When Macy has too much sugar, and Jennie figures out how to use her camera...

What is creative nonfiction? To use a definition from a creative nonfiction website, it is:

Dramatic, true stories using scenes, dialogue, close, detailed descriptions and other techniques usually employed by poets and fiction writers about important subjects - from politics, to economics, to sports, to the arts and sciences, to racial relations, and family relations.

Essentially, creative nonfiction uses literary skills to tell a true story. This is different from narrative or literary journalism--which uses narrative techniques to report--and from research nonfiction, which is more concerned with presenting accurate research, and not quite as interested in capturing the reader's interest with a story.

Some examples of narrative nonfiction writers: Joan Didion's Slouching towards Bethlehem, Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and a few recent and controversial books: Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors and James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.

Having written both fiction and nonfiction, I find that nonfiction is much more difficult for me. True, you skip the challenge of creating characters, a plot, and a narrative arc (plot points that lead to a climax and then a resolution) all on your own. You do, to some extent, have your characters, your plot, your scenes, your back story already in place. Easy right? I wish.

I think writing a book is like having sex with your reader. The narrative constantly needs moments of tension that build intrigue, and ultimately lead towards an exciting climax and a satisfying resolution. In fiction, a writer can manufacture this. Need some witty dialog? Make it up? Suddenly realize that the protagonist needs to have some kind of phobia of skyscrapers? Go for it!

In nonfiction however, we must work with the awkward tools that we have to construct a good story. And those awkward tools come from our memory...not always the most reliable resource. Can anyone ever remember exactly what someone else said even ten minutes ago without taking notes or recording dialog? How then, do we write an honest story without boring the reader? The most honest story would be a listed narrative: Well this happened, I think, and this happened, I'm pretty sure, and then I think she said this, but I could be wrong...

But no, we must write definitively; we must write with bold strokes; we must choose a color for the front door, even if we can't remember it. And then we get into the important issue of honest writing, and this is where James Frey and Augusten Burroughs get us into trouble with their sensationalist memoirs. So, the question is, how do we negotiate being honest with being a good story teller?

More on this soon.

Matt and I just traveled to Iowa last week to attend the funeral of his 29-year-old brother-in-law, Gavin Granneman. We just rode across Iowa in RAGBRAI with him a few weeks ago, and we're all devastated by his loss. He was killed in a car accident, along with three other friends, on the way home from a football game on September 15th.

I had a great time with him over the course of RAGBRAI; he was one of the most vivacious, gutsy, and wild characters I've ever met. But he was also really loving and understanding too. We talked about our numb hands and sore asses quite a bit more than I'd like to admit.

Matt and I had an amazing time over our past week in Iowa. The Granneman family amazed us both with their strength and emotional honesty. The service was inspiring, uplifting, and even funny at times: I mean, the pastor used the word "cheese-tastic" in the sermon--isn't that great? Over 800 people attended both the visitation and the funeral.

I remember being at the visitation with slide shows, pictures, letters, and lots of people. I walked over to the stand where Gavin's ashes had been placed. I walked over to one side where his bike had been propped against a stand and that's when I started to cry. I touched the seat and the handlebars which I'd seen him resting on for seven days. To me, this bike was an extension of Gavin, like his legs or arms. It hit me then--what we'd lost. How impossible it was. How goddamn painful.

One of the best parts of this whole experience has been Gavin's friends who graced the Granneman home all last week (and apparently many times when Gavin's parents were out of town). They regaled us with hilarious stories about Gavin's adventures and kind gestures--stories that helped us all get to know Gavin more completely. They even made a website, called "Hey Gavin" on myspace.

One thing I really took from Gavin's life was a story that his father, Terry, shared with us.

One day Gavin, just 9 or 10, went roller-blading with his older brother Jamie, about 16 or 17 at the time. Gavin took them to a spot that had a railing and several long sets of stairs. Gavin took some time to explain to Jamie how to jump the stairs so he wouldn't injure himself. He explained that Jamie had to get up a bunch of speed to jump the stairs and that he had to clear all of them to make it.

"You got to go big, or go home," he said to Jamie.

Jamie, a bit nervous, skated back from the stairs, got up speed and jumped the stairs. He made it.

Gavin cheered Jamie on, then skated back a little farther to get even more speed. Then he skated fast, picking up speed, and approached the stairs.

Then--not only did Gavin make it over the stairs--he jumped over the stairs, made a complete turn in the air, cleared the railing between the stairs, and landed backwards on his roller-blades--smooth as can be.

Go big, or go home.

Gavin, you'll be missed.

I recently learned about a group of Filipino inmates who did a cover of Thriller. While I checked out the website, I came upon the Indian version of Thriller, with hilarious English subtitles. You have to check this out:



And if you absolutely can't help yourself (as I couldn't) check out the chipmunk version as well...

I've recently become enamored with a phenomenon in a Philippines prison. According to an article on CNN, a prison overseer in a Cebu decided to make dancing mandatory for the inmates. If a prisoner refused to dance, he lost valued privileges--conjugal visits, for one. As a result, they've not only choreographed and filmed several music videos, one of which is a cover ofThriller, they've reduced violence in the prison compound as well.

But that's not all. A lot of the prisoners have regained confidence from themselves as a result. Check out a couple of these comments from the article:

Leo Suico, who's accused of mass murder, says dancing means "we don't think of bad things." Fighting back tears, he says the experience has taught him "love" -- pure and simple.

That sentiment is echoed by other prisoners, including Wenjiell Resane. An accused methamphetamine dealer and self-described "she-male," Resane shares a single prison cell with a dozen transsexuals. She has been waiting three years for trial.

Resane is the star of the "Thriller" video in which more than 1,000 other prisoners took part.

"I tried being a performer before, but no one took any notice," Resane says with the mock bashfulness of the practiced celebrity. "Now, in jail, I have become a star."

And then there's my favorite:

The Michael Jackson role is performed with flair by 36-year-old Crisanto Niere, an accused crack dealer who has been waiting five years for trial.

He loves the dancing and laughs at his unlikely fame, but says the video has brought him a reward he once thought would be forever beyond his reach. His son, Christopher, has only known him as a prison inmate.

"He used to be so ashamed of me," says Niere. "Now when he goes to school, he tells everyone the dancer on the Internet is his father."

He adds, "It makes me proud that my son is proud of me."

Apparently violence hasn't broken out in their prison in a year and a half, which is amazing when you consider that, according the the prison overseer, it used to break out once a week.

Byron Garcia, the overseer, said, "We don't have dumbbells here. We don't have weights. We have dancing. These men learned they can dance and still be men. It makes them work together, it makes them exercise and they learn self-esteem."

He continued, "They no longer feel like lowly criminals." A smile [broke] his face, "Now," he says, "they feel like celebrity criminals."

Check out their video here, which has gotten over 6 million hits on the internet.
You'll probably notice quickly that the "woman" is played by Wenjiell Resane, a transvestite and accused meth dealer. I think she's better than the original actress.

You gotta love it.

Some interesting, and semi-devastating, articles on global warming just popped up that make the global warming epidemic a far more present reality.

First off, in a Discovery News article, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that there is less sea ice than ever on record, and that the melting is continuing. Satellite measurements showed 2.02 million squares of ice in the Arctic, down from the 2.05 million square miles recorded in September 2005.

This May 18, 2006 photo shows walruses on an ice flow in the northern Bering Sea off of Alaska.

So, what’s the big deal? Why is Arctic ice so important? Well, sea ice in the Arctic helps keep regions cool by reflecting sunlight that might be absorbed by darker land or ocean surfaces. The article states that “exposed to direct sun…instead of reflecting 80 percent of the sunlight, the ocean absorbs 90 percent. That causes the ocean to heat up and raises Arctic temperatures.”

Unusually hot and clear weather up in the Arctic has resulted in a large amount of solar energy in the region, which has sped up the melting process as well. For the skeptics out there, Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist, stated that while some natural variability is expected, "we simply can't explain everything through natural processes."

"It is very strong evidence that we are starting to see an effect of greenhouse warming," he said.

He then goes on to state another interesting, and concerning point. “The puzzling thing,” he said, “Is that the melting is occurring faster than the climate models have predicted.”

Several years ago, he would have predicted a complete melt of Arctic sea ice in the summer sometime around 2070 or 2100. But at the current rate, a complete melt could happen by 2030.

That’s twenty years. Yes, there still will be ice in the winter, but it will be gone in the summer. And what does that mean? Besides a myriad of apocalyptic possibilities, let’s keep it simple for the sake of this blog.

No ice in the summer means rising sea levels engulfing our coastlines.

