Last Week 08-05-16

On Friday, I along with around 15 other interns, participated in GK Friday. GK Friday is a weekly event which brings both GK workers and students from universities in the Philippines to GK communities for a day. We left early in the morning drive to a GK Escoba, a community located in Quezon City, Manila. We learned about the community’s history and what they were working on. Its main goal was to provide work and homes to families where one member has a disability. They were currently in the process of building 136 more houses, so there was lots of work for use to do. We all chose tasks, some breaking up dirt with pickaxes, others shoveling the dirt into buckets, and others passing the buckets down a line to a pit where they could be dumped. We each spent some time doing each of these tasks through the morning, and, after a lunch break, through some of the afternoon. Before leaving, we got a chance to walk through the community. It felt rewarding during our walk through the community to think how our work was helping build actual homes for actual people that will be living in them.
It’s hard to believe, but as of last Friday we entered our last week on the farm. All over I’ve been noticing lasts: Our last trip to Manila, our last chicken slaughter (hopefully), our last days with all the people we’ve grown close with. But we still had a chance to experience one more first:
Before leaving on my trip to the Philippines, I received two pieces of advice more than any other. “Don’t eat balot” and “You have to try balot”. Having gotten so many different opinions about it, I was determined to see for myself what balot was really like. For those of you who don’t know, balot is a partially developed duck egg. I had noticed balot sellers before, but never actually bought it until our last week. Morgan had also expressed interest in trying it, so the two of us got it together. It was… definitely a new food for me. The yolk didn’t taste all that different from a hard boiled chicken egg yolk. The duck itself, however, did not taste as great. After getting over the idea of eating a few feathers, I was able to finish my balot, and just might get it again before I leave.
This Sunday, the Americans and I had our despedida. Although still almost a week away, a lot of the French interns are going on vacation before we leave so we wanted a chance to say goodbye. Last month, a few of the French interns rented out a nearby pool for their last night and we wanted to do the same. One of us got Nate on odds (a stupid game we play to justify doing stupid things) to try balot at the despedida. We decided to pick up some extras in case anyone else at the party wanted to try it. We were able to find seven others who wanted to try balot. This came as a disappointment to me, as I was planning on trying it again. Luckily I still have a few days before my last balot.
Morgan and I finally managed to finish our drip irrigation project. We laid out our hoses and poked holes by each of the plants. When we turned on the water, the system actually worked! Hopefully someone will be able to continue with our work in the future and provide a greater area of the farm with working drip irrigation.
Last night, Nate and I helped cook dinner at one of the houses in the community. We made chicken adobo, a recipe which I will definitely continue to make in the states. We’ve now entered our last day on the farm, and we’re all amazed how quickly our time here has flown by. With all of our projects wrapped up, all that’s left to do is pack our bags. Some of us will be in Malaysia until the 15th, but tonight marks the last night of us being together as a group. I don’t know when it will happen, but I definitely plan on visiting the Philippines, and maybe even Gawad Kalinga, again in the future.

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Buckets of Fun – 07-28-16

We’ve spent most of our mornings this past week in the rice fields. Since the next week will be our last, we won’t be able to participate in the actual rice planting, but a the paddies will hold a lot more water thanks to us. One day after finishing our work, Nate suggested that we have a mud fight, Americans vs. Europeans. We had a blast, until remembering near the end of the fight that the water in our bathroom wasn’t working. Luckily the showers at the pool were still working so we were able to use those.

We didn’t really have problems with water access for the first part of our time here, but have noticed more issues in recent weeks. Sometimes our shower has stopped working, but a faucet in our bathroom works so we’ve been taking bucket showers. I can’t say that I prefer it to conventional showers, but I do have to admit that it uses much less water and does a great job of waking you up in the morning. Though the bucket filling system usually works,the faucet has also stopped working from time to time. When this happens we can still get water from the showers by the pool. Having almost always had a virtually unlimited supply of water just a few steps away, this was a pretty big inconvenience. It really made me think about just how much I’ve taken for granted every time that I flushed the toilet or started a load of laundry.

This weekend I along with the other American interns went to Manila again. The trip was similar to our last time in the city. We had a meeting Monday morning and were able to make it back before it started. Manila was fun, but it felt good to get back home to the farm.

This past week, Morgan and I were able to start putting our drip irrigation project together. We were able to get enough tubing within our budget to set up a system for 50 plants, less than we were planning on but still a good sample system if it works. We’ve had the tubes all laid all, and just need to poke holes in the right places for the system to work.

I’ve also continued to work with Morgan and Suchana on their turkey farm project. Currently, there is no fence to keep the turkeys in their area. They’ve been working on building a fence made of bamboo, similar to the one I helped build for the goats. We spent Wednesday morning cutting down bamboo shoots and will start building a fence out of them in a few days.

