Reflection on our IPP in the Philippines

Sunday, 27. July 2008, 01:00 (Manila local time) – 1 hour after the official end of the IPP in the Philippines. I find myself on the plane, somewhere between East and West, sipping my cup of coffee and trying to make sense of the past three weeks. It is time for reflection, a crucial part of a lifelong process that I call learning. Learning itself is the key to what we generally refer to as progress or development, which according to the theme of our IPP should be achieved in a somewhat sustainable way.

At the outset of the programme, we defined and discussed our expectations and desired learning outcomes in terms of ourselves, our group and the IPP. Our final day was used to reflect and evaluate the IPP and measure its success according to our predefined aims and objectives. Amongst other positive outcomes, the mutual process of learning and sharing with the Aetas was emphasized. Overall, the positive impact of our various discussions, activities and experiences during the IPP on each participant, her values, beliefs and overall development was repeatedly highlighted.

For myself, the beautiful landscape in the Philippines – its beaches, palm trees, rice fields and terraces, forests, mountains, rivers and waterfalls; the rides on tricycles and in and on top of jeepneys; the fresh mangoes, pineapples and bananas; and the visits of different indigenous and non-indigenous villages and communities made a big impression on me. However, despite the magnitude of these experiences, I increasingly realise their marginal impact on myself in comparison with the very encounters and interactions with other IPP participants, members of staff, and local peoples; encounters which made an everlasting impact on me and enriched my life more than words could ever express.

In terms of the latter, amongst other interactions with local peoples, one particular situation seems to be worth mentioning here. Whilst staying in an Ifugao village, established to promote eco-tourism, I have had the privilege to interact with a group of ten to fifteen Ifugao youth, awaiting their performance as part of our cultural night. It has been a great pleasure to share our experiences, knowledges, world views, hopes and dreams; interact on an equal level; and in doing so overcome the cultural differences and barriers that often seem to set us apart and overshadow our common humanness. Their pride of and desire to preserve their cultural heritage whilst aspiring to grow and learn beyond the traditional truly inspired me.

In terms of the interactions and relationships between IPP participants and members of staff, our openness and willingness to share our personal stories, worldviews and feelings fascinated me. This became in particular evident during our spider-web as part of our final activity on Friday night as well as during various more informal chats on a one-to-one basis or in smaller groups. It has been a pleasure and privilege to join you all on part of your very personal learning journeys. Your openness, honesty, trust and friendship are much appreciated. Any attempt to name and thank you here would be doomed to failure – both in terms of the number of people I would have to mention and the depth of my gratitude and respect for who you are and what you stand for. You know who you are – keep journeying, keep smiling and keep safe.

Love, Dan

Milking cows and planting rice

Left Villa Kiana in the rain after a small typhoon the night before. We were met again by Mike, the farmer who is responsible for about 44 cows. Mike  is trying to increase milk production by cross-breeding local cows with Holstein (65 %)  We were surprised to hear that  98% of the milk drunk in the Philippines  is imported mainly from New Zealand.

We were greeted by two calves, one only born two days ago .They were separated from their mothers and bottle fed with the highly nutritious mother’s milk full of  cholesterol, apparently to avoid injuring the mother’s teats? Milking by hand was next on the plan. We all had a go and managed to fill the bottom of the bucket. The cows are fed at 5am and in the evening producing about 12ltrs each.

Snacks are a big thing in the Philippines -- this time consisting of rice cakes with raw sugar and coconut flakes-yummy!

We walked over to the rice fields passing ducks, geese, chicken, turkeys, cows and carabaos.

The fields had been ploughed and after a lesson in extracting the rice seedlings from the soil and water and bunching them, we were ready for planting. We lined up and tried our hands at random planting and next, at line planting. Feet stuck about 50cms in water with the soft soil underneath and the odd frog hopping along was a really enjoyable experience. We even began to sing whilst the rain was falling on our backs, being wet from the bottom and the top. However, planting all day might be a different story!!

By the time we got back to the Eco-Village, we had dried off and were ready for lunch.

A wonderful meal consisting of rice, grilled milk fish, tuna, and squid, salad, okra and potatoes was served on banana leaves. In the lunch break, we had a go at target shooting with bows and arrows, football, and basketball.

Next on the agenda was a visit to the village nursery. We were greeted by 3-6 year olds singing the “Bahay Kubo” song and introducing one another.

