project mango

Bye bye Blogger! Bye project mango! Last post!

2007-07-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

I should have seen it coming. I started Project Mango (this blog) right before we left to go to the Philippines for a year. While we there I composed long, detailed posts about lizards, shamans and getting food poisoning. It was a blast. Most of the time. And Blogger was the right tool for the job.

Years later, I'm now perfectly content to post fragments, photos, links and other sundry bits of whatnot. You know, a tumblelog. Blogger isn't the tool for that (for me). It's a milk truck. I want a skateboard. So follow me over to http://bicyclesforeveryone.tumblr.com/. Bye!

6 months later...

2006-04-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

ikebana
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

A few weeks ago marked 6 months back in the US. I never really had reverse culture shock. Or at least I didn't recognize it as such. We didn't settle back into any once-familiar rhythms against which to hear the echoes of our time away. A few weeks with my parents in Illinois gave way to a little over a month in Austin, staying with friends (thanks Kate and Scott and Scott A.). Until we moved into our new place here in California, our return was more like a continuation of our trip. We were still living out of our suitcases and every accommodation was temporary. I prepared myself daily by expecting challenges and the general chaos that comes from not knowing what's going to happen next. A few things were markedly different after we got back, though. On average, people were larger, and can openers worked better.

Siquijor was a place of balmy weather and friendly people. It was a great place (at least for us) to snorkel and swim. It was a not, however, a good place to buy a can opener. Buying a can opener required a long trip to another island. And that wasn't a good place to buy a can opener, either. We bought the best one we could find. It broke the first time I used it, before I could get the can open, on the very first turn of the handle. For consumer goods, this turned out to be the rule rather than the exception. In a strange and somewhat ironic twist, I became a much more conscious consumer in the remote parts of a third-world country. When resources (time, money, sanity) were scarce, where garbage was something burned and buried nearby rather than something that magically disappeared, and where many people were underfed, I didn't want to waste anything. I brought that feeling back with me. I didn't bring most of my clothes back, though. More than half of the clothes I took to Siquijor didn't survive the rigors of hand washing. Of the half that survived, I mostly wore only a fraction of those. In hindsight, I could have taken just those few items.

If I have any lingering reverse culture shock at all, it's probably in the form of increased sensitivity to the dark side of our culture of abundance. We can't get rid of things fast enough. We sold our TV. We sold some furniture. We had a yard sale. We took a carload of things to Goodwill. (This was all *after* we moved.) Our car is gone, too, but that's because someone crashed into it and totaled it while it was parked in front of our house. Still, I haven't truly missed it. I bike to work every day, 3.5 miles one way. I consider myself lucky. Had the car not been totaled I wouldn't have started commuting by bike. I'm much healthier for it.

Rosanna just started taking an Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) class down the street. Ikebana emphasizes the creative use of flowers and other materials to create dynamic compositions where the negative space is just as important as the flowers themselves. One of the principles of this particular Ikebana school is not to waste flowers, but also not to spare flowers either. It seems like something worth pondering as spring unfolds.

Welcome to California

2005-12-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

welcometoalbany
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

Our decision to move to California wasn't purely logical, but what is? Our gut feeling was that the Bay Area would be a great place to live. An invitation to stay with my friend Dan in San Francisco sealed the deal. On November 4th we left Austin with some luggage and our cat, having crated our belongings for shipping the previous day. We made it to San Francisco in 3 days, with overnight stops in Las Cruces, New Mexico and Palm Springs, California.

For three weeks we looked for a place to live, and frequently, a place to park. We looked at apartments in San Francisco before setting our sights on the east bay in an attempt to get more green for our green. Our search ended in Albany, California, just down the street from Berkeley. We're within walking distance of restaurants, shopping and the BART. There's even a lemon tree in the front of the house.

In the past 13 months we've stayed in more than 30 places. In our near-constant state of travel since we left Siquijor in late September, I would frequently wake in the middle of the night, unable to remember where I was. I don’t have a bad memory. It's just that, for me, memory and place are inextricably linked. It's why I like to drop my keys in the same place every night when I come home. But if "home" keeps changing, it's like dropping your keys on a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt has finally stopped. Let the dwelling begin.

Touch down

2005-09-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

We arrived in the United States on September 22. Our journey home was long, but otherwise uneventful. My Dad picked us up at the St. Louis airport. We filled the bed of his truck with our luggage and cargo. We're spending some time with my family in Belleville, Illinois before continuing on to Austin, Texas. We look forward to catching up with friends there.

We haven't fully landed. We have yet to decide on where to re-settle. Lacking a final destination, we're still travelers. Maybe it's just the jet lag, but I feel disoriented.

Hopefully our time with family (and soon with friends in Austin) will help to more fully ground us. But I suspect we won't truly feel at home until we have removed our things from storage in Texas and have a door of our own to close.

In the meantime we're enjoying the convenience of the washing machine and clothes dryer. I also enjoy brushing my teeth with tap water and cooking in a large, well-equipped kitchen. Rosanna and I tried to explain to my parents how nice they have it and how much we appreciate the easy-to-useness of things, but it's really an experience all our own.

The weather turned cool last night. This morning we opened the windows. I sat at the breakfast table and enjoyed having cold feet for a while before I got up to close the door.

Escape From Witch Mountain

2005-09-13T06:02:00.000-07:00

View from a mountain on Siquijor
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

Our last days on Siquior were memorable. While we were away in Siargao, a neighboring resort moved their garbage pit -- there is no formal garbage collection on the island -- too close to our cottage. And someone who had lived next door left food behind before leaving on a trip of their own. The night we came back from Siargao, we saw our first rat inside our cottage, jumping against the door, trying to get out. Though we set out rat poison, it didn't seem to make a difference. It visited us every night. While we slept, the rat would eat everything from tomatoes to a plastic bottle of canola oil. It was disgusting. We couldn't wait to leave.

Now, on to the good news.

The OceanJet fast ferry started servicing the island, cutting the 2 hour trip to Dumaguete down to 45 minutes.

The Siquijor department of tourism sponsored Rosanna's shoot for four days by lending her an air-conditioned van with a driver. She used it to get last-minute shots of scenery as well as one more sorcery ritual. The driver took us to places we hadn't been to before, including some of the highest points on the island and a beach with the whitest, most powdery sand I'd seen on the island.

We had a small party and yard sale to lighten our load. Peace Corps volunteers bought lots of our stuff, including our bicycles. Our friend Hannah made out well, too. And just in time. She'll soon be moving out of her room with her host family and into her own nipa hut (currently under construction).

We had an amazing dinner. Toshito Harada was a schoolteacher in Japan. He and his wife Marie retired and moved to Siquijor to open a resort. His brother Hiro will be the chef. Harada-san invited us for dinner. Hiro prepared sashimi with avocado, green beans, tempura, seaweed, and kabocha squash. Hiro was assited by Marie and by Minori, a newly arrived volunteer (a veterinarian from Kobe) in Japan's equivalent of the Peace Corp.

Friends helped us with our luggage. We woke up at 3am on September 8th and took the morning OceanJet to Dumaguete, then a flight to Manila in the afternoon. Hannah accompanied us all the way to the airport in Dumaguete and was a huge help with the cargo. Tommy (a Peace Corp Volunteer) met the ferry in Dumaguete and helped us with our bags. Thanks Hannah and Tommy!

We're in Manila until September 22, when we finally return to the US. Rosanna will do her Fulbright presentation -- screening "Shamans of Siquijor: The Healers" as well as showing clips from the in-progress film on sorcerers -- at Ateneo de Manila University.

We're staying in Makati City right next to the mammoth Ayala mall complex. We're within walking distance of at least a few hundred places to eat. It's a real treat to have such a wide variety of food choices. Everything tastes good. But we get over-stimulated and disoriented walking around in the area, and it's strange to be in a man-made environment. Our hotel room even has central air (yes, wow!). Even at the highest temperature setting we get cold and have to turn it off for awhile. And it feels weird to be wearing socks and shoes all of the time instead of sandals.

War and Peace

2005-09-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

peace corps - buying stuff at our yard sale
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

We saw one of our Peace Corps friends for the last time a few nights ago. "Many people," she said, "think the Peace Corps is about completing projects and saving the world, when in fact, it's really just about survival. You're lucky if you can just take a shower, buy supplies, and cook a meal each day." She should know. Her first tour of duty, in Cote d'Ivoire, Africa, ended abruptly when she was evacuated in the midst of rebel uprisings. Her project there had been to help dig latrines.

Her husband sees things differently. The Philippines is his first stint in the Peace Corps. He's gung-ho about setting an example of dedication and persistence. By seeing a project through to the end, he believes, he can inspire others to do the same.

The stipend for a Peace Corps Volunteer covers only the most basic of living expenses. Our friends like cereal, but cornflakes are imported, and at US $1.56 a box, would break their budget if they made a habit of eating them. They eat eggs.

PCVs are not allowed to have other jobs to supplement their stipend due to past abuses. One volunteer who was supposed to be doing coastal resource management was selling endangered fish to aquariums around the world.

For safety and insurance reasons, PCVs are not allowed to ride motorcycles. They get $100 to buy a bicycle, which, in my opinion, is just enough to buy you a headache. Our friends have bicycles with non-functioning brakes. Siquijor is replete with steep hills, peppered with small children, sleeping dogs and nomadic chickens. So much for safety.

Another Peace Corps friend (we'll call Joe) has a childhood friend (we'll call Steve) who is a Navy Seal. Steve was sent to the Philippines to do anti-terrorism exercises in Mindanao. The two of them met up and compared impressions. Joe enjoys his time in the Philippines and loves the scenic coastal areas and friendly people. Steve found the country to be an ugly mess. Joe lives with a host family in a dilapidated room with never-ending rodent problems. When not in the field, the US Military houses Steve in the five-star Shangri-La Hotel in Manila, where the daily room rate probably exceeds Joe's monthly stipend. Joe visited him there. Trying to save money, Joe asked Steve if he could sleep on the floor of his room. Like most of the Seals in his group, Steve brought prostitutes to his room nightly. He wouldn't take a single day off from his routine to accommodate his friend.

Cockfight

2005-08-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

cockfight
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

I went to my first (and probably my last) cockfight yesterday. Everyone was excited except me, but that was probably because I wasn't betting.

Surfing in Siargao

2005-08-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

Cloud 9
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

You can't get to the island of Siargao -- and its famous Cloud 9 surf break -- from Siquijor. Well, at least not directly. We took 3 ferries, 1 flight, and several taxis and tricycles. There were moments in our journey when it seemed that we might never get to Siargao. Most of those moments transpired in the port town of Surigao.

Though located in the northeast corner of Mindanao, Surigao is well out of the range of terrorist activity in other parts of the region. The only danger we encountered in this town was in being bored to death. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, missing the only boat that day to Siargao. With only three in-bound flights a week from Cebu, one would think some effort would be made to coordinate these flights with outbound boats. We heard later that the lack of synchronization was deliberate on the part of city officials. They want you to get stuck there.

We ate at a "highly recommended" restaurant near the water. The outdoor garden was flanked by barbed wire. We ate bad, overpriced food while the waiter did his best to chase away hordes of flies. We spent Saturday night in a cramped room in a hotel also surrounded by barbed wire. On Sunday, no boats were running. We changed hotels, to the one with the bad restaurant with the barbed wire. It was the best option.

The weekend wasn't a total waste. We visited the city park and saw a giant concrete shoe. We tried to locate the cinema we saw on the map in our guide book, but were told that it closed about five years ago. We resorted to eating at Chow King, a fast food chain serving Chinese-Filipino food, which was surprisingly good. On the bright side, Surigao has excellent internet cafes that are ridiculously cheap and thoroughly modern.

When Monday morning rolled around we were at the pier to catch the fast-ferry to Siargao. Except it wasn't running. It had mechanical problems. We raced to find the V&J banka (wooden boat with outriggers) about a quarter mile away. We just made it on board when it was declared stuffed and pulled away from the shore.

A hot and sleepy 2.5 hours later we arrived at Dapa, Siargao. A tricycle took us 14 km to the town of General Luna on the southeast part of the island. We decided to walk the remaining 3km up a dirt road to the Cloud 9 break.

