An Emperor, a Dictator and a Whole Bunch of Soldiers

Back in June, during my three days of intercultural effectiveness training, half a day was devoted to a q&a session with a country resource person -- someone living in Toronto who was originally from the Philippines. To be honest, I don't really remember a lot from that session, as I was quite preoccupied at the time with things related to visas, flights and packing up, but I do remember one off hand comment my resource person made: in the Philippines, all Caucasian men are referred to as Joe. As in, G.I. Joe. At the time, I was mildly amused by the comment but thought it was just a joke; however, when I was out for a Friday evening drink with a couple of new local friends last week, I was advised it's actually true! I suppose that the G.I. Joe association makes sense for older Filipinos who lived through the American presence in the PH, but I was a little surprised that it still persists with younger generations.

On the whole topic of names, I've found myself fascinated by some of the names Filipino parents choose to bestow on their children. It's no surprise that there are a lot of Spanish and Christian names (Karlos, Juan, Francis...) but in the past two weeks alone, I've met a Charlemagne, a Julius Cesar (deliberately spelled without the extra 'a'...apparently his parents didn't want there to be any mistaking him with the Roman!), and just this morning I met a Princess. When I asked Charlemagne if his parents are real francophiles, he was surprised and said that people very rarely know the origin of his name. When parents opt not to go the European ruling elite route, it seems that when it comes to western names, many locals tend to have names that came straight out of the '20s (lots of Bernadettes, Geraldines, Dollys, Hazels, Raymonds, Stanleys...). It's curious -- it's as though the local baby name book writer just grabbed all the names in The Great Gatsby and called it a job done (yes, Daisy is a very popular local name).

Sometimes, say 80-90 per cent of the time, it is very easy to forget that I'm currently living in a developing country. Life in Naga is, for the most part, extremely comfortable, and it's been surprisingly easy to replicate big parts of my life and routine from Toronto. I live in a middle-to-upper-class neighbourhood, most of the people I work with are upper crust public servants and business people, conspicuous consumption is celebrated, and the internet service at the local Sbux is faster than the connection I had at home. Naga itself is a lovely little city: relatively clean (especially when compared to Manila), extremely green and full of gorgeous  colourful blooms of all sorts, and home to some very nice public spaces (parks, plazas, churches, etc.). I only get periodic reminders of the poverty and lack of opportunity that certainly exists alongside all of the loveliness I've just described: beggars (rare, but they are present in pockets of the city, particularly outside church gates), shoeless garbage sorters, people selling things like boiled eggs and tissue paper on roadsides, makeshift homes that look like they might be torn down at any moment.

To be honest, the single greatest reminder that I'm in a developing country is the fact that I have to lug drinking water home from the grocery store. Every couple of days I make the 15 minute walk to the store to pick up a 6 litre bottle of water, a task that I hate. 6 litres for cooking and drinking goes quickly, and I often find myself rationing my supply -- not because there's a lack of supply from the grocery store, but because I don't want to make the sweaty trip any sooner than necessary. In the big picture, the inconvenience of not being able to drink the tap water here is hardly worth complaining about -- it feels like the ultimate non-problem -- and I try to remind myself that I am in a position of luxury and should be grateful that I have the means to access all the clean water I need, even if it requires a bit of extra effort to get it. I don't like to draw from stereotypical images of the developing world, but in this case, the idea of women and children walking miles every day in searing heat to get their daily water supply is enough to turn my Sisyphean bottle boulder into a pebble.

Fruit Hunting

I recently watched a documentary about fruit.

I admit that this doesn't sound very promising -- but stay with me. I was led to 'The Fruit Hunters' after coming across this article; how can one possibly resist a documentary where  Bill Pullman makes an appearance in the role of 'an exotic fruit aficionado'? In possibly his best performance ever, Bill is seen ripping into various fruit with GUSTO in the middle of the Hawaiian bush and demonstrates what pure bliss looks like when he smells a mango. And imagine my delight when I learned that the documentary is Canadian-produced and narrated by my childhood love: David Suzuki! WINNING.

