hi friends,
wanted to let you know im about to leave for club serena resort on moalboal (fun/difficult to say!)
http://www.clubserenaresort.com/home.html
check it out, I havent even had a chance to look at the website but Hilary and David have high reviews of the place and Lauren and I are very excited for a getaway!!
I'll be gone until Saturday afternoon (coming back in time for the clinic party with all the girls!), and I'll have no internet access, which means no new blogs for a while, but catch up on what you've missed. I just added three new blogs yesterday! hope you enjoy!!
all the best!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
blue baby!!
apparently I don't know how to put a website link in my blog... so for the post below you can just copy and paste those links into your URL in a new window and that will pull up the pictures... sorry for the trouble.
slept in the clinic again last night because we had a woman dilated to 6cm and we were waiting for her to progress. it was her first baby so we were expecting it to be pretty slow. the small room we sleep in at the clinic has three tiny beds... last night 7 of us slept in that room. two women on the one separate bed, then four of us across the other two that are pushed together, and one laying at our feet. talk about a snuggle fest! Filipinas are very touchy, affectionate people, so it is very natural to be that close... in fact, even if it's just the two of them sleeping in that room, they often share a bed. it's also a way to stay warm because the AC in that room is always freezing when it's on. I seriously had perma-goosebumps last night, which is rare here. i hate being cold.
around 1am we got the update that the mom-to-be was dilated and ready to start pushing. no need to rush this time, the first-timers are always slow. I'm not sure how much time had passed, but the woman had been having contractions for quite a while, and with each contraction the baby's heart is monitored to ensure that the BPMs are normal and that the baby isn't under too much stress. the first count we took for FHT was normal, rapid, as is expected with babies, probably around 140. At the next contraction I noticed that the heart had slowed some, usually it accelerates with a contraction, sometimes it will slow slightly later on in the labor... but this trend of deceleration went on, contraction after contraction, the heart rate getting slower and slower. the BPM was about 80 or 90 when it should be 120 at the low end of normal. then, during one contraction, the baby's heart was beating less than one beat per second for the 15 second count, less than 60 beat per minute - not good! in fact, really bad. jumbled in with the cebuano we kept hearing "heartbeat sa baby" and "transport"... but this mother was too far along in the labor to transport. stressful... very stressful situation. there was such tension in the room as everyone fought to remain calm though the baby was in severe stress...
After one of her final contractions I looked at Lo and told her I was betting two more contractions and the baby would be out. Sure enough, one contraction, "sige sige!!" they all say at once, more enthusiastically as the baby gets closer, another contraction and the head was out!! the very blue, compressed head, and then... no body. I mean, there was a body, it was just stuck. and this made the already compromised delivery even more complicated. the baby somehow had it's hands wedged up next to it's ears, and it was making it nearly impossible for the body to slide out. total panic!! the head compression had been what was causing the deceleration, from the pressure on the cranial nerves. one of the midwives was pressing with all her strength to hyperflex the mom's legs, while two of the others were pulling the baby by its head, reaching in to grab at the arms in hopes of pulling them out. it seemed to last forever, the frantic efforts to dislodge the body.... and finally, success! then it was electric fan off (that's how you know it's serious), suction the mouth, oxygen mask, full body rub... the baby didn't look very good at first, no muscle tension and not crying, but finally, there was a little whimper, that evolved into a cry, and the baby was in the clear.
From what we can tell today, after running a few tests, the baby is doing well. The midwives and nurses were incredible last night and it was good to have a happy ending to a very scary delivery.
alright, I think I'm all caught up with blogging. A few days of being busy and I get so far behind. Hope all is well back in the states or where ever you're reading from and I'll try to update more soon!!
slept in the clinic again last night because we had a woman dilated to 6cm and we were waiting for her to progress. it was her first baby so we were expecting it to be pretty slow. the small room we sleep in at the clinic has three tiny beds... last night 7 of us slept in that room. two women on the one separate bed, then four of us across the other two that are pushed together, and one laying at our feet. talk about a snuggle fest! Filipinas are very touchy, affectionate people, so it is very natural to be that close... in fact, even if it's just the two of them sleeping in that room, they often share a bed. it's also a way to stay warm because the AC in that room is always freezing when it's on. I seriously had perma-goosebumps last night, which is rare here. i hate being cold.
around 1am we got the update that the mom-to-be was dilated and ready to start pushing. no need to rush this time, the first-timers are always slow. I'm not sure how much time had passed, but the woman had been having contractions for quite a while, and with each contraction the baby's heart is monitored to ensure that the BPMs are normal and that the baby isn't under too much stress. the first count we took for FHT was normal, rapid, as is expected with babies, probably around 140. At the next contraction I noticed that the heart had slowed some, usually it accelerates with a contraction, sometimes it will slow slightly later on in the labor... but this trend of deceleration went on, contraction after contraction, the heart rate getting slower and slower. the BPM was about 80 or 90 when it should be 120 at the low end of normal. then, during one contraction, the baby's heart was beating less than one beat per second for the 15 second count, less than 60 beat per minute - not good! in fact, really bad. jumbled in with the cebuano we kept hearing "heartbeat sa baby" and "transport"... but this mother was too far along in the labor to transport. stressful... very stressful situation. there was such tension in the room as everyone fought to remain calm though the baby was in severe stress...
After one of her final contractions I looked at Lo and told her I was betting two more contractions and the baby would be out. Sure enough, one contraction, "sige sige!!" they all say at once, more enthusiastically as the baby gets closer, another contraction and the head was out!! the very blue, compressed head, and then... no body. I mean, there was a body, it was just stuck. and this made the already compromised delivery even more complicated. the baby somehow had it's hands wedged up next to it's ears, and it was making it nearly impossible for the body to slide out. total panic!! the head compression had been what was causing the deceleration, from the pressure on the cranial nerves. one of the midwives was pressing with all her strength to hyperflex the mom's legs, while two of the others were pulling the baby by its head, reaching in to grab at the arms in hopes of pulling them out. it seemed to last forever, the frantic efforts to dislodge the body.... and finally, success! then it was electric fan off (that's how you know it's serious), suction the mouth, oxygen mask, full body rub... the baby didn't look very good at first, no muscle tension and not crying, but finally, there was a little whimper, that evolved into a cry, and the baby was in the clear.
From what we can tell today, after running a few tests, the baby is doing well. The midwives and nurses were incredible last night and it was good to have a happy ending to a very scary delivery.
alright, I think I'm all caught up with blogging. A few days of being busy and I get so far behind. Hope all is well back in the states or where ever you're reading from and I'll try to update more soon!!
bohol: tricycle tour
yesterday lauren and i set out at 6am on an adventure to bohol. at the dock you go through security to check your bags, then purchase your ticket, then go through more security and get patted down, then let drug dogs sniff your bags, then pose while they take a mug shot (not joking), then finally you are safe to go to the waiting area once two other people have checked your ticket at separate gates. i have never felt more safe (or unsafe? wondering why exactly they need so much security). It is a one hour and 45 minute ferry ride to bohol, on a boat called "supercat". we sat in first class - apparently all they had available - which basically means you're on the upper level and you get crackers and peanuts (woohoo). the ride starts out with a prayer for a safe journey, which I found pretty hilarious because it is broadcast on the tv with wave sounds as the background noise. they played a terrible movie while we were in route, which the passengers really enjoyed. i was entertained by the flying fish that would leap from the water, startled by the boat, and glide impressively far distances away from the supercat. during parts of the trip i watched fishermen, far out to sea, in little wooden boats... at other times we would pass through areas where the current had brought tons of garbage together, and i would stare shocked at the plastic trash swirling in our wake - terrible... we passed plenty of islands on our way to bohol, many of which appeared uninhabited, and one that was distinctly similar a shot of the island from LOST - Lo and I both took a moment to appreciate that :)
when you deboard (is that proper boat lingo?) the supercat and walk along the dock, there are kids and adults and babies in little wooden boats on either side of the dock begging for money. almost all of them are completely naked, and they look sickly and sad (usually light hair is a telltale sign of malnutrition, or the distended stomachs that can be so deceiving to those uneducated about the effects of starvation). just another day in a developing country.
