Nicole's Adventures in hand washing and fish heads

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Evenin' folks,

I have been in the Philippines for a week now, so I thought I would let you all know I am doing well and pass along my first impressions.

I got into Manila last Friday at 11pm. The airport was super busy and the city's traffick was even worse. People here enjoy telling me that Manila traffick is always so bad that they refer to bad traffick as traffick. The people I heve met here so far are a lot like Maritimers, they are warm and protective and constantly joking and teasing. I am teased so consistantly here that at times I feel like I might as well be at the MacFarlane dinner table. Like Maritimers they also tell the jokes they like over and over. However, Filipinos do not speak English as their first language. There are numerous dialets spoken all around the country, and in Manila the main language is Togalog. So the jokes are usually translated from Togalog for my benefit, and like the traffick joke, which I have heard probably 6 times, they usually aren't funny in English.
Language has not really been a barrier. English is spoken in ranges from basically to fluently by almost everyone in the country. The people I work with in Manila all speak in fluently, and use a lot of English words in their Togalog conversations, so I am able to keep abreast of most of what is going on. It is lonely at times, especially when we are doing something social and people are talking and laughing in a language I can't speak, but I have figured out which of my co-workers will think to translate for me and now always make sure I sit beside them *smile*. I have also been told that English is spoken more frequently in the region to the north where I will be spending the majority of my time. That makes me happy because learning the language is slow going. so far I can say "full" (because I am fed constantly by Filipinos concerned that I am hungry and not speaking up, or Filipinos my own age who want me to try all of the interesting street food they love - interesting being a subjective term which I will explain later) "yes" "no" and "here is my payment" in Togalog.
The people who do not speak English are the people who can not afford to go to school. In the Philippines the government spends so little on social funding that even public school has a tuition fee. The people in the provinces (rural areas) and the urban poor (the hundreds of tousands on people who live in shanties in whatever free space they could find to build a make shift house in Manila and the other cities) are the most impovrished and so the least likely to get and education. I have been spending time in urban poor communities this week in order to understand the human rights issues around poverty in the country. These are quite literally people who make on average of 80 pesos a day (my daily food allowance in Manila is 350 peso a day) scavanging garbage in dumps for recyclables or as vendors on street corners selling water and cigarettes. They live in or beside garbage dumps and along polluted rivers or in empty lots. It has been the most eye opening and difficult part of my trip so far. The people in these communities are willing to talk to me through a translator about their political activism, their hopes for their families, their daily lives. One family even insisted on sending me home with 2 young cocnuts from a tree that made up part of their house. (Young cocnuts are cut open and after drinking the water you eat the soft white flesh along the edges of the wood.) The kids will often run out of their homes to get a good look at me, yelling Americano or hello. Living in the poorest part of Manila they don't see white tourists much. They usually get really excited when I say hello back and the girls, who are more shy, will grin widely when I smile at them. If I have my camera out some of the more bold kids will yell "camera, camera" and make faces and goof off so I will take their picture. I have seen a lot of the saddest scenes of street children and poor families that we see on tv in Canada and the most overwhelming thing is how much these people, these kids, could just as easily be me and my family, or Jake and Ava. I am still processing a lot of what I have seen.
The group that I am with in Manila for 6 weeks s a council of many churches that acts as the social justice arm of them all. It is very progressive and very activist in trying to get the government to do its job and provide the basic socail services to all of the people in the Philippines. It is so hard here when you realize that speaking out for better wages or job security or free schools for the urban poor children will put you in physical danger. I watch a protest for land reform on Tuesday that was met by hundreds of police officers in riot gear. It is wild. So many things in the Philippines are so similar to Canada, and then under the surface you have this government repression. I promise you all though that I am safe. I am in Manila to learn and so am on the sidelines of all of these things observing. The government has no interest in me as a student and church worker from Canada.

