Aking Karawan, My Birthday

Humihinga Pa! Umpisa ang tatlong linggo sa itong AFAP programa ngayon. Conte conte ang buhay dito ay conte mabilis. Tuwing Lunes mayroon ang pagsusuli. Noon lingo ay machadong mahirap. Kanina umaga ang pagsusuli ay conte mabalis.

I'm still breathing. I began my third week of this AFAP program today. Little by little life here is slightly easier. Each Monday there is a test. This morning it was slightly easier.

Here are some photos from my birthday.

There was dinner, videoke, a trip to Manila for a massage and manicure/pedicure (my first manicure)... a fish market where we bought fish and took it to a restaurant where they cooked it for us. Thanks to my classmates for buying the massage for me.
Afterwards we visted the Mall of Asia before going home. The Jeepney terminal is pictured above.

more later.

jason

Utak na prito (fried brain)

Today... my brain was fried from trying to understand a movie about the parallels of Philippines Literature and History in it's different forms from precolonial till present time. Napaka malalim and I didn't understand a word of it during the 35 minutes we watched. At least I could see the pictures, but the rest was beyond me. A difficult lesson and one that I felt more despair over that usual. Before that we had our weekly test and 1/2 of it was far beyond me. People keep telling me to let the Tagalog flow out, but it's not in there in the first place. My brain is fried.

I'm sad, I'm frustrated, I need to do my regular crying thing... overwhelmed temporarily, I'm so happy to just rest and write in English- it's my revenge for the challenges of the day. I'm not sure it's helpful to think of it that way, but I'm just done for a while. Rest time for now. I'm just glad to be back in my room, done with dinner conversation, done for while with everything. There were no other students on campus, just us. The storm (Hurricane Frank)blew down a great deal of debris from trees and covered all the walkways. The many workers there worked hard all day and it was looking very clean at the end of the day. After class and lunch we switched to a different NGO. This one is the juvenile hall unit for elementary and middle school street children. We sang songs and played basketball with the younger ones. There was no hoop there, so Charity, who is leading most all of the activities there bought one and Ed, also part of our group, just holds it up during the game. The kids have scabies and other skin ailments. We disinfect with hand sanitizer after any contact with them, but I wonder if that is enough. Afterward, we sang songs and did some journal writing with the older youth. Tough tough lives.

After that we decided to join staff from the community NGO to help distribute government food rations to people affected by the big storm. We passes out about 200 rations, but of course ran short. I just got bit by an mosquitoes on my feet while typing. Eventually we made it back to the classrooms and our teacher gave us an impromptu head start on tomorrows lecture, which seemed like another lecture in and of itself. My headache was in affect by then. I get them usually from being out in the sun without my sunglasses, which I was today. They last about 4 hours. I still have it.
We have journals that we write in and I wrote about the challenges. My teacher is sympathizing with me, but also clearly showing where she can't handle my frustration or struggle.

I got a text message earlier in the day that the news team will not have the beauty queen host, but the writer, cameraman...and instead of coming tomorrow, they are coming instead on Weds at 12:30pm to interview me about the use of waste vegetable oil in diesel motors. It's the project that I initiated here, mentioned earlier in the blog. I had to give their names to our program staff so they can be allowed on campus to interview me.
Writing is such good decompression.
After a Jeepney and Tricycle ride, I am back with my host family, done with another great dinner and now in my room. My host Mom said that I was looking handsome, part of that was about me gaining weight and looking healthy. I'm definitely well fed here.
Now, just tired and itchy on my ankles, now covered in socks.
Some people in our group are going to Tagaytay tonight to drink (coffee they said, but I think more will be involved) and do videoke. Everyone else has so much more Tagalog in their backgrounds, minds and systems. I'm going to rest some and study some and then sleep. Also, I need every brain cell. I can't afford to be killing them with alcohol.

Yesterday I covered almost the first 60 pages of my grammar book, review and new stuff.

It's a challenge to keep defining success by my own measures when I'm being evaluated by theirs. I'm already getting a great deal out of the experience and I'm speaking with more and more confidence each day. I made it this far and it's not like they are going to send me home for not being at the same level as everyone else. I did have that fear the first day. This is a good chance to repattern my study habits and fully apply myself at learning and resting and going after my dream of Filipino fluency. It the chance to keep reaching for a bigger mind. All of the concepts from Brain Plasticity and thoughts around rewarding effort vs. success come to mine. See earlier blog from 2 months back.

