August 1^st, 2009

Today, I got up in the morning to join Dr. Russell for our final breakfast together.  She is staying behind for a few extra days to get some things done for all of these projects.  Dr. Russell and Merrilyn said that they were very proud of me for being such an enthusiastic and a vibrant representative of the US for all of the communities that we participated in.  That means a lot to me!  After exchanging a few hugs and getting few more pictures snapped, I was off to the airport.  The flight from Cebu to Manila was a short one and was especially made easy by my new-found fondness for my ipod.  I hadn’t listened to music for a while so I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity.  Also at the airport, I had gotten a chance to play the CD the PYLP students had gifted me.  I was surprised to find a montage of pictures they all took with me and including videos of my dancing and singing escapades.  I literally started tearing in recongnition of their love and care.  I am going to miss them all very much!  Thank you PYLP 2009 for your love and support! Salaamut!

Parting ways with Dr. Russell

I arrived in Manila to find it being bombarded by rain so I figured I would just hangout around the hotel for today.  I had planned on going to the Ayala Museum or the Greenbelt Mall but I decided against it.  Instead, I decided to surf on the net and indulge in the many hotel extravagances.  I had gourmet Burgers and Fries for lunch.  Normally, I avoid such foods back home in the US but I was feeling nostalgic about home and needed some burgers and fries to assert my “Americanness”.  Then, I ordered a movie and  went to go swim in the poring rain.  After swimming, I treated myself to a full body massage at the hotel’s spa.  The place was absolutely stunning and the service was top-of-the-notch.  After feeling relaxed, I felt the pangs of hunger come on so I headed down to the Italian restaurant and enjoyed a hearty dinner.  After which, I came back upstairs to get my final blog entry out of the way.  During the day, I also managed to squeeze in a trip to the local bookstore and arcade as I did before when I was in Manila.

I want to take this time to just say that I am so thankful for having had the chance to visit a beautiful country, engage with a hospitable culture, join highly gifted and active youth, and make some new friends along the way.  I feel absolutely blessed for being Dr. Russell’s companion for the trip and enjoyed her company as she helped me not only getting the best experience possible through the knowledge she provided but also her support regarding my Fulbright application.  It was an honor!  I love this place so much that I will be coming back next year—God Willing!  On another note, the Philippines is mourning the loss of one of their more famous presidents, President Corazon Aquino.  Also, it appears that Zamboanga is being hit hard by a typhoon and, unfortunately, the Mariki elementary school was badly damaged and many in the community had to evacuate as well.  Is there any cosmic justice in this world?  What are the scales of morality?  These are all questions that deserve proper attention and expertise, none of which I can afford presently but worth thinking about.  I pray for the betterment of those affected by the typhoon at Mariki.

The final piece of advice that I want to pass along to my fellow globe-trekkers is that the only weapons you need to arm yourself with here are your smile and a friendly “hello”.  You’d be surprised at how much Tagalo or Visaya you’ll be able to absorb, you’ll be shocked at the number of new friends you’ll make, you’ll be fascinated by the taste of Filipinno foods, and you’ll come away feeling satisfied that you’ve dipped into the sea of humanity and came away drenched in the purity of the human spirit.

My complimentary sumptuous mango awaits me…

Mabuhay!

Salaamut,

Mokaram

Friday, July 31^st 2009

After an emotional farewell at Silsala last night, this day was expected to be a down-er.  However, the excitement of seeing a different city was hard to contain.  In the morning, I hesitantly said goodbye to Kenny.  It’s weird to know that he won’t be joining me in my morning jogs and my exploration.  Parting with good friends is always more difficult than anything.

A view from above

The flight to Cebu was only an hour and 15 minutes.  From what I was told, it would’ve taken us days by sea or land to complete this journey.  Thank God for modern advances in transportation technology!  It seems like the more places I visit in the Philippines, the more beauty I see and, according to Dr. Russell, I have yet to see the most beautiful parts of the Islands.  Oh boy, I need to definitely return.  Cebu is a beautiful city and has a very “laid-back” feel to it.  It is highly advanced, developed and industrialized especially in relation to Zamboanga City.  Additionally, it is unique in having both beautiful beaches and awe-inspiring mountainous regions.  The neglect that exists in Mindanao is absent in Cebu, which allows it to boast itself as the country’s breadwinner.  We arrived at yet another top-notch hotel.  Taking a 21-year old to 5-star hotels and popular restaurants is only spoiling him!  Nonetheless, I am thankful for having been extended the opportunity to represent CAIR-Chicago, MYLS, and the US.  At the hotel, Merrilyn was already present with a few other people that needed to be evaluated for another one of Dr. Russell’s projects.  This one, called NSD (North South Dialogue), identifies emerging leaders and trains them for a few weeks in the US.  We all had lunch at the hotel’s Asian buffet.  Oh man, I could not help but dab and douse a little here and a little there as I tried everything.  My taste buds were craving for some variety and some glamour as I had grown a bit tired of the steamed rice and fried chicken that I was getting at Silsala everyday.  Needless to say, my taste buds were reinvigorated.  :)

