A week without electricity

So I have a day left in my home stay. The reason why I can reach out over the internet now is that I'm hanging out in Al's room at the Bethel Guest House in Dumaguete for a few hours. At 1:30pm we're supposed to be meeting for a surprise birthday party for one of the girls in our group from GMU so I came into Dumaguete a little early.

So the neighborhood myself and three other Mason students are in is called Cantil-e (2 in upper and 2 in lower). It would seem that our home stay is slightly different than the ones last year since, at least for our two groups, we, and out Silliman University partners, are in the same homes. So our two groups of three are in two houses, one in Upper Cantil-e and another in Lower Cantil-e. It's a rural community with a combination of farming and pennycab (spelling?) and multicab drivers. The home I've been staying in (tonight is my last night there) is in Lower Cantil-e, lacks power and has a single source of running water. They're nice people. My host father is a multicab driver so he's gone most of the day and we have the mother and an aunt living in the house in addition to six children with ages ranging from 20 years to 5 months. Our neighbors are some cousins and an aunt.

Just took a break from typing to shower and you have no idea how good that felt. Anyway... we also did quite a few things (aside from watching a little Wowowee at another house, ranging from learning how to washing clothes, planting corn, harvesting (and cooking) cassava, some words of Visaya, Muay Thai (seriously, our host family can so beat up the other host families), and the local milk processing system.

This photo upload is taking too long... they'll probably be up... not soon.

So yeah. Oh and when we arrived at Dumaguete we did stuff too. Like watching dolphins, swimming in a huge waterfall, etc. the usual.

Anyway... have to go soonish so later peoples.

Home Stay

So my home stay begins later today. I guess I'll be mostly out of contact for the next week or so. When I get the chance this afternoon I'll post the name of the Barangay (think neighborhood) I'll be staying in. Also, my camera seems to have fully recovered, yay camera!

Pictures and a Soggy Camera

So it turns out my camera lives... albeit a shadow of its former self as the screen is rather... mangled.

Here's some shots from Davao, Jack Ridge, Kublai, rice planting, and an eagle sanctuary. The last picture in the album, incidentally, shows the part of the river (left side) the camera was dipped in.

Davao City

If you ever happen to be in Davao City... Ponce Suites is the place to go. Kublai is an amazing artist, one who unfortunately doesn't accept commissions from outside the island of Mindanao, who does pro bono work for communities (his money comes from government commissions). His art, as you can probably tell from the pictures, ranges from painting, to sculptures to, unphotographed ironically, photography, architecture (3 houses), installation and poetry. There was so much art in his hotel that, when we were making our way to the top floor of his hotel to meet him... it took us around 30 minutes to get to the 5th floor. He claims the art in his hotel represents less than 10% of his total body of work. Apparently he, for at least a period of several years before the present, would complete at least one piece a day (he was also an insomniac). Anyway... I'm tired and I'm getting up in 4.5 hours so I want to sleep. Later guys.

It's alive

Decided to give it one last shot to see if the camera works. Screen is a little borked but it seems to be working. Yay!

Sunny Bohol

So Bohol is rather nice. Well... mostly. Through this trip we've spent so much time in areas of the country that aren't frequented by tourists that it can feel odd being in a resort town. That isn't to say the beach isn't amazing... it certainly is... but seeing so many non-Filipinos is weird now. Even in Manila we spent more time in Smokey Mountain than at Intramuros or the other tourist places. And Mindanao isn't a tourist location... at all....

Today is a free day for us so I've been hanging out on the second floor of the resto bar (to use the local lexicon) of our resort, which is open air and about 30 feet from the beach, listening to Bob Marley (and now Dylan) while working on the blog.

In Davao we did the aerial spraying (30 years of Dole spraying pesticides on homes), a river water monitoring group, saw some eagles (and the monkeys the eagles eat) and did some rice planting. Hiking for 30 minutes in the Filipino countryside is pretty cool but having no shoes because your flip flops broke not even half way through the hike to the rice patty kinda sucked. There was also the jeepney ride in the countryside which wass amazing... since I was on top of it. Once I get around to putting up pictures there will be some from the roof of the jeepney.

