salamat po for the memories, manila!

i finished my contract yesterday, and this is how excited i was to submit the final report and get going on my vacation.

i hope you are all similarly excited to start your holidays!

today i bid a fond farewall to manila as i head off for three weeks of travels before eventually returning to toronto. to wrap up here are a few lists, of things i will miss about manila, and the philippines in general:

• wearing tank tops and sandals
  
• palm trees everywhere
• cheap food, movies, clothes, manicures, massages, taxis, everything!
• getting a dozen compliments a day
• pearly white laundry service
• having my apartment cleaned every day, and my dishes done
• the bay
• the incredible friendly people
• sizzling gambas, chocolate crinkles, buko pie, san miguel
  
• hobbits
• being called ma'am all the time (it grows on you, trust me)
  

things i will not miss about manila:

• crushing poverty everywhere
• getting robbed
• the air pollution as thick (or thicker some days) as pea soup
• cockroaches
• working all the time with almost zero days off in two and a half months
• all texting, all the time
• earthquakes
• typhoons
• total lack of blonde hair dye!

overall, i'm very very happy i came here. i learned a lot, and absolutely none of it was what i thought i would learn (which is a lesson in itself). now... my re-integration into toronto life. i guess i will have to start wearing makeup - and long pants - again. i hear it's cold there. brrr.

i look forward to seeing you all when i get back in january. thanks SO MUCH for following along on the blog, but don't tune out just yet. i'll be posting some stories and photos from my travels when i get back.

finally, A BEACH!

here are a few pics of my beach weekend in mindoro. this is the last week of my contract, so am busy busy this week. looking forward to finishing up work and continuing to work on my tan!!

my view at breakfast.
a few sunset views.

the view down the beach.
mountains and clouds.on the rocky path to white beach. i look pretty tan, huh?
well, maybe in a few more weeks....

the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

since the other videos seemed to be a hit, how about one from my roof where you can get a panoramic view of my neighbourhood, including the huge mall across the street?

no?

well, how about if there is a big fire in the video?? would you watch it then?



i just hope my favourite noodle place is intact tomorrow....

monday morning music, revisited

this morning seemed to have a decidedly german / polka feel...

still a-ok in manila

this week has been a dilly.

first, an earthquake on tuesday (up to 6 point something, depending on what you read) and then an attempted coup yesterday. i'm happy to report that neither really affected me too much, although the earthquake was not my favourite thing in the world.

the work is really winding down here now. the measles campaign officially ended this week (after being extended for two weeks). all of the WHO short-term consultants on my team finished today and have either already left manila, or will be leaving in the next day. very weird to see the people you've worked with so closely disperse so quickly.

and soon, i will be done too! also strange.

back to blonde

it's funny. i post about cock fights, getting robbed and climbing volcanoes, but the post that i get the most comments & e-mails about is the one about my hair! actually, most of the comments that i got were a) it's not even that orange (i beg to differ, but ok) and b) it's cold in canada, and you're wearing tank tops, so stop whining about orange hair!

regardless of how you weighed in, i figured that a follow-up post was in order to let you know that my head has been de-oranged and i am back to blonde! i decided that i had to go where most of the european hair is in manila - makati, where the rich foreigners live. (note: i do not live there. i am a poor volunteer.) luckily, i happened to find a salon proclaiming that they are "experts in european hair styling". after two hours of correcting the roots and then doing new highlights, my colour was pretty good (a bit yellow, if the truth be told but i'm not going to get fussy about it!) and i decided to get a trim.

now, things could have gone terribly wrong here. the woman started doing a freestyle hair cutting thing without using a brush, comb, or even her other hand in the technique. when i voiced a bit of concern i was told to "trust her". well, i'm glad i did.

not too bad, huh?

[also - if you compare photos with the last hair post, the orangeness is undeniable. at least it is from my perspective in sunny, warm manila where i am wearing a sundress and using a fan to cool myself!]

monday, monday

every monday since i arrived, i've been woken up at 7 am by incredibly loud, strange, music. sometimes it's chanting, sometimes it's bells, sometimes it's singing. one time i swear that it was kenny g, or a very good imitation. i'm not sure where it comes from, but my best guess is either the philippine general hospital or the university nearby.

this monday as i lay in bed appreciating the strangeness, i realized that i should document it since the number of mondays i have left here is running out! i took this short video from my balcony. hope you enjoy this little slice of my monday morning!



p.s. yes, a hair update is coming soon. stay tuned!

tangerine in manila

i have learned many things about the philippines in the past two months, and two things that are particularly relevant to our discussion today.