Twenty minutes later our packs were feeling heavy. Were we going the right way? A local on a motorcycle directed us back 200 meters and into the woods. We walked through a village, around pigs and past a small boy playing with a dead frog, and then an army checkpoint (?). Finally, we came to a gravel road, and the entrance to Ocean 101. We dropped our bags and collapsed into the plastic chairs of the outdoor restaurant. We had made it.

Ocean 101 is a no-frills establishment, but it's cheap, the food is good, and the staff is friendly and helpful. We had a non-air-con room in a low concrete building. Closer to the water is the open-air restaurant, which has a pool table, TV, and dorm style accommodations upstairs. Most of the guests were guys in their 20's. They came from Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Japan and Korea. I arranged to have surf lessons in the morning with Yok-yok, a local pro and brother of the woman who owns 101.

Mona Lisa woke us up before 7 the next morning. The tide was already up and Yok-yok was ready to go. I put on my board shorts, rash guard, surf boots and several layers of sunscreen. We walked down the beach toward the Cloud 9 break. Yok-yok drew a surf board in the sand. "Show me how you ride the board." I laid down on the imaginary board as if ready to do push-ups. "Now stand up. You must stand up faster. Do it again. Good, just like that." We walked out on the long pier and down a ladder into the water.

With the leash attached to my ankle, I paddled out past the break, with Yok-yok walking along side me. "Stop here and turn around. Sit on the board and balance. Most of surfing is just waiting. Relax. Here come some waves. Now lie on the board! When I say stand up, do it just like on the beach." I hear the sound of the approaching wave behind me. Yok-yok gives the longboard a shove. I try to stand, the board wobbles and I fall into the water. "When you stand up, do it quick!" On the fourth or fifth wave I jump up, plant my feet and ride. I'm surfing.

Two and half hours later we got out of the water. My sunscreen had washed off. My face was burned and I was exhausted, but I had thoroughly enjoyed myself. Wednesday morning Rosanna had lessons with Nilde, one of two local female pros, and was able to stand up on the board. I watched from the shaded area on the pier, with a crispy face and a body so sore from the day before that it felt like someone had hit me all over with a big stick.

Thursday. "Today," Yok-yok said, "I'm like a contractor. I will just tell you what to do. You will make your own power." I didn't have to paddle too hard. The waves were twice as big and twice as fast as they were the first day. With just a little speed on my part, they swept me up and rocketed me toward the shore. Friday's waves were smaller again. Yok-yok tortured me by making me paddle until my arms felt rubbery and numb. "Tomorrow you can surf on your own. You don't need me anymore." On Saturday I had to figure out which waves to ride and when to start paddling.

Before we went surfing on Saturday, we moved to Sagana, a small resort directly in front of Cloud 9. On my way out I talked to one of the owners, a surfer from Australia. I told him I was just learning. "I wish I were just learning," he replied, "so I could enjoy this tiny surf." August is good for beginners. In September, the waves of Cloud 9 are enormous. Hundred of people show up for the international surf contest. Yok-yok said that the pipeline is so large you could fit a jeepney inside of it.

On Sunday we took it easy and enjoyed Sagana. With only six cottages, the scale is small and laid-back. Gerry and Susan, two of the three owners of Sagana, hang out with their guests in the main pavilion. "For us, this is more about a lifestyle choice than running a business," Gerry told me. They have a great chef, also an Aussie. During our stay, we had dishes like vegetarian lasagna, gnocchi, panang curry, and vanilla bean panna cotta. We stayed in a beautifully constructed cottage with sliding doors, hardwood floors, and a spacious porch. We didn't want to leave.

Compared to getting to Siargao, leaving was a piece of cake. Monday morning week took a 6am ferry to Surigao. We flew out of Surigao at 1pm. An hour later we were back in Cebu. Thanks to everyone at Ocean 101, our surfing instructors, and Gerry and Susan and the staff at Sagana.

Can you say vestibular?

2005-08-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

impending storm
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

We took the Don Martin boat to Dumaguete at 6:30 in the morning of July 27. Despite the high winds and heavy rain, I had little concern about the trip. The Don Martin is a big boat, transporting cars, cows, pigs and people. We won't even feel the waves, I thought.

Midway through the two hour trip, the Don was pitching like a roller coaster. When it wasn't pitching it was rolling, making the horizon appear to go up and down like an erratic power window. The sides of the boat are open, but one side had vinyl covers drawn to keep out the rain. Still, rain blew in and sloshed around on the third-level deck with the motion of the boat.

The Don has vinyl bunk beds instead of seats. Being horizontal seems to deter motion sickness, but people were still getting sick. Rosanna and I didn't feel so hot. It didn't help that we were both still recovering from another bout of food poisoning a few days before. I read later that the vestibular system of the inner ear detects food poisoning in the blood. That it also registers motion sickness is an accident of nature. In either case, the vestibular system reports to the brain that there is poison in the blood, which then induces vomiting. Given the events of the previous days and our current situation, my body was confused. My eyes saw the unpredictable motion of the boat while my brain was getting the message, "here comes more poisonous food."

In spite of our lingering queasiness, upon docking we headed straight for breakfast. We were hungry. We frequent the Why Not cafe for it's Euro-style breakfast. We also usually watch BBC News on the television there. This morning someone had commandeered the remote to watch the Fashion Channel. I didn't get any news on the political situation in the Philippines, but color is making a strong return next spring.

This was a one-day trip, with no time for a language lesson. Our teacher had been on Siquijor the week before, when Rosanna gave her a try as a field translator. While they were out and about, she told Rosanna that she thought I was half Filipino. Some years ago, in Austin, a friend of ours thought I was half Korean. Another of Rosanna's colleagues at UT was surprised to find out that I wasn't half Latino. It's a small world.

We met our friend Hannah for lunch. She was in Dumaguete en route back to Siquijor, having spent the previous few weeks traveling in Thailand. She gave me a book called "Playing the Moldovans at Tennis". It's the true story of how Tony Hawks (that's Hawks with an "s", not the American skateboarder Tony Hawk) made a bet that he could beat all the members of the Moldovan National Soccer Team at individual games of tennis. (In case you're wondering, Moldova is a tiny Eastern European country that used to be part of the Soviet Union.) The loser of the bet had to sing the Moldovan national anthem in his birthday suit at a London pub. Another book of Mr. Hawks' has him hitchhiking around the circumference of Ireland with a refrigerator in an attempt to win another bet. I felt a strange kinship with Tony Hawks, but whereas I try to embrace absurdity when I happen upon it, he sets about creating the conditions under which it will flourish.

bones and skulls in San Juan cemetery

2005-07-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

bones in San Juan cemetery
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

In San Juan on the far side of Siquijor there is a cemetery where most bodies are in above ground tombs. There's also this open pit full of skulls and bones.

sleeping on the boat

2005-07-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

me, sleeping on the boat
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

The Don Martin boat makes a two hour trip to Dumaguete. Instead of seats, they have bunk beds, which is nice when it leaves at 6:30 in the morning.

Mop of Siquijor

2005-07-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

When we opened a bank account in Larena last year, I filled out the form with my last name, Meyer. The bank agent pronounced my last name Mayor. When I picked up my ATM card a few days later my last name was embossed on the card as Mejer. (Incidentally, the card is for use at other branches in larger cities. Our branch has no ATM.)

When I asked for mongo beans (a.k.a mung beans) at the market, the vendor handed me mangos. Here, mango is pronounced like bongo. Mongo is pronounced like the on in phone. Garbanzos, however, have a transcendent quality, and their pronunciation here is identical to my own.

In Dumaguete, private homes close to the downtown area have signs posted in an attempt to deter littering in front of them. One sign reads, "Please throw your garbage properly," which makes me think of perfecting my pitcher's windup. Another sign reads, "Don't throw your garbage anywhere," which frankly leaves me stymied every time I see it.

Because of the influence of colonization, most commerce is transacted using Spanish numbers: uno, dos, tres, etc. In the Cebuano number system, the word for the number one is usa (the other colonial influence). The word for yes in Cebuano is oo, (pronounced oh oh). No is dili. Wala indicates non-existence, as in wala cornflakes. Maybe ugma (tomorrow).

Bizarre Cult Invades Dumaguete

2005-06-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

Bizarre Cult Invades Dumaguete
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

Hannah and Rosanna, separated at birth?

Connecting

2005-06-27T05:48:00.000-07:00

telephone poles, Dumaguete
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

For about 60 pesos an hour in Manila you can surf the web at high speed on a fast computer with a large monitor in the comfort of an air-conditioned mall. We're nowhere near Manila.

In Dumaguete, a ferry ride away from Siquijor, a fast-food chain has the upper floor of its franchises outfitted wall to wall with bare bones computers running Windows 98 on 64 mb of memory and 15 inch screens. Another cafe is run by an American who pumps in a Christian rock soundtrack. The air-conditioner isn't big enough for the space, so on hot days you feel like you're being proselytized while burning in hell. A popular expatriate complex in Dumaguete includes a bar, cafe, restaurant, dance club and internet cafe that offers private booths with web-cams. You get the picture.

Oddly enough, the best bang for the buck lately is back on Siquijor Island in the town of Siquijor, at Infomate, the converted garage of a house in the town center. When we first arrived late last year, we found a handful of old computers sharing a single dial-up connection. Recently, Infomate got 4 new computers and DSL (offered for the first time a few months ago on the island, but only in the town of Siquijor).

One of the owners of the cottage we rent has a phone line that connects via antennae to a base in Dumaguete. In a pinch, it can be used for connecting to the internet. We gave it a shot the other night when Rosanna was having an e-mail emergency regarding a grant application. "We'll try it at night," the owner said. "It doesn't work during the day." We plugged our laptop into her phone line and connected via dial-up, getting a 16K connection. "That's fast," she said. It wasn't.

Due to the scarcity of land lines, cell phones are often the only option on Siquijor. But you have to be in the right place. When Rosanna first came to Siquijor a few years ago, she stayed on the south side of the island. Lacking cell phone coverage, they had a phone station. From Texas, I called the station, who dispatched a guy on a motorcycle to drive to the house where she was staying and tell her she had a phone call. Not pretty, but it worked.

A friend who lives nearby has been tracking the alleged progress of a German development project that would provide internet access via power lines, obviating the need for much of the costly telecom infrastructure that doesn't currently exist. The first phase would connect local government offices throughout the island as well as a handful of private users. He's chomping at the bit to get on the list of private users. He's optimistic, but cautiously so. It's the required disposition for living here.

Limited resources

2005-06-17T01:57:00.000-07:00

Limited resources
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

A sign near the bathroom of a well-known Dumaguete hotel.

Philippine Python

2005-06-13T01:53:00.000-07:00

python
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

This is the snake Andreas kept in his fridge so that it could be photographed at a later date. Yes, if it weren't dead I wouldn't be standing so close to it. He only killed it because he didn't know if it was poisonous or not.

A few years ago Andreas was bitten by a poisonous snake. His wife took him to the small hospital on Siquijor. The doctor told him to go home and pray. Instead, he went to a local healer who looked at the bite and said, "first you need to remove the fangs."

No Weber Needed

2005-06-13T01:03:00.000-07:00

grilling
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

Rosanna, Hannah and I enjoyed a grill-out with Andreas a few weeks ago. The volcanic rock of Siquijor makes a great natural fire-pit. No Weber needed.

Walking is good for calf muscles

2005-06-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

Rosanna with Bobong
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

Bobong is only a few months old. Her mother is in poor health so she is fed by bottle. When she gets hungry, sometimes she goes on expeditions to find the bottle herself.

Jesus Hung Our Screen Door

2005-05-31T20:24:00.000-07:00

A local carpenter named Jesus installed a handmade screen door on our cottage a few days ago. The supermarket in Dumaguete sells excellent locally grown organic rice and organic sugar. Fresh butong (young coconut) is only a tree climb away. A beautiful coral reef is just offshore. Our Cebuano teacher is patient and kind. When I ride my bike, people I don't know call me gao (cousin).

But when I asked a German friend who has lived on Siquijor for over five years what he misses most about his home country, he had a single word reply: quality. He's the Yoda to my Skywalker. His favorite expression is "this you can forget." A fellow computer programmer, I e-mailed him last year in advance of our arrival about getting a fast internet connection on Siquijor. His reply began, "I am sorry to disappoint you."

