| From: |
Rich White-Smith rwhitesmith@gmail.com |
| Subject: |
Greetings from Palawan |
| Date: |
Monday, April 18, 2011 |
Dear friends,
I’m realizing that some of you who
are getting this email don’t know what’s happening in my life. Well, I
am now in the Philippines in  Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan
working as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer
for 6 months assisting an environmental NGO (Palawan Conservation
Corps) with their financial sustainability and organizational
development. I've been here on Palawan a month and am actually starting
to feel like an old hand. I'm working 9-5 and staying
at a guest house in town. This island is long and narrow with
mountains and rain forests along its entire spine, and white beaches and
coral reef along the shore. Not a bad assignment at all. “Somebody
has to do it,” I’m fond of saying.
Palawan is the least
populated and still has the most intact forest and sand beaches and
coral reefs in the Philippines, yet surface mining, illegal logging, as
well as cyanide and dynamite fishing are causing more
and more loss of old growth forests, silting of rivers and death of
coral reefs. In another email, I’ll share the work of an NGO that raids
and confiscates chain saws, weapons, trucks, and even ships (one used
for cyanide fishing). I was partying with the
team of ‘raiders’ Saturday night – wonderful family men who earn
pennies but deeply believe in their mission. The Exec Director, an
attorney, pays some of them from his own salary. They want me to join
them on a raid, but for some reason I don’t think either
the PC or the “reasonable Rich” within me would bless my participation,
though tempting. I have offered to help them find funding of $25,000 a
yr X 2, so I need help from any of you in identifying progressive
foundations that wouldn’t shy away from supporting
this legal but radical approach to stopping the demise of the old
growth forests and coral reefs. In January, a beloved charismatic
environmental activist, radio host, father and veterinarian was murdered
in Puerto Princesa, and the former governor and vice-governor
of Palawan are believed to be behind the murder. Their chief aide and
attorney says he “sold” the murder weapon to the shooter, who was
arrested. A place where the long-time mayor of Puerto Princesa, who has
a very dark mafiosa type past, has established
the cleanest city in the Philippines with an exceptional record of
protecting the environment, stopping illegal logging and mining, and a
strong advocacy for eco-tourism. Yet there remains an element of the
rough and tumble world of corruption and lots of
money to be made in a very rapidly developing island. Eight years ago
Palawan had flights to Manila 2-3 X a week, 4 yrs ago 3 a day, and now 9
a day with 2 major malls under construction with even a movie theatre
coming. Eco-tourism is rapidly advancing.
Adjustment. When I arrived
in Puerto Princesa a month ago, I was still engulfed in my self-created
whirlwind of arranging all the myriad of details involved in leaving my
home in Schenectady, plus a long flight and
an intense two days in Manila at Peace Corps HQ getting oriented on
issues of admin, safety and security, medical, 3 hrs of language and
cross-cultural training, etc. (Oh yes, and a swearing-in ceremony where
I swore to defend the US constitution from all
enemies. Hmmm…which Corps am I entering?) T he Exec Director of the
NGO (non-governmental organization) I’m working with later described me
as very uptight when we met and he was worrying that 6 months with me
was going to be a very long time. It took me
a good few days to adjust from the doing/driven heady mode to a more
centered one. I initially had difficulty with my desire to 'fix' them. Fortunately I applied the 24 hr cool down rule to myself, and that
saved me from self-destructing. The last thing
that's needed was for me to push my “good ideas” and alienate the Exec
Director, who is vital to any success I may have… before we get to know
each other. Ah, that 'type A' germ within me constantly seeks to
surface! The more we laughed and relaxed, the
more we all appreciated what we all had to offer.
I guess about 2 weeks into my stay
here I hit another 36-hour “what am I doing here” wall where I suddenly
awakened to the enormity of my task here while not yet having a game
plan. But fear not, game plan well along now
with lots of exciting tasks to do & people to meet, including
helping to organize and create a mountain trekking trail and experience for tourists– more about that another time.
Puerto Princesa is a well
worn and well lived-in city of probably 100,000+ people. Almost all the
buildings are made of concrete with a spinkling of bamboo with a rare
thatched or more commonly, corrugated steel roofs.
Roads are mostly concrete, often with crumbling on the edges and lots
of dirt side roads. Streets are mostly not lit at night, but are safe
for walking at any hour – but it pays to stay aware of the frequent
headlightless motorcycles and tricycles. I live
in 3-story (nothing here is more than 3-stories) guest house in an
8’X10..5’ room (that’s about 5% of my home’s size…but who’s counting!)
with a shared cold (fear not…this is ‘tropical’ cold) water shower and
toilet across the hall. I've purchased 2 narrow
plastic dressers (each about $20 new he said proudly) to provide
elegant clothes storage, and several wall hangings. Awaiting a small
rug. It's coming together! View of sunset from roof top 'lounge' and
community kitchen is fantastic, and I have wireless
downstairs…all the comforts of home. I have a mountain bike with wide
street tires – perfect for the rough roads – that I ride to work and
meetings on and occasionally do Saturday dawn 30 mile bike rides with
20-30 Filipinos in a cycling group who seem to
be adjusting to this strange foreigner who seems so proud of his kick
stand, mud guards and rack (hey guys, I could have bought the handle bar
basket!).
I went snorkeling for the first
time, and in WARM ocean water that I hadn’t experienced in 40+ years.
The notion of running into the ocean without yelling “Geronimo” to
toughen to the frigid temps is totally foreign to me.
