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Location: Aileu, Timor-Leste

I'm an aid worker, trying to do my little bit to leave the world a better place than I found it. This blog sporadically tracks my adventures in various countries, as I try to play my part is the massive venture to Make Poverty History.

Friday 31 March 2006

I'm not going to cry...


I am NOT...

It's really real. This is my last day in the office. My despedida (farewell) is in an hour and twenty minutes - and I am NOT going to cry! They have prepared a feast of Filipino vegetarian delicacies (I am assured that is not an oxymoron?) and I suppose I should think of something to say, hey?

Last night was our farewell from Sagric (the volunteer agency) and marked the last time I think I will see Naomi and Mairin from our intake, plus Neil (Emily's partner) - they are all leaving soon and I won't see them again. Nat and I sang our last "Bed of Roses" and Em and I did Toto's Africa (with a bit of help!) for the last time (we all have our signature songs now - although some of the lyrics they put up are just hilarious and bear only vague phonetic resemblance to the actual words to the song).

I just received my first farewell from a friend at the office - I shall NOT cry! This weekend is marked off for a combination of farewells, partying and packing up the apartment - fun and games! Fortunately it has cooled down a little in the past two days - middle of last week the summer hit with a vengeance - it has been so hot and I was thankful that Mum and Dad left before the worst of it hit. But the last two days have been a bit cooler again, with lots of rain (although apparently there are no typhoons coming, which is always a relief!) So that will make packing up more bearable.

I have my flights booked for Vietnam (next Wednesday) and secured my visa today (a process that goes so much more smoothly when you actually remember to take your passport to the Embassy!) I had a good laugh though - there was a calendar hanging up in the consulate section that said "Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in The Manila - Philippines"...I have never heard it referred to as The Manila before. I am trying to think and I don't think I have ever been to a communist country before (?) so this will be an interesting experience. Plus, I get to see Jacqui and Greg and this new perambulating Spencer, and get a great big Candice Hug (these are an institution) from my dear friend Candice. So am too excited for words.

I will try to focus on that when I feel tears threatening...

Wednesday 29 March 2006

Some Donsol Pics

Bulking up before tackling the mighty whale sharks:
Nat, Ange, Reggie and Em having merienda

Lyndon, Reggie and Ken keeping their fluids up

Fairly large, aren't they?! Looks like a submarine


Reggie and Nat auditioning for Pinoy Idol

Brokeback Mountain 2: Weekend in Donsol
(the outdoor shower at our 'hotel')

Ken riding the whale shark!




Thanks to Nat and Mia for their pics...

Monday 27 March 2006

Of cabbages and kings


I would like to start with a big congratulations to myself. I work on the 15th floor of my office and the lift situation here is ridiculous - the lift capacity is woefully inadequate for the number of staff in this building and it is not abnormal to wait for fifteen minutes for a lift. This morning, when I arrived at the office, the queue was out down the hall, out the door and down the street - in four directions! So after moving a meter in ten minutes, I climbed fifteen floors to my office.

I already feel more buff!

Anyway - my time here is rapidly drawing to a close - this is my last week in the office and I will be home in Australia just after Easter - gasp (in time for cheap Creme Eggs - yay!) Of course, this has the effect of imposing a certain melancholy upon me as I really don't want to leave - I just love it here and have had the best time. I can't imagine how I will feel when I actually get on that plane...

However, fear not - this is not going to be a moaning and wailing post (although I suspect there are a few of those in store)...

One of the things that has cracked us up endlessly through this year is the Filipino English. Now - this is not to be confused with Taglish (combination of Tagalog and English) which is what most Manila-ans speak in. This is incredibly useful to non-Tagalog speakers as the random English word thrown into the mix allows us to at least know the topic being discussed, if not what is being said about it. However, I am speaking of the way Filipinos speak English. English is incredibly common here. Functioning as a virtual American colony for about fifty years, plus having had huge American influence since then means that most Filipinos have pretty good English and just about everyone I know in Manila is totally fluent. As there are over 300 languages in the Philippines, Filipinos often use English to communicate with one another (for example, if one's mother tongue is Ilocano and one is speaking to someone whose native language is Cebuano, they may speak in English - or they may use Tagalog). Impressively, most Filipinos are trilingual - they speak their native language, Tagalog and English. Some may speak more than that - for example, if they are from a small village near a large city, they will speak that language, in addition to the language of the large city, plus Tagalog and English. Very impressive - like the Swiss really.