His dog woke him up this morning at 4am. She was barking at a big snake outside the glass door. He texted me later in the day to come over to his house to take some pictures of it, because the batteries for his camera weren't working. When I got there, he took a wine jug out of the fridge. The dead snake was curled up inside of it.

It's cheap to live here, but sometimes you get what you pay for. Our sink is so shallow that my pants get wet when I wash the dishes. I've broken a carrot peeler, a can opener, and sunglasses. I returned 3 USB flash drives before I got one that worked. My inner tube burst from dry rot the first week I rode my (new) bicycle. We've bought sealed containers that don't seal and club soda that doesn't fizz.

We've spent many nights in Dumaguete when the ferry wasn't going back to Siquijor due to mechanical problems. It's worth the wait, though, whatever the reason. A few years ago the same ferry company overbooked a boat and it sunk. Most of the passengers drowned because they couldn't swim; a fact I found strange in a country with more than 7,000 islands.

One of Rosanna's fellow Fulbrighters was collecting frog specimens throughout the Visayas. He ventured to dozens of tiny islands by pump boat. In the middle of a 5 hour boat ride to a remote locale, the motor died -- on a two man boat. "For the first time in my life I experienced claustrophobia in the middle of the open sea, " he said. Luckily another boat happened to pass by and was able to tow them.

An anthropologist friend of ours is all set to live in a tree house in a mangrove, but the plumbing is incomplete. There's no sewage line to the tree house. "Only pee pee, no poo poo," said the barangay captain who watches over the place. She said it reminds her of a book of travel stories she read called "No Shitting in the Toilet".

The family she's living with is borrowing her powdered laundry soap. They use it to wash their dishes. "The plates all smell like fabric softener," she told me. She's anxious to begin collecting data for her project, but her laptop broke a few weeks ago.

She borrowed the bike of a local Peace Corps volunteer. The fender snapped off on her way to meet us for language lessons the other day. The light doesn't work, and the "shocks" are for looks only. She hit a dog on her way home when the brakes failed. She flew off the bike and broke her glasses and cut her hands and face. A pop star from Manila who happened to be passing by came to her aid.

On a positive note, our leaky toilet was fixed a few days ago. The drainage pipes from our cottage are another story. We've been told that a fix is complicated, but forthcoming. Tree roots have apparently grown into the pipes, causing them to back up. When we wash the dishes, water pools in the shower drain and the bathroom smells like a sewer.

As I told my mom, it's not all San Miguel beer and beach chairs here. We're not on vacation. One man's paradise is another woman's documentary film project. Sometimes you need to take a break. Next month (July) we're going to Siargao for a week to learn how to surf.

reverse exoticism

2005-05-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

Our friend Deb Green and her colleague Lisa visited us on Siquijor this past weekend. I took them snorkeling at the reef near where we live. I met them at their beach cottage at Islander’s Paradise and waited with Lisa outside until Deb was ready. Two Filipina’s staying next door came over with their camera and wanted to take a picture. They said they were visiting from Mindanao. Lisa and I thought they wanted us to take their picture, but no, they wanted to take their picture with us. We were a little confused but agreed to it anyway. When they each had a photograph with their respective cameras, they asked us, “Are you from British, too?” I don’t know who else they had met from England, but we had been lumped into that category.

Extended

2005-05-15T20:01:00.000-07:00

Sunset over Dumaguete and Cebu
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

Rosanna received a two month extension of her grant. We'll be returning to the US in early October instead of in August.

scarecrows over rice fields

2005-05-05T04:24:00.000-07:00

scarecrows over rice fields
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

This photo is from the mountainous area of Siquijor. We were on our way to visit sorcerers and healers.

sorcerers, inkanto, and a good Italian meal

2005-05-01T03:52:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been busy and passed quickly. Last night Iris and Andreas had us over for dinner. Iris will be leaving later in the week for her annual, month-long trip back to Hamburg. We had her homemade garlic bread and a baked pasta dish along with a bottle of Italian wine that Richard had brought us from Cebu when he was here in March. I only mention it because it's a rare item to have here on the island.

Iris and Andreas told us the story of a European couple that had lived on Siquijor for several years who kept a concrete gnome in their garden. One day they noticed that their gardener would not work near the gnome. Finally they explained to him that is was just a concrete garden gnome and not a magical dwarf. When they left their house unoccupied for long periods, they asked Iris and Andreas to look after it. One day they stopped by and saw that everything had been neatly put away, but in the center of an otherwise empty room stood the garden gnome, protecting the house.

It was great to have a relaxing evening. We had awoken early that morning to get to the mountains, where Rosanna filmed a sorcery ritual in a cave and conducted an interview. The night before that, we were in bed late. We had been in the same mountainous region conducting an interview with a healer who would not consent to have his devotional prayer ritual filmed. This was our second trip that same day to the mountains to see this healer. Earlier in the day we had been there and were told to go buy the candles and return in the evening.

A friend of ours who owns an apartment in Europe was asking this healer to help with a tenant who would not pay his rent. The request was to make the tenant aware that he should pay his rent or vacate the apartment. The ritual involved bringing the healer 49 candles and the name of the tenant as well as the address. The healer will pray once a day for 7 days for the time it takes 7 candles to burn.

Earlier that same evening, we were a few miles away with a healer and Barangay captain who is also the head of his local police department. The same request was made to this healer, who performed a similar prayer ritual involving candles. When Rosanna asked him if he has ever seen inkanto (environmental spirits), he said he had seen one near the spring next to his home and that it looked like me (Caucasian). Rosanna asked, "How do you know he wasn't just a white person." He replied, "Because he was naked." We have since entertained the idea of having me wander naked in wooded areas at night to see what kind of reactions I would get.

That same afternoon we were also on the other side of the island, where we were introduced to a one-eyed healer who lived in a house perched on a volcanic rock outcropping with a twisting staircase leading to the front door. Rosanna will film him this week.

Rosanna had been consulting Emily, a local businesswoman and politician, throughout the process to secure translators. Each translator dropped out after only one time in the field. It is difficult to say precisely why, as most would not respond to further attempts to communicate. Rosanna speculated that they became fearful of the sorcerers, despite claiming not to believe in sorcery prior to meeting the sorcerers. Now that peak tourist season has passed, Emily decided it would be easier if she herself acted as translator and go-between. Her first task was to help smooth some problems with a couple (healers and teachers of sorcery) created by one of the translators.

On a previous visit to this couple, Rosanna's translator became nervous and implied that Rosanna was working for "authorities in Manila", which is not true. The couple became annoyed and had said that maybe they should just sorcerize her and Rosanna.

Emily was able to explain to the couple that the translator had not been speaking for Rosanna. Loreana, the wife, a sprightly 80 years old, was also happy that Rosanna brought some Kulafu wine and Milo (Ovaltine-like powder). She also pinched my cheeks and said I was guapo (handsome).

full boats, long lines

2005-04-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

Today we're going to Dumaguete. I'm up early (it's 6:30am). Both mornings the ferryboat was full by the time we got there so on Monday morning we bought tickets for Wednesday. The Supercat ferryboat, which probably seats more than 200 people, has been dry docked for over a week now. The only game in town right now is the much smaller Natasha. We saw the short end of the supply/demand equation early Sunday morning when we tried to take the 8:30am boat to Dumaguete and found that it was already full by 8:10am. After staring at our shoes for a while, we jumped on an easyride and went 25 minutes further to the town of Siquijor, racing to the pier to catch the 10am Delta. The Delta had been out for repairs and was back in service, but now on a new, erratic schedule - no 10am boat. An enterprising pump boat captain had already filled his small craft beyond capacity; there was no room for us. We gave up for the day and did a little internet surfing in the town of Siquijor before when headed home.

On Monday morning we made a second attempt to take the Natasha and once again it was full. We bought tickets for Wednesday morning. We were running out of cash and couldn't last until Wednesday, so we went to the bank. There are two small banks in Larena. Our bank is the one without a cash machine. Don't ask me why our account isn't with the other bank. It's a longer story than this one. You take a number from the guard at the door when you enter. Of the 7 employees at the bank, 2 of them are tellers. The teller typically calls five numbers at a time. You take your withdrawal slip or deposit or whatever and drop it off, and later she'll call your name and give you the goods. We were number 72. They were calling 25 through 30 when we walked in. People were streaming into the bank. A woman sitting next to us was number 114.

More than an hour later we had our cash and left. Experiences like these sometimes leave me frustrated, but I've learned to factor them into my expectations so that they don't faze me. Are we going to Dumaguete today? Maybe. It depends if the boat is working. It depends if the whether is good. Still, I found myself wondering if the bank had plans to install an ATM, and if not, why? Do they cost too much, more than hiring another person?

The programmer in me loves efficient systems, maybe more for their elegance than for their convenience (if you can separate the two). Standing in lines is boring. I remember visiting NYC in 2000 after having moved away the previous year and seeing the new MetroCard machines that could refill a card and bill it to your credit card in a matter of seconds. It was a joy to use, and it was evident that the user's experience itself was designed. If you never stood in line waiting to buy a plastic bag full of tokens with a wad of cash while your train entered and left the station, you won't appreciate it. Or compare it to the ticket machines for the LRT (subway) in Manila (or any old ticket machines for that matter). Granted it's not brain surgery to buy a ticket, it's just that the machine's exterior design (or lack thereof) seemed to result from the placement of it's interior components. The purchaser encounters a flat surface with slots and buttons, but lacking a self-evident narrative, so that painted numbers on it and small print on the face of the machine to tell you what to do. But by the time you're in front of the machine, its face is large that you have to step backward to take in all the pieces. It just doesn't feel right.

Manila, fresh air not included

2005-04-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

The Fulbright office arranged a tour of the U.S. Embassy in Manila on April 5th. We flew to Manila the previous day and stayed overnight in Makati. We had a spectacular dinner at Kai, serving "neo-Japanese" cuisine. Apparently some folks who used to work at Nobu and Bond St started it. The service and food were both top notch.

On Tuesday we had lunch at the Fulbright office in Makati. Then we piled into several cars and made our away across town toward old Manila. The Embassy is situated on Manila bay in two main buildings. After we surrendered our IDs at the Embassy gate and cleared the vehicle search and giant barricade, we waited inside the more publicly accessible building for the rest of our group to arrive. We surfed the net on some public computers while we waited.

After the rest of our group arrived we proceeded to the older of the two buildings and had to clear a metal detector and give up our cell phones. There was some debate between the guard and our tour guides (Embassy employees) as to whether or not our cameras would be allowed inside for this tour; typically they are not. We were able to keep our cameras. The tour concentrated mostly on the history of the building during World War II. At the tour's conclusion we were shown a short video that is used to advertise the Manila post to other US Foreign Service officers when they apply for their periodic reassignments. It focused on the amenities of the residential properties owned by the US Government, such as a tax-free gas station, as well as the upscale shopping in Manila.

While we appreciated the tour, in hindsight it wasn't quite what we expected. Several of us were interested in were the day-to-day operations of the Embassy, which houses some 25 governmental agency offices, including the CIA. We'll just have to read more Tom Clancy novels.

The other three nights in the area we spent with our friend and Fulbrighter Deb Green at her apartment in Quezon City. She rises at 4:30am (!) to run on the grounds at Ateneo University. Any later, she says, and the air becomes difficult to breath. This is an understatement. The air quality in Quezon City was very bad. We took the very modern LRT (subway) home one night and walked home from the station. The headlights of passing cars illuminated billowy clouds of noxious dust swirling everywhere.

One day we ate at an excellent open-air vegetarian restaurant near UP. Unfortunately the passing traffic and the resulting gritty atmosphere marred the experience. The air really bothered Rosanna, and she came down with a bad chest cold near the end of our stay that she's still battling back here on Siquijor. Her mood was lifted considerably by the care package from my Mom and Dad (thanks) that survived its month-long journey with the dark chocolate still intact.

sky blue

2005-03-31T21:30:00.000-08:00

sky blue
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

I've added a few more photos to Flickr. This is me recovering from a bike ride in the intense heat.

