Adieu...Adieu...to you and you and you!

Well, April has come and gone and our Peace Corps service has come to an end. The last two years have been so crazy--we had so many wonderful experiences we hope will be etched in our minds for a long time to come, but will probably be forgotten sometime early next week and we have had some so not great times that we probably will never forget, no matter how hard we try. Such is life.

One of the wonderful experiences we had was our going away party. We were going to try to slip away quietly into the night but when our neighbors found out our intentions to slither away unnoticed, they quickly pulled together and helped us to throw a moderately huge party. We killed a pig, made approximately 24,382,385,103 pounds of food (just a rough estimate) and rented a videoke machine. In a word, it was 'ausgezeichnet.' Somehow, since we arrived at our site, we managed to acquire nearly 15 times the amount of things we initially arrived with, so we decided to have a Farver-farewell-free-for-all Raffle at our party, and everyone loved it. All of the people who attended the party (teachers, co-workers, neighbors, local village officials and most importantly, random tricycle drivers) put their name into a box. We assembled all of the prizes (or in other words, things not important enough to stuff into our overloaded bags but not worthless enough to throw away) and it was quite an array--shoes, shirts, sandals, movies, books, pens, stickers, shoes, sandals, shirts, flashlights and shoes were laid out for everyone to ogle over (yes, Erin got a lot of shoes since being here...). All the party-goers were clamoring over and claiming the coveted goods in hopes of their names being chosen first. I personally thought the shoes were kind of silly to offer as gifts to our guests, but they were the first things to go. The Farver-farewell-free-for-all Raffle was a huge success and everyone went home with bulging bellies sore throats and tired legs (we sang and danced A LOT). It was nice to have a bit of closing to our time there and it was great to see how many people loved us enough to come to our party (who am I kidding, people love roasted pig--I'm pretty sure there were some who came in, grabbed a plate and asked who the funny looking white people were).
A few days later we left our site for good. Our neighbors brought us and all our junk (luggage) to the bus terminal. We had a convoy of 1 van, 2 tricycles and a handful of bikes to see us off and it was quite the tearful goodbye. Except that when we arrived at the terminal, all 18 of us, the bus had not yet arrived so we stood around and waited, not quite ready to be sad, but not much to talk about at 8am in the blazing tropical sun. Only when the bus came did the tears flow, and so we hugged and kissed and waved and hopped on the bus and left our province of Antique.
Except we did not leave the Philippines yet. We still had medical clearance, close of service meetings, pre-English language camp training and an English language camp to attend to, so while it was sad to leave Antique, it really was not goodbye in the least. We still had a month of living out of our bags before we left the Philippines for a month of living out of our bags in other countries. Yay! There's not much sweeter than the smell of forgotten dirty clothes crammed into a backpack full of fresh, clean clothes. Mmmm.
In one sentence, here is what we did between leaving Antique and leaving the country.

We left for Iloilo then took a flight direct to Manila for Erin to help with training for the new batch of volunteers then flew with our friend Alice to swim with the whale sharks in the Bicol region, had a birthday (Scott), flew back for Close of Serice (COS) conference with all of our batch-mates, had our medical checkups, planned a 2 week English Conference for teachers from the Mindanao region, got walking Pneumonia (Erin),facilitated said camp, had a birthday (Erin), partially recovered from walking Pneumonia (Erin), returned to Manila, said goodbye to our volunteer friends, boarded a cab then a bus then a plane and flew out of the Philippines, destination, Malaysia.
Phew
Erin says the whaleshark trip deserves an extra sentence because it was so awesome.
Here goes:
Swimming with the whalesharks was possibly the coolest thing we have done in the Philippines.
There.
Actually, each event could warrant its own blog entry, and were I not so forgetful and tired in April, you would have already read all about them. Being as I have an incredibly short attention span, I can not imagine other people wanting to read mundane details that happened a jillion miles away last month, so we'll just tell all 3 of you who actually read this all about our April adventures when you pick us up from the airport (Mom, Mom and Dad).

