The Butanding

One of my volunteer jobs here in the Philippines is my work as a VP for the Peace Corps Alumni Foundation for Philippine Development (PCAFPD), whose work here is supported by Peace Corps volunteers [plus some others] who served in the Philippines. PCAFPD supports college scholarships for deserving students.

In Manila, we helped set up the PSAA or Peace Corps Scholars and Alumni Association. With this group we developed plans to begin making visits to “clusters” of scholars and alumni to help them develop into mutual support groups. When we started talking about visiting the “Bicol Cluster,” I right away decided that this would have to coincide with the Butanding season (January-May) when these giant whale sharks can be sighted in Philippine waters near the province of Sorsogon in the Bikol region. Not only do you get an opportunity to see these huge fish but you can swim with them. Of course, I had to give that a try.

We had planned to drive down there and do sightseeing along the way. However, at the last minute, Noel changed his mind and so two of us took the overnight [12-hour] bus trip from Manila to Sorsogon City where, after meeting with the scholars on Wednesday, we proceeded on to the town of Donsol later that same afternoon. We stayed overnite at a very nice beach resort and early the next morning walked to the next-door tourism office to register and arrange for our whaling trip.

Thankfully, we were on one of the first boats out and soon spotted our first whale shark. We quickly put on our fins and snorkeling gear and jumped into the water. Sadly, the water is not all that clear and you have to swim around a bit to find the fish. I certainly did – I managed to swim right into him (or her?) and could not avoid a collision. Sighting and touching were almost simultaneous … I’ll never forget looking right at that huge animal and only then realizing we had collided face to face, staring each other down. Luckily, they prefer to dine on plankton so I’m still around to tell about it.

Our first butanding measured probably 30 to 40 feet (they can get up to over 50 feet); it really is difficult to grasp the size of it -- suffice it to say that it is huge and awesome. According the literature, they are the largest fish in the world. After seeing some eight of them, I can only agree with that description. The underwater pictures you see in this blog are not mine but were copied from various internet sites.

By the way, the cone-shaped mountain in one of the pictures is the famous Mout Mayon Volcano.

Later, when we returned to our hotel in Sorsogon, we noticed two ladies watching a video on a computer. After a few minutes, they turned it off and I said it looked like nice footage. It turned out that one of them was a producer for ABS-CBN television in Manila doing a whale documentary with one of the well known local female TV hosts (Karina). Actually, we had seem them from our bangka, filming the whale-watching scene. The clip will air tomorrow evening and then we can see if we can identify our boat among the 10 or so that were in that area.

What goes around, comes around, and around, and around

When Noel and I first moved to Harmon Cove, we were among the first residents or really pioneers in that community. It was a great experience … everything new, including all the people. Both of us were active in the community … serving on Boards, organizing parties, etc. It was a great time.

We are about to repeat that experience at Ponderosa Leisure Farms in Silang, Cavite. It’s a new community – some 500 housing lots and with maybe 30 or so houses built so far; not sure how many are occupied (fulltime?).

Of course, we will be active. Noel started it by running for the Board of Directors and getting elected at the April 2008 annual meeting. Just prior to the annual meeting, I got a hold of an e-mail list of lot owners and sent them all a “campaign message.” As you can see from the “vote count” shown in the election picture, my campaigning helped out. The other photo shows the candidate inspecting his property in Silang and in the other he is busy composing his campaign speech.

He heads up the Building and Grounds Committee and recruited me to help him out. Will it never end???

When in Rome, do as the ...........

Following that sage advice, we decided to follow local traditions in terms of building our house.

One custom is to sprinkle chicken blood around where each house pillar will go up. Our contractor arranged for some chickens, however, being more experienced with construction rather than with chickens, we soon ran out of blood and had to send out for some more chickens.

Another tradition is to sprinkle coins around the foundations, prior to the concrete being poured. Noel performed this task. Not all concrete got poured the first day and when we returned a few days later to inspect progress, we noticed that, where the concrete had not yet been poured, the coins were missing. At least we had the right intentions.

We didn't see what happened to the chickens but later heard that the construction crew appreciated this addition to their simple meals.

Walls going up and construction on target

My apologies for the long gap in updates. Had problems with both computers [desktop and laptop] and finally got the desktop back so I once again have ready access to the internet.

We seem to be going to Silang about three times per week so check on progress with the new home. As far as we can tell, everything is moving along smoothly and on schedule. Once a week we meet with the architects and contractors to review progress and resolve problems; this system seems to work.

It's summer now here in Manila, rather warm, and it's nice to go Silang where things are a bit cooler. Here are some updated pictures.

House construction -- moving right along

Progress Report

Construction of the house, as you can see, is moving right along. Our contract says it will be finished October 8. We'll see ... and keep you updated.

.....it's the smell that hits you first .... and stays with you

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to visit a project organized by a former Peace Corps volunteer.

It’s located in nearby Quezon City. As the place is not easy to find, we met the volunteer at a nearby church. We transferred from our comfortable car to small truck converted to passenger use; it didn’t have much in the way of springs.

We traveled through a series of narrow back roads and couldn’t really see much in terms of where we were going. As we got nearer, the smell [stench] got stronger and stronger; we did notice small piles of plastic garbage bags piled along the road. Finally we arrived at the project site, the [in]famous Payatas garbage dump. It’s a small mountain now and from where we stopped you could see the top and trucks dumping their loads – and the scavengers eager to go through the load to see what could be salvaged and sold. It’s the scavengers’ way to make a living, to survive in an economy that has few legitimate jobs to offer them.

The project is a preschool with a nutrition component. I talked to a number of kids – thankfully I know enough Tagalog to be able to communicate with them.

“What do your parents do?” “Oh sir, they are scavengers.” I asked, “what will you do when you get older.” “Join them in scavenging.” Not much of a future to look forward to.

In spite of their living conditions, the kids are full of smiles and more than ready to give you the “high five” when we returned to our comfortable lives and homes. It’s a different world in which they live and I’ll try to remember it when I think I have a hard day.

Ground breaking for the Silang house

At last! February 1, 2008, will go into our history book. After not quite a year of ideas, designing and redesigning, ground has been broken for the house we are building in Silang, Cavite. No fireworks, no marching band .... not even a bottle of champagne. Guess we will just have to wait with all those things for the house blessing later this year ... we hope in August.

When we arrived at our site yesterday, we found some 10 workers with tape measures, stakes and string marking off the location of the house-to-be; two of them had shovels and picks to start the foundation.

It was sort of a strange feeling, at least for me, to see the project finally come to fruition. We certainly hope it will turn out to have the look, feel, and ambiance of what we planned. You be the judge when you come to visit us.

We'll keep you updated on the progress.