Holy Week

2005-03-26T21:25:00.000-08:00

The Thursday evening screening of "Shamans of Siquijor: The Healers" was packed. It was a perfect time to have it. Casa was full for Holy Week, and people came to the restaurant from the surrounding area. There was an extended Q&A session after the film with lively dialogue about the healers and good feedback about the film.

After the Q&A session, Rosanna had a hard time getting her dinner down as people continued to ask questions. We were able to break away and collect Richard from the pier around 9pm. We had snacks with him at La Costa Cafe. Luckily Rosanna had found a vacant room for him there. He came bearing gifts, among them a bag of whole-wheat flour, which is impossible to find on the island or in Dumaguete. Thanks Richard!

Friday morning we shared an Easyride (mini-jeepney) with Kyle and Melissa, the Peace Corps folks who also live in Sandugan. Their two visitors, plus Hannah and Richard meant that the tiny truck struggled on its climb into the mountainous interior of Siquijor to see the Stations of the Cross. After the 30-minute ride, we piled out into a sea of people, motorcycles and food vendors lining a narrow road near the trailhead. We made the 300+ meter climb to the top, detouring briefly to see a balete tree, where the magical dwarves live. We passed a man dressed as Jesus and bearing a wooden cross at the second to last station. A group of drag queens behind us stopped to pray at the station.

On our way back from the mountain, we stopped in San Antonio to visit one of the healers that appeared in Rosanna's film. Tommy, a guest of Kyle and Melissa's, got a healing massage while everyone else took pictures or stood around outside. The folks who lived there continued their card game.

Back in the town of Siquijor, we ate in the shady gardens of Swiss Stars. Richard, Hannah, Rosanna and I stayed in town and went to see the Veneration of the Cross at the church, where parishioners line up to kiss the cross. Several days prior, Rosanna had asked the priest for permission to film. Because the church was jammed with several hundred people, we had no choice but enter from the back of the church, through the alter area, as the veneration started. People who practice sorcery (and healing as well) sometimes try to bite the cross instead of kissing it. They believe if they can get a piece of the cross that it can enhance their powers.

After the veneration, the congregation paraded around Siquijor holding statues of Christ (sort of mini floats) covered with flowers. Rosanna had hired Jesse (her Easyride driver for film shoots) to meet us in Siquijor. Jesse got us in front of the procession, and Rosanna was able to shoot out the back of the Easyride in a kind of poor man's dolly shot.

We got back to the church ahead of the procession and positioned the camera near the entrance to film the return of the floats. Suddenly it was like a rock concert. Rosanna took the camera off the tripod and I followed her with the sound equipment. As the floats were carried inside, people mobbed them to grab flowers, greens, and pieces of decoration, like the halo above the head of one of the figures; all considered power items.

From Siquijor we ventured to Coco Grove for dinner, about a 20-minute drive away. We wanted to show Richard the most polished resort on Siquijor. It was Hannah's first time there as well. She was so surprised by it that she said she felt transported to some other place. After dinner, it was a long haul back to La Costa to pick up Richard's bags and then take him to Princess Bulakna, a new resort on a huge tract of land on the opposite side of the island. By the time Jesse got us back home, it was already close to 1am. We were beat.

Please note that I use the word "resort" to refer to places that have room and board. We're not talking about the high life here - aircon is usually a high-end option, as is a TV. Most of them are pleasant, but very basic by Western standards.

Today Rosanna is out with her translator gathering info on sorcerers. At this stage of the game itÕs better if I'm not with her. I don't blend in! I add to the complexity of the negotiations. Once agreements are made I'll be able to accompany her, carrying equipment and doing sound.

hot days, weak tubes

2005-03-18T00:47:00.000-08:00

We rode our bikes into Larena today for the second time this week. About one mile into the trip I suddenly heard hissing. In the time it took me to stop, my tire had gone completely flat. Rosanna went on to town while I walked back to the cottage with the bike. I thought I had run over glass or something sharp, but when I looked at the tube, it wasn't even punctured. The seam near the valve had just split. It didn't take me long to put on a new tube. The flat tube looked old and of poor quality. I think it was just a matter of too much pressure on a weak spot as I rode over some bumps.

I met up with Rosanna at the vegetable market, where she was talking to M.E., a lady her late 40's or early 50's who sells dried fish at the vegetable market. She is fountain of information and always helps us find whatever it is we're looking for in Larena. Today she told us that the market is open 24/7 and that most of the ladies who sell there actually just sleep there as well, though they may have homes elsewhere on the island. By the time they want to go home, the tricycles will charge them for a special trip (30 pesos, about 60 cents). This may not sound like much, but 30 pesos goes a long way here. I bought 3 bananas for 5 pesos this morning. Rosanna asked M.E. if people are buying vegetables 24 hours a day. M.E. said, "No, but you can wake me up if I'm sleeping. Only special people can wake me up."

The heat is ON. The temperature has crept up in the past few weeks. Riding bikes to town is great, but the sun is intense. Most people don't ride bicycles, though two kids on bikes waved to us today on our way home. I think some people think it's strange, or so I think based on their expressions as we ride by, as if we're riding giant pretzels.

Rumor has it (actually Hannah told us) that Infomate, one of the internet cafes in the town of Siquijor (an hour's commute from us) finally has broadband (DSL). If you've read my previous posts about a shared dial-up connection, you'll know that this is great news. When we first arrived, I spent over an hour making a single online banking payment Ð something that would take just minutes on a fast connection. We've been riding the ferry to Dumaguete to do our internet business, but if this rumor is true, we may be able to cut back on those trips.

Tomorrow we're invited to a lunch to celebrate the feast of St. Joseph.

While we're out and about, Rosanna will be conducting some off-camera interviews and getting people lined up for filming during the upcoming holy week. Her friend and former UT colleague, Richard from Cebu, is trying to make it down here to be part of the crew. Rosanna is having a difficult time finding a room for him. All of the places we know nearby are already booked.

Cooking has been going well. For lunch I made pasta with mung beans in an olive oil, shallot, garlic, and tomato sauce. We anxiously await a delivery of dark chocolate from my mom and dad. On another note, if anyone desires a tropical vacation, you have only 4 months left to take advantage of our in-country assistance. I highly recommend Coco Grove on the opposite side of the island.

here come the helicopters

2005-03-11T01:13:00.000-08:00

We made it to the port yesterday in the nick of time, riding our new bikes and me carrying a 40lb backpack full of supplies. However, when we got there we found out that the ferry was cancelled due to security around GMA's visit - she was in Dumaguete at the time. While we were at the port we saw two military helicopters fly low over the city, I'm sure as a show of force and deterrent for any would-be troublemakers.

We're here until Saturday now. Our friend Dessa is in a play tonight. What's one more day? Thanks goodness for quick-drying travel clothes.

bicycles, Black Saturday, GMA

2005-03-09T19:48:00.000-08:00

We're finally getting our bicycles today. Yay! If you're ever in Dumaguete and you need a bike, go see Jun at SANCO, around the corner from Lee Superplaza. He's a nice guy and his shop has great service and decent bikes.

While we're on the subject, a few more shout outs to great places in Dumaguete. First, I highly recommend the whole Coco empire. An Australian-Austrian couple run a travel agency (Paradise Travel - thanks Susan!), a hotel (Coco Grande) and a restaurant (Coco Amigo). They also run the Coco Grove (on Siquijor) and Apo Island resorts. Based on my own observations, the owner, Mike, is constantly making the rounds to these places to make sure everything is running smoothly. In January, when Rosanna's mom visited, we saw him at several places in the same day, as far away as Apo Island. He is the guy-who-is-everywhere. Coco Grove is an especially outstanding value, in my opinion.

Rumor has it that GMA is visiting Siquijor tomorrow. If so, we hope to do a little filming, provided the security allows it. Rosanna doesn't need any practice, but I do. I'm still getting the hang of doing sound.

Easter is coming soon, and with it an influx of shamans, herbalists, sorcerers and tourists. Black Saturday is believed to be the time when the shamanic practices can gather herbs and powers because Jesus is dead that day. We'll definitely be on the scene getting a lot of footage and finding out more about sorcery.

And finally, I won't be waiting on jeepneys and tricycles any more. Yay for bicycles.

infrastrucutre and good pizza

2005-02-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

We're in Dumaguete again. You can pretty much assume now that if I'm posting something, we're off Siquijor. We don't bother going to the town of Siquijor on Siquijor island. I've also stopped writing posts in advance. When we get to Dumaguete I just sit down and try to remember what we've been doing.

We planned this trip to coincide with Cha's and Cameron's (two other Fulbrighters) respective presences in Dumaguete. Cha is based in Manila, studying child labor practices and abuses. Cameron, as I've mentioned previously, is a budding herpetologist (frog/snake/reptile scientist) who is frequently on wild trips throughout the Visayas collecting specimens. He went back to Colorado for Christmas and brought back a new blowgun on his return. The city of of Lawrence, Kansas will be his home as he begins his graduate studies.

We all went out for dinner last night at a great 3-in-1 restaurant along the ocean. We had pizza and some great local dishes as well. It was a full moon, hanging heavily over the water like some bad flea market wall hanging.

Ferry service from Siqujor has become very limited in the past few weeks. The only real option now is the Natasha boat, which leaves from Larena, Siquijor at 8:30am and departs from Dumaguete at 5pm. So we made a small trip of it and spent two nights here in Dumaguete.

The second item on the infrastructure list is: credit cards. We tried to buy bicycles today. Unfortunately the shop does not accept credit cards and it's a bank holiday. Another day, then, we will return and get some wheels. Having bicycles will free us up from the jeepney and pedicab dependency that rules our schedule on the island. We look forward to that.

Until next time! If you're reading and want to say hi, please feel free to post a comment or send an e-mail. It's nice to know someone is out there. :) And thanks to friends who've recently sent e-mails. It is much appreciated!

James Bond villain hideaway

2005-02-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

Cove at Apo Island
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

We found out where all the James Bond villains live. It's here on Apo Island at the Apo Island resort. The island is reachable by a 30 minute pump boat ride from Negros. It really feels like Goldfinger is going to come out and greet you when you hit the shore. The island has a spectacular protected reef on the other side with an amazing variety of coral. On our way back from Apo we saw a dolphin swimming alongside our pump boat.

out of this world

2005-01-31T22:48:00.000-08:00

We're still in Cebu, believe it or not. We've been here for 10 days, a week longer than we planned. When we arrived, Rosanna was feeling feverish and it turned into high fever and stomach problems. The minute she got better, I came down with what I think was food poisoning, which made me incredibly ill for many days. I have slept unbelievable amounts and consumed very little food. Luckily our friend in Cebu, R.U., was able to recommend a good doctor who prescribed some antibiotics to kill whatever bugs have been ailing me. I narrowly avoided a hospital stay. For a while I couldn't hold anything down (or in, for that matter). Finally I was able to keep liquids down and start hydrating again. I'm feeling pretty good again, but still not up to full strength, but I'm well enough to go back to Siquijor this afternoon on the 3.5 hour ferry ride. Rosanna recovered several days before me and has taken great care of me. The strange thing is that my appetite has remained rather low. I'm able to eat a fairly large breakfast and then have virtually no appetite for the rest of the day.

It's strange to have been in the country for 3 months and then get sick in the second largest city in the Philippines, considering all the travelling we've done in the past and the places we've stayed that haven't been quite so modern. On the other hand, it was a good thing we were in Cebu when we got sick instead of in some remote area without access to AC, doctors and medicine.

coming up next: Apo, Bohol, Cebu

2005-01-16T20:03:00.000-08:00

We're in Dumaguete today to meet Rosanna's Mom and then visit a few places with her. We'll take a tiny boat to Apo island this afternoon and spend the night there. Apo is a miniscule island that apparently has an amazing coral reef. We'll be going there mainly to snorkel. Tomorrow we'll go from Apo back to Siquijor. We'll be going to a resort on other side of the island where we don't currently live. It's supposed to be a little more polished than where we're staying now - plus there were no vacancies at the cottages where we live. After a few days there we'll take a boat to Bohol, an island probably ten times the size of Siquijor. Finally, we'll hit the comso city of Cebu for the last part of the trip.

Rosanna's Mom will leave the country from there. We'll stay on an extra day or two to get supplies. Rosanna might also have a screening of her film "Shamans of Siquijor: The Healers" while we are there. For those of you who don't know, this film was just completed in December as Rosanna's thesis film for her MFA from UT Austin. The current project is to focus on the Sorcerers and Healers of Animals.