#1 - people very often say yes when they mean no (otherwise referred to as implicit, rather than explicit, communication); and
#2 - the vast majority of people in the philippines are not blonde.

these two things converged today to bring my reality collapsing in on itself....

blondes are so uncommon here that i have found it next to impossible to even find blonde hair dye in the drug stores here - something that i take for granted back home when i want to touch up my roots. sooooo, after many visits to many hair salons, i decided to take the plunge and visit a salon to get only the roots retouched. i mean, how bad can it be, right? they just need to be a little, tiny bit lighter. no problem, right? the woman at the salon said she had experience with blonde hair before. or, at least, she said yes when i asked her if she did.

the result:


hmm. looks ok. the cut still looks great, actually (especially considering my last cut was 3 months ago). but.... hold on a minute.... why do i look so displeased?


yeah, that's ORANGE HAIR, people. and tangerine is so not my colour. looks like another trip to the salon (a different salon, of course) is on the agenda for tomorrow. here's hoping it doesn't get MORE orange.

and, now that i look at this picture above, my nose IS long and pointy.
perhaps tomorrow is a better day for my self esteem.

taal lake

this weekend i was off to taal lake, for my first ever weekend out of manila! i was very excited, and the weekend definitely did not disappoint. we took the bus from manila to tagaytay, a little town overlooking the lake. a short 20 minute drive down the mountain, and we were at the san roque beach resort, located right on the lake. it was a fantastic place. very small, friendly, and quiet. the view from the gazebo, where we enjoyed a few drinks as the sun went down.

we were up bright and early the next morning to set off for the volcano at 7 am. the earliness of the morning was made more bearable by the deluxe view over my breakfast, which was waiting at the edge of the lake.


after some coffee and yummy food, i was ready to tackle the volcano! a 20 minute boat ride across the lake, and we were ready to go. we heard from many guides offering their services that the trail was very hard to find, and difficult to follow. however, we opted to brave it ... without a guide.


yes, i can see that once you are going along in the huge rut, it's very difficult to tell which direction you should walk. we opted to continue walking up, no matter how tempting and logical it seemed to scramble over the 6 foot wall of mud and see what was on the other side.

part way up the volcano we stopped for a few pictures. and to breathe.
at the top of the volcano, looking down into the crater.

apparently you can swim in the crater sometimes, but the volcano is particularly active right now making it a bad idea. something about the water being boiling hot sulfuric acid. we took a look at all of the steam coming out of the ground and decided to pass. it's funny, actually. the ground was really really hot in places. we took a rest and sat on a rock, only to jump up with burned bottoms. lesson learned about relaxing on a volcano. don't do it!
another lovely view from the top.

it was an amazing perfect weekend, and now i am even more excited to do some traveling around when my contract is up! which is in exactly 3 and a half weeks, if you are keeping track.

update: maybe it's nice to post one of me on top of the volcano, huh?

update

it's official... i am WELL past the half-way point now! only 4 more weeks in my contract and then a few weeks of swimming, snorkelling (potentially with whale sharks, if you can handle it!), sleeping, reading, and island hopping. i have a tough life, huh? i think this looks like a pretty good spot for christmas.


more specifically, in this hammock. which happens to be conveniently located in front of the cottage i just booked.



a few other updates, in rapid fire bullet format:

• i FINALLY have a weekend off! i am getting out of manila this weekend (woooo!) and heading to beautiful and amazing lake taal, a few hours south of here. it's apparently volcano, inside a lake, which is all... inside another volcano. the mind boggles.
• as i am a huge believer in the almighty power of the jinx, i didn't want to mention manila's crime problem before, but i have sadly been a victim of it. coming home on friday night my friend & i were robbed, and i had to give up my bag. luckily i didn't have anything of value in it (other than my work cell phone) and the bag had strangely enough broken it's strap mere moments before the robbery, making it junk anyways. coincidence or omen? you decide. regardless, no one was hurt therefore it was a victory for the good guys (i.e. me).
• the weather seems to be getting a bit more tolerable here, and my hair is correspondingly less frizzy. it's still a/c and tank top weather though.
  
