Not in Kansas Anymore

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when…

• The children greet their elders by lifting the elder’s hand to their forehead
  
• People do the sign of the cross when they pass churches. I think it just has more to do with the crazy driving.
  
• There are signs asking you to please wear your seatbelts. If any existed I would!
  
• You see seven people on a moped
  
• You can ride on top or hanging off of the multi cab (which is my favorite way to go, but they don’t always let me because of the liability and I think it is a sign of respect. The men always let the ladies sit in the multi cab first.)
  
• The multi cab will back down my road just to pick me up
  
• Bus windows are made of wood
• There are no car seats 
• Someone tells me it is better to kill someone if you hit them than have to pay for the hospital bill. I definitely look both ways three times before crossing the street.
  
• People just burp midsentence and keep going
  
• You can sit at a table at a restaurant for hours without anyone bothering you
  
• The drinks come out after the food
  
• The more you buy the more expensive it is. The thought is that it creates more work.
  
• There are no garbage cans so people throw their garbage anywhere.
  
• There are no stoplights so you just play chicken in the middle of the intersection
  
• On a work outing the driver will go out his way to let someone drop off mail, drop off a package at a friend’s house, or even pick up someone’s significant other 
  
• The multi cab gases up with us in it
  
• People request a stop 10 feet after the last person. Yep, on those 100 degree days I have totally done it.
  
• No one talks in the multi cab even though they are all friends and neighbors 
  
• You never hear a cell phone ring
  
• There are lady boys (men dressed like women) all over
  
• The guy who just cut your pineapple goes behind his cart to pee
  
• There are stray dogs everywhere. They need Bob Barker.
  
• It is more desirable to be heavy than fit because it shows you are well fed
  
• You have to check your bag at the door of Gaisanos because shoplifting is such a problem
  
• Shirts dated from 1988 and Umbros are still going strong
  
• No one blows their noses unless it is farmer style
  
• The groom’s family pays for the wedding
  
• A nurse’s salary is 6,000 pesos a month which is equivalent to about $120 US dollars, a factory worker makes $9 a day but has to move away from their family and live in a dorm, a tricycle driver makes about $5 a day, and the people in the fields make about a $1 a day
  
• A woman will leave her husband and daughter for two years straight to work in Kuwait for $360 a month. This is the story of one of the guys I work with, Joel.
  
• The HBC staff get 15 vacation days, 15 sick days, and as many domestic days as needed which include taking days off for you or your spouse’s birthday or if you had an argument the night before
  
• I can eat like a queen for $3
  
• A hamburger at McDonald’s is $.75 
  
• Hotels advertise your own bathroom and 24 hour electricity
• A cottage on the beach is $25 a night
• An orange is 5 pesos (about $.10), a pineapple is 20 pesos, a mango is 30 pesos, siopao is 40 pesos, and BBQ chicken and rice is 70 pesos 
  
• When you can buy 30 movies on a single disk for less than $2
  
• People can’t afford to buy an entire bottle of shampoo, laundry detergent, pack of cigarettes, or entire bag of candy so everything is sold in individual portions
  
• You can’t find sunscreen without whitening cream. White skin is considered attractive in the Philippines. I am guessing it is related to social status (e.g. wealthier people don’t have to work in the fields), but I haven’t been able to confirm that.
  
• You don’t have to pay child support
  
• There are a lot of Filipino Americans walking around with no fathers because the American father never followed through on the promise of marriage 

The wooden windows

And they wonder why boats sink...

Entertaining sight until you have to ride on one for three plus hours.

There are normal clothing stores as well, but the garage sale style is quite common.

A church parking lot

Who needs Starbucks when you can hang out at places like these? The shelters from the shade are quite common and often full of people hanging out.

Can Anyone Say Carbs?

If there is one thing I can be certain of, the Philippines are the carbohydrates capital of the world. Everywhere you look there are different types of breads (some with sugar or cheese on top, with meat in the middle, or with fluorescent filling (which I still have no idea what it is)), chips, crackers (sometimes filled with chocolate), cookies, pretzels (coated in chocolate), noodles (think ramen), various treats made from different proportions of flour, sugar, egg, and oil, rice, rice, and more rice.