I don't have much else to write. My battery charger was fixed (thanks Al!) for a whopping $2.40, so I can once again resume taking pictures. However, I have been neglecting my blogging duties in favor of working on a screenplay. Go ahead and laugh. I seem incapable of devoting energy to writing about both the so-called real world and the fictional worlds I try to spin. My beginning attempt to create a solid story structure has been quite humbling. I didn't think it would be easy, but it is even more difficult than I would have imagined. Picture if you will a wannbe carpenter with zero training trying to build an opulent mansion without no assistance and no blueprint. Every day I start building, only to destroy most of the work the next morning when I see that it is not level, solid, and able to support the structure to come: outline, write scenes, impasse, new outline, repeat. This is independent learning, pure and simple. And brutal. As with many endeavors, creative and otherwise, sometimes you have to just wrestle the alligator, or like Sysiphus, keep pushing the rock up the hill.

Still, like the saying about fishing and work, a frustrating day of screenwriting is way better than a good day doing something you don't enjoy. So I am very grateful for the opportunity even to be able to have the time to try such things. And now, and word from our sponsor, Albert Camus: "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sysiphus happy."

Radio Siquijor, Meyer signing out.

more photos on flickr

2004-12-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

Batad with sunlight
Originally uploaded by bicyclesforeveryone.

I've posted some more photos at Flickr, mostly from our trip to the mountain province. Click on the photo or go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/bicyclesforeveryone/

December in different places

2004-12-28T17:34:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas. Last night(writing on December 25) was the Casa de la Playa Christmas party. All the guests, staff and family of Emily (the owner) were there, about 60 people total. An eight piece guitar ensemble provided the music from about 7:30pm until 2am. Today we walked on the beach past the point about a kilometer to the east until there were nothing but beached boats, empty fishing villages and a resort under construction; just a clearing and two tiny cottages. It was windy and the late afternoon sky was grey blotted with dark blue clouds. If we’d been shaken like dice and dropped here I wouldn’t have been able to tell you where I was or the season.

On December 21, we returned to Siquijor after having been away since December 2. The first part of our trip was spent in Dumaguete. I taught an Alexander Technique workshop on Dec. 3 and 4 to six students in the Liturgy program at Silliman University. In addition to studying to be pastors, the students are also all musicians and actors. I found out later that one of the students was also a physical therapist and especially enjoyed the class. Rosanna spent her time making some contacts at SU. We also visited again with Cobbie and Dessa. I did some AT work with them as well, as they had facilitated the classes with the Liturgy students (thanks!).

On December 7 we traveled to Manila to attend the required PAEF \ Fulbright Christmas party on December 9. Deb Green, our geo-archeologist Fulbrighter friend based in Dumaguete, arranged our plane tickets so the three of us were able to fly together. We flew Air Philippines and were relieved to find the plane in excellent condition. (We had originally flown to Dumaguete on Cebu Pacific a month prior and sat in an exit row with duct tape covering the seams of the door.)

Rosanna and I took a taxi from the airport to her cousin Mutya’s house. The traffic was horrendous and the trip was long, though the distance itself was short. We arrived in the mid afternoon and waited for her to come home from work. She works in film and video production. Mutya and friends took us to a fantastic vegetarian Chinese restaurant called Bodhi. To get to her friends’ house, we drove through a maze of narrow streets, past Christmas lights, up and down hills before finally arriving. It seemed confusing and unrepeatable to me, with few straight lines and right angles.

Because we were so far away from Makati, if not in space so much as in time, where the Fulbright office is located and where one can go from hotel to shopping on foot, we moved the next day to the Amorsolo hotel near the Greenbelt mall in Makati. The mall system here has to be seen to be believed. A cluster of mall complexes forms a mammoth sector of buildings, walkways, outdoor gardens and parking garages. The Greenbelt section is the newest and was built partially around an outdoor church situated in the middle of a park. One entire three-story area is devoted to nothing but restaurants, food stalls and a movie theatre. There must be 40 or 50 restaurants in this section, all facing the park, with huge walkways on each level offering some outdoor seating.

On the morning of December 9 we went to get hair cuts. This involved a taxi ride to another mall in a car that seemed to barely hold together over the rough sections of street, like a crazy skier hitting moguls. I made a wish for Santa to bring the driver a new taxi. For the price of what you would pay a barber in the U.S. you can go to a full-service salon and get a scalp treatment, massage and haircut. After buying some gifts and food, including an ube cake (ube is purple yam), we were back in a taxi headed for the Fulbright office and lunch.

The Fulbright lunch was held in a private room of the commissary in the Ayala Life building, a skyscraper in Makati not far from the stock exchange. In addition to the 8 or so Fulbrighters in attendance, there was staff from the PAEF office as well as some folks from the U.S. Embassy who are on the Fulbright board of directors, including Robert Post and Bruce Armstrong. After we ate each person introduced himself, with Fulbrighters describing their projects, including investigations of child labor practices, exploration of the death penalty and its application, Cameron’s work with frogs and reptiles, Deb’s geo-archeology work and Rosanna’s documentation of sorcerers and animal healers on Siquijor. Though not a Fulbrighter myself, I described my plans for a screenplay, a spy thriller involving a Fulbright scholar who turns out to be a CIA agent. One of the other Fulbrights spoke up at this point and said that it wasn’t much of a stretch. She’s a Muslim woman working in Mindanao documenting the treatment of women. One of her difficulties is gaining the trust of her subjects and convincing people that she is not secretly working for the U.S. government in some clandestine fashion.

A party upstairs in the PAEF office followed our lunch. Our first party game was to form two teams and construct a parole (giant Christmas ornament). Our team failed miserably but we had a lot of fun. We sang some karaoke (I sang “Sweet Child of Mine”). Cameron and I sang some Christmas songs in Tagalog, or at least tried to. The PAEF staff was in tears, laughter tinged with pain! There was some gift exchange and I ended up with a bottle of distilled coconut wine (kind of like a coconut vodka). It only seemed fitting to distribute it among everyone and have a toast to Christmas, so we did!

All of the Fulbrighters met later that night and had dinner at Zhangnanhai, a great Chinese restaurant in Greenbelt. The tea “menu” is a giant cart full of sundry loose teas.

The following evening Rosanna and I had reservation on the 10pm bus leaving from old Manila bound for Banaue. We caught the commuter train and hoped to transfer to another to go the few miles north to get to old Manila. The trains had stopped for the evening at the transfer stop. We descended the stairs from the train platform into the cacophony of an intersection littered with people, jeepneys, garbage, pollution and dust. We finally flagged down a cab willing to attempt the drive to old Manila for an unmetered 300 pesos (quite expensive). Our driver sat in the traffic along the road that borders the bay going to old Manila before abruptly pulling off and driving through a road that looked more like a parking lot, going past giant restaurants and clubs, Christmas celebrations and light displays. He jockeyed in and out of parked cars and moving traffic and people before rejoining the regular road. We eventually arrived at the bus station at 10pm. The dispatcher pointed out the bus and we boarded with our bags just in time as the bus left the station.

The bus ride was cold and cramped. The aircon is either on or off, so it’s always on, but after several hours the bus becomes like a freezer. I wondered why, at our departure, passengers were donning sock caps and winter coats while I remained in a t-shirt. At 4am I woke up feeling cold, but it was the turning of the bus on the steep mountain curves that had awakened me. I watched the driver for a while, spinning the wheel from one extreme to the other, barely fitting the bus around the tight curves as it creaked and shook with each bump. When I thought it couldn’t get any more absurd, he began passing tanker truck after tanker truck on the dark, narrow and foggy two lane mountain road, each labeled “FLAMMABLE” in giant letters. I fell asleep again against Rosanna. One of our seats was broken and wouldn’t recline. A protruding post along the side of the bus limited the space of the other seat. Cleary, this bus had seen better days. And so we had we at this point.

Nine hours later, we arrived in Banaue, near the top of a mountain at a small makeshift structure that served as a bus stop, snack area and bathroom. Rumpled and bleary-eyed, we stumbled off the bus and were confronted with locals offering tricycle rides, tour guide services, places to stay, etc. We begged for a few minutes of solitude. We needed to book our return trip and fully come to our senses in the damp morning air. We collected our bags and began walking down the hill, followed by Robert, a 14 year kid who in the states would make a good used car salesman. He practically heckled us into town, with a constant commentary on the services he could offer us. He finally left us after 15 minutes and we had breakfast in the small mountain village. We walked back uphill a few minutes and got a room at the Spring Village Inn (they had hot water in the shared bathroom!) We spent the morning resting and recovering from the bus ride.

Banaue itself has rice terraces, but the development of town has resulted in a landscape that is not so pretty, with lots of rusty corrugated metal, electric lines, garbage, and tricycles (motorized, of course). The next morning we were trying to decide between going to Bontoc and Bataad. As we climbed the steep stairs from the main street area, a bus was pulling away. A guy sitting on top of the bus looked at me and yelled, “Bontoc?” The bus stopped, we got on. For one hour we drove up and for another hour we drove down, both acsent and descent on narrow gravel roads, past landslides and washouts. The halfway point, dividing mountain province from Ifugao province, is Mt. Polis, where the bus stopped and everyone got off to pee or buy snacks at the stand. Mt. Polis is perpetually shrouded in fog, so even though you’re at the highest point for miles, you can’t see anything but mist. There is a giant antennae tower and next to it a 20 ft high statue of the Virgin Mary. Next to that is a sign that read “Miserable life in a miserable place, but lived in the name of love. True peace lies within.” I couldn’t help thinking that I’d feel this way too if people kept stopping there and peeing everywhere.

We spent the afternoon in Bontoc, the capital city of the province. The town sits in a valley along a river and was bustling with people when we arrived. After a forgettable lunch we visited the museum that showed traditional housing (thatched huts) and photographs made by Masferre. When the Americans arrived in the early 1900’s they introduced games in an attempt to stop the people from headhunting. There was also an exhibit showing the St. Louis World’s Fair where many tribespeople lived in a reconstructed village for the duration of the fair. The exhibit whitewashed many of the atrocities and human rights violations that occurred during the fair. Instead, it said nice things like they got to see America and some of them got jobs afterward!

In the late afternoon we boarded a jeepney for the one hour trip to Sagada. The drive was uphill the whole way until we reach the elevation of about 1477 meters. It was dark and very cool when we arrived in the small mountaintop village. We got a room at the Sagada Guest House, with a shared bathroom down the hall - very basic accommodations for about US $4 dollars a night. The air was crisp when we woke up. I was fine in a windbreaker and a t-shirt. Outside, some people work knit hats and heavy coats. After eating breakfast we went on a short hike past the Episcopal church, up the hill to the cemetery, where cows lounged among the graves, down into Echo Valley to see the hanging coffins. Near the coffins we met Christian and Niri, a couple from Berlin. We continued past the coffins until the trail became overgrown and extremely muddy. After climbing over some rocks and plenty of weeds and brush we found the mouth of the cave and the underground river that flows through it. Apparently you can wade through the underground river about 200 meters and reemerge on the other side of the mountain, near town. We weren’t prepared to try it unguided. We trudged back to town, covered in mud.

Over an early dinner at Yoghurt House (which we highly recommend – great food!) we ran into Christian and Niri again. We made plans to split the cost of hiring a guide and visit Big Cave the following morning. After meeting for breakfast, Christian, Niri, Rosanna and I met Noel, our guide. Noel was in his late twenties or early thirties and brought with him a kerosene torch as well as a headlamp for backup, not to mention a plethora of knowledge of Sagada. We walked out of town, downhill, for an hour or so to reach Big Cave. The Spaniards and the Catholicism they brought never quite reached Sagada. The Episcopal missionaries who came later did not force the locals to give up their traditions but allowed them to continue alongside Christianity. St. Joseph’s occupies a nice parcel of land in town, high on a hill. Mr. Staunton was given this land, or so the story goes, because other rival tribes nearby were still practicing headhunting but feared the revolver that Mr. Staunton possessed. Rosanna asked Noel if he had known her Uncle Santi (Mutya’s father), who visited Sagada and appreciated its culture. As it turned out, Noel had helped to scatter Santi’s ashes just a few years before.

