Batad

I’d been thinking about going to Batad—a remote village only accessible by a one hour hike—for several days. Banaue, while it has its beauties, is much more urban than I expected it would be. The town is noisy with machinery, the roads stink of diesel, and the terraces remain a presence in the distance—not quite in reach. Batad however is nestled at the foot of an amphitheater of terraces, and with hardly any electricity and absolutely no vehicles, the nights are quiet (no roosters!) and spattered with vivid stars.

I met up with a friend, Joe—a 21 year-old Australian studying micro-finance (my new passion) here in the Philippines for a month—a happy coincidence. The two of us hiked down to the village and stayed at Rita’s Hotel for a night (highly recommended) where we met up with two couples, one English and one German, and their guide, Mark. Over Scrabble, and later some pan-fried pizzas (one had egg, tuna, and veggies), we chatted about tourism, the different provinces, and Mark’s childhood.

Here’s a picture of our Scrabble game, with Claudia, Mark, me, Wendy and Dave:

Mark had an interesting story to share. As the oldest child in his family, his family had designated him to inherit the family rice terraces. Yet when Mark turned 12, he began working as a tour guide when a group of Germans asked him to help film a documentary. In the following years, Mark spent a lot of time with tourists learning English. He also got exposed to western culture, which heavily re-shaped his perspective on his own.

By the time he reached 16, his grandfather pulled him aside and told him that he’d been engaged to a woman that he was to marry in a few months—which came as a complete surprise to Mark. His grandfather was very proud of the connection—it would link two expansive plots of land and make Mark a noble and wealthy man by their community’s standards.

Rice plots near Batad: “You know in the past, I would have been so lucky to inherit the rice plot,” Mark said, “but when my grandfather told me this I thought: ‘Oh no, I’ll have to take care of the terraces and never make any money. I’m so unlucky! I cannot have this responsibility.’ And I was only 16—I wasn’t ready to be married. I was exposed to tourists and I knew that no one got married that young.”

“But I married you to be wealthy,” his grandfather said.
“But I don’t want to be wealthy,” Mark said. “I want to be free.”

Mark told his grandfather that he needed to disown the family and the farm so he wouldn’t have the responsibility of the terraces or have to get married. His grandfather, who deeply loved Mark, begged him to reconsider.

“I’ll cancel the agreement, just please don’t disown me,” he said. His grandfather paid a fifteen pig dowry to the family anyway and canceled the agreement. The family forbade anyone from Mark’s family to ever marry anyone of their own.
“A few weeks after it was all settled, my grandfather died of shame,” he said, shaking his head.

Mark also never knew who the young woman was, as their custom dictates. Now 21, he said, “A few months ago, I saw this woman walking by—she was so sexy and beautiful, I couldn’t believe it. I asked a friend of mine who she was, and it turned out that she was the woman I was supposed to marry! Oh wow—I felt like such an idiot.”

“Do you regret your decision?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “Now I am free. I help my family by paying for the workers on the farm sometimes—I am very generous with them. But now I can travel wherever I want and I can actually make a living. Being a travel guide doesn’t make a lot, but it’s better than working in the terraces.”
Hiking through the terraces with Mark

As we hiked through the terraces the next day on the way to Bangaan, Mark and I talked about the subject a little more.

“Is it common that young men your age don’t want to inherit the terraces?” I asked.

“Yeah, it is.” he said. “Who wants to inherit something where you have to break your back to work and you never make any money? I just pay the workers, but I never make money for that. It just goes away and I never see it again.”

I told Mark about one of the ideas I’d heard for preserving the terraces: growing the sacred tinauan rice and exporting it to wealthier countries that can pay a higher price per kilo.

“That’s not saving the rice terraces,” he said with an edge in his voice, “that’s destroying them. The tinauan rice is the source of these people’s nutrition. It’s one of the healthiest rice varieties in the world. But we only plant it once a year and we hardly grow enough for our families. So if you take away the healthy rice to export—the rice we do ritual for, the rice we harvest by hand—and you give us a little money and less nutritional rice in return, well, you’re destroying the people. It’s not a solution; it’s like taking away gold from the people and returning silver.”

Rice and Mud

“What do you think the solution is?” I asked.

He turned around and smiled. “The only solution is for me to become president. Then I would really give some money to these people here—support them during typhoons, etc. I would give them money for their work on the rice.”

“It sounds like the people here need livelihoods in addition to the rice farming,” I said, “But what do you think they could do?”

“Yeah—they need livelihoods. They need to get paid more for their [organic] vegetables and rice. But I’m not sure what they can do besides carving idols, weaving, and being tour guides. Honestly, I think Batad will be gone in 10 or 20 years, because no one wants to stay around and break their backs working on the terraces anymore.”

We continued walking on in silence as I wondered if there was a solution to this dilemma, or if the villages I’m seeing (such as Bangaan village below) simply won’t be around in 20 years. And if so—what are the implications of that loss?

A lot of people (including me) talk about how we need to help “save the poor.” It’s a line used so often to no real effect that I think many of us feel hopeless when we hear such expressions—or worse, we feel nothing at all. How can we possibly save “the poor”—this amorphous entity? I used to lament about this, especially after my initial visit to the Philippines in 1999 as a 21-year-old college senior. The question kept me up at night, gave me guilt trips when surrounded by wealth and abundance. I didn’t know the answer.

Well, as crazy as it may sound, I think Muhammed Yunus (and the many people who collaborated to create the Grameen Bank and its prototypes) have figured it out—or at least, they’ve made a huge step in that direction.

