Wedding bells

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Hello from a nice hot July.

The big event this month was a wedding where I had to dress up and do the best man thing. Kai who has been working here in Lanuza with the German development service decided to get hitched up to a local lady - Jonnabelle. They are both in the marine biology line of work and met while doing a coral reef survey. The wedding was mercifully short on the service side (Ross and Heather take note!) so we got down to the food and party in record time. Most surreal moment had to be the judge (it was a civil service) checking a text message on his phone half way through the “I do” bit - Only in the Philippines! The other strange thing was the way everyone ate, listened to the speeches then left, leaving the foreigners to do something about the wine stock.

As is traditional at weddings one of the bridesmaids developed a crush on the best man (me) and has been pursuing me by text message ever since. I have been getting up to a dozen text messages every day ranging from a simple good evening to the sort of messages below, I have to say its not working! If anyone out there wants to chat me up this is not the way, invoking god is also a sure fire looser.

Texts like this:
One gorgeous angel is beeping your phone saying hey cutie wazzup? Tym to thank God for this wonderful nyt! Sweet evening! Godblz you. Take care!

And this:
The evening seems beautiful….it casts shadows so crisply suggesting a jet black sash that wraps around my body. Enjoy the nyt…

When I arrived in Cebu for the wedding I had to go off and get some smart shoes, black trousers and, because I forgot to pack any, underwear. In a Filipino department store there are lots more assistants to help you out than we are used to. When you are looking for a pair of trousers its great, just tell them what you want and they guide you round. But do I really need 6 assistants to help me buy new underwear?? In the end I chose a local brand that claims to be “sexier than nude” my assistants weren’t totally convinced that this would be true. I declined the invitation to model for them to help chose especially as two of them were men. A very different shopping experience!


The Internet has at last come to Lanuza, up until now I have had a 40 minute motorbike ride to get to the internet connection. Even better it’s a public service so I can have it installed in my house. To celebrate I decided that I would get a new desk for my room. Compared to the UK this was a very pleasurable experience - I dropped by the local furniture shop (which is actually a workshop) and spent a nice half hour sketching what I wanted discussing what timber they would use the measurements etc. The table should be delivered later this week; hopefully I made what I wanted understood in my still very bad local lingo.


With election fever a distant memory and all the new officials sworn in things have been very much back to normal in the office. Every Monday morning a 8am (it’s the only thing in the week that is always on time) the employees of the municipality gather to sing the national anthem, recite the mission of the local government and raise the national flag outside the town hall. The picture shows the employees of my municipality with the mayor at the front left in the white shirt. I would usually be hiding at the back of that line. My main focus this month has been on familiarising the new officials with our forestry work and trying to get their support for it. Budgeting time is just coming up so its very important for us to get the message across. We have also been developing a training course in seedling handling and planting to try and improve the dismal mortality figures in almost all tree planting activities that are undertaken. Having worked out what training is needed it was time to get down to some proposal writing to fund it. I am hoping that by next month I will be able to tell you that I have developed a track record in successful funding applications.

In preparation for the coming surf season I have had a makeover for my surfboard. The main feature is a nice “go faster stripe” that I wove myself (shown in the last blog entry). Here is the finished result, now I just need some waves to see if the stripe works.

Also in prereration for the coming surf season the sea wall that protects Lanuza from the restless Pacific is being extended. Most of the town lies only a meter or so above the high tide springs mark which with climate change doesn’t seen so sensible. We could also get unlucky and be hit with a typhoon coming farther south than usual. So does it make sense to spend loads on a sea wall extension? My opinion is no - why not invest that money in longer term planning. Identify areas of higher ground that the town could move into gradually, allocate land to the people threatened by erosion, put a stop to new building in high risk areas etc. The other thing that I haven’t figured out yet is where all the fishing boats are going to park when the beach has been walled in? On the up side its fun watching the engineering happening.

As it’s the dry season and so good for travelling I took a ride up the road to Surigao City which is about 4 hours away. I wanted to go this way with my camera to take some pictures of the area - all the times that I have been this way have been squashed in a bus so not good for photos. The dust on this road at the moment is amazing! The picture shows what is in affect a major A road. Not as much traffic as in the UK but it still takes about 4 hours to cover 150km (90miles). In the wet season when the dust turns to mud it can easily become impassable. This area is rich in minerals and is just experiencing something of a mining boom. I wont say too much about what I think about it (for fear of getting on my pedestal and lecturing), we all use plenty of the materials they are digging up. What I would like to see is much tighter environmental regulation and a much bigger slice of the proceeds feeding back to the local economy, benefiting the people who suffer the direct impacts of environmental degradation. After all you can only sell the minerals once - its not a sustainable resource.

Finally what better way to spend a summer Sunday than with a BBQ on the beach. With some of my colleagues we took a boat to one of the local islands and did just that, everyone had good fun trying out snorkelling, the dogs loved it and the food was great. We even managed to not get sunburnt.

I hope you are all having a good time whatever the weather is doing where you are.

Matt

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Photos

The happy couple
My see through shirt is a traditional barong which luckily was hired so I will never be even tempted to wear it again.

Flag raising ceromony
LGU staff on a Monday morning

Sea wall extension
The foundation piles being driven in for the sea wall extension

Dusty winding road
You can hardly breath when a bus or lorry goes by. Supper muddy / slippery in the wet season

Comments

[David]

Good stuff
At a meeting this week someone asked 'who's Matt?' good grief! As I write the Business Design for Automatic Payments for Farm Woodland Scheme payments it's welcome relief to see that someone is enjoying life! I am moving to the east Midlands to take up a RFF type role working for Austin in Octboer, so at last the end of Glade, for me at least. Great Blog.