Miagao Site Visit Pictures

Well i promised some nice pics from my site visit so here they are, I wish i had a higher megapixal camera now, but it will have to do. I consider dropping Funds on an Cannon Elf but ultimatly decided against it for the time being, mabey Christmas from the family.....hmmmmm.....  Anyways my site visit ended up great and I can't wait to start my assignment now in 3 more weeks, I just got to get this language thing down.  People think i speak pretty well, till they talk to me for more then 5 min. than it is all down hill.  Anyways i guess i got two more years to practice, oh wait, at my site they speak another language, the one i'm learning is the common language in the region (illongo), but they have there own Dialect (Kinaraya), oh well, should be fun. 

Well I went to a couple cock fights last week, actually 3.  I won money in the first two, you better believe I bet.  It is crazy, so much screaming, hand signals, odds betting, 9-10, 8-10, 3-4, it is nuts. All in the local dialect language, I got it down pretty well now.  The third time i went, (all differant cities) I went with another Volunteer and she is a 65 yr old lady, it was so fun!  She bet with me and we lost, had a blast though.  Some may think this whole cockfighting this is cruwl because yes, at least one cock dies, many times both, but i look at it this way.  This birds are treated like kings up until they fight, best foods, vitamins, housing, space to move,  massages the whole works, way better then the billions of chickens killed each day for human consumption, and at least these guys get a fighting chance..............

The below pictures was taken at about 5 thousand feet, in a village with no electricity in the municipality of miagao, it took us about 2 or 3 hours in an offroad truck, on roads that will be completely impassable come rainseason, to get there.  The people with me are the burungay capts. from each of the sourounding villages (burungays) they were my guides for the day.  After this picture was taken I went into the house of this particular villages burungy capt. and had fresh coconut juice for a mid morning snack, her son had climbed a tree and picked them while we took this picture.

I couldn't get a good pic of it, but off that dirt road (above) is about a drop of 3 or 4 houndred feet, i was just praying the driver wasn't drunk from the night befores fiesta..........The below pic is of some of the rice terraces near Miagao.  Once the rain season comes they will get even more bright green

 

(Below)This is a typical nippa hut, hopfully i'll get one in 3 or 4 months too, but this was takin' in one of the burungays near miagao that speciallizes in the making of pottery, they have been doing it for hundreds of years in the exact same way.  The picture under it, is of a Filapina working on her pottery.

 

The below picture is taken from a hanging bridge as I leave the pottery burungay, you'll see the locals are doing there wash in the creek.  I have also learned to handwash my clothes, and it takes a slightly bit longer then machine washing does. Wash, Rinse, Rinse, Rinse, Dry.....oh good times for now, i think once training is done i may spring to have mine clothes washed for me.

Below is the world famous Miagao church, it is on the World Heritage List.  It is about 100 yards from where i'll be staying when I move to Miagao.  It was built over 200 years ago, and you'll notice the carvings on the front aren't the ones you would see in America, or in Europe.




 

The below picture is taken out of the top left tower of the church,  twoards the mountains, the fog is a bit bad to see the whole of them, but regardless I thought it was pretty kuwl, the other driection you an see the ocean, next time i'll post one of those.

The next two pictures are simply of Filipino children.  I'm doing a small project with a Sunday School type class during my training.  It will be focusing on simple enviromental ideas, this was the first time I went to the class.  I really enjoyed these pictures, mabey some of you will as well.  The game they are playing in the 2nd bottom picture is called "I love you." One of the children simply takes off a sandle and throughs it over his/her head twoards the others, and if the same person catches the sandle three times, they get to through their sandle next....name has nothing to do with the game, and you can see many of them really don't have money for balls or toys, but they sure had a blast doing it.

This picture was taken right in the midst of Roxas city, on the river.  I had to use digital zoom to get it this close, that is why it is a little blurry.  This is simply a local trying to catch fish in the river, out of a tube.  Lets put it this way, I would much rather catch a fish on the shore of lake Michigan and eat it rather than out of this river.

 

The next two pictures are for those of you asking how i got around.  The two main types of transportation are Jeepneys (longer and shorter distances) and Trikes, simply for shorter distances.  On any given jeepney you can fit way more people then in the one pitured below, and almost as many on a trike, believe me, i have seen over 15 kids and people on one single trike, it is amazing.  Unfortanitly everytime I see it i don't have my camera, or they go by by the time I get my camera out, I promise a piture of it soon however.

2nd set of pics.

The above pic is of Boracay when i was there for water safter, the lower is of a tree worm found in the rotted branches at Mangrove forests, and....well if your starving you can eat them.

The lower pic is another of the tree worm, i just loved the kids face in this one.

Yes I tried them, not a big one, but I still tried it, I can't say i tasted it, it just slid right on down.



