Flag Raising

Every Monday morning is the flag raising ceremony for the LGU. This involves all of the staff turning out in dress apparel, complete with their LGU IDs (of which I turned in the picture and info for mine two months ago now…) to sing the national anthem, an Ifugao hymn & to listen to announcements from the Mayor and anyone else who has something to say. It generally involves a lot of standing around in the hot sun, or crouching in the shade by the railing with most people chewing moma & generally not paying a lot of attention. Its also all in the local dialect, of which I still don’t know enough to follow along, adding to the enthralling aspect of the whole ordeal. Still it’s a very important bit of the week to attend as many important bits & pieces of info come up at flag raising that have bearing on the week if not that very day. Case in point was the aforementioned going away party, despodida, of the police chief that was announced and carried out that same day. Last week also brought about the dedication of three new LGU buildings complete with the Congressman and a huge party. That was at least planned for that Friday, though I still did not find out about it until I got back.
Today was just another example of last minute planning and the flowing along that comes with the culture. I’m still getting used to being able to complete up-end my day with 30 seconds notice to decide whether or not to go. My tendencies to just diving in have paid off so far and thankfully I didn’t have much planned for the day. I guess an “inspection” was announced of a road project in Alimit, one of the farthest Barangays at 20 odd km away. I did not catch wind of this until the vehicle was just about to leave and someone thought to invited me along as I was standing right there. It turned out to be a great trade off. Not only did I spend the afternoon with most of the Municipal council and the mayor I also greatly upgraded my food options. I traded in the left over bits of pig from Friday’s shindig, including a wonderful dish made of pig ears, tail, brain & who knows what else, for native pig that had been smoked the night before. It was a very good meal.
Not much inspecting got done that I could see though. The whole affair involved sitting around drinking and singing songs for a few hours before we all piled back in the vehicles and headed home. At least this particular spur of the moment did not keep me out for most of the night as the despodida did! I also avoided most of the alcohol this time around. I learn much more from these gigs when I stay sober. I’m not sure I’m ever going to completely adjust to the lack of planning ahead here, but its good for the soul to be kept on my toes.