Used to be, they lost a regular season game and I was pissed off the rest of the day. Lose a playoff game and I’m out for a week. I’m still pissed off – you’ve gotta make that throw to an open Wallace in stride, Ben – but I’d say my day was only really dark for about 15 minutes yesterday. Then I moved on.

What the hell happened to me?

I’ve always liked the communal aspect of sports. The ritual of Sundays spent with friends and football, the chaos of a Friday night in a sports bar, the obsession with trivial statistics and facts (Quick, where’d Phil Simms go to college? Morehead State.). Even using ‘we’ when talking about your favorite team. There’s a fair amount of literature comparing the ritual of sports to that of religion, and I’ve tend to agree with it. Hail Marys, Immaculate Receptions, The Church of Football and all that shit. Does that mean Franco Harris is as important to me as Moses? Maybe.

The Steelers always took it to a different level. I passionately cared about whether the guys in black and gold won or lost. The result was the important part. That, apparently, isn’t the case anymore. Watching the game was important to me because I know that simultaneously, my sister and her husband were eating nachos in Pennsylvania, my parents were at a sports bar in South Carolina, my grandpa was shaking his head and muttering “Jesus Christ” in his basement in Pittsburgh, my best friends were disgusted by the mistakes of both teams. I’ve been in the Philippines for a year and a half and stayed in minimal contact with most people from home, yet I can probably accurately guess what almost everyone I know was doing during the Super Bowl yesterday. There’s no other time I can say that.

Ultimately, whether the Steelers won or lost wasn’t the important part. I would’ve been a hell of a lot happier had they won. But for a few hours, I experienced the highs and lows of a close game with everyone I know, remembered all the other close games we watched together (here’s looking at your performance in the last Pats Super Bowl, Josh), and I could almost taste the Yuengling and chicken wings.

I pray because the connection to other Jews who utter the same words is important to me, not because I think everything hinges on the words. I guess I follow the Steelers so closely for the same reason. Regardless of where I am, I’ve got Steelers Nation and Hebrew Nation(al) and, strange as this may sound to non-sports fans, they’re both damn important parts of my identity.

Now, a side note to a certain demographic of older, white American males traveling abroad:

I understand that you’re trying to reclaim your youth. You want to stay out at bars all night and pick up girls and indulge in the hedonism that you’ve somehow come to associate with youth. I get it, I do. That’s probably why you deigned to visit a third world country in the first place. But your constant attempts at jokes about blowjobs and ‘coconut cracking legs’ are unbecoming. As are the sweeping comments on race you seem to find so insightful. Filipino waiters are not nine-years-old. Stop patting them on the head and talking to them as though they are. These things make me angry. Please, desist. Go home to your families.

As I walked away from the game yesterday, angry at the Ugly Americans and the game itself, I remembered a line from the new Tron and it made me smile. That’s when I realized that we would all, indeed, survive a Steelers defeat. You’re really killing my Zen, man.

Dear Manila,

I owe you an apology. We’ve spent a lot of time together lately, you and I. There were your usual signs of affection – char marks on every napkin I wipe my nose with, money that mysteriously disappears, street kids that simultaneously break and uplift my heart with their smiles – but something else has developed between us. Something a little more serious, a little more sincere.

I judged you quickly when I got to the Philippines. You were big and crowded and scary and dirty – Jesus, your filth – and it seemed like every part of you was broken. The breeze from your bay carries a stench unlike anything I’ve come across before. Your sidewalks were crowded with poverty and depression. Your malls harbored prostitutes and an affluence (or illusion thereof) that still makes me uncomfortable. Your taxi drivers seemed like they always wanted to rip me off. Jeepney drivers yelled at me. It seemed like the city was always yelling at me.

So I hid myself from you. I hid in the Pension, venturing out only for beer and food, which I promptly brought back to its comforting warmth. We went on this way for a year. Co-existing, sort of, during my intermittent trips south. You kept shouting, trying to get my attention, and I kept blocking out the noise. Even when I visited you, it was as though I wasn’t really there. We’d awkwardly bump into each other, briefly, at a bar or a hooka joint, but then I’d go back to ignoring you as best I could. You intimidated me, Manila.

But things have changed, recently. I started paying attention to the pieces that create the cacophony that is you, feeling out your rhythm, and I discovered something. You’re just as confused and alive and effervescent as I am. You have taxi drivers who genuinely light up when talking about how they’re putting their kids through college. Jeepney drivers who drive with one arm over their sons as they describe the map of the city. You have treasures of restaurants hidden behind gas stations and in alleys and in plain sight at malls, and it’s good to just sit in them and watch the eclectic visitors you attract. You have bakla bars and dance clubs and cramped little places where you’re forced to meet new people and end up sharing drinks and stories with them. You have cupcake shops and dirty ice cream and fruit sold on street corners that somehow tastes more refreshing than anywhere else. And that’s all beautiful, but hardly unique to you. It’s when you put it all together, when you pay attention to what happens as you travel from point A to point B, that your essence starts to come through. And that heart, Manila, is what makes you unique.