And if you don’t take that seriously, perhaps you will once you learn this: insurance companies in the United States will no longer insure homes in at-risk areas for flooding from global warming. Even insurance companies are taking global warming seriously folks. Now that's saying something.

Thinking of moving to Miami? Don't expect any home insurance there...

But perhaps you still think that’s no big deal—we just need to move those folks move away from the coastline, right? Well, that might be kind of difficult considering that eighty percent of the world’s population lives less than thirty miles from the coastline. I can’t imagine that relocating five billion people would be all that easy.

Kind of makes me happy I moved to Denver…

But all this information does beg, and I mean beg, a very important question: at what point do we actually do something about it?

For more on how urban planners are responding to this, check out this article.

Both photos were taken from the original articles.

Picture this: You’re sitting in a hot spring in the middle of August, and it’s night. Because you’re so far from any city, the stars above you are vivid against the night sky. There are so many, in fact, that you can hardly make out any constellations besides the Big Dipper.

You’re leaning against the rocks that jut out of the hot water as a group of people begin to sing…Christmas carols. Turns out they’re an opera choir from Denver and they’re performing in a small nearby town the next day. They sound incredible.

It’s also a new moon, and there’s a meteor shower. You lay there, in the steaming water, a little heady from the heat, as a choir sings “Carol of the Bells,” and so many meteors pass through the night sky that you run out of wishes. In that moment, what’s there left to wish for?

Matt and I went up to Strawberry Hot Springs just over a week ago. If you live in Colorado and you haven’t been there, you must go. We stayed in a covered wagon that we think was an actual wagon updated with some fresh canvas and other accoutrements.

The Wagon

The landscape is beautiful, with aspens and evergreen trees covering the mountain slopes. Anyway, we had a wonderful time there, though I’d definitely say that the private operatic performance during a meteor shower will go down as one of the most sublime moments of my life.

I’ve been keeping up to date with the trial for Julia Campbell’s murderer in the Philippines. Apparently Juan Duntugan’s lawyer was fined P100 for skipping the hearing. Not only that, but the man who originally confessed to her murder, Juan Duntugan, now pleads not guilty. Part of me would like to move on from the whole event, but I had an encounter during the last few weeks of my time in Banaue that has haunted me since. I didn’t feel safe writing about while in the country, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it now.

Duntugan’s original story didn’t make any sense. He claimed that he was hiking along one of Batad’s narrow trails and Julia “bumped” into him from behind. He says that he thought Julia was a long-standing enemy of his and, infuriated, he turned around and began to beat Julia and didn’t realize it was a white American woman until it was too late.

Unless Duntugan was under the influence of completely mind-altering drugs, than what he says doesn’t make sense. Julia was a 5’7, Caucasian blonde. Most Ifugao men are significantly shorter than that. As a 5’7 woman myself, I usually towered over the locals, especially in Batad which is about an hour-long bumpy ride from Banaue, but far more rural and un-developed. Juan’s enemy would have been a man most likely under 5’5, with very dark skin and black hair. How could anyone turn around and bludgeon someone to death without noticing that difference? It makes no sense.

Sometime shortly after Julia’s death, I was hanging out with Adam—my neighbor in Banaue and a Peace Corps Volunteer—down in Manila. He looked at his cell phone after receiving a text and gave me a strange look.

“I just got a weird message from Johnny,” he said. Johnny was a man we knew back in Banaue. “He says that he knows the real story behind what happened to Julia. He says that the Duntugan has been lying to the media. He says when I get back to Banaue, he’ll tell me.”

We both thought the message was a bit strange, but figured Johnny had heard some gossip and wanted to pass it on—a common occurrence in our region. The Peace Corps had warned Adam not to trust the escalating levels of gossip about the murder, so we didn’t think much more of it. Adam would never see Johnny again after Julia’s murder, because for safety reasons, the Peace Corps wouldn’t allow him more than a one-day excursion to pack his things and leave the region. When I returned there some time later, I only stayed for a few days here and there in between other travels. I didn’t think I’d see Johnny again.

Well, my last week in Banaue, I walked around the town to say goodbye to the people I knew. After I walked through the local market I ran into Johnny, whose wife sold produce at a stall. I sat down on the concrete next to him while he sorted through a large bag of potatoes.

Never one for small talk, Johnny asked me why Adam hadn’t returned to Banaue. I explained that the Peace Corps had kept him away for safety reasons. He scratched his chin and shook his head. “What happened to that girl…it is bad. I had a feeling he might not come back because of it.” He turned and leaned toward me, “You know, I told Adam that I knew the real story about what happened to Julia. I talked to Duntugan’s father a little while ago. He is a relative of mine. Duntugan went and stayed with his father at one point while he was hiding, until his father made him turn himself in. His father and I were talking the other day and he told me that Juan isn’t telling the truth.”

My interest piqued, so I figured I’d stay and listen to what Johnny had to say. This is the “real” story that Johnny proceeded to tell:

Juan and his wife own the small restaurant (canteen) where Julia was last seen drinking a coke. Juan had gone into Banaue either on the day before Easter or Easter Sunday (Johnny didn’t say) to buy supplies for their restaurant. Instead he’d gotten drunk and gambled all their money away. When he came home to tell his wife what he’d done, she got so angry that she began to yell and scream at him. In all Filipino culture, but especially in Ifugao, men really do not like to “lose face.” So, Juan tried to think of ways to shut her up. He told his father that he thought if he hit the American woman with something that it would shut his wife up. So he did. And once he did it, his anger for his wife and the situation took over that he ended up beating Julia to death. Johnny didn’t mention it, but knowing that alcoholism is rampant in Ifugao, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was drunk and or under the influence of drugs when it happened.

I didn’t know what to say or do with the information. It could have just been a rumor, but Johnny didn’t seem like the type. The story certainly made more sense and fit with what I’d seen before in some Ifugao men (the drinking, gambling, and irresponsibility). But, gossip, or chica-chica as they call it there, is a huge part of Philippine culture.

Why was it important? Because it would have been premeditated murder. That would have changed the charges—possibly to a death sentence. I wondered if while he hid for those couple weeks he tried to come up with a story that would make him less guilty somehow.

I also didn’t know what to do as far as safety went. I didn’t want to put my friend in danger (with local, vengeful Ifugaos) by telling the authorities what he’d said, and I didn’t want to put myself in danger either. I had a plane ticket to go home in a week and I didn’t want anything to stop that—especially not the corrupt and convoluted justice system of the Philippines. I ended up telling Adam to tell the Peace Corps office, which he did. I don’t think, however, that they ever took it seriously.

What was even more uncomfortable was that though Johnny agreed that what Dontugan did was despicable, he also shook his head and said this: “You know, this should be a lesson to (Duntugan’s) wife. Women shouldn’t talk to their husbands like that. They need to respect them. He could have been so angry that he killed her, or he could have jumped off a cliff. She is lucky that he didn’t do that.”

I got so angry that I couldn’t speak. I didn’t even know what to say. I wish I’d yelled at him—I wish I’d told him that it’s that kind of thinking that allowed Julia’s murder to happen. But I just shut my mouth, said goodbye, and walked away. I knew I wouldn’t change his mindset and I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. I didn’t want to be there anymore. It disturbed me so much because I thought it was an isolated incident, with one crazy man. But if more than one man felt like this, if this was the underlying belief about women, couldn’t something like this happen again?

It wasn’t that there weren’t good men out there, but it was precisely that kind of sentiment that had killed Julia. The notion that women are indispensable. That woman are subservient and should respect their husbands no matter what they do. I did speak with other men that were disgusted by Duntugan’s actions—men who said that Ifugao culture highly respected women and it was a great crime to ever hurt a woman. But comments like Johnny’s are always the ones who haunt us, aren’t they?

It’s one of the great conflicts we deal with when we encounter shifting indigenous cultures—we so desperately want them to stay the same, a remnant of our past, or evolve, but only if they’re going to be just like us.

You just gotta love this story...

Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:23 AM ET

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a "time out."

"He was panting and gasping for air when we caught up with him after a 500 meter sprint," Erwin Buenceso, one of the arresting officers, told local radio station dzBB.

Buenceso said the man and an accomplice broke into a house in the Philippine capital and stole two expensive mobile phones. Screams from the residence alerted a local police patrol, which gave chase.

The robber asked for a "time out" using hand signals.

After he regained his composure, police seized the two stolen phones and brought him to a station for questioning.

