January 2011
6 posts
Smile Bus
Today getting stuff set up for Sunday’s dental day (kids get free checkup and cleaning from dental students.) We are making a “Smile Bus” poster. I have to make certificates of participation for all of them. That is a big big deal in the Philippines, getting a certificate for EVERYTHING.
1 tag
“People ask me what is my religion. Kindness is my religion.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama
July 2010
1 post
Looking Forward
In Manila last year, the typhoons washed out a community that the Peace Corps has since re-established in Laguna, on the East coast of Luzon island. They’ve got a a 10-day training camp coming up and need a community planner to participate. I feel honored to be invited and look forward to doing something diffferent and away from Dagupan City for a while. Although, I’m not sure what to...
June 2010
1 post
Totems of Respect
The kids punch and kick each other constantly, having never known anything but violence at home or on the street. Their behavior is only reinforced by the staff, who punish them for hitting other kids by giving them a smack! I created a project to introduce them to the idea that violence is not benefical to anyone. I helped the kids create a cardboard totem pole with cut-out totemic tribe animals...
May 2010
2 posts
Hot Dogs in Everything
I had dinner with my original host family the Saplans on Saturday night. They proudly made me pasta Filipino style, with sugar and hot dog in it. I made them sangria, which they just love but absolutely cannot drink. They get giddy and silly even though I water it down with juice and ice till it’s practically just fruit punch. They are pleasant, happy folk when sober and become laughing...
Who Knew?
I have returned to Philippines, after a few weeks visit in the States, with renewed resolve to tough it out and stop complaining. After all, this is what I want.
The kids went nuts when I came back. I felt a little ashamed about my own ambivalence towards my service, as they adore me so much.
Today and next week we’re holding a “camp” for them before school resumes in June. ...
April 2010
15 posts
“Keep the mental forces in accord with own higher self, and rise above the...”
– Edgar Cayce Reading 3991-1
WNCW →
Listen to the WNCW radio stream, a local community college station in Boone, NC, that my son listens to.
Our Miners
Just listening to the news and hearing the governor of West Virginia lying lying lying about the conditions at the mine that just blew. At a safety inspection just weeks ago a blower was blowing air the wrong way, which the inspector said would cause miners to die of smoke inhalation if there were a fire or explosion. Mine managers said “don’t worry about it.” I hope they fry in...
Water, Soil & Seeds
Great news, the center just got a $500 US grant to replace the water pump and tank so that we can facilitate bathing and washing, and irrigation of the organic garden we are planning. It will sure be great to have water. It’s very hard to do laundry for 40 kids with only a slow trickling faucet to fill laundry tubs. It’s all washed by hand, if you can imagine, takes all day.
We really...
Ancient skeletal remains shed new light on... →
Article on CNN.com - A team of researchers working in South Africa has unearthed what they believe are the remains of a previously unknown species predating modern humans.
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow...”
– John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club, 19th century ecologist)
Camp out on the Land
Just spent four days at the organic farm. So I’m officially a WWOOFER now, in additon to Peace Corps-nik! It was loads of fun, and educational. I stayed on top of the mountain all by myself for two of the nights, as they all went to town to attend mass on Sunday. I awoke early this morning to a loud SLURP SLURP sound ON my tent this morning. It was their damn cow licking the dew off my...
March 2010
17 posts
A Moment's Peace
I long for the peace and serenity of the mountains. It’s so noisy here. A baby cries incessantly in the alley behind us, dogs bark, and of course the ever-present motor rickshaw and fish saleswmen tooting their clarabel horns. This is the most raucous place I have ever been.
Thankfully, I’m going back to Enca Farm (my first WWOOF!) on Easter holiday. Then I will be in Manila for...
Hopes for a Garden
Visited an organic farm over the weekend that is a WWOOF site. It’s quite a place. The farm family totally took me in and it was like visiting my dad’s kin in Alabama. Fresh green beans, potatos, great healthy food. Not the Filipino mush they sell in the lowlands. I taught yoga in a hilltop paviliion to a couple of staff and just had a great time.
I plan to go back Easter weekend, to...