During the twilight hours, the in-between time that could be either late at night or early in the morning, you bare yourself. You’re all billboards plastered with the images of white people and casinos that belong in Vegas and opulent malls that seemingly have no right to belong in a third world country. You’re worn, shirtless men carrying crates of vegetables and fish to the nearby market. Socialites collapsing at a booth in McDonalds after a night of clubbing. Hustlers going through the motions, because their hearts aren’t in it anymore. Hustlers working double time because they’re just getting started. Shacks along the Pasig overflowing with people gambling and drinking and singing and praying because even in poverty – perhaps especially in poverty – communities support one another during wakes. Families clinging together as they claim their section of sidewalk through the night. Couples holding one another as they try to stay awake waiting for buses to the provinces that may or may not come on time. Messy, beautiful lives that are just as confusing and complicated as the streets they take place on.

You’re not as tough as you look, Manila. You’re raw and ragged and more than a little bedraggled. You’re also sweet and perseverant and, in your own weird way, full of light.

So thanks, Manila, for finally opening up to me. I don’t think I’ll ever feel completely comfortable with you, but that, too, is part of your charm.

Sincerely,

Dan.

The Thalkars

My parents visited recently. It was an amazing, refreshing trip. I was able to see Sagada and the Philippines through their eyes, they were able to step into my shoes for a bit, and we got a bit drunk on bad wine at a beautiful beach resort. A good trip.

It got me thinking a lot about relationships and family and how I’ve changed since being here. All three – relationships, family, myself – are both stronger and less tangible than I once thought. I’m still not really sure what that means.

I tried on about four separate occasions to write about their trip, about how much it meant to me and how the little, comfortable things – watching bad movies with my dad, listening attentively and then completely forgetting all the biological information my mom shares when we come across a new ecosystem – are what I missed without even realizing it. Every time I tried to write, it ended up coming out flat or off somehow. Then I came across this passage in To The End of the Land by David Grossman, and I think it captures what I ran up against perfectly:

“It’s a bit like describing how a river flows, she realizes. Like painting a whirlwind, or flames. It’s an occurrence, she thinks, happily recalling one of his old words: A family is a perpetual occurrence.”

I’m sorry, mom and dad, that I can’t seem to put together something comprehensive about your trip here. Just know, I’m glad you were able to share a little bit of the love I feel for this country and its people, and I miss our perpetual occurrence.

I also spent the last few weeks traveling around Luzon facilitating and organizing several enjoyable trainings, experienced the beautiful old-Spanish styles of Vigan, partied with the newly official Peace Corps Volunteers (congrats, y’all), and returned to site just in time for two (count ‘em!) Thanksgiving dinners this upcoming week, before I head off to work in Calauan again next Monday.

Also, while staying in a dorm I strange man fell beside and partially on my bed. I instinctively bashed him with my cell phone, which I keep beside my pillow. I woke up the next morning to find my cell phone gone. This was an unfortunate series of events.

But first, the urine.

I was on the bus from Manila to Vigan. I was drifting into sleep peacefully, lulled by the sounds of The National drifting in and out, as my iPod struggled to decide whether it wanted to work or not, and I noticed my leg getting wet. Funny, I thought, it must be raining. In hindsight, I realize that makes no sense. What the hell, I was tired. Then I thought it was probably a spilled water bottle. But the stream kept on coming and it was kind of, well, warm. So I opened my eyes. Sitting across the aisle from me were a mother and a baby. The baby had alternated between crying and breast feeding most of the ride. Then, for some unknown reason, the mother took his pants off and pointed him in my direction. Which led us to our current situation. Baby and I made eye contact. We admired the trajectory of his flow. Mother and I made eye contact. She kinda-sorta smiled at me. I kinda-sorta smiled back. I looked to my left, where the sixteen-year-old boy sitting beside me had fallen asleep with his head on my shoulder. I saw the dogs. I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. Because, honestly, what else can you do?

I don’t know what, if anything, this says about me as a person and as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Is this cultural integration? Would I have acquiesced so easily to being peed on by strange babies in America? My train-of-thought often moves in weird ways, and this experience led me down a path of self-reflection, where I really tried to figure out how I’ve changed (grown, maybe, possibly?) since being here. I probably spent a couple hours dwelling on the topic. Then I realized that my parents will be here in a month and will probably act as good mirrors. So, after finding an excuse to drop that dangerous path toward self-realization, I began thinking about thinking.