The Filipinos are also big fans of frying absolutely everything you can think of (fish, fish balls, every possible part of the chicken, pig, or cow, eggs, veggies, bananas, etc.) I love how the fried feet of the chicken are so aptly called Adidas after the shoe company. If you can eat it, it is fried and that is what I ate for the first two weeks with my host family. I felt as if I was preparing for the sequel Supersize Me Too. Finally communication got a little better and the fried food is less frequent, but I haven’t won the battle entirely.

Before I got here someone told me the Filipinos eat five times a day. I thought there was nooo possible way I’d adopt the Filipino eating style and a month later guess who is eating five times a day if not more? Yep, yours truly! Typically when it is hot I don’t have much of an appetite, but for some reason that rule does not apply in the Philippines. In fact, it is quite the opposite as I am always hungry. Luckily for me one of the best things about traveling is calories don’t count.

Their cooking style is quite simple and not all that flavorful. The only spices used here are packaged Knorr’s, garlic, coconut milk, curry, or soy sauce and vinegar with peppers, which is used to dip your chicken or fish in or when it is simmered in the ingredients it is called adobo. Granted, this could just be the skills of my host family, but it seems to be the case in restaurants as well.

That being said, the Filipinos excel at making sweets especially when it comes to coconuts (buko). There is buko delight, which is coconut, coconut milk, milk, and sugar frozen in a little bag creating something like a popsicle. Then there are the coconut treats at the end of my road. From what I can tell those are a combination of coconut, flour, and milk baked over coconut shells. Coconut paddies, which are some type of combination of coconut oil, rice, and sugar, and coconut balls, coconut, butter, and sugar made into a ball, top the list as well. Mmmmm, sarap!

I also love how there are food stands every which way you look and most of them serve food on sticks so it feels like I am always at the State Fair. The pineapple on a stick is my favorite. There is one called the banana-que that completely fooled me. It is shaped like a banana, called a banana, but tastes like a potato. A potato on a stick would be good if it hadn’t been caramelized in sugar.

They also serve food and drinks in plastic bags. Almost all of the soda and beer is served in glass bottles. Since they get refunds for the bottles the owners will poor your drink in a bag if you leave. And I remember being a little nervous to eat “pig in a bag”, but am grateful I did. The roasted pig is absolutely delicious (even without a lot of spices).

What’s funny is walking down the streets and looking at meat hanging from hooks in the open air (and we are talking ALL the parts of the animal - the liver, intestines, bellies, and testicles), meat on sticks with fans blowing to keep the flies off, or the heads of pigs, I kept thinking to myself that if this didn’t make someone a vegetarian nothing would. I then met Sara, another volunteer. She told me how she used to be a vegetarian, but coming to the Philippines last year made her start eating meat again. Really? … Really?

Here are some extra bites…

• Balut is a delicacy here, which is a half formed duck embryo that is eaten with the beak, feathers, and all. As adventurous as I can be I am not so sure I am adventurous enough to try this.
  
• My host family eats hot dogs (which are the brightest red), crab, and fried fish for breakfast and thinks it is funny I like fruit for breakfast.
  
• Most people eat with their hands (which I actually enjoy myself except that I can’t figure out why I am the only one who spills rice), but if silverware is used it is only a spoon and the fork is used for shoveling the food onto the spoon. My host family thinks it is funny I use my fork so much.
  
• Plates are always upside down until you start eating and the silverware is wrapped in a napkin if you are at a restaurant. My best guess is for keeping the flies off (and regurgitating what they last ate).
  
• It is not uncommon for people to share plates and cups.
  
• Hamburgers are served with mayo, cucumber, and tomatoes and ketchup is made from bananas
  
• The bread is sweeter than in the US. So if you put sugar in it is it considered a donut?
  
• French toast was not served with any syrup. Would it be more accurate to call it egg bread?
  