I’ve been reading Yunus’ autobiography, Banker to the Poor, for the past few days since my arrival in Banaue. Here’s what Grameen bank does, in a nutshell. A bank representative will go to a town where people are poor—so poor that their kids are starving, so destitute that they may not have places to live. The rep. will gather a group of locals together and ask them what kind of businesses the people would start if they could have a checking account and a small business loan. Many people (especially women) are dubious at first, and many are afraid—having no previous business or financial education and afraid of that kind of empowerment. Soon (or sometimes after many meetings), a few timid hands raise: “I would like a loan for $325 (in the US) so I can buy a sewing machine. Then I can make clothes and sell them in the local shops.” Or another: “I would like some money to buy a stove on wheels so I can sell my tacos.”

Once the interest is there, Grameen Bank insists that they get a group of five borrowers. Each borrower must support the other projects, for if the borrower cannot pay back the loan it stops the other borrowers from getting future funds as well. Usually, these groups end up being support systems for the borrowers. One American immigrant shared: “In the fifteen years that I have been here, I never had a friend. I didn’t even know anybody. I was all alone. Now I have many friends. My four friends in the group are like my own sisters. Even if the WSEP (U.S. Grameen project) did not give us money, I wouldn’t leave the group.”

The bank is based on one revolutionary concept: credit is a basic human right. The loans are offered without credit checks and with low (2%) interest rates, with repayment rates around 97%. Yunus, and those involved with the bank, believe in the imagination and power of humanity. His bank allows people the pride of self-employment—in fact, I believe the bank uses a far more empowering and successful methodology than most international aid or welfare programs. Though the program began in Bangladesh, today more than 250 institutions in nearly 100 countries operate micro-finance programs based on Grameen methodology.

Yunus’ book, filled with many moving success stories, will inspire you—it’s definitely changed my life.
Check out his book here: http://www.bankertothepoor.com/bankertothepoor/
or his website: http://www.grameen.com/

Here’s a picture of my bathroom:

When I was young, as soon as my family sat down for a meal at a restaurant I’d hop up to go find the bathroom. I don’t know why, but it interested me for some reason. So—I decided to explore my bathroom for you, if only because it’s a bit different from what you’re probably familiar with—and different is interesting.

The typical “Filipino” bathroom is a combination of a shower and toilet in one tiled room, usually without a curtain or shower guard in between. The shower water drains down a hole (usually with a strainer over it) in the middle of the bathroom. The result is a floor that’s quite wet when you have to use the toilet any other time of day. The toilets are often very low (for me anyway) since most Filipinos are about a head shorter than I am—especially in rural areas. I always feel like the jolly white giant when I’m here.

Close up of toilet:The toilets use a manual flush system—there’s often a bucket in the bathroom with a scooper that stays under a spigot and gets filled up often during the day. When you’re done with your business, you flush the toilet by scooping water and dumping it down the toilet. There are an increasing amount of flush toilets in Manila, especially in the more westernized area, but this system is still the most common. I’ve been in public bathrooms with a 50 gallon barrel full of water and a hose in it, with a scooper floating on top. When I finished, I step out of the stall (carefully—the floor is usually wet), grab the scooper, then dump it down the toilet.

Toilet paper’s not commonly provided, though I think many women bring their own tissue. I forget this sometimes and as a result, I’ve torn a few pages from newspapers or notebooks. What most Filipinos do is wash themselves with the water from the scooper. I think that method, plus the wet floors, is just a little too much moisture for me in one sitting.

There is rarely soap in a bathroom—esp. if you are in an outlying area. Manila often offers soap in its mall restrooms or other upscale/ westernized establishments and restaurants.

Close up of shower:

Lastly, the shower. The common Filipino shower (though I think this is changing) is a bucket with a scooper. You fill up the bucket with cold water and scoop it over your head, soaping up in between scoops. Though it sounds awfully cold at the moment—it’s actually not bad when you’re in sultry Manila in the middle of May. But up here it’s a little brisk—this time of year the temperature hovers around 40 or 50 degrees F, in fact it’s rained every day since I arrived.

To accommodate travelers, most hotel owners purchase shower heads with “hot water heaters” that only run when the shower water does, and also provides somewhat of the typical shower experience that most foreigners are used to. I put hot water heaters in quotes because really, I have yet to have warm water come out of mine. At this point, the water is more “not-freezing” than it is warm. But I’ll take that over freezing any day. Occasionally, there’s a bout of lukewarm that gets me really excited and hopeful, though usually it quickly passes down the drain.

Chickens however, are a whole other story. I’ve always had a fascination for chickens, but I don’t know why. They’re wonderfully complex, in my opinion. Though people often think of chickens as dumb animals—I heard a story once about their innate mothering abilities. Once, someone put a duck egg under a nesting hen. She sat on the egg until it hatched and a duckling appeared with the rest of her chicks. She set out with the chicks, walking them around the farm until she came to a small pond. Then, she stopped and walked out with the duckling, encouraging it to get into the water, nudging it along until it finally stumbled in.

Now, one thing that intrigues me about that story—I’m pretty positive what keeps baby ducks buoyant is an oil on their feathers that their mother produces for them until they secrete it on their own (she rubs it onto them as they nest beneath her). So—who knows if the duck could swim anyway? But…I still think the story is sweet—perhaps that’s partly why chickens are also called mother hens. Of course, I’m not going to overly romanticize the species—they can also be exasperatingly stupid at times.

There’s also a documentary about chickens, titled The Natural History of Chickens. Apparently, a man cut his chicken’s head off and it ran around for awhile—but didn’t stop. Shocked by this Lazarus of a chicken, he decided to see if it would continue to live. He fed the little chicken with an eye dropper, and apparently the wound healed over and the chicken lived for some time (almost two years, I think?) touring around the country as a famous, living, headless chicken. I know the story sounds preposterous, but it’s in the documentary. Refute it if you will.

In another municipality, Kiangan, the locals have a special connection with chickens—they’re used regularly in rituals as a sacrifice for spirits and ancestors (and later eaten), they’re consumed as food, the eggs are eaten, etc. So, it’s actually considered quite bad to kill a chicken on accident—like with a vehicle. The driver has to pay a hefty sum of money to the owner because not only has he killed a chicken, he’s taken away the future eggs from that chicken and the future chicks from that chicken, which could have become roosters or laying hens. So the offender ends up paying for not only the single entity, but two generations of progeny to come.

