Workin'

Holy Week starts this Thursday in the Philippines. Well all over the world really however they don't mess around here. I can assure you of that. The upcoming 4 day weekend is really a 7 day weekend, due heavily on the fact that from today (Monday) till Wednesday there will be no "working" done in my office what so ever. That’s fine, I have paperwork to catch up on and blogs to write. Quite a few, I think I will post 3 or 4 this week, or before Wednesday. I have to go speak at some training sessions for the new Volunteers who just arrived. Oh can you all believe I have been here for over a year now?.....me neither.

I am looking forward to the Holy Week celebration, mostly to experience it in this setting. I'm trying to plan a couple days at the nearby island of Gimaras, were the Good Friday celebrations are rather well known. I'll get back to you all on how it was at the end of April.

I mention briefly in a comment I left on my blog to my friend Brian Meyer that I had some recent success with the women's group I'm working with. I thought I would elaborate on that briefly. A few weeks ago was the 2 year anniversary of the Bocalad Center Economic Alliance. I have been working a lot with this organization (both with livelihood and with student leadership through environmentalism), which is located in one of the more rural sections of Miag-ao. I had been having my second thoughts on the women's co-op and how successful it would realistically be. Than they surprised me and decided to open a store in the BCEA Market, and to correspond with the grand opening of the store with the Anniversary celebration. The store will be selling medicine (which I have arranged for them to get at cost from an Iloilo co-op) and electrical supplies. Both items are very hard to get in the rural barangays and very expensive to get due to the high cost to travel to town or the city. In the future they hope to produce and sell banana and peanut candies. The latter I'm in the process of trying to arrange trainings for. I don't feel that the opening of the store counters all my previous thoughts; however it shows a motivation of some sorts that I didn't think existed. As the saying goes here, Simplyanay or in English simply first. It’s also a great example of how much English is blending into the local dialects (At ATM's the even have an option for TAGLISH, English and Tagalog). Below are a few pictures of the Anniversary day and its events. In all the typical Filipino style there was lots of food, speeches that went long, a church mass, dances, singing, and competitions of all sorts.

On another quick note about my work, seeing more of you are interested in it then I originally thought, I have found a German NGO to fund the replication of Environmental lesson plans (hard copy and digital) I have obtained for the 9 schools I worked with on Solid Waste Management and Environmental Education. I will be distributing the lesson plans to schools at the beginning of the next school year.

Above: The white guy with long hair is me, bowing my head during Mass. Yes Mass is held for everything. Especially during the Lenton Season.

Below: The local school arranged some dance numbers to entertain all during the celebration. This guy is bustin' his moves.

Below: The Mayor of Miag-ao cutting the ribbon for the grand opening of 11-B Dev Co's Grand Opening. There was also a blessing by the priest to ward of spirits and aswang (Witches). Yes, Cathoolicism and anceint beliefs are blended quite often in the Philippines.