I’m doing some yoga classes, going on a yoga retreat this weekend, and
have gotten involved with an in-formation intentional community that
always warms my soul and its longing for connection. I’m told $20,000
gets you a nice 2-bedroom house. I’ve seen the
lush 80 acres of land and the beautiful sandy ocean beach a couple of
miles away. And the group is committed to including nearby Filipino
villagers into the community. I felt a very surprising deep emotional
connection to these villagers at a meeting where
they shared their dreams this past weekend. The struggles with not
enough resources cause Filipinos great suffering, yet they have such a
close connection to family and the self-love that is illusive to many of
us Americans.
A few observations stand out as noteworthy …in a place where everything blends together after a while..
1. Traffic is a metaphor for some of the starkest contrast between East and West.
It's part of a larger heart vs. head discussion that weaves through my experience here.
What I slowly learned last year traveling through SE Asia is again reinforced here.
This city has only 2 or 3 traffic lights and no stop signs with
the streets congested with traffic...yet it flows smoothly with all
dancing to the same beat.
Rarely does anyone stop at an intersection – they just blend into
and through the traffic. (And I find myself having to monitor the New
Yorker in me who so loves bicycling here knowing others will give me
space.)
I had 2 motorcycle accidents in SE Asia last year because I had
to gun my bike to get across the road during momentary gaps in traffic
and then I found myself going too fast to execute the turn.
Only weeks later did I begin to comprehend that the traffic would
have actually slowed down for me to go across the road (I could have
even slowly pushed my bike across the road!), as miraculous and
incredulous a concept to the American in me as the
parting of the Red Sea. How very un-American (for me) to
be non-aggressive, to go with the flow, to be not in the judgmental
head, but more in the heart.
And speaking of traffic…
2. Tricycles
(Full size image) …the streets are teeming with thousands of these
Philippine version of the rickshaw – a small roofed sidecar bolted to a
motorcycle.
Here some would say they comfortably fit 4 people. For an American, the word ‘comfortable’ would never pass our lips.
Filipinos are generally much smaller than Americans. I
rode side-saddle on the motorbike portion for about 15 miles 2 weeks
ago, and the roof was about 8 inches too short, making for an
interesting slouch.
There are over 5,000 of these in the city, resulting in there being
painted either white or blue with only one color allowed each weekday and all on weekends.
And they look like cyclops at night with their single headlight (often faint…if working at all).
Which brings me to...
3. Sounds.
My first morning in the guest house and for many following
mornings, I was awakened to the sound of the melodious sweet voice of
the imam’s call to prayers at a nearby mosque interspersed with the
rooster doing his rooster thing...at 5am.
By 7 am the daily competition for my sound attention makes me most marvel at how often I never notice it.
I was meditating one morning when I suddenly woke up to the
soundscape: Just outside my window I could hear the birds chirping and
the leaves rustling in the wind.
But far more pronounced was the rumbling of the 2-stroke
tricycles that sound like an occasional chain saw and a few score of
lawn mowers (many remove their mufflers in order to save a few pennies
on gas).
And that surprisingly-no-longer-surprising city sound of
cock-a-doodle-doing roosters, and the yelping dogs with such a
high-pitch that I muse that they’re all castrated…yet puzzlingly
prolific.
And then you can throw in a few cat fights and the always the sweet sounds of kids playing in the streets.
And a speaker shop just opened…a tempting stone’s throw away…
with its huge speakers on its porch and occasionally bellowing music in
my direction.
With a deep sigh and a smile, I returned to focusing on my breath.
4. Hard Choices.
Too many people and too few ‘paying’ jobs mean that people make hard choices and do whatever they can for a few pesos.
So on every neighborhood block you’ll find half-a-dozen
itty-bitty sari-sari stores selling next to nothing through an opening
in their screen, on the streets too many tricycles – all charging 15
cents for anywhere in the ‘city proper’, internet cafes
on every block charging 15 - 25 cents an hour. All services are oversupplied, so people scramble to get by on very little.
Painfully hard choices abound…Dr. Rick (Asst Chief Medical Officer
for City Health Dep.), who I cycle with on Saturday morning, has just
accepted a position in California as a NURSE, having passed that CA exam
and failed the medical board exam, for a better
life for his family. Monica, a Filipino accountant I met
while snorkeling among the reefs, came home from Dubai for her annual 3
weeks’ vacation, in time to see her daughter graduate from college.
 Hoping to have saved enough money, to return home after a few
more years there, she talked of not being allowed in public without a
male escort and head covered and the grave consequences if seen in
public with an unmarried man…and how Filipinos face
much harsher discrimination than Westerners. And last
week I met at my guest house 2 attractive 24 year old nurses (see photo
attached) who were leaving next month for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to
make money to support their families.
Saudi Arabia is much stricter than Dubai – that’s the country
where Saudi girls died in a fire some years ago because they were
prevented from leaving a burning building without proper head covering.
They talked candidly about how difficult it will be for them and
the discrimination they will face, but what choice did they have…they
said.
With 10 % of all Filipinos living and working in foreign countries,
and given that the vast majority of Filipinos are under 25, I’d guess
that 1 out of 3 or 4 Filipinos over 30 are overseas…and this in a
culture where family is everything, so many are deprived
of family connection because of their dedication to support their
families..
What a bizarre and deeply sad irony.
OK, I’m on a roll. Expect more emails from time to time.
I hope you are all well and enjoying spring and keep those packages coming (just kidding!).
Love and hugs to all,
Rich
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