As I mentioned, all this began because I’ve been on the road a lot lately. Too much, actually. I miss just working at my school and interacting with my kids, developing relationships with them and seeing how they develop. Teacher trainings and system development are important, and they’re how I spend much of my energies, but they’re transient and the results are abstract. And transience can be fucking exhausting. Anyway:

All that travel means a lot of long bus rides, and a lot of long bus rides, and a lot of long bus rides mean a hell of a lot of time to do nothing but think and absorb the body odor of the other 40 people on the bus. So what do I think about all that time? Food, mostly. Then: What’s happening outside my window; then: Sheer randomness.

Let us explore a standard train of thought through some pseudo-stream-of-consciousness.

First, the food: I recently had a talk with a friend about how smells trigger memories – i.e. fresh cut grass sooo reminds me of that one time that one summer . . .only smells don’t trigger memories for me. Food does. I had lemonade last week, which naturally got me thinking of the fresh lemonade cart at the souk near by grandma’s apartment in Israel, which led down a whole other path of memories. Two hours, gone. Thanks, Minute Maid.

What’s happened outside my window recently: Dogs, copulating. Woman, crying. Child, falling. Houses, crumbling. Rain, falling.

Riding the highway into Manila at night I often experience a feeling of complete disconnect. I could be on any number of roads in any number of countries. Semis and buses for companions, generic billboards and Golden Arches for roadside company. There is no sense of place.

But early morning rides from Manila into the provinces are the precise reverse. You are intimately, maybe uncomfortably, connected to the rhythms and place of life in the Philippines. At sunrise, you have to acknowledge the shacks sprawling around the billboards, the drunks stumbling under the arches, the men who have already been working in their fields for an hour, the women who were up before them to prepare breakfast. And as you speed, skid and stutter by them, if you pay the right kind of attention, the country opens up. There’s Araneta Coliseum, there’s a group of shirtless men huddled around a glowing TV on the fringe of a rice field, watching the game, and there’s a bottling plant for the beer they’re drinking in both places. City, fields, town and fields again. They all have their own rhythms, but they blend into one another sometimes imperceptibly, creating the dissonant melody that is the Philippines.

Spend a year in a place and it becomes easy to take its idiosyncrasies for granted. To generalize and make grandiose statements beginning with “Well, see, the problem with the Philippines is. .”

Sometimes it takes getting peed on by a baby to make you look out the window and remember that countries and their attendant issues are not abstractions and that individual moments, individual lives, are where the truth and beauty’s hiding.

I warned you that my thought process is convoluted.

4:30 P.M. I spent the day on a bus to Baguio, since I felt vaguely uncomfortable with the idea of spending Yom Kippur on a bus. Why? I don’t know. I stocked up my iPod with Jewish-themed Podcasts, and other than one disappointingly dull hour I spent with Eli Wiesel, they served me well. One interview with a rabbi was interspersed with snippets of songs and prayers – Kol Nidre, Aleinu, and the like – and I found myself hitting pause each time, thinking about my dying synagogue in Oil City, the time I danced the horah at a coastal town in Australia, and how strange it was that 30 seconds of a centuries-old prayer that I’ve heard hundreds of time could arrest me, choke me, hound me, like it was the most beautiful thing I’d never heard before. Then I thought about the fried pork I had for dinner the night before and reflected, once again, on the strange relationship I’m forming with my religion.

Anyway, 4:30. Giant tofu tacos. They were fucking delicious.

6:30. The fast officially starts. The volunteer stationed in Baguio happened to be starting up a youth advocacy theater group the evening I arrived. So I tagged along for their first outing – A bizarre, campy, hilarious play in Taglish at St. Louis University about a transvestite superhero, her three gay dads and a passionate love affair with peanut brrrtle. Yes, it did end with a dance off, and it was spectacular.

After the play, before we took two of the girls back to her center, we took them to McDonalds. It was their first MacDo experience, and it’s sad that I think that means something.

6:30 A.M. Like I said, I didn’t pray, I didn’t spend the day in contemplation. I worked. Or, rather, I spent the day with children. This was the first official meeting of the theater group, and we ended up working with them for about 10 hours. The group consists of about 30 kids, a mix of boys in conflict with the law, girls who’ve suffered abuse, and student leaders from some of the schools around Baguio. The boys outnumber the girls, so there was the usual unease and bossiness there, but overall I was amazed at how well everyone got along, at how excited they all were to be there.

I was excited too. We spent the first part of the day leading them through icebreakers, energizers and basic acting exercises (What do I know about acting? More than 13-year-olds who’ve never done it before. That, plus a willingness to look foolish, was good enough to skate by.). Then I lead a session on script-writing and brainstorming and had the kids come up with and present ideas for the theme of the play they’re going to be writing, directing and performing.

It was a long day, and by the time things were ready to wrap up with the creation of a mission statement, everyone was pretty much beat. But I think it sneaked up on us. At least, it sneaked up on me. I’d been so caught up in the moment for pretty much the whole day that, other than a mild headache and occasional loopiness, I never gave much thought to being hungry. Everything seemed good.

