A post without giant spider pictures, I promise.

Remember Tucker and the Monster?

I got some complaints for that one - I roped you in with cute pictures of the adorable gecko Tucker then BAM! pictures of a Huntsman spider with legs like pencils.  I was afraid that thing was going to have Tucker for breakfast - which is not an exaggeration, in South Africa, they are known as Lizard Eating Spiders - and then I'd really be alone.

Well, I'm not going to do that to you again.  You'll just have to trust me when I say that the beastie currently camped out over its (Mom: skip the next few words and continue after the next set of parenthesis) walnut-sized egg sack (Continue:) in the corner of my bedroom is by far the largest one I've seen yet.  It's Monster 2.0.  Now, I'm not naturally arachnophobic, but that first one about did me in.  Over time however, I really have gotten used to them. Though they're lightening fast and the sudden movement can be startling, they're more likely to be running away from you than towards.  Huntsmans are also just that, hunters (not weavers), and because their diet includes cockroaches, that's as good a reason as any to let them stay.  

The only thing that really concerns me are my geckos. Because I love them so, and I already had to watch one itty bitty baby gecko get dispatched by a hoard of ants back in Lila, and I never want to see that again.  A gecko in the jaws of a Huntsman would be a sad sight indeed.

However, my other new housemate might just be able to fend for herself, and maybe even make that enormous spider into her own lunch.

That's right folks, if we have Monster 2.0, then we also have Tucker 2.0.

I have a Tuko:

For those of you who don't know, Tukos, or Tokay Geckos, are large, aggressive lizards native to Southeast Asia.  They can grow to be over a foot long, and common lore here holds that they can take a finger off, but apparently they're more likely to just clamp down on said finger for an hour (but might be convinced to let go with a little waterboarding).  Tukos are threatened here in the Philippines for the same reason many organisms are - a lucrative illegal trade to the rare-species-gobbling markets of China and Japan.  Try to take one out of the country and you'll be slapped with a $20,000  fine or 12 years in jail. Theoretically. Because big Tukos are worth several thousand dollars anyway, people still risk it, and do so successfully. 

Another part of the allure of the Tuko is their call.  It's worth a trip to the Philippines...or this Wikipedia page... to hear to what I'm talking about.  Before I had ever seen a Tuko or even knew what they were, I would hear them at night on the rooftops surrounding my host family's house in Lila.  The sound, a frenetic jarring of the night, baffled me for months.  I couldn't for the life of me picture what would make that sound, and finally settled on an image of a giant exotic bird much like Kevin from Up.  But no, it was no rare bird with flamboyant plumage and impressive lung capacity, but lizards.  Amazing. 

So as you can imagine, I'm grateful one has decided to hang out with me here in Clarin.  She's only about six inches long, and remarkably beautiful and calm.  If she wandered into my bedroom and took care of that little spider issue, I wouldn't be devastated either. 

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?"

Mary Oliver

Hygiene Vs. Sanitation

Once again, with the passage of time, things get easier.  Good for me, sad for my memoirs.


First, I really have started to get used to life without a refrigerator.  Eating habits have been altered, desire for cold water chipped away at, portions downsized to ensure there are no leftovers, and tablespoon after tablespoon of green drink powder consumed in lieu of proper vegetables. I've even come up with all kinds of new ways to eat my box of care-package Crispix without milk.  They've been mosaic-ed onto the top of bread with Nutella (or rather, one of the many off-brand Nutella-imitators I've been trying out after my care-packaged real Nutella reminded me how utterly awesome it is), and used as breadcrumbs in veggie patties.  After a month like this, the fact of not having a fridge seems entirely less dramatic and awful than I thought it would be looking forward.

Which is not to say I'm merrily forsaking the fridge, embracing this new way of life and considering swearing off chilled/sanitary food altogether.  No way. I still have fridge envy. It's just that now I'm spending less time curled up in a ball in my living room, rocking back and forth and thinking about butter, cucumbers, or anything with a "refrigerate after opening" label.  People adapt, I'm adapting, and it's all not that dramatic after all.

Then there's water, a similar story.

I can easily tell you the date and location of every shower I've had in the the last year.  Which is amusing, even to me, but mostly just amusing because I know it is. If that makes any sense.  The bucket shower, or "taking a bucket" as I like to say, hardly seems like a newsworthy challenge the way it did a year ago when I was writing home and saying "Oh my gawd guys! I like totally have to dump cold water on myself to take a shower! And it doesn't even come out of the wall over your head, you just fill up a bucket like you were going to water the plants, but that's your shower! Can you believe it! This Peace Corps thing is like, so hardcore!"

Well, that got normal pretty fast.

Then there was that whole issue in Lila were every time it rained my water turned rusty brown, and I had to fill up the bucket, then wait for hours for some of the sediment to settle to the bottom before gingerly scooping the slightly less dirty water off the top and bathing with that.  That also lost all of its third world charm pretty quickly, and was reassigned to the realm of the ordinary.

