The Tree Massacre

The tree massacre has begun - It's a beautiful tree but I don't want to live under it anymore! It makes living in our current house feel like living in a cave, as it covers the whole house and court yard. Not to mention the mozzies that are attracted to the pockets of fallen leaves on the nearby roofs.....I would be feeling guilty if I had suggested cutting it down - which I didn't! As the house slowly emerges from under its huge canopy, I can see new potential for plants, pots, and sunbeds. We are considering staying on here at the end of the contract next month! ! The money we will save on a move can go towards a little garden area. I won't miss the mango's dropping on the roof at night which was rather perturbing although great for a mango shake in the morning!

The landlady has been told by the Barangay (roughly equivalent to a ward in UK) Captain ( sort of mini mayor)to cut it down as dropping leaves on all the other properties and causing mosquito's etc. The tree has apparently been annoying the bloke next door, who's president of the tennis club, and therefore has a lot of influence around here.

Barangay Captains wade in on all sorts of disputes including domestic violence, child abuse and general anti social behaviour. They have their own guards to back them up. Power can and does get abused in some places and captains get shot, along with any other level of politician - but hey they would stop those never ending fence arguments in the UK if introduced! Marc was told off by our Captain for sitting wrongly on one of the Park benches! He was only copying a neighbour sitting the same way - anyway now we know what the Captain looks like. Not a lot happens without the Barangay Captains say so, therefore a lot of VSO work involves keeping good relationships with Çaptains in the Barangays were we work.

The tree surgeon or rather giant (A huge man particularly by Philipino standards) turned up at the door to tell us we needed to get the red dwarf out of the tree before he could cut it down. He told us he would be leaving some food to coax it out of the tree. Apparently we're lucky it wasn't a black dwarf? I assume the bad dwarf has now left, as the giant is now up there fighting with the tree, trying to cut it down with what appears to be a penknife or at most a very small machete. Given he'd already been at it for 3 days when the pictures were taken, he'll be living in the tree for some time to come! So goodbye red dwarf- hello giant and sunshine!!!!!!

Parents Day and Nursery Visit

Not sure if I've mentioned before that I had got roped into being a vice president of Gianna's class PTA. Anyway my first duty was to coordinate the parents day. Not having any idea what happened clearly hampered by usual creativity so I took a back seat and let the president take the lead. The parents day consists of the kids performing for the parents and the parents taking over the classroom with activities for the kids...

Initially I was told I just had to demonstrate napkin folding - and provided with instructions for this incredibly useful skill! However on the day I was left with the microphone, a timetable of activities and asked to compare the event as my President was off to his other sons class! Things were going Ok until we got to the ear ring making task. The kids were asked to get the glue out of their folders and produced 45 tubes of SUPERGLUE!!! Imagine the chaos - the hardest job was to keep them from sticking their fingers together - in the end I decided that just removing the glue was the best tactic even though by this time the tubes were stuck to floors/desks etc....There is a generally lower key approach to health and Safety everywhere but then has the more developed nations just become a bit overprotective? Not when it comes to superglue I decided!

We swiftly moved onto paper flower making and I volunteered to drop the napkin activity so save on time! Hopefully this won't be missed in the year end exams. The kids gave presents to their parents, introduced them to their classmates and then performed for the parents - Amazingly(sic) a song from HSM - the girls, and some rap number - the boys, followed by a rather sweet song about building a home. You can see these on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW9-TInKTsQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE0uXo3kFVY

Apart from the American accents it could have a been a school performance anywhere in the UK . The finale was a huge buffet of food the kids had brought in - nothing happens in the Philippines without food! The president was busy looking for the Samosas! He had written out the menu and was particularly looking forward to the Samosas from the Indian families. Advised me this was a major perk of the his role! Hummm must ask for a few curries for the sports day coming up! I was impressed that it was all so well organised especially when there are 45 in the class and their academic work is so demanding.

We've just finished the first quarter exams and I'm finally seeing the light! I now know where to look for the learning competencies, know the difference between a periodical and mastery test and the difference between homework, projects and assessments! Phew - to say its been a challenge does not come close to describing the last 6 weeks. However Gianna managed to pass in all subjects and get an overall grade of Good. Now we know what we're actually doing we should do even better next time. Basically its an hour of work or study each day to keep up but I'm sure they are doing stuff I didn't do till senior school and last week we had to get the dictionary out to understand the spellings! Gianna did really well especially as she missed a whole term of 4th year in the end and is the youngest in her class :)

I was away in Mindanao last week and came home to find that Angelica's class were coming on a field trip to our house. They are studying homes and wanted to visit one of the kids houses to look at the different rooms - Ate (the nanny) and Marc had done a brilliant job on the house and Angelica's room looked finished ( all those little jobs done) . Angelica proudly showed her friends around but then burst into tears when they left - she thought they were staying to play! The photos show her 2 teachers and the kids on the bed. In the photo u can see the labels they had to stick in each room- unfortunately we had a little hiccup at garden but we did manage to sick the label on our one plant in the yard!

