Monday, June 06, 2005
The Real Challenge is About to Begin
June 7, 2005
Training is officially over, we have assembled here at the hubsite in Los Banos for our language interviews and our committment interviews. In Los Banos we stay at LakeView Hotel/Resort, but it is not what you immediately envision. By American standards it might be described as funky or down-at-the-heels, but it has become home to us because it is where we get together to unwind and behave a little like Americans for a few days. That is, we speak English, watch movies on computers, talk about and share our few books, commiserate with one another, and share our successes and failures, our apprehensions, and our hopes. So, with the great diaspora of the 21 volunteers in this section we have to bid this funky little haven good-bye.
As we get closer to being full-fledged volunteers, we have been a bit braver about going out and doing things with or without PC consent. Two weeks ago a group of us, 'the seniors' John, Jean, Ada and I, took a trip up the river to Pagsanjan Falls and had a really good time. It has been a major tourist attraction for a long time, and, up until Boracay became the ultimate tourist destination in the Philippines, people used to flock to this place. My host family said the buses used to come down the highway in droves with German and Japanese tourists. Business has fallen off a lot, which is too bad because so many people rely on it for their livlihood. There are 3,500 boatmen and they rotate the work so everyone gets to earn a little money through the week. Each boat takes two oarsmen and holds up to 4 passengers. But they don't like to take more than two because the work is really hard. They not only row up the river, they literally pull the boats upstream over the white water rapids. It is amazing to see them leap out of the boat, grip rocks with their toes and push/pull the boat over the rocks. They have to leap from one side of the boat to another. When they get through the rapids they pause for a few minutes to catch their breath and then go on. About halfway up all the boats stop for a rest and the boatmen get out and light up cigarettes. They are all relatively small men, but very 'buff' as one of the younger volunteers said after going up.
The river is relatively low at this time of year, so there was no real danger. Nonetheless, I was firmly strapped into my PC approved lifevest. At the falls themselves, we transferred to a bamboo raft and were pulled right through the falling water into a small cave behing the falls. It was pretty neat, and it was a lot of water! The whole trip took about 4 hours, and was well worth the 600peso + 300Peso tip, not quite $20.
This last week a bunch of us walked about 3 or 4 kilometers up Mt. Makiling to the mud springs. That was interesting too. It is a rainforest and felt a lot like Kilimanjaro except there were no monkeys and not very much wildlife of any kind. The mud springs are related to a dormant volcano. You can actually hear the blub, blub, blub as it bubbles up. They are the result of sulphuric acid dissolving the clay soils and they are really hot. According to the sign 80 degrees Centigrade and I'm not sure what that equates to in Fahrenheit, but I know it is hot and they are very acidic. The PH is 2. So no one went over and touched them we just watched from a distance, listened to the blubbing, and observed the fog rising up and nourishing the epiphytes in the trees way high overhead.
I will post pictures as soon as I figure out how to do it.
Now it is on to Manila for swearing in and moving to my permanent site to begin my life as a PCV, no longer a PCT.
Training is officially over, we have assembled here at the hubsite in Los Banos for our language interviews and our committment interviews. In Los Banos we stay at LakeView Hotel/Resort, but it is not what you immediately envision. By American standards it might be described as funky or down-at-the-heels, but it has become home to us because it is where we get together to unwind and behave a little like Americans for a few days. That is, we speak English, watch movies on computers, talk about and share our few books, commiserate with one another, and share our successes and failures, our apprehensions, and our hopes. So, with the great diaspora of the 21 volunteers in this section we have to bid this funky little haven good-bye.
As we get closer to being full-fledged volunteers, we have been a bit braver about going out and doing things with or without PC consent. Two weeks ago a group of us, 'the seniors' John, Jean, Ada and I, took a trip up the river to Pagsanjan Falls and had a really good time. It has been a major tourist attraction for a long time, and, up until Boracay became the ultimate tourist destination in the Philippines, people used to flock to this place. My host family said the buses used to come down the highway in droves with German and Japanese tourists. Business has fallen off a lot, which is too bad because so many people rely on it for their livlihood. There are 3,500 boatmen and they rotate the work so everyone gets to earn a little money through the week. Each boat takes two oarsmen and holds up to 4 passengers. But they don't like to take more than two because the work is really hard. They not only row up the river, they literally pull the boats upstream over the white water rapids. It is amazing to see them leap out of the boat, grip rocks with their toes and push/pull the boat over the rocks. They have to leap from one side of the boat to another. When they get through the rapids they pause for a few minutes to catch their breath and then go on. About halfway up all the boats stop for a rest and the boatmen get out and light up cigarettes. They are all relatively small men, but very 'buff' as one of the younger volunteers said after going up.
The river is relatively low at this time of year, so there was no real danger. Nonetheless, I was firmly strapped into my PC approved lifevest. At the falls themselves, we transferred to a bamboo raft and were pulled right through the falling water into a small cave behing the falls. It was pretty neat, and it was a lot of water! The whole trip took about 4 hours, and was well worth the 600peso + 300Peso tip, not quite $20.
This last week a bunch of us walked about 3 or 4 kilometers up Mt. Makiling to the mud springs. That was interesting too. It is a rainforest and felt a lot like Kilimanjaro except there were no monkeys and not very much wildlife of any kind. The mud springs are related to a dormant volcano. You can actually hear the blub, blub, blub as it bubbles up. They are the result of sulphuric acid dissolving the clay soils and they are really hot. According to the sign 80 degrees Centigrade and I'm not sure what that equates to in Fahrenheit, but I know it is hot and they are very acidic. The PH is 2. So no one went over and touched them we just watched from a distance, listened to the blubbing, and observed the fog rising up and nourishing the epiphytes in the trees way high overhead.
I will post pictures as soon as I figure out how to do it.
Now it is on to Manila for swearing in and moving to my permanent site to begin my life as a PCV, no longer a PCT.
# posted by pverwiel @ 11:38 PM 
