Pas Pas Guimaras

After over a year of waiting, I have finally found out where I will be spending the next two years. Last week at the Supervisors’ Conference in Bacolod City, I was told that my new home with be on the island of Guimaras, in the municipality of Nueva Valencia. I thought Panay Island, where Banate is located, was a small island in the Philippines, but if Panay were Manhattan, Guimaras would be its Roosevelt Island.

A few weeks ago, the chika-chika was that two of the CRM volunteers would be placed on Guimaras, and it quickly became the most sought-after site. Known for its fresh seafood and having the sweetest mangoes in the Philippines, if not the world, Guimaras is a CRM volunteer’s dream location. It has beautiful beaches and clean waters, a much-appreciated change from the brown sedimentation/garbage/sewage-filled waters of Banate. Plus, there are multiple organizations already working in Guimaras, so the potential for support and collaboration is immense. In addition, it’s a quick, 20-minute boat ride from Iloilo City, so any craving for Pizza Hut, McDonalds, or a movie can be satisfied without too much hassle.

Here's a map of the Philippines. If you enlarge it, you can see I have pointed out Guimaras.

This map points out which volunteers will be on the islands of Panay and Guimaras. My pictures is on the bottom. 

A week ago from Monday, I woke up at 4AM to pack into the back of a jeepney headed towards Iloilo City, where we would take a boat to Bacolod City, the location of the posh Sugarland Hotel for the Supervisors’ Conference. On top of the luxury of warm showers and air-conditioned bedrooms, it was great to see many of the volunteers from the other training sites, whom I met during IO (Initial Orientation) back in Manila but had not seen in weeks. We made every effort we could to catch up and party while together in Bacolod City. During the nights during the conference, we hung out at the hotel, listened to some live music at a place called the Chicken Alley, took over a videoke bar with about 50 volunteers, danced with Filipinos at a small night club, and played some duck-pin bowling at the first bowling alley I’ve seen in the Philippines.   

                

Me, Stef, and Elliott in Bacolod City.

An unstoppable tandem of Rob and Laura putting on a show at the Chicken Alley.

Later that night at the dance club.

The first afternoon we arrived, after gorging ourselves with delicious food, our permanent sites were announced. They were read off one by one, as our faces were pinned up on a map of the Philippines. Most of us were excited to see that no matter where we were located, there would be some other volunteers nearby. Before I joined the Peace Corps, I had prepared myself mentally to live in isolation, possibly a 5-hour drive to the nearest English-speaking companion, but I was grossly mistaken. On the tiny island of Guimaras, there are 6 Peace Corps volunteers (3 CRM – me, Rob, and Stef, 2 Child, Youth, and Family, and 2 Education), and craziest of all, I have a sitemate. Her name is Denise, and I met her the first night of IO. She is an education volunteer and will be teaching English at the Nueva Valencia National High School. My office at the municipal hall is about a 5-minute walk from her homestay house. Guess all that mental preparation was a little premature.

At the conference, we met our supervisors, who we will be working under for the next two years. I’m extremely lucky to have been placed with Oliver, a.k.a. Obing (pronounced “oh-bing”). He is the Municipal Agriculturist at the Nueva Valencia municipal government office. Obing is about forty years old, married with kids, and speaks excellent English. He is very passionate about his work, and he is very excited to have a Peace Corps volunteer. During the conference, we spent many sessions working with our supervisors, doing various exercises to help prepare us for working together. Obing and I meshed very well together and seem to have very compatible work styles. I’m going to check in with him every Monday, but other than that I have to rest of the week to spend in the field; he says he likes to give all his employees much freedom to pursue their projects. Obing said for at least the first six months, I will be working at the Barangay (local community) – level, trying to develop a CRM plan for every coastal Barangay. As Obing said, we could sit in his office tomorrow and draw up a CRM plan that could protect the long-term viability of the natural resources along the coast, but the plan wouldn't have any impact unless it was supported by the local people. So it will be my job, in part, to help promote the benefits of things like mangrove nurseries, MPAs (marine protected areas), and enforcement plans, and find out what the local governments and people want and will tolerate. My goal will be to develop eventually a CRM plan for the entire municipality. It is impossible for me to know now how long and difficult this task will be, but I’m excited to have an overarching goal as I begin my work, and however it unfolds I will be ready for.

The CRM Guimaras volunteers: Stef, Rob, and me, with our supervisors. Obing is in the orange on the right.