Right now we are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (the cool people call it KL, so, of course, being as I never sat at the cool table, I will continue to call it Kuala Lumpur). We leave tomorrow for Cambodia to explore the Angkor Wat Temples. We return to the good ole' U S of A on May 27 and are looking forward to seeing everyone we love and then stuffing our faces with ice cream, cheese and steak, preferably all at the same time.
Thank you for your support during our Peace Corps service!
Love,
Scott and Erin

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

I saw one of the most pristine and impressive sights my eyes have beheld here in my 2 years in the Philippines the other day. Before going any further, the enormity of this initial statement should be weighed appropriately. To say that one thing that I have seen is above and beyond anything else during my experience as a Volunteer is a pretty bold statement, and one that took careful thought and consideration before finally writing it. We live in a pretty impressive location and see impressive sights every day; our front porch overlooks the cobalt waters of the Sulu Sea while our rear bedroom window frames an expanse of rugged hills surrounded by glaringly green rice paddies. In my time here I have been able to dive on reefs seemingly created in stunning Technicolor and unspoiled by human destruction due to the fact they were literally in the middle of nowhere. I have hiked on the precipitous edges of towering rice terraces carved into the side of mountains. Nearly every night brings an impressive performance by the sun as She dawdles in the sky and then swiftly dips into the far reaches of the horizon, causing the sky to explode into millions of hues of red. I have had my share of impressive sights, so it is a big deal for me to say I had witnessed something that was more spectacular than all the rest.

I stood there slack-jawed and reverent in the midst of its beauty— the sheer number of objects was striking enough, but the colors—oh, the amazing colors—they were truly impressive! They were so vivid. So remarkable. My eyes roamed back and forth across its expanse, hungrily drinking in the beauty. It was something I wanted to relish and save in my memory banks for a long time. Erin was stunned speechless (itself an impressive feat) and I was merely able to mumble a weak “wow” as we just stood and enjoyed looking at it and being in its presence.

The cereal aisle at the Iloilo City Supermarket is really nothing compared to its cousins across the pond in Walmart, Safeway or the perennial Michigander one-stop-favorite, Meijer, but we liked what saw. We liked it a lot. It did not stretch as far as the eye could see, but it stretched far enough for us. The choices of yummy grainy breakfast foods at our site is limited to 2 or 3 varieties of stale, generic flakes of corn or crisped rice puffs. There are not even any cartoon characters on the boxes. How am I supposed to excited about cereal without any furry, funny or freaky character pedaling his or her wares?! For cereal aficionados like Erin and I, this lack of cereal has been a rather difficult time of adjustment for us. Our whole morning routine was thrown out of whack, not to mention the before-bed-bowl we were so keen to enjoy in the States. Erin and I have overcome a lot here; in the past 2 years, we were able, for the most part, to somehow negotiate around and through the complexities of the obscure dialect used in our rural province and string together various useful sentences such as “Where today go you really?” and “Taste good skin of goat.” We were also able to adjust to wearing jeans in stifling heat, being stared at, pointed at and laughed at every single day and sleeping amidst the cacophony created by the legion of roosters, cows and videoke machines that love to signal the arrival of 5 a.m. However, living without acres of cuddly characters celebrating their tasty wares of first-meal-is-the-most-important-meal-of-the-day-goodness, well…that has proved to be a little bit more trying. Seeing more than 2 varieties of cereal was, well, nice. Actually, I believe the correct pronunciation would be ‘niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.’

The initial awe was intense, but fleeting. At first we just looked and enjoyed our status as observers of this supermarket splendor, but then, somewhat suddenly, we both shook out of our awe and realized that these precious boxes were not just for looking at, they were designed to be purchased. They were made to be owned, however briefly, and consumed. Eaten. Gobbled. Scoffed. Munched. Not the boxes, the cereal (though sometimes we may have chosen to eat cardboard instead of some of the dishes we have been served here). Our gazes became more intense and our focus shifted from mere admirer to ravenous American Consumer. Erin ran down one side of the aisle and I trotted next to her. We shouted out names of long lost favorites back and forth to each other, giddy in our new find. They sounded foreign to our unaccustomed ears, but familiar all the same. Many of our conversations with other volunteers revolve around favorite foods. It was as if I was in 7th grade again talking with my friends about all the girls I thought were beautiful but were out of my league, and then finding myself face to face with all of them eager to go with me. “MMM…Honey Nut Cheerios!” “ Frosted Flakes! From Kellogs!” We were giddy and continued shouting out the names to each other. They rang so beautifully in our ears.