We crowd on the balcony overlooking the municipal square and wait as the drums approach. I stand wedged between May-ug (Mai-ohg), the teenage house helper, and May-yu (Mai-yoo), Auntie Lourdes’ daughter, and tower at least a foot over the two. May-yu holds a squirming Tanya in her hands who points at various things down below. We’re waiting for the town parade to culminate in the square, which will mark the beginning of Banaue’s annual cultural festival. Banaue locals love their parades.

May-ug peers over the ledge and searches the growing crowd below. “I don’t see any tourists,” she says, and then looks up at me and winks. “You’re not a tourist anymore.”

I smile a little and look away. May-ug doesn’t speak much and certainly doesn’t often give out compliments. Though she may not know it, her comment means the world to me.

From where we stand, we can hear the drumbeats get louder as the parade weaves its way up the street and towards the municipal square. We can’t see them yet, since the road is behind us and to the right, but we can hear the shouts and yells; we can feel the press of the crowd around us grow more anxious.

It is unusually hot in Banaue today, and my hair sticks to the back of my neck. Fortunately, the festival planners covered a large portion of the normally sun-baked municipal square with a gigantic tarp about fifty feet long and wide. I’ve never seen one so large before.

I can tell that I won’t be able to take good pictures from the second story balcony, so I excuse myself from the girls and head down to the ground. I weave my way through the crowd of people, almost all local Ifugao, who smile at me as I pass. The drumbeats sound like they’re just around the corner, and then I see the first group of people. Marty, my host brother, leads a group of uniformed Taekwando students with a banner introducing the festival and their Taekwondo school. The crowd begins to mill out of the way and many lean against the large market building as the parade approaches. I kneel at the edge of the procession, watching the Taekwondo teenagers smile shyly at the onslaught of photographers.

Teenagers dressed in masks and shredded plastic skirts parade by. The boys and girls move through the crowd, dancing in a style similar to traditional Ifugao dancing, but with a modern twist. Several other groups of young people file by, some more shy and subdued, others dancing and playing the gongs or drums, excited and energized.

A group of men dressed in their traditional Ifugao “g-strings” follow behind, dancing and initiating mock battles. They grimace, lean forward, and knock their swords and shields together, then smile at the crowd and continue parading towards the municipal center. After the parade participants gather in the town center, each individual group does their own dance and performance, at the same time as the others. The elder women in their plastic dresses make small cooking fires and thresh rice, the groups of teens dance, the Taekwondo students kick and turn. The gongs and drums beat louder and louder and the dancers and performers move faster. Finally it reaches an almost unbearable crescendo—and then stops to an ocean of applause.

I snap hundreds of pictures as each group performs throughout the day. The Taekwondo students perform self defense and their black belt students catapulte through the air. The younger students dance in circles, their movements full of laughter and energy.

Later in the day the festival focuses on a faux rice-terrace that has been constructed in the corner. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, they do abbreviated versions of the annual rice rituals (which are, for the most part are no longer practiced). The speaker—who narrates the rituals entirely in Ifugao—summons a local mumbaki, a man so old he needs assistance to stand up and walk to the native hut erected next to the terraces. A group of children and locals crowd near the base of the rock walls to watch.

The narrator’s lame leg hangs like a loose rope at his side, as he walks on a crutch and facilitates the events. He speaks about the three different classes in Ifugao culture, and their roles in Ifugao life. All classes work in the fields, which, the narrator adds, is considered a “noble job.” I find that interesting contrasted with the general disdain and dislike of field work among the Ifugao I have spoke to, as well as the desperation felt by many farmers who would do anything to get out of the fields. Some of them still see rice farming as noble, but it exhausts them as well, and they can’t find community help for it like that had before.

The air is full of jingling bells, as young boys walk around hawking ice cream and pandesal—hot salted bread. Vendors sit and watch from the side selling betel nut and halo-halo, their products covered in plastic and sweating in the heat. I watch the kids’ expressions as they look at the feigned rice rituals. A young girl sits just feet away from me with a beaded necklace in her mouth that she slowly pulls out, each emerged bead now glossy with saliva.

I wonder what she, and the other people watching, thinks about as they watched a façade of their history unfold before them. I especially wonder what the elders think—they who had seen these rituals practiced for real as children and even as adults, they who had lost so much respect in the community as their once important roles and religion are now forgotten.

A man brings out the chicken that the mumbaki carved inside the hut; her body limp in his hands now stripped of feathers and bones. He shows the “good” bile to the crowd and they cheer and clap. Two girls next to me whisper to each other in Hapit (Ifugao) and point at my notebook. One girl looks over my shoulder and tries to read my messy handwriting. I speak to them in Ifugao and they look at each other, shocked, and then back at me with a grin. We chat back and forth for awhile in Ifugao, and they seem to know what I’m saying, which amazes me too.

Watching the parade, I feel as if I am witnessing a great compromise. The elder women sit in their plastic dresses meant to mimic the bark twine dresses their ancestors wore just a generation before. Children watch on their haunches in native dresses and g-strings, sucking on orange drinks in foil pouches. Even the Ifugao men in their g-strings and shields had never fought before, had never used those shields in an actual battle. The entire festival is a performance—a celebration and demonstration of what once was.

A young girl next to me holds a white balloon and tugs on it every few minutes to make in bounce against her hand. Her friends look at me with wary eyes. Someone leads the old mumbaki back to the sitting crowd, his arms and legs trembles as he sits. The crowd laughs as the men in the faux rice terrace quickly plant the rice, the panicles standing out at awkward angles. I remember when I planted with Rita, how she showed me how to plant it straight down, pushing on the roots with my thumb. There was a special way to do it and it took time to learn. The man planting the rice looks at the crowd and laughs a bit, hamming it up for their amusement.
A “Super Crunch Choco-chip” wrapper floats from the sky and lands on the sitting mumbaki’s head. He picks it off his headdress and looks at it, then crumples it in his hand. I can hear the chanting from inside the hut as I stare at the mumbaki’s feet. They are brown and crooked from years perched in the terraces, and his toes stick out at angles like knots on ginger root. His skin hangs loosely on his arms and chest like a thin brown sheet. And I wonder what he sees as he watches this ritual, this piece of his past.

I wonder.

For more pictures of the cultural festival--check out my slide show here:

I’m sitting in my house in Denver surrounded by piles of rubble. Whoever previously owned our house decided to cover the entire yard with concrete, which (as you can probably imagine) made it a bit hard for us to garden. So, Matt recently hired someone to rip out all the concrete, and the past few days have been filled with the sounds of a Bobcat jack hammering outside. It sounds like a machine gun. Matt and I constantly joke about living in a war zone—our house looks like it got bombed. Sometimes I’ll pretend I’m getting shot by a machine gun and lurch into his arms.

The Bobcat

When Matt and I sit on the front porch, or look out the window, we get all excited about the cement destruction. I saw my first bit of dirt last night as I walked up the broken path. My breath caught as I bent down and rubbed it between my fingers. It was very dry and clay, but it was dirt.

“Look!” I said, as Matt stood next to me with the groceries.

He smiled and said, “Soon there will be flowers!”

The front porch view

It’s an apt metaphor for me though, I must say. After a very tumultuous re-entry to the U.S., I feel like my life’s been ripped up and tossed about but that something really good will come out of it. After five months in the Philippines, both Matt and I have gone through major transformations. I walk around the house and interact with people and I feel so different. Matt and I have had re-adjustments and recommitments to our relationship as well. On top of that, there’s culture shock, and the general question: What the hell just happened to me? And what’s next?

Well, here’s what I know for now. I’m in Denver, I’m catching up on my blog writing for the rest of the month, and working with Matt in real estate. Matt’s mom is coming to visit next week. In July, I’ll travel with Matt’s brother and sister-in-law (and her brother) to Iowa where we’ll bike across the state, and I plan to visit California soon. I’m getting settled, spending time with friends, and taking dance and pilates classes at the studio just down the block. I’m adjusting. I’m also eating lots of amazing food. Just the other day I went to our local market and found the exact kind of bread I was looking for (sprouted spelt bread) and I had to stop myself from shouting: “God Bless America!”

Do you know how amazing this country is? How abundant? You can find anything you want here! I could really go on and on. Like garbage disposals for one thing, and dishwashers. I mean, wow.

As for the place I left, it sounds like things are tumultuous back in Ifugao too. My neighbor and friend Adam, a Peace Corps volunteer, is getting transferred from Banaue to a site some 14 hours away. The Peace Corps will possibly evacuate all the volunteers in Ifugao. With the impending trial of Julia’s murderer, they’re worried about some kind of backlash from the locals. While I seriously doubt 99.9 percent of the people would do anything, there’s a lot of alcoholism in the region and I understand their concerns. I’m so sad Adam has to leave—he’s heartbroken after all the time and energy he’s put into the family and the place. But it also sounds like I left right on time.