However - you will notice quite a few differences between the way we (Aussies) speak English, and the way Filipinos do.
First thing of course is to use American English (Bill Gates would be so proud) - so you ride an elevator (not a lift) and the car has a trunk (not a boot) etc. But then, there are special ways of using sentences:

Fall in line.
We would say form a queue. By the way - Filipinos are notoriously bad at this - I would rank them as the worst queue jumpers in the history of humanity. We have now gotten to the stage where we will rap the offenders on the shoulder and send them to the back of the line, if we are having a bad day and are somewhat grumpy. They also have what we perceive to be a strange situation when queueing for toilets. Instead of forming one line and the front person goes into the first stall to become available, they form individual lines out side each stall - probably not the most time efficient manner to wait, but who am I to say...

I'll be the one to...
As in - I'll be the one to carry the bag. Said with great emphasis upon I'll so that it almost sounds like you have offended them by suggesting that you would carry the bag (often not the case!) Basically instead of us saying "I'll carry the bag"

I'll go ahead now...
I'm leaving. Sometimes known as I'll be the one to go ahead now. So much easier to just say oo'roo

I am having coughs and colds
I have a cold. Always present tense and you don't have a cold, you have colds - or coughs and colds. Sadly, this is a frequent one for me here.

The ref
The fridge. Confused the life out of me at first as I thought they were keeping their food in a referee!!!

Wait a while
You here this all the bloody time here. "Ma'am - wait a while" - or just "Ma'am - a while." It essentially means "we don't know the answer so you sit there and do nothing for anything from a period of ten seconds to ten hours why we either; try to find the answer, try to find something to tell you that will make you go away and leave us alone or just never reappear and hope you eventually give up, go away and leave us alone.

Slippers
What they call thongs (flip flops) - I loved the look on my parents face when they were told to wear slippers into the caves in Sagada because you would get wet. I think they were imagining running around the streams in their sheepskin slippers from home.

Avail of...

This is the one that gets me the most. You see this everywhere..."Avail of your free offer", "Pay your taxes now to avail of discounts". I had a debate with some American friends yesterday as they think this is accurate, whereas I think you should say "avail yourself of". Barry suggested it was a difference in language - for example he said an Aussie would say you 'help me to do this' whereas an American would say you 'help me do this'. Anybody with superlative grammer out there able to assist with this one?

I may add some more as I think of them. I have gotten used to so many of them that they don't stand out in my mind now - I will go home and ask for the C.R. automatically (CR stands for Comfort Room - the word for the bathroom here!)

Also of note - a Barangay (council) in Manila has a mayor - the Honourable PeeWee Trinidad! I kid you not. There is a movie star Bambang Siligano (think I have the surname wrong), a model named Tweetie and a friend of mine works with a lady named Bo Peep. The names are incredible. Literally anything can be a name here...

Going to be so boring going back a land of Sue's and Bill's hey.

Friday 24 March 2006

Looking Backwards...


Okay - I swore I wasn't going to finish this week without writing an entry. I have gotten to the stage where I have so much to write about that it almost seems overwhelming. So I shall try, piece by piece, to fill in the blanks.

Mum and Dad left on Monday evening, with about 50kg of my luggage! They had been here for ten days and we had a glorious time travelling around the Philippines - this is such a stunning country. I have been waiting until I got my pictures back to write about this as I wanted to include photos. I finally did today, after three tries (I have used this particular developer twice and both times I have had huge dramas - never again!) but have run out of time to write about our travels this week, so roll on next week.


I promised to update you on the political situation as the last time I did a proper entry we had just entered into a State of Emergency (SOE). That wound up lasting almost exactly a week (to the hour!) GMA (the President) had uncovered a coup plot against her very early on the Friday morning so arrested a bunch of army and marine leaders and put the armed forces on double red alert (I think that in itself lasted for about five days?) This was all timing with the 20th anniversary of the People Power movement that overthrew Marcos after something like 15 years of military dictatorship (I forget the exact time now - but that was 25 February 1986). Every year there are a lot of rallies about this anniversary and this year they were focused a lot on protesting against GMA. Coup rumours were flying all week and Friday morning (24 Feb) it all came to a head - with enormous rallies scheduled for the day.


