I’ve officially been at site for 2 months and 3 days now. Wow, did it fly by! It’s been a whirlwind of trying to memorize names and faces, learning a new dialect, learning how to interact with my new family and going back to typical office hours.
My site is fantastic and I couldn’t be happier with where I am placed. I live in the municipality of Gubat in the province of Sorsogon in the region of Bikol, on the landmass of Luzon in the country of the Philippines! My municipality is a 2nd class municipality, 40 minutes away from the provincial capital. We have 42 Barangays (which would be the equivalent of a borough) each with their own Barangay Council (or Borough Council Board). 12 of these Barangay’s are coastal (!) and 11 of them are upland mountain Barangays that I am not allowed to go to due to the presence of the New Peoples Army (NPA). As of 2010 the official population of Gubat was 57,327 people comprising 7.49% of the total population of Sorsogon Province.
Don’t worry Mom and Dad. Gubat is incredibly safe with only 80 crimes committed in between 2012-2015 and 75% of them were solved! Everyone knows everyone here and everyone is related to each other somehow, family ties run really deep here so why would you commit a crime against your family! There are also 2 hospitals, 1 rural health unit and 5 private medical clinics in my town. I also have a PC designated hospital that I am to go to should I have a medical issue and that is in Sorsogon City only ~19km away from me! I will be safe and healthy here!
The strongest industry within Gubat is Agriculture, with 35% of the population employed in this sector. Farmer’s mostly farm rice and coconut here, but there is also a very strong fisherfolk community here as well (which is why I am here)! I don’t think that this is uncommon for most Philippine municipalities. Sadly though, poverty is a pressing issue, as of 2011 18.68% could not afford the monthly electric costs and are consequently without power. Specifically, in 4 of our rural Barangays 39% of the households are without electricity. 4,402 families benefit from a national program called Pantawid Pamilyan Pilipino (4Ps). This is a program where the government provides money and other services to families considered the “poorest of the poor”.
Despite the economic hardships of these community members, there are still many well off families, with many Over See Filipino Workers (OFW) sending money home, and many Pilipino-American families building their summer homes here. The Poblacion area, which is where I live, is full of beautiful homes with wonderful landscaping. Also in my municipality we have three nice sit down restaurants with delicious pizza, shakes and all around just really great food. One of the restaurants, La Comida, is only 6 months old but they have plans on expanding and creating an outdoor café. I am particularly excited about this because they have really delicious coffee that made me fall asleep at 3 am one time. Now I will have somewhere to go when I want the caffeine rush that instant coffee can’t provide!
My town is lined with some fantastic beaches and coasts, and others not so fantastic, but we’ll get to those when I talk about Solid Waste Management in future blog posts. We have many beach resorts and two surf camps! Both surf camps sponsor surf festivals in October to celebrate the start of the surf season (a.k.a typhoon season). Along our beaches I have been told there are snorkeling opportunities, though I have not taken advantage of these yet.
From my short time here, Gubat seems like a pretty sweet little tourist town with an international draw. At one of the resorts, Rizal Resort, I met a woman from France who was vacationing with her friends. This woman happened to be also white and blonde, which thoroughly confused my LGU. I was at Rizal Resort for an activity with my entire LGU and they saw this woman on the beach, so seeing as at that moment I was in the Comfort Room (CR aka Bathroom) my officemates all thought this French lady was me! When I came out many of my co-workers rushed up to me saying that they were so confused as to why I was playing on the beach and how I changed so quickly, they then pointed out this tourist woman and were wondering if I knew her. Now, I don’t know if they were being silly when they asked me this, but I have a feeling they weren’t. At any rate, we had a fun time trying to guess her nationality. I guessed German, turns out she was French, oh well.
Whenever I tell Spencer about my site compared to him he says that I am living in Posh Corps rather than Peace Corps. I understand where he’s coming from, he has a tin roof with holes in it and no ceiling and I have a real house. Speaking of… my house is wonderful and I adore my family! My Nanay is a retired Philippine Social Studies teacher and my Tatay works on the Royal Carribean Cruise Line out of Miami (ha! Can’t get away from that place) as an Inventory Technician. Both of their English is fantastic and they are so helpful with me when I try and practice my Gubat. Every day for about 20 minutes I try speaking with my Nanay in Gubat and she will talk to me in a combo of English and Gubat. When she speaks in Gubat its always really slow and then she repeats in English. I also have a teenage host brother who is really nice but shy. I know he can speak English because according to Nanay he has won English essay writing competitions and he is reading Diary of A Wimpy Kid and he’s seen the movie, but we don’t talk very much, but it is slowly increasing with lots of nonverbal communication and smiles. I think part of that is having a random American lady moving into your house out of nowhere can be kind of jarring for anyone, let alone a teenager, and another part might be his confidence in his English speaking abilities. No matter I am committed to showing him that I’m not that scary and I am committed to learning Gubat and Tagolog so that we can chat! In my family we also have a live in house helper. She is super awesome and 18 and basically my new sister and super silly. She is from another region in Bikol so she doesn’t speak Gubat (I know its confusing) so we communicate in Tagolog. She speaks only a little bit of English but I’m sure she understands much more than she lets on. At any rate I really like being around her, she has a great energy and she treats the puppies so well.
