Divine Comedy
The fickleness of the transportation here has thwarted my attempts to get home for the past two days now and my own constitution the two days before that so, in essence, I’ve been trying to get home for the past five days. The gods must be enjoying themselves. Bus decided to leave early today. No bus the day before that because of the holiday. Throwing up called off my first day of travel from Manila and a good friend convinced me to stay the night after to go out since I was already missing a party from my previous delinquency at the bus station and it was a holiday to boot. Gotta love a country that celebrates All Saints’ day, as well as a host of other holidays. And you love it a touch less when everything shuts down on each of them.
What a crazy ten days in Manila though. The main impetuous for my trip was a planning meeting for a Solid Waste Management (SWM) conference the Peace Corps will be hosting in January. I went down a touch early so I could play with my frisbee team on Sunday and stayed a touch late to play in the league championship the following weekend. In-between the week was filled with meetings and research at the Peace Corps office and the occasional disc practice. I also had the pleasure of staying at an awesome apartment 28 floors up overlooking Manila bay! One of the great perks of finding and being involved in the Ultimate scene here in Manila. The couple, who play on my team, were wonderful hosts as well. I never really felt like I was infringing on their life style and they mostly left me to my own devices for the week and provided transport to practices and such things.
Its awesome to be able to roll into a town, regardless of size, and feel comfortable there. Knowing how to get there and back home. Knowing your way around. How the public transport works and the names of the few stops you currently need. Knowing the street names and being able to tell if the cab driver is going out of his way on the trip or not. Where to get good beer. It’s a very empowering feeling, all the more so for such a large city as Manila. I, of course, by no means know my way around all of it, but the few corners where I currently operate I have a general idea of what’s around and how to get places. Public transport still takes forever though and combine that with my current enforced lethargy, my truck now permanently tops the list of things I miss from the States, followed closely by a washing machine.
I never realized how much we subconsciously commodify time in the United States. Time really is an ever present force lording over the choices we make and the ways we choose to live our lives. In many ways I’ve explicitly know this from various classes in my wonderfully “multi-cultural” college environment but like any cliché, it takes living it and really looking that little truth in the face for the full impact of the words to sink into your brain and make an impact there. Its one of those eureka moments where people tell you you’ll never understand unless you step outside of it. You’ll never quite understand our obsession with time until you live somewhere that it isn’t valued at all. And if you’re anything like me, it’ll drive you nuts and you’ll love it at the same time. Or alternating by the day and whether or not you just missed your bus home.
Another great part about keying into the Ultimate scene here has been all the wonderful people I’ve met and am able to hang out with when I’m in town. A RPCV couple who just had a baby last week. An expat who works for the Asian Development Bank. Several other expats who work at the International School in Manila. A computer software designer who is the epitome of a gentleman. And this doesn’t even begin to touch on all the different Filipino’s I’m able to meet and to compare and contrast my own experiences “in the Provinces.” In some ways Manila is a whole different world from Mayoyao, and in many others they are both still definitely in the same country. I can’t quite put my finger on the ins and outs of it all yet, but I hope with time and some persistence it will clarify itself a bit more to me.
And if that wasn’t enough, being able to play in the league finals tourney and pull out a tightly contested battle for the championship can give a boost to anyone’s day! The team I play with, Jeepney, is a wonderful group of people, including many of the above mentioned characters and they also play some decent disc doubling the pleasure of playing with them. We’ll get to dance again, too, in three weeks for the big international tournament hosted by Manila at the end of this month too!
On the flip side of all of that, I’ve also felt good about my involvement in disc and its balance with the real reason I’m here. The only reason I was in Manila was because I’m on the planning board from what’s looking like a really cool SWM conference that I think will be a great help to my community and a wonderful launching point for some projects in SWM. I extended my time away from site a little bit, and will make a special trip down to Manila for the tourney, but even then, more than half the reason I’m heading down that time is to pick up my girlfriend who’s flying in from the States for the month. In the midst of all the distractions, I still feel like I’m able to take the time off to recharge and use that extra energy to throw myself back into the fray and to support me through this long stretch of trying to figure out what I’m going to do and how to actually get sustainable development work done in my community. This trip has gotten a little ridiculous on the time away from site note, but as our Program and Training Officer (the #2 person at PCHQ) likes to say, “the best laid plans of mice and men…” Even now though, the trick is to quickly adjust to the changing realities of another day in Legawe and use that time wisely; such as writing this, and reading some of the research I’ve dug up and doing some laundry. You just roll with it, laugh off the frustration and show up early for the bus tomorrow.