At the end of the conference, I traveled with Obing and the other Guimaras volunteers back to Iloilo City, where we got on another boat to the island of Guimaras. As we approached, I could see the beauty of my new home. The island is covered in hills, which are filled with trees, and surrounded by beautiful blue water.  When we arrived on the island, at Jordan Wharf, I separated from the other volunteers and went with Obing to my office at the municipal government office. Like most municipal halls here in the Philippines, there is the mayor’s office, police station, health center, church, and basketball court. My office is in a separate building, and Obing showed me my new desk. I went around with Obing to all the offices, meeting the people who work in the LGU, including the mayor, and repeating too many times to count: “Ako si Jensen, taga New York City.” Common questions I received were how long will be I be working in Guimaras, where I am living, how old am I, and am I single. It’s so routine here to be asked (and told) if you are single and “available” when you meet people here, I’ve definitely gotten used to it. 

In the afternoon, I went back to my new home. My homestay mother, Nanay Elsa, as the community refers to her as, is a very sweet woman, and I’m very lucky to have her as my homestay mother. She’s already had two Peace Corps volunteers in the past, so she seems to know much about Americans’ lifestyle. She is the head of an elementary school in Nueva Valencia and also speaks English extremely well. She is very kind and likes to chat. Unlike here in Banate, we actually eat meals together, at the same time, so it’s nice to have that time to talk to her. My homestay father is an older man. He’s quieter than Nanay Elsa but also seems very kind. He’s a retired fisherman and was the one to do most of the cooking and cleaning while I was there. Their only child is a 21-year-old girl who I did not meet because she is currently in her last year at the University of the Philippines, in Iloilo City. Nanay Elsa goes there every week to check up on her! There was a 12-year-old orphan boy staying at the house while I was there. He’s cute and very shy, although I’m sure after some time he’ll warm up to me. Plus when we watched TV together, he would give me the remote. Big change from growing up with Logan! The TV at the house was quite nice, and I get way more channels in Nueva Valencia than Banate, including HBO and Cinemax!

Other than the new channels, the other biggest upgrade is definitely the hammock that hangs outside, in the shade, between the two different parts of the house. In one weekend I took two naps on the hammock, and I’m sure there will be many more to come.

The house is built out of concrete (including the floors), and it has a very open feel to it. In the front part of the house is the living room and dining area, with two bedrooms, including mine, which is much bigger than my room in Banate. In the back is a separate house, where there is the TV and two bamboo benches, and a big kitchen area. There is one bathroom in the house, which has doors to both my bedroom and my nanay’s. The bathroom is one small square room, with tiles on the floor, that has a toilet very low to the ground (without a seat) and a bucket of water for flushing the toilet and for showering. No more showerhead for me but that was to be expected. Over the weekend, I took my first bucket showers. The water was quite cold, but it definitely does the trick, so I don’t have much to complain about.

The next day I met my counterpart, Joe Ann, and traveled around to some of the different Marine Protected Areas and mangrove sanctuaries that are already in the works in Nueva Valencia. Joe Ann was pretty quiet but is also extremely nice. She speaks English very well and seems very smart and hardworking. It was fun traveling around Nueva Valencia, and I got to see some of the beautiful beaches in my municipality. The only place we could not see completely was the mangrove sanctuary sponsored by the Ecological Society of London. The man with the key was in jail, Joe Ann told me. “Why?” I asked. “Oh, he stabbed someone… yesterday,” Joe Ann told me laughingly. Of course…

My last day of my site visit, I went over to Denise’s compound, where a current volunteer, Tom, has been living. He’s a CYF (child, youth, and family) volunteer who works at a center for criminal youths in Nueva Valencia. He’s in batch 267 (I’m 269) and will be leaving in November, before we arrive. Tom cooked tacos for Denise and me in his Neepa Hut, and we spent hours grilling him with all our various questions. He was really nice and did a great job filling us in about life in Nueva Valencia. He told me that he ran into my host mom on a jeepney earlier that day, and that she said I was a very nice boy and that she was happy because I have much “joy.”

Despite the torrential downpour, Tom took me and Denise to the beach, which is about a 5-minute tryke ride from Denise’s house. A tryke is a motorcycle with an oversized sidecar attached to it and is quite common here in the Philippines. The beach was beautiful, and although it was still drizzling when we got there, I went for a swim anyway. The water was perfect. The walk back up the hill was a little more tiring, but along the way we ran into Denise’s homestay mom, who was hanging out with two of her friends. She was very funny and fun to hang out with. She told me to call her Antie Bing Sexy. I’m sure I won’t have too much trouble remembering that one.

My only picture of Guimaras, compliments of Stef. There will absolutely be many, many more to come.

On the boat back from Guimaras. From L to R: Education volunteer Jaron, Antie Bing Sexy, me, Denise, and Stef.

So now I’m back in Banate, getting back into the routine of training. It was fun sharing my permanent site visit experience with my clustermates and hearing about theirs. Other than the 3 of us on Guimaras, everyone else is still on the island of Panay, so we’ll definitely be able to all get together. My site visit ended up being very successful, and I’m still psyched about it all. As they say in Nueva Valencia, Pas Pas Guimaras (or Go Go Guimaras)!