Earlier today, we helped out with another chicken slaughter. The steps were still the same as the other times, but today Louis asked if we wanted to help with the actual killing of the chickens. Even though I held chickens as they were slaughtered before, I’ve never actually been the one to kill them. I wound up with some blood on my shorts, but other than that the process went swimmingly (except for the chicken). It’s good to know that I know how to kill and prepare a chicken, should the need for that ever come up again in my life.
Over the course of the past couple of weeks, we’ve also had several interns start to leave. Some of their internships have ended, while others are just going on vacation but will return after we leave the farm. Saying goodbye to all of the interns has really put into perspective just how little time we have left on the farm. Still, it’s hard to believe that our two months in the Philippines is already drawing to close.

Back at the Farm 07-20-16

During the time we were gone in Baler, Kathy, the intern whom I’d been working with at the herb garden, also left on vacation. Because leaving, she finished preparing a small batch of our herbs for selling and put them in the souvaneir shop, so I will be spending the next few days managing that inventory. Luckily, the herbs available for purchase were labeled so I was able to make some more progress with learning to actually identify some of the herbs that I’ve been growing.

This week, I along with the other American interns started giving swimming lessons to the kids in the community. Though most had some swimming ability, they had never taken lessons before. Having spent a good portion on my youth in the pool, I had some idea as to what should go into a swim lesson. The kids are divided into several groups, so we were able to repeat our lesson plan for each day of the week. We first taught the group how to float on their back. Many struggled with it, but with the help of the other American interns and I, most were able to do it after a few minutes. We went on to teach them how to kick on their back, and eventually do backstroke. Though they definitely have a ways to go, they had clearly improved by the end of the hour, and seemed excited for their next lesson.

On Thursday morning, Diego left us. We knew he was only staying for a month, but it was still a bit of a shock to lose someone who had become such a key member of our group. His leaving also put into perspective how much time had passed since we arrived in the Phillippines. We have now moved significantly past the halfway point of our time here, and have begun to start thinking about how we will close out our internships.

On Friday, Morgan, Suchana and I went to Santa Maria to look for the tubes to use for our drip irrigation system. We took a jeepney there, then found a trike to take us to the store which we were told sold the parts we needed. After some confusion regarding the location of the address we provided, we eventually found to the store we were looking for. Unfortunately, upon arriving we learned that one size of tube we needed cost more than three times per meter as we were told it would. Considering we needed almost 120 meters, this would have put us pretty far over budget. After checking out other nearby stores with little luck, we heard of an Ace in Manilla that probably has what we need, so we will try to make that trip next week.

Luckily, our trip wasn’t completely in vain as we were able to pick up the final ingredients needed for Morgan and Suchana’s turkey burger recipe! The turkeys have been on the farm for some time after being donated by the Department of Agriculture, and up until now have had no practical use besides being a tourist attraction. Since the turkeys have had to be fed since their arrival, the cost of both their feed and paying a worker to manage them has seriously hurt the farm’s ability to turn a profit. Morgan and Suchana clearly had a major task at hand. After identifying how many turkeys were necessary to maintain the population, they decided that it would be ok to start experimenting with some turkey recipes. They killed two turkeys earlier in the week, and with the help of a SEED student, found a place in Angat where they could grind the meat. I helped prepare the turkey burgers today, and we were even able to grill a few samples for Tito Tony and ourselves to try. I don’t know if I can say for sure if I prefered it to the duck burger (in case any Golden Duck workers happen to be reading this), but it was a damn good burger. Tito Tony loved his burger as well, and fully supported their plan to sell more and eventually pass the business on to the SEED student they were working with. We plan on making 19 more tomorrow, just in time for the other IWU Freeman interns to visit.

The next day, the other IWU interns arrived at the farm at 9 am. They received a short introduction to the farm as well as watched a video that most GK visitors are shown. After that, we took the group around the farm. I had been on similar tours in the past, pointing out specific areas where I have been focusing my work over this past month. However, it felt different to tour a group of people who I’ve seen around school for the past few years. At lunch we ate at GRK and some of us (including myself) ate turkey burgers as well. After lunch, we showed the other interns the pool where we hung out until they had to start their drive home around 4. I along with the other GK interns went into Angat for a bit and were able to make it back to the pool in time for our swim lesson at 6. This was the last group to have their first lesson with us, so we will need to come up with a new lesson plan for our next class.

On Tuesday, we started to help with rice planting. We went out into the fields and moved mud in order to build walls to better hold water into the paddies. I’m glad the shirt I wore wasn’t one I was particularly attached to, because by the time we had spent a few hours working in the field we were muddier than I had been in years, partially due to the mud fight that some of the other interns decided to start. Since there is much to be done to prepare for the rice growing season, this work will most likely take priority over our other projects for the remainder of our time at the farm. However, I still feel like we have a good enough plan for the drip irrigation project to complete it before we leave.

