Bye bye, CDO

I've been having an extremely awkward set of goodbyes with people in CDO, in which I say that I am coming back in the spring, thereby making it sound like we don't really need to say goodbye. This is possibly true, but I am not clarifying that I mean for, like, a month, not moving back here permanently. Oh well.

I took some kids from my dorm out for dinner last night. It was awkward, but mostly still fun. Then I spent $100 to buy a pig (lechon!) for my coworkers at lunch today. This was also awkward, as it turns out that lechon is really for birthdays. They all sang happy birthday and laughed at me (in a good natured way) and I didn't really have a chance to say thank you to everyone. Oh well again.

In summary: awkward, and tasty food. I am too lazy to write a real blog post, so here are some pictures of my coffee shop and the kids at my dorm.

Bulua Miss Gay 2008

I approach the task of describing Friday evening with some considerable trepidation. The pictures I was able to take don't do it justice at all, so I'm feeling the need to compensate appropriately with words.

The brief story is that I spent the evening as a groupie for the 2^nd runner up at the Bulua Miss Gay 2008 Pageant. It was as least as strange as it sounds; probably more so.

First, a little background. A small posse of gay boys lives upstairs in my dorm, one of whom is what the Filipinos call a girl-boy, or, as I learned last night, an uy-uy. JR prefers to be considered a woman, so I will refer to her that way from now on. From what I have observed and read, this really constitutes a separate gender in the Philippines. Cross-dressing is very prevalent here – it's not unusual for me to be at the mall and see a pack of young men wandering around in skirts and high heels. But beyond that, there seems to be a gender identity that resides somewhere at the intersection of male homosexuality, transgenderedness, and femininity that has no real Western equivalent.

Surprising as it may be in an overwhelmingly Catholic country with a vocal Muslim minority, the Philippines is in practice very tolerant of male homosexuality. There is certainly a bias that translates into discrimination – gay men tend to be associated strongly with the lower classes and customer service positions, and there is no question of them getting married. In practice, however, there is a large degree of good humored tolerance and even affectionate acceptance. I'm sure that part of this has to do with the sacrosanct nature of the Filipino family. As my friend Adrian (nee Richard) explained to me last night, if your son is gay you will just have to accept it – there is no question of cutting off ties or disowning him. Take as secondary evidence the fact that thousands of people showed up for this neighborhood gay pageant. Little kids, straight men, old women, siblings and co-workers of contestants, the local ruffians, the barangay captain and barangay policeman all crowded into the school gym and hooted and shrieked for a good three hours. There was no evidence that this was considered anything other than wholesome, mainstream Friday night entertainment.

Let me try to take things chronologically. I departed from my dorm with Philip, Adrian, and Blaze (from L to R in picture). JR was already in Bulua getting prepared. We took a taxi to Bulua, an outlying barangay in Cagayan de Oro. It is important to note that the gay boys are unusually kind to me, and that their English is generally superior to everyone I've met except the Lims. They were very intrigued by the fact that I wanted to attend the pageant. Did I know any gays in the US? Had I ever been to a gay pageant? Do gays in the US look the same as in the Philippines?

We arrived in Bulua at 6:45. The pageant was scheduled to start at 7. There were literally 20 people there. I was already starting to feel sorry for the competitors – clearly this was some sort of hokey local pageant for outcast gays, and no one wanted to watch. We took a seat in the bleachers. It was hot. We were restless. Blaze joked that the pageant would probably start around 9pm – on Filipino time. Adrian suggested that we go backstage and visit JR. Although we could see 20 contestant numbers laid out on the judges' table, there turned out to only be about four contestants actually present backstage. I wondered about this. We visited with JR, who was surrounded by an older woman and a young man and woman who were trying to do her hair. She was very nervous – worrying about her hair, about her introductory speech, and about her registration form. A few little kids were hanging around and pasting shiny stuff onto big palm-woven discs that looked liked shields, but not much else was happening, so we decided to go to Jollibee for a snack, just across the road.