Here in Clarin it's a different story altogether.  The water never turns brown when it rains.  In fact, the water doesn't usually turn on  if it's not raining.  And when there is running water, it stays on just long enough for you to think that whole dry spell was just a phase we are now out of for good.  Then it stops, right when your bucket is empty and you've got dishes to do and a body to wash.

So this is my conundrum today.  It rained for a while last night and I managed to fill up one glorious bucket.  But now I don't know what to do with it.  I really need to wash my dishes. It's too hot in the Philippines to keep dirty dishes lying around, and that's just not good form no matter where you are.  I also really need to shower/bucket.  The same reasons you don't want to leave dirty dishes out apply to your person as well.  Oh, and flushing the toilet is another nice thing you use water for.

So for now, the bucket just sits.  I am completely undecided.  How do you choose between hygiene and sanitation?  Eventually, this too won't seem like a big deal. I'll get used to the scarcity and find ways to deal with it.  And anyway, my situation is temporary and self-inflicted.  Ultimately I am just 14 months and one  plane ride away from ten minute hot showers, over-watered lawns, and enormous refrigerators.  The 3 billion people I am emulating right now in my little water crisis are not so fortunate.

But I guess it's that very fact that takes the sting out of all the challenges we write home about as Peace Corps Volunteers isn't it?  Sure, we do live this.  We do see and experience these challenges first hand and our minds, bodies and routines are affected by them.  But ultimately, we're just visitors here, exalting in our own hardships until we eventually realize that there's very little that is abnormal about this after all.

And now, if you're so inclined, some fun and informative water-related infografics from GOOD:

 

Working

Frederick and Isabel

This weekend's trip to the big city came with a "to do" list of a length proportionate to the time it has been since I've last gone to Tagbilaran.  That is, by all accounts, a good sign.  Back when I was living in Lila (the past tense of that still thrills me), frequent trips to Tag were a necessity. In large part because I had to do all my grocery shopping and errand running there, but also because it was a much needed mental break - a place to meet friends, drink a beer, and just get away from the persistent challenges of my site for a while.

Which is why I say it's a good thing that the weekend's "to do" list was so long.  I still need Tagbilaran, but I don't need it quite as much.  Here in Clarin, I can buy a loaf of whole wheat bread or credit for my cell phone at the corner store.  Sure, for anything beyond that I still need to go to Tag, but that's just fine.  Most importantly, I don't need the city so much for the escape.  I like Clarin. I'm happy here. I choose to be here on my weekends. And that is a very good thing.

Plus, I'm about twice as far away as I used to be.  But that's okay too because I find this corner of the island really, really beautiful, and I'm a new enough transplant that I still find pleasure in spending the entire bus ride just staring our the window.  There's a sense of space up here that's hard to come by other places on Bohol.

So this weekend, shopping lists in hand, Abby and I headed south.  Sometimes I think we look more and more out of place the longer we've lived here.  It's as though at first we put more energy into fitting in to this new culture, but now that we don't feel like visitors anymore, we have the unintentional confidence to be weirdos again.  We are, after all, different.  Though there is no single type of person who ends up as a Peace Corps Volunteer, anyone on the island of Bohol may think otherwise.  Between the five of us, we have quite an impressive collection of odd sunglasses (the ones Abby are wearing above have flip up lenses), non-lobe ear piercings, tattoos, loudly colored nylon shorts, reusable water bottles and quick-dry underwear.  

The first stop of the morning was to see the PCTs' community projects in action.  The education cluster were facilitating a mural painting.  They all swear in in a couple weeks, which kind of blows my mind because it feels like just a hot minute ago that Batch 269 was making the transition from trainees to volunteers, yet here we are, just a month away from being halfway through our service, and the new kids are about to take the reins.

But enough of that.  The whole point of this post is actually to introduce you to the newest member of my Bohol family: Isabel.  There she is strapped creatively into the back of a trike (the picture uploaded oddly, with that neon green stripe, but let's call it art).  On my to do list was "look at bikes", because I had finally planned on putting my PC bike allowance into action.  It's a bit late in service to be just now getting a bike, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to do it back in Lila.  I think that's because I was never really convinced I was going to be there long-term, and getting a bike felt a little too much like putting down roots.  Now, however, I'm in it to win it.  I'm going to be in Clarin until November of 2012, and I've got places to go, things to see, and calories to burn.  With Isabel, it was love at first site.  She's got an aluminum frame, disk breaks, and a bad attitude.  She's a little on the small side, but so is everything when you're my size and living in the Philippines. You get used to it, and we're getting along fabulously.

That same afternoon, Abby and I took our bikes out for a sweaty ride around Tubigon, where we discussed their personalities and gave them their names, Isabel and Frederick.  The four of us have big plans to explore all the little nooks and crannies and hidden back roads of our towns.  And there you have it. Settling in is feeling a lot like freedom. 

A Long Weekend

Yet another reason why corals ROCK!

But not literally of course, because they are animals.