And, if nothing else, they won me over for one simple reason: They listened.

Eating is important here. No training is acceptable without several snack breaks and people tend to get very confused if you don’t join in. So, when I introduced myself at the beginning of the morning, I briefly explained the importance of the day to me, and why I wouldn’t be eating with them. Throughout the day, a couple kids asked me if I was hungry, and as I sat outside during lunch, one of the first kids to finish eating came over and kept me company. And that was that.

I can’t explain why it was so touching, so take my word for it. It was.

6:20 Sundown was officially at 6:27. More than feeling hungry, I was excited for the impending pizza and beer, so as I walked down the crowded city streets, I wasn’t paying as much attention to my bags as I usually do. I was kinda giddy with pre-pizza anticipation. So, of course, I was pick-pocketed. Someone opened the side-pocket on my bag and took the little pouch containing my iPod and notebooks, things that are rather important to me. I didn’t notice any of this happening.

But I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I looked back, still thinking about pizza and expecting it to be someone asking for money or just an accidental run-in. Instead a man simply said, “Sir, here,” handed me my bag and quickly turned around and melted back into the crowd. He didn’t give me time to say thank you — hell, he didn’t even give me time to process what had happened.

I was careless, so I got pick-pocketed. I was lucky, so a stranger saw this happen, confronted the thief, took my stuff back, returned it to me and disappeared. That’s not supposed to happen, but it did. And it happened just as the holiest day of the year was ending, just as I was coming down from a day spent with a group of amazing kids, and the one probably had nothing to do with the other, but they happened together and everything about it just felt right. Plus, the pizza was really good.

BONUS:

This is from editorial in this week’s issue of the local paper:

“New York Jews are famous for being shrewd businessmen, and if there is anything that Jews love only a little less than their beloved Israel, it is profit.”

And bagels.

Not once since getting here have I regretted my decision. There’ve been some low moments – early July was definitely the worst. I carried around a lot of anger for a couple weeks. But something always flashes, however briefly, to remind me why I’m here and how good I really have things here.

I get pissed off about something involving my school almost every day, but the school is also the most frequent source of these beautiful moments. Like my first day back after being gone for 2 and a half weeks, when I heard the whispers spreading that I was back and the laughs and smiles when I walked back in the classroom. Or when we got a box of dictionaries from the Rotary Club in Manila and, as the kids hunt through them in class the next morning, I realized how important 18 outdated dictionaries can be.

Or last night, when I sat outside my apartment with my dog, sipping a cup of local coffee and nibbling on a loaf of fresh bread and watching the light on the garden turn from gray to gold to a pink that eventually gave way to rain.

Maybe it’s a journalist’s weakness for anecdotes, but those moments mean everything. We’re defined by the stories we absorb, willfully or not, and the frequently slow-paced, frustrating and upsetting nature of life and work (there’s rarely a difference) as a Peace Corps Volunteer makes it very easy to have a rather unpleasant view on things.

We need the little moments to refresh our perspective.

I haven’t blogged in months, so I’m not going to attempt to recap everything that’s happened to me. I’m writing a couple articles about the project I just returned from and I’ll refrain from writing about that until I see where they go.

In the meantime, some vignettes:

• I ate goat bile last week. The dish is called, if I remember correctly, pinapiatan. It’s a soupy mix of goat bile and goat meat cooked and prepared a certain way. Complex flavor, and I actually really dug it.

• Last month I had roasted pig’s balls. I was out hiking with some local friends, and when we stopped for the night, everyone took out the food they’d carried with them all day and got to preparing. I had brandy and the rice for the next day’s lunch, which meant I just sat back and observed as one guy took our a plastic bag containing some type of meat that’d been marinating in a variety of spices all day. They didn’t tell me what it was until I’d eaten a few bites. I kept eating. It was some of the best palutan I’ve had in a while
• I went to a PBA playoff game last Sunday. The PBA is the Philippine Basketball Association, the pro league here. The games are sort of like watching Holy Cross play St. Boneventure. There were two dunks the whole game and the crowd went wild for all of them. It was the first sporting event I’ve attended since getting here, and actually reminded me why I love sports so much. The arena was sold out and, while not as loud and raucous as a game in the Dome (Though this arena is also nicknamed the Dome, since it is, after all, a dome.), the crowd was into it. I got swept along, shouting when my friend’s team (the underdog, Derby Ace), which I quickly adopted, roared back from a double-digit deficit and cursing when they fell apart in the final few minutes and gave the game back. It was fun.
• Hiking with some friends and being reminded of how lucky I am to be in Sagada. I can head out my backyard and over the next day or two climb four different mountains, reach a village with no road or electricity, stumble on an abandoned landing strip built during World War Two, see the pass where a Philippine legend was cornered and killed and hear a story about almost every mountain we see. Maybe it’s because my companions were all guys, but damn near every story had something to do with boobs.
• Before I left, I gave some vocabulary-building exercises for my students to do. I’ve overheard them using some of the words in conversation. They didn’t use them correctly, but they used them. That’s gratifying.