I’ve got a ton of writing to catch up on—I haven’t written about my entire last month in the country. So much happened too—eleven days on the Bee Farm, two trips to Ifugao, a phenomenal retreat…anyway, I’ll fill you in. And then once I’m caught up, I’ll start working on my book about this whole crazy experience. Perhaps I’ll have more perspective by then.

For now, there’s nowhere to move but ahead. I’ll keep you updated on our cement project. It’s going to take a lot of time to heal the soil enough to garden, but I’m looking forward to seeing what emerges from the rubble.

• Bees pollinate 80% of our nuts, fruits, and vegetables
• Bees have been around for almost 100 million years, and cave paintings show that honey collection dates back as far as the stone ages
• In ancient Egypt, citizens paid their taxes with honey
• European settlers introduced European honeybees to New England in 1638. Honey was used to prepare food and beverages, make cement, preserve fruits, concoct furniture paste, polish, and varnish, and for medicinal purposes.
• Fermented honey, known as Mead, is the most ancient fermented beverage. The term "honey moon" originated with the Norse practice of consuming large quantities of mead during the first month of a marriage
• Bees have 7,000 eyes in each big eye
• An average beehive can hold about 50,000 bees
• The queen may lay 600-800 or even 1,500 eggs each day during her lifetime. This daily egg production may equal her own weight.
• Foragers must collect nectar from about two million flowers to make 1 pound (1/2 kilo) of honey
• To make that same 1 pound of (½ kilo) of honey, that bee might fly a distance equivalent to two trips around the world
• To fuel a bee’s flight around the world, they would need to consume about two tablespoons of honey.
• To make 1kg of wax (2 lbs), a bee must consume 4 kg of honey (8 lbs)
• An average forager makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime
• The queen makes one mating flight during her life, and stores the sperm from up to 20 drones that she collects on her flight
• A worker larva is fed an average of 1300 meals a day
• In the U.S., the honeybee is the official state insect in Missouri, Utah, New Jersey, Maine, and South Dakota
• Since honey has the ability to absorb and retain moisture, it is used in the baking industry to keep baked goods fresh and soft
• Honeycomb’s hexagonal interlocking structure makes it one of the strongest lightweight structures known to engineers

Me and the bees

I couldn’t stop thinking about bees. In the news I’d read story after story about bees disappearing in the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. Knowing the implications that had on the environment and our food supply, I decided I wanted to learn more about bees so I could possibly help out when I got home. I also needed a break from Ifugao.

So I went back to the Bohol Bee Farm with Vicky, the owner’s, permission, and I designed a volunteer project. I decided to write a booklet about bees that people could purchase from the bee farm. It would generate income for the bee farm and provide some extra knowledge for the bee-curious to read at home. I researched every day, read about three small books on bees, and gleaned a ton of info from the internet. I spent hours in Vicky’s little office on a slow computer with horrible internet access. Because the sun shined on it all day, the room was the hottest on the farm so I had to turn on the little air-conditioning unit. The room smelled of her five dogs that lay around listless in the afternoon or snuggled up against my feet.

Vicky’s staff treated me like a queen (i.e. they served me squash muffins and lemon grass tea in the afternoons). Inspired by my research, I started eating lots of bee pollen and honey. In the evenings, I’d swim out in the ocean or do laps in the small pool. Sometimes I’d hang out with Vicky and her husband, or I’d chat with the staff. I also wrote and reflected a lot on my last four months in the Philippines.

Eva, Me, and Vicky

My friend Eva showed up for the last few days of my time there. We spent two solid days re-reading and editing the book. At one point, I got so damn sick of bees I wanted to toss the book into a wall. No one should have to learn about bees this way. We laughed about how much we hated bees by the end of the whole thing. But we were really proud of the final product and researched the printing. We figured out a way to print it so it made a profit for Vicky.

The day before I left, as Eva and I put the last painstaking touches on the book, Vicky came to talk to us about it. Apparently what she really wanted was a book about her journey with the bee farm, not a book about bees. I sat there at the desk, my mouth open. I couldn’t believe she was telling us this after 10 days of hard work. And it was too expensive, she said (which it wasn’t—any foreigner would have bought it). Eva and I finished the book anyway, and Eva promised that if nothing else she’d print up a copy for the two of us. She stayed behind an extra two days but still wasn’t able to convince Vicky to print the thing. After all that work! I'm still kind of bummed about the whole thing, though I'm also grateful for her hospitality and kindness.

I’m also not going to let her decision stop my personal bee movement.
So...with that, I offer you, dear reader, The Bee Book. (Drumroll please…)

Download file

Ta da!!!

Download it for free. Print it up. Share it with friends. Learn about bees so we can understand how important they are for our planet and help save them. Become a beekeeper. As my friend Luke says, “It'll be the best $300 you'll ever spent on 50,000 pets that feed you, instead of the opposite.”

Yay bees! Pass the good bee-lovin’ on!

p.s. If you have problems downloading the file, let me know and I'll email it to you.

Few may know this, but my Lola is a pyromaniac.

Everyday, many locals burn piles of compost in the late afternoon. Sometimes the smoke from my neighbor’s burn pile drifts into my living room window and chokes me out of the house. I once asked a local why they burn their piles instead of letting them decompose, and she just kind of shrugged her shoulders and said that they like to burn the compost to ashes before they put it on the rice paddies. This method results in smoky, acrid skies almost every evening and—as with all air pollution—hauntingly beautiful sunsets.

One of those hauntingly beautiful sunsets that I just mentioned

But I think the Ifugao passion for compost burning goes deeper. I often find Lola (my host grandmother) crouched along the road side starting little fires almost every evening. I don’t think there’s any reason for her to start a fire; I just think she enjoys it. But sometimes even she can get out of hand.

The other day as I walked up from the market, I noticed a compost fire next to the road that seemed bigger than usual. The flames had caught a small patch of the hillside on fire; the small shrub tree and dry plants above the burn pile cracked and smoldered. My first thought was: Someone needs to put out that fire before it spreads. My second thought was: Who started this fire? They should be the one to put it out.

And then I saw Lola. She stood over next to a friend’s house pointing at the fire and talking to a neighbor with an expression of concern. I walked up to her and she looked at me with dismay.

“It’s all my fault!” she said, her face drawn, and then she started laughing.

“You started that fire?” I said, laughing with her. “Can I take a picture with you in it?”

“No,” she said, still laughing, “because then maybe they’ll send me to prison!” After a pause she added, “We need to put the fire out before it catches the electric wire near the church.”

This picture doesn't quite capture the potential devastation...

Suddenly, everything became a lot more urgent. We ran up a set of stairs on the hillside to get a better look at the fire from above. She pointed out an electric wire that ran near her Evangelical church, and we realized we needed to put out the fire—fast. I thought about running back to the house, but she said we should go up to the pastor’s house and see if he had water there. Lola amazed me as she ran up those stairs—she’s 82 and more fit than most elders I’ve ever seen in the U.S.

We got to the top of the staircase, walked around back, and found the pastor reading the paper. He got up, surprised to see my unfamiliar (white) face, and shook my hand. He asked why Lola had never brought her to meet him before and I knew that this could turn into a “let’s get Jennie to come to church” moment real fast if we weren’t careful.

“The hillside’s on fire,” I blurted. The pastor nodded his head, as if this were to be expected.

“No, I mean, really on fire. We need water!” He nodded his head again, smiled, and invited us in for coffee.

Finally Lola shouted in Ifugao and I made some expression that finally conveyed the urgency of the matter. He finally got it and ran out the room to the bathroom behind the building. Seconds later he ran back carrying a large red plastic bucket.

“Where is it?” he said, panting with effort. We ran down the steps and stood over the fire. Fortunately, it had burned itself out mostly by the time we arrived.

“I thought there was a really big fire!” The pastor said, “You had me so afraid!” He scooped out the water from his plastic bucket and poured it onto the remaining flames, engulfing us in a billow of smoke and ashes. Lola and I looked over at what remained of our emergency.

“Well, it was big before,” Lola, said with a smile. “I was very afraid it would catch the church on fire,” she said.

The three of us stood on the steps in silence for a moment. Then the pastor turned to me and asked why he’d never met me before, and why I’d never been to church. I smiled at him and began to back down the steps, telling him it was a pleasure to meet him, but that I actually had to go.

“Can I take a picture of you two?” I asked. The two of them smiled and nodded. I ran down the steps and took my camera out, grateful for the change of subject. I stood below, aiming my camera, and laughed as Lola the pyro waved to me from above.

