habal-habal diaries

In a few weeks, I’m marking the anniversary of leaving my lecturer job in a private university to take on my current work, which is as a program officer for a non-profit foundation, running a full-time volunteer program. To be honest I’m still stunned by the realization that it’s been almost a year. I’m still constantly learning new things in my job.

Sometimes I feel very shellshocked by all the changes that have happened over the past year (aside from taking on this job, I have: finished my master’s degree, presented at an international conference, gotten married, moved into a new flat). So I decided to help the adjustment process along by writing about some of my thoughts about my work.

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A large part of my work (as you’ve probably noticed from previous posts) involves travelling to various parts of the country (i.e. the Philippines) where we have volunteers deployed with various partner institutions. Our partner institutions are a varied bunch, ranging from non-profits running literacy programs to famers’ organizations to parochial schools short of funds and good teachers. Some placements are in cities; others are in relatively accessible rural municipalities; while others are in isolated barrios.

One of my favorite areas to visit, in Quezon, is reached after an eight hour bus ride and a scant hour’s ride in a motorized bangka usually used for fishing or transporting cargo. The barangay is a fishing village with pristine beaches, geographically part of the Quezon peninsula, but not reached by municipal roads (or for that matter, any form of land transportation). The volunteer assigned there lives in a bahay kubo lit at night by solar-powered lights. He fetches water from a nearby well (drinking water has to be bought from the “mainland”). At night, we sleep on papag, lulled asleep by the sound of waves.

Going home from Quezon, the bus I ride offers a different experience—wide, cushy seats; on-board TV (I have watched quite a number of action films I missed in theaters this way); even free wi-fi.

A few days later, I am on a plane, flying to Cagayan de Oro, and from there taking the bus to Bukidnon to visit volunteers working with farmers and indigenous people.

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After my visits (we call them Supervisory Visits, which occur twice a year*), I am inevitably exhausted.

The physical exhaustion is understandable. Many forms of local public transportation can be physically demanding (habal-habal and jeepney rides over rough roads, long bus rides, late-night/red-eye flights).

There’s also the mental exhaustion of keeping everything that I have to do (meetings, consultations, kumustahans, reminders) straight in my head. On one trip, I slept in a different bed and different town every night. I had to spend the first few minutes of each morning recalling where I was. After several consecutive trips to Bisaya-speaking parts of Mindanao, I found myself speaking Bisaya once I was back home in Manila.

What surprised me, though, was the psychological/cognitive exhaustion as a result of going from one place to another, from one community to another, from one municipality to one city to one prison, and coming home to my husband and our flat in a high-rise condominium development, and going back to our office in a private university with students who drive late-model Ford Mustangs and are picked up by chauffer-driven Lexus SUVs.

I’m still taken aback by the stark disparity between the different worlds I occupy. I mean, I’ve gotten used to most things, but there are often little details that catch me off guard and shake me. Like how I can think a 200PHP dinner in Manila is reasonable, but a 100PHP dinner in Bukidnon is expensive. Or how my husband and I can easily shell out for a washing machine, the cost of which is equivalent to one year’s matriculation in a community school where a volunteer works.

I’m reminded of a blog entry I recently read by one of my favorite international aid worker bloggers, J. He was writing with expatriate aid/development workers in mind, but I think his observation was no less true: To work in this field, one must have to face the fact that you constantly move between different worlds.

When I started this blog, my intention was to find the time to write about what my new work is like, and the things I’m learning as I go along. To be honest, I’m relishing being in a field that is new and challenging. I’ve mentioned this several times to some friends, but it’s true—I became too comfortable with the academe, and it was time to sail for deeper seas.

What I forgot to take into account was how physically exhausting and mentally challenging this work was going to be. Despite how much I love travelling—especially travelling alone—there’s also a physical toll that it takes when you spend almost every night sleeping in a different town, in a different room, in a different bed.

Mentally, too—it’s a challenge to remain constantly adaptable, to feel my way through a different culture, different language, different organization, different concerns.

It’s difficult too to witness so many different aspects of social injustice and poverty without being desensitized by it, while at the same time not letting myself completely fall into despair.

What I do find consolation—and hope—in is that, as I travel I meet so many people whose continue to work and hope for justice, despite the days when it seems like our work is futile.

So many thoughts, so little time for coherence. Thus, a list.

1. In Samar, the most common form of public transportation across relatively long distances is the van.
2. The Waray people are some of the kindest, most hospitable people I’ve ever met.
3. Moron is the best. Especially if it’s home-made and eaten at a fiesta.
4. There are so many people who are passionately working to improve the lives of so many Filipinos. I’m blessed to have met some of them in Samar.
5. Even if all you do for 10 hours is sit down in a van, you still get tired.
6. There is no direct trip from Catarman (the capital of Northern Samar) to Borongan (the capital of Eastern Samar). It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s true.
7. Coconuts, coconuts, as far as the eye can see.
8. Boy Abunda’s sister is the mayor of his hometown, Borongan, Eastern Samar. Rumor has it that Boy Abunda plans to run for governor. Rumor also has it that the current governor has a private army. Only the first sentence in this item is verifiably true.
9. I’d like to live with the Pacific Ocean as my neighbor. 
10. The pace of life in both Northern and Eastern Samar is very relaxed. Half the time I was envious, the other half, impatient.
11. I got to visit Balangiga, which was just 20 mins away from one of the areas where JVPs are assigned. (History nerd in the house!)
12. For the first time, I met a Peace Corps volunteer, and learned that there are many Peace Corps volunteers all over Samar.
13. I realized that I’ve met more VSO volunteers than Peace Corps volunteers. My Anglophilia, apparently, extends to international volunteering.
14. Most annoying moment: sitting in a van to Borongan, enduring a bumpy ride over potholes, and then seeing a tarp that says “Maupay nga dalan” (“Good roads”) with the local congressman’s smiling mug. I wanted to punch someone.
15. There are so many poor people in Samar. I earn a little over Php100k a year and consider myself middle class, but it was sobering to remember that realistically, I am part of a small elite.