Litany of A Day
Conducting electricity with my hands is only one of the challenges I have faced today. To get the fluorescent bulb in my room to turn on requires me to touch the far end & slide my fingers across to complete the connection. Don’t ask me how that works, but it does. I’m sure I could get a new bulb, and I will once the amusement factor wears off.
So still no supervisor today. I did go to the flag raising though and somehow still managed to be surprised when they asked me to introduce myself in front of everyone & so of course I completely forgot the short intro I had prepared in Ilokono. Such is life, we all managed fine in English. (& here comes the downpour I narrowly avoided being drenched in on my hike home. The storms move in fast here). After that, my host mother was gracious enough to take me around and introduce me in person to all the different offices at the LGU. She works at the DSWD (Dept. of Social Work & Development) so she was at flag raising as well. I hit it off quite well with the Vice Mayor and the chief of police seems like a great guy as well. He has only been here for 2 months so maybe we can go exploring the different barangays together. I ended up at the MPDO (Municipal Planning & Development Office) which is where I am officially attached and got to meet my counterparts. I have a desk which is a nice touch & I also got handed the 400 page MPDO 10 yr plan for the Municipality, 97-06. Glancing through it looks rather interesting, but reinforces the stereotype that Filipinos are long on the planning part and less so on the actual implementation. After that Linda, who is a secretary of sorts in the office, showed me around town so more and took me to some of the more outlying offices. Not a bad morning considering no one was expecting me to be here. After a slightly awkward lunch with Lillian at her sisters house Jerry, an Engineer who will be one of my counterparts in the office, walked me up the steep hill to the hospital so I could meet them and fill out some PC paperwork (always more paperwork…) and…
And I’m writing by candlelight now. CRASH, BOOM, & no more power. There’s a great storm going on. Soft rain, rolling thunder, lightning. It was an interesting walk though. We looked at the huge, poorly maintained & run Tilapia (fish) farm built by the 1st PCV here back in the 70s & then essentially I got hit with a huge litany of projects funded by outside sources, including many by the past 6 PCVs, that have both failed or partially succeeded & a large list of major problems facing Mayoyao. Water is drying up so they can only harvest rice once a year (though his numbers of the area affecting by this are way higher than others I’ve heard), some kind of large earth worm is destroying the terraces (which I read about in the 10 yr plan written in ’96) & the irrigation project done with the Japanese equivalent of the PC that cost 4-5 million pesos (54 to the $) that could be extended. On the way back down he asked me if I had any project proposals that we could submit to foreign governments for $$… Informative, but not the happiest of trips. I’m not excited to be seen as the foreign cash cow here to fix all their problems by sitting at a desk and writing grants for outside funds. So much for capacity building and all that jazz…
After I finished the rest of my PC paperwork at the office I decided to take my own hike around the community. People might as well start getting used to seeing an American wandering around without a companion. I hiked the long way around (via the road) to my house getting turned around a few times but was saved by a talking with the locals with my small Ilokono vocab. I then kept on going past my house and ended up on the next hill over at the Hostel they are currently building (which also currently doesn’t have any running water). There’s a great view up there & I hiked out along the ridge and got a wonderful chance to just sit and look at the spectacular view of the terraces and process some of the day. Quite the task ahead. This is the loneliest I’ve felt so far, but that is also to be expected with my first look at the immensity of the work ahead. Integrating into a new community, building solid relationships and trying to find a niche where I can actually be of some service. And then I hiked home, barely missing the rain & here I am dripping sweat, writing my candle light. The day finishes in high spirits & to cap it off, nothing like a dozen or so texts from your fellow Vs to brighten the evening. As I’ve been texting: No Staff. No Sked (schedule). No Problem.
So still no supervisor today. I did go to the flag raising though and somehow still managed to be surprised when they asked me to introduce myself in front of everyone & so of course I completely forgot the short intro I had prepared in Ilokono. Such is life, we all managed fine in English. (& here comes the downpour I narrowly avoided being drenched in on my hike home. The storms move in fast here). After that, my host mother was gracious enough to take me around and introduce me in person to all the different offices at the LGU. She works at the DSWD (Dept. of Social Work & Development) so she was at flag raising as well. I hit it off quite well with the Vice Mayor and the chief of police seems like a great guy as well. He has only been here for 2 months so maybe we can go exploring the different barangays together. I ended up at the MPDO (Municipal Planning & Development Office) which is where I am officially attached and got to meet my counterparts. I have a desk which is a nice touch & I also got handed the 400 page MPDO 10 yr plan for the Municipality, 97-06. Glancing through it looks rather interesting, but reinforces the stereotype that Filipinos are long on the planning part and less so on the actual implementation. After that Linda, who is a secretary of sorts in the office, showed me around town so more and took me to some of the more outlying offices. Not a bad morning considering no one was expecting me to be here. After a slightly awkward lunch with Lillian at her sisters house Jerry, an Engineer who will be one of my counterparts in the office, walked me up the steep hill to the hospital so I could meet them and fill out some PC paperwork (always more paperwork…) and…
And I’m writing by candlelight now. CRASH, BOOM, & no more power. There’s a great storm going on. Soft rain, rolling thunder, lightning. It was an interesting walk though. We looked at the huge, poorly maintained & run Tilapia (fish) farm built by the 1st PCV here back in the 70s & then essentially I got hit with a huge litany of projects funded by outside sources, including many by the past 6 PCVs, that have both failed or partially succeeded & a large list of major problems facing Mayoyao. Water is drying up so they can only harvest rice once a year (though his numbers of the area affecting by this are way higher than others I’ve heard), some kind of large earth worm is destroying the terraces (which I read about in the 10 yr plan written in ’96) & the irrigation project done with the Japanese equivalent of the PC that cost 4-5 million pesos (54 to the $) that could be extended. On the way back down he asked me if I had any project proposals that we could submit to foreign governments for $$… Informative, but not the happiest of trips. I’m not excited to be seen as the foreign cash cow here to fix all their problems by sitting at a desk and writing grants for outside funds. So much for capacity building and all that jazz…
After I finished the rest of my PC paperwork at the office I decided to take my own hike around the community. People might as well start getting used to seeing an American wandering around without a companion. I hiked the long way around (via the road) to my house getting turned around a few times but was saved by a talking with the locals with my small Ilokono vocab. I then kept on going past my house and ended up on the next hill over at the Hostel they are currently building (which also currently doesn’t have any running water). There’s a great view up there & I hiked out along the ridge and got a wonderful chance to just sit and look at the spectacular view of the terraces and process some of the day. Quite the task ahead. This is the loneliest I’ve felt so far, but that is also to be expected with my first look at the immensity of the work ahead. Integrating into a new community, building solid relationships and trying to find a niche where I can actually be of some service. And then I hiked home, barely missing the rain & here I am dripping sweat, writing my candle light. The day finishes in high spirits & to cap it off, nothing like a dozen or so texts from your fellow Vs to brighten the evening. As I’ve been texting: No Staff. No Sked (schedule). No Problem.
posted by george at 6:40 PM
<< Home