Being here is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I got a blog comment from a professor of mine after my SCUBA weekend. He said, “Up till now I haven't really been envious of your Philippine life. Now I am.” And I thought: why hasn’t he been envious? But I think the answer’s easy, really.

In some ways I feel like I’m writing about something dying. Everyday I talk to people about traditions that have fallen to the wayside. I see a barrage of drunk men on the streets. I see a town over run by tourists. I talk to teenagers who just want to get the hell out of here. I meet impoverished people who I can’t help. I look at an ecosystem that appears as if it’s slowly going downhill and I wonder if there's anything I can do about it besides having these feelings.

Just yesterday, Adam told me that a majority of the vegetables I buy here are laden with pesticides—ones that aren’t even allowed in the U.S. I know this happens often; companies can’t sell their pesticides to countries like the U.S., so they export them to developing countries that don’t have such stringent regulations. But it’s depressing when I know that just within the last 50-100 years all the food produced here was organic. Why must the poor get the pesticides too? Because the people here either aren't educated or can't afford better pesticides, they will pay for it with their bodies. It kills me to see how they are taken advantage of, and the lies that they are told. So many of their choices are made out of desperation: pesticides or an unreliable crop? The answer's easy when you're struggling to survive.

I also hear constantly about the Department of Agriculture and how they introduced these new rice varieties because they’d give higher yields. But what they didn’t know (or maybe they did) was that the new rice varieties would destroy the ecological balance that had been created in the rice fields for thousands of years, making it difficult if not impossible to grow the more nutritious native rice. I don’t assume that everyone operates from a profit motive, but when you learn about the corruption in this country it’s hard to think otherwise sometimes.

And some of the people here are so poor, I don’t know how to respond to them. I’ve been around extreme poverty before—worse than this region for sure, though it's been stated as the most impoverished in the nation. But I’ve never had to be around poverty it constantly. The family I next door to is pretty wealthy by local standards, but when I venture out on my interviews I see another reality. I have people tell me how poor they are, how they can’t get ahead, how they want to come to the U.S. And it’s tough because I don’t know what to do about it or what to say. Yes, I’m a writer, so I write about it. But so what? At the end of the day, who cares if you wrote about their story when they hardly have enough to eat and their children die because they can't afford medical care?

And then there’s the tremendous cultural loss that I witness. The rituals once performed here are now reserved mostly for tourists or cultural fairs, but rarely practiced during the rice harvests. The Ifugao fought off foreign influence for so long, but now it is finally making its way through the region. Banaue is becoming a tourist town, and locals dress in their native costume for photos, not for actual ritual events. Every day I hear how things are changing and many of the elders are sad to see it go, while others are glad—good riddance, they say, those were primitive, pagan ways.

It’s hard for me because I know what happens when people become more developed: they consume more and they often practice ways of living that are harder on the environment. Yet I want development and education for the people here. I just wonder, I always wonder, how we can do it in balance with the land. In the U.S. it is easier; we have resources and laws that can enforce environmental regulations. But the government is so ineffective and corrupt here. So I just wonder where this place is headed sometimes.

I know that change is inevitable and desirable. I know that capitalism and globalization create incredible networks of people, wonderful systems that will ultimately be beneficial for everyone—I know, or hope, for this. But still, I feel like I’m witnessing a dying elder, like I’m holding her hand as she tells me her stories, as she coughs and whispers her last words. At the same time there’s a teenager here too who also deserves my attention, but she’s young and wily—unpredictable. She doesn’t know who she is. She parties late at night and wants to travel, to see the world. I’m wary, I guess, of who she’ll become, of the choices she’ll make as she grows up. The dying grandmother is the known—I know what’s being lost in this culture. But what the future holds is still unclear. That’s exciting of course, but a little frightening as well when I witness the direction the teenager has already begun to head.

I think the most difficult thing for anyone encountering developing countries is that there’s a feeling of helplessness sometimes. I can’t stand feeling helpless. I don’t like that so many of stories I share are sad. But as my godfather told me, “Jennie, what you’re feeling is natural, it makes sense that you feel sadness out there.” I admit it, I’m depressed sometimes. I don’t know that I’m helping anyone, and it’s hard to just stand by and observe. I feel other emotions than this of course, but I wanted to share this part of it too—this part of my reality. This experience is not easy, as adventurous and romantic as it sounds. But I know I must be here, for some reason I don’t quite understand. I have faith that someday it will become clear to me. And I suppose that’s what pushes me onward, what helps me get up and continue writing every day when sometimes I'd rather just go home and forget about everything I've seen, the voices I've heard, the crumbling mud walls I've walked upon that were once so strong.