In the long run, after I leave the Philippines there won’t be a strong trace left behind. Sagada will not be much changed for me having been here. My school and faculty will continue as always. But there will be small pockets of moments and memories scattered around, and as long as they contain some light, I can be happy with that.

Shit, I got all sentimental. I need to watch football.

Once, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, a farmer lost his pigs. He’d been working in his rice field all day and came back to discover that the piglets – six in all – had run away. He tracked them through the forest, eventually finding them laying on a small rock formation. The rock had six smooth grooves, and in each groove lay one of his piglets, basking in the sun. As the farmer gathered his piglets, he sat in one of the grooves and looked over the valley and heard the birds dancing in the air above him. Te-te te-te te-te they sang. The farmer smiled and, realizing that this was a good place, decided to build a new home near the rock, below the birds that sing te-te, and he called the place Tetepan.

I was told this story as I sat in one of the stone’s grooves, perhaps the same groove the original farmer sat in. I didn’t hear any birds, but it was a beautiful day and, looking around, at the valley below and the mountains all around, I understood how someone would want to start a village there.

A friend of mine grew up in Tetepan and we spent yesterday afternoon wandering the mountainside the small village as he told me local legends and stories about what it was like growing up there. It was a day of small, unexpected adventures and, two days before school resumes and I step back into the often-frustrating world of Filipino education, served as a reminder for why I love this place so much.

After sitting at the rock for a few moments, we went down to the rice terraces – first built in 1100 AD, according to carbon dating – and then followed a trail straight back up the mountain. As we climbed, we took numerous detours off the trail to pick any mushrooms we saw peaking out of the undergrowth (Don’t worry, mom, I made sure to ask if they were poisonous before putting any in my bag). Palutan for later.

He also told me another story, about how the founding of the village of Antadao – the place we were headed next, and the barrio I spend the most time at – is tied in with a dog and how the spirit of this dog lives on in the people and is why they repeatedly beat their neighbors in combat.

And this reminded me of something I’d learned when we stopped at a dap-ay on the outskirts of Tetepan. A dap-ay is a circle of stone seats surrounded a fire pit where the men of a village traditionally held council and told stories. It’s also where boys used to live in order to learn the harsh truths of life and, apparently, massage the feet of their elders. My friend, who’s 45, was part of the last generation to grow up in the dap-ay. Nowadays dap-ays are still used for ceremonies and councils, but more often they’re where men get together to drink.

Anyway, as we sat and my friend told me what it was like living there, he pointed to several stones and large pieces of wood that jutted out of the ground. Apparently, each time someone from the village returned with the head of an enemy, a tall stone or piece of timber was placed at the dap-ay to commemorate it. The wood had mostly petrified, and one was broken off at its base, but I counted six in all. And I’m sure the old men knew the stories behind most, if not all, of the markers.

I’d be reminded of the story yet again once we reached Antadao. A friend there has a store on the side of the main road, which is where we went. When we got there some of the men, already quite drunk, showed me the entrances into the village. At each of them were branches, forming a sort of X. They meant that a cultural event was taking place in the village, and outsiders should stay the hell away. There was actually some controversy about my being at the store but it was decided that, as long as I didn’t enter any other buildings and stayed at the road, I’d be okay. If I broke the rules I had two options: Purchase a pig that would be slaughtered for the whole village, or be killed. I think the days of killing are pretty much over but, really, why risk it?

Besides, an ‘enforcer’ was brought up to look after me and make sure I didn’t violate the rules. At one point a guy I’d meant before (also quite drunk) told me it didn’t matter, his house was close by, we should all go there. Enforcer Danny took him outside, smacked the back of his head and gave him a stern talking-to. I stayed where I was.

I actually had a great time. For whatever reason, I’m at my most relaxed and contented when I spend a day out in the barrios. I’d been to the store before and already met the guys, so was pretty comfortable hanging out for a couple hours. We had fascinating conversations about the importance of tradition, the self-contained village economy and, in slightly more heated language, about the misconceptions most Filipinos have about Igorots (they have tails, are savages, etc.).

After a while, my friend who’d gone down to the village to visit his grandmother returned and we headed up the road to visit another friend. It turned out that he’d made pinikpikan the day before and had a lot left over. So we cooked up the mushrooms, added them to the mix, and spent the evening sitting on his porch, watching a storm ride in over the valley and snacking on pinikpikan, fresh-cooked mushrooms (delicious with a bit of soy and pepper), and mixing fresh honey and gin for a tasty albeit, we all decided, girly, drink.

At least we didn’t use drink umbrellas.