Lola and the pastor

Banaue Publacion--the heart of town

In some ways I feel like I am leaving just when I finally feel at home in Banaue. Perhaps I’ve been more open and engaged since I know I’m leaving soon and my time is limited. I’ve got to make the most of my time here. But really, since I’ve been back from my Easter retreat in Manila I feel like things have changed somehow. I think it’s me that’s changed, but it feels like it’s everything around me.

The family next door has seven kids. John John and Marty are two, and the other five are either students or work in Manila area. They’re all really successful and attend or attended one of the top schools in the country—University of the Philippines. Almost all of them came home for a period of time after Easter for their summer break (summer is from April to June in the Philippines). The house suddenly had all these lively college students and professionals and we’d sit around after dinner, chat, and play games. We watched movies downstairs huddled around Adam’s computer DVD player, grabbing fistfuls of homemade popcorn as we sat in the dark. It’s been really fun hanging out next door and I’ve been joining the family for lunch as well as dinner everyday. I just stopped caring so much about making my own meals exactly the way I like them.

I’m not sure what happened. I still feel good about my decision to go home early, but I also recognize with some regret that I went through the worst already. Adam and several of the Peace Corps volunteers feel like it took them almost a year to get comfortable in their sites and that the homesickness was extremely hard for them. All the barriers—cultural, language, age—get in the way and make it tough to feel like you can be yourself in the beginning.

After awhile, you just can’t hold up a pretense anymore; it’s just too exhausting. And there’s no point in being sad and lonely all the time either—that’s exhausting too. I don’t know—I think I just stopped resisting so much. I just decided to relax and smile and be myself. I know some of the language now, I know people, and I feel like I can walk around town and people know who I am—kids shout out to me in Ifugao, not English. I yell back to them in Ifugao too and they laugh. I don’t know what changed for me; maybe I just needed time. Maybe I just needed to move beyond myself.

Now I think about leaving and I feel sad. I know I’ll miss my family and I’ll miss the locals here whom I’ve connected with. I’ll miss the way people reach out to me, want to get to know me—how they care. In Denver I have a hard time finding people to hang out with—everyone’s so busy, so wrapped in their own world, and I work so much I get exhausted and don’t have energy. I hope to change that when I return, but some of it is just inherent in our culture. I will miss the community here, I realize, even though I initially resisted it. So many people came together to help me, to guide me; I will miss them. I can see that I feel at home here now, right before I’m about to leave.

It’s kind of wonderful actually—a nice way to end my time here. It’s a redemption of sorts: for the Banaue in my mind, and for the way I see myself. Finally, my heart opened up and let this place in.

I’ve lived in Mayne’s house since mid-January; she and her husband rent it out as an investment property. They also own a small bakery in town that makes the best brownies in town—she was able to save up money for both when she worked abroad in Italy for a few years.

I often pick up sweet treats at the bakery to take to the family for desert. The other day I decided to go by and visit her since I’m moving out at the end of the month. We sat on her pink flowered couch with the t.v. on and a bible open on a stool near my legs. She and her family are Jehovah’s witnesses—there are pictures and needle points that mention Jehovah all over my house.

I told her I was going to stay on a bee farm for eleven days. She liked the idea. “Do you think beekeeping is something they could do here?” she asked.

“Yeah, especially with the vegetable farming that’s done around here. Rice doesn’t need it—it self pollinates, but vegetables mostly need bees for pollination.”

She considered it. “But aren’t bees dangerous?”

I don’t know how bees got such a bad reputation—yes, they can sting if provoked, and if someone’s allergic it can be a certain problem. But the fact is, breathing in leaded gasoline and diesel is far more dangerous and no one complains about that.

“Wouldn’t it be great if there was a local beekeeper?” I asked, “They could sell authentic honey here—it could be Eighth Wonder honey or something like that.” We both laughed at the overused name, but then again, why not?

I bought honey here in town once. I was so excited to find it that I put it in everything—on breakfast cereal, in my tea. I used up about three quarters of the honey and then for some reason, it got extremely thick and I couldn’t scrape it out of its fluted glass jar. I was kind of frustrated and thought maybe the honey had hardened because it was so cold. For a month I tried to melt it in hot water, tried to scrape it out with a knife, but I couldn’t reach it. I wasn’t sure what was wrong. Finally, one day I decided to buy some more honey at a local store.

I asked the shopkeeper how much the honey was on the back shelf. She pursed her lips together. “One hundred fifty,” she said, about three dollars. “But you shouldn’t buy it.”

“Why?”

“Because it is not pure,” she said. “Some of it is honey, but then they add sugar to make more.” It dawned on me why my honey had hardened. It was pretty much pure sugar at the bottom. No wonder it wouldn’t melt. I asked where to get the pure honey and she said it was only available in the lowlands or in Manila, though sometimes people would come to the Saturday market and sell it here, but that was rare.
Mayne asked me to share what I found out about beekeeping at the Bee Farm. She was really interested. We started talking about other business ideas I’d had. I mentioned a yogurt shop up in Sagada, a place Matt and I visited together. People always talked about the amazing yogurt in Sagada—it is rare to find any yogurt in the provinces. The exciting thing about it is that it’s a much tastier and local alternative to the lactobacilli drink served everywhere in the Philippines: Yakult.

“I have Yakult sometimes,” Mayne laughed, “but I like yogurt much better. It’s just hard to find it here. I wonder how we could get the locals interested in it.”

I told her that it started as a tourist investment in Sagada but that now the locals liked to buy it too.

“Yeah, the tourists like wheat bread too,” she said. “They always ask if I have whole wheat bread, but I don’t have any whole wheat flour—it’s so hard to get it here. I don’t know where to find it. And the locals don’t like wheat bread either,” she said.

I told her that maybe if they saw how the tourists liked it, and if they could educate people about the health benefits, people might switch over. I have started to see whole wheat bread take off in Manila, so perhaps it won’t be long before the interest spreads.

“It would be so great if different restaurants could specialize in different foods, you know? Like maybe one restaurant could have the best banana pancakes in town, or another one could have smoothies, or something.”

Mayne laughed. “Yeah, but you know the problem? Once one place makes something unique, all the other shops in town copy them. That’s why you go into the souvenir shops and all the items look the same.”

“And why the restaurants have all the same items on the menu, huh? Why is that, no one wants to compete or something?”

She shrugged. We talked about how capitalism is a new thing to Banaue—people are used to looking out for each other, not competing. If someone is hungry, someone else feeds him. Suddenly their culture has become stratified and individualistic. And while there are benefits to it—the opportunity for individual expression and specialization as well as profit—those benefits might be hard to get to with societal barriers like they have here.

We talked about Banaue in the past too—how the streets used to be lined with pitcher plants; she and her friends would tip the flowers back and drink the water out of them. She said there used to be a big children’s park downtown and she and her sisters would swing on the playground. There were hardly any streets and the town was so quiet her friends could clap their hands from the school far down the hill to get her attention. She painted a picture of a Banaue that was quiet, beautiful, green—peaceful. Much different from now.
I mentioned that Sagada had a meeting to decide how they would develop. The locals and business leaders attended and helped shape the community growth. Was something like that possible in Banaue?

“The problem is that people are used to doing their own thing,” she said. “They come up with rules for awhile, but then no one follows them. It would take someone really strict to make it last.”

I wondered about this—it sort of seemed hopeless, like herding a bunch of cats. Banaue’s development is spinning out of control—buildings are put up haphazardly, the heart of the town and the streets that lead away from it are getting increasingly overrun, unattractive, noisy and somewhat unsafe. I don’t like being in the town all that much, and most tourists I meet don’t want to stay for long either. There isn’t much to do after one day except go visit other towns like Batad, and there aren’t any great restaurants or notable lodges that offer something special or unique. The town is noisy and somewhat uncomfortable—people spit betel nut in the streets, litter everywhere, and men constantly hang about the side streets and stare at you. Most tourists I meet are eager to get onto the next place. But it’s tragic to me because I know the people here and they are so kind. And there are many wonderful places to visit if you know where to go.

It made me really think about development—how can you beautify a place if the people don’t know how to make it happen themselves? I have all these ideas, but who am I to say anything since I’m not from this place and I’m not sticking around? Do I have a right to get involved, or should I just hint at ideas and see if any take root and grow? I feel so useless on some levels here because I offer so little except some observations. But it makes me think about what I can give, what my interests are. It’s also a real wake up call—the most effective change happens when people can commit to a place or region for an extended period of time.

I’m not sure what it will take to help Banaue develop more thoughtfully, but I hope they figure it out somehow. In some ways it breaks my heart to just walk away, but I’m not sure I have another answer right now.

