Bahala na

Twenty four months later, and my Peace Corps service in Nueva Valencia, Guimaras has finally come to an end. I experienced more places, met more people, and worked harder than I ever thought I would. By experiencing life in a vastly different place, I gained a widely new perspective on how to view work, family, possessions, and life in general. I hope I can carry this new knowledge and experiences with me forever.

What surprised me the most about the Peace Corps is how much FUN it has been. Fun is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when we think of the Peace Corps, but that’s because we aren’t thinking of the Philippines. This place is incredible; the people so lively, funny and kind and have welcomed me in from the very start. Now, as I sit in Manila waiting to complete my final paperwork and I leave everything behind, I should be so sad. Devastated, really. But while leaving site was incredibly tough, I also had so much time to prepare for the end and such a strong feeling of accomplishment at the end, that an overriding feeling of success is what really I feel the most. Not sadness. Plus I know that I'll be back.

To describe best what it meant for me to say goodbye, I’ll break it up into three categories: Guimaras, work, and my family.

LEAVING GUIMARAS: It should be sad because I loved it there. NO RULES. So much freedom. Riding on the tops of jeeps to get around. Nice weather, beautiful environment. Peaceful, pleasant surroundings. Everyone in my barangay knowing my name (and offering me to take shots with them at all hours of the day). Friday night bingos in the plaza. Late night "libot-libot" drinking sessions with friends. Speaking enough Ilonggo to get around, converse with strangers, and serve as a constant source of amusement to those around me. MY NIPA HUT. Fiestas. Basketball. I could go on and on. But why I'm feeling good about it all that I'm so pumped to go back to NYC. I'm excited to be with my friends. With my family. People here always say to be, "You're from New York City! What are you doing here in the Philippines!" In the far off corners of the world (those coastal villages of Nueva Valencia where the roads don't go probably count in that category), people would dream nothing more of just a chance to go to the city. So how can't I be excited as well? Plus I’m fortunate that I had the opportunity to build so many meaningful relationships and friendship that I truly believe I will carry forever.

LEAVING MY WORK: It should be sad because I love my job. At the LGU (local government unit), I'm liked, respected and appreciated. I'm thought of as smart, hard-working, and a cowboy (someone willing to go anywhere and do anything, regardless of the physical condition). I get to talk to fishermen and ride around on fishing boats - the most pleasurable part of my job. My coworkers are sweet old ladies who wipe the sweat off my back and joke with me about everything. In the villages where my marine protected area (my biggest project) is located, everyone knows who I am and is always visibly excited when I arrive. And working with the communities and getting people together to get things done is still something I'm excited about, even two years later. My work is enjoyable and meaningful, but I'm not sad now because I feel that in many ways, the work I've been asked to do is done (and more), and the people left behind have the capability to keep it going. In the LGU, huge 8 ft by 4 ft posters with the "CRM Zoning Plans and CRM Projects and Activities" that I designed hang up outside my office and the main LGU building. I was able to secure funds to publish copies of the 5-Yr CRM Plan, which was my first big project, and government officials have since used the document; my mayor announced to our whole LGU that at a recent conference of 22 municipal governments, ours was the only one with this federally-mandated document, and it was thanks to the efforts of me and my coworkers that made it happened; everyone at the LGU applauded. I came up with a short and long-term work plan that my boss made me and my whole office go through line-by-line the week before I left, and I organized and passed over every last important document and reference material that I had. For my MPA, I attended the final management board meeting 1.5 hours late, and it was already in action. They were sitting in the guardhouse, with the breeze flooding the guardhouse and the water all around us. Caretakers have since the inauguration added a ladder, new railings, and a hammock to the guardhouse, and the Management Board was discussing the matters at head well before I arrived. I'm confident the Management Board and officers understand their roles and responsibilities and know what is needed to keep the MPA moving forward. Plus I'm excited to find a job in America. I want to make some money (dollars, not pesos) and work with people with similar values, work ethics, and an ability to speak English. And of course in a place with roads, email access, cellphone service, and where things seem to work efficiently (I think).

