Soundtrack of the Philippines

Close your eyes (actually don’t, you won’t be able to read this) and let me take you on an auditory tour of the Philippines.  If you were to make a soundtrack of this country, it would go something like this:

Track 1: Cock-a-doodle-doo (or in Visaya: Tuk-tu-ga-uuk)

The sound of rooster crowing is ubiquitous in the Philippines.  Honestly, at ANY time of the day or night, no matter where you are, if you listen hard enough you can hear one. Most of the time you don’t have to listen hard at all, you can hear it loud and clear without straining your ears one bit.  My first week here I was convinced I’d never sleep due to the persistent rooster crowing that was happening outside my window.  One would get going, setting off about 5 others throughout the night.  Indeed, I’ve discovered the concept that roosters only crow at dawn is a MYTH! Luckily I’ve been able to tune them out now, so while they still crow away, I get more sleep.   Adding to their persistent crowing is the fact that there are millions of roosters here.  Seriously, the rooster should be the national bird of this country.  Roosters are kept by many household and kept close to home by ankle leashes or small cages.  Roosters are also used for cock-fighting here, but we’ll get into that another time.

Track 2: Karaoke

Almost as pervasive as the crow of a rooster, is the sound of nearby karaoke.   Filippinos LOVE it and you can hear karaoke being sung at almost any time of day.  A little sing-a-long with breakfast? Sure.  Late night, heart-wrenching pop aria?  But of course.  The most common karaoke tracks are super soppy power ballads: Celine, Bon Jovi, Evanescense, Whitney Houston- you get the picture.   Now at home, karaoke is an activity for drunken goofs belting out YMCA in cheesy bars- where groups get up and make asses of themselves.  Here, it’s sung by anyone, usually sitting down and very serious.  It appears to be as common an activity as going out for a coffee at home. Karaoke machines can be found in many homes, shop backrooms, restaurants, and bars.  My favorite thing: the video background they use for tracks.  It’s suuuuuper random: film montages of horses in fields, English countryside scenes, 80s basketball featuring Larry Bird, and even porn.  Very, very strange. 

Track 3: Honk

Our next track is perhaps the most annoying: the incessant honking of car horns.  And truck horns, bus horns, trike horns…you get the picture.  Every vehicle has a VERY well-used horn.  As a pedestrian in the Philippines, you must get used to hearing one almost every time any vehicle passes you.  The horn, however, seems to have a different meaning than it does at home.  It’s not usually aggressive like a horn would be considered in North America.  In fact, I’ve deciphered several meanings for the horn here:

• Honk = “Watch out! I am coming up alongside you.  Despite the fact that you are far over on the shoulder and not actually walking on the road, I am concerned that you might randomly hurdle yourself at the last minute in front of my moving vehicle, so I want to let you know I am here.  Beware!”
• Honk = “Want a ride?  I am a trike/bus/passenger van and can pick you up.  No? Sure?  Really? You aren’t even facing my way, looking like you want a ride or trying to flag me down, but I better honk another 8 times just to make sure you don’t change your mind.”
• Honk = ‘Hello.  Hey there.  Hi!  Wow, neat, you are a Caucasian walking down the street. Hey, look at me.  I want to wave at you. Pay attention.”
• Honk = “This has nothing to do with you.  I am a vehicle overtaking another vehicle.  Probably on a blind curve and instead of waiting, I am going for it and hoping my honks will alert any speeding oncoming traffic.”

Track 4- Hello, hello, hello, hello

This may seem like a weird one, but I have heard more ‘Hellos’ per day since arriving in Philippines than ever before.  Everyone says hello to us.  It goes along with the Caucasian novelty mentioned above (Jagna doesn’t have a big westerner draw most of the time), but I also think people are just genuinely friendly here (most of the time, sometimes it’s a repetitive, demanding hello that gets a bit tiresome).  The ‘hellos’ come from kids and adults alike.  With kids, they are often incessant- repeating themselves until you locate where they are shouting from and say hello back.  It’s often then followed by a lot of giggling.  Sometimes they then ask you your name, proud to show off their English prowess.  With older adults, it’s usually just a singular hello or a ‘good morning’/‘good evening’ depending on the time of day.  With younger adults and teenagers, it is often followed by a ‘where are you going?’ This is an intriguing question to me since I don’t think I’ve ever asked a stranger where they were going, but it seems a pretty common here and based in honest curiosity.  We often confuse people by replying ‘home’, which usually elicts a puzzled response.  Sometimes the greetings directed towards guys are ‘Hey Joe’, an interesting throw back to the American colonization of the Philippines through the 20^th century.  Joe refers to a ‘GI Joe’.    