Landed in Cebu

At lunch, I met Joyce Robin.  Joyce is an elected counselor for her Barangay (smallest unit of government) and is one of the youngest to get elected.  One of her duties include being in charge of Public Health in her community and at the instant of hearing of my career plans and current course of study, she offered for me to come and work with her community.  Wow!  I was really excited to learn more about her community and if Cebu is a place where I would want to stay.  After lunch, Joyce volunteered to show me around.  She took me on a tour of the city including Magellan’s Cross (commemorating Magellan’s landing in Cebu where he was killed by Chief Lapu Lapu.  He actually didn’t circumnavigate the world as he was killed in Cebu by the locals).   She also passed along bits of knowledge about eveyrhting from the origin for the name of the city to the history of the roads and streets.  Her description of life in Cebu sounded pretty enticing.  To add to that, she was so encouraged about her particular community as well.

At Magellan's Cross with Joyce

We arrived in Joyce’s Barangay to find their local gym packed for a festival of sorts.  Apparently, the elementary school was electing PTA officers so a whole celebratory event was organized including a dance competition and food of course—delicious food!  I was asked to be seated amongst the notable elected officials and personalities on the stage.  My presence was announced and cheered and I was also slated to judge the dance competition that was supposed to follow the PTA pledges.  The dance competition involved the elected PTA officers for each grade.  In all, there were 9 different groups who danced creatively and skillfully.  Man, Filipinos can dance!  I better shape up if I have plans of staying here for a year.  I successfully judged the dance competition and awarded the first place prize.  I can’t believe the notoriety I was afforded as a guest of the community.  Plates of food, barrage of smiles and a multitude of handshakes just kept on coming.  Filipino hospitality is truly something to appreciate and admire.  All you need is a smile and a “hello” to get them to open their hearts and homes to you.  :) After the program concluded, Joyce showed me the community garden and the recycling competition they had engaged in to improve the health of the community.  The community is a very highly engaged and active one but lacks some critical resources.  They have trained health workers available on a limited basis and a physician who can only devote a few days of the month to community due to his busy schedule.

Awarding 1st place for the dance competition

Joyce then took me to Ayala Mall where I did a bit of my shopping for gifts and presents.  The mall was extraordinary in design, variety of stores, and sheer size.  Cebu is a true international city as I saw many different nationalities roaming around at the many sumptuous eateries and abundantly supplied department stores.  There, at the mall, Joyce and I joined Dr. Russell and the others for dinner.  Dinner was delicious once more and very fancy!  All for free—being a hot shot Prof is a cool gig to have.  Go Dr. Russell!  After dinner, Joyce and I skipped out to join the basketball championships for the mini and midget, yes midget not medium, division championship for the boys.  I was the honored guest once again who was supposed to present the awards at the end.  I can’t believe I got to do all these things!  In addition to that, I served as the play-by-play announcer for both games.  To say the least, the locals weren’t quite used to my verbose and excited style.  It was soo much fun!  Joyce assured me that I would be asked to emcee at every opportunity if I decided to live in their community.  I am flattered!  After the basketball games concluded, I got a chance to play with the local kids as well.  It was a lot of fun and I got a good workout in.  I hit a few jumpers, few layups, and played pretty good defense.  The skill of the players here is a bit better than our NU Feinberg folks.  No offense! After basketball, Joyce dropped me off at the hotel and promised me that she would do everything in her power to support me in my year off.  I am sooo pumped about my potential work here.  Now, I must contain this excitement and head to bed as I have an early flight to Manila tomorrow morning.

Watch out Marv Albert!

Maiyon Dabee,

Mokaram

Thursday, July 30^th 2009

Today was the final day of the Follow On program for PYLP.  In retrospect, it was more of a beginning if anything as new friendships, new dreams, and new goals were forged right before my eyes.  The day started out with Kenny and me grabbing a quick breakfast at the Hotel Coffee shop.  I got my usual “American” breakfast: toast, fried eggs, fruit, and juice.  Is that really American?  I imagine there would be at least 2000 more calories in donuts and cupcakes.  Anyways, enough of my criticisms on the American diet.  After breakfast, instead of our usual van, there was a charter bus with all the kids showed up to pick us up from the hotel.  At that point, I realized that nothing about this day will be the “usual”.  We boarded the bus and headed on down to the Mariki elementary school to complete our outreach community centered on the “operation-shoebox” project.