J

Isang Linggo (1 week)

I’ve completed one week of immersion study. I am getting more comfortable with the immersion process and also adjusting to life here. I think that riding on the back seat of a motorcycle/tricycle as we navigate thorough between Jeepenys, busses, people, and other tricycles is fun. I look forward to filming a segment and posting it later. There’s a big storm here now. It’s Sunday and one of the first free days we’ve had )to study). This trip is affording me the opportunity to rewrite and improve so many of my habits around school and study. I making the most of this opportunity by really letting myself fully pursue my goal of increased fluency. My host family is amazing. Papajack is the father and does most of the cooking. It’s so good. We joke about him doing a cookbook and take picture of the food. If there’s energy, I’d like to collect some recipes and learn to cook some dishes.

What else? Oh, another interview with the newstation GMA 7 next week. Ricky is bringing the host- Miriam Quiambao, (Former Miss Philippines 1999) here to where I am for the interview. She has a show on GMA 7 and we should be able to explain more of the social and environmental possibilities of our project. Babalik ako sa nagaaral ngayon. Back to studying now for me.

Jason

Pinoy Aboard Veggie Car story GMA 7 - Manila

We got in the TV news. Ricky and the folks at Gammad Auto in Lipa City were interviewed for a story that fell far short of our hopes. Here is the print article. There is nothing of the social or environmental implications of our work. Oh, well, conte conte lang. Little by little.

Another reminder to me that revolutions are not built by waiting for mainstream news teams to think your idea is timely or important. They'll catch on eventually later when things have built more. Now, we need to work out supply issues and get people who are reselling oil as carcinogenic cooking oil to sell it to Jeepeny Drivers instead where it is much less carcinogenic.

In other news, the SF Municipal Transporation Agency surveyed a 30% increase in the number of people biking to work since 1 year ago! That's just beautiful! Read the Reuters story here.

Bikes outnumbered cars on Market street earlier this week! Wow!

Time to get back to rest, chill and drill, that's my mantra. I am far behind everyone else in my language program, but I just keep saying to myself that this is fun, this is cool, and getting more used to the absolute discomfort of learning so much all at once.


Jason

Dito sa Filipinas

Dito ako sa Filipinas. May isang araw sa mga pagsasanay sa Tagalog. Hindi ko alam sa "immersion" ako o sa "drowing" ako. Oo, mahirap ang wika, pero humihinga pa ako.
Babalik sa study ngayon.

At din, may newstory sa GMA & dito sa Ricky sa Pusod. Nagconvert kami ng sasakayan siya sa maneka para tumakbo ang motor noong meirkoles. Manood ang newstory sa isang ora sa TV.

Jason


I'm here in the Philippines. I had my first day of Tagalog studies today. I don't know if it's immersion or drowning. Yes, the language is difficult, but I am still breathing.

And also, there was a new story about Ricky at Pusod. We converted his truck to run on vegetable oil last Weds. I'll watch the story in an hour.

Jason

Nagtagumpay! Success!

Tanong: Ano uminom ako Ricky?
Sagot: Ginebra San Miguel, poor man's Gin.


Question: Ricky, what did I drink?
Answer: San Miguel Gin, poor man's Gin.
4 shots of 70% alcohol as a small celebration or our successful installation of the vegetable oil system at Gammad Auto Shop. A gift from the team of mechanics. Yes, I’m still buzzed and being that this is a rare occasion, making the most of it. Writing.

We were supposed to have the undivided attention and assistance of one mechanic- Noli, but instead we had a team of 6 motivated, curious, and talented mechanics learning how to install the system in Ricky’s vehicle. It was a train the trainer event that wildly exceeded my expectations. We were done in 5 hours from our arrival and very informal viewing of the very informal briefing videos I made with my small digital camera.
After trying it out for a while we'll have a press conference about the project.
Shoe Mart (aka SM) , a huge department store here is interested in the converting a vehicle also. That's cool!
In these photos you can see the finished product with Ricky explaining the system to neighbors. It's exciting to see the excitement spread.

I’m at the Pusod office in Lipa City, Philippines. I first met these folks in 2001 at the Land, Air , Water Environmental Conference in Eugene, OR. Pusod means belly button in Tagalog. It is both the root of origin and also the point of nourishment. It is an environmental newspaper. They report on local environmental and social issues. Today, there is a buzz in the office. Yes, another one besides my own and I hear them talking in Tagalog about the relative cost of using waste vegetable oil or buying normal diesel. It’s a beautiful thing even that I understand them. Taglish helps also.