• For some reason there is a lot of neon colored food. I am not sure what it is other than bad for you.
  
• I have gotten to try so many fruits and vegetables that I don’t eat in the US such as star apple (looks like an orange, but has a green peel and a slimy milky center that tastes much better than it sounds), papaya, mango (my favorite), jackfruit (which tastes like bubble gum), calamansi (almost like lemon and lime hybrid), lanzones (size and color of a small potato but has a sweet translucent center), ampalaya (a bitter gourd), camote (similar to a sweet potato), and monggo beans.
  
• Almost everything I eat is fresh from the market or backyard
  

• Nobody ever has everything on the menu so you always have to have a back up plan. Even then, there are many days I will try to order three things before I finally ask them what is available and they look at ME funny for asking.
  
  Although it took some time to discover the right recipes, I am really starting to enjoy the Filipino food as you’ll see on my hips when I get back.
  
  Love from all extra 10 lbs and counting…
  
  

  The Food Market
  
  
  

And I wonder why the entire city knows me!

The Famous Siapao and Mango Shake

Delirious

I was wrong. The first night of saturation was not the most difficult. They all are.

It was a Friday night and the first place we started for saturation was a food market. The market was closed for the night, but there was quite a bit of buzz because most of the food stands double as homes. People were washing their clothes, sleeping on their tables, and gathered around drinking San Miguels and singing karaoke. The buzz in the market is no longer surprising.

It was the woman lying in the middle of the parking lot with her son who looked about 12 years old. Diapers are rare here because they are so expensive so you’ll see many kids running around with no pants on, but once they are potty trained they definitely start wearing pants. This 12 year old did not have pants on which seemed weird to me. Both of them were skin and bones and their hair in tangled messes. The staff started to speak to her in Tagalog and she frantically started collecting everything she had - the boy and a plastic bag with maybe one thing in it.

The woman started cradling her son as if he was a baby and started screaming at the top of her lungs. I kept imagining her asking who we thought we were to tell her how to live or raise her child. Even with the shrieks the boy continued to lay limp in her arms. It was then that I actually thought he might be dead. I watched and watched for movement to tell me she was not holding her dead child. Minutes passed by, which seemed like hours, before I finally saw the boy’s arm move and let out a sigh of relief.

We tried to bring her into the van so we could bring her to the shelter for food, but she kept fighting it with what little strength she had. After about 20 minutes we finally got her into the van where I learned that she was so delirious from a lack of food and water that she actually thought her soon was only two years old. We were able to feed her and her son that night, but I couldn’t help but wonder what they would do tomorrow or the next day.

Sadly, this story is not unique. Francis’s mother comes to the center about once a week for rice as well. As she is shoveling rice in her mouth she stares at me blankly with her glossed over eyes and mumbles as Francis sits next to me shaking because he is crying so hard. She has just walked an hour to get there in the heat that often reaches 100 degrees. I want to tell him everything will be okay, but I know it would be a lie.

If there are any positives to this story it is the support the gang gives each other. A few of the boys will always stop by to check on Francis. They understand.

Turning Back Time

The bus is scheduled to depart at 5:30am so the neighbor of my host family, Lani, says we can leave around 5:00am. The bus shouldn’t leave until 6:30am is what she tells us. Knowing it takes at least a half hour to get to the terminal Sara, a new volunteer living with Lani, and I are a bit leery of this plan and decide we’d feel more comfortable leaving by 4:45am. We get up, get ready, and wait, and wait, and wait some more (waiting is a common theme in the Philippines). The clock is ticking and it is now 5:00am and we head to the terminal. Nothing ever leaves on time I tell myself. Nothing, except the only bus to San Isidro where we need to catch the only ferry to Malapascua. It’s 5:30am when we arrive and the bus is nowhere to be found. A little bummed and a lot tired because we had saturation the night before and only three hours of sleep, I figure I’ll just try again the next day. One of the great things of the Philippines is that nothing really matters.