In all seriousness, I enjoyed the film and learned a number of interesting facts about fruit and agriculture. The timing for watching a film about fruit couldn't be more a propos, as the PH is a tropical fruit paradise, most of which is dirt cheap (by Canadian standards). I don't think there's been a day that's gone by since arriving when I haven't had at least one meal that's been exclusively fruit. Not surprisingly, mangoes have been consumed in copious quantities, as have pomelos, lychees, and melons of all varieties. That said, after watching The Fruit Hunters, I decided it was time to be a little more intrepid and have started picking different varieties of fruit that are available-- many of which I've never seen and have no idea how to peel/crack/open or which parts are edible. 

My adventures as an amateur fruit huntress were nearly derailed when I made the mistake of starting with the every polarizing durian. People who love it, REALLY love it. People who don't love it, REALLY hate it. The woman who sold me the durian was very good at convincing me that my first taste of the spiky fruit would be an elevated experience, I'd never be able to live without it after, and that it doesn't taste anything like it smells, blah blah blah...LIES, all of it. Unfortunately, I failed to capture any photos of the offending fruit, but my first take away from my durian tasting: never trust a fruit that looks like a slug and smells like Death holding a whiteboard marker. I don't think it's possible to capture in words the potency of durian's offensiveness to my tastebuds, but I described it to a friend as the following: "It tasted so bad I thought that someone had replaced the real fruit with rotten eggs dipped in yellow-dyed White Out." That whole bit about durian's glorious custard-like texture? A MASSIVE LIE. There's a part of me that wonders if I maybe just got a bad durian, and I may consider giving it a second go at some point in the future, but for now I fall squarely in the camp of durian haters. 

Thankfully, the terrible start to my fruit hunting career has been overcome, and I've discovered a number of delightful new flavours that I will be sad to leave behind in a few months from now. Even though some of these fruits can be purchased in Toronto, the prices are obscene and the flavour profiles of the fruit probably wouldn't be nearly as satisfying after they've travelled, quite literally, halfway around the world. All the more reason to indulge now, right?

Mangosteen - lovely taste, pretty to look at, but I don't think I love it as much as this guy

Surprisingly easy to tear into, the white bit is the edible part -- sort of like an oddly sweet and acidic lychee

Soursop - locally known as guyabano

It tastes like...non-descript fruit. The texture is similar to a fibrous mango, but I have a hard time trying to describe the flavour of this one

The ever exotic banana! Admittedly, not the most exciting fruit at the market UNTIL I noticed...

A BUTTERFLY! The vendor wasn't nearly as impressed by it as I was

This is the closest I got to catching the backside of its wings, which were a lovely iridescent navy blue

Be Robust and Have Babies!

On sale at the grocery checkout:

Look again -- the packaging and sales location are deceptive, as those are decidedly not contraceptive devices for sale. Awhile ago, I mentioned that catholicism is ever-present in daily life here. I suppose that the corollary of my past remark on the overwhelming number of children and pregnant women I see on a daily basis is that condoms seem to not be widely available, with neither the drugstore or the grocery stocking them in visible locations. Instead of birth control, you can buy men's dietary supplements (note - with no approved therapeutic claims!) along with your milk and eggs.

Bring On the Rage

It's happened every single time I've ever been overseas for an extended period of time, normally six weeks in: culture shock. True to form, I think my first dose of it hit over the weekend and is continuing to persist today. I take comfort in knowing that this is a textbook presentation of the culture shock cycle: it starts with euphoria (or some approximation of it), is followed by hostility and irritation toward the host culture(or possibly RAGE), next up is a period of adjustment (a nice levelling off of both the euphoria and rage), concluding with adaptation (what was previously foreign and 'other' is now normal!). At the moment, both feet are firmly planted in Phase Two of the cycle: irritation. All of the tiny annoyances, pin pricks and paper cuts from the first six weeks here have reached a tipping point where it suddenly no longer feels possible to just ignore.