I walked off the night bus to Banaue and into the bright sun after a nine hour bus ride and about three hours of sleep. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I left last week, the day they found Julia’s body. Would the tour guides ask me if I wanted to go to Batad, the place where Julia died? Were they already taking tourists there again so soon? Would any of them recognize me?

“Where you going, ma’am?” One of the guides asked with a smile. “Batad?” he asked.

I shook my head; an angry shock must have flickered over my face for an instant. I had hoped he wouldn’t ask me, especially with such seeming disdain. Adam and had gotten frustrated by the little laughs people gave, though we knew they just weren’t comfortable expressing their emotions—especially the men.

I spoke in Ifugao, partly to surprise him. I told him I wanted to go to the publacion where the restaurants were. I just wanted breakfast. He smiled and laughed at my Ifgugao, impressed, then nodded to his tricycle and I got in. We sped down the street, past other tricycles and shops, and we ended up in the town center.

I handed him some coins. “No,” said, “Nevermind.” I insisted. “No, it’s no problem.”
I reached out to him and handed them again. “Thanks,” I said, “but we have to support each other.” I didn’t really know what that meant; I just wanted him to take the money since he deserved it. But his gesture was so kind, I didn’t know what to say.

I walked into a popular restaurant, not sure I wanted to see anyone I knew. Within minutes, my friend, a young tour guide named Mark, walked up to me. He didn’t even say hello.

“Jen, did you hear the news?” he said, “We found out the suspect isn’t actually Ifugao, he’s from Abra (a town in a different province). He just married a local Ifugao woman, but the name isn’t even Ifugao. And they say he’s in Baguio now, so they will probably find him in a day or two.”

I hadn’t heard this info and I didn’t entirely believe it, but I knew why he’d say something like that. Later I’d hear he was from another town, Benguet, but then Auntie Lourdes would insist he was from Banaue. I wondered people didn’t want to accept that the murderer was one of their own—so many people were ashamed of him. I didn’t press the issue.

We sat down and talked at the table over breakfast. Mark explained how bad Julia’s death has been for local tourism. “My friends hardly make any money as tour guides anymore,” he says, “This town is going broke. All our tourists are canceling, and this is supposed to be high season.” He shook his head. I figured it would affect the local economy but I wasn’t sure how badly.

“You know, it might be tough for awhile,” I said, “but it will be okay again eventually.”

“Yeah,” he said, “there are already people coming who haven’t heard of Julia at all. They are on vacation and they don’t read the news or watch the t.v. so they don’t know. They are fine going to Batad.”

I understood this, but thought they were foolish. Maybe I was just overreacting. I wondered if the guides told them what happened, or if they just stayed silent about it. “Yeah,” Mark continued, “I’ve just been telling them that he’s in Baguio and he’s not a local.”

Unfortunately, as good hearted as I knew Mark was, I doubted that is information was true.

“What do the locals think?” I asked.

He shook his head again. “They want to punish him our way,” he said, and made a chopping gesture with his hand. “They chop off his body bit by bit till they get to his neck.”

“What? While he’s still alive?” I say, disgusted.

He nods. “Yeah, you start with the hands and feet and chop away at his arms and legs slowly till you get to his neck. That’s the old punishment for murder here.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit brutal?” I say. “You need to let the police handle this—they need to take him to court and he needs a trial.” I feel a bit naïve as I say it, but I still believed it was better than this vigilantism. I was so tired of it.

“Well, if the locals find him first, that’s how they’ll do it,” he said with a shrug.

“But he could be innocent,” I said, “And they’ll want to question him too, to get the story.” But something deeper bothered me. “But besides that, you have to be really careful of the image you’re sending right now. The whole world has their eye on the Ifugao, and if you do that you’ll just look brutal and uncivilized. No one will ever want to come here.”

“Oh don’t worry,” he leaned forward, still rather flippant. “They’ll do it in a hidden place so no one can see. Like a forest or something.” He paused. “You know, there’s a rape in Sagada (a popular tourist destination) every year. But the media never reports on that. Just Banaue—it’s like they hate us or something.”

I shook my head, disturbed. I really liked Mark, a young guide who’s been very westernized by over ten years of guiding, but is still very passionate and loyal to his culture. He’s been one of the locals who looked out for me the most. But this was hard to hear. I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to judge people because of it. I knew Mark was young and passionate, and sometimes prone to exaggeration. Maybe the method he described wasn’t even true.

Later that morning I went to visit another friend, Susan, a Filipina who owns one of my favorite restaurants and lodging houses. We sat down with her laundry woman, an Ifugao, and I asked about the punishment that Mark had described.

The laundry woman nodded. “Yes, it’s true,” she said. When I asked her what they used it for, she said, “Murder, stealing, rape.”

“Do they do it in a forest?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Oh no, they do it in public.” She turned around and pointed to the public square in another part of town. “Like there—they do it in the town square.”

Susan nodded in agreement. “Yeah, they do it in public so people will be afraid and never do what that man did.”

I shuddered. “Well, I hope they don’t do that to this man. He needs a fair trial and finding him will help solve what happened. That what they hope anyway.”

Susan frowned, “If he hasn’t killed himself already.”

“He needs the electric chair,” the Ifugao woman said.

“No, that’s too sudden,” Susan said, frowning again. “I think they should chop him so he can really know the pain that he has caused.” I looked at Susan, surprised. Her family was from the region, but she now lived part time at the hotel and part-time in Manila. I hadn’t expected that vengeance from her, that level of brutality.

I left the restaurant, not sure what to think. I wandered through the market place where numerous women who recognized me chatted with me about Julia, about how sad they were. A few crowded around and asked if I knew her; they listened to my description of her memorial and my time in Manila. One woman said that seeing me made her sad because I reminded her of Julia. I didn’t know what to say to all of them, so I mostly listened or put a hand on their shoulders. Their tender grief was such a respite after the previous talk—I didn’t even want to ask about their thoughts on what kind of treatment the murderer deserved.

It was a lot to take in—so much emotion from a people that hardly expressed their emotions at all. Everyone seemed extra kind to me for some reason—perhaps I had just returned refreshed and happy to be back and my outlook was better. Or perhaps they just wanted to be kinder to foreigners, to overcompensate somehow, even unconsciously. I think it was me though, and my change of mind.

However kind everyone seemed though—I was still haunted by the image of their torture. It made me grateful for our justice system, even with its flaws. I found myself struggling: part of me wanted the Ifugao to retain the purity of their culture, and another part of me thought it might be better if they continued to evolve into a more civilized culture. I saw right through my own hypocrisy and wasn’t sure what to think. When it comes down to it, who determines what practices and values remain, and which get left behind?

It was hot that day, Saturday—the day of Julia’s memorial. I walked along the waterfront, between rows of palms stretching over the concrete and the hot air blew over the bay with sigh. A woman stood under a yellow umbrella against a pole, unmoving. She glanced at me and then back to the water, her body still and rigid. A young man, thin in his oversized tank top, draped over his watermelon cart, his skin dry and tight against his bones. A woman napped, curled on her side in the shade of an empty ticket booth, on a board placed between two chairs. I walked past the ice cream man, who played the jingle on his stand.

“What’s your name?” he asked me, “What’s your name?” I just smiled and walk past.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Julia. It began a week earlier in Banaue when I was about to go browse the market in the publacion. An Ifugao woman leaned over from her second floor perch and squinted at me. “Are you in the Peace Corps? Do you know Julia? She is missing.”

What started with a simple question turned into posters, helicopters, calls from the media, and conversations with police captains. What started as a slight concern: “Oh, she’s probably just trekking—won’t she be embarrassed when she comes out from her trek and sees they’re all looking for her?” turned into a deep fear—the kind that kept me up every night, wondering.

And then, on April 18th—on a bus with Adam and a group of farmers on a field trip—we found out. Adam told me when I woke up from a nap. He sat in front of me and pushed his seat back. He reached his arm through the gap and held my hand as I looked at him, stunned, and then cried. We sat there, holding hands and grieving as the bus pushed through the valley heat, as the farmers chatted around us, unaware. Ordinarily we wouldn’t even touch in front of them; they’d assume we were having an affair. But that day, we didn’t care. We’d lost her—we lost Julia.

I went to the memorial for a few reasons. Like many others attended, I never knew her personally. But in the days before they found her, one of her friends found my blog and contacted me for information. I started talking to the police captain to give them news that the media couldn’t. And somehow, through her friends, through the articles I read about her, she became a vivid person to me. She was a writer in New York and an independent woman. I related to her—in fact, I’d hiked in Batad—where her body was found—once by myself before. It could have been me. I wanted to do anything to help somehow—her family, her friends, anything. I felt so awful.

