So, nothing has happened in the past few days, really. After getting back from Baguio, we had a rest day, during which I blogged, slept, and didn't get anything else done. Wednesday was a rain day, which is just like a snow day in the States, except the reason you can't go to school is because IT IS RAINING SO HARD THAT YOU CANNOT LEAVE YOUR HOUSE.

So that was...claustrophobic. No, actually, I did get a little writing done. It's probably bad. No, I'm sure it's bad, but hopefully nothing that a little revision can't fix.

Today I sucked at Filipino class (again - I hate being the sped kid, which I am in this class, because everyone else has TWO Filipino parents who BOTH speak the language and...well...I am at a disadvantage, people! Take pity on the white chick!), and then we watched Orapronobis, which, aside from being produced in the 80's which gives it that horrible, shoulderpadded feel that all 80's movies have, is really something everyone should watch even if they have no actual connection to the Philippines. Because dag, yo - the human right situation over here is messed up. Have I said that already? OH RIGHT.

Tomorrow is more human rights stuff, and I think I might skip it, because I have to get a move on with this writing business. Really, my lack of productivity, poetry-wise, has made me really nervous about...things? Like, I can write if I have deadlines. You know, poem-every-week type of deadlines. I've been writing here, but not much, and when I do sit down to write, it's like I have nothing to write about, even though more has happened to me in the past four weeks than in the past FOUR YEARS of my life. Possibly (prrrrrobably ) more. Maybe I'm just overstimulated.

Yahrite.

Oh, on another note: I never thought I would be so glad to get back to our little apartment bathroom in Manila Did I note that I took the COLDEST SHOWER ON THE PLANET while in Baguio? No? WELL I DID. Really what it consisted of was standing around in a bathroom that had an open window and a fan (connected to the light switch so you COULD NOT TURN IT OFF WTF) blowing the 50-degree Baguio air into the 50-degree bathroom and then dumping a bucket of 50-degree water onto my head. I am surprised that I did not die because, you know, when you are that cold, you sort of forget to breathe.

Something something "builds character" something something? Mrrrrrr

Okay. It's late. I should try to finish up this bad poem that I am writing, then get some bad sleep, because I took an ill-advised two-hour nap this afternoon. OOPS.


(PS mostly I am posting this because I found this new icon and it makes me lol)

And I'm back. Lazy day in Manila today; I woke up at NOON. It would appear that I am back to my normal sleeping habits here on the other side of the planet; this is bad because our days start at like 8 but not ALL bad because it might make my jet lag less horrendous when I go back. Speaking of, I hardly had any jetlag (other than waking up at 5 for a while, which in Bato, seemed almost normal) on the way here. Does this mean it will hit me double when I'm stateside? PLEASE NO.

The Story of the DKK, and Other Things

So Baguio is an unspeakably neat place. I have determined this. After getting back from Itogon (THAT'S the name of the mining barangay whose name I brain-farted on earlier), we went straight to Baguio's version of an urban poor community. Basically, this means indigenous people whose land has been encroached upon by the ever-expanding city of Baguio, not to mention the many and varied, uh, "interests" of the national government, who seem to be at the nerve center of EVERY POSSIBLE THING that is wrong with this country. But anyways. These people are weavers - they do some subsistence farming, but to get by, they buy thread from local corporations, and make parts of things like bags, table runners, jackets, etc...then sell the parts wholesale back to the corporation, who puts them together and then sells them at a markup.  They do this because there seems to be no way for them to get enough startup capital to do anything that would even approximate eliminating these (rather exploitative) middlemen. Thus they're stuck making about $3 for 9 hours worth of manual work at a loom that looks as if it has been time-warped there from approximately 1756.

At least they're not living on a mountain of garbage? I dunno. Slanty-face.

On another note, most of the mining companies that have a stake in demolishing stuff up here are from the UK and the US - apparently we use THIS gold to back up OUR currency, while the peso slides because the national government sits on its butt. Crazy but true - the motto of the Philippine socioeconomic situation. Or "horrible but true." Or "unspeakably evil but true." Or "fucked the shit up."