We reached the mouth of Big Cave by walking down rock steps from the road, about 60 or 70 meters below. At the mouth, Noel lit his kerosene torch. We continued into the cave and out of the sunlight. After further descent, we approached the wet part of the cave and left our shoes behind. Bare feet had a good grip on the wet rock. We waded through shallow water and over rocks until we reached the bottom and crossed sections with rope along the rock wall to grasp. After a small crawling section we were completely wet and began the ascent back to the mouth of the cave. I really enjoyed the caving and would like to return to Sagada some time to do the longer cave hike that goes through the entire cave in about 4 hours.

On our walk back toward town we exited the road and hiked down and around a rock formation to the mouth of burial cave that is no longer used. Thirty or so wooden coffins hung from the cave wall at the opening. Noel explained the traditional beliefs that there is no heaven or hell, but that the spirits live near the cave after death. There are different burial caves, segregated according to social status. A murdered person, or person who died young was typically buried in the ground so that his disturbed spirit wouldn’t wander as a ghost. Even old men who had not had children were not considered fully developed people and therefore were separated from men who had.

We prepared to leave Sagada the next morning for Bontoc after first being cornered by a drunk Australian taxi driver who gave me a very old Newsweek with Kerry and Bush on the cover. We posed for pictures with Ignacio Daoas and his granddaughter Mary Lou, who ran the guesthouse. Mr. Daoas was the former mayor, “by accident,” he told us. “Some older ladies nominated me and then I was elected mayor.”

Back in Bontoc around noon, a man we had seen briefly in Sagada introduced himself to us. Marc Steinlin from Zurich, Switzerland was waiting for the jeep to Banaue. He had been in Manila for a conference and was traveling for pleasure. At Banaue we shared a motortrike with Marc on the 1 hour twenty minute ride to Bagaan. We arrived in darkness. The landslides had knocked out power to Bagaan for several days. There was no one else staying in the Family Inn except us. We ate pancakes and drank coffee by candlelight. After we ate we stood in the road and looked at the super bright stars that punctured the darkness. It was so dark out that I could barely make out the edge of the gravel road where we stood.

The following morning, the three of us began the 2.5 hour hike into Batad. About 15 minutes into the hike the path forked and we went right. Almost our hour later, shoulder deep in brush and sweating profusely as we stumbled around on the steep slope, we realized our mistake. We backtracked to the fork and found the steps up the mountain face. An hour later we were at the pass, where a guy was selling sodas at a small stand. My cell phone rang and it was my mom, calling to wish me a happy birthday. She had tried to call earlier, but there was no signal until we were at the top of the mountain.

We began our descent toward Bataad and arrived an hour later. We headed straight for Simon’s Inn and Pizza Restaurant. Poor Marc had a bus to catch and hiked straight back to Bagaan after lunch. We later found out that it rained on him the whole way back. Rosanna and I stayed overnight at Simon’s and hiked out late the next morning after walking around the terraces for a little while. The terraces are the main attraction in Batad. Relative to the other terraces in the region, they are pristine. Please see the photos on Flickr to get a better idea of what they look like. The entire side of one mountain is all terraced. It looks like some kind of sublime collaboration between man and nature, which in fact it is. When Rosanna visited 10 years ago, almost all of the buildings still had thatched roofs. Now about half are corrugated metal and tourism has somewhat “corrupted” the local culture. A girl in her school uniform passing us on the terraces called out “money for candy, money for candy”. On the other hand, according to Simon, tourism, especially from the U.S., has dropped sharply since 2001, and times are tough.

After catching a tricycle at the junction after the hike back, we were back in Banaue by late afternoon, in time to eat something and get back on the bus to Manila at 5:30pm. By 2am we were back in Manila and by 3am were in our hotel room, fast asleep. It was strange and wonderful to have a modern bathroom with sufficient water pressure and running hot water (two things we don’t have on Siquijor). The following morning we dropped our dirty clothes at the laundromat and enjoyed Japanese food for lunch.

We met Marc later in the day and went to the Ayala museum. One of Mutya’s father’s (Santi Bose) paintings was featured in an exhibit. We owed Marc some pesos, so we took him out for Vietnamese food. The few days in Manila run together in my mind. On another evening we saw the Wong Kar Wai film, 2047. One night we tried to meet our friend Rene Ontal. We took the MRT or the LRT to the nearest stop and then tried to get a taxi. We were near a supermall as it closed. All of the Christmas shoppers poured out of the mall and we stood in an enormous taxi line for 2 hours. Finally we gave up and walked to the nearest hotel and had a drink before finding our way home. Just when we were getting comfortable again in Manila it was time to fly to Dumaguete and take the ferry back to Siquijor. We were able to stock up on some cooking and food supplies before we left Manila, though.

Today is December 28. I spent most of the day writing this account. Luckily, two days ago I uploaded my photos from the trip to my computer. Today I got out the battery charger for the camera. As I plugged it in I noticed ants on the charger, coming out of the charger. The charger is ruined from a microscopic ant invasion, so it will be a long time before I am able to use my camera again. Tomorrow we will go to Dumaguete to buy food supplies. We will spend New Year’s Eve with Iris and Andreas. We plan to cook different dishes, one at a time, starting at 6pm, going until midnight. Happy New Year to whomever is reading. Thanks.

Dumaguete again. Again Dumaguete.

2004-12-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

Back in Dumaguete. We're at the internet cafe with a high-speed connection...blah blah blah...you wouldn't understand unless you can remember what it was like to try to connect to the internet about 10 years ago... Anyway, it's like a sugar-high, all blinky blinky, speedy speedy. I was finally able to post a bunch of of writing and I also uploaded some photos to Flickr. Go here to view them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bicyclesforeveryone/

We're here for a few days, Rosanna to do some research at the university, me to teach some Alexander Technique classes. I thought I was going to be working with actors, but now I think it might be some folks from the divinity school. I'll find out later.

After a few days here we fly to Manila for the PAEF (Philippine American Educational Foundation, i.e. the Fulbright office) Christmas party. Since it was a required trip and we had to make the trek up that way, we decided to head to the rice terraces in the mountains after a few days in Manila. I am very much looking forward to being in the mountains, especially because temps will be around 57-63F daytime and possibly a lot colder at night. It will feel like stepping out of a hot sauna.

Wind

2004-11-17T18:36:00.000-08:00

Windy and cooler! We decide not to swim this morning. The tide is way out and there are lots of waves with white caps, which is unusual. There are medium winds blowing, the humidity is lower and it’s not so hot! In the afternoon I meet Terry, who is the other owner of CdlP. She told Rosanna and I the story of how her trip around the world several years ago ended in Siquijor when she delayed her departure and then decided to stay. Terry had just returned a few days ago from a trip to Greece.

For dinner we walked down the beach for maybe half a mile to a road that leads away from the coast toward the road that goes around Siquijor. Another half mile or so and we’re at La Costa Café on the beach. For dinner we had grilled fish with rice and pancit (noodles) with vegetables as well as raw carrots and cucumbers with dressing. Because it’s a trip to get to any store, we also buy a bottle of brandy to take as a gift to our friends tomorrow who are making lunch for us. The bottle costs about US $0.70, about the same as a liter of drinking water.

Feeling pogi!

2004-11-16T18:35:00.001-08:00

Feeling pogi! We walked by a barber shop in the afternoon, along the main street in Dumaguete. It was called “Feeling Pogi”. I asked Rosanna if I needed a haircut, because I wanted to feel pogi. Pogi, she says, means handsome. Our second day in Dumaguete. We eat breakfast and then take a cab to SU where we meet Dr. Pulido, the President of SU. He’s a very, very nice man, and very welcoming. He recounts the history of Silliman and at one point leads us to the board room where we see a model of the entire campus. The walls are lined with pictures of the former university presidents, who until the 1950’s were all white men. On a totally different subject, I was fascinated by the chairs and sofa in the anteroom for his office. There were no cushions but instead just heavy wooden frames with woven cane backs and seats, well suited to the climate.

For lunch we met Dessa and Cobbie, friends of Rene, and super-nice people. Cobbie is the first American-Filipino I’ve met. He’s a white guy whose parents were American Presbyterian missionaries to the Philippines. Cobbie grew up in Manila, so obviously he has a Filipino accent. He works at SU as well as for the Presbyterian Church, in a variety of roles. Every year Dumaguete has an historical pageant of foreign influences. Cobbie asks me if I’m going to be around because he always has to play, “The American” and he always has to recruit other white men to plan the other Americans. Most of the people he ends of recruiting are European. Dessa is heavily involved in the theatre and a lot of community-oriented work. We talk about the possibility of an Alexander Technique workshop for actors in Dumaguete. We look forward to seeing them in Dumaguete during future visits.

In the afternoon, Mark of the SU Information Office gives us a mammoth tour of SU. He drives us to their marine campus and shows us the tanks where they study giant clams as well as the cages where they keep a dozen alligators of various sizes. The biggest 2 live in a cage by themselves and were about 7 or 8 feet long. We also saw their collection of whale bones – the largest collection in the world next to one in Japan. The whale skull bones we see are about the size of a golf cart.

We meet the head of IT on the campus. They’ve wired most of their campus with fiber optic cable, but they don’t yet have wireless hot spots, because most students can’t afford their own laptops with wireless capability. About 2 million pesos a year go to Microsoft for licensing fees. Part of their computing building was being leased to a foreign (U.S.?) company who had outsourced work to Dumaguete but had not yet finished building out their offices.

After our tour we make the short trip from campus to Manson’s Place for some web surfing. From there we head to the grocery store and buy 3 boxes of cereal, 4 tetrapaks of organic Chinese soymilk, and sundry other goods that are difficult, if not impossible to find on Siquijor. We were really surprised to find the organic soy milk in this regular supermarket, as there isn’t even a health food store in Dumaguete. All of the sudden, the speaker system in the store makes a gong noise and everyone around us stops for prayer. The whole grocery store is praying together, led by a recording playing over the PA system in the store. A few stock boys continue to slowly move palettes. I’m looking for plastic icetrays.

The ferry ride home is kind of choppy and wobbly, and I feel a little queasy. But not to worry. Each disembarkation begins with a prayer on the TV monitors throughout the cabin area, followed by karaoke. We sing Nelly, Brian Adams and Elton John. By 8:30pm we’re back at Larena, where there’s a giant cargo ship in the port with it’s loading hatch open. I can’t tell if it’s loading or unloading. There are several massive live swine on the dock, probably in preparation for an upcoming fiesta somewhere.

Mabuhay from Dumaguete!

2004-11-16T16:51:00.000-08:00

Wow. My first post from outside the U.S. We're in Dumaguete for 2 days, this is day number 2. We leave for Siquijor on the 7pm ferry. The main purpose of this short trip was for Rosanna to meet the President of Silliman University, which we did. We also got a whirlwind tour of the campus (thanks Mark!).

I forgot to copy my journal files onto our USB key so that I could upload them onto the blog, so hopefully next type I will be able to make a massive post to catch everyone up on our activities thus far. I have for now abandoned the idea of posting photos onto the web. We'll have to wait until we return to do that. Getting to the internet cafe on Siquijor is time consuming, and when we get there, the access is not high speed, but is a shared dial-up connection, typically slower than 56k. In general, you can expect us to be less in touch internet-wise than we anticipated. Stay tuned!

talking a lot about snakes

2004-11-15T18:33:00.000-08:00

We wake up very early and leave for the port at Larena at 5am on a pedicab to catch the 6:15am Supercat ferry. We arrive in Dumaguete by 7am and head to the Why Not café for breakfast and then internet access. The Why Not is the favorite place of expats. The building is divided into several areas. The breakfast area has a Swiss chalet theme. I have a Swiss style breakfast, with rosti. Rosanna and I are each served the equivalent of a baguette with our breakfast. There’s a cold case with deli meets and many breads and baked goods on offer. While we have breakfast, several late middle-aged white men straggle in for their morning meal. Later that night, we pass by and see the outdoor seating area filled with men of similar age and proportions, and their very young Filipino wives. Many of these men are said to be pensioners, retirees, exploiting the difference in economies between their homeland and the Philippines, in multiple ways.