After some chicken and rice, we came back to the gym. 8pm. Still no one in the audience. We went backstage again, and this time there were at least 10 competitors there. Adrian explained to me that they don't like to get there early because gays are bitches and will 'borrow' one another's beauty supplies and not return them. Interesting. By this time, a few of the more professional candidates had arrived, and things were buzzing backstage with their groupies and little girls watching them dress. We stuck around for a while. The contestants seemed completely nonchalant about having an audience while preparing. A rather busty contestant stood up in the middle of the room and stripped while her helpers prepared her evening gown, and everyone watched. I will say that she did not resemble anything we would expect at a gay men's pageant in the US and leave it at that. I flirted with some little girls, who wanted to know how old I am and whether I have a sister. It was 8:30 and still hot and still no sign of things getting started, so we went back downstairs and took a seat on the bleachers again. Things started to fill up – maybe a few hundred people.

By 9:30, the gym was packed, with hundreds of people in the bleachers and thousands standing on the basketball court. Kids swarmed behind the judges' table, while an elderly barangay policeman with a whistle on a string of rosary beads pretended to be angry and swatted at them to move back; they all responded by grinning, mano po-ing, and continuing to run amuck. Guys selling peanuts and little bags of flavored popcorn were making the rounds. I was squished in between Adrian and Philip – Blaze had gone upstairs to provide moral support to JR who had texted us to say that her hair dresser and registration fee had disappeared and she was having a major case of stage fright. Philip, who is too shy to talk to me because he thinks his English is bad, was variously leaning on me, resting his arm on my lap, and scooting me further over into JR. Filipinos are not particular about personal space. I will note here that straight men in the Philippines wander around with their arms around one another and lean and hold hands, etc without anyone considering it 'gay'.

Finally, around 9:35 the announcer said the competition would be starting! In ten minutes. I realized that Blaze was not joking about Filipino time. More squishing. The gym was getting hot and sticky. There were thousands of people, some of whom were smoking and making the atmosphere even tighter than it would otherwise have been. I felt sorry for the people sitting in the bottom row of the bleachers, who surely wouldn't be able to see over the standing crowd. At 9:45 the pageant actually started. For five minutes, the announcer recites an endless list of names and titles, as is wont to happen in the Philippines. They thank everyone who has had anything to do with anything and recite all of their titles and ties: we thank Honorable Barangay Captain So-and-so; we thank the Bulua Barangay Council including the Honorable blah and the Honorable blah; we thank the Bulua Youth Council; we thank the wife of Honorable Mayor So-and-so. And on. And on. At this point I also stopped feeling sorry for the people in the bottom row of the bleachers – their obvious solution was just to stand up and block my view instead.

Then, the candidates were called out on stage for the first time, in their bathing suits. This terrible picture is the best I could do from my far-off seat in the poorly lighted gym, but I hope it will suffice as evidence that these candidates did not look like boys. In fact, they looked like they could probably take home prizes at prestigious women's beauty pageants in the US. Some had breast implants, others were wearing silicon breasts (as I found out later). None of them displayed any evidence of being male, despite wearing itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bikinis. Each candidate was called up to a microphone to introduce herself. Each recited a short motto ("Don't judge a book by its cover." "When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." "Beauty is as beauty does.") and recited her qualifications. JR, as I knew, is a registered nurse and was valedictorian at her high school. She had some stage name I didn't entirely catch – Christina Concepcion Ramos or something like that. The candidates came from as far away as Zamboanga and Butuan. Some were nervous, some were flirtatious. Most of the speeches were partly in English, partly in Bisaya. (It is an odd feature of Filipino public events that the announcing is likely to be in English, even when the entire audience is Bisayan.) As one contestant put it: "I was the star of Gingoog. Now I stand before you, sexier, bombastic, and more arousing!"

The bathing suit competition was incredible. Most of the women must take hormone pills, and many looked like they'd had breast or facial plastic surgery. There was a large contingent that was tall and unbelievably slender, and a smaller group that looked more like most actual Filipinas – petite, and pleasantly round. Almost all seemed rather experienced at sashaying around suggestively in heels. They all posed and twirled like runway models. As each came forward, the announcer listed her 'measurements', which – I'm pretty sure – were complete bullshit. The tall, slender ones definitely did not have 36" chests, and the small, plump ones definitely did not have 24" waists. All this time, va-va-voom music is blasting, the audience is screaming and hooting, and a small colored spotlight is projecting swirly shapes onto the stage and audience. Next, there was a break for judging, during which we were treated to that now globally mandatory intermission special: the troop of early adolescent breakdancing boys. Next, the evening gown competition. The gowns were all quite original and flamboyant – none of the junior prom look. I couldn't get any good pictures, but for a taste, see JR in her gown with groupies after the awards were handed out.

