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.