Goodbye, the Philippines! Hello, New Zealand!

It's always a weird moment when you realise you're going to sleep in another country from the one you woke up in.

A quick round-up of my time here.

Weird foods tried: 3

Facebook friend requests accepted: 38

Number of friend requests I accepted out of guilt because I have a hard time remembering people's names: 13

Mayors' hands shaken: 1

Celebrities met: 1

Events where a lechon was present: 3

Events where I was forced to have a picture taken with a lechon: 3

Money stolen from me: 100 USD

Massages had: 7

Dentist visits: 3

High fives received: too many to count

Hours until I'm back in New Zealand: 17.5

It's been real, you guys.   We should do this again sometime.

manila, again.

When you're trying for a 'window effect' in a hotel room with no windows, wouldn't it be much better to have a scene from the country you're actually in?

goodbye pizza, and remember me.

it's so BIG

 My last full day in Cagayan de Oro saw a farewell party complete with massive pizzas, speeches from several people and a certificate signed by all the people I've come to appreciate during my time here.  One guy wrote his in Cebuano - get your mum to translate it - the last sentence is in Ilocano, I had to ring my Dad [who is currently in Saudi Arabia] to figure out how to write it.  Sweet.

The party continued from the Engineering Resource Center to a karaoke bar; I've been pressured into it by several groups of people for the month that I've been here and finally gave in - a trip to the Philippines without karaoke isn't a trip to the Philippines at all - and we spent far longer than I expected singing and laughing with each other there, with the men in my company choosing a hilarious amount of songs that I recognised from The Ultimate Chickflick Soundtrack (Volume One). 

Songs in Cebuano, too - one guy crooning and holding my hand while the others bickered between themselves to translate for me line by line ('why did you come into my life now - why did you come into my life when I was with someone else - why are you late - why... are you late.')

AND THEN: late night trips through the red-light district of the city to get to a 24-hour eatery to try 'RM', or 'Remember Me'. 

'You can't come to the Philippines and not try Remember Me.'

'What is it?'

'A soup.'

'What's... in it?'

'We can't tell you until you've eaten it.  But afterwards you will remember it.'

When we got to the eatery I looked up at the board and laughed when I saw 'Remember Me' as the title of a legitimate meal.  We all got a bowl (the German volunteer in our group staunchly refusing more than a spoonful) and the rest of us tucked in.  At first I'd only drink the soup - which was delicious - but was warned by others the more soup you drink, the bigger the meat gets.

I saw what they meant, although by now I started having an inkling as to what it was that I was eating.  The German's recalcitrance eventually got to me though (get AMONGST IT, frick) and I defiantly finished the whole bowl.    

Then more conversation, more laughter.  The boys walked me back to the hotel.  It's strange, goodbyes that are forever.

Umbrellas drying out at the back of classrooms on another rainy day.

mano emano.

Dropped by to see the Mayor the other day.

My favourite bit about this photo (apart from the fact that I'm sitting in his chair) is that this, for him, is smiling.

greatest compliment I've received here.

"You look like a foreigner, but you act like a Filipina."

I feel ready to go home, now.

keeping up with conversations.

I went to a conference a while back with the heads of the various research units here at the university.  When they spoke they switched back and forth between English and Cebuano and I tried my best to keep up.

At one point, one of the men started speaking.  A lot of it was incomprehensible, but I managed to get one sentence: 'something something something Jesus Christ something something something sexual experience.'

Last time I had a hold of the conversation, we were talking about the consolidation of research units at XU, and I was bewildered.

fear factor friday.

eating balut from a street vendor in night cafe.  not my greatest moment.

noel cabangon.

One of the neat things about being here is being blissfully unaware of their pop culture.  Like last night - I scored comp tickets to see Noel Cabangon ('he's the Philippines version of Damien Rice!').  It was a sweet deal, but all of his songs were in the local dialect and I had to rely on my friend next to me to translate the meaning of each song.

On account of being Foreign, I got to meet him and have brief chats afterwards via some sort of backstage set-up, where people crowded at the door and tried to take pictures through the glass.  It was bizarre: just outside the door were people screaming his name and hoping to get within arms reach of him, but to me he was just some guy who happened to be a decent singer.

'I liked your performance', I told him. 'But I think I only got about half of your jokes.'

'I didn't make any jokes', he replied.

uniformity.

pretty easy to tell the difference between the foreigners and the filipinos.

I bought a new suit. I didn't realise it had silhouettes of naked ladies in the lining.

on love.