The question and answer round was surprisingly substantial, at least for some candidates. Most were asked to explain their mottos from their introductions; a few were asked to explain their stated career goals. JR was asked "As a homosexual, what is your greatest aspiration in life?" My instant reaction, of course, was as a homosexual? Why should this affect your greatest aspirations, blah blah blah. I think, however, that this was the cue for JR to be able to say something a little more topical. Her answer was long, and I only understood part of it, but she ended with, "We did not ask to be made this way, but we homosexuals are also part of God's creation. My aspiration is to be respected in a peaceful and loving Filipino society."

After all 20 candidates did their question and answer session, the first elimination round commenced. I accept that I am lacking in context for the standard of beauty in this competition, but it seemed clear that the goal was to look as much like a glamorous woman as possible. There did seem to be some tension between the candidates who were using surgery and hormones to become more physically female, and those who were dressing up their given bodies to look more female. Either way, the choice of the five finalists was truly bizarre. The first chosen was the most manly-looking of the 20 – the only one who would have fit in a standard American drag context. Her clothes did not flatter her, and she seemed nervous and unpracticed throughout the competition. The second choice was the short, chubby contestand – the one with huge breast implants who had stripped backstage. The third was one of the tall slender girls, who had won the 'best gown' award. She was beautiful, but maybe not the most beautiful of the tall girls. The fourth was JR, who is delicate and pretty, but clearly does not have surgery or hormone treatments. The fifth was another one of the petite girls who looked cute but had a fairly unflattering gown. Each of the top five participated in another question and answer session, this one significantly more hard-hitting. The first girl was asked who should take responsibility for the financial crisis in the Philippines – the president, or the people? JR was asked who she would support in the next presidential election and why. Making the Philippines into a 'progressive nation' and having the people take responsibility for development were common themes.

The candidates were allowed to choose which judge would ask them a question. The tall contestant was the only one who chose judge #1 – Miss Gay Bulua 2006. Adrian whispered to me that they were friends. Ah. After that, I was able to correctly predict the order of the awards among the five. We had two finalists who were probably the least attractive (by the standards of the competition), two who were cute but middle-tier, and only one who was in the top-tier but who would not have stood out if compared to the others who looked like her. And that last was friends with one of the judges. The manly contestant was fourth runner up. The chubby contestant was third runner up. JR was second runner up. The short contestant in the bad dress was first runner up. And, surprise! The tall contestant was the winner.

I don't want to be disloyal to JR. She looked very, very pretty, and I appreciated that she was someone who stood out as not having starved or carved up her body. She is also clearly very intelligent and gave by far the most interesting answers in the Q&A rounds. But, I suspect that she and the other three runners up were placed in the top five to provide a more convincing contrast with the winner. In any event, JR seemed quite happy, and her much-expanded groupie bunch (her nurse co-workers showed up halfway through the competition) was ecstatic.

I don't think that I've fully processed this happening yet. It's clear that this could not have happened anywhere other than the Philippines. I had strongly considered just going to the mall to have some dinner and write a blog post on Friday night instead of going out with the boys. Fortunately, sometimes my better instincts overwhelm my day-to-day anti-social idiocy.

Bukidnon

I’ve been traveling around northern Mindanao for the past couple of weeks visiting rural bank branches. This is for the most part not particularly enjoyable, as my average day goes something like this:

Go to bus station. Spend half an hour being screeched at by every one of the hundreds of people in the station who all want me to get on their bus, buy their water/pineapple/chicken/small child, ride their jeepney, etc. Decide whether to ride the regular bus, which will be uncomfortable and overcrowded, or the aircon bus, which will be slightly more comfortable but freezing. Spend four hours on bus. Arrive in small town. Get gawked at by all residents of said small town while trying to locate the bank branch. Find branch, spend an hour trying to yell at loan officers as nicely as possible in a language they don’t really understand about how they are not doing their jobs. Am acutely aware of the fact that some random white girl they’ve never met before who clearly doesn’t really understand the loan products they are offering is telling them how to do their jobs. Get back on a bus, usually aircon, because I perhaps irrationally feel that they are safer at night on wet mountain roads. Shiver on bus for another 4 hours. Pretend to be asleep while the ticket collector sits down next to me and wants to know if I have a boyfriend and whether I need a Filipino one too. Arrive back in CDO bus station in the dark and rain. Am tackled by ten people who want to provide a taxi/jeepney/motorella/umbrella. Try to find a safe path through the several-foot-deep lakes in the bus station and locate a jeepney.

