Friday, August 31, 2007

It is hard to believe it is September and fall is beginning in Vermont. It is so different living in a tropical climate with little variation in seasonal temperatures and precipitation. There have been a few showers lately, some which are strong and we love the sound and feel of the rain. These pictures are of our new host family's house. We live in the house on the left, and hanging out front are our very clean, hand washed, sun drying clothes. Steve is an exceptional guy
because he and I wash the clothes together. Usually wives do all the laundry by themselves, although single men will clean their own clothes. The house on the left belongs to our family's relatives. They are a young couple with two sons who often come over to play.
The small house in the front of this second photo is a bahay kubo (or nipa hut) that our host dad uses to store his nets (it is also where our family stayed when we came to visit them in July before they had divided the bedroom). The yellow part of the house on the right is where our bedroom is.
This is a picture of us in our room after a walk along the beach and a nearby mangrove forest. The sun is so bright and intense here! It is definitely a lot for our pasty Vermont skin.

Last weekend we woke up early to watch these birds in their daily migration. The sunrise was amazing and we both love the ocean in the morning. We are not sure what kind of bird they are, but it was impressive sitting on the beach watching them cross the sky.
After our birdwatching we rode a bangka (local boat) along the coast to a river that flows into the ocean. Along the way we stopped to see a turtle egg nest that had been protected by a local nonprofit.

We also stopped in one of the local barrios (villages) to watch the community help the fishermen with the catch they had just brought in. It seemed like the whole village was on the beach helping to get the fish out of the nets and prepare them for eating or a trip to the market.













The river we traveled up was one of the most beautiful places we have seen here in the Philippines. The river was lined with different mangrove trees, nipas (the small palm trees poking out of the water) and other greenery. We saw colorful birds and butterflies. It was a relaxing quiet place that felt quite isolated.
Steve has been working in the mountain communities recently. Earlier this week he was shoveling goat waste and mixing it with plant debris to help with the vermiculture (worm and fertilizer) project at the municipal dump site. Many families live in very isolated areas in the mountains, far from electricity, running water and any schools. This is the view from one of our mountains looking across to the next province.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Two months worth of pictures

Finally a trip to the internet cafe where we have the camera, the appropriate cable and enough battery power to post some pictures! As always special thanks to Le and Brian!


Eggplants growing outside Emma and Jon's host sister's house

Carabao, Rebeka's favorite!

Filipino ....................... Americano

We LOVE cheese! Thanks to Steve's mom who mailed us some Vermont cheddar

Steve teaching the children at our local elementary school why a clean oean = happy ocean = lots of fish = full tummies
Some of the students from my class at the school where I trained in Bataan. These kids are high school freshmen.

Sunrise over Manila Bay -the fishing spot for many in our barangay

.... also a popular spot for garbage

July 24, 2007 Two years and counting....
Our good-bye dinner with our very dear Bataan host family whom we miss very much!

Our Swearing In Ceremony with our co-trainees and our technical trainer and language trainer

The view from our bedroom window in our new house

Saturday, August 11, 2007

It's official

Well after completing our community project (environmental education) and taking our language proficiency exam we were allowed to take part in the swearing in ceremony and become official US Peace Corps volunteers. Rebeka had one of the highest language scores in our batch and gave a speech in Tagalog at the US embassy. Our swearing in ceremony was at the US embassy and was surreal. We've spent the last three months adjusting to Filipino life style only to be swept back into a brief sense of Americana. We drank unsweetened ice tea (rare here), ate meatballs and cream puffs in a courtyard but before too long we were back on the streets of Manilla where at every corner someone is begging for money and you get to walk bye families living on the sidewalk. This is all next too multi-million dollar malls and hotels. If the Philippines is one thing it is a place of amazing contrast. So after inhaling a life time supply of air pollution in two days we left Manila and made the four hour, 100 mile journey to our site. I have spent the last four days meeting more people than I can remember and sitting in on a WWF meeting (world wildlife fund). Rebeka bounced around for the week and doesn't have a concrete schedule. We've been here for three months but are just starting to be truly exposed to how things work here. Our new host family lives in a fishing village about 100 meters from the coast but we really haven't had any time to enjoy it, maybe tomorrow. The daily schedule here is from about 5 am to 9pm which makes perfect sense since its too hot to function from 10am to 4 pm. We woke up at about 415 this morning and it was only about 79 degrees and it stayed beautiful until about 8 am. The early mornings are definitely the best part of the days here. You can watch the sun rise over the rice fields and their is a hint of something in the air that brings a temporary peace to your mind before the hustle of the day starts and all you hear is vehicles without exhaust systems. Now we have less than two years to try to make a difference here so here we go!