Then the meeting of the minds occurs. There were seriously ten people gathered around all talking excitedly in all tones in Tagalog or Visayas (I can’t tell the difference) and pointing in various directions. Another great thing of the Philippines is the people are so friendly and love to help when they can. After about 15 minutes Lani comes over to us and says there is an alternative route, but we’d need the van to leave right now to make it to the ferry on time. What this means is we have to buy all the extra seats so the van is considered full and can depart. Fortunately it is less than $10 so we jump at the opportunity to still make it to Malapascua. What we didn’t know is what exactly lies ahead of us. Lani made it sound like we were just taking a different van to a different ferry. I knew better since I had never heard of this route before now and that it took ten people to come up with the plan, but I figured it was worth a shot.

So what should have been a six hour journey turned into an hour and half van ride, an hour and a half wait for the ferry, a two hour ferry, a 30 minute tricycle ride to the bus terminal, an hour and a half public bus. Riding the public bus was like riding a roller coaster for an hour and a half. There were twists and turns at speeds you accumulate only by going down the steepest slopes. The best part was how the entire bus turned around to watch Sara and I fly out of our seats when they knew the crazy bumps were coming. After the roller coaster ride we had another 30 minute wait (only because we scheduled a private boat otherwise it could have been up to two hours), a 45 minute ferry, and about 10 hours later we finally reached our destination, Malapascua, and it was worth every second.

Malapascua is an undeveloped paradise. The sand was as white as snow and the locals have not been tainted by tourism. There are no cars or streets only paths of sands for habal habals or walking. It was so peaceful that I fell asleep under the stars after dinner on the beach. I even met a guy on the ferry home who was on a four hour journey to get to the nearest ATM. It was as if someone turned back time.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Cross my heart I did not set this up. I about died!

A Day in the Life

• 4am and the roosters start
  
• 6am and someone runs around honking a horn. I can’t help but laugh thinking the guy is wearing a clown costume.
  
• 6:30am breakfast which is bread and if I am lucky some peanut butter, bananas, or mango
  
• I wait for the CR to bucket bathe. Sometimes it is available right away other times I have to wait about an hour.
  
• Then what feels like a Miss America parade officially begins because the minute I walk out of the door I am showered with hellos from people walking their goats, waves from people sweeping their dirt, etc.
  
• I maneuver through the manure to the main road to pick up a multi cab to the city or hop on the back of some random habal habal (motorbike) depending on how long the wait for the CR was and whether any are available.
  
• I wave the first multi cab down and head to the city. Sometimes it takes 30 minutes and other times an hour. You see it all depends on the multi-cab. Some go about 5 mph trolling for more passengers so we can be busting out at the seems, other times we’ll get a flat, need to fill for gas, get pulled over by cops, or break down entirely. Every day is a new multi cab adventure!
  
• I get to the Holding Boys Center (HBC) and am welcomed with open arms running at me full speed ahead excited just to have some attention. It is now anywhere between 8am and 9:30am depending on the CR and multi cab situation. Many days this is about when I start wishing for a second bucket bath having been showered with dust and sweat on the way in. 
  
• The five to 40 kids and I start the lesson plan. I am always surprised what actually captures their attention and what they are able to understand. Scavenger hunts, not so much, but crossword puzzles are a big hit.
  
• About ten minutes into any lesson we have the first fight. The fights are never too bad because thankfully the older boys always jump in to help me before they go too far. These kids definitely have a lot of negative emotions built up and not a lot of, or more accurately any, positive outlets. Rather than punishing the kids I try to talk to them and see what is really going on which always surprises them, sadly.
  
• As soon as the attention span wears thin we play basketball, tag, etc. I have tried to teach them new games like Red Light Green Light or Red Rover, but no luck, yet.
  