I think that’s an interesting way of looking at things.
p.s. baby chicks are ridiculously cute.

My computer, for some reason, has turned green. Not every time I use it, but about every other time. Usually I can still see the screen, but one time I couldn’t.

A computer programmer came by—he was staying at the hotel here—and told me my computer had a loose connection. I never had a problem with it before, but I wonder if all the movement during the trip out here might have affected it. My guess however, (though completely uneducated) is that it’s a byproduct of the relentless moisture in this town.

My towel, for one, has not once dried out thoroughly since I got here. I always have to use a slightly wet towel. I even went a whole day without showering once (it was raining, there was no electricity, and I didn’t want to take a cold one) and the towel was not dry by the second day either. I don’t have a second towel to alternate with, but I’m working on it.

My books, see below, are all warping. The covers curl back, the pages turn to waves. I have to keep my books stacked and compressed against each other to prevent this. Hopefully it’s not too late for these ones. In Denver, I could spill a glass of water on the ground and leave it there overnight. Mostly likely, it would be gone by the next morning. The humidity there often hovers around 4%. Here, to contrast, I just spilled a bit of my water bottle (a cup or so) in the corner of my room. I sat there for a moment, looking at it. Then, I got up, sponged it, and left the moist streak there. I’d like to dry it, but I don’t want to sacrifice my one personal towel or my single dishtowel—or anything else. I’m also curious how long it will take, if ever, to dry.

As for my computer—I’m not sure what to do. I backed up all my files, and I’m hoping for the best. There’s a special spot on the keyboard where I can press (hard) and sometimes it will return to normal. But I tried that this morning, and it stayed its lovely green—at least it picked a good color. Maybe it’s trying to camouflage—I have a computer gecko. Honestly, it’s pretty disconcerting, because my project is heavily computer based: I store my photos here (and resize and edit them for the blog), write one to four hours a day, record interviews that I store on the hard drive…and while I could use the internet café—it would add up, and it’s not private at all. It will be much harder to do my project without the computer, but they’re very expensive in Manila (almost 2000 for a good one).

So, if anyone wants to donate (or sell for a low cost) a laptop (even used but in good condition), just let me know. Matt could bring it out when he comes to visit. I don’t like to ask for such things, but why not? It’s for a good cause. I don’t want anything fancy here, and I certainly don’t want to part with my computer, but my friend may be seeing her last days.

I’d heard about the glorious iPod from many of my friends and didn’t understand its appeal. So, you have this little device that plays your favorite music—so what? I purchased one as an M.F.A. graduation gift in May—especially because my car didn’t have a working CD player. I figured that it would cost me about the same to get the CD player fixed.

For awhile I only had about 700 songs—about 60 albums or so. I’d drive around Denver, listening to my favorite tunes, thinking—hey, this iPod is pretty amazing. It’s so easy to use, so compact, and you can take it running, driving, traveling, whatever. My friends didn’t understand how I could tolerate listening to the same few albums over and over again, but I had no idea what I was missing at the time.

Then I brought my iPod out here to the Philippines. Now I think the iPod is glorious. I spent many hours downloading (and re-downloading) music from Matt’s hard drive to build my song cache up to about 2,500 hundred songs, which still is nothing really. But—all the songs on my iPod are fantastic. And that’s only the half of it.

My iPod has turned into a transporter or magician. I put on the headset, and instantly I’m in another place, in another time. You know how it is. It’s just that much more poignant when you’re halfway around the world from your life. A song comes on and suddenly I’m dancing around my house with Matt, listening to a live concert, driving in the car with my mom, or hanging out with friends. In one moment it summons up my past emotions, memories—I feel like someone on the Star Trek Enterprise, beamed into a new world. This is why I’ve named my iPod Scottie.

I’m currently listening to The Pixies’ “Hey” for the sixth time in a row. Yeah—I have over 2500 other songs to choose from, but I like the world I’m in.

Beam me up.

When I first arrived in Banaue, I felt somewhat swallowed by the wide expanse of time that lay before me. I had no idea how to begin my project, who to talk to, how to get interviews, how to conduct the interviews, etc. It’s all well and good to research a book about “how modernization affects the Ifugao culture” but how does one go about that?

Thankfully, Filipinos are a wonderfully social, gracious, and networking people. My foray into research actually began as a byproduct of searching for a new home. I spoke with one hotel owner and she sat with me for over twenty minutes, asking me about my Fulbright and telling me all the people I should talk to and the places I should go. Next I went to talk with another hotel owner (I was considering long term hotel stay before I found out about the house I’ll rent). This one wasn’t able to provide a long term room, but told me about a few other people to talk to about housing and the Fulbright. Ultimately I found not only a house, but made several new friends in town that all want to interview with me at some point for my book project.

I realized I needed to set some goals and parameters for the project, as well as create a list of questions to ask people. The questions I’d like to ask will hopefully provide a picture of how Banaue’s cultural and physical landscape has changed over the last three generations, as well as where it might be headed and what the locals think about that.

I devised a goal for now: to speak to 100 members of each generation—the elders, the middle-aged, and the youth—to listen to their memories, their thoughts about their heritage and the direction of their culture, etc. So, that’s 300 interviews to conduct. I also plan to speak with at least 20-30 “experts” in the field who may be natives to the area as well. Lastly, I plan to speak with at least 100 tourists. They’re a huge part of the current situation here, and their input is a vital part of the dialogue at hand. That brings the total to about 2 to 3 interviews a day. Having these tangible goals both overwhelms me (I’m going to do that how?), and empowers me as well. Apparently, I had better get moving if I even want to come close to meeting them.