For the backyard gardening, we split into three groups and worked alongside he locals preparing the soil, planting corn, mung beans, sweet potatoes, and runner beans. The lady whose garden we worked on had lost her husband due to lung trouble after the eruption from Mt. Pinatubo and is bringing 11 children up on her own. She said that she will be thinking about us when she is working in the garden- and so will we.

Down to the river for a quick swim – the current was really strong . Nandos our daredevil swam across in the extremely fast running river to meet the local children…

Back to the Eco-Village kitchen where we were shown how to make cheese and bread rolls.

Try it at home: 3ltrs milk; half a cup of white vinegar; half a cup of salt. Bring milk to the boil and strain off liquid. Once milk is curdled, drain into containers. Spread on freshly baked rolls, top with jam or sugar.

After a slow jeepney ride home and tea, it was time for the Czech National Night. The quiz kept us on our toes and we tried the herbal alcoholic drink and traditional wafers.

On reflection, everyone felt it was a really good day.  We learned new skills and enjoyed meeting the children and local people. We came home content, tired, and dirty.

-- Sue Rigg and Ursula Iredale (Great Britain)

"I feel connected."

Luis said this in our daily debriefing and I think it sums up today perfectly. Today we survived the intense rain storms, fought valiantly against the flooding stream threatening the crops, and waged mud wars with mischievous-looking Aeta children who laughed as they smeared dirt on our biceps or hung from our arm hair (Guillermo). We learned the Filipino art of patience after our regular Jeepney driver made a last-minute cancelation and admired as our Superhero staff members took each new obstacle perfectly in stride. Once we arrived at the site, a couple of Aeta women from the community demonstrated how to grind, separate, and cook the rice. The women allowed us city-folk to try and patiently smiled when we kept spilling rice on the floor.  After our lesson on Rice-101, we helped collect rocks in order to build a dike that would prevent the rice from flooding. While the strong men in the group finished the dike, the rest of us picked up trash and began the epic task of clearing mud from the basketball court. At some point, as we were shoveling mud off the court with our hands and our make-shift shovels Chinie said “So do you still feel like tourists?” and we all answered with a resounding “no.”

Not only did we connect more with the Aetas today, we connected more with each other. A large group of us stayed up until the morning hours playing “never have I ever” and sipping on more than a few bottles of beer and rum. Everyone laughed as we divulged our secrets and learned more about each other (especially Nondas), but waking up the next morning was not nearly as enjoyable. 

-- Maya Abood (USA) and Guillermo Fernandez (Spain)

Water, water, water

Today started off different than most other days: we actually slept!!! How late we woke up differs from person to person, but the schedule was flexible enough to accommodate for that. Thus our day started very relaxed with some breakfast (that we might want to consider calling brunch?) and a lot of still sleepy faces.

So our first activity started at 11.30. Actually it was not really an activity, but more the explanation of two well – known activities within the CISV world. Firstly everyone picked the name of their monito for the rest of the IPP. Their WHAT? Let me explain. Everyone got the name of someone in the camp who he has to spoil a little with nice things, some signs of appreciation: just to make that person feel loved. Ironically we picked the name of the person we had to kill afterwards, and the way we have to kill that person. Nice huh? We show our love for each other by killing… No worries; we will all come home alive, albeit as “CISV ghosts.”

Then it was lunchtime, and me and my delegate – Adrienne – were starting to run around to finalise the last things for our activity. It was pouring outside. After some slight adaptations we found that it wasn’t raining anymore but we did change our activity.

Finally, soaking wet from preparing the water balloons, it was time for our activities. We had four different stations. At the first questions were presented about the Netherlands – all water related. This is how we choose to interpret the theme: sustainable development. Where the Aetas are perpetually threatened by Mount Pinatubo, the Dutch have a constant struggle with the water; which is only going to get more interesting over the next couple years when climate change actually starts to show its signs… Back to our activity. After having tried to answer some questions there was a little pre – discussion about whether or not the Dutch should consider abandoning their country and all move to higher lands: Germany for example. I’m glad Dan said we are very welcome. 

After having taken some photos of important years in the Dutch “water – history” and having had some fun with the water balloons it was time for the real discussion: we got back to the Germany statement and talked some more about water problems in different countries. The second energiser was followed better than the first one. I’m glad to find out that you guys have really improved your Dutch!!