The first sign that I was creeping into Phase Two territory: I had a mini meltdown directed at my landlady over the weekend related to repeated incidents of tardiness. Even as it was happening I knew that it wasn't really her tardiness that was upsetting me (well, actually I really do find chronic tardiness to be incredibly annoying, but that's another story), and that it was the accumulation of six weeks of small frustrations that I was unfairly directing at her. I felt terrible and apologized immediately, and hopefully all is repaired in the landlady-tenant relationship. 

Fear not, I haven't dissolved into a puddle of consistent grumpiness...my version of culture shock doesn't become all consuming, but rather lays dormant most of the day until it suddenly makes itself known. Also, as sucky as culture shock can be, it's not without value: I really do feel like I know myself better because of it. Getting through this stage of it without offending anyone requires discipline and self-awareness...discipline to not fly into a rage every time I encounter a frustrating scenario, self-awareness to recognize when it's happening. Easier said than done, naturally. In the mean time, while I wait for the cheerful blue skies of adaptation to roll in, I've unapologetically taken temporary refuge at the place in Naga that reminds me most of home -- Starbucks.

Bless you Sbux for being the same EVERYWHERE

Project Update: Part 3

This past week was the only regular work week for the month of August, with every other week involving at least one public holiday. I've now been in Naga for more than a month, which (frighteningly) means that I'm more than one-sixth through my contract. The last week was by far the most productive week I've had since arrival: my culinary tourism project is beginning to take a recognizable form and I'll be starting field research in Metro Naga's 16 municipalities next week. I have to say that one of the most significant outcomes of the last week, which was filled with meetings with various partner organizations and stakeholders, has been that it's been tremendously instructive in learning to balance the differing interests of the involved parties. I'm quickly realizing that one of my most important roles in this project is to speak up for (and defend) the importance of the client/traveller experience. 

My first major deadline is coming up in a month from now, when Naga hosts the second annual Bicol Travel and Food Expo (BITFEX...because Filipinos love their acronyms). I've been asked to give an hour-long presentation on trends in culinary tourism and to unveil my project at a forum for industry stakeholders during the expo. It's been a long time since I've had to prepare a talk for an audience size bigger than what can comfortably fit around a conference room table, so I'm a little bit nervous about speaking in front a larger audience. Public speaking has never been my forte -- I was the shy kid in kindergarten and I'm still not keen on being the centre of attention -- but I'm glad to have a concrete target to shoot for. I'm also happy that it'll be an opportunity to meet with regional and national tourism industry insiders.

Anyhow, it's been an otherwise uneventful week in Naga (which also accounts for the lack of updates). Outside of work, the highlight of the week has been that I inally have a way to cook food at home. Since moving into my apartment, I've been living with a broken camping stove; partly out of an inability to coordinate with my landlady and partly out of my own laziness, it took a month to get it replaced. As a result, I spent most of the last month living on exotic fruit (delicious!) and pasta soaked in hot water until it became soft enough to chew (far less delicious...).

A couple of snapshots from  the week:

 Inexplicably, it took a month for me to notice this painting hanging in the entrance of the office...thematically, I'm not sure how it links to an office focused on local development

Several days of rain was rewarded with a beautiful sunset over Naga on Thursday night

26 Hours in Paradise..and the Longest Post EVER

I've never been much of a beach person. Growing up in Ottawa, my family never took beach holidays and in the 10+ years that I've been backpacking and travelling, I've never planned a trip to a beach destination. In my twenty-something years on earth, the idea of sand and surf has never been particularly enticing to me, so I've never gone out of my way to find a beach. All that said, this past weekend may have been the game changer, as I've just returned to Naga from 26 hours on an island paradise called Calaguas.