A jeepney: The good news is, the more focused and clear I am, the easier it is for people to help me. For example, today on the jeepney (a form of transportation), I met Yoli, a woman working on the tinauan project. Her organization sets up co-ops for farmers so they can sell their rice for a profit. This is a new development—because of its scarcity and sacred nature, tinauan’s never been sold in the past. Many farmers don’t know they can actually make money for the rice, so this new project must be promoted to the local communities.

Anyway, Yoli agreed to take me to the different areas and introduce me to the farmers, as well as to share information about this promising project. And this all happened because of a random choice about where to sit on a jeepney. I laughed about this coincidence with Yoli, essentially the exact person I needed to meet.

“This is what I like to call a serendipity,” I said.

She laughed and nodded. “Yes, I know what you mean,” she said. “We believe that whenever there is someone who wants to help the poor, God is there.”

Here’s the current bane of my existence: Roosters.

I should include dogs in this list as well, but please note that it would only include the eight million dogs in Banaue—dogs as a collective entity, if you will, which bark ceaselessly for hours on end. Definitely not your dog, dear reader. But maybe the dog that left me a lovely gift this morning on my welcome mat.

I find this hysterical, but only click below if you're okay with a little vulgarity:

View image

As for roosters…I’ve never had anything against them before—in fact, I’ve always been a fan of the chicken and rooster always just seemed a fierce, arrogant, and elegantly plumed version of their female counterparts. I even raised a few chickens of my own. But the combination of a million roosters and their barking compatriots—in one small town—has completely shaped my sleeping cycle. Now I go to sleep around 11pm (quickly turning to 10) and wake up at 5am. Why? Because I have no choice—the roosters rise in grand symphony before a shred of light even touches the sky. Sometimes the dogs tip them off. I’m not sure what they’re all so excited about—is it some kind of plot to take over the town? To drive us all out of it through vocal torture? Maybe I’ll get used to it. I pray for that day to come quickly.

Get ear plugs, you say. I have 28 of them. First of all, earplugs are not comfortable—who wants smooshy marshmallow fingertips stuffed in their ears? And while they take the edge off, I can still hear them in the distance, straining to make their presence known. And then, as I toss and turn in bed, I spend my time desperately trying to ignore them, to forget them—which never works. I’m even more aware of them with the earplugs in: they become the enemy. These days, I lie in bed and think vicious thoughts that involve BB guns and slingshots. I won’t ever follow through with them of course, but here’s what I will do:

Go to a cock fight. Yes, I will—I know, you’re probably horrified. So am I, a little. But I want to go to one. Isn’t that part of the beauty of travel: permission to do things we never would in our own country (like drink cobra blood or horsemeat—which I’ve never done)? We almost enjoy horrifying ourselves, like driving slowly near an accident on the road—why exactly, do we do that? There’s a bit of the exotic and the taboo that excites so many of us about international travel—even if we don’t engage in these foreign, often disturbing activities, aren’t we kind of excited that someone did? That someone lived a piece of life that we never will?

I saw some roosters in cages the other day and found out they're kept by some men who take them to a native village for cock fighting on Sundays (they only keep them in there for an hour or so a day). Apparently, it's the national sport. When I first heard about it, I was kind of taken aback—it’s illegal in most places in the Philippines, as it should be. But I kind of want to see one, just one—especially after my every sleepless morning.

I will watch—maybe I’ll even bet—and I’m sure I’ll be horrified. But maybe, deep down, I’ll have to ignore the voice at the end of the fight that says: that’s one down. 999 thousand left to go.

Note: The author in no way condones violence against other animals; please attribute any hints of this to delerium from many sleepless nights. Also, she really loves puppies and baby chicks.

Not long ago, the Ifugao wore their native outfits for rituals that they held throughout the year—which they still do in some communities today. These rituals were usually held for their sacred tinauan rice. Though they only plant this labor intensive variety once a year (they have another variety they plant twice a year), it is regaled as one of the most nutritious varieties in the world because it is grown organically and has a high iron content.

One of the challenges the Ifugao face is that those who farm tinauan hardly make enough rice to feed their families. Because they work in the fields all day on their organic rice crops and vegetables, they essentially have no income. As a result, some of the Ifugao have taken to posing in their colorful native clothes with tourists, asking a small amount of cash in return for the favor.

While this may sound relatively innocuous, Ifugao culture considers begging shameful. In fact, in the past a member of the community who begged would be ostracized, partly because it shames the members of the community as well. You’re not supposed to beg—your family and friends should help you.

Mani Dulawan, recognized expert and author on Ifugao culture said that an Ifugao dictum once was: By your sweat you live. So, when these Ifugao elders dress in their native clothes and pose for pictures, they are essentially begging, which has brought a lot of discussion and frustration into the community. On the one hand, it’s a symptom of a great problem: these Ifugao need a livelihood and this is one until they have a better solution. But on the other hand, begging and wearing the native dress for tourists takes away the dignity of the people.

One time, Mani and some Canadian friends went to the famous Banaue viewpoint, where many awe inspiring terrace photos are taken. Mani, who is a native of Ifugao but not a farmer, had another urban dwelling Ifugao with him. Since they were dressed in city clothes and joined by tourists, the Ifugao elders posing for pictures assumed they were tourists as well. But when Mani’s friend saw the elders, he grew angry with them, and spoke his feelings to them in their native tongue.

“You are an embarrassment to our people,” he said. “When you wear those costumes, you are supposed to be the elite; you are supposed to be proud. But what you are doing is actually begging. You are making yourself less than these tourists and bringing shame upon our culture.”

Though the elders were surprised and uncomfortable, the practice still continues. Yet this situation highlights a pivotal question that the Ifugao must answer: how can they balance and the financial benefits of tourism while maintaining not only their environmental and cultural heritage, but their dignity too?