All these discussions fitted nicely with the next activity where we had to create a sustainable unit in different climates. During this activity we also found out that teachers are very organised and scientists are well, let’s say slightly chaotic and maybe too punctual?? ☺ 

Whereas the rest was preparing for dinner we the Dutch were running after the staff to find the ingredients for our dessert: Wentelteeftjes with Vanilla Ice-cream. It was a great success as quite some people wanted second servings…

All nicely filled up, we played an interesting variation of lifeboat, where all the characters in the boat were characters that were related to our IPP: such as a CISV volunteer, a NGO- worker and an Aeta woman. The Japanese tourist and Monica Belucci were just to spice things up a bit.

When you thought this would be a short blog you are mistaken, because even though we started our day late, it was still quite long. The last activity before going to bed was a get to know each other: We all sat next to someone and then talked for several minutes, after which we had to introduce our partner to the rest of the group. 

Some people (I will not mention any names) made it very clear that they wanted to know what we actually do here… Well, this was a CISV day at our camp site. Tomorrow another day that starts early, where we will work with the Aetas.

 

For now: good night.

- Ingrid Swagemakers (Netherlands)

For those interested in making Wentelteefjes, here you go: 

Ingredients

• eggs

• milk

• bread

• sugar (white)

• cinnamon

• vanilla icecream

• butter

How to make it: 

You put the eggs, milk, sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl and mix it. You dip a slice of bread in the mixture and melt the butter in the pan. You then put the slice of bread in the pan and bake it. Make sure the pan is not too on too high otherwise the mixture that it on the inside of the bread won’t be “done”. When it’s done you put it on a plate and add a scoop (or more if you like) of ice cream. Then: you sit back and enjoy ! ☺

first visit to bihawo

-- Ale Climent and Pitu Jubera Garcia (Spain)

awed and inspired

i consider myself to be a spiritual person and in no other instance is God's presence made more evident than in nature. whenever i see nature, like we did today, i am humbled.  i look at the waterfalls and i appreciate God's greatness and ingenuity; i see the mountains and marvel at how they look - molded by God's own hands and covered with a carpet of grass and trees. i am awed at how one powerful volcanic eruption can destroy a river, displace population, and change lives... forever.  yet it is precisely that destruction 17 years ago that brings 24 people from 10 different countries together to rebuild a culture, a community, and many lives. 

i am inspired by these people, who today, made a difference for others... and most likely, for themselves.  i am inspired by their determination to push on, despite fatigue and heat, to dig a hole, plant a tree, or climb a mountain.

sometimes, God deals people (and at times, an entire nation) acts of devastation and we question the wisdom of it all.  today showed me that perhaps it is not ours to question; the perfection of such an act was in the presence of each of the 24 people in this camp.

-- Leslie Sulit, IPP Staffer (Philippines)

A Trip to Eco-Village

So first day of our blog... Now it seems so far away. I have to think really hard what have we done because there have been so many new things. As far as I can remember we went to the eco-farm of TRD. I was really amazed. All these people living together taking care of their own land and living only from products of their own work. Everything what the soil produces is consumed by the family which takes care of it. And the “waste” like leaves is used as compost like a fertilizer for the plants. They have big variety of plants there such as mangoes, papaya, rice and so on. By the rules of sustainable development they are not allowed to use chemical substances which is great and even healthier than the ones with chemical usage. 

We were introduced to one Indian guy called Sona who runs the whole community. We were told lots of things about the history and how the things goes. He came from India in 1991 when the volcano erupted to help indigenous people who survived this disaster. He was really nice and passionate about the whole thing. We went with him through one hectare of their land. We saw the plants, rice classifying, beautiful spring water river. We had a snack in a shack in neighbourhood. After that we played with Nondas basketball one-on-one and I was badly beaten. I still can remember that little kid called Luis who was so lively and still running around he wanted me all the time to lift him up so he could score. After couples of time it was kinda annoying. But I improved my muscles a bit ;) afterwards we took jeepney which took us back to our camp site. (HONZA).

We were the first volunteer to write to the blog(blame the hangover for that..LÖL!!!)I couldn’t have agreed more with my roommate in madness Honza that it feels so far away…actually its because we were both so eager to meet everyone and hear different opinions and thoughts about the ipp#s theme.(from all countries)So we neglected our say for some days.

Writing ...ok here we go .Usual cisv activities (name games,break the ice and stuff like that). BIG PLUS: THE INTERACTION BETWEEN PARTICIPANTS AND STAFF. Erotic chemistry…best way to begin the ‘journey’ is having a good crew and of course good captain.

 

Sona which means gold in Hindu arrived to Philippines after the eruption of the volcano. It was a lesson for all of us his way of life. I look forward to hear and learn from him .

Philippines feel like home. 

- Nondas Vandoros, Greece