A Mosque in Mariki Village

Entrance to the Mariki School

The Mariki community is a mix of many different Muslim tribes and ethnicities.  The community is extremely impoverished and resides on the water—literally.  The entrance to the community leads way to wooden planks supported by long jutting wooden poles out of the shallow water.  It’s quite difficult to describe but it was a collection of run-down and shoddily constructed shacks standing 10-feet above water and at the mercy of the mercurial Sulu Sea.  As I was walking towards the school, I almost cracked a few of the rotting wooden planks.  If it were not for careful maneuvering, I would’ve for sure plunged into the waste contaminated water down below.  Unfortunately, the community’s elementary school didn’t fare better.  Even though the classrooms were constructed from cement, the school was grossly under-staffed, under-funded, and under-supported.  There were far too few teachers and the school only functioned because of their generosity in going above and beyond the call of duty.  Also, some of the classes didn’t have rooms.  As a matter of fact, the stage area in the middle of the school ground (not really a ground since it’s all floating above water) where we sat for the welcome and opening remarks from community officials and school faculty was a classroom for 4^th graders.  And this “stage” had no walls and it was lucky to have a roof.  As you can imagine, this community has many needs and with our community outreach we tried to help tackle one, school supplies.

Houses in Mariki

The outreach activity involved the PYLP students splitting into pairs in different classrooms to lead the kids in activities and games before handing out their free school supplies which were collected from the private High Schools due to the PYLP students’ effective campaigning two days ago.   I was really impressed with how the PYLP kids carried themselves both at the campaigning and in the community.  It was good for them to be exposed to these conditions as it informed and expanded their views of their own country’s dynamics.  I was able to go around to the different classrooms and spoke to the little ones as well as the teachers.  I was mauled in one room when trying to take a picture with kids hanging from every part of my body all wanting to pose.  But wherever I stepped in, I was greeted with warm pleasantries and excitement.  What was priceless for me was seeing the smiles on their faces during the activities and especially after they all got their school supplies.  One of the teachers told me that most of the kids couldn’t even afford to even buy a pencil.  Yeah, that is sad!  When asked if they liked studying, to which the students replied emphatically in the affirmative and that their reason was to help their parents live a better life.  These are the natural urges and desires that kids grow up with not guns or hatred.  It is we who corrupt their innocence in one form or another.  Here, negligence on behalf of the government will surely be this destructive catalyst.  I have plenty of pictures with the children at the school.  They were all very cute!

Being mauled by the camera lovers

PYLP posing

After the outreach activity, we boarded the bus to head to a picnic for lunch at the park but it was pouring buckets.  The current season is the rainy season but the locals find me unusually lucky to have had splendid weather on my trip. But today, I wasn’t so lucky.  I ate my packed lunch in the bus after a quick slumber, which I blame on me not having had eaten anything since 6AM and it was 1PM.  The kids were supposed to get a tour of Zamboanga City but Kenny and I decided to skip out at that point because I needed some rest before our closing ceremony tonight.

At the hotel, I decided to go on an eating binge.  I had a Kuracha (a local Crab specialty), French fries, chicken pie, and a chocolate drink.  Mind you, I had just eaten.  I was THAT hungry.  Well, this eating binge was successful in facilitating my nap.  I slept for a few hours and then got ready to attend the closing ceremony at Silsala community center.  We were a bit early so we joined the kids for dinner and then I hung out with them in their rooms for a while.  We all exchanged goodbye messages, multiple snaps, and loving hugs.  Then, hastily, we headed downstairs to be on time for the ceremony.  The adult organizers of the program had  done a great job in putting the closing ceremony together.  It included concluding remarks, award/certificate presentations, prayers, and words of encouragement.  Unexpectedly, I received a pretty nifty certificate for my participation as well.  At the end, I went up and said a few parting words of encouragement and thanks.  Also, Kenny and I surprised the kids with an Indian dance to the Slumdog Millionaire song Jai Ho.  We had rehearsed for quite a while the night before and both of us despise dancing so it was definitely done to put a smile on their faces.  Job accomplished!  As far as my dance moves, let’s just say that I won’t be trying out for roles in music videos anytime soon.  Following the ceremony, more photos were snapped, more hugs were exchanged, and more tears were shed.  Eventhough it was only 5 days, I feel like my family has split up.

Kenny and my shot at stardom

Getting my certificate from Dr. Russell and Dr. Madale

Following our painful goodbyes, luckily, Kenny joined me in the hotel one final time.  We stayed up for a pretty long time reflecting and talking.  I instantly clicked with him because I saw myself in him and I really do feel like I found a true best friend 7,000 miles away.  I’ll do my best to stay in touch with him as we can’t take such things for granted.  I leave for Cebu in the morning (on the Island of Visayas, located between Manila and Zamboanga City).  I better get going…

Saying goodbye to Kenny!

Magundang Dabee,

Mokaram