*laugh* There are goo things about my time here as well. This is a wildly interesting country. Like I said in al things it is a lot like Canada on the surface and then VERY different underneath.
Everyone has a cell phone here, not matter how poor they are. Texting is the main mode of communication because calling is so expensive. People are shocked to see how slow I am at texting. What I have learned is that part of the trick is shortening your words so that they are spelled wrong but are legible. My problem is that I am so new that i have to think about how to shorten my words... which I think defeats the purpose. The result I fear though is that I will move home and have even worse spelling then I do now after a year of texting with Filipinos.
The main mode of transportation is a Jipnee. They were designed after American WWII jeeps left in the country after the war. So they are silver, and typically painted with wild and interesting stuff to attract partons, and are extended jeeps with a roof but no windows. People sit on the two long bench seats facing each other. They have set routes, but there is no printed schedule or map. *laugh* The rule I have been told in Manila is to drive contrary to the traffick rules, which is definately what happens, so it would be contrary to the driving culture to print jipnee maps.
People keep asking me if I drive, and I thank God silently every time that I didn't think to get an international drivers liscense before leaving Canada. I am a bad driver in Canada, so I can only imagine how long it would take me to get in an accident here...
There are rich parts of the city. They are typically heavily guarded, but my skin colour and a pretty gets me into just about anywhere I want. The business distract looks like downtown Toronto, but cleaner and nicer; and the nice suburbs are a lot like Ottawa, only tropical. Everywheres else is infested with roosters and stray cats and dogs. At first I was a little upset by this, until I realized that people who can't feed their families of course don't care about the stray cats. They are positively the most ugly and dirsty looking creatures you have ever seen. The Indigenous people in the North (where I will be after March) eat dog, so a lot of indigenous people who have moved down to Manila take the stray dogs in like we keep pigs, to fatten and eat. *laugh* I haven't had the occaision to try dog yet, but I am sure it will happen sooner or later.
I have mostly been eating at the canteen in the church office beside my building. A typicaly meal always includes rice, and somekind of fish and a banana. The fish are always cooked head and all, although I have not been brave enough to eat the heads yet. Because I do not yet feel aclimatized enough to do fish for breakfast I usually ask the people in the canteen to fry me and egg. Eggs are also a really common part of the diet here. Instead of frying eggs for breakfast they practically boil them in oil in the frying pan. No offense Dad but they are the best fried eggs I have ever had in my life. Food is a big deal here, especially street food. People my own age seem to consist on the street food. I haven't tried most of it, because my stomach won't be ready yet, and because street vendors in Manila boil and fry some of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. Some of my co-workers favorits are: chicken intestins on a skewar, deep fried pig intestins, squid balls, and hard boiled half matured chicken eggs (think part egg material, part baby chicken in a shell). *laugh* Of course street vendors also sell two different kinds of mangos, guavas, pinapples, apples, coconuts, and lots and lots of ice cream. I am going to have to get used to the fruit and the weird meat though, because my only other options for food on my street are a fancy Filipino resturant, a 7/11 and a MacDonalds.

I am living in a nice place though. It is gated and my room has airconditioning - which is great, although the heat is getting to me less then I though it would. People keep reminsing me that this is only Spring for them. Apparently Manila goes up to 40 degrees celcius with humidity in the Summer. Summer is between March and June. Luckily that is exactly when I will be leaving Manila for the cooler tempetatures of the mountains to the north. There is of course a rooster right outside my window. My first night in Manila I thought he would drive me crazy. However, since then I have realized that it is not the rooster that will drive me crazy, but in fact the kareokee bar across the street from my building. Kareokee is super popular here, and in urban poor areas like the one across the street from my building they bars are really just open air tents. 90s pop is really popular here, so I have been listening to lots of Celine Dion and Christina Aguillera being sung by high pitched Filipino women. *smile* It really makes you laugh at the world though to come home from an emotionally draingin day and to realize that lots of people in this country deal with their stress by belting out english love ballads for the whole community to hear.

I am happy here. And entertained pretty a lot by the interesting differences in culture. I am also feeling really empower in my career choice being here. Spening time with the people of this country will teach me more about community organizing, human rights work and solidarity then I could ever learn in a class room.

I hope everyone is doing well back home. Miss you all tons.

*big hug*
Nicole

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Photos

Payatas
Payatas is a community built around a garbage dump, because it is the peoples' only source of income.

Kids are kids
No matter what kind of a community I walk into, no matter how hard and dire the condition, kids are still kids: full of playful energy.

Young Coconuts
The people in our canteen open these up for me and made me fresh young coconut juice - the wonder of living in a tropical country.