• while i have become accustomed to being stared at as a total oddity here (no westerners, remember?), i have not become accustomed to people coming up to tell me that my nose is long & pointy. although i have been assured (many times, often with creepy overtones) that this is meant to be a compliment... i still don't like hearing it. it makes my nose feel long & pointy.
• and - for those of you in the loop - NO LUNCH TODAY. even after cookies. i give up.

in lieu of a real post, photos!

as a follow-up to my first (but probably not last) post on cock fighting, i learned recently what happens to the loser. they have their feet removed & given to the winner as a trophy. we happened to come across a real champion during our work last week, and boy did he have the feet to prove it!!


a cute little guy (who was vaccinated, by the way) who was wearing by far the most jewelery of any one-year old i have ever met.


yeah, you could say the water is polluted here....


street food. milkfish (bangus) and some sort of stew. i have to say, it looked and smelled delicious.
completely random. 3 chicks (brand new by the look of them) in a bowl along the street - 2 dyed bright yellow, 1 bright red. when i asked why, i was told it was because the children liked it. ok.


this was the BEST. i was in a little barangay today where the main industry appeared to be making little paper trumpets for new years eve celebrations. i got two as gifts, which made me very very happy!!

i, of course, refused to believe they were trumpets and kept wearing them like hats. hilarity ensued.



that's it for now!

hide and seek

it's my birthday today, and in celebration, the sky has opened up with most amazing torrential downpour. truly a philippines rainy season phenomenon. absolute rivers are flowing down the street and it's impossible to move without getting drenched to the skin, even with an umbrella. happy birthday to me!

if this were a novel, i would be very worried about the pathetic fallacy. but as all signs point this this being real life, and not shakespeare, i'm not going to worry about it too much.

in the spirit of birthdays, as a gift from me to you, here are some pictures of me in the field taken by my friend miki.

see? i'm right there behind the clothesline. you can sort of see my pink bandana. this was a few weeks ago in valenzuela city.

see that blonde ponytail on the left? that's me!

here's a good one of the back of my head in caloong. by the way, the bandana is not a fashion statement. pure necessity. it's a great stink guard, dust filter, and sweat catcher. that it looks cute is an unintended side effect.


well, at least you can see my face in this one. here we are in a pedicab! and now, i am off to enjoy food, drinks and tagalog movies on my very special day.

closing the books on month one.

it's official - i survived my first month in manila!

the data from the measles campaign is starting to roll in now, so have been spending most of this week getting crossed eyes looking at excel spreadsheets and wrangling sas. it's all coming together though, and i think i will go out for more field work on friday and leave the data behind. which is great news for you (the readers, and future listeners of stories) because last week had such adventures as:

• stumbling across a cock fight (already described, with photos).
• traveling in almost every transportation device in the philippines : jeepney, bus, tricycle, pedicab, fx, taxi, and train.
  
• getting a few minutes into an interview before realizing i was in a brothel. oops.
• receiving a police escort into a slum. they called themselves the "delta force", a little unnecessarily, i thought. especially since they didn't even go in with us, but rather waited on the street.
  

this week i .... hmmm. i had a lot of trouble importing my data file into sas. for some reason the file kept importing with records missing. but i figured it out eventually - it had to do with trying to use a variable in the class statement of proc summary that had missing values.

riiiiight. which stories would you rather hear about??

unrelated to work, i've discovered that although 'sweet caroline' has everyone on their feet in canada.... not so much when doing karaoke in the philippines. lesson learned. stick to ballads & break up songs. and thankfully, copacabana has universal appeal. phew!

hope you are all enjoying sweater weather in canada - it's still tank top & air conditioning weather here until further notice.

a-ok

quick update : in case you heard about the bombing in manila today, i wasn't anywhere near the area & am just fine.

if you didn't hear about it, don't start worrying now :-)

in the field

here's the post you've been waiting for - a real nuts & bolts description of what the heck i am doing here.... WITH PICTURES!