we quickly found a tricycle we could hire for our day of tourism on bohol.
http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/8719/wm/pd1574057.jpg
that is a link to a picture of a tricycle. it is a motorcycle attached to a covered side car... that picture is literally almost exactly what ours looked like. pretty funny. All of them have religious words painted on the back, such as "Jesus is Lord", I mean all of them. Ours only broke down once (our driver gassed it and the engine reved rather than accelerating and I said "our chain came off" and Lo said "is that common?!" and sure enough, he made us get out while he put the chain back on the bike, we were on the road again within minutes). they are very loud and pretty stinky, but such an authentic Philippine experience we couldn't pass it up. I'm not going to say he was a safe driver... in fact, he was often texting while driving/passing cars and motorcycles. But Lo and I only covered our faces and braced in anticipation of a crash a handful of times, so I'd say it was pretty successful considering we rode that tricycle for at least 4 hours. one other thing about our driver, besides being a nice guy, was that he was constantly sneezing/coughing/hacking up loogies... haha, umm, over share? maybe. Lo and I are just hoping it was allergies, but something tells us our tour guide had TB. We even tried to inquire about his "cold" asking him, I think his name was Glen, if he gets sick often - which he said he does. great. good thing we have immune systems! Tuberculosis is so common here, I'm sure we've encountered out fair share of it already.
ok, back to the tour. our final destination was the chocolate hills. we started off in the downtown area (aka the shakes are more tightly packed together), and as the kilometers ticked by the towns became less frequent and the road began to meander along a river. without warning our driver stopped, several other cars were parked in the same area, and instructed us to get out. at this little roadside tourist attraction on the bank of the river they have captive Tarsiers - one of the smallest primates on earth. They look like bug eyed little balls of fluff, with long, rat-like tails. they cling to branches in open cages and visitors can get very close and take pictures (no flash) and feed them bugs for a donation - we video taped that as true tourists would.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1081/1232072359_6ec67b9537_m.jpg
there's a picture to give you an idea until i have the opportunity to post my pics :)
there was another enclosure that held what looked like lemurs at first, but then when they stretched out they had webbed skin between their limbs and looked more like big flying squirrels... turns out there is such thing as a flying lemur found on some of the islands in the philippines:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/126883/flying-lemur
i hope these links work. anyway, there were three of them in a little cage, so sad. I couldn't really handle this part of the tour. there were also two small monkeys in a really tiny cage, they were adorable, and some lady was feeding them grapes and they were going wild to get a grape. It was really sad...
So, after making a donation that I hope goes to the animals (though I doubt it), we climbed back in the tricycle and continued on our way to the chocolate hills. We eventually entered a forest of really tall trees and virtually no undergrowth. compared to the jungle-like forest where many of the villages are built, this seemed so open, and similar, Lo and I agreed, to some of the forests in the santa cruz mountains... once we made it up through that forest the landscape opened up into big fields of rice patties, dotted with the occasional water buffalo (which was always accompanied by one or two while cranes). We even saw men out farming, with one of the water buffaloes tied to a plow... looked like they're from a different time period. talk about slow going! It was really beautiful though, even when it started raining... they don't call it a rain forest for nothin'!!
finally reached the chocolate hills, at which point you have to hike up hundreds of stairs to get to where you have a 360 degree view of the chocolate hills. They are difficult to describe so I'll pull up a picture:
http://x75.xanga.com/6ccc2be727030179021154/z136647627.jpg
basically, they are all a similar, round shape, treeless and close together. there are over a thousand of them according to our tour guy (I think he was more of a tour guy than a tour guide... to me, there is a difference). They were formed from coral/shell deposits and erosion. Lo and I are still trying to work out the details of this formation since the information board was very poorly written and the english didn't make much sense. it's my next research project. It was funny because there are tons of "professional" photographers who sit up there and take your picture with the chocolate hills, but they don't use the real chocolate hills, they have a backdrop set up - we found this odd. but they do really funny photos of people jumping with a broom between their legs so it looks like they're flying on a broomstick over the chocolate hills. Lo and I did our own version where we are the licking the chocolate hills (we used the real ones, since they are right there and all), so silly... i was a little disappointed there wasn't chocolate available at the chocolate hills, but we did get ice cream bars (little round chunk of mystery sweet flavored ice cream on stick), always delicious :)
Having reached our destination it was now time for our tour guy to bring us to the bohol beach club, the best resort in bohol apparently. unfortunately we ran into a complication along the way... it started off with a random guy on the side of the road flagging down our driver, who stopped and proceeded to yell over his should in Bisaya to the man for several minutes. when he finally started up the bike and continued driving, Lo and I noticed that he was creeping along at a painfully slow speed, especially in contrast to haste he had made during the rest of our trip. I think we were particularly annoyed by this because we both had to pee, but also because we didn't know what was going on. Lo attempted to ask, and we eventually deciphered that there were police up ahead and his car was the wrong size (i think he was saying something else, but we kept hearing wrong size), and there is a penalty. During the whole trip, our driver honked whenever we went around a corner - i think for safety, since most of the roads had signs warning about the high risk driving - and also, whenever we passed oncoming traffic - i think this was just to be annoying. Now that he had the warning about police ahead, every once in a while he would honk extra and the oncoming car would slow... our driver would yell something at them, and they'd yell back, then he'd keep coasting along. finally, he pulled over, justifying the stop with "i have to pee" - ah, to be a dude and be able to pee so easily on the side of the road. Lo and I got out to stretch our legs and explore a muddy dirt road leading into the jungle. then, just as we were heading back to the tricycle, our driver yelled something at a passing car, listened to the short response, and then broke into a sprint for his bike yelling for us to follow. we were both smushed haphazardly in the side car (it wasn't exactly spacious) and zooming down the road before we had figured out that the police must be gone and we were racing to get past the check point without a "penalty" (a fee). interesting adventure. We made it without a run in with the cops and were finally dropped at the bohol beach club.
the rest of the day was good food, swimming in the ocean and the pool, then finally, back to the tricycle (yes, he waited for us) to drive to the dock just as it was getting dark out, and head back to Cebu. It was an exhausting day, but a wonderful adventure!!
when you deboard (is that proper boat lingo?) the supercat and walk along the dock, there are kids and adults and babies in little wooden boats on either side of the dock begging for money. almost all of them are completely naked, and they look sickly and sad (usually light hair is a telltale sign of malnutrition, or the distended stomachs that can be so deceiving to those uneducated about the effects of starvation). just another day in a developing country.
we quickly found a tricycle we could hire for our day of tourism on bohol.