• I always try to spend a minimum of 15 minutes holding and talking to Baby James (this is the little guy who is about 10, but looks like he is 3 or so because he is only bones and lays in a crib by himself all day). I once read that if you put two pieces of rice in separate jars and simply talk to one every day while leaving the other one alone the one with the attention will actually grow. I felt like the same theory would apply with a neglected child and it certainly did. The first couple weeks I was here I couldn’t even get Baby James out of his fetal position unless I held up his head and weak body. Just last week he actually started to reach for me, hum, and he even stood up and walked around two days in a row. This might have been one of the most rewarding moments in my life. I try not to think about what will happen the day I leave… 
  
• Anywhere between 11:30 and 1:00 it is lunchtime where the kids eat mounds of rice and usually a spoonful of some suspect food on the side like the neon pink stuff that is said to be shrimp. Perhaps a blessing that the suspect food is only a spoonful? 
  
• This is when I am typically running out the door for water. I pretty much dehydrate myself every morning because I want to avoid the HBC CR at all costs.
  
• Lunch is my favorite meal of the day. After a little experimenting I now know to go to Jo’s for the BBQ chicken, Sal’s for fresh veggies, BBR for a decent meal but one of the only places right on the water, the market for BBQ pork, or Ikea for siopao. If mango shake is not on the menu, it is not on the list. Sometimes they trick me though and advertise a mango shake, but don’t really have them. 
  
• Depending on whether I want to load pictures (my apologies for a lack of photos. Each one takes about five minutes to load) or write determines which Internet café I stop by.  This is also when I prepare the lesson plan for the next day.
  
• Then the exploring begins! Most days I wander aimlessly responding to the hundreds of hellos or hop in a multi cab to see what I can find. Some of my favorite afternoons include the day I ended up in the country at a friend’s house where they climbed a coconut tree for me to have fresh buko or the time I was stopped by someone asking randomly how the HBC was. He pulled out a paper and showed me a picture and article in the paper from my day of paparazzi. Turns out that Eugene was one of the guys there and the owner of the local newspaper. If I am walking around in the sweltering heat this is about the time I contemplate using the public bathhouse for bathing.
  
• I typically indulge in an afternoon treat whether it be fresh pineapple or mango shake or halo halo. Think of the biggest and best sundae you have ever had, but Filipino style and you have halo halo. This means ice chips covered with milk, then a scoop or crushed cornmeal topped with a scoop ube ice cream. Ube is similar to a sweet potato and the color is always the brightest purple you can imagine. I have yet to see an actual ube so I am not sure if that is from the actual vegetable or dye, but it sure makes it seem more delicious. Then mix in mango, jackfruit, sweet corn, and a rainbow of jello and you have halo halo. 
  
• If I am not too exhausted I’ll try to find somewhere to watch the sunset over the mountains other days I start to head home around 5pm or 6pm
  
• On my walk to the multi cab I say hi to all my new friends at the fruit stand and the roasted pig stand before my buddy packs me into the multi cab.
  
• It doesn’t matter whether I get a familiar multi cab driver or not, they all know where to stop for me. It is as if all of Ormoc knows everything about me. Strange, but also comforting.
  
• I typically get off at the main road so I can stop for my favorite coconut treat freshly baked over coconut shells (yep, eating AGAIN) and begin the return trip of the Miss America parade. I absolutely love it because I never go more than five steps without a smile or hello. I always see the same kids playing basketball, another group of kids huddled around one window watching a TV, and the older women playing bingo. Everything and everyone makes me smile.
  
• If I get home before sunset I go “fishing” with Aloha and Dominick, which consists of dragging a bag through the river or play the game guess what’s in Ate Jessie’s suitcase. For some reason it never gets old for them. 
  
• Now it is finally time for the second bucket bath that I have been waiting for since the morning. I knew the bucket and scoop would soon be desired!
  
• Then it is dinnertime, which always includes rice and something fried (chicken, eggplant, squash, fish, etc.). My favorite nights include fresh papaya or star apple from the backyard for dessert. Star apple is one of my new favorite fruits. It is the shape of an orange, but has a green outside. Then inside is a soft texture with a milky juice that is not too sweet. Delicious! 
  