And then the sun rises on another day. I’ve been here several days now, and since it’s rained almost every day, the sun’s appearance certainly lightens the day in more sense than one.

Here’s the view from my window:

After my first day, I decided to go explore some more. I spent some time with my host, Dal, who shared a lot about her personal history as an Ifugao woman. Her family owned the rice terraces that were cleared for the Inn I’m staying at for now. It was wonderful to chat with her over a cup of “coffee” (Filipino coffee is a Nescafe blend of dried coffee, creamer and sugar) and hear about her family’s story.

Here’s an excerpt of my chat with her.

Dal has three children under her care, one of which is Kevin, who is adopted. He was actually a love-child between two adults that her father knew—they were working in a province different from their families, and so the families never found out. The mother took medication to try to abort him, but it didn’t work. Ultimately, the parents put him in an orphanage (I think) and Dal’s father took him in. He has a weakness for adopted children since he was one himself. When he was a child, his mother died in childbirth. Since it’s considered a bad omen to have a child in the family that killed its mother, Dal’s father, Moises, was placed in an orphanage, and later adopted by Dal’s Lola (grandmother). Dal’s father gave the child to Dal to take care of.

Here's Kevin: I asked Dal where the kids were, and she said they were all upstairs sleeping. “Alitheya is upstairs. She keeps brushing her brother’s eyes to get him to wake up but he just pushes her away and goes back to sleep.”
"Is Kevin up there too?” I asked. She nodded. “Does he know that he’s adopted?” I whispered.
She shook her head: “No, he doesn’t know. But he was calling my father Lolo (grandfather), because he heard the other children calling him that. And he was calling me mama too, but I recently taught him to call me manang, which means older sister (like Ate in Tagalog).”
“So will you raise Kevin till he’s an adult?”
She laughed uncomfortably and shook her head. “I don’t know. You see, he is a really energetic boy. They (the elders in their community) think that he is taking the appetite away from my son. You see Moises (her son) hardly eats anything and he’s kind of weak; he has asthma. So, the elders said that he needs to sleep separately from my children. You see, they believe that when children are close in age like they are (Aletheya is 4, Kevin 3, and Moises 2), that they shouldn’t always sleep under the same roof at night. During the day is okay, but at night, no.”
“Why’s that?”
“They believe that Kevin has a stronger blood than my own children. So, if he sleeps with the children at night, he will take their energy away, esp. Moises who has weaker blood. The mumbaki, the local priest, said that we need to keep the children separate at night. So, we moved him into Ate Pinai’s room (her mother) where he sleeps at night, usually. But they can play together during the day and it’s okay.”
“Have you noticed an improvement?”
She laughed again, her eyes wide, and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know! Maybe it’s psychological. But I think maybe it is working. But it’s not just this way with Kevin, there are other rules about this. For example, Beng’s children could sleep and live with us under the same roof because she’s my sister. But my cousin’s children couldn’t. That is also why Kevin needs to stay under another roof.”
She continued. “It’s also an issue because Kevin has so much energy. I complain to my mother sometimes because I can’t complain to my father—he’s too sensitive about the adoption issue. But Kevin is really difficult. I tell her: I am so busy. I hardly have enough time for my own children and the inn, and now I have to take care of Kevin too. This is part of the reason why we have a helper. She spends time with him a lot. He needs a lot of attention.”
Later that morning, I went to my room to write. Kevin came into my apartment with an inflatable Superman and a stick and didn’t want to leave. When I asked him to come back later, he went to my window and started bobbing a thin bamboo reed along the horizon line, finally shoving the reed into the window and onto my computer. Then I shut the window and he took his Superman and bobbed it along the window’s base—I could hear him giggling. He started kicking my door. Then he threw a shoe at the window. Finally I walked Kevin back to Dal’s house and told her what was going on, laughing. Later she told me: “I think maybe the medication his mother took affected him. I think he is ADHD, maybe.

Picture of a local house: “I didn’t used to follow my traditions so much, you know. I used to think they were really impractical. I would ask my mom: Why do we have to kill a chicken for this situation? [It’s common to kill a chicken or slaughter a pig for every ritual.] It seemed like a waste. But once I had a child, and we did some of the pregnancy rituals, and once I lived here for 5 years observing the traditions every day, I began to change my mind. For example, my baby (Aletheya) was very sick when she was born. So, the mumbaki came and did a ritual with her, and eventually I started to see an improvement.
“The Ifugao have traditions for everything. Yesterday a neighbor nearly avoided an accident. So, since he survived his family is having a thanksgiving party to thank his ancestors.” That explained the squealing pig noises I’d heard the evening before from Dal’s kitchen.
“Also our marriages are different. In your culture, when a man and woman get married they tell everyone. But here, we have a ritual first. They slaughter a pig and then the mumbaki looks at the pig’s bile. If it’s on the right (correct) side, then the couple can stay together. If not, they wait awhile and then butcher another pig. If it’s still not on the right side, then they advise the couple to separate and to not get married. They could have problems down the road like maybe they will split up in a year or something. Same thing with pregnancies; we do a ritual to figure out if it will be a difficult pregnancy or not. We have a ritual for every part of the rice season, for when we put the grain in the granary, to when we remove it. When we plant it and when we harvest it. When we build an addition to the house we have a ritual. If we don’t and there is some kind of landslide that ruins the house, an elder will say: ‘See you should have done a ritual. That is why this happened!’

Here's the Ilob Village Hotel:
“Our house was built on my family’s rice terraces. So, whenever we destroyed some of the rice terrace, we have a ritual to ask forgiveness for destroying the land that they cultivated for hundreds of years.”
I talked for a bit about how important I think the Ifugao are for Westerners. I mentioned that while Westerners are very advanced technologically, the Ifugao (and Filipinos in general) are advanced in some of their values, especially their recognition of the importance of family and community.