Speaking of puppies, boy do we have puppies! My family has 8 dogs! Two of the dogs live in cages in the back. One of them is let out every now and then, a black dog named Jackson (he was named Jackson because he is black and Michael Jackson was black). The other is a beautiful German Shepard Belgian Malinois mix named Bullet and probably weighs as much as I do. He is very rarely let out of his cage and only when my Tatay is home. My Nanay and Host Bro seem to be scared of him which is what lead him to living in the cage and apparently he is not very well trained. It’s hard for me to think about and makes me sad; I wish I could be as confident around big dogs as Spencer and my friend Billy are. They would have had that bullet trained up and playing around the yard in no time. I don’t know if this is a project that I can take on so I will focus my efforts on training the other puppies. The way the Filipino’s live with their animals is very different then America and is one of the biggest hurdle I have had to come across, especially because Spencer and I spoil Anubis rotten.
In addition to these two dogs we have two female dogs, Ginger and Yoshi (yes, like the video game character,) but pronounced Yossi. Ginger is my buddy and my Anubis substitute. She is a small medium sized dog with some Australian Mini Shepard and other dogs mixed in. Everyday I sit with her for a while giving her hugs and pets and belly scratches; it helps on the days that I’m homesick for my dog. Ginger loves it and every time I come home she runs up to me wagging her tale and knocking the puppies out of the way and putting her front paws on my lap as if to say “STOP. I demand attention!” Yoshi is a small shitzu like dog, honestly I have no idea what she is but she reminds me of a little piggy. She is also super cute but not as loving as Ginger is partially because Yoshi is a mama dog with 4 puppies of her own, and she’s generally more aloof. Ginger is SO CLINGY, its ok it’s the kind of clingy I don’t mind.
This brings me to the final four puppies, rounding out my count to 8. These 4 puppies, Pixie, Dixie, Mocha and Kelly, are the cutest, sweetest, nippiest, wriggliest little things out there. It is impossible to be sad here because as soon as I step foot outside these little puppies are running around my feet jumping up on me, sitting on me, and attacking my hair when I try and exercise. They’re puppy attacks are adorable. They are 3 months old and only Mocha has been claimed, so here’s to hoping no one claims the other dogs and I can keep them here with me! Sadly for me, all 8 of these dogs are outside dogs, though I so wish they could be inside dogs so I could snuggle with them at night, alas.
Right now Pixie is my favorite on the night of the election I let her sleep with me in my bed. It was the cutest thing and just what I needed!
My house is wonderful too. We have a big drive way front area with a basketball hoop and a quarter court where my Host Broski and his friends play all day. In our front we have enough space for two cars also and a little green area. This front portion is where I exercise! So much space for suicides (the ridiculous exercise move) and side shuffles, its awesome! We have a beautiful viney tree in the front of my house with beautiful pinky purple flowers and with a wind chime hanging down from it (Mom you would love this tree). Along the side of my house is a covered area where we hang our clothes and where I exercise on rainy days. In the back of my house we have a covered hut called a Kubo. This is where my family keeps all their cooking charcoal and they’ve recently put up a hammock underneath it too! It is awesome! I just need to make sure I have a ready supply of anti-mosquito cream with me. Next to the Kubo is our little garden where they have eggplant plants, Papaya trees, Sweet Potatoes plants, Chiko trees (another fruit), and calabasa vines, and many other herbs and veggies! They cook with coconut milk here so they use the spent shavings of coconuts for fertilizer, how organic! Also in the back is a space to hand wash clothing and where Jackson and Bullet live.
My house itself is a beautiful two story home that feels very homey. That’s because my Nanay takes her inspiration from American interior decorating! It has art and all sorts of other homey tchotchke that make a house feel comfortable. There is a glass cupboard filled with the models of all the boats my Tatay has worked on over his career. We have two kitchens, an indoor one and a more outsidey one. Having two kitchens is common in the Philippines so you can tell they really like to eat here. We have a refrigerator and an automatic washing machine! Rubbed raw hands and hours of scrubbing… I sure hate you, it ain’t no lie, baby Bye Bye Bye… BYE BYE! (sung to the *NSYNC Bye Bye Bye). Oh, and hello extra time and free weekends! (this is why I’m told I live in posh corps..) I have my own room also with lots of shelves for my things and a closet! I also have a desk, chair, full length mirror, two large windows the length of the wall with bars and mosquito screen. I have a large full size bed, with a bedside table and a good fan (that is key). All in all I am really happy at my site and I love my host family. I hope things work out with my host family because I don’t really want to move… again…
I say move again because in the past 6 months I have lived in 4 places now, Charlottesville, DC, Bataan, Gubat, and I briefly helped my parents move out of their house… I am sick of moving. Not only that, but Gubat is the first time I will live somewhere consistently for two whole years! Ever since College I have moved accommodations every year, my family was constantly moving because of the rental we lived in and during the summer I lived in differently places depending on my activities. First I lived in Alaska and then I studied abroad in Australia! Speaking of that time period, that was a span of three years of moving a lot… I lived in Australia the summer of 2013, then I came back to school of 2014, the first half of 2014 I lived in one apartment, the next half I lived in another apartment, then I graduated and I moved home but was really in CT for ¾ of the time and PA visiting Spencer the remaining of the time. Then 8 months later I moved to VA and then 6 months later I lived in both VA AND DC commuting 5 hours a week (in DC traffic… yuck), then 5 months later I moved to the Philippines and now here we are. Woah, I’ve been all over the place. Basically what I’m getting at is, its nice to have a consistent home base again and a time where I don’t have to move every couple of months. Its also a little scary knowing I’m to stay in one place for the next two years when my life has been so dynamic the past 3! So I am lucky that I have all of the Philippines (Except Mindanao) to travel and explore when I get antsy.
Life is really great here and I’ve been having a wonderful time. I know I am in the honeymoon phase of my service now but there is no-where else I would rather be.
** Gubat Municipality Information from the Gubat Ecological Profile **
A Mermaid in the Philippines 