http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/8719/wm/pd1574057.jpg
that is a link to a picture of a tricycle. it is a motorcycle attached to a covered side car... that picture is literally almost exactly what ours looked like. pretty funny. All of them have religious words painted on the back, such as "Jesus is Lord", I mean all of them. Ours only broke down once (our driver gassed it and the engine reved rather than accelerating and I said "our chain came off" and Lo said "is that common?!" and sure enough, he made us get out while he put the chain back on the bike, we were on the road again within minutes). they are very loud and pretty stinky, but such an authentic Philippine experience we couldn't pass it up. I'm not going to say he was a safe driver... in fact, he was often texting while driving/passing cars and motorcycles. But Lo and I only covered our faces and braced in anticipation of a crash a handful of times, so I'd say it was pretty successful considering we rode that tricycle for at least 4 hours. one other thing about our driver, besides being a nice guy, was that he was constantly sneezing/coughing/hacking up loogies... haha, umm, over share? maybe. Lo and I are just hoping it was allergies, but something tells us our tour guide had TB. We even tried to inquire about his "cold" asking him, I think his name was Glen, if he gets sick often - which he said he does. great. good thing we have immune systems! Tuberculosis is so common here, I'm sure we've encountered out fair share of it already.
ok, back to the tour. our final destination was the chocolate hills. we started off in the downtown area (aka the shakes are more tightly packed together), and as the kilometers ticked by the towns became less frequent and the road began to meander along a river. without warning our driver stopped, several other cars were parked in the same area, and instructed us to get out. at this little roadside tourist attraction on the bank of the river they have captive Tarsiers - one of the smallest primates on earth. They look like bug eyed little balls of fluff, with long, rat-like tails. they cling to branches in open cages and visitors can get very close and take pictures (no flash) and feed them bugs for a donation - we video taped that as true tourists would.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1081/1232072359_6ec67b9537_m.jpg
there's a picture to give you an idea until i have the opportunity to post my pics :)
there was another enclosure that held what looked like lemurs at first, but then when they stretched out they had webbed skin between their limbs and looked more like big flying squirrels... turns out there is such thing as a flying lemur found on some of the islands in the philippines:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/126883/flying-lemur
i hope these links work. anyway, there were three of them in a little cage, so sad. I couldn't really handle this part of the tour. there were also two small monkeys in a really tiny cage, they were adorable, and some lady was feeding them grapes and they were going wild to get a grape. It was really sad...
So, after making a donation that I hope goes to the animals (though I doubt it), we climbed back in the tricycle and continued on our way to the chocolate hills. We eventually entered a forest of really tall trees and virtually no undergrowth. compared to the jungle-like forest where many of the villages are built, this seemed so open, and similar, Lo and I agreed, to some of the forests in the santa cruz mountains... once we made it up through that forest the landscape opened up into big fields of rice patties, dotted with the occasional water buffalo (which was always accompanied by one or two while cranes). We even saw men out farming, with one of the water buffaloes tied to a plow... looked like they're from a different time period. talk about slow going! It was really beautiful though, even when it started raining... they don't call it a rain forest for nothin'!!
finally reached the chocolate hills, at which point you have to hike up hundreds of stairs to get to where you have a 360 degree view of the chocolate hills. They are difficult to describe so I'll pull up a picture:
http://x75.xanga.com/6ccc2be727030179021154/z136647627.jpg
basically, they are all a similar, round shape, treeless and close together. there are over a thousand of them according to our tour guy (I think he was more of a tour guy than a tour guide... to me, there is a difference). They were formed from coral/shell deposits and erosion. Lo and I are still trying to work out the details of this formation since the information board was very poorly written and the english didn't make much sense. it's my next research project. It was funny because there are tons of "professional" photographers who sit up there and take your picture with the chocolate hills, but they don't use the real chocolate hills, they have a backdrop set up - we found this odd. but they do really funny photos of people jumping with a broom between their legs so it looks like they're flying on a broomstick over the chocolate hills. Lo and I did our own version where we are the licking the chocolate hills (we used the real ones, since they are right there and all), so silly... i was a little disappointed there wasn't chocolate available at the chocolate hills, but we did get ice cream bars (little round chunk of mystery sweet flavored ice cream on stick), always delicious :)
Having reached our destination it was now time for our tour guy to bring us to the bohol beach club, the best resort in bohol apparently. unfortunately we ran into a complication along the way... it started off with a random guy on the side of the road flagging down our driver, who stopped and proceeded to yell over his should in Bisaya to the man for several minutes. when he finally started up the bike and continued driving, Lo and I noticed that he was creeping along at a painfully slow speed, especially in contrast to haste he had made during the rest of our trip. I think we were particularly annoyed by this because we both had to pee, but also because we didn't know what was going on. Lo attempted to ask, and we eventually deciphered that there were police up ahead and his car was the wrong size (i think he was saying something else, but we kept hearing wrong size), and there is a penalty. During the whole trip, our driver honked whenever we went around a corner - i think for safety, since most of the roads had signs warning about the high risk driving - and also, whenever we passed oncoming traffic - i think this was just to be annoying. Now that he had the warning about police ahead, every once in a while he would honk extra and the oncoming car would slow... our driver would yell something at them, and they'd yell back, then he'd keep coasting along. finally, he pulled over, justifying the stop with "i have to pee" - ah, to be a dude and be able to pee so easily on the side of the road. Lo and I got out to stretch our legs and explore a muddy dirt road leading into the jungle. then, just as we were heading back to the tricycle, our driver yelled something at a passing car, listened to the short response, and then broke into a sprint for his bike yelling for us to follow. we were both smushed haphazardly in the side car (it wasn't exactly spacious) and zooming down the road before we had figured out that the police must be gone and we were racing to get past the check point without a "penalty" (a fee). interesting adventure. We made it without a run in with the cops and were finally dropped at the bohol beach club.
the rest of the day was good food, swimming in the ocean and the pool, then finally, back to the tricycle (yes, he waited for us) to drive to the dock just as it was getting dark out, and head back to Cebu. It was an exhausting day, but a wonderful adventure!!
volunteers <--> tourists
we slept in the clinic saturday night with the hope that one of the moms we sent home earlier that day would be back and dilated past 5cm... they love to come back late at night. In fact, the majority of the births here happen in the early hours of the morning. and lately, we have had some serious, streets-turned-to-rivers rain, so I was pretty confident we'd have a mom in labor, and a new baby before morning... i was right. just after midnight Lauren and I woke to one of the midwives alerting us that the mom was in the delivery room and dilated to 10cm! we had fallen asleep while watching xmen origins (one of our pirated movie purchases - the edits in the movie are not complete and some of the scenes are pretty funny because of it), in the only air conditioned room in the clinic (what a luxury!!). we threw on scrub tops, crossed the hall to the quiet, poorly-lit delivery room, and just as we rounded the knee of the laboring woman we realized the baby's head was already out!! I mean, we're talking a push-and-a-half delivery if that... and the mom hardly broke a sweat (that's saying a lot because sitting usually elicits profuse sweating here). we later found out this mother was G6. by the 6th pregnancy that is usually what you expect... it is a good thing we slept at the clinic. we stayed up for a few hours taking vitals and giving the baby a ballard score. she was really healthy and responsive, with a tight grip and a really long tongue she kept sticking out as she looked for anything to suck on. love seeing the healthy babies, especially because our birth last night was probably the scariest yet - more on that later.
after only a couple hours of sleep we were up and on our way to Shangri-la with Hilary, David and Gina. Shangri-la is one of the nicest hotel in this area of the Philippines (it means "heaven" after all). while driving to Mactan Island we learned that the mother who delivered last night is a little off her rocker... you do have to give her credit for having such a healthy baby, since so many of the mothers are plagued by malnutrition, STIs, hypertension, or other health issues that can harm a fetus. unfortunately, we learned that once the baby is born, her competence as a mother leaves a lot to be desired. apparently one of her earlier babies had been constipated, and to remedy this the mother had taken a mixture of herbs and shoved it up the baby's anus. well you can only imagine this did not help, and in fact, it eventually led to an infection, at which point the mother was at least smart enough to bring the baby to the clinic, rectum filled with herbs and bleeding with the irritation and infection (the baby was taken to the hospital and was ultimately fine). A remedy like that is usually suggested by the Hilot - a sort of witch doctor used here - often present during home deliveries, and frequently responsible for the spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) of a healthy child. The Hilot seems to do a lot more harm that good judging by the stories I've heard... Hopefully, this new baby stays very healthy and pooping regularly. or even better, maybe after the mother's experience with her other child, she will stay away from the Hilot. Just another shocking tale that I hope I am not becoming desensitized to from hearing so many similarly alarming stories.