Dal responded: “I think that our community and ritual are very related. When we have a ritual, the mumbaki asks all of our ancestors to join us. He is responsible for remembering the genealogy of all of our loved ones. In other towns, people don’t know their genealogy so well because they don’t have the mumbaki who recorded it for them. So, when we practice ritual we ask our ancestors to help and guide us. We invoke them into every ritual we do. I used to not agree with this, but I think it is a good thing to ask our ancestors for help. I think it’s a good thing to continue practicing our traditions. Even if we do kill a pig or chicken every time, we eat it, though we give a share of it to the mumbaki. But it never goes to waste. So, why not practice the traditions? My mother is passing them onto me, and I am passing them onto my children too.”

Here's me in a totally unrelated picture: The view from the Banaue Hotel

It starts at midnight. You, your Fulbright advisor, and a group of people who work with the Ifugao leave Manila in a van bound for Legawe—a nine hour drive north. After the meeting they are driving up to attend, they will drive back down and you will ride with another woman the last hour north to your final destination, Banaue.

They are kind, talkative people and you relax. You chat for awhile with an anthropologist about the environment, about the importance of taking care of it: “People don’t understand,” he says, “if you give back to the earth, it gives back to you!” He makes a clicking sound at the side of his mouth, and shakes his head. Silver bracelets jingle on his right arm as he gestures.

You nod, exhausted, too tired to say much else. You lean against your suitcase and backpack as they shove into your head when the car winds to the right. You’re wearing your favorite green knit cap; your fleece jacket is zipped over two layers of clothing. It is cold in the van—mostly because the drivers have the air conditioning on full blast though the night is cool outside. You never figure out why they leave it on, even after the other Filipinos in the van also complain as they tighten their blankets around themselves.

The van stops several times. You and the other passengers stumble out into the cool air to the bathroom. You brought tissue with you, thankfully, for there often isn’t any in the Philippines. The two women you are traveling with tease each other, used to this drive. They make it once a month. You feel, as you have felt for the last three days, in some kind of in-between state, in a movie—as if you’re standing nearby, watching your life unfold.

“Over there is a lovely view,” one of the women says. She laughs and adds: “During the daytime anyway.” You walk over, searching for the lovely view, straining your eyes to see past the lights of the building. And you see something vague: a green valley and hills stretching out into the distance. Green. More green than you have seen in a long time, it seems.

After breakfast (fried fish and rice for the fourth day in a row) you drive one more hour to Lagawe, where you’ll meet the municipality leaders of the Ifugao province. You’ll meet the woman who will take you another hour to your new home. But before that, you get in the van again with one of the women from Manila and drive twenty minutes to another town to measure a rock. Your advisor thinks it will be a good opportunity for you to view the rice terraces—more interesting than the meeting the members of their organization have driven the long distance north to attend.

It was a good choice, you think, as you see lowland terraces unfold around you. This is what you have waited almost two years for. You get out of the van and walk with the woman, your friend now, and the van driver who guides the way in flip-flops down a muddy path. You feel steady on your feet—as if you are made for this. You pass by a small home (about ten by ten) and a group of chickens start to squawk, and you hear (and smell) a pig grunting, penned up about twenty feet away.

At some point the path becomes too slippery, so the driver suggests that you walk along a terrace wall, and you are thrilled to feel the slick clay on your bare feet. You make it down to the rock, walking over fresh plants and grasses, and you wade through the base of another terrace and climb on the rock you have driven out to see, a famous rock in Ifugao myth. It stands about six feet high, thirteen feet wide, and has a small dais on top about four by five feet that rises a foot from the surface. It is quite unassuming to the untrained eye.

You get your camera out, excited to take a picture, to show people your feet covered in mud, to take pictures of your first rice terraces—not the ones near where you’ll be living, but terraces nonetheless. You need to take a picture of this rock too, this rock you will help measure for almost two hours. You hear birds calling in the distance, you watch several women in the fields with broad hats that shade their faces. You can hear the faint sound of their voices though they are over a hundred feet away. You turn on your camera. It is out of batteries. You laugh to yourself. Of course it is.

Later you will ask the woman to tell you about this rock, nestled near several others in the terrace waters. She will tell you this story:

A group of women were harvesting rice in the fields. To pass the time they sang songs about Pumbakhayon, a well known rice god. They kept repeating his story over and over again, and each time they did, he’d show up on this rock. As they continued the story, he became repeatedly flustered.
“Every time you sing this song, I have to appear—I’m getting tired of it!” he said. So, he sat down on this rock and told them a new set of stories to sing to while the time away. The women sat and listened to the stories. But what none of them knew was that, hidden in the distance, two small girls were listening to the stories as well.
The women all died that afternoon, but the girls survived. And those stories that were passed on are now called the Hu’dhud, a collection of chants that have been memorized and passed along for centuries.

“So this rock is where the god sat, you know, in the myth,” she says pointing to the dais. “There are supposed to be marks where his feet were and where he planted his spear, as well as where his butt-cheeks rested.” You both look at the dais behind her. You find no such discerning marks.

You drive back to the meeting, muddy feet cleaned off by a driver with a hose on the side of the road. As you sit down at the table, your advisor introduces you to the municipality leaders, all ten of them. You smile and nod.

“Would you like to tell everyone a bit about your project?” your advisor asks. You don’t want to, really, because you realize suddenly that your project was never approved by this committee and you wonder what they’ll think. You say something general like: “I’ll be in Banaue for six months, writing a book about the Ifugao, especially about how they’re being affected by modernization.” You nod again, hoping they’ll return back to their meeting.

But they don’t. One of the municipality leaders, described by your advisor as “the most important man to talk to about Ifugao history” clears his throat and leans back in his chair. “William Scott lived and researched for 20 years in the Philippines, Conklin lived for 16 years in the Philippines doing his research, and ___ (some other anthropologist) lived here for 24 years, and married here as well, I believe.” He pauses, and you wonder where he’s headed with this line of thinking. He clears his throat again. “That’s how long each of them lived in the Philippines before writing a book, and you plan to write a book in just six months?”

