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Saved: September 2nd 2020
Welcome Sign
Cynthia welcomed me at the airport. This is her with the sign that I could not see!So I am now in my new home for 6 months! The blog here says I am in Lucena, but really I am in a town called Candelaria (it does not give that option in the location selection). I am sorry that it has been so long since I have last posted, everything has been a whirlwind of craziness in which I have simply tried to keep up.
It was very upsetting saying good bye to all of the awesome people I have come to love at home in Ontario. The Farewell Surprise Party that was thrown for me came as a pleasant and complete shock to me. Being accompanied to the airport by some of my best friends, family, and girlfriend (as promised, shout outs to Cam, Rachel, Sheena, Alyssa, Mom, and Annie) who stayed with me until the very moment that I had to go through security was amazing. The second I got beyond security, everything started to hit me: from thereon in, every single person I would talk to for the next 190 days, I had never met. I would have to start every next encounter with an introduction. A very weird, upsetting, and exciting feeling.
Pablo
Pablo chopping away at a coconut from the project site. My training in Ottawa for a week before I came to the Philippines was very satisfying though. I got to meet many other amazing people who will be doing internships in many other countries around the world (Cambodia, Ghana, Uganda, and Peru to name a few). The first couple of days was spent doing a workshop organized by the Center for Intercultural Learning (CIL) in which we focused on "intercultural effectiveness." The best part was probably meeting my country resource person (someone with experience in the Canadian and Filipino culture), Elsa. She was very nice and put to rest many of my concerns about coming to the Philippines. The following days were spent in the CCA office training in a variety of different topics (the CCA, cooperatives in general, internship issues, logistics, gender awareness, internship specifics, communicating our stories, and leveraging our internship to find careers). All of the people that I met from the CCA were very kind and genuine. I've always found that you can tell a lot about an organization/restaurant/company by it's bathrooms. When I walked into the CCA washroom, I knew I signed up with the right organization. The urinals were water-free (environmentally conscious) which I
The Office
A few of my co-workers in the office. had never seen, and one of them was even low to the ground with handicap bars (accessibility conscious as well!). I know it's weird to get excited about the washrooms, but they served as a symbol of the kind of association I was interning through and I was quite pleased with the CCA environment and everyone in it.
Friday was our last day of training and Saturday morning I was to fly out. I had ordered over $80 worth of Tagalog training materials to learn as much of the language as I could during the 22+ hours I would spend in travel. Unfortunately, the materials were supposed to arrive on Friday but they did not (I probably should have left myself more of a buffer period). Anyways, at 8:00AM myself and the intern we have from Ireland, Eoghan (pronounced "Owen"), cabbed together to Ottawa International Airport for our flights out. My flight itinerary consisted of me flying from Ottawa, back to Toronto, out to Japan, and then to Manila (Ninoy Aquino Airport). The trip was long, but everything went smoothly and it was not too bad at all. I had expected the trip to Japan (13 hour flight) to
Bacon!!!...ette
Baconette strips, the bacon flavoured snack. Vegetarian friendly too! go by very slowly, but having done a road trip to Nova Scotia at the end of August (20+ hours of driving) I was well accustomed to long trips (albeit Cam and Paul's presence probably would have made the flight go by even faster).
I was greeted at the Manila airport by Cynthia (Business Development Officer for the NFCPWD) and the federation driver Bong. On the way to the hotel, they asked if I was hungry and would like to stop for some food. My very first meal in the Philippines you ask? A Big Mac from McDonald's :P. The combo was 135 pesos, (about $3.50 CAD). Once I got back in the car I felt my pocket only to realize I lost my passport! Luckily just a few days ago it was found though (it fell out of my pocket and behind the seat). When I arrived at the hotel it was not the one that I booked. Rather, through some misunderstandings, the federation booked me a room at a hotel closer to the office. The hotel I booked however was about a 45 minute drive from the office. So I spent the night in the one the
My Room
Excuse the mess as I had just moved in! federation booked. It was pleasant but unfortunately there was no phone, no internet, no anything really. Due to the non-refundability of the original hotel I booked, I spent the next 2 nights in Ortigas where I had originally planned (a very beautiful hotel in the business heart of Metro Manila) and lucky me I had access to internet.
As I arrived on Sunday night, the next couple of days I spent at the NFCPWD office, going into a little bit more detail about the project I was working on and expectations for my stay. Oh man the traffic in Manila is bad! It can definitely contend with Toronto rush hour traffic, except here there's traffic even at 2PM or 10PM. Jeepneys are everywhere. For 8 pesos ($0.20 CAD) you can ride one. If you haven't googled one already, they look like a jeep stretched very long (crossover of a jeep and a bus). They are all painted with a variety of different colours, pictures, and slogans. I have yet to ride one but I'm sure I will at some point in the near future.
At 5AM in the morning on Wednesday we made the drive out to Candelaria
Facilities
My bathroom :). for me to finally see the cooperative I am to work with during my stay - the Lingkod Banahaw Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LBMPC). The drive was beautiful as we went from the very polluted (yet still beautiful, like Toronto) Manila landscape, more into the country. So we went from Rizal province, through Laguna province, to end up in Quezon province. Candelaria is beautiful, there are tricycles everywhere! (motorcycle with an extended cab attached). Driving here is very different than in Canada. I don't think I have seen any traffic lights or stop signs yet. People pretty much just drive. If you want to turn left, you just slowly do it and everyone stops. It works surprisingly well as for the most part people drive slowly through towns (and there are speed bumps everywhere).