We made it to Shangri-la and proceeded to finally be real tourists! Snorkeling, sunbathing, amazing food, gorgeous infinity pool looking out on the ocean... the resort is huge, so despite always being booked to capacity, it never feels crowded. Lauren and I spent hours in the ocean pointing out fish: bring purple sea stars, huge schools of silvery fish, a huge white eel, humuhumunukunukuapuaa, colorful parrot fish, clams that were feet across, and even Nemo fish!! (you know, clown fish, no joke, there was even a baby - no hurt fin though :) we were in paradise. our bodies thoroughly desiccated from so much time in the salt water, we went to one of the main restaurants for lunch. A buffet with literally hundreds of different options from extravagant salads to every type of sea food and sushi imaginable, the best Indian food I've ever had, and so much more... and the desserts were definitely shangri-la... fresh mango + chocolate fountain? yes please! It was so nice to finally have a relaxing day at the resort!!
after only a couple hours of sleep we were up and on our way to Shangri-la with Hilary, David and Gina. Shangri-la is one of the nicest hotel in this area of the Philippines (it means "heaven" after all). while driving to Mactan Island we learned that the mother who delivered last night is a little off her rocker... you do have to give her credit for having such a healthy baby, since so many of the mothers are plagued by malnutrition, STIs, hypertension, or other health issues that can harm a fetus. unfortunately, we learned that once the baby is born, her competence as a mother leaves a lot to be desired. apparently one of her earlier babies had been constipated, and to remedy this the mother had taken a mixture of herbs and shoved it up the baby's anus. well you can only imagine this did not help, and in fact, it eventually led to an infection, at which point the mother was at least smart enough to bring the baby to the clinic, rectum filled with herbs and bleeding with the irritation and infection (the baby was taken to the hospital and was ultimately fine). A remedy like that is usually suggested by the Hilot - a sort of witch doctor used here - often present during home deliveries, and frequently responsible for the spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) of a healthy child. The Hilot seems to do a lot more harm that good judging by the stories I've heard... Hopefully, this new baby stays very healthy and pooping regularly. or even better, maybe after the mother's experience with her other child, she will stay away from the Hilot. Just another shocking tale that I hope I am not becoming desensitized to from hearing so many similarly alarming stories.
We made it to Shangri-la and proceeded to finally be real tourists! Snorkeling, sunbathing, amazing food, gorgeous infinity pool looking out on the ocean... the resort is huge, so despite always being booked to capacity, it never feels crowded. Lauren and I spent hours in the ocean pointing out fish: bring purple sea stars, huge schools of silvery fish, a huge white eel, humuhumunukunukuapuaa, colorful parrot fish, clams that were feet across, and even Nemo fish!! (you know, clown fish, no joke, there was even a baby - no hurt fin though :) we were in paradise. our bodies thoroughly desiccated from so much time in the salt water, we went to one of the main restaurants for lunch. A buffet with literally hundreds of different options from extravagant salads to every type of sea food and sushi imaginable, the best Indian food I've ever had, and so much more... and the desserts were definitely shangri-la... fresh mango + chocolate fountain? yes please! It was so nice to finally have a relaxing day at the resort!!
Saturday, April 18, 2009
you'd prob fit in here if...
You would fit in here in the Philippines if....
-you like food that is fried, really salty, covered in sugar... or some combination of all three.
-you drive with one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting ready at the horn.
-you feel comfortable assisting with the delivery of a baby white squatting on the end of the bed barefoot.
-you believe that recovery after labor consists solely of drinking Milo (basically chocolate milk with caffeine made from a powder mixture... it is usually used as a coffee substitute).
-you know how to make a latex glove double as a hair tie.
-you expect when you order popcorn at the movies to be asked "cheese or barbecue?" at which point you choose cheese, even though that means they cover your popcorn in a toxic-looking orange powder, it tastes good :)
-you comment on how cool the weather is when the temperature drops to the low 90's (keep in mind that still feels like 100+ with the humidity).
-you are willing to run across 6 lane roads on a daily basis without crosswalks/signals (and you know to use the center divide as a rest stop before proceeding to cross the other side of the street - this is a critical step in successfully crossing the street here).
-you will answer "I don't know" when you're 8 months pregnant and someone asks you where you're going to deliver your baby.
-you get used to seeing old, grey-haired men holding hands with Philippino girls who usually look younger than 20... and you are pretty good at resisting the urge to tell them what creeps they are.
-you use oil when cooking every meal and frequently save the used oil for the next meal (recycle, reduce, reuse?)
-you don't know what toothpaste is but, no matter the brand, you will identify the paste used for brushing teeth as colgate.
-you know that "ladies choice" is the flavored mayonnaise put on burgers from jollibee (the equivalent and competitor to mcdonalds here), and you are also aware that ladies choice comes in several flavors including the local favorite, sardine.
-you believe that a clothes washer/dryer is not an effective means of cleaning clothes and thus you insist upon hand washing (have you ever hand washed your clothes? outcome = not-so-clean clothes... I don't know what I'm missing here).
-you do not refrigerate eggs or milk, and buy raw meat and fish off the street (where its been sitting in the heat all day!!), without a second thought...
-your favorite flavor is "purple", which is not grape, but in fact ube (sweet potato flavor that they always dye a vibrant color of purple)... not gonna lie, it's delish!
-you understand that a horn honk can mean: "move!", "stay there!", "I'm available to take passengers!", "I already have passengers!", "sorry!", "look out!", "thanks!" and "fuck you!"... there's also a random horn honk reserved for times when there is nothing in particular that should elicit honking of the horn, but the driver feels like honking anyway... i call this the "yeah!" honk, and it comes in various inflections of the voice.
-you can decipher the above honks and know the appropriate response to each.
-you are ok with the idea of cock fights, dog fights and horse fights (yes, horse fights), and chances are some portion of your income comes from these terrible events.
-you can turn pretty much anything into a place to hang laundry for drying.
-you believe there are 6 meals in a day: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, midnight snack!! these 6 are not up for dispute.
-you know that when it says "appealing personality" in the description of requirements for a job ad, what they mean is good looking.
-you are not bothered by the fact that people get fired because they're ugly or not tall.
-you think wedding rings are unnecessary and don't wear one... particularly if you're a guy (this sometimes results in awkward situations, such as when a man brings his "wife" to our clinic to deliver her baby, then a few months later brings his "wife" to the clinic to delivery her baby except that it's a different wife... not that a wedding ring could clear up the situation, but it might help prevent it? or not).
-you eat plain rice with every meal and never complain that it gets old.
-you don't believe in wearing sunglasses even though you live at the equator where the sun's intensity is enough to fry many a retina.
-you prefer pads to tampons (sorry guys... this might be an over share), and in fact, you have most likely never used a tampon.
-you walk in a painfully slow, indirect path whenever going from point A to B... the word "hurry" does not exist in the language here.
-you know that the best part of lechon (the huge pig they roast on a stick here) is the crispy skin. sick!
