartbroken to find out he passed away while I was in Japan. This tragedy couldn’t have happened to a nicer dog, or a nicer family.

Pictures II