Make A U Turn (If Possible) 07-13-16

Last week, we had a new group of French interns come to the farm. Like the last group, they were only staying for a short time before going to a different GK location for the remainder of their time in the Philippines. This group, however, was much larger than the last group, consisting of over 90 interns. On Wednesday of last week, we were told that the short term interns were going to work in the afternoon, and we could take a few of them to help on our project if we wanted to. I figured this would be a great opportunity to make some progress with clearing out the grass by our U-turn area, so I found a group of five interns who were interested in working with me and we set off to equip our pickaxes and baratas. When we arrived at the site of the U-turn, I saw Tito Tony’s car parked on the area where we had been digging. He asked what we were up to and I explained the U-turn project to him. However, he seemed to have a different idea for how to we were going to be using the area as he informed me that we had been digging at what was actually the future site of some parking spaces and that we would have to find somewhere else to put the U-turn. After hearing this news, I took the interns to a different location where we dug beds for vegetable planting. I was disappointed to hear that I essentially need to start from scratch on my project. However, I was not all that surprised as I have heard similar stories of plans being altered by Tito Tony deciding that something else should take priority. I have already on several occasions noticed several cases of a lack of communication to/from management of the farm which has often decreased the amount that workers can accomplish in a limited time frame.

Although I wasn’t thrilled to face this new obstacle in my project, I knew I wouldn’t be upset for long because this weekend was our trip with MAD Travel! MAD (Make A Difference) Travel is a social enterprise that works with GK to bring interns around the country to see both tourist destinations and other GK communities. Our group consisted of the GK American interns and Eric and Liz, two IWU students who are currently interning with Human Nature. We left the farm Thursday morning and went to GK Silver Heights, a community about an hour away. GK Silver Heights was one of the oldest GK communities, when a fire destroyed it a few years ago. Since then, the community has been rebuilt and families have been given new homes. While at Silver Heights we were each given a host family to stay with. The woman I stayed with had three daughters and one granddaughter, all of whom were very welcoming to me. This experience made me wish we had host families on the farm, as I feel like I was able to get closer to this family in one day than I have with many of the families in the Enchanted Farm community. In the afternoon, I along with the other Americans and some of the Titas went over to the local supermarket and bought food which we then used to cook dinner with. We made chicken adobo, chop suey, and turon, a dessert made of fried bananas rolled in brown sugar.

In the morning, we said goodbye to our host families and began our drive to Baler. Baler is a coastal town with lots of beaches and places to go surfing. The drive took almost all day, and we arrived at our hostel around 7 pm. The drive was slightly delayed by our getting a flat tire about an hour away from our destination. We got dinner at a Mexican restaurant near our hostel which served burritos as well as seafood. The next morning, we went to GK Baler, another community located near our hostel. We played games with the kids ate a boodle fight style lunch (when the food is laid out on banana leaves and everyone eats it with their hands). That afternoon, we all took surfing lessons. The waves weren’t very high, but that was probably for the best as we were all able to surf pretty consistently by the end of our hour. That night, we ate at the Mexican restaurant again because we were all still missing burritos far too much to pass on that opportunity.

The next day, we took a trip to one more GK community. While there, we went on a trek to a nearby waterfall. We walked over rocks for about a half hour, crossing a river at several points. One of our guides told us a story about a man who lost a shoe crossing a river and reacted by throwing his other shoe so someone downstream could find a pair. At a couple of points, one of my flip flops fell off. Luckily I was able to grab it out of the river before it got out of reach, but I was ready to throw the other one if the need arose.  After reaching the waterfall, we climbed up it and hung out near the top. That afternoon, we made the spontaneous decision to stay one more night in Baler, and after checking with our driver to make sure it was ok, we went surfing again. The waves were even smaller than the day before, and without an instructor it was difficult to read the waves. Still, we had fun just enjoying the ocean and were glad we decided to spend the extra day on our trip.

The next morning we just hung around our hostel. The entire inside of it was painted by people who had stayed there, and paint was available for us so we decided to leave our mark. Several of us painted messages where we could find space (I added a Kanye quote).In the early afternoon, we started our drive back to the farm. We made one final stop in Baler at the biggest Balete tree in Asia. It was 600 years old and made up of many large and easily climbable branches. Having climbed trees before, I was not expecting to experience anything as cool as this tree. I was able to find a branch inside of the tree and climb several meters up where I met up with some of our group who started climbing outside of the tree. This trip has continued to challenge my views of just how agile one can be in flip flops!