Katjan blog

Now I have been here in Philippines exactly two weeks. I arrived to Manila on Monday 23rd. Have seen already four islands and at least as many towns. This moment I am sitting in the Bo’s Coffee in Capitol area of Cebu, it is light, quiet and pleasant. It is one of those better places, Collecting my thoughts and preparing for the time when I am no more alone here. It has been a good two weeks. It has been a relaxing start. But on the other hand, I have already achieved a lot. This weekend I did miss the girls and Arnaldo, but before there was so much happening that things passed by one after another without too many intervals of quiet empty spaces….

Every day has been different. This morning I woke up early, took a pedicap to the Florentina Homes to bring my luggage before stepping in the plane to come here to Cebu. It was only 1/2hour flight, up and down. Since Friday I have been staying in Cocogrande hotel in Dumaguete while still being alone, but when Arnaldo and the girls are coming tomorrow we will move to the brand new apartment hotel with better facilities called Florentina Homes located in Bantayan barangay. And in this same barangay,  I have already visited one house I am imagining to moving in. Actually, that was the first house I saw and have seen only two by far….so it is quite amazing if in the end we would really decide to move in there! …in the very house that I saw on the second day in our new hometown.  But often it is just the first impression, feeling when coming in the house and that was right. Not too fancy but not too basic either, cozy. Hmm actually it posses quite depressing furniture at present….but with some painting and clearing up it would become a nice house.

It seems that we will anyhow become a true part of the Philippine community in Dumaguete because there are no other foreign families with children, not at least that I know at the moment. Or yes, of course probably many of these mixed couples where the senior age European, Australian or American husband is having his second lot, but I have a faint feeling that we will not have so much to do with them. That is very evident in Dumaguete, probably one of the things that is not so nice at the first glance. The number of older men with young Filippino girlfriends is especially big in that town, not to say that all of them are bad quite the contrary but still it is not probably the side of the town that I like most.

But  how is Dumaguete then? It is not big….but not very small either, with the relatively simple town plan it is possible to find your way after few hours of walking already without a map so probably it is just good. Actually it does not really feel like a tourist hub as described.  Could not even find a bicycle rental, so this maybe tells something? Or don’t really know. Philippines seem to be quite a different place from Cambodia and Vietnam and I am only now learning this “new kind of Asia” which feels much more like a new America to me. The Dumaguete is really not filled with fast food chain restaurants…..but MacDonalds, Jollybee and Chowking are the few places full already on early Sunday morning, of course besides the cathedral and smaller Christian churches of different religious groups.

And then of course the sea is there, everywhere, few hundred meters and it is there, not those white sandy beaches and idyllic palm gardens as in the tourist spots around, but it is there. Yesterday evening I was walking in the Silliman beach next to the airport. The strip of the black sand was full of people on Sunday evening. Children swimming, bigger girls wearing instead of swimming suits t-shirts and bermudas, old men smoking and talking, young men in groups, families, Tanduay rum bottles or beer scattered on the beach with small snacks, fishing boats, nets and traps, waste from the sea, plastic bags and coconut shells. Last rays of sun making the nearby shore of the airport strip golden. A lot of talking.

In Dumaguete one can live a very convenient life, it is not too affluent but there are nice restaurants and almost all you need is also available. There is poverty too and that other side, run down shacks, dirty alleys, begging children, but it is still smaller scale than here in Cebu for example. Today I have been feeling sad because of that, because of children sleeping on the sidewalks, because of those small hands that reach you in the middle of the crowd to ask for a coin or what ever you would be willing to give. And I don’t know what I should do. Somehow I forgot all that in Vietnam. Or later I was thinking when walking in one of the more exclusive shopping heavens where you have everything like in the biggest towns in Europe, that is the unreal space in the real town the space where those that are outside can not get inside. The area that is fenced and guarded with guns to keep that other side, that other reality, that other half of the population outside, to keep those small hands that try to reach you in the crowd outside. I can not help thinking that this country is very divided. Those who can afford and those who can not. It is more evident here in the big town, but even in the small provincial town like Dumaguete you have those both groups.

Actually I am happyt that I am staying in the downtown area in the Business Hotel, it is pretty rough just few streets from there and it is good to see that. When arriving very early in the morning it was even more so, when the doors of colorful second or third class shopping malls were closed behind the bars, then there was only the dirty pavement and dilapidated walls.

But I have been lucky to travel in these two weeks and see also other places than Dumaguete or Cebu. After few days in Manila I travelled to Tacloban in Leyte island and San Carlos in Negros Occidental through Bacolod before taking the five hours long, hot but beautifull bus ride on the coastal road to Dumaguete in the Southern part of the same island called Negros Oriental….

It was beautiful, but also very eye opening to visit the lands of the sugar barons in San Carlos. Northern Negros is one big sugar field. You are in the middle of it, stiff light green leaves of sugarcane bending in the wind everywhere around you. The price of sugar is down, but the first bioethanol plant in Philippines in San Carlos, the same town where the first sugar refinery was established, is soon turning the food crop into fuel.

The hills around the city are beautiful, round and smooth and when the sun is setting the view is soft and comforting. The disaster of barren land is not so evident, but inconveniently true when you look at more closely the steep eroding hills that after slash and burn cultivation and in the absence of the forest cover are slowly loosing the foundation for bearing life. The land in many places is turning into eroded upland desert. But luckily I visited also some newly established reforested sites where birds were eagerly singing away mingled in the branches of indigenous trees. Most of the tree plantations here are all silent rows of exotic species where there is nothing to offer for the birds of this land, so that was actually quite special.

In Leyte island I had an opportunity to follow Barangay planning. With the support of the GTZ EnRD project a more participatory approach to the local level planning has been introduced in few pilot municipalities. This process aims to replace the traditional planning model: a wish list usually written by barangay captain alone and financed by municipality in case any funds might be available. In this model the representatives of barangays are actually sitting days after days together and mapping, prioritizing, filing matrixes…. before coming up with their new five year plan. On the seventh day of the planning I visited Tanauan municipality. The representatives of the three barangays present were genuinely delighted to receive me. Of course I had to make a speech and although I refused to give any advice they still wanted to hear my opinions…”We love you Katja…..” one of the facilitators shouted and of course I promised to come back after five years (so this is 2014!!!) to see how their plans have been realised and dreams fulfilled…..

With the language it is so different from Vietnam and even after Cambodia. I don’t know them and I can already talk to them, of course there are many who are too shy to speak English, but still majority can understand what I am saying. That feels so easy, like some barriers would not be there. But at least at the moment I feel like I am also very committed to learn at least some Cebuano. In fact I have been also blessed by finding a very efficient and dedicated language teacher the second day of my stay in Dumaguete! Seems like good people are just popping up. The first evening I met already six other foreigners living in town and got some recommendations including the tip for the language teacher from them. Besides, through the friends of friends  I have already made a good contact with few Filippinos  living in town, and this was even before arriving there! For example it is truly  amazing that Ging Ging, with whom I am going to sit in the same office room the next years, is actually a good friend of friend of my friend Zarah from Cambodia. That is how it goes….only three or four degrees of separation in this case, is it? And what a generous welcome it has been even until now so I am just waiting what it must be when the girls are here and tomorrow they are!