LEAVING MY FAMILY: This should have been the hardest part because I ended up getting so close with them all. Living in the house and then the backyard of a close-knit family for 24 months will make that happen. Plus when I arrived to the Philippines, the only way I could survive and thrive was by opening myself up. And I did to this family, and they welcomed me in with open arms. And of course leaving was tough, brutal at points. When I got a "family picture" from my host family (stick figures with pictures of our faces glued on) and notes from my host mom, sister and two brothers, they were definitely a struggle to read. One of my host brothers told me that he wishes he could be with my always and is confused because he doesn't know what he'll do without me. But alas, I feel OK about it all. Because again, not only am I excited to return to my American family and be back with all my friends, but I can feel good about moving on. I've already agreed to help my host mom support my host brothers. For $30 a month, the boys can continue living at the house of my host mother, eating 3 meals a day, and going to school every day. The alternative, living with their father in a hut in the middle of the woods without running water, electricity, or sufficient food, is so starkly worse. I am grateful that I have this opportunity to help these two boys with whom I’ve become so close. Plus, I know that I've done right by the boys. I've been supportive the whole time (as they have been of me) and even last Nov. 1 for All Souls Day (when families go out to visit the graves of families) I had the opportunity to buy a lapida (a granite block with a name engraved in it) to put on the previously-unmarked completely grave of their mother. She died at the age of 29 giving birth to her 7th child in 2009, but her husband, a 62-year-old sparingly-employed day laborer, cannot come even close to having the ~$30 to pay for it.

My farewell weekend was awesome. I left Guimaras on a Monday and my big party was the Saturday before. I woke up at 5:00AM, summoned by my host mother, to go and kill the pig I had purchased the week before. So I went outside, with my heart pumping. The pig was already tied down, but two helpers still needed to keep it steady. One pointed to a spot on the neck, and I stabbed with all my force. I heard the guy say, "perfect," as the blood rushed out like water from a fire hydrant, and my brothers collected it all in a bucket. After my poor performances killing a duck and some chickens, this was executed with much more precision. I had way too much adrenaline to sleep, so finished off writing the goodbye and thank you notes on pictures that I had printed out for about 40 colleagues and friends. Visitors slowly started trickling in around noon. We ate and sang videoke all afternoon, and lots of people from the LGU, friends from Peace Corps training, and other friends from my barangay came by. Videoke continued into the late afternoon. I got in a quick power nap and made it back from a long night and drinking and hanging out with my friends.

On Sunday morning, I just said goodbye to my out-of-town visitors, packed up completely, went on an afternoon walk with my brothers and mother (where one of the boys climbed up and coconut tree and cut some down for our afternoon refreshment), and then went to my friend's house for one last drinking session. The next morning, my host sister, brothers and mother took me to the airport, where I said a quick goodbye and was off to Manila. It was an exhausting but rewarding goodbye, and it really was a nice way to end up my two years on Guimaras.

Me and the OMAS family outside my office and the tarpaulin that I designed

The lapida for Julia P. Garde, mother of my host brothers. Justene (age 12) has been living with Nanay Elsa since September 2010 and Nonoy (age 14) moved in in January 2011.

Preparing "dinuguang" (innards mixed with blood) before the fiesta

Nonoy with two of his younger biological siblings, Lyka and Jenil, and Leanne, niece of Nanay Elsa

Preparing coconut milk for the party

"Driving" the lechon

I did that

Me and Nene

Me and Nanay Elsa, sitting where we have our usual evening chats

Me and Neil from the provincial environmental office

Me with Nonoy, Justene and their siblings Kent (grade 3), Lyka (grade 2), Jenil (grade 1) and father

With Alan, Sharon and Nelfi (Peace Corps training staff) and Elliott

Me and my former counterpart Riro

Me and my boss, Sir Obing. "Now when you drink your coffee, you can drink me too."

Can you see the family resemblance?

With my coworkers who attended the party

Me, Mario and Buyet

My buddies from Tiwi, Barotac Nuevo (Pyong, Mak2x, and Riro)

Jojo and Nene

Wiped out after a very long of work

Tagay!

An NBA ball sent from my mom, given to my friends

Leftovers!

Sunday morning and everything back to normal

Me and Lola purchasing Emperador Light and peanuts one last time

Learning something new every single day

Barkada gid

From my last blog post until September 20, the only thing on my mind, from dawn to dusk, was the completion of the guardhouse at the Tan-Luc MPA. Lots of wonderful, exciting events and activities happened in the meantime. There were birthday parties, fiestas and barangay discos, SCUBA diving trips with other volunteers, a memorable getaway to Gigantes Island, a 3-day biophysical assessment training for the monitoring team of the MPA, and I was invited to serve for two weeks as the resource volunteer for the incoming batch of CRM volunteers at their orientation conference. Plus two Dartmouth Psi U buddies, Cary Stathopoulos and Scott Sorenson, had an amazing visit to Guimaras and to Boracay.

Nonetheless, always on my mind during all of these activities was the construction (and completion) of the guardhouse structure. From the beginning of the project, the MPA Management Board had long-expressed interest in the construction of a guardhouse. To our good fortune, since the CRM Peace Corps program was under review and there were no new CRM volunteers, there was an opportunity to apply for a second grant through USAID to fund the guardhouse. I wrote this grant in May, despite knowing that my contract was ending 6 months later. We needed to secure the funds, plan the structure, and build it before I left the Philippines.