But mostly I wanted to know who she was, what she gave, how she interacted with others. I hoped the memorial would offer a more complete picture of Julia, of her life.

They held the memorial in embassy ballroom. There was a red carpet down the middle of the room, and rows of chairs on either side. There were hundreds of us there, Filipinos and Americans; some people lined up against the back wall when the chairs run out. Many of the Peace Corps volunteers wore a strand of fresh sampaguitas—the Philippine national flower. I wished I could have one of my own.

The memorial began with a prayer, followed with a speech from the Ambassador, Kristie Kenney. Ms. Kenney cried as she admited she didn’t know Julia personally, but got to know her through her work, through reading and hearing about her through other PCVs. In her opinion, Julia’s example showed that PCVs can really touch lives and make a difference. “Let us not lose the spirit of compassion, kindness, and cheer that defined Julia,” she said, “and let today be not just a mourning of her loss, but a celebration of her life.” She ended with a statement from George Bush, who offered his condolences as well.

The memorial continued with a speech from a representative of the government, who shared their grief and promised to bring justice to Julia. And then Alvin Huff, a PCV in the Bicol region got up. He was tall, black, and broad shouldered. He stood before the podium, cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and then launched into a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace.

I don’t know what it is about that song; it’s used in almost every funeral I have been to. It seems like it would have to get old, but somehow, it’s fresh every time. Maybe that’s what’s so amazing about it. For many of us, it probably transports us to some funeral at another time when that song was sung; it connects so many loved ones who have passed on. It reminded me of my mother, a woman who also left the planet far too early at forty-nine. We all stood there, listening to Alvin sing through the varied choruses, his voice trembling at points, yet still strong, deep and clear. I didn’t think Julia was Christian, and I wondered what she thought about the song, but the content didn’t even matter. Alvin was so beautiful that the moment vibrated. It was the emotion behind the song that mattered, that moved us all.

After Alvin finished, several PCVs got up to share some thoughts about her. One of her close friends, Kelly, a woman around 25 years old, got up to the podium and shared, her voice shaking. She talked about how she and Julia became like close siblings and that Julia used to call her Boonso, or youngest sibling, and she called Julia Ate. Then she shared a story about when she and Julia went snorkeling together, a story she felt captured Julia’s spirit.

“Of course we had brought our Peace Corps issued life vests with us,” she said, and the room burst into laughter—apparently all PCVs are issued life vests at the beginning of their service and told they must wear them when they’re on a boat. Kelly laughed again, “But we hadn’t put the life vests on. They were still in the boat. It wasn’t a big deal till we noticed that the boat started to get farther and farther away. It wasn’t a huge emergency, the island wasn’t that far away if it came to it, but we were getting a little nervous. Anyway, the driver of the boat threw us a jacket—but only one. We were in the water, thinking: ‘Great! Thanks for that one life jacket!’

“We tried to get creative,” Kelly continued, “we put the life jacket over our both our heads, but that didn’t work.” The audience laughed again. “Then,” Kelly’s voice choked, “Julia said, ‘Boonso, you just take the lifejacket, and I’ll hold onto you.”

Kelly started crying. “That’s just the kind of person Julia was, she’d give you the only life vest.”
The stories continued. Julia’s host sister cried as she spoke about how Julia had touched her life. At first we all laughed because when she went up to the podium we could hardly see more than her forehead, and so she had to come up to the front and speak into a microphone.

And then the singing continued. Two young women, Jen Austin and Kate Kochersberger read a blog of Julia’s about singing in the Philippines. In one part, Julia wrote: “In the Philippines, singing is done everywhere and every event gives you an excuse to sing. It's not unusual to ride a jeepney, cheek to cheek, and have the 20 passengers break out into song in unison to whatever is on the radio at the moment. Last year, when a popular singer, Nina, had a hit "Love Moves (in Mysterious Ways)," there wasn't a mouth on the jeepney that was silent. Including mine!”

Her blog talked about a videoke session she had with some PCVs and how she sang her favorite Tagalog song, “Pagdating ng Panahon” (At the Right Time). The two girls then walked to the front of the room with a microphone and, while the music played, sang Julia’s favorite song. At first, their voice shook, and they smiled nervously to each other and tried not to laugh. But as they continued, they strengthened, and eventually as the song wound to its climax, the two held the mike to their faces with passion and belted out the refrain. The audience cheered and the girls smiled, blushed and sang their hearts out. We all clapped and cheered for them at the end. It was a perfect match to the quote at the end of Julia’s blog about singing in the Philippines: “Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”—Voltaire.

Another volunteer shared about a time when he was upset, and he vented about his homesickness and frustrations to Julia for a half an hour, and Julia just came over and put her hand on his shoulder. “That’s just the kind of person she was,” he said, as his voice cracked and he cried, “She just knew exactly the right thing to say or do for someone.”

A woman stood and read a poem by Mary Oliver, Sleeping in the Forest. She wondered if perhaps this was what Julia felt during her last moments.

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

The stories and poems and letters continued. Some were funny and lively—people writing to Julia as if she were in the room with us. Others just stood in front of the podium, crying and talking about what Julia meant to them. We heard about the projects Julia had completed at site, including her eco-center and her book project for the local library, and we heard about the many people she had inspired. Many of us stood around later amazed at the work she’d done in such a short period of time. Other volunteers said things like, “Man, it makes me feel like I’ve done nothing at my site!”

At one point, an Ifugao got up to speak, Manong Paul, the secretary to the governor who helped head the search party for Julia. He stood up and talked about how difficult it was for an Ifugao to come to this event. “When someone is killed in our culture,” he said, “You cannot show yourself because you are either part of the family, or you are the perpetrators. We have received a lot of texts and emails from people all over the Philippines condemning us, telling me how horrible we are. But we were asked to join the memorial and so we came down to express our deep sadness for her loss.”

It was intense to hear him speak, since I’d gotten so close to the Ifugao people and I couldn’t imagine what kind of treatment they were getting. So many people already looked down on the Ifugao—saying that they were uncivilized betel nut chewers. It saddened me to think of how this would affect tourism and travel to their region. It was hard to hear him say that, but then I was also so proud that he had the courage to come and be present at Julia’s memorial.

Later, after the director of the Peace Corps read a letter from Julia’s family, he expressed that no one had any enmity towards the Ifugao, and that they’re a wonderful people. He asked Manong Paul and the men that came with him to stand so we could applaud them for their efforts to find Julia. One by one we clapped and cheered, and the sound grew like a wave as our appreciation turned into a standing ovation.

And then we saw the slideshow—which might have been my favorite part. A PCV had put together a collection of pictures from Julia’s time at her site. We saw her teaching yoga to local youths, hanging out with friends, attending conferences, and smiling, smiling, smiling. She was so radiant, so joyful. That came across more than anything.

As I sat through the memorial, what struck me most was how human Julia was. She wasn’t perfect—she struggled, she had her hard days, she wanted to go home, she missed the city. Yet, the choices she made to help others, to push through her homesickness and give to the people around her; that’s what struck me most. I sat there, amazed by her life and I thought: What have I done? What have I given? How can I change the way I interact with my site? I’m no Peace Corps volunteer, but I’m a writer and a human and I know I’m capable of being more kind and compassionate. Am I doing that enough?

As I circled the room, chatting with people at the end of the memorial, we talked about this, how Julia had inspired us to do and be more. I loved that Julia loved pedicures and fine dining and yet taught yoga to the locals. I loved her enthusiasm and optimism. I have those qualities myself, but these first couple months were so hard that I didn’t give as much as I wish I had. I wish I had done more to let the local people know how much I cared about them. I wish I had done more. But one thing Julia reminded me of is that it’s never too late to begin.

I walked home after the memorial by myself. It was dark, the day had cooled, and the empty waterfront now slowly crowded with people. I didn’t want to look at anybody, didn’t know what to think. I just wanted to figure out what Julia’s sudden presence in my life meant for me, and I wondered if it might take awhile to figure that all out.

As I walked along the sidewalk, something caught me eye—one of the white flower necklaces many of the memorial attendees had worn. It was a string of sampaguitas, placed on a cement block just a ways from the embassy. I picked it up, joyful, and grasped it in my hands. I held it to my face and inhaled its sweet fragrance, the soft petals pressed against my palms and lips. I stood there smiling, holding the wilting necklace in my hands like a gift as the cars honked, as people walked by, as the city life continued all around me.