as mentioned very briefly soon after i arrived, i'm part of a team working to support the national measles campaign in the philippines, which starts tomorrow and goes until november 15. the goal of the campaign is to immunize every child in the philippines between 9 months and 48 months, which translates into approximately 9 million kids. in a month. ok, big job.

our job is to conduct rapid coverage assessments to evaluate the campaign while it's in progress to pick up areas with missed kids so teams can go back and re-vaccinate. based on population estimates we've randomly selected barangays (similar to wards - the lowest administrative unit here) where we will focus our efforts, and then non-randomly selected out affluent barangays (where everyone is vaccinated anyways), and non-randomly selected in the poorest of the poor - where no one wants to go and will likely have the most missed kids. now that we have identified the barangays, we keep in touch with the city health departments and once they tell us the area has been completed we go in and randomly sample 25 families for interviews and evaluation of the house marking applied during the campaign.

some of the cities in metro manila began the campaign early, so we were able to go out today (yes, on a sunday) and begin some preliminary validation! here's my day, in picture format:

an example of how tough some of these houses are to reach. down an alley, around a corner, up a ladder (or two) in some cases.... this picture is a bunch of my team cramming into a doorway on our first interview. thankfully, we don't always travel en masse...



as a foreigner, you're always attracting attention, sometimes from above...

it's my first time in a tricycle! and look how excited i am. a tricycle is basically a motorcycle with sidecar that can fit up to four people (or more, if you cram). so, i'm off to the second site in the tricycle!


the second site was actually on the border of two cities, and this was the border.

some of my teammates crossing the bridge from one side of the barangay to the other.

when we got to the other side, a very excited local came up to dana & i and told us to come with him. where did he take us? to a cock fight, if you can believe it! if you can't, here are photos. it looks like a well attended cock fight to me, but i have no frame of reference.

i was told this was the winner.

after the cock fight, it was back to work. and over another bridge. this one more rickety than the last one by far!

here's me with some of the many kids that followed us around. dana had climbed up a ladder to a house on the second story, and took this one from up there.

here i am doing an interview! not speaking tagalog could be a bit of a barrier...


i saved my favourite picture for last... everybody we met today was really sweet and kind and so willing to let us into their homes. it was really amazing.

today was a good day.

call & response

boy, has it ever been smoggy and grey and cloudy in manila!
.
..
....
......

(c'mon, people! you know the drill)

how smoggy and grey and cloudy is it?

it's been SO smoggy and grey and cloudy in manila, it took 3 WEEKS for the mountains around manila to finally come into view.

seriously. i didn't even know they were there.

weekend #2 (of many to come) in manila

the culture shock is subsiding a bit, and i've started to see some beauty in manila. decaying beauty, but beauty nonetheless. manila is a city with an interesting history. i don't pretend to know all of it, but i do know that they have been colonized by the british, spanish, and americans, and the battle of manila in 1945 destroyed a lot of the old city, which led to a mostly chaotic rebuilding. as such, manila is a very strange & interesting, if somewhat disjointed, city.

some of the highlights from this weekend (pictures below):

• wandering around the san andres market, conveniently located 5 minutes from my place. my new favourite fruit : lansones. yum! mangosteens... not so much.
• drinks & music at the hobbit house, a manila institution famous for a) it being a co-operative of little people who operate a hobbit themed bar (complete with a round door to get in!), and b) great live music. in that order, obviously.
• taking a calesa around intramuros, the site of the original city of manila. it is a completely walled city, built in the 1500s (i think). you can walk around the entire city on the wall. even after hundreds of years of earthquakes, typhoons, and battles there are some really beautiful spots. again, decaying beauty. but beauty.
  
• late lunch at the aristocrat, another manila institution. my pick : sizzling gambas. yum again! stocking up on choco crinkles at the bakeshop afterwards goes without saying, of course.
  
• relaxing evening at om spa, conveniently located just 2 blocks away. check this out, ladies - an hour long swedish massage (best i've ever had!) AND a pedicure was only.... $16. you know i am going back.... weekly!

intramuros:



(our driver, danilo, and his horse rambo)
san andres market:


mmm, pig head on a hook!