So after our visit to the weaver community, we were whisked off to lunch. Lunch was uneventful, but I do realize that I've been skimping on my culinary blogging. So here are some interesting Cordillera food-factoids for you, some of which are gross:

1) The local delicacy around here is known as pica-pica, or as the locals winkingly call it, "killing me softly." What is it: a chicken that has been BEATEN TO DEATH, then cooked. This results in, basically, rubbery chicken. I have no idea why it's considered so good. I just felt guilty for eating a chicken whose last moments consisted of every inch of its body being bruised. I HAS A SAD

2) They also do the above to dogs. Dog is very common up here. I didn't eat any because I didn't have the chance; I might have, but then again, I might not have.

Hm. Those two do seem to be the biggies of the area. I'll list more if I can think of them.

For Real This Time

The DKK - otherwise known as Dap-ayan ti Kultura iti Kordilyera - I had to look up the D word, because it is in Ilocano I think and also I have no idea what it means (the whole thing means "Cultural Center of the Cordillera"). This is where we went after lunch, and stayed until the wee hours of the morning. It was, in other words, a REALLY LONG STRETCH OF BEING AWAKE. Turned out to be more than worth it, though.

The DKK is a group of musicians and artists that are committed to preserving the (extraordinarily) rich cultural heritage of the indigenous people of this country. This is not an easy feat, as nearly every province has a tapestry of different art forms. So it's a multi-chaptered group of people that do everything from make documentaries to record cds to stage protests and spontaneous mural-ings. They took us in for the afternoon to teach us how to play the more common indigenous instruments, most of which are made out of bamboo and fall into the percussion category. So we thunked things on the ground for a while, and hit things with mallets, and blew over the tops of some things to make noise. We made a lot of noise.

Then we took the noise outside, where we hit GONGS (the handles of which, back in the day, were made from HUMAN JAWBONES) with mallets and generally made a racket while dancing. Yes, DANCING. This is another hilarious/embarassing gringa moment, because here I am, Kermit-the-Frog-esque body waving around and shuffling my feet to indigenous festival and funeral tunes. The courtship dance is particularly hilarious; you basically get shoved into the middle of a circle with a member of the opposite sex and you have to dance such that you look as much like a chicken as possible. As if that weren't enough, as the female, you have to watch the male dance like a chicken and THEN, if he comes anywhere near you, you have to do your best coy-chicken impersonation and run away from him. It is great, and by great I do really mean great but also embarrassing and pee-your-pants hilarious.

So I learned how to whack indigenous instruments and to badly approximate indigenous dance. It was super fun, until they told us that we would have to perform for them after dinner. WTF. So we spent a lot of time being nervous and planning things badly, until we agreed to let Philippe recite something over us demonstrating just how well we had learned to whack indigenous instruments. I should have realized that letting Philippe do his poetry thing would have been disastrous - as much as I told him to KEEP the motherfucking VOLUME down, he started, predictably, yelling things about spirituality and other nonsense concepts in the middle of our performance. I tried shushing him, but it didn't work. He's an idiot. But my rhythm remained intact, and they seemed to like it, so that was a thing. At least a puppy didn't poo in the middle of our recital like it did for some of the ALAY kids (San-Fran based Fil-Am youth org) who were interrupted in the middle of their hip-hop performance by said pooing.

After our ridiculous recital, the DKK members treated us to a bit of a jam session.

I am not sure how to approximate what happened then in words, because it's not one of those things that translates into words very well at all.  I think it might have epitomized how very musical the Filipino people are - honestly, for being some of the most downtrodden, poverty-stricken people on earth, they sing as if they had every reason to keep living. And even though I didn't understand a word of any of the songs, sung as they were in regional dialects (not that I would have understood them in Filipino, but you know), it didn't really matter - you know, transcendent properties of musical beauty and all that. HAR HAR. I think what was most moving was when three of the members started singing a particular song, and then when they hit the chorus, suddenly EVERYONE (that's about 20-odd DKK members that came out for this shindig) joined in. So it's dark, and we're sitting outside in a circle, and suddenly this chorus of voices crescendoes out of nowhere in PERFECT harmony...so many chills. Not to get emo, but it moved me to tears, it was that unspeakably beautiful.

Blah blah life changing moment blah blah blah

You know, you try to write these things down and you fail. I am going to stop failing now, and sign off, but suffice it to say that it was probably one of the single most emotionally-jam-packed moments of my life. I felt full to the brim with it, my proverbial cup running over. These people are amazing, and their culture is amazing, and I am amazed.