 A., my Manila-based Canadian colleague, was visiting Naga for the long weekend and we had originally planned to go to Caramoan for a beach break. Caramoan is a not particularly well-known as a tourism destination outside of the Philippines, but it's been the shooting location for several international editions of the show Survivor and it's beginning to gain a reputation as an alternative to Boracay or Palawan. When I told Bird, a local Filipino colleague, about our plans, he warned that the boat ride to Caramoan can be very rough at this time of year and suggested we head to Calaguas instead. If you search for information on Calaguas in any guidebook to the Philippines, you're out of luck: Caramoan may be low profile but normally gets about a page of coverage in most guidebooks; Calaguas is completely off the radar and gets zero mention in mainstream guidebooks. Information on Calaguas is also hard to come by on the internet, with most keyword searches bringing up just a few hits, normally for local tour operators or to personal blogs (like this one!) of travellers who have been. The idea of going to what is essentially virgin traveller territory was too good to pass up, so A. and I quickly changed our plans and roped Bird into joining us.

The journey from Naga to Calaguas is long but relatively straightforward: we left Naga via taxi at 4:30AM in order to get to Daet in time for a 6AM boat that would get us to Calaguas in about two hours. The reason for the early morning departure was to maximize the potential for a smooth boat ride, as the open seas can be incredibly wild later on in the day.

Where the boat journey began: the backwaters of Daet

At open sea, where there's nothing to do but sit back,  enjoy the view and be grateful for the calm waters

I won't lie: having not slept much the night before, halfway en route I was questioning whether it had been a wise decision to choose such a remote location, given the effort it takes to get there. Questioning stopped the second we landed on the beach and were greeted with this vision of paradise:

Early morning view of the beach. Being so close to the equator, the sun was already high in the sky by 8AM and came down by 6PM.

Calaguas is really off the map, as far as tourism goes. The tourism infrastructure on the island consists of a few open air huts, a pit latrine and a non-potable water pump. There's no electricity (at least not available to tourists) or running water, and you need to bring everything with you from the mainland, including camping gear, food and drinking water. Once you're there, there's really not much to do -- Calaguas is the opposite of a party island...people go exclusively to lay on the beach, relax, eat delicious food and soak up the beautiful sun setting (apparently, Filipinos go to the beach but stay out of the sun for fear of getting a tan). The only people who seemed to be having an island fiesta were the boatmen.

Locals welcome tourism and the economic benefits that come along with it, but are also wary of seeing their island turned into another Boracay - unsustainable development leading to the island being overrun by resorts and an unmanageable waste load. For now, Calaguas is incredibly laid back, the locals are unbelievably hospitable, and I believe them when they claim that Calaguas' white sand beaches are on par with Boracay's. Given my involvement in the tourism sector, I am curious and anxious to see what becomes of the islands.

One of our boatmen: a jolly fellow, to say the least 

A little sunset swim to cap a perfectly lazy afternoon

Not surprisingly, fishing is a significant source of employment and income for the few locals that live on the islands. Needless to say, seafood was consistently on the menu:

Local fisherman who was very proud to show off his catch...which was then transformed into a very delicious dinner

Slightly disturbing for those of us not accustomed to seeing it: a bucket full of baby sharks...somebody's lunch or dinner, but not mine

Final thought(s): one of the most striking (mental) images I have from this little trip was the sight of an 11-year-old girl solo paddling a little boat from a neighbouring island to deliver the daily catch, with her toddler-aged sister in tow. A few things about this stuck with me: 1. I wondered if the girl has ever gone to school; 2. I wondered about the enormous responsibility placed on someone so young to safely navigate the sea alone -- the distance between the islands is not exactly short and there is naturally the question of water safety; 3. Given the very simple and limited infrastructure on the island, I wondered if the girl sees herself following in the life path of her parents (boating and agricultural work) or if she aspires to upward mobility. To give a sense of how very basic life on the islands is: in order for the girl and her family to watch their favourite television program, they need to take a boat over to the neighbour island, as they don't have a television of their own...or even electricity. 