At last, out of breath, our smiles stretched to exhaustion, we found ourselves in front of Barney Rubble and his box of Cocoa Pebbles. From Post. Imported, but not stale (we made sure to check the expiration date at least 4 times). Most importantly, Family Sized. When we have had the inkling for generic made-in-Indonesia corn flakes, we found each box holds approximately only 1.6 bowls of cereal. Tiny bowls. Not even bowlfuls, really, more like spoonfuls. This has proven to be problematic for us, since the bowls we received at our wedding and had used in the States were roughly the size of our Crock Pot. We would each regularly put away 2-3 bowls (nay, barrels) of cereal in one sitting (did I mention we were a little, umm, overweight when we lived in the US?). To see a sinfully sweet cereal was joyous enough, but that it was Family Size was pure ecstasy. We could enjoy it for more than 5 chews! We snatched it from the shelf and ooohed and ahhed over the weight of so much cereal, quickly helped Barney find his Pebbles through the maze on the back and read the nutritional facts on the side (in case you are not familiar with Cocoa Pebbles, there are, in fact, no nutritional value to eating that crunchy chocolaty goodness). The price was almost equal to a weeks worth of food (about 5 USD) but we were ready to throw caution to the wind and our wallets out the window. While you Can’t Buy Me Love, Happiness does have a price, and it is 220 Pesos.

Now, this experience may seem a bit trite to some of our friends and family in the US. I can picture you now reading this and thinking, “Of all the things in that tropical paradise, cereal is the most beautiful thing you’ve seen?! Stupid hippie.”
I want to make clear that would not be an accurate statement. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not, in fact, have long hair anymore and should not be labeled a hippie. That being cleared up, we would happily exchange a few of our palm trees for a couple of good boxes of cereal. Maybe some granola or muesli. I realize this is a bit ludicrous as well; I am not sure how I would even begin to bring a palm tree to the post office. In truth, though, I am familiar with Joni Mitchell’s (and more recently Counting Crow’s) inspiring words that, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone” and I do not want to glaze over our experiences these past 2 years by seriously stating that we would rather have cereal than sunsets, reefs or palm trees. I know that as soon as we get back to the States and are walking down the endless miles of cereal aisles we will soon get tired of (and fat from) the thousands of choices available to us and will wish we were back here lounging in a hammock by the sea. But for now, we will cherish what we had, which was really the best of both worlds. We got a chance to eat yummy cereal on our porch watching a sunset amidst the palm trees, which was pretty great (even if it meant we could not afford to eat for the next 4 days). It was a perfect mix of both the familiar amenities of home with the wondrous surroundings of the Philippines. Now that we are packing up and ready to move on, I am realizing that, even though I miss some of the conveniences of home, I am going to miss the beauty and simplicity which exists here. If only I could figure out how to get some palm trees back to Michigan…

Moving On...

The NGO Erin works for, Save the Children, has recently decided they will re-concentrate their resources from our region to the Mindanao region of the country--it's in the far south and due in part to its proximity to Indonesia, it's distance from Manila, a Muslim majority being ruled by a Christian minority, and many other factors, there has been a lot of violence in that part of the country in the past few years. Resources are in constant demand and the problems are real and pressing. The children of Mindanao really do need Save's help. Some places in that region are particularly dangerous for westerners to go to, and we are not allowed by our organization to even visit that region. Save the Children's projects in and around our region have become self-sustaining and now they are redirecting their efforts where they are perhaps more immediately needed. While this is great news for all of the children in Mindanao and we whole-heartedly agree with Save's move, this also means that Erin's counterparts will no longer be working in our province. There was a "Moving On" ceremony last weekend for the workers who will be, well, 'moving on' in their lives, and Erin was included in the ceremony as our remaining time here begins to run short. It was a wonderful occasion to be able to hear all of the accomplishments of the people and the organization over the past 26 years of operating in our region. Smiles beamed and tears flowed together during the beautiful ceremony as people reminisced and said their goodbyes. Some of the staff made a video collage of all of Erin's work over the past 2 years. As a proud husband, it truly made me misty-eyed to see all of the work Erin has done in the last 2 years. I know the video may be long, but it's worth the wait to watch it and to see a little of what Erin and Save the Children have done for the children of our region in the past 2 years.

Library Pictures

In case your attention span is anything like Erin's (approximately .0432 seconds) and you can't wait for the video from the last post to load, here are some pictures of the library for you to enjoy.
Thank you again to everyone who supported us in this project!



The Library before the big opening


The other side of the library


The kids listening to the stories Erin and I recorded


Some teachers and I celebrating both my haircut and the Library opening


Reading is awesome!

It's Finished!