My home base here at the university is at the Engineering Resource Centre, and on Wednesday the director of the Centre had organised a 'Philosophical Colloquium' on love.  We spent a few hours in our conference room with a ragtag group of engineers, philosophers, sociologists and doctors and talked about things like love being a choice, the transcendent, sacrificial love, and people being pretty on Facebook but not in real life.  Names like Descartes and Plato and St Augustine floated through the conversation, catchphrases like 'spiritual orgasm' had the room howling with laughter, and I gained huge respect for the people I work with.

commute.

typical sight on the way to work in the morning.

on fashion.

all up in yer grill.

Last weekend I was at the Night Cafe (huge street market that comes along every Friday and Saturday night) - was lookin' at some jewellery and I stumbled across these.  Fake braces: they've got ends that hook around your back teeth.  In a way it makes sense: on account of their cost, braces are a status symbol here and you can get fake knock-offs of almost every status brand/object in the world at these markets.

favourite part of yesterday.

Last night I went to the convenience store across the street from where I'm staying to pick up a drink before retiring for the evening.  I recognised the guy at the cashier (I think he owns the place), and when I went to go pay the shopkeep smiled and shyly stammered belated.... across the counter.  Belated! He was wishing me a belated Valentine's Day!

I was hoping you would come in yesterday, but you didn't, he said.

SO CUTE.

valentine's day.

First thing to learn about Valentine's Day here: this actually exists.

Filipinos do their Valentine's Day celebrations balls to the wall.  In New Zealand I've gone halfway through the day itself without realising its significance, but here the festivities start more than a week beforehand, with restaurants offering 'pre-Valentine's Day dinners'.  Everyone greets each other here with 'Happy Valentine's Day!' (though a little more all up in your face and gleeful, though.  More like, 'HAPPYVALENTINESDAY!').  The streets are literally crowded with street vendors hawking Valentine's Day paraphernalia and every.single.shop is festooned with streamers, hearts and cupids. 

So somewhere in my list of Top 3 Awkward Experiences Since Being Here has been spending a few hours on Valentine's Day night in the company of a male acquaintance while he waited for his girlfriend to get off work, and trying to find appropriate places to spend the time together. 

Hang out in the hotel? ("You mean, you spent time in a hotel with another girl on Valentine's Day before coming to meet me?")

Hang out at university? ("You mean, you strolled around the dark, deserted campus at night with another girl, alone, on Valentine's Day?")

Hang out in a bar or a cafe? ("What, were you on a date with some other girl on Valentine's Day?")

I settled for the most brightly lit, unromantic venue I could think of - Dunkin Donuts  - before walking inside to see red heart balloons, pink silhouettes of Cupid and (best/worst of all) Can You Feel The Love Tonight blaring out over their sound-system.

next to the primary-school kids playing soccer.

this is what the university does with their old computer monitors.

reinvention.

About four seconds after introducing myself as Elizabeth here in the Philippines, the name was discarded and the group I was with started ferreting around for an alternative. 

'Elizabeth is too long.'

Now I see why.  Everyone here goes by a nickname, and I can barely remember one name per person, let alone two.  The most outrageous nicknames encountered to date: 'Carmz', 'Doodz', 'Cocoy' (that one was a guy), 'Ching', 'Bim', 'Dong', 'Dongkoy' (that one was the Mayor) and 'Marz'. 

I feel like I'm describing cartoon characters (and I flinch every time I write a name ending with 'z').

WHITE WATER RAFTING!

WHITE WATER RAFTIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGG!

view from my window.

Words of wisdom from one Filipina re friends of the opposite sex: 'collect, collect, then select.'

I suspect I've just figured out the dating strategy of about half of my friends.  Happy almost Valentine's Day, you guys.

on classics.

A particularly work-shy Friday afternoon saw me being shown around the  university campus by one of the guys that works here.  He showed me the air quality control machine located next to the school's soccer field, and how it measures air quality by something across the other side of the field.

I couldn't see it and asked him where I should be looking.  He responded, over there, see that light shining shimmering splendid?

There was indeed a wee light atop a pole that seemed to be doing some pretty scientific stuff, but I couldn't shake his wording, and we walked a few paces before I stopped him.  

Wait - was that... ALADDIN?

on family.

My cousins have come up for the weekend.  The first thing they did upon seeing me was gleefully cry, you got fat!

Hugs dispensed and a flurry of comments from the two of them, overlapping each other in their excitement and haste to tell me just how behemoth I've become.

