Where do these belong?

Ah. It has been some time, almost a month. A lot has happened in the past month and more will be happening in the next month. It is the month of May where fiestas are a plenty, school is just around the corner (it starts in June here), and I have a plethora of visitors to come. Excitement is building.

I have mentioned to some of you how my work here has wave like characteristics; there is an ebb and flow to things. The past weeks, and this current week, are on the flow side. For all the times I may have mentioned work was slow in the first quarter of this year, I am now seeking my retribution. The women’s cooperative I am working with continues to surprise me, and they are gaining confidence in themselves and their ideas every day. As stated, school is just around the corner, and my counterpart and I have come up with some interesting new ideas to continue student environmental advocacy in schools and with out of school youth. I’m excited to distribute the books, which I was lucky enough to find funding to duplicate, to all the schools regarding environmental education. The composting project is steadily growing. I have learned some new methods through a German NGO on producing Vermi-Tea, which is an organic spray fertilizer that can be produced at a tenth of the cost of the price of chemical spray fertilizers, and I’m trying to develop ways to increase the private business sector in Miag-ao to participate in a number of environmental programs.

My life isn’t as crazy as that may make it sound, but I am trying to get a little ahead due to the influx of visitors I have coming this month. My friends Mikey and Gwyneth will be arriving in the Philippines this coming Friday from England. Through interesting twists of fate four years after meeting Gwyneth I ended up living in the Philippines twenty minutes from where she was born. Her parents, Filipinos, recently returned to their home town here to retire. A week after they arrive my Parents and Sister arrive, followed a week later by my friend Jennifer from Switzerland. I’ll note again, I’m excited. It’s going to be a good month.

So that brings me to these pictures. I have had some of these for a while now, but I never had a blog to put them in. So this is a Sari Sari (mixter) of pictures. The first three are of kids I met just yesterday at my house, they were to cute not to put up. I know I say it a lot, but I'm such a sucker for the kids here, they are so damn cute.

(Above) This is looking across the street from my house out over the plaza. The sky really was gorgeous this evening. To bad I was to lazy to walk the 30 seconds to my beach and get shots there of this sunset. Susunod na lang.

(Below) These were hanging up all over Iloilo city in the past six months. This is just one view of the interesting, and never boring politics, of the Philippines.




(Above) Ooops, Dropped something? No worries here, if you ever need an M16 you can just find one laying around anywhere. I’m only slightly joking.

(Below) These are Takas. That is the sound the make at night. TA KA. It is the only time I have seen two like this here, and you could get very close to them. They had a tug of war style battle for over two hours on the floor of my neighbor’s house.