Track 5- Evening music (a call to eat duck fetus)

“Balooooooooooooooooooooooooooot. Balooooooooooooooooooooot.”  When the sun goes down, you will begin to hear this soft chant.  What they are calling out is ‘balut’ but pronounced with a long ‘o’ sound, drawing the word out almost like a song.  Balut is one Filipino delicacy that I can’t quite wrap my head around.  It’s an egg that contains a semi-formed (16-21 day) duck fetus.  It appears to be consumed mostly in the evening , as this is when you can hear the hawkers call, and is sold by a guy on a motorbike who pedels the ‘treats’ out of a Styrofoam cooler.  Mmmmmmm…duck fetus for dessert.  According to my Filipina colleague, it’s usually consumed while drinking.  Which I guess makes sense, one would probably need to be intoxicated in order to think that soggy semi-formed baby bird is a tasty treat (and yes, I realize I am not being very open minded about this, but seriously….) 

A random photo that has nothing to do with the post.  

Back underwater

After an unplanned and unexplained 4 year hiatus from diving, I headed back underwater today. It was fabulous.  You know when you just feel blissed out?  That happens to me diving.  There is something inexplicably zen yet thrilling about breathing underwater.  Throw in the warm water of Bohol, tropical vis (as in, way easier to see in than BC's algae rich water!), some lovely corals, beautiful fish, and 4 great dive buddies, and you have a perfect way to start the day.

As neither Valeria nor I had dove in a long while, we arranged with Jeremy to do a skill refresher and easy dive to get our bearings again.  Jeremy is a transplanted Long Islander who is setting up a dive shop in Jagna (he is a PADI instructor), as well was working with the local government on monitoring their Marine Protect Area...and he is dating my co-worker.  Not only did we have Jeremy with us, but my other co-worker is a Dive Master, so we were in good hands.  Five of us headed under into the local MPA shortly after 7am.  

I was worried about my ears, which have always had issues and have even given me problems after some snorkeling in the last month, but luckily they were fine.  We ran through some skills and I was surprised how comfortable I felt even after such a long time without diving.  The whole time I was grinning around my regulator.

As we worked our way further into the MPA, the current got stronger, but the corals more continuous and beautiful.  It was stunning to have emerald blue water above and thousands of colourful reef creatures below.  Dominic had his underwater camera with macro lens attached along for the dive and he captured some stunning up-close-and-personal pics of some of the critters. Thanks for loaning me the pics, Dom!

Crinoids

Christmas tree worm

Skin of blue sea star

More diving is now needed!  Hoping to head to Panglao this weekend and also a trip at some point to Apo Island. Excited!

Earth Day Dilemma...

Happy Earth Day!  April 22^nd, a day to celebrate nature and all we can do to protect it.  My dear friend  (and mentor, frequent inspiration, guidance counsellor, and once-upon-a-time boss) Jackie recently wrote a post for Earth Day on her blog ‘The Marine Detective’ asking if we were doing enough with respect to diminishing our footprint (check it out here).  It got me thinking, along with my experience here, about the larger question of conservation in a world where people are struggling to survive and thrive. 

The fact is, I live a kush life.  I have everything I need, plus a lot more.  With everything covered, I am afforded the luxury of trying to be conscious about my consumption.  Sure, I want and can often have bamboo clothing, organic veggies, and designer cloth bags instead of plastic.  The truth is my footprint is still enormous.  And enviable.  Of course people want to live like I live, and here in lies the problem.

This issue is very well illustrated by a situation that is happening not too far from me right now.  A nearby town fishes for manta rays.  Mantas are listed as ‘vulnerable’ by the IUCN and the global population of mantas is not known. Very little is known about manta biology, but they do know that they are very reproductively conservative (they only have one pup at a time) and that populations are localized, meaning they can be easily depleted and won’t be ‘topped up’ by other mantas coming into the area.  Both these characteristics mean that fishing mantas sustainably is probably very tricky. 

Fishing mantas in the Philippines is technically illegal.  However, demand from international trade is high and mantas are lucrative.  The local fishermen who catch them (purportedly as a result of bycatch from the legal mobula fishery) can get upwards of $1000USD for one. 