At one point later on in the evening I said something to them and one responded at least we're not fat like you! She turned to her sister for confirmation.  RIGHT?!

They laughed and high-fived each other while I wailed, please-- please don't high-five each other.

They are ruthless here.

'fifty percent of the time you make me laugh. the other fifty percent of the time you make me feel guilty.'

that's a winner of a combination. 

nips for all!

I am bringing these back as souvenirs for all of my friends.  ("I saw some nips and totally thought of you.")  Also in the Top 10 list of Things You Wouldn't Expect To Buy In A Pharmacy: gin, chocolate biscuits, and eggs.

good thing about the philippines: massages = cheap. bad thing about the philippines: wine = expensive.

what i do sometimes when no one's in the office.

THE FLOORS HERE ARE SO SLIPPERY IT IS FANTASTIC

keeping up with the news.

Mindanao Times: here to tell you what you need to know.

the university has paid for a team of masseurs to come in and give free half-hour back massages to its students and faculty for three days this week.

best.  workplace. ever.

what i do.

Plan for the 'recyclable plastics' bins to be put around the campus.

One of the concrete tasks I've been asked to do while here is develop a policy/system for Xavier University regarding their solid waste management.

(solid waste n., not crap, as I originally thought when the Director of the Engineering Resource Center initially brought it to my attention.  More... rubbish, including but not limited to: paper, plastic, metal, organic stuff, yard stuff, toxic stuff, and other stuff.)

The situation here is a joke.  I've been spoilt by the University of Auckland: at XU the extent of their policy to date has been a working paper that was written three years ago and the implementation of blue and green bins dotted around the campus labelled 'biodegradable' and 'non-biodegradable'.

But no one knows what goes where, and as a result both bins are used for general waste.  Not that it matters, because the contents of both bins are transported and dumped into the same local city dumpsite.  There are no recycling systems in place; cut tree branches are discarded in an unused concrete plot on campus; toxic waste from chemistry and medicine labs are thrown down the sink where it mingles with storm-water.  

The 'team' working on this comprises of four ex-students at university in their twenties, but there are no logistical structures in place, funding for anything (like someone to sort through the non/bio-degradable waste), or even labels/pictures on the bins so students know what goes where.

(One of) the worst parts is that XU is considered a front-runner in developing these sort of projects for sustainable development, but the whole enterprise is under-manned, under-researched, under-funded, and lacking in cohesion across the different bases (i.e: the Engineering Resource Center is responsible for choosing the type of bin for recycling/non-recycling, but another department is responsible for the labelling that goes on the front depicting what goes where.) 

The initial framework for the policy was supposedly due in November 2010 so I've rolled up my sleeves and I've gotten amongst it; looked at various places on the site and am attending a forum next week on students' views on (what little there is on) the project.  Hello, policy drafting!  Hello, memo writing!  Am trying not to get side-tracked (hello, Times' article on asian parenting styles) but am pleased with the progress made.  It's good, being able to help fix things.

agutayan island.

So beautiful it could be a Windows desktop background.

About once a year the McKeough Marine Center here at XU goes out to Agutayan Island to measure a reserve of giant clams they're monitoring.  They always invite along volunteers, and this is how I found myself on a stunningly clear Monday morning, snorkelling around a sandbar and looking at half-metre long clams and their related environment.  I keep reverting to childish excitement when trying to explain what I saw ("and then I saw a starfish! and it was blue! and it was as big as my face! and then I saw a fish going into some coral! and then I saw a sea urchin but I didn't step on it! and then I saw some clams!').  

It was a day of laughing and learning (clams filter feed!) and living in some pretty spectacular creation.  Though it should be the furthest thing from my mind, I ended up thinking back to my days only a few months ago in the Davis studying feverishly for exams, and it's hilarious how much better for the soul this is, how much more alive I feel.

Groupshot!

When someone the other night mentioned loving my favourite movie and one of my favourite musicians in the same breath, I couldn't help but think that I was being xkcd'd.

It didn't really work out for him though.  I can't shake the nagging suspicion that I could be related to everyone here.

folklore.

Painting of one of the evil spirits of Filipino folklore: it takes the form of half a human and flies around at the night looking for pregnant women whose unborn babies it can feast upon. 

"Cagayan de Oro is known as the 'city of golden friendship' - you give us your gold, we'll give you our friendship."

on education, again.

A classroom in the Engineering department of the University.