It was very interesting watching the international media (we have BBC and CNN on our cable service) and their spin on events - the story was that GMA had uncovered a coup attempt and as such put the country in a SOE to deal with the issue. However, the way it was understood within the Philippines was that the danger was gone - the plot was uncovered and defeated and things were okay. It was seen here more as a way for GMA to defuse opposition to herself. When she imposed the SOE she barred any mass gatherings which effectively made the planned protest marches illegal. It also allowed for arrest and detention without warrant and media censorship. (What was poignant and scary of course were the echoes of the Marcos days that people saw in all of this). But people here really saw the SOE as Gloria wanting to protect her rule and not allow public dissent. So that was interesting - realising again how much we are dependent upon the amount of information given to us and the spin placed on information by whoever is presenting it to us.


It was a surreal day, that Friday. In the office we had the radio on and we all spent the day on news websites tracking the developments as they occurred. It was quite scary for someone who has never been through such a situation, although the poor Pinoys are old hands at this! We got no work done - every few minutes people would gasp at something on the radio and everyone would stand up and start talking and babbling - all in Tagalog of course, so I had to keep asking for translation! People were defying the ban on rallies and marching (we were strictly instructed to steer clear - spoilsports!!) and the police and soldiers were waiting for a Presidential directive to go in and forcefully break up the rallies. In the end there was some violent clearing - people were arrested and there was use of water cannons and possibly tear gas, but nothing too dramatic. Luckily Filipinos are really quite gentle people - that gave a good measure of comfort in a situation like this. A friend was marching at the front of one of the rallies and he said it got pretty real at one stage - two mass groups were coming together to form one and there were police vans and shipping containers across the road and he thought they were going to be rammed - it was scary. He escaped just getting wet from the water cannons.


Most people went home from the office early that day. I loved the beauracracy - they had to wait until Dayan, in Australia, gave permission for them to leave the office!!! If I felt the need, I would have been outta there, just like that! That night the AYADs went out to celebrate Ange's birthday and the SOE in the only way we know how - food and bars! And I was delighted to discover that Emily is as bad at pool as I am - we had a great time sucking together at the pool table - with only the disclaimer that we were not allowed to laugh at each other! We managed two games in seventy minutes - although we didn't technically finish the first one. There was this poor employee standing near the table who obviously had nothing to do so was 'helping' us out. Anyway - I had sunk my last ball and had to sink the eight, and Em had one left, and I think he just couldn't bear to watch this display any more - he just grabbed all the balls and pre-emptively racked them all again!! We were goggling at each other a little, but just shrugged and started the torture again!


The Sunday of that weekend (26 Feb) was the most scary moment. I was at the gym about five in the evening and noticed on the TV that there was a kerfuffle at the marine barracks at Fort Bonifacio (the marines are apparently the biggest troublemakers in the Filipino military). One of their colonels (I think? - we all got a crash course in the personalities of the Pinoy military that week!) had either been removed or asked to be stood down - depends upon whose version you listen to (the truth has not outed to this day). And his troops were mutinying and gathering in a chapel there. Then more troops and some big name military leaders began joining and there were stories that battalions in other cities were mutinying. As the night wore on and we sat glued to our TV sets, more people began gathering at Fort Bonifacio and nuns were praying outside the chapel and the stormtroopers were gathering. It was getting more and more ominous and we were becoming quite fearful. Then Cory Aquino (the former President and widow of Ninoy Aquino, the opposition figure who's assasination began the chain that led to People Power) got on the TV and stirred up trouble (as she is wont to do - we think she should leave well enough alone - she has had her time and her main preoccupation now seems to be keeping the political landscape here unstable) calling on people to go to Fort Bonifacio and support the troops. So things kept building and were were watching TV and partaking in the flurry of text messages going around (including the rumours that Malacanang Palace - the Filipino Presidential Palace - was about to be bombed, which was a scary prospect but it was fairly unlikely that there would be advance warning going around by text message!). Ange and I were looking at each other, wondering if we were watching the start of a coup/revolution - we couldn't quite believe our eyes - that we were watching this in our own city. Anyway - about 11.30p.m. it all defused - I am still not entirely sure what happened, but the standoff was over and people started to go back home. I think there have been repercussions from this, but I have not followed that too closely.