This generally unpleasant daily schedule is significantly improved, however, when I get to go to Bukidnon, as I have a couple of times this week. Bukidnon is the mountain province just south of CDO, and is not, shall we say, a known as a major tourist haven. It’s a poor, rural province, but with heavily developed agriculture. This is where half the world’s pineapples are grown (and then packaged and shipped out from CDO), along with huge amounts of produce for the domestic market. I haven’t taken any pictures, because muddy, rain-streaked bus windows are not conducive to high quality photography. But, it’s a beautiful drive up into the mountains, and this last trip was particularly nice, so I’ll try to describe it.

The most important thing is that it’s always misty and raining. As you all know, this immediately endears any locale to me, and it’s even better when you add twisty mountain roads and lush greenery. The road between CDO and Malaybalay is pretty good – which is to say that it is almost entirely paved, has two full lanes, and is well-graded if somewhat extreme on the switchbacks. The trip is 95 kilometers, and takes a little over two hours. The first 15k are within the rather expansive CDO city limits along the coast, and are fairly boring and industrial. Essentially a strip of car dealerships, agricultural processing plants, and warehouses along the highway.

The bus turns right just after the international port at Puerto (where else?), and heads up an incredibly steep hill, chugging along behind a line of trucks at no more than 15-20k/hour. Along the road are the beginnings of a more interesting set of villages, made up clusters of tiny shacks on stilts hanging onto the hillside for dear life. I really can’t say how these houses don’t slide right down the slope when it rains (which, as I mentioned, it does every day at this time of year) – maybe they do. This area looks quite impoverished – between the city and the agricultural area – and all of the houses are made of a combination of scrap (corrugated tin sheets, press-board) and native materials (woven palm mats, thatch, bamboo slats).

As the bus gets further up into the mountains, the houses become fewer and farther between, until they are just single huts on the side of the highway. These are mostly so small they look like large chicken coops or kids’ playhouses. I don’t know how the people who live there get from place to place, or what they do for a living. There is often a dog tied up outside, and if you look through the door as the bus goes by, there is a baby on a blanket on the floor, and not much else. After a while there are no more houses at all, and the road passes through a rough section of the mountains intersected by river gorges several hundred feet deep, with giant bamboo forests and mist sitting in the bottoms.

The bus makes it up onto a high plateau, and the serious agriculture starts. Of the crops I could identify, there was pineapple, corn, rice, banana, and white potatoes. Although, that last one I only knew because of the sign that said “Welcome to the white potato center of Mindanao”. I am told that Bukidnon also grows large quantities of watermelon, papaya, mango, and wheat. I also saw horses, goats, cows, pigs, ducks, chickens, dogs, weird looking curly-haired sheep. And a baby kalabaw! Man, it was cute. Seriously.

This area is far more populated, with some fair sized towns and lots of small villages between. I saw a young guy riding a horse. He was wearing a backpack and holding a purple umbrella with gold fringe that frankly looked more like a parasol from the 1890’s than an umbrella. Remember, it is pouring this whole time. We passed a couple of little girls walking along the road in their school uniforms, with umbrellas in two different shades of lavender. As the bus went by (spraying a huge wave of muddy road-water behind it, of course), they popped into a crouch against the barrier with their umbrellas toward the lane, perfectly synchronized, like a row of little purple anemones sucking in their tentacles.

This region is rural, but looks more prosperous. Or at least less like the Filipino version of an ex-urban trailer park. The houses are still small and made out of native materials, but they look well-made and cared for, and have gardens with flowers and fences. There are a few “ecological living parks” which I assume is some sort of attempt at enviro-tourism. The schools alongside the highway are quite nice – strings of little stand-alone classroom buildings around a grassy courtyard, with flower pots and little brick paths. They all have signs that say “This is a child-friendly school”. Which worries me a bit. I mean, as opposed to the local non-child-friendly school?

I eventually get to Malaybalay City, which is pretty boring, so I won’t describe it. Except that there is a store near the bus station called “Jungian Eatery and Sack Dealer”. Hmmm.

My walk to work

As promised, here are some pictures from my walk to work. It turns out, predictably I suppose, that I a lot of people really wanted to have their pictures taken. I was still too embarrassed to stop and get really good shots, so a lot of these pictures are a little fuzzy from being taken in motion. Also, the kitten weren't out this morning, and the goats and piglets and bananas were all present in much smaller stacks than they usually are, so maybe I'll try again another morning.

