Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Siaton Monthiversary

Tomorrow I will be celebrating my 1 month anniversary in Siaton. This time really is flying by. It seems only yesterday that I arrived here, not knowing any faces or names, having no idea what I'd be doing, and ready for an adventure. Well, really the only thing that's changed now is that I know most of the faces of people I interact with and maybe 1/8 of their names. I still don't really know what I'll be doing exactly and I'm still ready for adventure.

One of the professors at Hope College has legitimate face-blindness, and I'm beginning to understand how she feels. All these Filipinos look alike with their black hair and tan skin! One day I was introduced to a new coworker and had a really nice 20 minute long chat with him. I really liked him and his English was really good so that also sat well with me. I thought for sure I'd have no problem recognizing him. The next day I went to an organic produce celebration in the city with my LGU (local government unit, aka my office) and as soon as I stepped out of the truck a guy yelled over to me and was waving me down. I had absolutely no idea who he was (I later realized he was the guy from the day before). Nothing about him looked familiar, but he obviously knew me and thought I knew him, so it had to be someone I had spent some time with...but I was drawing a complete blank. I went over to him and tried to fake recognition as well as I could, giving him a great big hello and smile. But it didn't work. He looked at me with such a torn expression and said, “You don't remember me, do you.” I kept playing along though and said, “Of course I do, the different color shirt just threw me off!” Such a lame excuse now that I think of it. But luckily then he said his name again, and it totally clicked and I felt terrible, but he was nice enough about it. He was my kauban (companion) the rest of the day and I really hope I'll remember his face the next time I see him.

The challenge with Filipino names is that there are so many nicknames! It took me about 3 weeks to realize that every young girl is called Day (pronounced die) or Inday (Pronounced in-die) and every young boy is called Dong or Do-Dong. I was so confused when everyone was being called that, I thought for sure it was just a super common name. Then there are the traditional Filipino names that sound really strange (I have yet to remember one of them so I can't really give any examples). And most of these names have their own nicknames, and the same person could be called 5 different things! And it seems like a lot of Filipinos like to mumble, so even if the name is simple enough I could remember it, I can't understand them, even if they repeat it 5 times. Then, as is always the case with a new person in a group, when I met people on the first day they all told me their names, and of course I promptly forgot them since I met about 100 people the first day, and they just assumed I knew the names ever since. I'm slowly learning them one-by-one now, but there's always an awkward moment when I'm asked if I know someone and I say no, but it turns out I sit next to that person every day....It's a work in progress. One exciting discovery I made today, though, was that there are actually albino Filipinos here and they look like pale red-heads!! It's really quite interesting.

Onto more exciting news, I've made a pact with 2 other volunteers to do a half-marathon next year! The three of us ran together a lot during PST and needed some motivation to keep it up at site, so this is it! I've never run more than 6 miles at a time though, so this'll be a challenge.

I'm working here in the Department of Agriculture in the Local Government Unit of Siaton (that's the DA, LGU-Siaton on my address). From what I've been able to tell so far, this office deals with all the livestock, crops, and fisheries concerns. The livestock include mostly pigs, carabao, goats, chicken, and turkey and I've known some of my coworkers to do artificial insemination and assist in the birthing of calves (both things I'd really like to try some time). The crops here include rice, corn, and sugar cane, though I'm not sure of the specific tasks the employees do. And the fisheries, my area, deals with the fishermen organizations, maintaining the MPAs (Marine Protected Areas), and writing the policies that govern them. Right now the office needs to write an updated CRM plan for Siaton. This includes naming the coastal resources present in Siaton (the mangroves, corals, and seagrass) and the condition they're in (which means doing surveys which equals snorkeling and diving!!!), discussing the improvements that can be made, and how we plan to achieve them.

So now my work, as I said before, I still don't really know what specifically I'll be doing project-wise. I'm assuming I'll be working on the assessments for the CRM plan, but that won't happen for a while yet. It's still relatively early though and we were told during training that the first 3-6 months at site are ridiculously slow with nothing to really do. I've mostly been sitting in the office either working on language or reading up on materials given to us during training. Occasionally there are fishermen meetings to go to or other LGU meetings that are all in Vasayan, so I don't understand any of it, but I'm just trying to get out there and meet as many people as possible so they know I'm here.

As some of you may have heard, there was a 7.2 magnitude earthquake here this past Tuesday (the 15th) at 8:13am. It was my first one ever and actually really exciting! Here's the story: That day was actually a Muslim holiday so everything was closed down (schools, offices, etc.) and this was really a blessing since some schools collapsed in some areas. Anyway, I didn't have work that morning so I was still in bed, just between the conscious and sub-conscious stages. When my bed started shaking I thought I was dreaming someone was shaking my bed, which was really rude. Then after a few seconds I woke up and thought I was hallucinating, There's no way it's possible for my bed to be shaking this much without someone actually pushing it, and I don't think I'm really pushing it that much just lying here, so it can't be real. Then I fully woke up and realized what was actually happening. I got out of bed and got in the doorway, they do this in the movies so it's gotta be what you're supposed to do. I think it lasted for about a minute, though it's really hard to tell since it took me a while to actually realize what was happening. Anyway, I later found out the earthquake had originated in Bohol, an island a few islands away from me. My island didn't have any major damage that I've heard of, but there definitely was damage in the islands closer to the origin. One of the Chocolate Hills (a geological structure in Bohol) actually split! Or so I heard. We've had to deal with quite a few aftershocks even 30hrs after the initial wave, but nothing major. It was definitely an experience, but I'm fine and no need to worry!


That's all for now!   

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