Now the question I know someone is dying to ask and that I’ve been asking myself and answering to the reporters today are various versions of “will this make a difference?” Yes, I say, because it will get invoke people’s curiosity about different possibilities and that is a powerful thing. There are other ways to do things and that is clearly obvious when doing something so different- that smells so much better also. You hardly notice the exhaust compared to the persistent flavor of sulfur that normally emanates from diesels trapped in the realm of dinosaurs and brimstone..aka sulfur emissions from a dirty fuel/by product of regular diesel. It's true that the supply of waste vegetable oil is limited and not everyone can use it, but if more drivers did, things would greatly improve. I learned from Ipat (with Pusod) last night that there is a market for people filtering and reselling the waste oil and using it again for cooking. That oil contains more carcinogens and shifting the market will keep people from getting sick from it. Also, much of the waste oil gets into into waterways from the sewer systems. If instead they used it for a different purpose as a cleaner fuel, there would be less contamination of these areas. I can't wait to see what else ripples from this.

Later on- at 5am here (I’m still adjusting to the time)
I also had the best Bibinka ever (so far). My cell phone shouldn’t be unlocked and used here.
I’m going to buy a used one here….

Sige na,
(keep on)
Jason

the journey

I made it. I'm here in Manila at my first spot for 6 hours including sleep and thenoff to Lipa City to start the vegetable oil conversion.







Here are my thoughts on the plane.

6/10/08
I’m chasing the sun in suspended animation. 3 hours till Tokyo and already 7 in the air. A flying bus with bathrooms, meals, movies and technology. This is one of the biggest adventures of my life and I can’t quite grasp it. Night classes for 2 years every Monday from 6-9pm and endless hours of struggle trying to learn a language only my Grandparents speak…. Hearing about this Fullbrite Scholarship program since the start and eventually applying as one of 32 people. I was chosen as one of 9 or 10 participants. Persisting.
I made it, and I don’t quite get it. Some things just seem so difficult, so unattainable, and yet right now they are. The endless list of things to do was mostly done, enough was done… more than I ever thought I could accomplish in the last 5 months.

I don’t get it. I made it, but I wasn’t supposed to. Or at least that’s what goes through my head. You can try your best and you will probably never make it, but in continuing on toward a vision, there is joy. Some things will not change in my lifetime, but how we struggle is important for there is joy in the journey. Most Tears now. I am crying and noticing. I made it (at least to this point) and I am glad for that. How many times have I really noticed that I am here now, and that the unmovable or impossible…it wasn’t true? It just felt true. I hope to notice this more and more, to learn to notice even though my habit is otherwise.

I think now that how we do things is more important that what we accomplish. This is because most of learning is failure. It is what doesn’t work. It’s humiliating for us past a certain age. It seems like failure which is usually frowned upon or punished. I don’t think that toddlers would learn to walk if they felt as ashamed of unsuccessful attempts as adults do.
That place where we stop trying and become discouraged, safe, and protected from feeling the humiliation that is heaped upon us…. That place is where we are comfortable. Hiding our pain and protecting it. That is the place where things stop. I had to trust someone in that place and that was one of the best decisions of my life. Now, I am more able to try things that I wouldn’t and that leads me to outcomes I could not have created or imagined on my own. If we could get better at acting in the midst of uncertainty…improvising our lives then new, terrible and surely interesting things will happen. This is what we need if we are to really evolve our minds and our habits beyond the predictable cycles of thoughtlessness, rehearsing the legacy of our best attempts at life, but not going beyond them.

I am off to try and fail. To make a complete fool of myself in yet another situation. I inpire laughter in so many people with my language attempts. I hope to be less shamed, or at least grow accustomed to facing more humiliation and grow more free in the process.
That is what I hope will happen over the next 9 weeks with speaking this foreign language of my grandparents.

Jason at 30,000 feet.

Paalam na

Bye!
Today is plane day and I'm wrapping up stuff, trying to be less - last minute, breathing more. Saying- Hey, I could be having more fun.

I'm off from SFO today to Manila and then to Lipa City to do the a vegetable oil conversion on a diesel truck. That's what's in my Balikbayan Box (homecoming box). The chocolates are in the purple bag.

After the conversion I'll start my language program.

Hangang sa muli,
Until next time,

jason