My 2nd favorite security guard was at the door the dorm this morning.



















My view walking out the door -- this is the corner where there is usually a crowd of young men who hassle me, but they weren't there this morning. They're usually loading grain onto trucks, so I guess that wasn't happening today.



































The girl who sells me 'torta' most mornings for my breakfast.



















There are rows and rows of store fronts like this in the dry market selling the exact same things at the same prices.















The piglet pens!






































These guys really wanted their picture taken.




























These guys at the big feed store on the corner near the goats also wanted their picture taken.





































































The bank!



















Nice security guard with big gun.

































My desk.

Is there a bodysuit that will make me look like a lecherous old white man?

I've abandoned one coffee shop at particular times of day because there's a middle-aged Filipino guy who goes there, who seemed nice, but has started sending me creepy emails.

Today at my fall-back coffee shop where I go to hide from all of the businessmen in the other coffee shop, a nasty cosmopolitan with a twirly orange peel appeared on my table while I was trying to write a paper. Followed shortly by the American guy who sent it over. Fortunately, I avoided being asked for a phone number. Unfortunately, that was because he 'goes there all the time' so we'll 'definitely just bump into each other a lot'.

Rats rats rats. I just want to hide in my corner and get work done. Why can't I look like a ruddy-faced, overweight, 70-year-old white man wandering around the mall clutching at a tiny, beautiful, Filipina in very high heels? Everyone leaves them alone.

Girl Scouts gone wild

First things first: I am pleased to note that my baby sister has chosen to procrastinate via blog post. I think that we should all provide her with positive reinforcement to encourage similar behavior in the future. After all, if she procrastinates on par with most college students, we could look forward to four years of actually knowing what's going on in her life.

Second things second: My apologies for disappearing for the past however many days. I am currently discovering what it's like to have two jobs. As it turns out, it's much like college. You sit at coffee shops with questionable wi-fi all day "working", listen to too much Johnny Cash, and have to numb your brain in order to get to sleep by watching stupid movies and arguing with conservatives (okay, mentally -- I don't know any here so I've resorted to finally reading After Virtue). Point being that I haven't really had a lot of time or energy for posting.

Finally, some actual content:

A few weeks ago, I wandered into the regional Girl Scout office, which I had noticed in passing on my ten trips to and fro the hospital to deal with a deadly brain-eating fungus that was very persistent in trying to bust through my ear drum over the last month. Anyway. I introduced myself to the middle-to-older aged women there and said that I was a Girl Scout in the US, and would like to volunteer to do something useful. They were extremely kind, but appeared to be utterly perplexed by the idea of an adult volunteer.

However, they have since been texting me regularly and inviting me to events. In fact, things have progessed so far that I've started getting text messages like, "I JST HPN 2 B CM4TABL W U. U R ALMST LKE A GRNCHILD."

Most notably, I was invited two weekends ago to attend a nice little ceremony at the provincial capitol grounds to celebrate the birthday of the founder of Girls Scouts of the Philippines, Josefa Llanes Escoda. They mentioned when they invited me that they might ask me to teach a song or a game. Sure, why not? Little Girl Scouts love songs, right?

Being, well, myself, I forgot about this invitation, and not only forgot to look up some songs to teach (hey, it's been a while since I was a camp counselor, okay?) but also stayed up until 4am working the night before. At 8:12am, I was woken by a call from one of the kindly middle-aged ladies politely asking if I was on my way, as the ceremony had started 10 minutes ago.

I do not panic easily. However, let's just say that the next 45 minutes were a little rushed. My physical appearance definitely revealed that I had been hunched over statistical analysis on my laptop for 25 of the previous 36 hours, but I decided I didn't have time to shower. While desperately trying to find something green to wear and get my contacts to stay in, I realized that I didn't have a song or a game to teach. My mental state was not conducive to patiently dredging something up from deep storage, so I took the next obvious step when one can't remember any Girl Scout songs: I skyped Eric.

Who, fortunately, was kind enough to call Robin and Kelly -- and, if he was laughing at me, at least had the decency to not translate that into "hahaha" or "lol" or a nasty animated skype-smiley sticking out its tongue at me. Robin and Kelly, of course, are superior Girl Scouts and remember many songs and games, which they patiently typed out verse by verse for me while I scurried around trying to dress and fussing that the things they suggested might not be appropriate for little Filipino girls ('Go to Joan Glover and tell her I love her, By the light of the moon tell her I'll come to her' -- Scandalous!).