The internet part of the building has some public computers as well as 2 private booths, with web-cams available after 9pm…hmm…. After a little high-speed internet surfing, we walk a few blocks to Manson’s Place, much nicer and cheaper. They have surfing on newer model computers w/decent monitors for 20 pesos/hour (about US $0.40). Compare this to Siquijor, where the connection is a shared dial-up on an old computer with a small monitor for either 60 or 75 pesos/hour, depending upon where you go.

Dumaguete is a compact, coastal college town, albeit with homes stretching up into the mountains behind it. Almost no one seems to be walking or bicycling for transportation. Rather, people seem to be riding motorcycles, cars, or taking pedicabs (5 pesos to any destination in the city). As we walk around, I notice that the air is polluted and dusty. Except for this daunting fact, it would seem to be a perfect bicycle or even pedestrian town. But I didn’t see any stop signs or traffic signals. Crossing the street involves dodging whatever is constantly coming at you.

Close to noon, we checked into the Bethel Guest House (hotel). The Bethel is on the street right along the water. It is a no liquor, no smoking hotel with some kind of Christian affiliation. We had brought our marriage certificate because we were told in the past (I think by EJ) that it might be required so that Rosanna and I could “prove” that we are “allowed” to stay in the same room together. No one asked for our marriage certificate at check-in, though.

The room at the Bethel was clean and spacious, and almost entirely white. It looked a little bit like a hospital room, but it didn’t matter. The shower had water pressure and hot water. And it was air-conditioned. Having been awake since 4am, we rested and enjoyed the cold air.

For dinner, we meet another Fulbrighter, Deborah Green at a Japanese (in name only) restaurant along the beach. Deborah is an archeology grad student working on her PhD and working outside of Dumaguete at a site where she takes core samples of the soil that later undergo what sounded to me like a very expensive analysis. We end up talking a lot about snakes.

reef

2004-11-10T18:32:00.000-08:00

After breakfast Rosanna and I put on our swimsuits and swim booties and walked to the beach. Rather than walk straight out from Casa to the stick marking the reef, we tried walking down the beach 300 meters or so and then walking out. We walked out for at least 100 meters in only ankle high water – the tide was receding. We tried to swim back to the coral near Casa, parallel to the beach, but ended up getting back into water so shallow that we had to de-fin and walk through the water over to the coral before we could swim again. Once we were in the deeper water above the coral we could feel the cold current. What a relief.

Where the reef begins the water deeps and we float 15 feet or so above the coral. The ocean bottom here looks like some kind of museum of cartoon brain models, all weird shapes and colors, with small fish darting in and out of the maze of coral.

Kiwi

2004-11-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

We walked to Kiwi (just down the beach) this morning for a late breakfast. They have a really nice area right on the beach with a bar, tables, palm trees, etc. The bar has a thatched, grassy roof. It’s what you might expect a beach dive resort to look like. There’s a tiny quiet TV above the bar, getting some channels via satellite, and we watch the Bloomberg channel and catch up on the news. At a nearby table are some European travelers; a Swedish couple and a Brit. They all seem to be on multi-month trips through Southeast Asia. We overhear them trade stories, looking for places to go that “aren’t full of tourists”. Before leaving, around noon, we place our order for dinner there at 6:30pm. Everything operates on a slow pace and it’s a common practice to give advance notice to give adequate time for preparation. I order a pumpkin soup and a lentil and coconut dish made with calamungay leaves, which they pick up the hill. They’re tiny green leaves that are said to be extremely nutritious.

We returned to Kiwi for dinner just after 6:30pm. Rosanna was feeling particularly sensitive to the heat all afternoon and her appetite was low. I, on the other hand, was feeling really good and had a good appetite. Everything tasted great, especially the lentil dish with calamungay leaves. We were sitting in the center area of the beachfront area, in a thatched roof structure with benches. Ten meters to one side is a small cottage and ten meters to the other side is the bar. Ten meters to the front are some picnic tables and other seats where 3 or 4 other guests were seated. All of the sudden we hear a couple fighting in the cottage, yelling in what sounded like German. Everyone ignored it and eventually it stopped. Not too long after this the owner, a New Zealander, seated near the bar, starts lecturing his staff, loudly enough for everyone else to hear. “I’m going to tie you to the bar by your ankle! I’m not kidding. You can’t serve drinks at the bar and serve food. Non-guests should only be allowed to order from the non-guest menu. I don’t care if they’ve gone on one of our diving trips or not!” Ironically, our experience with the staff at Kiwi was that they were extremely efficient and friendly. Before being served our dinner (from the guest menu, whatever) Rosanna was reading the guest book of comments. Reading over her shoulder, I spotted an entry by a woman who said the owner reminded her of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers.

to the market

2004-11-08T18:29:00.000-08:00

We walked to Iris’ house this morning to meet her at 9am. We took some chocolates we had bought in Austin and they were an instant hit with Iris and Andreas. There are only a few varieties available on Siquijor. Iris drove the truck to Larena and I rode in back. We picked up and dropped off several people along the way, mostly I think people that Iris knew who were waiting roadside for jeeps or tricycles to pass by. In Larena, Iris showed us the “open” market where she shops for vegetables. The market is housed in an open-air concrete structure, with tables of produce filling the bulk of the space. The tables are close together, creating narrow aisels to pass through. Though its not a closed structure, it’s extremely dark. Near the back you can buy fresh fish and meats, laid out on large tiled tables, unrefrigerated. Flies hover and land all day on the fish and meat. Between the fresh carcasses and the dried fish, the smell is strong. Along the sides of the space are food stalls where you can sit and eat dishes cooked there on the spot. Iris introduced us to her favorite produce purveyors as well as to the sister of the woman who owns CdlP. Her specialty is dried fish. Rosanna and I say goodbye to Iris and go outside to catch a jeep to Siquijor.

Twenty minutes or so later, we’re in Siquijor. It’s about 10:15am and we’re walking on the sunny side of the street, looking for a hat for me. The streetscape here is very similar to Siquijor, with a variety of vendors selling dry goods, produce and clothing and cookware. There are some closed building as well; a motorcycle shop, bank, attorney’s office. All of the woven hats we find are too small to fit my head. Finally we find some woven sombreros that fit my head but they’ve been sitting out so long that they’re dusty and falling apart from age.

We find a cell phone shop on a side street where we ask about having our American-bought cell phones unlocked so that they can work with SIM cards here in the Philippines. We are told it can be done, but we will need to go to Dumaguete to do it. We bought new cell phones when we were in Manila, but only because we were told our existing phones couldn’t be unlocked. Our plan is to sell the new phones and try to make some money back on them. We also ask about phones that can be used to connect our laptop to the internet – also in Dumaguete. Our main purpose in coming to Siquijor today is to check e-mail and take care of business on the web. We’re currently weighing the cost of using a cell phone to connect to the internet against the cost of making the trip to Siquijor, perhaps even buying a motorcycle.

We head up the street to Infomate, the internet “café”. The “café” is just part of someone’s house, a small concret room with a separate entrance from the street and a fluorescent light. There are only 2 computers with USB ports on them (we write everything offline and then upload it), so the guy who runs Infomate now directs us to one of those machines. I plug the key in the machine and in doing so, accidentally touching the metal back of the computer, getting a nice electrical shock via the ungrounded plug (it seems as though nothing is grounded, anywhere). I’m connected at the usual whopping 44k (shared among several people), so reading a few e-mails and paying some bills takes me well over an hour, mostly waiting for pages to load. Ugh. Rosanna has more business that I do to take care of, and by the time we leave we’ve been there for over 3 hours. On the positive side, the guy running Infomate is nice and knows what he’s doing. He runs a virus scan on every machine after user is finished and he has people using Netscape 7 instead of IE – very smart. And it’s air-conditioned! Now if a telco provider would only get DSL to the island. On the other hand, high-speed internet might change the character of the island completely. People who wanted to work remotely could move here, thus altering the local economy. As it is, it would be very difficult to do any work requiring internet access from Siquijor.

We head back out into the strong mid-afternoon sun and upstairs to Sammyz Pizza, where we have a vegetable pizza and apple shakes and iced green tea, all for about $3. On one TV we watch the BBC’s report of the dollar falling to a record low against the Euro. On the other TV is an action movie from the mid-80’s set in Cebu. Mostly it consists of guys with moustaches on motorcycles visiting each other in pool halls and beating the crap out of each other. Estrada, who was for some time President before going out in an impeachment scandal, is one of the actors in the film. Our servers are dressed as cocktail waitresses.

After lunch it’s back in a van wagon to Larena where we buy a giant 4 liter bottle of water, some bananas, a large bottle of Sprite and some kitchen sponges. Buying water is necessary, as the tap water is not fit for drinking unless it is boiled. When we boil the water, it is not “soft”, but filled with minerals and sediment.

We find Emily’s sister in the market and she takes us to a place where we can buy red (unhulled, similar to brown) rice. She also helps us get a good deal on a banig (large woven mat). Before getting on the jeep back to Sandugan, I get some fig cakes from the bakery. We climb into the tiny van wagon and eat fig cakes while we wait for it to fill with people before pulling away. The fig cakes taste like fig pizza bread – not bad actually. And we share the tiny van wagon with at least 12 other people, and a bucket holding 2 giant red snapper fish. Rosanna is pressed against the bucket of fish as flies gather near it during our trip.

As we approach our road, I bang a 5 peso coin on the metal bars that run along the roof of the wagon to alert the driver to stop. We pile out of the van with our bags and bottles and pay the driver. We walk five minutes down the road to CdlP. The sun is beginning to set and there are candles being lit at the pagoda. Another brownout, for the second day in a row.

banana blossom omelet

2004-11-07T18:27:00.000-08:00

We had a late breakfast: banana blossom omelet and a peanut butter banana pressed sandwich. Banana blossoms are picked fresh to order from the trees outside the pagoda. You can also order buko juice, which is young coconut juice. When you order buko, someone walks about 20 feet away, climbs up a tree and pulls off a young coconut. It’s served by slicing the top just enough to get a straw through it. Buko is known to benefit the kidneys and if I recall from Chinese medicine texts, clear internal heat.

Rosanna and I went snorkeling in the ocean this afternoon. We saw only small fish swimming above the coral, among them vivid blue and iridescent blue-green fish. Breaking routine, we had a mid-afternoon snack of chocolate pancake with vanilla ice cream at Kiwi Dive resort, just a few minutes down the beach from us. Andreas walks by, walking to CdlP to make a computer repair housecall. We put in an order dinner at Kiwi for 6:30pm and went back home.

We’re not supposed to do laundry in our room because of the water it requires. We were shown the communal laundry area with it’s own separate water source close to the pagoda - a spigot and a big plastic bin. We spent about 25 minutes filling, soaping, agitating, wringing and rinsing and were only able to do about a third of our laundry. I have always appreciated laundry appliances, but after today I expect that appreciation to deepen during our time here. We see Andreas again and he has given up on the computer problem for now. While getting cleaned up before dinner, we finally spot the lizard that has been pooping on the counter top. For now, we call him Versace. He’s about a foot long with patterned skin. On a side note, we also have a pet spider that is about 4 inches in diameter. We see him in mostly the same places when we return home after dinner. He’s quick at devouring bugs, so he is a welcome presence.