Found out today that one of the guys I've been working with and who has been lecturing here for the past two years is only a month older than me.  He started teaching as soon as he graduated with his Bachelor's degree, and though part of me realises that this is just the way things are here, the other half is jealous of the fact that he's been lecturing for two years and the highest qualification I have to my name is NCEA Level 3.

Prefacing your statement with 'I'm not a racist' doesn't stop your next sentence from being incredibly racist.

By the time the initial shock passes and I'm able to collect my thoughts, the conversation has inevitably slid to another topic.

creation stories.

Depiction of the pre-Christian story of creation from the original inhabitants of Mindanao.  I think it's pretty self-explanatory.

wish list.

I haven't really been here that long, but I've found myself feeling little frustrations occasionally at the inefficiency of the place I'm at.  Maybe law firms have ruined me for other workplaces, but I walk around and as the day goes by I compile a wishlist of things or systems that would multiply productivity exponentially.  Like reverse chronological filing for projects, or chronological if they prefer, or any system of filing, really.  Dated documents would be helpful; and reliable follow-up documents for things like meetings so I know if they've done the things they said that they would.  Websites to their university that actually work so that I can collect necessary data would be nice, and (my biggest item on the wishlist) some form, any form, of time-keeping. 

I know that there's less of a need for strict time-keeping because they're not billing a client directly for their time, but their lack of accountability seems to have lead them to a situation where their productivity and output is a fraction of what it could be.  And they're crying out that they don't have the manpower to implement programmes that they want but if they were just a little more regimented with their time, they really could do so much more.  

Not to say that they haven't done some fantastic things for the University and community around them, but it's frustrating seeing them squandering such amazing potential so... I want to say 'so foolishly', but they're not fools.

you are welcome.

Found on campus at the university I'm volunteering at. 

A MOUSE RAN UNDER MY DOOR

I'm not going to be getting used to this.

Edit: It CAME IN AGAIN.  Can it crawl up into my bed? I've watched Ratatouille.  They can do some crazy st

THERE IS ANOTHER ONE

Edit no.2 I SAW IT CLIMB UP MY TABLE.  NOWHERE IS SAFE

english in schools.

I got my Maxim on the other day when I found myself speaking to someone who had his Masters in education policy.  He mentioned that the Philippine legislature was about to pass a bill that would make the teaching of mathematics in English mandatory.  It was already common practice in schools from primary school through to university, and he was outraged.

'Kids should be learning mathematics in their own language', he reasoned.  They're already trying to learn one subject, he said - they shouldn't have to grapple with new concepts while simultaneously trying to translate everything they hear in their head.  He told me that the Philippines has the second lowest rate of basic numeracy in the world: that one way to combat this was to take out one of the biggest roadblocks - learning it in a language with which they're not familiar.

It was fascinating stuff.  He mentioned at a conference in Australia he met some people from New Zealand who said that they were teaching maths in Maori (a kura kaupapa school, I guess?).  I could hear the frustration in his voice when he told me why can't they do that here?

I can already see some points of difference: like the fact that English is already the default language in New Zealand and that the move to teach in Maori is about fostering a dying language rather than because the children are having difficulty learning in English.  And I can understand the desire of the Filipino government to want to immerse their children in a language recognised internationally in the hopes of becoming a competitive part of the global market.  But I do see his point and it was interesting listening to him: an unexpected wee gem of conversation in what I was assuming was just going to be a routine 30-second 'so do you like it in the Philippines? / yes it is very warm and the food is of course delicious' bit.

Oro inmates film dance video.

I read about this in the local newspaper yesterday morning.  Is it bad to say it's not as great as I thought it would be?  Highlights include: men doing a dance with fans and a human centipede at 3:46.  To be honest, I'd watch it just for that last bit.

It's just that I was expecting something more like this, which I could watch over and over again.

belief and disbelief.

Our night out on the town began with a tour of the landmarks down Divisoria with a friend of Carmela (the girl who has taken me under her wing since my arrival).  At one statue the tour guide proclaimed, 'under the mayorship of [this guy], only one crime was committed in ten years.'

I tried to let it go.  But then I didn't. 'Really?'

'Really.'

'....Really?'  Images from The Wire and everything I learned from my Criminology classes were singing and dancing through my head.  That, and we were walking down a street where the police station was five metres away from a stall hawking pirated DVDs to all and sundry.

'Really really.'

It was one of those moments where half of me was like, "LIZ, stop being a dick" and the other half was like, "YOU MUST STOP THEM FROM TELLING SUCH OUTRAGEOUS LIES."