I eventually managed to scramble out the door and find a taxi. Upon arriving at the capitol grounds, I discovered about 20 older women sitting on a stage in formal dress and nearly 1,000 pristinely uniformed Girl Scouts, 5-18 years of age. I managed to make my way up to the stage with only minor commotion ('Hey look -- some white girl!'), and was promptly seated in the very center of the stage next to the provincial minister of tourism. About 5 minutes later, I was ushered up to the microphone, and asked to give an 'inspirational speech' and teach a song.

It was not the most inspired speech I have ever given, but I am pleased to report that the virtue of knowing trusty Girl Scouts who can be relied upon to respond to panicked calls at all hours of the day and night from the other side of the world featured centrally. I also attempted to teach a game that involves snap/clap/stomping in a way that sounds like a rainstorm. Unfortunately, I forgot to explain that it was supposed to be rainstorm, and was too asleep to really conduct the approriate shifts in thumping method. I suspect that as a result, 1,000 little Filipino Girl Scouts now think that big American Girl Scouts play really stupid games.

Then, I sat on stage for 3 hours while many, many Girl Scouts performed. It was quite the variety show. Some girls sang Madonna. Several troops did very suggestive choreographed dances to current radio hits. Others did very suggestive choreographed dances to old Madonna hits. I felt very wise in my decision not to teach them any scandalous songs about lovers meeting by moonlight.

In the end, I got presented with some lovely pins, met the governor of the province, had my picture taken with at least five troops, and my hair touched by at least 117 little girls. Below, some photographic evidence.

Me with the regional Girl Scouts president/provincial tourism minister. Okay, I guess my shirt wasn't really very green.

Donating money -- they asked all of the girls to contribute money as part of the ceremony. It was weird.

Being swamped and having my hair petted.














The smallest belly dancers.

Intramuros

Pictures from my afternoon in Manila's Spanish quarter, as promised.






Okay, okay. That last one isn't from downtown Manila.

Funereal filipino gospel-grass?

Reporting in from a really excellent day in Manila, much as I never expected to say that. After some trouble finding a hotel in the right neighborhood and price range with a vacant room for the next three nights, I didn’t even head out into town until around 2:30. Things started off badly, getting totally ripped of by a taxi driver to whom I had been particularly nice. He turned on the meter when I asked him to (this is frequently a problem with taxi drivers in the Philippines – they want to ‘cut you a deal’ instead of turning on the meter, and will just start driving while they argue with you), so I wasn’t worrying too much about paying attention. At some point the meter went fairly rapidly from around P65 to P477 without me noticing. When I expressed skepticism about this, he explained that he was a special “hotel taxi”, turned off the meter, and agreed to charge me “only 400”. By way of a reference point, the return trip cost me P120. I considered fighting him on this, considered the fact that we would likely be arguing over the equivalent of $3-4, and thought better of it. As I got out of the car, he pointed to a tourist trap horse-drawn carriage, and warned me not to take them because they were “very expensive” and would “charge me too much”. Hum.

Things were on the up and up from there, however. I spent the whole afternoon in the Intramuros district – which is the old Spanish quarter, or what’s left of it – starting at Fort Santiago, the fortified entrance into Manila from the Pasig River. The fort and walls of Intramuros date from the 1570’s, but oddly, don’t look it. Fort Santiago was the execution place of the nationalist hero Jose Rizal – doctor, novelist, poet, artist, amateur zoologist, Free Mason, and all around good guy, apparently – in 1896 by the colonial Spanish administration. It’s now basically a shrine to his memory with a small and inadequate but surprisingly attractive museum and large gardens.

Inside the museum is a small room where Rizal was locked up in the days preceding his execution. The room itself is not very interesting – a newly plastered boxy space covered in back-lit plaques with inspirational Rizal quotations. Leading off from the room, however, is a very small chapel-type space. I’d heard music in other parts of the museum and assumed it was a recording; it turned out to be people singing from inside this room. I sat on the floor in the execution room for about 30 minutes, trying to figure out what was going on. (Anything to make sure that I move through museums as slowly as is humanly possible!)