A common sight: children navigating the waters on their own -- no supervision, no life jacket

Anyhow, I'm now back in Naga, where it's been raining non-stop for the past 50+ hours. The city, like much of Luzon, is under a typhoon watch due to the approaching Typhoon Utor (locally called Typhoon Labuyo). Naga is not expected to be severely impacted by the storm, but I wonder and worry about the locals in Calaguas, where they're completely exposed to the elements and rely on the sea for their livelihoods.

Snapshots Around Naga, Part One

I often forget to bring my little pocket-sized camera with me when I leave home in the morning, which is a shame because the days when I forget it at home tend to be the days when I see something I want to document. Today was one of the rare days when I remembered to tuck it in my bag, and below are a few snapshots from the day...no works of art here, but a little window into life in Naga:

This gentleman is regularly parked in his hammock steps away from my office...he's officially my favourite Nagueno

A little chapel down the street from my home, located directly across from a hotel that will rent rooms out by the hour

Salt and chili meant to be served on ninja mangoes...okay, okay, they're not actually called ninja mangoes, but I couldn't quite catch what the vendor called them, and I wasn't going to ask him to repeat a fourth time. In any case, this reminds me quite a bit of street fruit in Mexico City, similarly served with salt, chili and lime juice

I'm fairly certain that there's nothing Bavarian about this...not even the turban and definitely not the kid

Fried chicken should always be sold with a leather jacket, a seductive gaze and extra strength hair mousse

Standard window decoration in Nagueno vehicles

It's a short work week here in the Philippines, as Friday is a holiday in honour of Eid'l Fitr, the end of Ramadan. Being the model employee that I am, I've opted to shorten the work week just a little more and am taking Thursday off to go climb Mt. Isarog, a nearby dormant (!) volcano, with a Canadian colleague who is visiting from Manila for the weekend. I'm calling it a work outing in order to familiarize myself with the tourism infrastructure in the region -- not exactly untrue, but kind of a stretch. I'll be heading to Calaguas, a set of virgin-esque islands a couple of hours away from Naga, for the long weekend and will hopefully have zero tales of seasickness but many photos of paradise on my return! 

Project Update: WHAT Am I Doing???

It's been a little under a month since I arrived in Naga, and my work plan and projects are finally beginning gain a bit of traction. For the most part, this is a relief -- one of my biggest worries coming into this was whether or not I'd have something meaningful to work on. Now that my project is taking shape, a whole new set of worries is beginning to take over: how do I deliver what is on paper? 

As previously mentioned, my main project is to develop a culinary tourism circuit involving the 16 municipalities across the Metro Naga area. For the next few months, I'll be working with municipal planning and development officers and various public and private sector stakeholders to identify local producers/vendors that have a unique culinary product; hopefully, this will lead to an appealing and marketable tourism product that tells a story through food and makes a positive contribution to local economic development. Between the initial idea and the finished product, there are just a few things that need to happen: field visits, market research, feasibility studies, budgeting, presentations and forums, approvals to be sought and obtained from multiple parties, logistics and operational mapping, and marketing considerations. No biggie, right?

Since I finished up with school a few years ago, the jobs that I've held have involved clearly defined tasks, structures, processes and deliverables -- my work has always been a contribution to a bigger project, with higher ups who issue directives and have the final say on all things. This is the first time in my professional life that I've been responsible for coming up with a concept and transforming it into a reality, from beginning to end, largely on my own; I have a project adviser who is here to help me along the way, but this is meant to be mostly self-directed and it's up to me to generate project momentum. Coming into this six month stint, the goal I set for myself was to leave behind something tangible and sustainable. I hope I can deliver on that goal, not only for my own satisfaction but also for the local community. 

In the mean time, a few snapshots of recently sampled local food (which locals refer to as native food):

Kare-Kare - oxtail stew that involves peanut butter, banana blossoms and eggplant; quite heavy and quite delicious. 

Laing - a Bicolano specialty, involves taro leaves, coconut milk, chili and meat.

Crispy pata - pork knuckle served with soy sauce and vinegar...locals are crazy about it, but I honestly didn't find it to be so special.