• If we have saturation (where we go into the city and find kids out past curfew) a driver will typically come between 8 and 9 to get us and return around 1am. Sometimes he doesn’t show so saturation is cancelled for the night. Strange, but the Filipino way. Some nights I find myself cranking out a karaoke session with the family. Entertainment at its best! Sadly my singing abilities did not improve once I stepped foot in the Philippines, but fortunately they don’t care (or at least they pretend not to). Other nights I collapse into bed before 9pm to get ready for another day of adventures.
  

My Neighborhood

Neighborhood Kids

My Filipino Family

Watch Out World!

Watching TV

Getting Fresh Coconut

Suspect Shrimp

Saturation in the Slums

The white van pulls up to the market and kids scatter. It’s past 10pm, the city’s curfew for kids, and they know the van is there to pick up all the children in the market, mostly selling rice or some crazy coconut concoction, unaccompanied by adults. This is called saturation. We (plus a few cops for protection) go all over the city (dark alleys that house cheap and dirty karaoke bars, stale smoky strip clubs, etc.) and find all the kids and bring them back to the Holding Boys Center (HBC) for the night.

The next morning the kids are bathed since many of them haven’t seen a bath in months, their long scraggily hair is cut and lice picked out, and their parents are contacted to pick them up, if they want to. Almost all the kids I am with every day were picked up the same way. Eleonor was living in the jeepney terminal begging for food and Jeny and Joseph were found in the market scavenging any meat from any bones they could find.

The first night of saturation may have been one of the most difficult experiences of this trip. The trembles of fear and tears in the ten children’s eyes were not only for getting caught, but the bruises on some of their bony bodies tells me the consequences when they did reunite with their parents might be worse. Also, to see the slums of Ormoc is something I’ll never forget. There were people sleeping in every nook and cranny with the rats and cockroaches streaming out of the sewers with the smell of urine everywhere. I am sure walking through the slums of any city would be comparable, but something I have never done nor think I ever will. One city is enough.

Even harder was going back to the HBC for my first time while the kids were sleeping. It was then that I saw Jay (the little guy who offered to share what little candy he had with me) curled up on a cardboard box on the floor in the same outfit he was wearing the last two days. The next day is when I ordered mattresses, but it still breaks my heart thinking about it.

Even though there are enough kids on the streets to do saturation every night, thankfully we only go two times a week because I am not sure I could handle much more.

Thinking Outside of the Box

Where the Filipinos lack in efficiency they make it up in resourcefulness…

• The kids hang a shirt under the fan on the ceiling so the breeze is better distributed
• Holding coins in their ears
   
• It is rare to see a knife because who needs one when you can use the side of your spoon
  
• They eat every bit of the chicken possible (the feet, the intestines, etc.)
  
• One HAS to be resourceful to keep a car from the 60’s still running
  
• Wrap rice in banana leaves to sell 
  
• Use coconut shells as containers for coconut treats
  
• Washcloths are used for wiping away the sweat, covering your mouth from noxious fumes, covering your head when it rains, covering your drink so the flies can’t land on it, AND for bathing
  
• Use absolutely anything to build their house – bamboo, coconut trees, coral, aluminum scraps, weaved leaves, rubber tires, etc.
  
• Liter Coke bottles are used for gasoline sold at some of the sari saris. How clever!
• Clothes are not only hung on strings to dry, but also plants, roofs, and guardrails.
  
• The boys use their flip flops for games, to protect their hands from push ups on the rocks during morning exercises, and shoes
  
• Oil lamps burning on the side of the road to indicate holes in the road
  
• Drinking out of bags and bowls
• I finally figured out how the kids spike their hair, toothpaste!
  
• Coconut shells for cooking
  

• Two pieces plastic melted together with paper scraps inside to make a pillow
• As long as the driver can see why would you need two windshield wipers?
  
• Umbrellas are used for rain or shine

I especially love this picture because it captures so much of the Philippines.  The umbrellas from the sun, the single windshield wiper, and what a funeral procession looks like without cars.  Funerals in general are quite interesting.  Apparently they have nine days of parties with the body in the house the entire time.  I don't wish death upon anyone, but it would be interesting to experience.