It was clearly a religious ceremony or private mass of some sort: there was a priest in full robes standing in front of a small table with candles, and a guy standing next to him ringing a bell at certain moments. I couldn’t see the whole room, but apart from the priest and the bell-ringer, there were about 5 women of various ages visible through the door. They were wearing all white, but it didn’t look like uniforms or ceremonial clothing.

I was torn the whole time about whether or not to take a picture for you all. In the end I decided not to. It was quite visually striking – the room was lit by candles, and full of women in white looking about to burst and casting huge shadows on the 19^th century plaster wall – but the real idea was the music, which I couldn’t get with a picture. More to the point, people usually aren’t crazy about you taking pictures in churches, and I didn’t want to be disrupting or disrespectful.

Most of the ceremony consisted of singing. There were occasional interludes of tuneful chanting or solo singing by the priest – who had a really lovely low tenor voice – which were followed by long responses from the women and the bell-ringer, and whatever other unseen people were in the room. The music itself was very, very strange. Or, not really strange, so much as not what I expected to hear. The closest thing I can put my finger on is some sort of funereal gospel-grass choir. It sounded very Western to my ears, but in an American southern Protestant sort of way. Not Eastern, but also definitely not Catholic of any variety I’ve encountered before. The women sang close-harmony, mostly full-throated, but with an eery, thin soprano descant line over everything. Everything was a capella. The only song I recognized was, bizarrely, Silent Night, and that was the least mournful of the bunch.

They sounded good – good enough that I thought it was a recording when I was in the other room. But they didn’t seem professional. For one thing, I had a strong impression that I was making them feel uncomfortable or self-conscious by sitting and listening. I don’t think that it was intended as a performance. For another, they were wearing a hodge-podge of white t-shirts and skirts, and there was a little pile of sandals and shoes outside the door to the room. Also, they sang like people who were accustomed to singing together, but not as if they were choreographed or practiced. The harmonies revved up rather than landing – there’s actually a musical term for this, I think, but I don’t remember what it is – the way group singing sounds when not everyone shifts notes at the exact same time. I’m not sure how to explain it. They sounded like a bunch of individuals with beautiful voices singing together, rather than a choir. Like a family or group of friends that sings together regularly.

The attitudes of the singers varied significantly. Closest to me were two women in their 60’s who seemed on the verge of tears much of the time. Both looked completely lost in the singing, and one spent most of the ceremony on her knees with her head down and hands clasped. The 20-something woman next to them, on the other hand, yawned regularly between songs.

I scurried away as soon as the music ended, but not too quickly to see about five small children – dressed completely informally, by the way -- come out of the corner and go toward the singing women. Each of children lifted the hands of the older women and touched them to their foreheads, the way kids do here to show respect.

I have no clue what was going on here. A volunteer group singing requiem for Jose Rizal? A private mass? The anniversary of someone’s death? Anyway, I was glad I caught it.

The rest of the afternoon was equally enjoyable, but less eventful. I wandered the Intramuros in the rain and walked along the old ramparts. The neighborhood was pretty much deserted – I ducked under an archway for about 20 minutes at one point to get out of the worst of the downpour, and I saw a grand total of one motorcycle and two bicycles go by the whole time. Aside from the fact that I was very, very overdue for a long walk by myself in the rain (WTF, Colorado), I think that this was really the right way to see the Intramuros anyway. Crumbling stone walls covered in vines look better in the rain.

Around 6pm, I hit the big time jackpot, thanks to the LP as usual. That’s the Lonely Planet for you plebs out there. I will not elaborate, except to say that you will all have to wait to find out what you’re getting for Christmas.

Pictures coming when I get back to CDO, although none of me.

Three complaints and one excellent weekend

Complaint #1:

The biggest, hairiest spider I have ever seen in my life is hiding in my room somewhere, and I can’t find him. First, he tried to jump into my hot soup from behind the curtain. Then, he hid when I went to get one of the girls who works in my building to ask her if he was poisonous, so that she laughed at me and thought I was hallucinating. Now, he’s hiding somewhere, and I haven’t find him. Probably he will eat my toes off while I sleep.

Complaint #2:

My ear infection is back.

Complaint #3:

MILF rebels invaded Lanao del Norte, which is the province where my bank is headquartered and which was previously thought to be safe. The Philippine army has been fighting there for the last two weeks. The family that owns the bank has shut down one of their branches there, advised their Filipino employees not to travel at all, and left for Manila last week for their own safety. Apparently Atty. Lim (the owner) was one of three people on a kidnapping list for the province.

