nine degrees north: January 2012

Howdy friends, loved ones, random others who stumbled here from "Peace Corps Journals"...

The world is a crazy place, and in this line of work, things seem even less predictable than usual. This week I had the good fortune to mix things up a bit and work on my second annual (wow - how long have we been here again?) Faces of Tomorrow Medical mission. The adjectives of praise and superlatives abound. Inspiring, life changing, life-affirming, etc. I will do a full post on that later, after I get over the emotional hangover of seeing them leave again.

Where all this is going, is that you just never know what's going to be thrown your way. One day you're sitting around drinking tuba with a bunch of crusty old fishermen, trying to slip in a good word about the local marine protected area, the next you're helping a US-based dentist suction the blood out of someone's mouth who has just had eleven teeth extracted (true story). Peace Corps just throws you curve balls like that, and really, most of the time it's great. But whatever it is that draws me away for a while, CRM work always, infallibly, pulls me back. The thing that's got me really hooked this time (excuse the pun) it this issue of shark finning. Apparently, most people out there actually have no idea we have a crisis on our hands. This I learned this past week while talking to a man who was singing the praises of shark fin soup, and who had no idea that sharks were in any kind of peril whatsoever. "It's not like we have a shortage of sharks, right?" he said. My eyes widened. I guess I assumed that everyone knew that sharks are in major trouble, but that's probably because everyone I interact with on a daily basis is a Peace Corps Volunteer in Southeast Asia who has had to put up with my ranting about it for the last 17 months. It's like how I assume that everyone knows that Bluefin tuna are careening towards extinction as well. But these animals are not the best advocates for their own survival. Tigers are majestic, pandas are adorable, sea turtles endearingly wise - and that's great for them. Sharks and tuna on the other hand? A little harder to sell as creatures deserving of our love and protection.

But here it is: We are fishing them to extinction. And they are very, very important animals. Apex predators like sharks and tuna regulate the entire rest of the food chain - they keep everything in balance. Additionally, because they are so good at what they do, they are intentionally slow to reproduce. This self-regulating mechanism keeps their own populations in check and is why they will not recover from being over-fished.

I beg you, friends, family, and strangers, take a stand. You don't have to actually do anything, you just have to alter your habits to not do the damage. Don't eat Bluefin, and don't eat shark fin soup.

And click the link below to watch this awesome Dan Rather special shot by the incredible and dedicated Shawn Heinrichs, whom Mom, Ryan and I met and dove with over their visit last November.

http://blip.tv/hdnet-news-and-documentaries/dan-rather-reports-shark-fin-clip-4-5895207

You're the best.

I woke up just before 6am yesterday to Abby tapping my on the shoulder. "We're here, I'm going home" she said. I pulled myself up onto my elbows, looking around at the men sleeping on vinyl-cushioned iron bunks around me. "Wait for me". We got off the overnight ferry and took a long silent walk down the Tubigon pier. It was still early enough and wet enough to be cool outside, but there were already signs another hot Visayan day was approaching. Bohol, in all its low green familiarity lay before us, a vague yet undeniable home. By the time I had said goodbye to Abby, found a trike for the final twenty minute ride to Clarin, and unlocked my front door, I had been traveling for twenty-five hours and the mountainous interior of north Luzon was far behind. Inside, I found signs that it had rained, and rained hard, while I was away - standing water in my bedroom and kitchen that had started to grow an organic slick, and mold covering any exposed textile or paper product. I pulled off my damp pillowcase and covered the pillow with a clean towel, lie down, and slept until 4pm.

The Cordillera region - the rugged backbone of northern Luzon - turned over almost every generalization I have made about the Philippines thus far. The Philippines I have been talking about turns out to really only be the Visayas, the fragmented island region in the middle of the country, to which Bohol belongs. The Visayas are were people come to lie on white sand and drink coconut water, to dive coral reefs and visit Spanish churches. If you dig very deep, you may find remnants of tribal culture here, but that isn't likely. Catholicism is the mainstay of life in the Visayas, and Bohol considers itself a very Catholic island in an already very Catholic region in a very, very Catholic country. It is what it is.

