Mental Wanderings
Its amazing how things work out in the Peace Corps community! Not only have I managed to have a left handed guitar hand made by a local on the island of Bohol whom I’ve never met, but it will also now be at my next Hub Site!!! It took awhile and the texting back and forth with no less that 5 different people, 3 of whom I’ve never met, but it looks like its going to work out!!! I just need to pick up the extra boat fare so they can hop over to the island and they’ll fly out from there. Life is good.
I’ve noticed people here have a very refined idea of what their fruits should taste like. I wonder how long it will take for mine to develop, or if it will. For now I’m just happy that all these new fruits exist in the first place & they all taste good to me. Hopefully it will stay that way. Just another reason its going to be hard to go back to the temperate climate…
Today was the 1st time in awhile all 5 meals were not readily prevalent or greatly encouraged to be eaten. I ended up subsisting for the afternoon on just a few mangos & a pack of chips more out of surprise than anything. Its nice to be responsible for my intake again, hopefully we can keep that trend up. It would definitely be more healthy.
The classic stereotype I got in Lamut about Mayoyao was that everyone, even the children, chews Mo-ma, or beetle nut. They are not too far off the case either. Moma is a nut that grows on trees in a husk that is chewed with some kind of leaf and “lime,” which is a white powder made of a shell that is smoked and pounded. It produces bright red salvia and is chewed much the same as tobacco is in the states. Its an interesting substance and I’ve tried it once now. Managed to get little bits of grit all throughout my mouth. If I can keep that factor to a minimum it might not be a bad Community entry habit. Its very similar to cigarette culture in the states where you can bum a chew and start a conversation. And they say that it hardens to teeth… not that I necessary believe that one, but the old Ifugao’s do still have their teeth. Maybe that’s cause they don’t eat a couple pounds of sugar a day like your average Filipino does today. I mean come on, spaghetti isn’t supposed to be sweetened…
The strange contradictory feeling of living & seeing rural poverty much like Appalachia & then to sit down in the office on a nice new laptop running Windows XP to check my email… not that I’m complaining!
You really know your body has adjusted to a new climate when you wake up, its 75 degrees and your cold enough to go for your sweatshirt…
There are signs on the walls in various public spaces telling you not to chew Buyo here. Buyo is Tagalog for Moma. Ahhh, the politics of language at work and they expect people to actually obey the signs? On top of that people tend to draw an interesting and very purposeful distinction between “language” and “dialect”. Tagalog, also called Filipino, is a language. Everything else is a dialect. Not quite the definitions I learned in school…
I’ve noticed people here have a very refined idea of what their fruits should taste like. I wonder how long it will take for mine to develop, or if it will. For now I’m just happy that all these new fruits exist in the first place & they all taste good to me. Hopefully it will stay that way. Just another reason its going to be hard to go back to the temperate climate…
Today was the 1st time in awhile all 5 meals were not readily prevalent or greatly encouraged to be eaten. I ended up subsisting for the afternoon on just a few mangos & a pack of chips more out of surprise than anything. Its nice to be responsible for my intake again, hopefully we can keep that trend up. It would definitely be more healthy.
The classic stereotype I got in Lamut about Mayoyao was that everyone, even the children, chews Mo-ma, or beetle nut. They are not too far off the case either. Moma is a nut that grows on trees in a husk that is chewed with some kind of leaf and “lime,” which is a white powder made of a shell that is smoked and pounded. It produces bright red salvia and is chewed much the same as tobacco is in the states. Its an interesting substance and I’ve tried it once now. Managed to get little bits of grit all throughout my mouth. If I can keep that factor to a minimum it might not be a bad Community entry habit. Its very similar to cigarette culture in the states where you can bum a chew and start a conversation. And they say that it hardens to teeth… not that I necessary believe that one, but the old Ifugao’s do still have their teeth. Maybe that’s cause they don’t eat a couple pounds of sugar a day like your average Filipino does today. I mean come on, spaghetti isn’t supposed to be sweetened…
The strange contradictory feeling of living & seeing rural poverty much like Appalachia & then to sit down in the office on a nice new laptop running Windows XP to check my email… not that I’m complaining!
You really know your body has adjusted to a new climate when you wake up, its 75 degrees and your cold enough to go for your sweatshirt…
There are signs on the walls in various public spaces telling you not to chew Buyo here. Buyo is Tagalog for Moma. Ahhh, the politics of language at work and they expect people to actually obey the signs? On top of that people tend to draw an interesting and very purposeful distinction between “language” and “dialect”. Tagalog, also called Filipino, is a language. Everything else is a dialect. Not quite the definitions I learned in school…
posted by george at 3:43 PM
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