-you wear shirts that say things like "different island, same shit", especially when you're pregnant.
-you are tolerant of doing everything with a fan blowing in your face. this poses the greatest challenge when: reading/writing (the pages are always blowing away), watching tv (it is is hard to hear), and making pancakes (you must time the pour of the pancake powder mix between oscillations of the fan to prevent it from blowing all over the kitchen... does it sound like I'm speaking from experience? I am.)
ok, that's all for now... I'll think of more to add later. I just decided I'd start up a list so everyone back home can begin figuring out how well they'd fit in here :) you know... in case my blogs are making you want to move to the philippines.
-you like food that is fried, really salty, covered in sugar... or some combination of all three.
-you drive with one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting ready at the horn.
-you feel comfortable assisting with the delivery of a baby white squatting on the end of the bed barefoot.
-you believe that recovery after labor consists solely of drinking Milo (basically chocolate milk with caffeine made from a powder mixture... it is usually used as a coffee substitute).
-you know how to make a latex glove double as a hair tie.
-you expect when you order popcorn at the movies to be asked "cheese or barbecue?" at which point you choose cheese, even though that means they cover your popcorn in a toxic-looking orange powder, it tastes good :)
-you comment on how cool the weather is when the temperature drops to the low 90's (keep in mind that still feels like 100+ with the humidity).
-you are willing to run across 6 lane roads on a daily basis without crosswalks/signals (and you know to use the center divide as a rest stop before proceeding to cross the other side of the street - this is a critical step in successfully crossing the street here).
-you will answer "I don't know" when you're 8 months pregnant and someone asks you where you're going to deliver your baby.
-you get used to seeing old, grey-haired men holding hands with Philippino girls who usually look younger than 20... and you are pretty good at resisting the urge to tell them what creeps they are.
-you use oil when cooking every meal and frequently save the used oil for the next meal (recycle, reduce, reuse?)
-you don't know what toothpaste is but, no matter the brand, you will identify the paste used for brushing teeth as colgate.
-you know that "ladies choice" is the flavored mayonnaise put on burgers from jollibee (the equivalent and competitor to mcdonalds here), and you are also aware that ladies choice comes in several flavors including the local favorite, sardine.
-you believe that a clothes washer/dryer is not an effective means of cleaning clothes and thus you insist upon hand washing (have you ever hand washed your clothes? outcome = not-so-clean clothes... I don't know what I'm missing here).
-you do not refrigerate eggs or milk, and buy raw meat and fish off the street (where its been sitting in the heat all day!!), without a second thought...
-your favorite flavor is "purple", which is not grape, but in fact ube (sweet potato flavor that they always dye a vibrant color of purple)... not gonna lie, it's delish!
-you understand that a horn honk can mean: "move!", "stay there!", "I'm available to take passengers!", "I already have passengers!", "sorry!", "look out!", "thanks!" and "fuck you!"... there's also a random horn honk reserved for times when there is nothing in particular that should elicit honking of the horn, but the driver feels like honking anyway... i call this the "yeah!" honk, and it comes in various inflections of the voice.
-you can decipher the above honks and know the appropriate response to each.
-you are ok with the idea of cock fights, dog fights and horse fights (yes, horse fights), and chances are some portion of your income comes from these terrible events.
-you can turn pretty much anything into a place to hang laundry for drying.
-you believe there are 6 meals in a day: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, midnight snack!! these 6 are not up for dispute.
-you know that when it says "appealing personality" in the description of requirements for a job ad, what they mean is good looking.
-you are not bothered by the fact that people get fired because they're ugly or not tall.
-you think wedding rings are unnecessary and don't wear one... particularly if you're a guy (this sometimes results in awkward situations, such as when a man brings his "wife" to our clinic to deliver her baby, then a few months later brings his "wife" to the clinic to delivery her baby except that it's a different wife... not that a wedding ring could clear up the situation, but it might help prevent it? or not).
-you eat plain rice with every meal and never complain that it gets old.
-you don't believe in wearing sunglasses even though you live at the equator where the sun's intensity is enough to fry many a retina.
-you prefer pads to tampons (sorry guys... this might be an over share), and in fact, you have most likely never used a tampon.
-you walk in a painfully slow, indirect path whenever going from point A to B... the word "hurry" does not exist in the language here.
-you know that the best part of lechon (the huge pig they roast on a stick here) is the crispy skin. sick!
-you wear shirts that say things like "different island, same shit", especially when you're pregnant.
-you are tolerant of doing everything with a fan blowing in your face. this poses the greatest challenge when: reading/writing (the pages are always blowing away), watching tv (it is is hard to hear), and making pancakes (you must time the pour of the pancake powder mix between oscillations of the fan to prevent it from blowing all over the kitchen... does it sound like I'm speaking from experience? I am.)
ok, that's all for now... I'll think of more to add later. I just decided I'd start up a list so everyone back home can begin figuring out how well they'd fit in here :) you know... in case my blogs are making you want to move to the philippines.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
the cemetery
went to visit Rhonda (a friend of Hilary and David's) today at her workshop. she started a business here that makes bags from discarded juice boxes - they're actually very cool. their tag line is "one person's trash (basura) is anothers' treasure (bahandi)". the business is called Bahandi Gifts and she hires people both to collect and clean the juice boxes, and to sew them into many different types of bags - using ancient sewing machines! I am now the proud owner of a "lunch bag" made of mango nectar juice boxes (it only seemed appropriate since I basically live off of the mangoes here :) very cool to make something out of the abundant trash strewn around the streets and in the rivers (if you can call them that, they hardly flow in the city... they are stagnant, grey water with piles of semi-decomposed garbage creating islands and lining the bank... the smell is putrid and i would associate them more with exposed sewers than streams).
not to mention the resource that the dump site offers for someone scavaging for juice boxes...
unfortunately, according to today's paper, the Barangay Inayawan landfill (where we went with Father Heinz to treat the sick children), is currently on fire, so I'm not sure if it's such a great time to be collecting discarded juice boxes for making bags. not that random fires are usual here - it's hard to go a day without seeing trash burning unattended on the side of the road. apparently the city has declared a "state of calamity" due to the continuous burning fueled by the methane gas emissions, which are released from the decomposing trash. the city's plan is to install ventilation pipes to release the gas properly and prevent future fires (that will never happen), and for now they're just trying to deal with relocating the people suffering from severe respiratory ailments from the smoke (as if the dumpsite is normally such a clean place... the debris and dirt and toxins in the air made all of my pictures look speckled when we were there!)... the newspaper also pointed out that the landfill violates the Clean Air Act and the Solid Waste Management Act (thank you captain obvious)... there was no mention of the hundreds, even thousands of people who make their permanent home on the compacted - and presently burning - trash...