When I heard the helicopters, I knew that something was wrong. I hadn’t heard a plane or a helicopter overhead since I left Denver. I knew they must be looking for Julia, and the helicopters weren’t a good sign.

Julia Campbell, a 40 year-old Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, has been missing in my research site of Banaue since April 8th. As of this writing, it’s April 17th; she’s been missing for 10 days.

A few days ago, Adam and I went to the helicopter pad up near Banaue Hotel to see if we could get some information. We headed up the road, past a car full of Philippine National Policemen (PNP) and headed for the man who looked the most official. He stood near the concrete landing pad in his uniform, his hair smooth and gelled, his clothes crisp and tucked in. Around us, children in loose tee shirts and baggy shorts screamed and played on the landing pad—one of the few flat surfaces in Banaue besides the school grounds.

Adam spoke to the officer in Ifugao and told him he was the local Peace Corps volunteer. The officer relaxed a bit and shared some information with us: Julia was last seen in Batad, one of my favorite hiking spots. She arrived at the visitors’ center after hiking in and introduced herself to several locals. Apparently she’d made reservations for the next night (April 9th) on the Autobus to go to Manila, but never showed.

They had the Philippine military, the National Police and Embassy forces out looking for her. They were hiking the common trails—the waterfall trail and trekking trail between several villages, and they were searching the villages as well. If she was just on a trek or staying with a village family, surely she’d be found. If she was injured, or worse, it would be more difficult. The hillsides are steep and jungle-thick. It would be easy for her to remain hidden under the forest cover indefinitely.

Adam and I turned to each other and I could see the pain on his face. “I just wish there was something I could do,” he said. “I want to go out there on those trails and help find her.”

We both knew they wouldn’t want him in the way, but I had the same urge myself. She was in our territory and somehow we felt responsible, we wanted to help solve the problem. As much as I dislike how Americans get special treatment, how American life often seems more valuable than a Filipino’s, I did feel a connection to her—the choices she made, the confidence she had in her ability to navigate the countryside without a guide—I would have done all the same things in her shoes. She could have easily been me.

“Have you looked in all the local’s houses?” Adam asked. “Peace Corps volunteers like to meet the locals and stay with them; that’s what they do.”

“No, it’s different,” the officer said. “You speak Ifugao and she speaks another dialect. She wouldn’t have done that.”

Adam and I looked at each other—we knew that he was wrong.

“But when you live here for a long time,” I said, “You get comfortable. Even when I hardly spoke Ifugao, I hiked without a guide, and might have stayed with a family if they let me. She has lived here for two years now so she feels very comfortable wherever she is.”

The officer nodded his head. Still, we all knew that if she was alive in a village, word of mouth would ensure that they’d find out soon.

As we spoke, the helicopters circled in the sky around us. One of them headed for the landing pad. The children all yelled and ran away, their hair and clothes whipping around them. The officers around us stood behind their vehicle. At first I looked directly at the helicopter as it got closer, mesmerized by the way it tossed the plants and bushes around us, by the way it tossed the trash into the air. A man even stood next to me with his video camera, taping the event. But then it felt as if a sudden tornado had descended and the wind hit with such a force that I went and hid behind the vehicle too, shielding my eyes as my hair lashed my face. Something that powerful, I thought, should be able to find Julia, right?

An American man stepped off the helicopter and walked toward the officers, shielding his eyes. His face was taut—I knew he was probably in charge of the rescue operation, at least until the official in Washington arrived in a few days. I couldn’t imagine the responsibility he felt—to the woman, to her family, to the Embassy, to the country. The world was breathing down his neck and I could see it. I thought about Julia’s family, her friends in the Peace Corps and back home, and what they must be going through. My heart ached for them.

But all around us, life went on as usual while the search continued. Some of the locals knew about what happened, but others had no idea. Earlier that day, we talked to the head of the tricycle association and he expressed his deep concerns for her.

“I just hope no one did anything bad to her,” he said, referring to a possible abduction or worse. “You know, we love Americans here—so many of our people live in that country and we have a close connection. And we are really grateful for our Peace Corps volunteers. We just have to hope and pray that she’s alright,” he said, shaking his head.

“No,” Adam said, “We have to do much more than that.”

But the kids—their bodies pressed to the walls as they shielded themselves from the wind—they had no idea what was going on. To them, this was a moment with a helicopter; a rare event. After the American official stepped away and walked towards the officer, the helicopter flew away again in a torrent of wind and dust. The landing pad was clear for a moment, but as soon as I could look again, as soon as the dust had settled, the children were out there again, playing and laughing on the cement in the afternoon sun.

Picture of Julia Campell

Anyone who has seen Ms. Campbell anytime after April 8, or who may have information on her movements or current location, should call Mr. John Borja, Safety and Security Officer of the Peace Corps - Philippines at 0920-900-5270, or contact the U.S. Embassy in Manila at (02)-528-6300.

Rice.

It makes Rice Crispies and Rice Crispy Treats, Uncle Ben’s Cream of Rice, Rice flour, rice coffee, rice vinegar, rice bran, rice soap, rice noodles, rice beer and wine, rice milk, rice paper, and rice straw which makes shoes, flip-flops, and straw bags.

In some Asian countries, such as Japan, burning twisted rice straw rope is believed to purify a room or area.

Charcoal made from rice hulls is used in Korean barbeque.

In China, school children buy steamed rice desserts during their lunch break.

Geishas sometimes wear rice panicles as ornaments.

A rice straw “dragon” is used as a habitat for silk worms making cocoons.

Balinese rub rice paste on their feet to alleviate headaches and sore muscles.

Rice straw rope is wrapped around plants to protect them from severe weather. Insects lay their eggs on the straw which is then burned in spring—non-chemical pesticide management.

Mats made of rice straw are sold in Nepal, Kathmandu.

Rice is the popular grain used in most brands of beer.

Puffed rice kernels are snacks in Madras, India.

Cakes made from rice flour are popular in Balinesian markets.

I found this display in the rice museum located at the International Rice and Research Institute (I.R.R.I.) in Los Banos, a town about a one and a half hour drive from Manila. Until my time there, I really had no concept of how rice is such an integral part of Asian life. As an American I grew up eating a lot of wheat, but I’ve never seen wheat honored or used in quite this way—made into purifying sticks used in rituals, into clothing and shoes. And I never understood quite how vital rice is to billions of people. What’s it like to eat the same staple at every meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner? I don’t think many Westerners (without Asian heritage) fully understand that.

I wandered through the rice museum in between interviews. There were displays of all the different tools used to harvest rice—especially ones used in the past, an entire corner of the museum dedicated to insects—both “pests” and beneficial ones as well. There was an Ifugao display, where they had a miniature version of the Native Ifugao hut and a video of an Ifugao ritual that looped continuously. I could hear the drumming and chanting coming from the hut while I wandered through another display—the one that had all the foods, the drinks, and even the clothes that rice was found in. There were many things I didn’t think of, and many items that I consumed a lot myself. Wandering through the display felt like a ritual itself as the Ifugao priests drummed in the background.

I.R.R.I.’s mission and purpose belie the depth of work they do. Essentially, their mission is to “reduce poverty and hunger, improve the health of rice farmers and consumers, and ensure that rice production is environmentally sustainable.”

They work closely with rice-producing and consuming countries to produce rice varieties that get requested by national organizations. For example, if the farmers in a region of the Philippines need a rice variety with certain characteristics, they tell I.R.R.I. and I.R.R.I tries to make it. They also conduct volumes of research and provide training and education for people helping rice farmers. They are a nonprofit organization, funded by sources all over the world.

I came to I.R.R.I. for many reasons. One of them because I knew they had engineered several rice varieties that did poorly in this region, destroyed the soil, and also created a dependency among the farmers for engineered rice. Because they’d destroyed the soil, the farmers couldn’t return to their native varieties with their picky soil needs.

But I.R.R.I. also engineers all the rice that grows in the world—unless it’s a heritage variety that is native to the region, or a variety engineered for profit by a company like Dupont or Monsanto. But they also have something incredible and unique: a seed bank that contains thousands of native rice seeds from around the world. Countries send in their native rice seeds to preserve in case something happens to the species. It’s an incredible service to the world.

My time at the rice museum served as a good precedent for the rest of my time at I.R.R.I. In rice based cultures, rice is sacred. I needed to understand that before I continued my research. I needed to understand that before I could even begin to understand the Ifugao.

This little saying at the Rice Museum helped put it into perspective for me:

Rice is Life.

For people in rice cultures,
Rice means just about everything
That is important:
Birth, Death,
Wealth, Power,
Strength, Fertility,
Virility, Vitality—

Life itself.