And, to top it all off, the weird time-bending phenomena of the Philippines, which I’ve been aware of for a while, is suddenly beating me over the head with a two-by-four.

Things still happen in a linear fashion, but they sure as hell don’t feel like it. Was I only in Tagaytay two weeks ago? It feels like months. I’ve lived in Sagada for five months? It seems I just got here. I don’t know what it is, but there’s this frequent, jagged disconnect between when it feels like something happened and when it actually happened. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, rarely quite right. Shit is confusing.

To the details:

I spent 10 days in Tagaytay, just south of Manila, helping facilitate a teacher training/English language camp for 340 elementary teachers from Mindanao. It’s a great program – 10 years running, funded by USAID, facilitated by 16 PCVs and their Filipino counterparts, noble cause, etc. Going in, I was highly skeptical about its effectiveness.

Things seemed too disorganized, the objectives didn’t seem focused enough, and it sounded like the participants would all be at wildly different levels. I stand by those original doubts. But I also think that, for all its flaws, the program works.

This is the first year the camp has been content-based. We still had general English modules, like writing and speaking, but there were also more specific ones, such as authentic learned and scientific method, which is the module I facilitated. That focus, I think, was a great idea. It was a way for the teachers to see how they can naturally fit English instruction into non-English classes and, maybe more importantly, exposed them to different teaching strategies and activities that they can use, regardless of whether or not English is the medium of instruction. As long as it improves some facet of the kids’ learning experience.

I can’t pin down any one thing the participants may have learned. I have no idea what they’ll try to implement at their schools or, more importantly, what will actually trickle down to the students in the classroom. So I’ve created a completely arbitrary number – 15. If fifteen percent of the participants learned something from the ELC and bring it back to help their students, I’ll consider it a success.

I like the sound of 15. It’s a small, modest number, divisible by three and five. You sound humble, realistic when you say fifteen percent. Fifteen doesn’t sound like it’s asking too much, but it’s basically one of every six, and that sounds slightly more ambitious. Fifteen is a good way to sleep at night without being overly concerned if the actual numbers turn out to be drastically lower or greater. If they’re lower – well, if we’re in the single digits here I’d rather not know; and if they’re higher, fantastic! Fifteen never meant anything anyway.

Anyway, I think the training in Tagaytay reached my watermark. Participants seemed genuinely excited about what they learned, extremely touched by the whole experience. People wept.

Per usual, I probably learned more from them than they learned from me. Mindanao, for those who don’t know, is a political mess. Much of it is controlled by warlords. Education there is some of the worst in the country. Muslim and Christians often live, uneasily, side by side. A few days into the camp my counterpart’s girlfriend’s aunt was kidnapped. He kept on teaching. A couple days after that, there were bombings and shootings in Isabella City, home to both participants and facilitators. They continued showing up for class. Two guys in my homeroom are teachers in Magindanao, where the massacres happened several months ago. Their school was used to house refugees. Their biggest question for me was, “How do we keep teaching in a situation like that?” I wish I could say I gave them a brilliant, insightful answer, but the best I could offer was a blank stare and a feeble hug.

I also discovered that I really enjoy big projects and teacher training, which is good, because two days after getting back to Sagada my own ELC began.

I’ve blogged about the camp a couple times, because we’ve been planning it since late January. Basically, a week-long, speaking/listening camp for elementary school teachers in western Mountain Province, co-facilitated by PCVs and Filipino counterparts. Two days before it began DepEd sent a list saying we’d have 130 participants. They day before it began we had 19. The final number was 66.

The smaller numbers worked out well. It meant we had class sizes of 11, which is great for the more intensive, student-centered approach our modules were designed for anyway.

Three of us envisioned and put the camp together, and it’s the first time any of us had done anything quite like it. So we made a lot of mistakes. Facilitators didn’t see the modules they’d be teaching until the day before. Some sessions could have been focused better, others were misguided from the start. We’ll be better next year.

But, that said, I think we got the big things right. We made a few changes on the fly that worked out well, the general organization of the sessions went well, and our two themes, confidence and affirmation, were unavoidable. We wanted the teachers more confident speaking English, and we wanted them to treat their students like individuals.

So, for the week, without really explaining what we were doing to them, we simulated a classroom environment. The groups stayed together the whole week. They were in the same room, with the same facilitators, the whole time. They saw what it was like to be ignored while others are praised, and they also experienced how much more fun learned can be if you’re asked to move around and get a little creative.

We were (more or less) organized, but fluid and a bit last minute. As a result, the camp wouldn’t have worked without great facilitators. Luckily, we had a great group that didn’t get stressed out and, more or less, trusted that we knew where we wanted things to go. That was pretty cool.

I was mostly behind the scenes during the week, making sure people had the materials they needed and writing down everyone’s comments and suggestions, so I didn’t have a chance to build relationships with the participants like the facilitators did. But at the end of the day I could sit back and hear the feedback, and that was (more or less) gratifying. Teachers spoke more by the end of the week, and one was hear saying she would be nicer to her students from now on. I hope she sticks with that.