The library project we started waaaaay back last October is finished. It was blessed and opened on February 28 during the Special Education Center's celebration of it's founding three years ago.
I haven't been posting pictures of the progress so that everyone would be surprised when they finally saw them. The kids love it so far and the books are being lovingly used every day. It feels great to be done.
The original video is higher quality but very large and it takes a long time to download. This video is smaller, but the quality is not as good..
Hope you enjoy it though!

Thank you to everyone who supported our community during this project!

Not sure what to write..

Blah. I feel like we need to update this page because I get bored with it not having anything new on it. I had a whole article (is that what these things are called?) written about how daunting our impact as individuals is for us as Volunteers, but upon re-reading it, it seemed too melodramatic and contrived. Not that I’m not daunted (can that word be used in the past tense?) by the idea of everyone around me scrutinizing my every word or movement, I just couldn’t get my feeling down on paper (or keyboard, I guess) without sounding like a jaded hypocrite.
So I started writing about how our library is opening at school and how tiring it’s been the last few weeks preparing everything, but that just sounded whiny. Just what people want to hear is how tired I am. Right. I'll write more about the library after it's done.
Then I was going to write about how one of our friends from college who is teaching in Korea came over and visited us and how great it was to see our community through her eyes, but it was one of those things where you just had to be there. Great fun for us, but probably not much fun for anyone who would read it.
I’ve got really long hair right now and am struggling with whether to get a hair cut or to continue the facade that I am a hippie Peace Corps Volunteer. I thought for about 2 seconds that I would write about that. Oh, the drama.
Erin and I are awaiting word on our post-Peace Corps life. We’re not sure where we’re going to end up, so I can’t really write about that yet, either.
I think that people think that our life is exotic and exciting and I know that I think sometimes that it’s not. I thought there was nothing exiting about what we were doing. Every once in a while I forget about the magic that is living here and every once in a while when I forget about the magic that is living here, something happens to remind me of it. For example:

I was riding a tricycle home last night from an awarding ceremony in a nearby town with my supervisor and principal at around dusk. They were sitting in the front and I was in the back. Usually when I travel between towns, I’m contorted inside of a Jeepney, my head forced to tilt at a 70 degree angle with no real view of the outside world passing by. In my tricycle last night, the view was unobstructed and my head fit comfortably under the roof. As we were traveling back to our town, I found myself in awe of my surroundings. Everything seemed so beautiful, it was as if I was a tourist visiting for the first time. The rice fields glimmered under the setting sun and the mountains in the distance, while not Himalayan in size, took on an impressive stance just the same. Carabao were being led in from the field, people were busily cooking food at roadside stands, and the air, which had been baked by the 100+ degree heat of the day, felt unbelievably refreshing as we slowly sliced our way through it. My busy-ness of the past few weeks had made me forget that I live on a tropical island in Asia. It made me forget how different that is to the life I was leading in California or Michigan. So I smiled, clicked a few pictures, and tried to imprint the scene in my memory.

Kasadyahan and Dinagyang 2008

Festival Season continues. . .
This time it was the Dinagyang Festival in Iloilo City, which looks A LOT like the Ati-Atihan Festival in Kalibo, only this time, Erin is in the parade! Save the Children marched (not only marched, but performed a choreographed dance routine over and over again for nearly 5 hours straight while marching 4 kilometers in 100 degree temperatures)in the Kasadyahan Parade along with many other community groups, businesses and tribal dancers. Save the Children joined in the festivities as an advocacy activity to promote maternal and child health. Let's just say we lined up at 5:30am and the parade finally wrapped up around 1:30pm. What a day! Yes, we really had a choreographed dance routine and matching neon green and white clothes. The TV cameras loved our group because we had 3 foreign volunteers marching among our ranks. Of course, being my camera shy self, I danced like crazy and hammed it right up for the crowd. It was a great day for a great cause.



Naira, Tita Norms, Naomi(Australian volunteer, also with Save the Children, but in a different city) and Erin showing our enthusiasm for maternal health and Dinagyang.


Check out those moves!



Healthy Mothers! Healthy Families!


Erin, Naomi and Star already posing for the camera at 6am



The main highlight of the Dinagyang is the tribal street dancing competition on the last day of the festival. Twenty different tribes (or performing High School/Community groups) from the island of Panay perform an elaborate dance routine at 4 different judging stations around the city. It is a sight to behold and one of my favorite traditions in the Philippines














And finally, no party is complete without chicken on a stick!