Between Zamboanga and Lanao, I now can’t travel to 90% of the bank’s branches. This means that plans for my project are being seriously revised.

Fabulous thing that outweighs all of the above:

I went to Bohol this weekend with Katie (another IPA staffer who just graduated from Brown)! We did many awesome things, below.

Meet my trusty backpack, supplied by Barbara and Bob for my birthday. This turns out to be the ultimate packing device for weekend trips in the tropics, complete with space for essential personal accessories, like an ipod and a 1,000 page novel.

We took the ferry from Cagayan de Oro to Jagna. We were supposed to get there at 4am for an 8am ferry. Thinking that perhaps in the Philippines things were unlikely to get started 4 hours prior to departure, we got there at 6:45am, let the bomb-sniffing dogs check out our bags, and finally got on the ferry around 7:40am. The trip took about 6 hours. We went economy class, and got to hang out on an open air deck that was entirely covered with little bunks. It was surprisingly comfy!

We got into Jagna, and were met by the brother of a co-worker of Katie’s and his friend, who insisted on taking care of us. They took us out to lunch and tried to pay, which was awkward. Then they took us to the church to meet the co-worker’s mother. Also awkward.

We took a bus into the jungle. I sat next to a woman who looked about 65, who talked at me the whole time. I didn’t understand about ¾ of what she was saying, and vice versa, I think. She did manage to let me know that Boholanos are a simple but happy people, and that she has very well behaved children in Canada who bought her a house. And that there was some town on the mountain that we should really go to because it had a swimming pool and a tennis tournament. The bus dumped us at the intersection with the road up to Loboc, and after some haggling, I experience my first hobble-hobble (no idea how you actually spell that) ride. This is basically paying some guy to take you somewhere on the back of his motorcycle. I now know that one wheeled suitcase, on large-sized Filipino man, and two medium-sized American girls will all fit on one motorcycle. The large-sized Filipino man dropped us at a dirt road down into the jungle near the Loboc River. We tromped down through the mud for about 1 mile, including an extremely steep staircase, with poor Katie carrying her suitcase.

At the bottom, we go to Nuts Huts, which is a cluster of nipa huts on the banks of the Loboc River, run by some hippie Belgians. It’s only accessible from the dirt road, or by the river. We ate dinner on the river on a floating restaurant (serenaded by Frank Sinatra, true to the LP’s predictions) and then took a night cruise down the river. The local public works project to encourage tourism is to light up the river, so the whole cruise was essentially about floating through the jungle with eery neon lights glowing in the trees on both banks. I wish I had good pictures, but it was, well, dark out.

In a true Jungle Cruise moment, a dock floated up to the river boat, all lit up with torches and lanterns. I was concerned for a minute that local “cannibals” might be planning to attack tourists for camera ops, but it turned out to be full of about 30 kids and young adults playing ukeleles and singing and dancing. It was surprisingly cute, although about as kitschy as it sounds. Strangely, there was a donation box on the dock, but no one came to ask for tips or donations.

When we got back to Nuts Huts, we sat out on our private veranda over the river for a couple of hours. We drank cold beers, courtesy of the Belgians, and listened to a very loud chorus of frogs, birds, and insects until someone came poling along the banks of the river and turned off all the neon lights.

The next morning we decided to take the river exit from Nuts Huts, rather than lugging Katie’s suitcase all the way back up the stairs and the mud road. We met up with a driver Katie hired, who took us to see the sights of the island. To make a long story short, we thought we’d hired him to take us wherever we wanted for seven hours – he thought we’d hired him to take us along a set tourist route for however long it took. In the end, we didn’t see everything we’d hoped (including the tarsiers – he was only willing to take us to the nasty illegal petting booths along the highway, which we declined, and not the nature reserve), but we did see a lot of cool stuff, including the famous Chocolate Hills.

We spent the next night at Alona Beach on Panglao Island off the coast of Bohol. It’s pretty much the resort strip, but supposedly with some of the best snorkeling and diving in the country. On Monday morning, we took a boat out to Balicasag Island, which is surrounded by a national marine reserve. Katie snorkeled and saw sea turtles, while I took a canoe to shore to sulk about having an ear infection that prevents me from going in the water and read my book. I was too stupid and lazy to explore the island, and instead ended up falling asleep in a shelter on the beach. It was a good place for a nap, though.