Sako gid ko

(I'm really busy!) Well I was told that the first 3 months at site would be a more laid back, relaxed time.. Up to this point i have not found that. Mind you some of what i'm busy with has been my own deliberate doing.. I am the one who took a long weekend to go back to my original host family and enjoy their fiesta. I am also the one who made the choice to go to Boracay for the 4th of July. Besides those two adventures I have been really busy with work however. It is a differant kind of busy however. Some days, when i have no meetings to go to or barungys to visit, I find myself with not much work to do, it is mostly planning work, (but in the next week i see this changing drastically). Those are the days that I try to walk around the town and meet as many people as I can. At times this gets to be more difficult that one would think and i find myself instead finding a quite place by myself and escaping into a novel. I have never read more in my entire life than i have been reading since i have been in the Philippines. Now may be the point where you say, "how can he be that busy if he has time to sit and read that much?" Well if i didn't take the time to escape and read, i think i would go insane. It is my normal time, I can zone out, not have to process what people are saying in another language, try to translate what i want to say in another language, not worry about my actions and if they are somehow being offensive in a way i didn't know, and relms of other things......Those are the days i don't have meetings however. Up to this point at least 2 or 3 days a week i find myself in the back of a truck, going up the mountain to villages to meet with village officials, or school officials. The sites are beutiful, and stunning, and when i get there that is when i really realize how much i love what i'm doing. Many times i feel underqualified or unprepared (even though i know i prepared as much as I could have), people look at me for anwsers that I have no clue what the solution to is. It gets overwelming, but I try to take my step back and take it one thing at a time. The past month at site (first month i will add) I have been working with a H.S. in the mountains to try and implament Solid Waste Mang. into there curriculum, as well as full implamentation at school. Through this i'm trying to get the funding to have a truck from the municipality come up once a month (depending on volume), to pick up the segragated recycled materials, as well as locate a residual waste dump for the H.S. (currently anywhere is there dump, that or burn). Also we are orginizing the construction of a composte pit. Going into the school the S.W.M was the project i was most exceited about working on, yet i quickly found out the children are very excited about reforestation and tree planting. So in conjuction with the S.W.M. I'm working on organizing a vol. ecology club, it is already well underway to being organized, and in 2 weeks it will be holding its first reforestation day, 500 seedlings in a selected watershed area near the H.S. In addition to working at Bacolod H.S, i'm currently working with the Municipal planning and Development Office on the satalite growth markets. Which, as i have mentioned before on my blogg, is the setting up of Satalite Farmers markets away from the town proper. To cut down on transperation costs, as well as to create livelhoods, incorporate S.W.M. and a number of other things that are key to the Municipality. Enough blabbing about office talk.

So before i mentioned i went to my first host fams for their fiesta. It was a blast, the most interesting fiesta i've been to yet in the Philippines, mind you the really big ones are in Jan and Feb. They had a parade, with floats all made of local products, mostly nippa and bamboo, some were pulled by caribo, some where even built around trikes and drove in. After the parade was an amazing local dance production with bamboo insturments, I wish i could tape the whole thing for you all to see, it was brillant. My camera was out of batteries on this day, which was a huge bummer, but i did get new ones for the next day, which was a parade again, but this time in the river. All bamboo boats and rafts, 21 in all, and once again just brillant to watch. The last day of fiesta was the eating day.....oh man i have never ate more in my entire life. I think i had 3 lunches and 2 dinners, each with its own whole roasted pig. Everyone host there own lunch or dinner, and if you are invited you best go, and at least eat a little somthing. It was intense to say the least, i thought i was going to pop, good thing later i had plenty of ol' Sam Mig's to help the digestive process!! To see more pics of this i suggest checking out the pics labeled Sigma Fiesta on Karen's photobucket http://photobucket.com/albums/y49/dubulet/ I'll try to get some of my own up but she is much more motiviated than i when it comes to the taking of, and posting of pictures. You also may want to check out the pics from the weekend of the 4th of july in Boracay. It was a good good time, lots of good food, lots of good drinks, to bad it was pricy. At least for us, if we were living on the dollar it would have been cheap, but alas were not anymore. Well I think thats enough for today, i hope you are all well, I'll work on getting some pics up, mabey in the next week i'll add some,, but i have a rather hetic schedual this week as well. No later than next weekend have put up more pictures. Take Care and I miss you all!