Quick update. I've got other shit to do, yo.


Barangay Whatever

I have no idea where we were yesterday, in other words. It was about 30 minutes south of Baguio. I thought it was going to be, like, camping out in a shack, but we ended up at our host's family-compound-thing (everyone out here has one, donchakno) and it was shockingly nice. They also had a small zoo: a few pigs, about four million dogs, a slightly lesser number of cats, a tadpole pond, chickens...anyway it was noisy. So their house was clean, and not made of plywood, and even had COUCHES. Yay couches. Only crazy thing was the bathroom - creepy-ass tiny hole in the floor in a shed outside. With no door. Errrrrrgh. It's a good thing I didn't have to, yunno, take a poo, because srsly guys, my aim is not that good. TMI SESSION OVER

So yesterday we spent the day touring the area in the CPA's jeep, which was enlightening ("here are the native mining sites" (tiny hole in the ground), vs. "here are commericial mining sites" (WHOLE MOUNTAINSIDE DEMOLISHED)). More on that later, if I remember.

At home, we were treated to a jam session by the local band, all of whose members are cousins. They were very good - and did hilarious covers of 80's country songs. I made friends with a tiny, malnourished house kitten. It slept on Becky's feet. I wanted to put it in my pocket and take it with, but, uh, it might have had fleas? Anyways.

Sorry this update is so short (no, no I'm not; my entries are usually HEINOUSLY long). Urban poor orientation now. Bbl, yo.

Because it is COLD up here!

Baguio, or, Land of the Vertical

I'm up in Northern Luzon for the next couple of days. Won't get to write tomorrow, because I will be staying in the middle of a poor mining community. Weeee?
Anyway, we left at like 1 AM Friday morning from Manila, on a bus. So I slept on a bus. Sort of. I think by slept, what I really mean is bounced around with my eyes closed for five hours. The upshot of this is that when I DID open my eyes, because it was getting light out, I had a hard time believing we were still in the Philippines. The Cordilleras are WACKY, man. Sheer mountainsides covered in little houses and impossible-looking rice terraces, mist that trails around between the ridges and looks as if someone put it there for dramatic effect, and a road, traversed at disconcerting speed by our bus, that makes the west-coast US 1 look like the Autobahn. Or Nebraska. Or both? Unreal, yo.

Our accommodations here are only slightly like camping; we're on mats on a floor but it is a CLEAN floor, and the bathrooms are sketchy but not TOO sketchy. The only problem is is that there's no hot water; while this is never a problem in 1305971-degree Manila, up here it is dry and borders on cold. I cannot tell you have weird it feels to walk around in the Philippines with a hoodie on. Weird but absolutely wonderful, as my pores are no longer producing like four gallons of sweat a minute. That's disgusting. But true.

Baguio is a seriously cool (now in the figurative sense) city. It's big, but not TOO big, and has the feel of a college town because most of its population is taken up by UP's campus, which is in the middle of everything. It also has one of the most amazing marketplaces I've ever seen - It's half-covered and half-open air, and because of the climate up there, the selection of produce for sale is STAGGERING. We got mangoes, lychee, strawberries (!), mangosteen, kamote tops...they even grow BROCCOLI up here. Anyway, I kind of wish the whole program was up here - but not really really, as it is rather isolated from...uh...everything (which, at the moment, is pretty much all of its charm).

We ate tonight at, I think, the only vegetarian restaurant in the entirety of the Philippines, which is owned by (surprise!) some artsy-fartsy types in film making or painting or something. It's called Oh My Gulay, which is verruh clever because gulay is vegetable in Tagalog. So most of the things on the menu are "OMG *insert food here*", which is pretty terrific. Not to mention that the interior looks like a cross between a pirate shipwreck and a botanical garden. To flush the toilet, you push on the a little tribal wooden statue guy. Bizaaaaaarrrrrre. But tasty! Uh, the food. Not the toilet flusher. Ew?

Anyway, I think I'm done for the night. I have a cold (for real this time; I can't breathe through my nose and it SUUUUUCKS) and I'm pretty sure whatever I bought for $3 at the drugstore isn't helping. Mrrr. Bedtime. Will update in two days, provided I don't fall into a mineshaft and die. Huzzah!