Summer Update.....(as in UK season!)

Time flies by so quickly these days I can hardly be live its almost a month since the last entry. been spending far too much time on facebook and neglecting my blog. Well the rains finally arrived with a vengeance. We have had two typhoons pass us by. Whilst neither made landfall they drew in monsoon rains which meant we had torrential rain for about a week. Parts of Manila flooded and the schools were closed on both occasions something Gianna thought was rather fun! Marc ,not so, being stuck at home with the two kids for days on end. The only possibility for entertainment is to dash to the Mall in between downpours but that's not always feasible.

I was in Tagatay for the first soaking with the VSO staff team for work planning. Tagatay is on the ridge of a volcano, overlooking another volcano, in a lake which is also in a volcano. U sort of have to see it to get the picture, which I can't supply at the moment as visibility was nil due to the weather. U can trek up the volcano, but seemed rather pointless when I was there. The planning stuff was all interesting and spending a week with my colleagues helped my Tagalog especially as there was no cable TV and watched the soaps and Deal no Deal" in Tagalog every night!"

At the end of the week there was a joint staff Day with Bahaginan one of the VSO's federated offices here in the Philippines. There was lots of team building games and karaoke, the weather improved and we got to do some sight seeing.

For the second typhoon I was in Manila. Marc and I decided that we wouldn't be hampered by such a minor climatic event and took off to Malate to see a PINIKPIKAN again on the Friday night. The band played, the water rose and nobody seemed to care! At the end of the night I'm sure the taxi sailed home, there was just too much water to drive - Philam were we live doesn't usually flood so we are Ok - the malls keep open whatever, so we can get to the shops even if it means getting wet! Actually being inside a mall is probably a good survival tactic if a bad storm hits as once inside are oblivious to it all. Luckily we had Ratatouille and the Simpons movies on during the bad weather ................

In between the downpours we get good weather- very hot and dry in day although it does tend to still rain at night. We've had 2 bank holiday weekends in august so took off for the second. We caught a ferry over to Mindoro the island next to Luzon (Manila is on Luzon)) and went to Puerto Galera. We had been before, our first trip away for my birthday, but this time we headed off to White Beach and stayed at funky place called Coco Aroma. Nice beach, not exactly white sand but clean and clear water. Coco was at the quieter end of beach so could ignore the packs of young Koreans on holiday. We had a Nipa hut right on beach for p1200 (12 quid) and live music in bar at night.

Not long after we arrived got text to say that two different friends were also heading down to PG for the weekend although staying at yet another beach. We decided this was a good opportunity to try out a 3rd place in the area so headed by tricycle off to Laguna the next morning after a beach massage.

Here we found an even cheaper place, overlooking the small bay, for P800 and hooked up with our friends at their fancy resort ($60, 50 yards further up the beach) for happy hour cocktails. Had a lovely time hanging out on the beach - kids playing on the bancas with the buddies they met. A few sports bars at Sabang next to Laguna kept Marc happy watching football and rugby with one of his golfing buddies. We stayed another 2 nights before Angelica and I headed back via public transport whilst Gianna and Marc stayed on an extra day, as no school, and got a lift back from port straight to Manila with our friends.

One of the strangest coincidences has been us meeting a lovely English/Filipino couple who also have girls aged 3 and 9 as well as a new baby which arrived 2 weeks ago. We found each other via MSM - They live in Brighton but have moved here for Helen's 1 year maternity leave. Theres an amazing number of coincidences such as Paul growing up a stones throw from where we now live, Helen studying Archeology and Paul being into property development. Once Helen's back on her feet we hope to get out on the town! The girls got on so well. It'll be lovely for Angelica to have an English friend her own age, Gianna has Amy, but more importantly a relief for us to have some like minded brits with kids the same age, to hang out with. Everyone we have met so far has kids a lot older.

Only in the Philippines.................

Things are certainly hotting up around here in all sorts of ways. Firstly, we are apparently not having rainy season after all! Its still summer! The rain we have been having each day is not real rain but from cloud seeding. I'm not sure of the science ,but water or salt or both are sprayed from planes and this creates rain clouds. They do this to try to fill up the resevoirs and keep the temperature down to reduce load on the national grid. There is a debate as to whether this is true science or a fiction of the presidents publicity machinery (the cloud seeding not the rain) ,but anyway, whilst poor old blighty is soggy our dams are drying up.