What a crazy ten days in Manila though. The main impetuous for my trip was a planning meeting for a Solid Waste Management (SWM) conference the Peace Corps will be hosting in January. I went down a touch early so I could play with my frisbee team on Sunday and stayed a touch late to play in the league championship the following weekend. In-between the week was filled with meetings and research at the Peace Corps office and the occasional disc practice. I also had the pleasure of staying at an awesome apartment 28 floors up overlooking Manila bay! One of the great perks of finding and being involved in the Ultimate scene here in Manila. The couple, who play on my team, were wonderful hosts as well. I never really felt like I was infringing on their life style and they mostly left me to my own devices for the week and provided transport to practices and such things.
Its awesome to be able to roll into a town, regardless of size, and feel comfortable there. Knowing how to get there and back home. Knowing your way around. How the public transport works and the names of the few stops you currently need. Knowing the street names and being able to tell if the cab driver is going out of his way on the trip or not. Where to get good beer. It’s a very empowering feeling, all the more so for such a large city as Manila. I, of course, by no means know my way around all of it, but the few corners where I currently operate I have a general idea of what’s around and how to get places. Public transport still takes forever though and combine that with my current enforced lethargy, my truck now permanently tops the list of things I miss from the States, followed closely by a washing machine.
I never realized how much we subconsciously commodify time in the United States. Time really is an ever present force lording over the choices we make and the ways we choose to live our lives. In many ways I’ve explicitly know this from various classes in my wonderfully “multi-cultural” college environment but like any cliché, it takes living it and really looking that little truth in the face for the full impact of the words to sink into your brain and make an impact there. Its one of those eureka moments where people tell you you’ll never understand unless you step outside of it. You’ll never quite understand our obsession with time until you live somewhere that it isn’t valued at all. And if you’re anything like me, it’ll drive you nuts and you’ll love it at the same time. Or alternating by the day and whether or not you just missed your bus home.
Another great part about keying into the Ultimate scene here has been all the wonderful people I’ve met and am able to hang out with when I’m in town. A RPCV couple who just had a baby last week. An expat who works for the Asian Development Bank. Several other expats who work at the International School in Manila. A computer software designer who is the epitome of a gentleman. And this doesn’t even begin to touch on all the different Filipino’s I’m able to meet and to compare and contrast my own experiences “in the Provinces.” In some ways Manila is a whole different world from Mayoyao, and in many others they are both still definitely in the same country. I can’t quite put my finger on the ins and outs of it all yet, but I hope with time and some persistence it will clarify itself a bit more to me.
And if that wasn’t enough, being able to play in the league finals tourney and pull out a tightly contested battle for the championship can give a boost to anyone’s day! The team I play with, Jeepney, is a wonderful group of people, including many of the above mentioned characters and they also play some decent disc doubling the pleasure of playing with them. We’ll get to dance again, too, in three weeks for the big international tournament hosted by Manila at the end of this month too!
On the flip side of all of that, I’ve also felt good about my involvement in disc and its balance with the real reason I’m here. The only reason I was in Manila was because I’m on the planning board from what’s looking like a really cool SWM conference that I think will be a great help to my community and a wonderful launching point for some projects in SWM. I extended my time away from site a little bit, and will make a special trip down to Manila for the tourney, but even then, more than half the reason I’m heading down that time is to pick up my girlfriend who’s flying in from the States for the month. In the midst of all the distractions, I still feel like I’m able to take the time off to recharge and use that extra energy to throw myself back into the fray and to support me through this long stretch of trying to figure out what I’m going to do and how to actually get sustainable development work done in my community. This trip has gotten a little ridiculous on the time away from site note, but as our Program and Training Officer (the #2 person at PCHQ) likes to say, “the best laid plans of mice and men…” Even now though, the trick is to quickly adjust to the changing realities of another day in Legawe and use that time wisely; such as writing this, and reading some of the research I’ve dug up and doing some laundry. You just roll with it, laugh off the frustration and show up early for the bus tomorrow.
posted by george at 1:00 AM
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