Emily works just across from Malacanang. She didn't have work on the Friday, but went in on Monday (although the schools were closed and most people didn't go to work). She said it was scary - shipping containers and barbed wire across the road, police and soldiers everywhere. She got some pictures on her phone (discretely!) - I will try to get them and post some copies so you can see.

After that, things calmed down a little. One of the newspapers was closed and there were police outside and more incidental incidents (sorry!) but finally a week later GMA lifted the State of Emergency. Of course, this being the Philippines, the legitimacy of her imposing it has been challenged by political rivals and the issues is now before the courts...

Just another day in the life of Pinoy politics.

Tuesday 7 March 2006

Swimming with Sharks

Oh man – I am doing happy dances all over the place right now – Placebo’s new album comes out in six days, and it is Triple J’s feature album this week, so they keep playing tracks from it – I hear that familiar voice (Brian Molko really does have a bit of a whine to his voice that makes him easily identifiable!) come through the speakers (I stream the radio through the internet at my desk at work) and promptly whack the headphones in, turn it up and bop along. I am liking the album a lot right now – it sounds really good. Always a bit nerve-wracking when your favourite band brings out a new album – there is the excitement of a whole new album of their songs, countered with ‘what if it isn’t as good or I don’t like it?’ So far I heartily approve and cannot wait to get my hands on it. It comes out next Monday and Alex is tasked to go buy it for me straight away and put it in the next courier bag to Manila – so I won’t get it for another week L Still – woo hoo. They are playing the song Cops right now on the radio and it is stunning…


Okay – I have so much other stuff to be talking about and I haven’t yet – my last weekend, the political situation in the Philippines, my time in Thailand etc. I think I will work backwards and make this entry about last weekend…


So last weekend we had a bit of a last hurrah for my intake of AYADs, plus a couple from the next intake and went to Donsol, to swim with the whale sharks!! This is one of only two places in the world where you can do this (the other being north-western Australia). Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the world and totally harmless - you go out into the ocean in a boat with 'spotters' standing on a pole looking for the sharks. When they spot one, you put on your fins and snorkeling mask and hop in to swim around with it until it vanishes into the depths. We normally only got a minute or less with the shark before it vanished into the depths and we were left treading water on the surface, grinning at each other like idiots and whooping it up. The third one though, we swam along with for ages before it finally left us – fortunately Bobby, our spotter, grabbed my arm and pulled me in the right direction when I got distracted by all the murkiness stirred up by eight sets of flippers (*shiny*!) and I had prime position, right above its back – I felt like I was part of his pod!!! It was pretty awesome.

The first time in we were a little nervous – to jump into the water with a shark, no matter how harmless…eek! And you get in and madly swim in the direction the spotters are pointing and look around frantically, all the while bumping into each other. And then suddenly you see this massive mouth (with no teeth!) coming towards you and there it is – they are black with while spots and have these huge mouths and broad backs. And you are suddenly trying to reverse your direction to swim along with them and see them as much as possible before they vanish into the depths.

Sadly it was raining the whole weekend (has been raining a lot around there - getting down towards the area of the landslide) and it was cloudy so we couldn't see Mt Mayon, which is a famous active volcano (currently rumbling and belching smoke - we anticipate a potential eruption soon?) which meant staying by the beach wasn't so much fun and also that we got pretty cold out in the boat looking at the sharks (my lips were blue and teeth chattering by the time we came in - I would have given anything for a hot shower, but alas...no hot water out there). It also meant that we didn’t see as many sharks as one normally would on a day out. Because it was so grey and the water was darker, it was harder for the spotters to see the sharks and we only saw four (although I actually only saw three – I missed the last one), whereas people would normally see two to three times as many as that in a morning out.

Still - to swim along with a six meter-long whale shark as it just goes about its day is a pretty fantastic experience - I just felt like part of the pod, swimming along above one!! Maybe I’ll come back as a dolphin (prettier than a whale shark!)