A landfill seemed like an awful place to build a home (to specify, home = shack built of discarded wood, tin and torn linens), but today we visited a community located in a place that made me think I wouldn't really mind living at the dump afterall... we went to the cemetary. I was very excited for this visit... I really like cemetaries (that may seem odd, but I think they're beautiful and make for great photos... also, working with cadavers has made me feel very comfortable around the deceased). anyway, we're in a poor neighborhood just like any other in Cebu - laundry hung from everywhere, stray dogs and cats wandering the streets, roosters tied up randomly, people staring, food stands stinking of meat... the usual. and we start our walk as we do in most of the poor areas we visit, heading down a narrow alley between houses, trying to keep up with whoever is leading us while watching where we step (puddles of unidentified liquids are plentiful and must always be avoided!). the communities are a mosaic of shanty houses, many surrounded by large walls - for security, not privacy, none have yards. they build up if they add on to their tiny lots, and I feel I would be uncomfortable visiting the upper story, or lower level for that matter, of most of the houses we pass.
soon we have gathered a parade of followers. most of them are children in typical drab rags - holes and stains and wrong sizes - though some of the children aren't wearing clothes at all (maybe due to the heat? or perhaps it is laundry day? more likely due to the cost). Hilary and Rhonda know some of the women there, and we say hi to twins (Brandon and Brendan - really? that mom was just setting herself up for confusion), that were delivered at the clinic four years ago. No graves yet but we have found a basketball court (that and volleyball seem to be the favored sports here... and flying kites, is that considered a sport?). we wander deeper into the maze of houses and eventually come to a small opening... we've found the graves. They are large cement tombs that sit haphazardly on the ground. they are not in even rows, none are level with the others, and most have garbage piled up around them. I see a cement coffin covered in goat poop (whatever happened to respecting the dead?). there are only a few coffins at first, many of which are partially obscured by the laundry hanging over them... a little further and we reach a big opening, graves everywhere, houses interspersed. there are no trends in how the cements tombs are placed... some are stacked, others surrounded by gates, all are in a state of disarray. there are a few cement sculptures, but most of the coffins are plain with a simple engraving at the end. the only similarity between the mismatched and chaotically placed tombs is that they're labeled. each coffin has a black number/letter combo painted sloppily on it... their way of monitoring how long the body has been occupying the coffin I would assume. 5 years after burial (though that isn't exactly the right term because everything is above ground), you must either pay to rent for another 5 years, or figure out if you want the bones cleaned to take home or discarded - fun decisions to make a mere 5 years after the loss of a loved one.
on our drive back to the clinic i was staring out the window (there is always so much to see, it never gets old), and I noticed with the sun so low in the sky it was lighting up the kites flying over the city. it was incredible! there must've been 50 kites (a kite can be anything from an intricate bird sold by street vendors, to a plastic bag tied to a string)... the ocean breeze makes for an ideal kite flying environment at any time of day and thus, you see kids flying kites at every time of day. this was particularly cool because i was looking inland and had a view of the flats - where most people live - with the mountains behind, and there were kites speckling the horizon. by the looks of it, we're going to have another 5 alarm sunset as well tonight... the clouds here, in combination with the pollution, make for incredible sunsets almost every night!
we learned about the sea gypsy population briefly on the ride home. they are the people who live on the water (or near the edge) in stilt houses... apparently they don't own the land, and are forced to be continually moving. Hilary says they have their own language and culture and everything... and on occasion, when one comes to the clinic for a pregnancy, she is always very difficult to deal with because they have their own way of doing everything.
today we also learned a little about the whitening creams you so commonly find here in the Philippines. I have mentioned everyone's obsession with having pale skin (similar and yet opposite to America's obsession with maintaining that perfect bronze), and the abundance of whitening creams at the store. Hilary learned the hard way that you have to carefully read the label of the soaps and lotions you purchase. years ago she bought a whitening lotion by accident... went to the doctor because she was getting these white spot on her skin and the doctor explained in was from whitening cream. sure enough she had accidentally been using a whitening product. you might be wondering... how does it work? answer: fungus! eats away at your pigment! sick!! but really, is a tanning bed any better? fungus... skin cancer... fungus... skin cancer. no comment.
i find the whitening creams very odd... i also have trouble with the cheese flavored ice cream that i keep mistaking for mango flavor. good thing Lo has so far reminded me that no, those are not squares of mango in the picture on the wrapper, but in fact cubes of cheese. then again, maybe ill try it just to see what it's like.... I've found that you can get accustomed to pretty much anything here. Adjusting to the constant random crowing of the roosters, however, did take a while. especially since they are often the loudest late at night and early in the morning (or maybe that's just when they drive you the most crazy)... the other sound that I'm not sure I'm used to yet is the squeaking of the tricycle breaks as the drivers ease their way down the slight incline of the street in front of the clinic. it is often ear piercing enough to stop clinic meetings and force everyone to physically plug their ears while making pained faces and huffing in exasperation at the annoyance. oddly enough i think it is one of those sounds I'll grow to miss by the end of the trip... just part of the experience here.... then again, maybe not :)
not to mention the resource that the dump site offers for someone scavaging for juice boxes...
unfortunately, according to today's paper, the Barangay Inayawan landfill (where we went with Father Heinz to treat the sick children), is currently on fire, so I'm not sure if it's such a great time to be collecting discarded juice boxes for making bags. not that random fires are usual here - it's hard to go a day without seeing trash burning unattended on the side of the road. apparently the city has declared a "state of calamity" due to the continuous burning fueled by the methane gas emissions, which are released from the decomposing trash. the city's plan is to install ventilation pipes to release the gas properly and prevent future fires (that will never happen), and for now they're just trying to deal with relocating the people suffering from severe respiratory ailments from the smoke (as if the dumpsite is normally such a clean place... the debris and dirt and toxins in the air made all of my pictures look speckled when we were there!)... the newspaper also pointed out that the landfill violates the Clean Air Act and the Solid Waste Management Act (thank you captain obvious)... there was no mention of the hundreds, even thousands of people who make their permanent home on the compacted - and presently burning - trash...
A landfill seemed like an awful place to build a home (to specify, home = shack built of discarded wood, tin and torn linens), but today we visited a community located in a place that made me think I wouldn't really mind living at the dump afterall... we went to the cemetary. I was very excited for this visit... I really like cemetaries (that may seem odd, but I think they're beautiful and make for great photos... also, working with cadavers has made me feel very comfortable around the deceased). anyway, we're in a poor neighborhood just like any other in Cebu - laundry hung from everywhere, stray dogs and cats wandering the streets, roosters tied up randomly, people staring, food stands stinking of meat... the usual. and we start our walk as we do in most of the poor areas we visit, heading down a narrow alley between houses, trying to keep up with whoever is leading us while watching where we step (puddles of unidentified liquids are plentiful and must always be avoided!). the communities are a mosaic of shanty houses, many surrounded by large walls - for security, not privacy, none have yards. they build up if they add on to their tiny lots, and I feel I would be uncomfortable visiting the upper story, or lower level for that matter, of most of the houses we pass.
soon we have gathered a parade of followers. most of them are children in typical drab rags - holes and stains and wrong sizes - though some of the children aren't wearing clothes at all (maybe due to the heat? or perhaps it is laundry day? more likely due to the cost). Hilary and Rhonda know some of the women there, and we say hi to twins (Brandon and Brendan - really? that mom was just setting herself up for confusion), that were delivered at the clinic four years ago. No graves yet but we have found a basketball court (that and volleyball seem to be the favored sports here... and flying kites, is that considered a sport?). we wander deeper into the maze of houses and eventually come to a small opening... we've found the graves. They are large cement tombs that sit haphazardly on the ground. they are not in even rows, none are level with the others, and most have garbage piled up around them. I see a cement coffin covered in goat poop (whatever happened to respecting the dead?). there are only a few coffins at first, many of which are partially obscured by the laundry hanging over them... a little further and we reach a big opening, graves everywhere, houses interspersed. there are no trends in how the cements tombs are placed... some are stacked, others surrounded by gates, all are in a state of disarray. there are a few cement sculptures, but most of the coffins are plain with a simple engraving at the end. the only similarity between the mismatched and chaotically placed tombs is that they're labeled. each coffin has a black number/letter combo painted sloppily on it... their way of monitoring how long the body has been occupying the coffin I would assume. 5 years after burial (though that isn't exactly the right term because everything is above ground), you must either pay to rent for another 5 years, or figure out if you want the bones cleaned to take home or discarded - fun decisions to make a mere 5 years after the loss of a loved one.