Aside from reduced water pressure, there is also now afternoon blackouts, because of power shortages, they are low on coal to run the power stations - someone forgot to buy enough? Not to worry coal is being shipped as we speak, over from Australia. This power problem is apparently made worse because of the hydro electric dams being affected by the low water levels. On the streets of Manila no-one seems to be worried - everyone is still washing their cars and watering their gardens as usual - No hose pipe ban here then.

Meanwhile on a small island near Mindanao the government is squaring up to the Muslim rebels which will break 6 years peace in the region. There is a lot of diplomacy trying to stop the president and hopefully it will pay off. Whilst we are far, far away, from where any action will take place the longer term repercussions could have an adverse affect on the country. They are preparing to pull volunteers away from the nearest regions if any fighting breaks out, as this will mean movements of displaced people and general upheaval in the those areas.

The latest example of Philippines policy making was highlighted this week by Oxfam. They are trying to convince senators to actually turn up and vote to break the pharmaceutical monopoly in the country keeping the prices of medicines artificially high. They have tried and failed 3 times to get a quorum to pass the bill. The claim is that senators are "encouraged" not to turn up by those companies who would be adversely affected. Its a bit similar to the efforts to get a ban on powered milk adverts. Less than 20% of babies are breast fed whilst one of the main causes of infant mortality is dirty water being used to mix baby feed. Campigners can't get a bill enforced enforced as the American Mutlinationals who produce the milk sunstitutes are able to influence decision makers to stall implementation-Meanwhile every other advert on TV is for some sort of powered milk which is promoted for new babies right up to adulthood - I'm not joking! Other health obessions that shed loads of money are wasted on, and advertisers made rich, are skin whitening products and mulitvitamins!

Reading the newspaper is always entertaining as much of what is written about seems too incredible to be true - at best bad administration - at worst corrupt and criminal. Having said all that - The Philippines continues to grow on me - it gets in your blood- I think its theFilipinos ability to be happy about almost anything - god knows they've had enough years to practice this skill- as oppose to that truly British trait of moaning about absolutely bloody everything!We are lucky as the hardships that affect so many people here do not affect us, at least directly, to be honest it means we have a fairly good lifestyle as everything is so comparatively cheap. Something than can and does make you feel guilty from time to time.............

Anyway look on the bight side, the prisoners are still dancing inside the prisons - You must see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6917318.stm


and we have been taking advantage of the dry weather and been to the beach and Angelica swam for the first time without arm bands!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xZcrXQLDn4

We went down to MayaMaya on the Coast near Nasugbu for the weekend - it was great the kids played with their friends Mathew and David who are a year older than Angelica and Gianna and respectively. I had a stinking cold/cough so just lazed around and recuperated ate nice food and spent time with good friends.

Went to Cebu last week for workshop - didn't get to see much of Cebu but did find a tapas bar which sold a nice bottle of Rose, and a good hotel for stopovers. As people can fly direct from HK to Cebu this may be an option for those with limited time in the Philippines. Cebu gets u closer to the islands quicker than flying into Manila, its smaller and much easier to deal with. Cebu Pacific is the local equivalent of Ryanair and if u book in advance u can book short hops between islands for around 20 quid.

Anyway must stop touting for visitors and get back to work.................

Pinikpikan at the Penguin, Murphys and Miracles

Recovering from a frantic weekend! Started off with Marc having his eyes lasered at the American Eye Centre http://www.eyecenter.com.ph/humaneye/default.asp on Friday. As far as I'm concerned its a miracle! Very sci fi /futuristic all this laser stuff. They zap each eye with a laser for 30 seconds and your eyes are fixed! Marc went in at 5.30 on Friday and whilst he was a bit uncomfortable on Friday night, ( said it felt like grit in his eye) he woke to near perfect eye sight on Saturday morning. Went back in on Saturday lunchtime for an eye test and was told he now has 20:20 vision. I just can't get used to him without glasses. The best thing was it only cost the equivalent of 800 pounds to have both eyes done, whilst its over 1000 per eye in the UK. They gave us a DVD of the op! Haven't watched it yet and I'm not sure that I want to!

On Saturday night we went off to Malate to see our friend Jerry's band Pinikpikan. I've put a short video of the music on http://www.facebook.com/

We met Jerry at MayaMaya in Nsugbu back in April and have been promising to go along to a gig for ages but kept being out of Manila when he played. On Saturday we finally made it to a funky, hippy/arty hangout called Penguin Cafe where they were playing. Alternative sort of crowd and a really nice vibe. The band were GREAT - Lots of drumming and percussion and very dancy - the crowd were all on chairs by the end of the night! It was good to find an alternative scene, as up until now its been fancy clubs and bars in Makati. They play again in August so we'll be back there then....................

On Sunday I took Gianna to see the new Harry Potter film. I took the photos of the Sunday afternoon traffic on the way over to the Mall- It was the middle of the afternoon and the world and his wife all have the same idea to go to the Mall. I'm sure it could actually be conjugated as a verb - magmalling - a pinoy national pastime!....... Luckily we live inside our gated village where we are cut off from the madness - in our little oasis of calm.