A few observations since my last post of consequence:

1. Durian, despite the insistance of many SE Asians that it "smells like hell and tastes like heaven," I find it smells kinda bad and tastes like onions and bad mayonnaise.

2. Watch out for guys (as in men) sleeping on tables... they might wake up and ask you if you want to go to their house.

3. 490 pesos for an all-you-can-eat Mongolian BBQ is soooo worth it.

FML

So my camera is dead. I'd post a picture of the dead camera but my camera doesn't work. Fun times.

RIP Panasonic Lumix.

So an American, Bangladeshi and East Timorese were hanging out under a waterfall...

... then we got bored and went back to the hot spring. I'm not kidding.... Pictures later because... nevermind my cable is working now. Go figure.

While I wait for the pictures/videos to download I think I'll just talk a bit. Make sense since I'm pretty bored and the alternative is sleeping and who sleeps these days right? That's so last year.

So yeah the past week has been pretty good. Turned 21 (which doesn't really matter in the Philippines), went to Cotabato (and wasn't kidnapped), went to some schools (3 schools!), played on a playground (seesaws, swings and slides!),visited and lived in a Muslim community for a night (and heard about the Jews controlling America), ate Cassava (and I got to peel it too), and heard some explosions (somewhere off in the distance). Thinking about it, it's interesting to listen to how some people called the explosions bombs and others called it shelling. Government and Moro supporter split it seems.

I guess I'll cover things as they went chronologically.

Let's see... birthday... yeah I don't think I post any pictures from that night... maybe I'll eventually get around to putting up a picture of the Magical Placenta soap which was purchased that day by one of the other guys but that's likely to be the only picture from that day appearing on the internet... if I had my way. It's likely that something is going to pop up eventually but let's avoid it k? It isn't that I did something too stupid... other than wearing someone's sunglasses... in a dark club. It's just weird.

Anyway... as part of the Formal and Informal Approaches to Peace Education class we went to Cotabato City on the island of Mindanao, which is about a 5 hour drive from were MPI is held (Davao City). Incidentally, the countryside is amazing (seriously these pictures are taking forever to upload). With trees, farmland (surprisingly there's a lot of corn) (Oh my god 5 pictures left!), hills and mountains, etc. (time to put the pictures onto Picasa).

MPI, Cotabato City and Pagalungan

While in Cotabato City, we visited from schools that integrated peace concepts into their curriculum. The J. Marquez School of Peace, the Notre Dame Learning Center, and a Peer Respect Program among five partner schools. Some of the practices could be applied in PMP (subtle hint here) but those can be outlined later. At lunch some of us played in a playground... I played on a seesaw with a Timorese guy who never had before so HA! For some reason that isn't as satifying as I would have hoped. Incidentally, last weekend some of us taught an Afghani guy how to swim.

Anyway.... We did a homestay for a night with families in Pagalungan. Most of us were living with Muslim families and unfortunately my experience was a bit awkward. His first question was if I was an American Muslim (Answer: no), and what I was (Answer: Atheist).... Great way to start a stay in a conservative Muslim community no? Didn't help he wasn't a huge fan of the US (didn't mention the two retired military parents) and supported the conspiracy about Jews controlling the American government (didn't mention the Jewish family members). That was... awkward. But his 4 year old son was nice... though not much of a talker. We played a game where the shadow of mine cast by a lamp was where he was supposed to stand... and I would move around and he would try to stand inside the shadow. That kid has no limit to his energy.

Oh well....

On the way back to Davao we went to a spa near (or maybe on?) the volcanic Mt. Apo. Hot spring and a waterfall is fun. I tried meditating under the waterfall for a little while then gave up... I couldn't focus enough to make it work. Oh well....

I'm tired... good night.