on our drive back to the clinic i was staring out the window (there is always so much to see, it never gets old), and I noticed with the sun so low in the sky it was lighting up the kites flying over the city. it was incredible! there must've been 50 kites (a kite can be anything from an intricate bird sold by street vendors, to a plastic bag tied to a string)... the ocean breeze makes for an ideal kite flying environment at any time of day and thus, you see kids flying kites at every time of day. this was particularly cool because i was looking inland and had a view of the flats - where most people live - with the mountains behind, and there were kites speckling the horizon. by the looks of it, we're going to have another 5 alarm sunset as well tonight... the clouds here, in combination with the pollution, make for incredible sunsets almost every night!
we learned about the sea gypsy population briefly on the ride home. they are the people who live on the water (or near the edge) in stilt houses... apparently they don't own the land, and are forced to be continually moving. Hilary says they have their own language and culture and everything... and on occasion, when one comes to the clinic for a pregnancy, she is always very difficult to deal with because they have their own way of doing everything.
today we also learned a little about the whitening creams you so commonly find here in the Philippines. I have mentioned everyone's obsession with having pale skin (similar and yet opposite to America's obsession with maintaining that perfect bronze), and the abundance of whitening creams at the store. Hilary learned the hard way that you have to carefully read the label of the soaps and lotions you purchase. years ago she bought a whitening lotion by accident... went to the doctor because she was getting these white spot on her skin and the doctor explained in was from whitening cream. sure enough she had accidentally been using a whitening product. you might be wondering... how does it work? answer: fungus! eats away at your pigment! sick!! but really, is a tanning bed any better? fungus... skin cancer... fungus... skin cancer. no comment.
i find the whitening creams very odd... i also have trouble with the cheese flavored ice cream that i keep mistaking for mango flavor. good thing Lo has so far reminded me that no, those are not squares of mango in the picture on the wrapper, but in fact cubes of cheese. then again, maybe ill try it just to see what it's like.... I've found that you can get accustomed to pretty much anything here. Adjusting to the constant random crowing of the roosters, however, did take a while. especially since they are often the loudest late at night and early in the morning (or maybe that's just when they drive you the most crazy)... the other sound that I'm not sure I'm used to yet is the squeaking of the tricycle breaks as the drivers ease their way down the slight incline of the street in front of the clinic. it is often ear piercing enough to stop clinic meetings and force everyone to physically plug their ears while making pained faces and huffing in exasperation at the annoyance. oddly enough i think it is one of those sounds I'll grow to miss by the end of the trip... just part of the experience here.... then again, maybe not :)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
an honest pirated movie saleswoman...?
the continuity of this blog is... terrible. try to keep up. sorry if it's confusing :)
not sure i should be blogging about this so publicly but Lo and I bought our first ever pirated movies today... John, our driver/body guard (seriously, we've tried to ditch him before and he won't have it, he has stern instruction to supervise us when we're away from the clinic), took us to the city center where a bunch of stands are set up with cases and cases of movies. the covers are faded with distorted images that resemble the originals, and I'm not sure yet about the quality of the movies. there is a tv on site and the woman would play the movies you showed interest in to prove they work - how thoughtful! she even advised me against getting PUSH, a newer movie she said was not yet being produced in the higher quality - can you believe that? an honest pirated movie saleswoman! i was impressed. they even have an exchange policy where you can bring back movies that don't work well and get a replacement. who knew you could get such customer service when buying illegally copied movies for P50 ($1 US). i normally wouldn't support such an industry, however, since we are usually restricted to the apt after dark we're getting a little desperate for entertainment...
the guards take such good care of us here, and Nefa, our cook, pampers us also. she made pancakes for our 3 o'clock snack today (Filipinos always have a 3pm snack... usually cheese rolls from Julie's bakeshop, though i don't really know why they're called that, you probably only have a 1 in 5 chance of picking a roll that actually has a tiny, almost invisible, sliver of cheese in it :) Nefa's pancakes are delicious! as is almost everything she cooks for us - except this one weird egg plant thing with the most bitter taste... i ate it anyway to be respectful - baaddd aftertaste! We have made great friends with the guards who are constantly teaching us new Cebuano words and making us practice. they like to know where we're going when we wander off to get ice cream down the street at Dodings or to hunt down a few mangoes at one of the nearby stands. Jojo is constantly reminding me to keep my purse in front of me rather than hanging over my shoulder behind me.
i was sitting on the street reading today (I'm done with Mountains Beyond Mountains - great book - and I've moved on to Dreams from my Father by Obama!! also a very good read so far)... and these two young girls wandered past me down the street. the smaller of the two was carrying a huge cardboard box bigger than she was. it had a picture on it of a white girl, about her age, sitting by a playhouse, and across the box it read "my happy family". It seemed ironic. i wondered what she was going to use that box for... cardboard is a precious commodity here and Lo and I save our cereal and granola bar boxes for the girls in the clinic (I think they can sell it). I always see interesting things on our street... just the other day a very old couple was walking down the street begging. they were being led by a child who couldn't have been older than 3 years... the grandpa and grandma were both blind and bent over, totally reliant on the child to lead them from door to door.
I've come to realize that there is a lot of irony in the Philippines... or at least many things that just don't make sense. Went to the post office to mail postcards today. this is the trial run, more will be mailed soon! once i know how long it takes for them to get to the states - 45 days was the last estimate, hopefully it'll take closer to two weeks. although we picked up a package from the post office today that had just arrived for the clinic, the contents were wrapped in christmas paper, not reassuring - talk about snail mail!! on our drive there I saw an old man, his skin leathery from years in the sun and sagging from his bony, hunched body... he was wearing a shirt that said "dough boy". ironic? how about this one... a man just as aged, and crippled by the look of it, wearing a shirt with bold letters that read VARSITY ATHLETE. that one got me too...
a few other things worth noting while I'm on this random tangent... men can urinate in public here (seriously, we see it allllll the time), but a woman doing the same thing would be put in jail. here's another "fun" fact: it is common practice to get your son circumsized here at age 8. have i already mentioned this? they usually have a party for the occasion. I'm sure that's just what the 8 year old boys feel like doing after being circumsized, going to hang out with a bunch of people at a party.
Lo and I battled a cockroach the other night. For the most part the bugs around here aren't that bad (knock on wood)... we've got really tiny brown ants that don't really bother me except when they destroy our food, but then there are these slightly bigger psycho black ants that move really fast and they creep me out. and the cockroaches are the worst because they're soooo big! late the night before last i was sitting at the kitchen table with my ipod in sketching, when something on the floor caught my eye - huge cockroach!! so obviously i grabbed a cup and trapped the cockroach under it (i don't think i could smush something that big)... Lauren has no qualms about killing cockroaches so after getting our cameras to take video of the slaughter, we lifted the cup and lauren swiftly smashed it with her shoe (pretty impressive considering how fast they move!)... get excited for the video to be posted later :)
We've had some odd names come through the clinic. Filipinos in general have some of the most unusual names... we had a Bitchy, a Cherry and a Friday.... Cherry came for a checkup yesterday to the clinic. she is one of the girls from Kamagayan - her last name is Love, and the reason I can tell you that is because it is not her legal name, so no violation of confidentiality. her delivery had been in the early morning that night we were up for the two simultaneous labors. She had been the difficult one not listening to instruction from the midwives. Her Bantay (an escort... the brothel "mother" in charge of all of the girls came as her Bantay), took the baby from her the moment it was born. the babies are pretty much confiscated from the girls (not that Cherry was showing any interest in the baby girl anyway, she actually asked if she could be laid on the floor because she didn't want the baby in the bed with her). Because this baby is female it will be raised by the brothel owner (not sure what they do with the baby boys, don't think i want to know)... another perfect little innocent life with a corrupt and terrible future she has no way of escaping. It is probably too early to tell if this baby has brain damage (Cherry is usually on drugs when she comes to the clinic, and her elevated blood pressure is always alarming!)... I held that little girl for almost an hour last night, she is so beautiful. she was named by the clinic staff because Cherry refused to name her... she is remarkably small compared to most of the babies we've seen in the clinic. this could be because Cherry refuses to breast feed her... or because of the drugs - though the baby doesn't seem to be going through withdrawals (then again, I'm no expert). It makes your heart break. she slept quietly in my arms, so content to walk around the clinic with me, hang out on the street talking to the guards, sleep on my lap while i played with her tiny hands. a perfect little baby with an imperfect future and no one to step in and save her.