From day one, I worked hard to get things done as quickly as possible. Of course in the Philippines, and especially during the rainy season, this was an endless struggle. It was agreed that the LGU would designate a municipal engineer to come up with the work plan and list of needed building materials, the grant would fund the materials, my counterpart and I would be in charge of delivering all the materials to the MPA site, and the MPA Management Board and the two barangays were in charge of providing all the labor.

As soon as the money came, I started arranging the delivery of materials to Tando. I had canvassed around Iloilo City and Guimaras and determined our best options. None of it was simple. Barangay Tando is located far beyond the end of the roads. Public vehicles do not go with any form of consistency, so every piece of plywood and bag of cement (i.e. anything that wouldn’t fit on a motorcycle) poised a challenge. Nonetheless, we were able to get a massive delivery of 85 bags of cement and various other building materials from a huge truck taking the Ro-Ro (roll on, roll off) from Iloilo all the way to Tando to deliver most of the materials on the original list of materials. A couple extra deliveries were arranged, and construction was ready to begin.

I thought that that was the hard boy. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Every time I visited the guardhouse (approximately twice a week), my chief building manager, a local carpenter who was as, if not more, dedicated to the project and stressed out by it than I was, always told me before I left, “Also, we have a problem.” That problem was always a lack of some sort of materials. Each of these materials that were not included on our original list, including 20 kg of nylon rope, 100 pieces of bamboo, 180 hallow blocks, 80 pieces of nipa, 2.5 cum of gravel, 3 cum of sand, 10 bags of cement, and a variety of nails, rods and other materials, all gave me a task with which to wrestle.

We officially began construction in late June, and the engineer estimated construction would take 25 days. The barangay councils worked hard to rearrange their budgets to afford this mid-year project, and they were able to make it work. Unfortunately, after our 25 days were up, our guardhouse lacked walls and a roof, and our footbridge was only 50% finished. Thankfully our Management Board stepped up and figured out ways to squeeze out some extra funds. Plus, we decided that every Saturday until the guardhouse was finished, we would hold a dagyaw, in which food is provided for workers who volunteer their time to work out in the heat of the Philippine sun and through the cold rain to complete the project.

When it came time to send official invitations to municipal and provincial officials, it was decided that we could finish on Thursday, September 20. We cut it close, and thankfully there was a national holiday, because it was not until two days prior to our schedule launching, on our final dagyaw, when we completed the guardhouse and footbridge were ready for the formal guardhouse inauguration.

The inauguration was a huge success. The mayor, my supervisor, other municipal and provincial officials, and community members from both Barangays Tando and Lucmayan came. We had a coastal clean-up and mangrove-planting along the base of the footbridge. Then there was a short program with some speeches, a house blessing, and then a feast at the guardhouse. The nearly 200-meter long footbridge held and the structure did not sink in the sea under the weight of nearly 75 people. The event was a huge success, and the people of the barangays were clearly extremely proud of all the hard work completed. What I hadn’t initially realized was how having this tangible structure has already made a huge impact on the level of excitement and support for the Tan-Luc MPA within the local communities. For me, all the stress was quickly alleviated, and a strong sense of accomplishment was felt that this guardhouse will be left for the barangays long after I return to America.

Construction begins in Barangay Tando

The guardhouse emerges

That's what friends are for. George, Jade, Bhym2, and Esek help deliver nipa for the roof of the guardhouse

One piece of plywood short. Here Zaldy and Julie, my newest counterpart, tie it to the back of the municipal pickup truck as we heard off to Barangay Tando.

Me and Roy, the guardhouse construction manager

My newest counterpart, Julie aka Pyong, on the footbridge. Yes, that's a Dartmouth t-shirt he bought at an ukay-ukay (second-hand clothing store) months before we met

Working hard on the footbridge

Slowly coming to life

This rope, tied from the shoreline to the guardhouse, was how most of the materials were brought to the guardhouse

Eating lunch during our first dagyaw

Roy describing what's missing to barangay officials

Getting closer

Even I got to help. Carrying bamboo down the footbridge ended up being my most useful function.

Getting much closer

This was the footbridge in the morning of September 18, two days before our launching

Done, just in time

Me and Joebert, the Tan-Luc MPA Vice-Chairman, on the morning of the launching

Our welcoming program. My speech in my Ilonggo/English mix was probably my best yet. I explained how as an Environment Studies major at Dartmouth College, I learned that community-based management strategies are the best way to protect and conserve natural resources and now I have seen this and believe it to be true. I thanked everyone for sharing this experience with me.