Flooding and power outages

August 5, 2012

I’m up at 5:00 to go to class early for our scheduled Manta Tow but it’s raining and Arceli is up early to open the sari sari store and tells me there is a typhoon happening in Baguio. I don’t think we’ll be able to do it. This weather is upsetting our training. Molly and Ben, two CRM resource volunteers were here for two weeks to help with our reef assessment training. We did a mangrove assessment in Barangay Mabayo but our coral, substrate and fish assessments have been dry run only because of stormy weather and they had to leave yesterday.( Now it’s the 10^th. The lightning, thunder, strong winds, downpour and flooding continues. It’s hard to hear ourselves talk over the sounds.)

the one place in Sabang to get a burger

kareoke with the owner June

We have three projects to complete before leaving on September 18th for swearing in and shipping out to our permanent posts. One is developing a CRM plan for the municipality of Morong. Morong includes four coastal barangays; Poblacion, Sabong, Mobayo and Nagbalayong. The second is to do a community project that the community decides they want. At this point we have interviewed our host families and some other community members to get feedback. It’s looking like we’ll work on a park for kids. The third is hosting a youth camp here in Sabong. Yikes there is much to do in little time.


Karesty our barangay head honcho

fishermen cleaning the net

the catch

 We’ve been carpooled to nearby Poblacion (Morong town center)  on Thursdays to meet up with the Education PCTs sited there to get our continued training on health and safety, to get shots and meet with Peace Corps Medical Officers (PCMOs) if we have concerns, such as how my hand is healing. The powerpoints with pictures of the various fungal and bacterial infections and potential parasites we could pick up have had an impact on us. I started trying to keep my feet dry to avoid fungal growth; not an easy thing to do.

 I was surprised to get mail. It was my ballot for King County voting. You can write to me at this address:  Valli Sanstrom

                           c/o PEACE CORPS

                           P.O. Box 7013
                          Airmail Exchange Office, NAIA
                          1301 Pasay City
                           Phillipines

Sunday is our one day off.  I’ve gone to church the last two Sundays with the Delrosarios, to the Iglesia Filipina Independiente Church. It’s Catholic, but not Roman Catholic, having split away in 1902. Olive went to Manila for the church’s 110th anniversary. The church is very quaint. I like hearing the people sing in Tagalog and they like having us join their service.

 I got out of doing my laundry last week because my hand was still healing. But this week I was taught how to do it the way they do it. They’ve been instructed to teach us how so when we get to our permanent sites we’ll know how. Yes they’re meticulous about scrubbing collars and cuffs with a brush. No wonder clothes wear out fast here.