Perhaps because Banaue, Sagada, and Baguio - the three towns where nine of my friends and I chose to spend our final holiday season in the Philippines - are just so damned hard to get to, both physically and financially, they are shockingly untouched by Philippine (read: Colonial) standards. From Bohol, getting to Banaue meant a ferry to Cebu, and flight to Manila, and a very long and expensive overnight van to Banaue. That was the easy way, but that amount of time could have easily put me back in the States as well. Around 6am on December 24, our van was winding through misty mountain roads and closing in on the Green View Inn. We had all changed into fleece and wool, and were staring out at ragged land that could not possibly belong to the Philippines. Thankfully our inn was ready for us when we arrived well before check in, and we were able to go up to rooms lined with pine trim and beds with heavy blankets. Outside the restaurant downstairs, the famous ancient rice terraces filled the view. We were all cold. After breakfast and generous amounts of brewed coffee, we set out to a small museum of Ifugao tribal life, were we all had our first taste of honest to God pre-colonial Philippine culture. Mind-blowing. Here were stilt houses and toothed necklaces, monkey skull headdresses and portraits of head-hunting men and terrace-climbing women bedecked in tattoos and crocodile teeth. Later we inadvertently hiked 8 kilometers (so much for our mellow day) up and then back down the road to look out at the spectacular views of the ancient terraces. The next day, we had a very merry Christmas, complete with gift exchange and mulled wine. Our last day in Banaue, we rented a jeepney and hired a guide, and spent 7 hours trekking through the more-impressive-still terraces and mountainsides of the tiny village of Batad. It was here that I realized just how much I've missed the mountains, how sluggish I've let my mind and body become down in the sweaty Visayas, and felt again how these awkwardly long limbs of mine were meant to scramble around through pine trees and boulders and scree.

Sagada came next, with its own particular brand of artsy-outdoorsy cool. We ended up renting the four-bedroom upstairs of a little house, which meant that in addition to enjoying Sagada's much-touted cafes and restaurants, we were able to cook for ourselves. Here, there were caves to explore, valleys to hike, and hanging coffins to find. Throughout the town is this sense that people are doing things, be it baking or throwing pots or leading tourists into the surrounding wilds. You don't see so many people sitting around with their shirts pulled up to expose their beer bellies, drinking and relaxing midday. Highlights were celebrating Mindy's 26th birthday, helping Sabrina stealthily feed the enormous hog in the middle of the night, finding a pair of Prana climbing pants at the local ukay-ukay for 200 pesos, eating fresh, amazing yogurt at Yogurt House, and actually seeing the word "vegan" in print on a menu for the first time since leaving Southern California back in August of 2010.

Baguio came next. It is itself a large, chaotic city with bad traffic and ample noise pollution (helped in large part by the seemingly millions of hawkers out selling New Years Eve noisemakers on the street), but what Baguio lacks in immediate charm, it more than makes up for in an abundance of creative hideaways in the form or bars, coffee shops, funky restaurants, art spaces, and parks. On the last day of 2011, Sabrina and I woke early and walked to Starbucks (!!!) to finish off the year by ordering one of each of their holiday drinks and too many pastries, then splitting them all. The barista brought us out extra silverware, clearly thinking we were waiting for more people to arrive. After that, we climbed up the road to Baguio Buddha Temple and were waiting outside its tall gate when it opened. Inside, we quietly took pictures then made our prayers for the new year.

Back in Clarin, it's already as though Banaue, Sagada, and Baguio are a cool, distant dream. But that's not to say that they haven't affected me in some lasting way. "The Philippines" suddenly means so much more to me. In addition to hot, wet, crowded, Justin Bieber-obsessed, Catholic, slow, and "where the hell are all the vegetables?", it also means cold, dry, green, pine trees, country music, artistic, progressive, and tribal. But that's the thing about traveling isn't it? It opens up your mind and unsticks you from the places you didn't even realize you had been stuck. And it all just goes to show that even travelers need to remember to travel once in a while.