When we arrived at the LBMPC office it was kind of surreal to see my new place of employment for the next while. When I walked in Sir Pablo Aranas approached with a big smile on his face. He is a very grounded and down to earth man, both figuratively and literally. I am not quite sure what the cause of his disability is yet, but he
Rooster
This lovely fellow wakes me up every morning at about 4:30AM... sometime 5AM if I'm lucky :P. walks using all fours in a sort of squatted position. What he lacks in stature though he makes up in positive spirits. You can tell that he is a very very well respected man both in the coop and the community. When I walked to the back of the facility and into the office, I had to crouch in order to get through the door way and walk around as the ceiling is probably just barely over 5 feet high (so some people don't have to crouch, but a 5'10/11ish tree like myself does :P). My new workspace 😊. I will post a picture of this area soon.
After discussing some administrative details we drove out to the site that is the basis of my internship. My main purpose as the Business Development Officer here is to evaluate the ending of the pilot stage of an organic fertilizer production project. I am to aid in determining if this new business venture should be pursued into a full implementation phase, what that would look like, and if this business model can be replicated in other member cooperatives of the federation. Essentially this entails me comparing actual results of the pilot to the forecasts of the feasibility report, evaluating what has changed, and what should be done with regards to full implementation. My mandate remains good-intentioned but still relatively vague with respect to actual work I am to be doing.
It was good to go out to the site though and see the actual product. The process currently being used is called vermiculture. By taking organic wastes from all possible sources (government waste collection, compostable materials, etc.) and combining them with worms called African Night Crawlers (kind of a creepy name right) in a bed of soil you can make vermicast (highly rich organic fertilizer made of the excreta of the worms). The site is beautiful and all the staff decided to crack open a bunch of coconuts (I ate coconut! ... weird texture but not too bad). The site is very far off road though and driving through the jungle to the site can be difficult (the truck I was driving in got stuck in the mud on the way there). This poses a problem but the cooperative is currently speaking to the local government unit who should be putting in a new road at some point in the near future. After seeing the site we went to lunch at placed called Palmeras. The food was great and of course, as it is everywhere in the Philippines, we did karaoke (technically “videoke”). If you are planning on interning in the Philippines, be sure that you are not shy when it comes to singing in public! Within a few hours of knowing my new co-workers, I was singing Pretty Woman in front of them. A very warm and friendly lunch.
I have spent my last few days doing research on the market in the office, evaluating potential external sources, and listing out the plethora of questions I have (and seeking answers as best I can). On Wednesday night I spent the night at Pablo's as his family very kindly welcomed me into their home. For dinner we had fried fish - bones, head, tail and all (my second time having it since I arrived) - mini crabs (quite difficult to open and eat with your hands, they had a good laugh when I asked how exactly I was supposed to eat it), and rice (of course).
On Thursday, with Pablo and an entire crew of his wonderful family and friends, we went to "Home Depot" to get furniture for the house I am staying. For about $450 CAD I was able to purchase all the necessary big and small ticket items (a single bed frame/mattress, desk, dresser, toaster oven, stove top, plates, etc.). While I was at the office that day, Pablo's wonderful wife, daughter, and a couple other people had the furniture set up and scrubbed all the floors down. Such great people! It was truly a heartwarming site to pull up to the house and see that everything was set up and people were on their hands and knees scrubbing. I felt very welcomed in that moment. I have spent the last two nights there and it is very interesting to have a place to myself for the first time.
Now, adjusting to the lifestyle here and not being around everything I've ever known is definitely proving to be more of a challenge than I had anticipated. It's a really strange feeling, like as if I must be dreaming. But don't worry about me 😊, I am learning to adjust and thrive on my own. Not to mention how very accommodating and welcoming they have been. On a scale of 1-10 for how glamourous my place is, I'd give it a solid 0.5/10 :P. There is no hot water, the toilet is manual flush (it's pretty much just a bowl connected to a hole in the ground really, no toilet seat or anything), the shower consists of a shower head connected to the wall next to the toilet (drain in the floor for water drainage), the roof leaks just a tiny bit, there are ants everywhere, and this morning I went into the kitchen to find a lizard on the wall. One thing though is that it is very secure. My neighbours are my manager and his family, the house is gated in, all the windows have bars, and the door has 3 locks.
It may not sound too good, but it's how they live here (albeit, this is my temporary set up and Pablo's and his neighbours' houses are much nicer and have a great "home" feel to them) and it's up to me to make it work and snap out of the relatively luxurious Canadian lifestyle I have grown accustomed to. I know that I will get to know everyone better as the months go on and I very much look forward to this. Pretty much everyone here understands English to at least a remedial level, and a few speak it well. However, everyone speaks Tagalog mainly as this is their first language. It is definitely my goal to start learning Tagalog as I would like to be able to interact with all of these wonderful people in a more involved and engaged manner. Right now it remains a challenge (with cultural and language barriers) but I have high hopes for the future. Busting out the Rubik's cube today definitely broke some ice with more members of the cooperative as everyone, no matter of background or upbringing, seems to appreciate "the cube."
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Dave
non-member comment
Fantastic Start!
Hey Jason, Just read through the first leg of your adventure! Soo great to hear everything is going well and the Rubiks cube landed safely with you. It was suspenseful (lost passport), informative (price of a Big Mac), heartwarming (Cynthia's sign) and action packed (traffic and stuck vehicles). WOAH! I claim movie rights! I think Serena would argue her accommodations are worse off than yours :P Also, please refrain from kicking the rooster, that would not make Krista happy. If you make friends with it, it may let you sleep in from time-to-time. Is there a market around where you live? Have you made it to the ocean-side? Do you miss your "win-win-win no matter what" ring-tone? Sounds like quite the adventure! I'll be checking the blog weekly for updates. All the best!