You sit there, your face suddenly hot. “I understand your point,” you say, “but I’m not an anthropologist. I’m not doing a comprehensive anthropological study on the Ifugao. If I were, I would expect to be here much longer than six months. I will be here for six months to write about my experience here, to conduct interviews, and I will, of course, be talking with each of you. Hopefully that will be enough for what I’m working on.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, considering, never looking at you directly.

“What he is saying,” your advisor says, smiling gently, aware that you are embarrassed, “is that he wishes you could stay longer.”

The man uncrosses his arms. “Six months should be enough,” he says, “you should be able to get enough information I think.” You breathe a sigh of relief. “We’ve had many people come up here for a couple days or weeks and write some article like they think they know everything about the Ifugao. We are tired of being misrepresented.”

His comment does not go unheard. You must remember to stay sensitive, to honor the people here. You must be humble when you represent another, you know this, but it is an important reminder. What he doesn’t understand is that most people don’t read anthropological books, they want narratives, they want compelling story telling, and this is what you are trained to do. You want others, especially Westerners, to know about these people, but that will only happen if they are lured in by a story, invested somehow to find out information about these people. But this is not the time or place to justify yourself.

The meeting continues, but that moment stays with you, stinging like a slap in the face.

After the meeting you go with one of the municipality leaders, you don’t even have time to say goodbye to the group of friends you came up with. She will take you up north to Banaue, where her family owns the hotel you’ll stay in. The van you’re in winds up the road quickly and you look around each bend for the majestic mountain terraces you’ve been waiting so long to see. You talk a bit about her role in the meeting you just attended, as well as the focus of your book: how the Ifugao are being affected by modernization, which, at the moment, you wonder about.

She nods and says: “You know, the Ifugao are a friendly people. We are open to suggestions. But what we don’t like is when people tell us what to do. Like for example, one time the mayor of Banaue got a phone call from (a government official) that had a German tourist in his office. The tourist had gotten angry and stormed into the official’s office complaining. Apparently he was mad that he’d driven so many hours to visit these “indigenous people” but they didn’t have the traditional roofs, they had metal ones. Apparently, it wasn’t what he expected.
“So the (official) told the governor that they needed to change the roofs back to the traditional way and try to change the buildings so that they look more like tourists expect they will. But the mayor said, ‘Sir, I understand, but we can’t change the roofs back, it’s not convenient. The traditional roofs have to be changed every few years, but the metal ones last a long time. It’s just not practical.’” She continued to say, “They talked about putting up an example traditional village. The houses would be traditional native houses and people would live the traditional way. That way the tourists could see what it was once like.”

Here's a picture of the metal covered hut:

Here's a traditional nipa hut:

“Who would want to live in these huts?” you ask.
“There are some people who might,” she says.
“Wow,” you say, “How is that any different from a zoo?”

You arrive at your room and it is much smaller than you thought—not just the rooms, but the furniture too.

You had heard that the hotel was right in a village, and you pictures something pastoral: nipa huts, green rice terraces surrounding them, a creek running nearby. And while those components are there, it’s also surrounded by run-down buildings with the terraces just out of reach.

Some houses near mine:

The hotel owner, who calls you family, goes about rearranging the room to your satisfaction. You don’t want to bother them, but you deeply appreciate their efforts. You ask to be shown around the building. She takes you to see the other rooms, one of which you’ll eventually have to move into during the high season when high paying customers will take your room. She takes you out into the backyard and points her fingers up to a small nipa hut in the back.
“That’s where my mom’s mother sleeps, and my mom’s father as well.”
“They sleep in there?” you ask, surprised they could both fit in there.
“Well, they’re not alive anymore,” she says, “that’s where there bones are. When we have a ritual, we celebrate with them. We clean off their bones and bring them down with us and ask them to join our celebration.”
“Oh,” you say. It reminds you of yourself a little, spreading your mom’s ashes all over the world—carrying her with you on so many journeys. You understand.

That evening you head off to explore a bit. You feel drawn to the Banaue Hotel—a gigantic motel that caters to wealthier clients. It sits on top of a hill, has a magnificent view, a pool, and a large dining hall that serves spaghetti and grilled cheese sandwiches in addition to the traditional Filipino menu.

The fancy restaurant where I broke down and had a grilled cheese sandwich:

You find yourself drawn there, much to your chagrin, and walk almost two miles uphill to get there. You pass through the market, along the way, checking out the local fruit and vegetables, looking at the small shops and cafes nearby. You wonder if the hotel ever plays movies.

You make it to the hotel, located quite far from the rest of the village, protected by a gate and a guard. Nobody questions you. You check out the restaurant, but decide to pass, then head outside to check out the view from the hotel.

Supposedly there is a “real native village” just three minutes from the hotel. You pass my a model nipa hut, and head down to the souvenir shop. An elder woman named Ana is there, and she sits there, weaving. She shows you how it works and you wonder how many people she has had to show before. Several shy grandchildren hide in the room. You ask her how long it will take to weave an intricate eight-foot-long weave of cloth.
“Three days.” she says, “Without any stop.”
Her husband, comes out and introduces himself. “My name’s Johnny,” he says. “Are you staying at the Banaue Hotel?”
“No,” you say, “I’m at Ilob Village Inn.”
He nods his head. His eyes widen a little in surprise, and then he walks towards the door. “With Moises and Pinai. You are staying with real native people.”
You feel a surge of pride.

The sky has darkened, you notice, as you walk back outside, and a soft rain begins to fall. You start the mile and half walk back down the windy road; you put your thin wind breaker on over your long-sleeved shirt. You walk down the road, down the slick tall stairs that lead to the suspension bridge.