There are 100s of cinemas in Manila (in the malls) and films are all shown in English. have to say I didn't really rate the film, but then I've never read a HP book so probably not the best judge.

Gianna seems to be settling into school better and we are getting used to the routine. Up at 5.30 every day. Shes been given the lofty position of vice president of the Theatre club and gets to choose what productions they will do. No surprise there then- I'll expect to see High School Musical at Xmas with Gianna playing Sarpay! Shes also learning all sorts of useful stuff like basket weaving and rug making! We can always send her out to work if things get tough! Her latest party trick is singing the Philippines national anthem in Tagalog!I'm sure it will stand her in good stead for icebreakers, in training sessions, when she grows up. last weekend I took her and her friend Amy to see the pinoy version of HSM which was really good. The cast were all very young but very talented. By the interval we were swooning over the male lead who won teen idol on TV here!

Last night we went off to a British Chamber of Commerce do at Murphys, an Irish bar, in Makati- free bar and food for 5 quid and the open Golf final on the TV. Unfortunately for me it was an exciting finale and went on forever -we didn't get home till 2am. Marc was happy as Larry - he could watch and talk Golf all night. Currently suffering from sleep deprivation - luckily the nanny was around to take Gianna off to school at 6am as I would not have made it!

Work going really well - had important meeting on Friday with Team about my KM strategy which involves reviewing VSO's meeting and event schedules and aligning it with their M&E cycle, to promote better learning opportunities. It was agreed in principle and we begin the review in August at the staff development week. A week in a hotel in Tagatay overlooking the Volcano and lake outside Manila. Marc and the kids will be able to come down at the weekend. Tomorrow I'm off to Cebu for a couple of days - the Philippines second city - smaller and nicer than Manila. The nanny will stay over and help Marc out and then we'll take off to the beach for the weekend when I get back. As for now I'm off home for an early lunch, get Angelica from nursery and a bit of a lie down - one of the advantages of living 5 minutes away from the office.

Angelica in her uniform outside her school

Agusan de Sur Mindanao

Last week went on field trip to Augusan de Sur one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines, back on the island of Mindanao. Met with the newly elected Governor and different departments within the provincial government. The new Governor is the sister of the previous Governor and daughter of the one before him. Political dynasties seem to be very common here, where terms of office are passed on within families.

Visiting the government was a real eye opener - many of the offices would be classed as uninhabitable in the UK. There were very few if any computers. It was so strange to see rows of desks with no PC , typewriter or phone- just piles of papers. They were very hospitable and looked after us very well, even if that did mean fried fish and rice for breakfast every day. The countryside in Agusan was very beautiful but there is very little there in terms of infrastructure. They have problems with illegal logging and mining and enforcing local regulations seems fraught with problems in a country where bribes are a way of life. We stayed in San franz a town with aspirations to be a city but with only partially paved roads that seems unlikely. Met up with some of my colleagues at the only real restaurant in town which was cheap but cheerful. They have a relatively simple life and have to travel 3 hours for any sort of civilisation. The meal was good although had to dodge the clouds of black beetles that seemed to be everywhere.

Visited 3 livelihood projects making corn coffee, palm fruits and rattan furniture. The rattan furniture was the most interesting as they both harvested the Rattan from the mountain and created the furniture.

I was quite happy to get on the plane to go back to hot noisy Manila. Being in Agusan made me appreciate everything we have in manila. We just would not survive out in the provinces where there's no milk, cheese, wine, olive oil etc etc..........The novelty of the rural way of life would not last very long.

Work is going well in that I have a sense of what I hope to achieve in my 2 years and the beginnings of an implementation plan. On one hand its frustrating, as no-one else seems to be doing anything in my field, but at the same time, rather exciting. All good news for the CV long term. Lots of travel coming up over the next 3 months as I am working strategically across the Philippines and now possibly the whole region. Having to turn some invitations to travel down so I'm not away from Marc and the kids too much.

Marc just had 5 days with his college pal on Boracay so shouldn't feel too left out. They both loved it so we will all have to get back there sometime soon. Spent Saturday morning working on our bamboo master plan to export furniture to the Bahamas and UK. I have created the beginnings of our business plan and now up to Marc to do the research and really find out whether the figures add up. Watch this space!!!!

Out on the town in Manila last weekend.....sort of finding our pace now. Happy hour (or 4) in one of the posh hotels then off down to outdoor cafes with live music and then onto the ex-pat bars to play pool. No dancing this week but some good club nights coming up. Had to turn down another cheese and wine frenzy as clashed with our weekly Tagalog lessons which we started again. If I try long enough surely some of it will sink in!