Like I said, there’s a lot we can, and will, do better next time. We’ll have a follow-up weekend seminar in a couple months to reinforce the week. In the meantime, well, 15 percent isn’t asking too much, is it?

Mention “Fiddler on the Roof” to just about any Igorot who’s seen it and you’ll be rewarded with a wistful smile and maybe even a few bars of “If I Were a Rich Man.”

“Fiddler” is loved here. The play has been performed several times over the past couple decades and copies of the movie are floating around town. I watched it last week with a couple students, and they loved it. What’s more, they got it. Hell, it’s even been translated to Kankanaey (the local dialect) and adapted to take place in Sagada in the 1930s. And the transposition was east.

Here’s the thing: The story of Fiddler is the story of Sagada in the 1930s, and the themes of change versus tradition have only become magnified with time. The uncontrollable and rapid blurring of tradition with modernity is still uncomfortable and questionable.

For those of you who don’t know, “Fiddler on the Roof” is set during the Russian pogroms and centers around a Jewish family and community being forced into modernity. The primary song is “Tradition,” alternately sung as an ode, an elegy, a curse and a hope. The eldest daughter marries out of love, disobeying the matchmaker’s scheme. The second marries a communist and, rather than asking the father’s permission, merely asks for his blessing. And the third (gasp!) falls for and marries a goy. The Jewish community has an uneasy co-existence with the Christians in town until the Russian government orders the forced removal of all Jews. Then the Christians destroy property, break windows, and eventually force the Jews out. At the end we’re left wondering, how can tradition adapt to survive the changes being forced upon it? That’s still one of the principal questions in modern Judaism. And, as we’ll see, it’s one of the primary questions in Igorot culture as well.

Now, with that in mind, back to Sagada 70 years ago:

1. 1. 1. “Pagan” Igorots in the barrios and the wealthier Christians living in town did not mix. The poblacion Igorots looked down on their heathen brethren. You couldn’t have a combination of the two.
      2. Traditional culture was ‘under attack.’ The Christians living in town were a result of successful conversions by American missionaries. The missionaries did not confine their proselytizing attempts to the confines of town.
      3. Matchmakers were around up until the last generation. You can still meet people arranged by a matchmaker.
      4. Many Igorots were forced to pick up and leave the villages they’d dwelt in for generations as the result of a project to build a dam on the Chico River. The damn, thankfully, was never built. But many Igorot were forced off land sacred to them, left without their anchor to tradition. Just like the Jews in Fiddler.

Those are just a few of the wider similarities, but see where I’m going with this? Two cultures, not broken but fractured. Spilling out to Australia and Saudi, to New York and Manila and Tel Aviv. Are we talking just about cultures, or are they religions? Faiths? Ethnic worldviews? One thing’s certain: They aren’t static, but neither are they inherently dynamic. And it’s that tension, I think, that keeps them alive.

Flash-forward to the present day: An old man can die and be given a Christian funeral, then be placed in a burial cave, as Sagadan Igorots have done for hundreds of years. A family can attend church and then beat a chicken to death, slaughter a few pigs, and ask the spirits to protect their new house. High school graduation can begin with a mass and end with a traditional gong dance, g-strings and all.

The traditional culture here is, unfortunately, disappearing. Kids spend more time on the Internet than listening to stories from their grandparents, more time texting than dancing. That’s to be expected, maybe even encouraged, but I think traditional culture is at a tipping point. The kids I teach are the ones who will determine whether the culture Sagadans are so proud of will remain a living and active entity, or whether it will be relegated to cultural demonstrations at the Fiesta and other events.

Right now I think it could go other way. Some kids seem to be getting more interested, more invested. Others know shockingly little about their heritage and even their parents’ beliefs. And, of course, a lot comes back to the schools. Christianity spread here because the missionaries built schools. It would be a bit ironic if tradition is kept alive and taught through those same institutions. St. Mary’s School, which is about to celebrate its centennial, does a lot, and is about to do more, to put kids face-to-faith with their background. My school, Sagada National High, has a few events each year, and my counterpart and I included tradition in a lot of our activities and discussions this year, and have tentative plans to make indigenous culture more of a presence during the upcoming school year.

Of course traditions should change. People should be able to marry whomever they want, and advancements shouldn’t be discarded just because they’re new. Nothing can stay stationary without destroying itself. But the question, the real crux of the issue, is only answerable in a retrospection that never comes: How far can tradition be pushed before it disappears, becomes something else? Jews have been asking that since the Temple was destroyed, Igorots just a little more recently.

In the meantime, I like the message the film version of “Fiddler” ends with. If we take it with us, if we absorb change,  it can survive anything.