Once you reach the bridge you hold on with both hands as the bridge sways gently from side-to-side. The construction doesn’t look particularly sound, but you trust it. You can see the river far below. You walk down the road towards your home.

“Where are you going?” a heavy-lidded teenager asks as he walks alongside you. “There are many drunk out tonight, let me be your guide.”
You look away and say, “No thanks,” and continue walking.
“Okay ma’am, I love you,” he calls out into the wet night. You don’t turn back.

The sky has darkened, and the hotel lights shine dimly in front of you. You walk up to your room, take one look back, and see the town lights shivering in the air. You open your door, turn on the light, and shut the door as the night falls in a curtain of mist behind you.

I can't say I've ever loved Manila, but I'm enjoying my short time here. This is most likely because I'm in Makati, the financial district, which resembles almost any other large city in the US. It embarrasses me a bit to see how comfortable I feel in this ex-pat area, how I feel more at home around the malls and the clean streets than I do in more impoverished areas of Manila.

I don't want to admit that I am scared when I get into taxi cabs, but I've heard such awful stories about armed robberies, drivers that pull into alleys and allow their passengers to get mugged and tossed into the streets. There are those stories, and I admit they have me on guard. But here in Makiti, there are few beggars, few people following me in the streets asking for some change. And while poverty is an epidemic I wish to energies towards, I observe myself still feeling a bit relieved, at ease, that I don't have to clutch my purse by my side as I walk down the streets, that I can relax. It's embarrassing to me, but there it is.

Here's the view out my hotel window:

So I suppose I've officially arrived in the Philippines. I got in late on the 7th (Philippine time) after an exhausting 24 hour trip--from Denver to Minneapolis, Minn. to Japan, Japan to the Philippines. By the time I arrived in the Philippines I felt completely exhausted--both physically (I slept about 4 hours the entire trip) and emotionally--it was very hard to leave Matt at the airport.

I'll keep this entry short, though it's been an interesting past couple days, as well as an interesting reunion with a country I've visited three times before. There are familiar sights: the band that plays cheerful music as you exit the plane (similar to a mariachi band) and the Christmas lights strung lavishly along the roads and in most buildings. Christmas is celebrated for three months here (lately, the U.S. is not far behind) and they leave the decorations up for some time after the holiday. There's also the moist, warm air that sticks to my skin--quite a contrast from the dry, snowy landscape I left behind in Denver. Then there's the many American familiars, dressed up with Filipino flair--ice cream, for example, that comes in so many unusual flavors: cheese, for one, as well as fig-marscarpone, and yam. There's also the familiar warmth here beyond just the temperature: the people are so incredibly kind and hospitable I always feel humbled by my own deficiencies in that area. My need for space, my desires to be alone. Almost every Filipino is willing to help me, give directions, start up a conversation.

Anyway--the real adventure begins tomorrow. I head up to Banaue with my advisor--a nationally renowned anthropologist, who, at near-70 lifts weights and makes sure to walk almost an hour a day. His energy and wry wit amuse me. I'll be heading up with his team from the National Council for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) at midnight, Wednesday. We'll drive for 8 hours to Legawe, where their group will meet in the morning with local leaders to discuss how they're fulfilling their UNESCO guidelines. Then I'll head to my new home in Banaue after lunch. I'm excited.

Until then--I leave you with a picture of my breakfast for the past few days--Bangus (prized Filipino Milkfish) over rice, as well as a small egg, some veggies and mango juice--all complimentary with my hotel stay. Very yummy, thought not my usual fruit salad. All my meals have rice on the side. Good thing I like rice, right?

Originally Posted: January 4th, 2007

I often hear that it’s important to go to war because the extremist Muslims inherently hate us, and they won’t be stopped any other way except by being put out of power, by smashing out their ideologies.

I disagree. People are extremely complex, as are motivations for their actions. It’s easy to simplify our enemies as insane and delusional, but this simplification is easy and doesn’t push us to look at other, more complicated roots of the problem.

While terrorism may, on the surface, be fueled by ideology, Thomas Friedman points out in The World is Flat that there are often other sources of this anger and hopelessness, namely poverty and political systems that maintain poverty. Friedman states this example:

A South Asian Muslim friend of mine once told me this story: His Indian Muslim family split in 1948, with half going to Pakistan and half staying in Mumbia (India). When he got older, he asked his father one day why half the family seemed to be doing better than the Pakistani half. His father said to him, “Son, when a Muslim grows up in India and he sees a man living in a big mansion on a hill, he says ‘Father, one day I will be that man.’ And when a Muslim grows up in Pakistan and sees a man living in a big mansion high on a hill, he says, ‘Father, one day I will kill that man.’” When you have a pathway to be the Man or the Woman, you tend to focus on the path and on achieving your dreams. When you have no pathway, you tend to focus on your wrath and nursing your enemies.

Friedman argues that when Islam is embedded in authoritarian societies, it tends to become the “vehicle of angry protest,” including such countries as Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. However, when Islam is embedded in a “pluralistic democratic society,” such as India or Turkey—those with a more progressive societal outlook—people have a chance to go after their dreams, to stand on equal footing with the rest of the world. India has 150 million Muslims, the highest population of any in the world, and yet we do not hear about terrorist groups there.

India’s example shows us that when you create structures that encourage education, entrepreneurship, and small business development you create hope instead of hopelessness, global relationships instead of frustrated isolation. While I don’t mean to simplify a complex issue, I do think it’s important that we make addressing global poverty our priority, rather than terrorism. What would our world look like if we spent trillions of dollars setting up microfinance banks, or helping other governments reform their legislation to allow for better business development? People, when poor and hungry, get desperate. I’ve seen it in the Philippines, and we know it happens all over the world.

What if we put our powerful imaginations towards a different direction, one that addresses the root causes, rather than punishing an entire nation for the actions of a few extremists? Would that be the better war on terrorism? Would that be the better way to ensure the safety of our nation?