somehow my blogs always end up heading in a depressing direction... it is hard to overlook because it is so prevalent in our experience here. bottom line is, despite all the sad things we see and experience we're having a really great time here (mostly thanks to the incredible people we spend time with), and gaining insight into a world I would have otherwise not known. It makes you appreciate what you have, feel compelled to do more, consume less, thank more, complain less, give more...I am so fortunate.
not sure i should be blogging about this so publicly but Lo and I bought our first ever pirated movies today... John, our driver/body guard (seriously, we've tried to ditch him before and he won't have it, he has stern instruction to supervise us when we're away from the clinic), took us to the city center where a bunch of stands are set up with cases and cases of movies. the covers are faded with distorted images that resemble the originals, and I'm not sure yet about the quality of the movies. there is a tv on site and the woman would play the movies you showed interest in to prove they work - how thoughtful! she even advised me against getting PUSH, a newer movie she said was not yet being produced in the higher quality - can you believe that? an honest pirated movie saleswoman! i was impressed. they even have an exchange policy where you can bring back movies that don't work well and get a replacement. who knew you could get such customer service when buying illegally copied movies for P50 ($1 US). i normally wouldn't support such an industry, however, since we are usually restricted to the apt after dark we're getting a little desperate for entertainment...
the guards take such good care of us here, and Nefa, our cook, pampers us also. she made pancakes for our 3 o'clock snack today (Filipinos always have a 3pm snack... usually cheese rolls from Julie's bakeshop, though i don't really know why they're called that, you probably only have a 1 in 5 chance of picking a roll that actually has a tiny, almost invisible, sliver of cheese in it :) Nefa's pancakes are delicious! as is almost everything she cooks for us - except this one weird egg plant thing with the most bitter taste... i ate it anyway to be respectful - baaddd aftertaste! We have made great friends with the guards who are constantly teaching us new Cebuano words and making us practice. they like to know where we're going when we wander off to get ice cream down the street at Dodings or to hunt down a few mangoes at one of the nearby stands. Jojo is constantly reminding me to keep my purse in front of me rather than hanging over my shoulder behind me.
i was sitting on the street reading today (I'm done with Mountains Beyond Mountains - great book - and I've moved on to Dreams from my Father by Obama!! also a very good read so far)... and these two young girls wandered past me down the street. the smaller of the two was carrying a huge cardboard box bigger than she was. it had a picture on it of a white girl, about her age, sitting by a playhouse, and across the box it read "my happy family". It seemed ironic. i wondered what she was going to use that box for... cardboard is a precious commodity here and Lo and I save our cereal and granola bar boxes for the girls in the clinic (I think they can sell it). I always see interesting things on our street... just the other day a very old couple was walking down the street begging. they were being led by a child who couldn't have been older than 3 years... the grandpa and grandma were both blind and bent over, totally reliant on the child to lead them from door to door.
I've come to realize that there is a lot of irony in the Philippines... or at least many things that just don't make sense. Went to the post office to mail postcards today. this is the trial run, more will be mailed soon! once i know how long it takes for them to get to the states - 45 days was the last estimate, hopefully it'll take closer to two weeks. although we picked up a package from the post office today that had just arrived for the clinic, the contents were wrapped in christmas paper, not reassuring - talk about snail mail!! on our drive there I saw an old man, his skin leathery from years in the sun and sagging from his bony, hunched body... he was wearing a shirt that said "dough boy". ironic? how about this one... a man just as aged, and crippled by the look of it, wearing a shirt with bold letters that read VARSITY ATHLETE. that one got me too...
a few other things worth noting while I'm on this random tangent... men can urinate in public here (seriously, we see it allllll the time), but a woman doing the same thing would be put in jail. here's another "fun" fact: it is common practice to get your son circumsized here at age 8. have i already mentioned this? they usually have a party for the occasion. I'm sure that's just what the 8 year old boys feel like doing after being circumsized, going to hang out with a bunch of people at a party.
Lo and I battled a cockroach the other night. For the most part the bugs around here aren't that bad (knock on wood)... we've got really tiny brown ants that don't really bother me except when they destroy our food, but then there are these slightly bigger psycho black ants that move really fast and they creep me out. and the cockroaches are the worst because they're soooo big! late the night before last i was sitting at the kitchen table with my ipod in sketching, when something on the floor caught my eye - huge cockroach!! so obviously i grabbed a cup and trapped the cockroach under it (i don't think i could smush something that big)... Lauren has no qualms about killing cockroaches so after getting our cameras to take video of the slaughter, we lifted the cup and lauren swiftly smashed it with her shoe (pretty impressive considering how fast they move!)... get excited for the video to be posted later :)
We've had some odd names come through the clinic. Filipinos in general have some of the most unusual names... we had a Bitchy, a Cherry and a Friday.... Cherry came for a checkup yesterday to the clinic. she is one of the girls from Kamagayan - her last name is Love, and the reason I can tell you that is because it is not her legal name, so no violation of confidentiality. her delivery had been in the early morning that night we were up for the two simultaneous labors. She had been the difficult one not listening to instruction from the midwives. Her Bantay (an escort... the brothel "mother" in charge of all of the girls came as her Bantay), took the baby from her the moment it was born. the babies are pretty much confiscated from the girls (not that Cherry was showing any interest in the baby girl anyway, she actually asked if she could be laid on the floor because she didn't want the baby in the bed with her). Because this baby is female it will be raised by the brothel owner (not sure what they do with the baby boys, don't think i want to know)... another perfect little innocent life with a corrupt and terrible future she has no way of escaping. It is probably too early to tell if this baby has brain damage (Cherry is usually on drugs when she comes to the clinic, and her elevated blood pressure is always alarming!)... I held that little girl for almost an hour last night, she is so beautiful. she was named by the clinic staff because Cherry refused to name her... she is remarkably small compared to most of the babies we've seen in the clinic. this could be because Cherry refuses to breast feed her... or because of the drugs - though the baby doesn't seem to be going through withdrawals (then again, I'm no expert). It makes your heart break. she slept quietly in my arms, so content to walk around the clinic with me, hang out on the street talking to the guards, sleep on my lap while i played with her tiny hands. a perfect little baby with an imperfect future and no one to step in and save her.
somehow my blogs always end up heading in a depressing direction... it is hard to overlook because it is so prevalent in our experience here. bottom line is, despite all the sad things we see and experience we're having a really great time here (mostly thanks to the incredible people we spend time with), and gaining insight into a world I would have otherwise not known. It makes you appreciate what you have, feel compelled to do more, consume less, thank more, complain less, give more...I am so fortunate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)