The above and below pics are of the mangroove forest I visited during training.  The bamboo walkway lead through the forest about 4 or 5 hundred yards, mabey more, all the way out to the ocean. 

First pics (many you may have seen already)

Well these are pictures I'm posting to my blogg, i will try to update them as much as possible, and enclose captions where it may be interesting.  I have a lot more excellant ones of my site visit but I won't be able to upload them till i return to my training cluster cause that is where my compact flash drive is.  It is a couple of days into my site visit now and i'm not as overwelmed as before, i'm starting to feel really lucky, my site is really killer, my job will be fully challanging and that is more than i can say for other PCV's i have talked to.  THe housing thing will change drastically in 4 months, I have already talked to my counterpart at the Municipal hall i am working and he has a small piece of land on the ocean i went and checked out, and as long as it doesn't sell he is going to let me build a nippa on it overlooking the ocean, the PC pays for that and then i just leave it with him when i'm done for the use of the land.  The awsome thing is that on his property there is a valley with a direct view of the ocean, with palm trees, and coconut trees lining both sides and the nippa I would build would hang over the valley and extend from the top of each side, thus leaving under the nippa as the walkway to the beach, it would be beutifal, I just have my fingers crossed it works out, one is it is a bit of a ways away from my job so the PC may not allow it, but Like i said i have my fingers crossed.  If it doens't work out I will def. work for ocean front (sea front tech.) somewhere else.  Anyways enjoy the pics all and instead of posting comments to this write me emails please, unless your that lazzy than i'll read the comments...lol.  Take care all.

The above pic is an owl at the mangrove forest I visited during training, unfortanitly it wasn't in the wild but really cuwl none the less, the lower picture is me my first week in the Philipines while i was still in manila for initial orientation.  It was a giant chess set that you could play, it was fun and i felt like harry potter.



The above is one of the pics from the sunset my first night in the philippines, the lower is at a wedding I attended, i sat at the head table, and didn't know the bride or groom, just the brides aunt, but that is the attention i get here. Anyways it was a pig they roasted for the dinner, (Eric I hope the head doesn't scare you)



The upper and the next two lower pics are from Boracay when I was there for my water saftey training.

Perminant Site Visit

Well I got to my perm. site yesterday for my site visit, and I must admit I was overwelmed by a number of things to start off with. Firstly my host family's house is really nice, nicer than i would have ever thought i would be staying in when I joined, including a maid and laundry woman. At first I had some major issues with it, but i'm sorting em' out in my head now, either way I hope to have my own place in 3-4 months anyways. In terms of my job it is very intimidating, i have a lot to learn, and that is in addition to learning 2 languages, illongo and kinaria. I am working in the Municipal gov. and as the past two days have went on I am learning more what my job will entail. Lots of planning and orginazation of a project called "economic alliance" Which consists of a lot a implemantation of public markets, livelihood trainings, job growth and job creation, ect in all the burungays in Miagao, there are a 119 burungays and each Alliance is made up of 11 burungays, with one of each 11 being the center of commerace for that area/region. One "test" alliance has been implemented, my job consists of creating the others. I will also be working with other secondary projects as well including the marketing of their tourists sites, one is a world heratige church, and also with bio-diversity, mostly with planting of trees in key enviormental areas to help facilitate longer water supplies throughout the dry season. Like I said I have so much to learn, but that is why I came here, i just hope i can provide a fraction of the benfit I will be recieving from all this.

First Blogg

Well this is my first attempt at blogging, and to get off to a start I'll say that I will do my best to keep it somewhat updated but I highly doubt it will be on any regular basis. I'm going to try to link pics to it so you can see those as well. I leave for my site visit this up coming weekend and i'm feeling pretty stoked. This past week I went and learned to plant mangrooves, and to be honost it was really easy but a good time and they are just amazing to wander through, totally beutiful. I got some sweet pics that I hope to be able to link to this. I also found out that if you are ever in the mangroove forests and starving you can it tree worms that live in rotted branches, they get rather large, of course we had to taste them and I tried a small one, but a couple of my friends ate some rather larger ones. I didn't really get a solid taste, they were so slimy that it just slid right on down.

It is pretty crazy how quickly i'm adjusting to it over here, it is just an everyday thing for me to jump on a jeepney or trike and go haulin' along dirt roads, many times just packed with more people than you can possible imagine to the middle of knowwhere to attend this thing or that, or to be at the mayors office talking to him about waste disposal and next thing you know i'm in his truck going to some meeting child rights seminar, all with tropical scenire.

The training is getting to be a bit old, big brother and all, along with many things that I find just mind numbing but i hope the tech training, that takes place after my first three months of service is better. The only thing I like is the language, which i wish there was more of, it gets really frusterating at times, but i know I need it more than anything right now.