Around 7pm we returned to Kiwi to discover that their “vegetarian” burger was not a veggie burger, but rather a bun with lettuce, tomato and cheese, minus the patty. We had another chocolate pancake with vanilla ice cream to ease my disappointment. As I type this at 9:30pm on the same day, it is now raining – the first rain we’ve had since we’ve been here. And our laundry is hanging up outside to dry.

brownout

2004-11-06T18:26:00.000-08:00

Rosanna was working on the iMac doing credits for her thesis film in the late afternoon as the sun set when there was a brownout. The electrical system on the island is not very robust, and brownouts frequently occur in evening as people head indoors and turn on lights, TVs, etc. We had dinner at the pagoda by candlelight. We walked to Kiwi Dive resort for an after-dinner drink. I discovered that they have San Miguel Super Dry (I didn’t know there was such a thing). Even better, the drinks were nice and cold. (Where we’re currently staying, ice is kind of a special request item that comes from a building next to the pagoda that houses the restaurant.) It wasn’t until sometime after 10pm that the electricity returned.

touching the void, but not the mosquito net

2004-11-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

I spent most of the day on the hammock, reading “Touching the Void”. We saw the film in the theatre when in came out, but the account in the book is much more harrowing and drawn out than short time it takes to see the film. We rearranged the furniture in our cottage and had a different mosquito net installed, one that is more box-like than the previous one, which had a central ring but was not quite large enough to cover our bed without sticking to our skin in a mesh mess.

back to the future

2004-11-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

Andreas picks us up in his lime green Suzuki pickup truck. These little trucks are ubiquitous on the island. They’re narrow and short, with a 2 person cab and a tiny little pickup bed in the back. Rosanna and I ride in the back to Siquijor, about 20 minutes away. We arrive in Siquijor and go to the Big Byte internet café. Al at Big Byte lent Andreas a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for his computer while he tried to fix Andreas’ UPS. More negotiations and dialogue, and some money exchanged, but still no solution. From Big Byte we drive down the street and around a corner to the only internet café competitor to Big Byte called Infomate. For 1 peso/minute (roughly USD $1/hour you can surf on a shared 44k dialup connection on 266Mhz computer running Windows 98. It’s not that cheap when you consider that at the slow speed it can take over 5 minutes just to log in to your Yahoo mail account, and it seems at least another several minutes for every additional click (to read a message for instance). Andreas wanted to download some files but decided to forget it because the speed was excruciatingly slow today. This is the best internet connection you can get on the island. Dumaguete, an hour away by ferry, is the closest place for high-speed internet access. For this reason, I have decided at least for now not to try to upload photos online. On the other hand, who needs e-mail in the Philippines? Everyone here is a mad texter (SMS text messaging via cell phone). I don’t see people in the U.S. texting very much, but here I do (and in Japan as well). It’s cheap to send text messages and just about everyone has a cell phone. I’ve seen some people who have wickedly fast thumbs. I’m getting faster, but I don’t get much practice. I only get messages from Andreas and Iris so far.

From Infomate, we walk up to the pharmacy where Andreas is doing some training with the pharmacist on computer use. He tells me that he has created software to help her run her business, but that she doesn’t like to use it. We meet the pharmacist and Rosanna tells her a little bit about her project. Like many other Siquijor residents, she thinks the focus should be on the healers and not on the sorcerers. Siquijor has a reputation among Filipinos outside of Siquijor as a spooky place. Many of the Siquijor residents we’ve meet seem eager to dispel that notion.

We offer to treat Andreas to merienda (afternoon snacks). He proposes we get pastries on the way back in Larena and go back to his house and share them with Iris. On our way home we make two more stops; first at a housing supply store and then at a hi-fi shop. The housing supply store is family run. Andreas picks up the conversation about his water tank and getting a leak fixed. The discussion goes on for quite some time until the owner of the housing supply place convinces Andreas that he can supply him with water while the tank is being repaired. At the hi-fi shop, Andreas tries unsuccessfully to obtain a lens for his broken CD player. This is apparently not the first attempt he has made to do this at the hi-fi shop.

getting to Siquijor

2004-11-03T18:22:00.000-08:00

Getting to Siquijor involves two segments of transportation – first to Larena and then from Larena to Siquijor. To get to Larena, we walk along the road and wait for jeeps or pedicabs (motorcycles with sidecars) to come by (if they have room!). From Larena there is a “terminal”, which is just a street corner, where you can catch a van wagon to Siquijor. If it all goes well, it takes about 45 minutes to get from CdlP to Siquijor. The van wagons are mostly Suzuki trucks with bench seats in the back. They are robust vehicles but they’re tiny, and a person of my height keeps a hand on the metal tubing along the roof to keep my head from smacking it when we go over potholes, of which there are plenty. The road that rings Siquijor is called a “national highway”. Some of the newer sections are smooth, but mostly it is a poorly patched mosaic of pot holes.

We went to both internet cafes in Siquijor and then ate at Swiss Stars (inn and restaurant). We had a vegetable pizza, which had slices of potato covering it. What we thought were a group of sleeping dogs near the side of the road turned out to be a pile of dead dogs side of the road on Siquijor. Andreas told us later that periodically dogs are poisoned to control the population.

Tuba

2004-11-02T18:22:00.000-08:00

Our door was fixed this morning. Rosanna and I ate lunch at La Costa Café, a 15 minute walk down the road. Later in the day I walked on the beach over to Andreas’ house and had beer and tuba (fermented coconut wine) with Andreas and Iris on their deck. Tuba tastes a lot like a hard cider. It’s a little funky at first, but I’m guessing it’s good for you in the way that yogurt is good for you – lots of beneficial bacteria.

the cottage

2004-11-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

Today the staff came to our cottage and installed the hammock, a much larger one than the one at Casa Ida -- big enough for two. We spent the afternoon reading on it while they worked on fixing a leaky pipe under the sink - a 3 hour job. Later we discovered that the wood on the top hinge on our door is rotted out and will need to be fixed tomorrow. Before dinner we took a walk down the beach, past Kiwi resort and another resort and finally found the 3 other homes owned by Casa de la Playa. We poked around until we found Andreas. I had been put in touch with Andreas many months prior to our departure as a person who could tell me about computers and internet on Siquijor. "I hope you didn't decide to do any work on Siquijor that would involve internet access, because it has gotten much worse this year." Andreas and Iris moved to Siquijior from Hamburg, Germany about 4 years ago. The had both worked for a German coffee company and decided to leave it all behind. They built a house overlooking the beach, just a few minutes walk from CdlP.

up the hill

2004-10-31T18:19:00.000-08:00

Due to the dampness and humidity, we decided to move up the hill from the beach front Casa Ida to Casa Emilia. We have a little more space and are protected from the heat of the sun by lots of trees. It is *much* cooler up the hill and overall we're much more comfortable.

bright, blooming flowers

2004-10-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

Boarding the boat on the Dumaguete was a confusing mess of porters and bags. EJ negotiated a rate with the porters for us to get the bags on the boat. Once inside the boat, EJ left and some more people inside the boat shook us down for more money. After the 45-minute ferry ride, we arrive in Larena, the port town on Siquijor, at about 8am. Thankfully there were no porters at the Larena port. I dragged all of the bags off the boat and up the narrow metal walkway onto the pier by myself while Rosanna kept watch over them on the pier. One of the guys from Casa de la Playa (CdlP) picks us, and our mammoth pile of luggage, up from the port in Larena in a small Suzuki truck, just like EJs. I ride in the back with the luggage.

The Larena port is concrete pier in the low-lying area surrounded by small mountains. There are some small stores and places to eat along the road leading away from the pier. As we make our way to CdlP, we leave the town and go up the hill, passing lush greenery and many different kinds of homes; some traditional thatched structures, other built with concrete and/or cinder block.

Small motorcycles and pedicabs (motorcycles fitted with sidecards) pass us on our short drive. The air on the road smells like gas and feels gritty on my skin. After a 15-minutes or so we turn onto a gravel road heading toward the shore, passing a local well where people are washing clothes and themselves. We pass small homes, some with goats, cows, chickens and dogs in the vicinity. As the road heads slightly downhill, we reach the gates of CdlP and the small parking lot. We get out of the truck and head down the narrow pathways past a pagoda structure on our left, lined with beautifully greenery and bright, blooming flowers. There are cottages scattered about the hillside. Walking down the steep path we arrive at two adjacent cottages 5 feet from the beach, with a spectacular view of the ocean, with a mangrove in the foreground and the mountains of Negros (the island where Dumaguete is located) rising in the far background. We walk into our cottage and I feel that we have finally reached our destination. It’s particularly satisfying, not just because of the past two days of travel, but because of the prior week in Manila and getting there, and the prior months in Austin of preparation and packing.

We walked up the hill and ate breakfast at Pagoda Verde (the restaurant at Casa de la Playa). Hot and exhausted, we sleep through the hottest part of the day. Our cottage, Casa Ida, is just 20 feet or so from the ocean.

Manila to Dumaguete

2004-10-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

We fly from Manila to Dumaguete. Before leaving the city, we walk down the street to the Manila Peninsula Hotel and enjoy their breakfast buffet. There is an older building that makes up part of the hotel that is grand and spacious. The buffet is in a newer part of the hotel and includes American, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and European specialties.

We take 2 small taxis to the Manila airport in order to fit all of our luggage. Midway through the flight, the flight attendants pass out bingo cards and we play bingo for prizes. At the small Dumaguete airport we de-plane via stairs onto the tarmac and walk past camouflaged soldiers with weapons preparing to board a flight. For baggage claim we stand inside the terminal building in front of an open garage door. The bags show up on carts in front of the garage door and the bags are unloaded. There’s no carousel and no apparent order, just a mob of people crowding around the carts, as the bags are unloaded. There are numerous porters, mostly middle-aged men in numbered jerseys who lobby passengers to employ their services. EJ and his wife (professors in Dumaguete at Silliman University) meet us just outside the fence of the terminal. The porter takes the bags all of about 20 meters and loads them onto EJ’s small truck. We pay the porter. Their son takes our bags to their house in the truck. We ate snacks at a little place on the boulevard bordering the ocean, followed by a tour of Silliman University. Silliman was founded in 1901 with $10,000 donated by Mr. Silliman, who wanted to establish an American university in the Philippines, without having actually ever been to the country.

Later, we find out that the 7:30pm ferry has been cancelled to due bad weather. We all eat some Chinese fast food and meet RJ, another history professor at Silliman. Food for the four of us is about US $6 total. EJ and his wife put us up for the night. They live at the foot of the mountains outside of Dumaguete -- fresher, cooler air than in the city.

jet lag

2004-10-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

M at the PAEF office helps us fill out documentation for our visas as well as accompanying us to get photos taken and to purchase cell phones. In the evening Rosanna's aunt and her daughter Mutya picked us up and took us out for Filipino food in a very new and modern part of Manila called Rockwell. There is a giant Lufthansa building across the street from the mall that houses the restaurant. From about 7:30pm on I struggle to keep awake during dinner as the jet lag kicks in hard.

Manila, first day

2004-10-27T18:08:00.001-07:00

The Gilarmi apartments are perhaps 15 stories tall. In the morning light as I step outside the room, I see that there are no internal hallways. All of the rooms’ doors and the elevators face out to open air walkways with guard railings. The concrete is dingy gray with age and pollution and the metal parts of the structure weep with rust.

We have the breakfast buffet in the restaurant downstairs. Mrs. L of PAEF (Philippine American Educational Foundation) meets us in the lobby and takes us to the PAEF office where Rosanna had an orientation meeting. We do some shopping at the Glorietta mall just across the street from our hotel. Crossing the street is a somewhat harrowing experience. The traffic is perpetually jammed and the air quality is poor; noxious and visibly sooty. The mall is mammoth (imagine 4 or 5 regular size malls joined together) and right in the middle of an urban area with little parking. Apparently this is typical in the Philippines.

Leaving Ausin

2004-10-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

We departed Austin on a 10am flight instead of the 7:20am flight we were originally scheduled for. We got to the airport in advance of the flight, but our baggage was overweight and we had to break out an extra bag and use it. The upside of missing the flight was that we were rerouted with a layover in Narita (Tokyo) so we had time to have udon and soba in the airport. We arrive at Manila late on Tuesday night; more or less as we would have had we not missed the early flight. The baggage carousel is packed with giant bags like ours in addition to balikbyan boxes, full of gifts. Our pre-arranged ride has fallen through and we negotiate a van to take us and our collection of giant luggage into Manila. Just outside the airport we pass through dark shanty town areas with barely visible corrugated metal walls and roofs. I wonder where the “city” is. Finally we see the skyscrapers and approach Makati City. Our hotel lobby (the Gilarmi) is fluorescently lit and has low ceilings. It looks run down and old; perhaps built in the 1950’s or early 60’s and never touched again. There’s an old tan-colored ITT phone in our room that could have been on the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Welcome to Project Mango

2004-08-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

Rosanna and I will be departing for Siquijor, Phillipines in late October, 2004. Rosanna has received a Fulbright grant to extend her film project documenting shamans on the island.

I've decided to chronicle our trip on this newly created blog, Project Mango.

Stay tuned for more entries soon! I look forward to keeping in touch with everyone through this blog.