Up Next: A recap of graduation week(end)!

As you read, keep these two things in mind:

1. If I still lived in the States, I’d probably be attempting vegetarianism right now.
2. I’m the guy who ate, and loved, a Whopper immediately after watching “Super Size Me.”

Humans are contradictory beings. We’re excellent at holding one belief and acting out the opposite or simply holding two opposite beliefs at once. Hence the popular school teacher who neglects his own kids or the conscientious police officer who beats his. Survival, it often seems, is all about mental compartmentalization.

This is increasingly becoming the case where eating is concerned. It’s easy and convenient (and delicious) to eat Tyson’s spicy chicken fingers, but it also supports a system that does terrible things to the environment. That’s the main reason I’d try out the whole plant eating thing if I still lived in the States. But, as far as I can tell, it isn’t a problem here. I hear the death cries of the pigs I eat and I help tear the feathers off the chickens we beat to death.

I know how they’re being killed, and it frequently isn’t pretty.

But this time around, rather than talk about how animals are killed, let’s talk about what animals are killed.

Foer devotes a significant portion of the book’s beginning talking about eating dogs. He could never do it, in fact finds it kind of inconceivable. As part of his sarcastic argument he cites the Philippines frequently, even giving an apparently Filipino recipe for “Stewed Dog, Wedding Style.” He sarcastically then says it sounds delicious. The thing is, as I read the recipe and mentally moved a few ingredients around, I actually did think it sounded kind of good.

Eating dogs no longer presents a moral quandary for me. It’s a simple mental shift that I think took place several months into my service here. The majority of Filipinos do not look at dogs as pets. They’re animals that can provide sustenance, just like pigs and chickens. Only dogs bark a lot and frequently chase and try to bite you, which makes them a hell of a lot more annoying (though the accuracy and speed with which I can swing a full Sig water bottle at a charging dog’s snout amazes me).

So what is there to separate dogs from pigs? Pigs are some of the most intelligent animals around, so it definitely isn’t smarts. Aesthetics? The local dogs, which people here think taste the best, are mangy and ugly as hell. Taste? The dog I’ve had tastes, well . . .good.

Some dogs here are kept as pets. You can tell which ones. They’re fed better, groomed and more like the dogs known and loved in America. But if a native gets hit by a jeep and killed, let’s just say I’m not gonna be turning down any free meals from my neighbors. I can’t say the same for Luther, the Rottweiler puppy at my house. He’s not a native dog, and no one would want to eat him. Plus, he’s cute as hell (Contradictions, remember).

Most people in the West are disgusted by eating dog because they’ve been culturally programmed that way. Dogs are pets, not food. Shit, they’re our best friends! But that’s a manufactured concept. Take away the acculturation, sprinkle in a bit of poverty and a bad crop season, and eating dogs becomes incredibly reasonable. Consider the over-population and you can even argue for its necessity.

Don’t worry, mom, I’m not gonna come home and eat Lola. Unless you really want to try Stewed Dog, Wedding Style.

And now for something completely different . . . AIDS

I spent this past weekend with several other PCVs at a friend’s site in Nueva Vizcaya helping put together and facilitate a symposium on HIV/AIDS.

The symposium went like this:

We did two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, for a total of around 400 3^rd and 4^th year students.

The first part of the session was an overview of healthy relationships and reproductive health. We started with a mock dating game, where three contestants were introduced, then the kids were broken into groups and voted for who the girl should chose to date. I was the top student in school, a boy scout, and president of my class. And in both sessions I overwhelmingly lost to the responsible, hard-working basketball player. It was heart-breaking.

Then we gave a PowerPoint presentation on reproductive health, including some grizzly photos of STIs and a step-by-step chart about putting on a condom. Apparently my first time up I had a “Steve Carrell” moment and stumbled over the phrase “shaft of the penis.” I was much more comfortable and natural for the afternoon session. That time around we even did a call-and-response when going over STIs. Have you ever heard 200 kids shout “Genital warts!” at the top of their lungs? Quite empowering.

After a break we went into the heart of the symposium, the HIV/AIDS section. This consisted of a couple games and a presentation in Taglish (a mix of Tagalog and English), facilitated by three volunteers with a much better capacity for language than myself.

We wrapped it up with an always cheerful presentation about drugs – meth, heroin and alcohol – and a short, kick-ass video. You can watch it here.

While the video played we quietly went to the gymnasium’s exit and got cardboard signs we’d prepared. As the students turned to leave, we held up our signs and shouted, “Free hugs!” There was a brief pause as the students stared at these crazy, sweaty Americans holding signs decorated with peace signs, hearts and the slogan “Free Hugs”. Then the tide broke and 200 kids enveloped us. Hugging us individually, as groups, in lines and en mass. Some came for seconds. A couple of the (inappropriate) 4^th year girls even grabbed my ass.

Hugs are awesome.