Another Day in Paradise
Today I’m finding this place so depressing that I’m fighting the urge to just pack it in and go home. As I discussed with another volunteer recently, the thing that is most disheartening is the banality and juvenility of the culture. Sometimes I imagine this entire nation of 90 million souls ricochets cluelessly through every day steeped in telenovelas, beauty contests and karaoke,...
Just go on down the road
I bought the only known TAMBOURINE in the Philippines. And I wrote lyrics for the Brementown Musicians puppet show. It goes to the tune of “Turkey in the Straw,” an old folk tune, with kazoos etc. When you’re down and out And you haven’t got a thing You’re as rich as a king If you can dance and sing So leave yer worries behind And just go on down the road...
Melt My Heart
Today (Monday) is normally my day off but I went in to host about 20 young Japanese college student volunteers of Caring for the Future Foundation. I just invited them to pitch in and play with the kids like I’ve been doing for a couple of months. Of course after 5 minutes, you could not tell who was the volunteer and who was the client. They all just played together and had a wonderful...
Glimmers
A really neat thing happened while playing with kids at Kalinga today. There are two girls Alma and Mary Rose who are about 16. They’re very withdrawn and don’t interact with other kids. They usually cling to the houseparents or sit on the sidelines and watch, at least Alma always did. Mary Rose appeared just last week; her family asked her to be allowed to stay at Kalinga, although...
Yet He Can Sing
There were ripples of excitement going through staff today as people heard about Mary Rose jumping rope yesterday, it truly was a break through for her, but today she was very subdued again and did not join in. Still, we feel encouraged and probably such a severe depression/withdrawal will have its good and bad days, so hoping she will be able to recover.
One boy, Jerome, cannot speak, the...
February 2010
8 posts
Puppets
The landlords pet Daschund had four puppies this morning. They look like mice. She is kept in a cage all the time and never let out, so how she got pregnant remains a mystery to me.
Funny, I just finished the puppets for “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window” to teach tomorrow. It’s so much fun to be making puppets again! I used to make them for my kids. I forgot how much...
Small Things
I’m loving my new nest. I have a nice room with wood floors, big windows, and most of the upstairs is empty so I have most of the floor to myself. The family seems to all crash downstairs.
The house is downtown so its convenient to banks and stores, although not as close to my work as the other house. But everything here is pretty close and the jeepnys run just about everywhere you need to...
Just Wanna Have Fun
At a workshop yesterday on arts in therapy and learning, I took out some native Ifugao percussion instruments (drums and bamboo do-dads you can bang on the floor and beat on with sticks) that I bought at a mountain university museum and demonstrated an “eagle” dance that I had seen at the Ifugao village I visited recently. Of course, I am no expert, just having fun, but we got...
Year of the Tiger
I planned an activity for Chinese New Year to let the kids make a tiger puppet out of heavy cardboard. There’s cardboard cutouts for the legs, tail, etc, with strings attached so about 6 kids can operate the puppet and make it dance. For the music, we didn’t have enough instruments, so I made some yogurt container (large) drums and filled plastic bottles with beans to make rattles, let...
Slim Pickins
I leave Sunday for Manila for two weeks training in grants writing, which will hopefully result eventually in some funding for my new site. It’s so hard when these little shoe string agencies have to spend 99% of their slim budgets just to feed and shelter the kids. There’s no money for supplies or activities. I keep buying picture books, paper, yarn, etc., just to be able to do a few...
Another Cultural Oddity
Another cultural oddity: Men and women both wear their nails filed to a point like a damn chicken claw! And paint them some dayglo orange or lime color.
I went recently on a courtesy call to a local jail where my foundation asked some of us volunteers to teach some lifeskills to the female inmates. (Though it would have been interesting if the inmates taught the volunteers a few survival skills...
January 2010
23 posts
Ain't you sorry you asked?
My Peace Corps country director, Miz Sonia, we call her, told me she is constantly asked my media and government officials, ”What is the greatest challenge to volunteers working in the Philippines?” She likes my way with words, so she asked if I would write up a little paragraph response for her. I gave her 4 pages single spaced! She said, holy cow I had no idea! Maybe I ghost write...