Let’s think about that:  A small fishing village, no other real industry, $1000USD. 

Throw into the mix that no one is enforcing the so-called ban on hunting mantas and the fact that there is significant demand for this product from other Asian nations.  It’s easy for me to be on my rich, Western country soap box and say ‘Save the Mantas’ and quite another to visit and see this community and their operation.  It’s essentially the same situation and dilemma I had with the whale sharks, just consumptive vs. non-consumptive use of the wildlife. One big factor that is different is the question WHY is there a demand for manta gill rakers? That would be another post altogether (the answer is for traditional chinese medicine, but again, another post altogether). 

Right now they will allow us to come and collect data from the mantas they land.  We are not doing anything further to push the issue until some social issues can be worked out.  A Philippino colleague wants to work with the community to find alternatives.  This is awesome, but also where it gets trickier still, because really, why would this community stop fishing mantas and fish for other species that are less profitable? Are there other livelihoods that will be equally lucrative?  How does one go about asking a community to assign different values to a big fish?  Is it a manner of enforcement, a matter of finding alternatives, a matter of education?  Or maybe all three?

Drying manta and mobula

Landing catch.

I expected to go in for my first sample collection and feel sad or upset.  But I didn’t, I just felt conflicted about everything I’ve just brought up.  When the mantas come in everyone gathers on the beach.  They work together to land the giant fish and begin processing it.  A manta dealer chats into the phone, trying to find a high price from a buyer.  They are ok with us being there and are excited for us to measure the animal, interested in how big it is (the animal in the pictures above was over 5 meters across).  There is an air of celebration, probably because this catch is worth so much more than the regular.

To give some further context to the dilemma of this situation, let’s look at the Philippines in general.  It is the 12^th most populous country in the world.  In the last 20 years the population has increased by 50%.  It is also a country in economic transition, from primarily agricultural to one more based on manufacturing and services.  Despite this, in small communities people are still just struggling to eke out a livelihood.

The same story is being played out around the world, including in communities in Canada.  We are all striving to have the best lives possible.  This often means making money at the expense of the environment.  Short sighted exploitation for short-term gain (hello oil sands and the Enbridge pipeline). 

So, where does all this leave us on Earth Day 2012?  Well on our way back from dinner last night, I had an interesting conversation with my colleagues about energy conservation.  One side of our discussion was pro-invention, with nuclear fusion and other fancy technologies coming in to save the day.  The other side was pro-grassroots conservation, with each of us doing our part to use less.  In the end, I think we agreed that to really start fixing things we are going to need a combination of both.  Each of us doing our part AND some new ingenuity.  I think this is the same for situations like the manta.  We need to make sacrifices to protect the environment, but we also need some creativity to find new solutions to old problems.  Should you have the answer, please let me know.  Honestly though, this is what really makes me excited and passionate recently- looking at issues like these here, at home, wherever, and working towards innovative, practical solutions.  It isn't easy, but it's the direction I feel more compelled to explore these days.

I'll admit that this is a bit of a depressing post.  So like all good Aquarium-interps, let’s finish it off with a call to action. 

• Use your voice in your own backyard. There are appalling things happening in Canada right now                with respect to the environment .  Don’t sit back and let our awful government get away with             what they are trying to do.  Write your MP, go to rallies, make a stink! Please.
• Seriously, let’s start shrinking our footprint. For real.  Go read Jackie’s blog post for inspiration.
• Let’s support communities and people that are using ingenuity to make their livelihood.  You can             help by investing in Kiva credits- a super cool program that uses your donation to make micro-   loans. Once they are paid back, your money gets re-invested again. 

PS.  Happy Birthday, dear Jackie.  As always your insights stirred a lot of thought in my little pea-brain.  XO

Landlocked and Risso's

We've been stuck on land this week due to further boat delays and no access to the municipality boat that we have been using sometimes as a replacement.  The good news:  our boat is FINALLY ready and should be here by next week.  The other good news is that we are going to do a survey around Pamilacan tomorrow, which is an incredibly beautiful area.  

We've done about 7 days of surveying around Pamilacan since I arrived and each time we see something new.    A few weeks ago we spent three days there with hopes of collecting whale shark genetic samples, but the sharks remained elusive.  We did however see Risso's dolphins!  Risso's are another new species to add to my cetacean life list.  You can actually find Risso's in BC too, though they are rare there.  Risso's are super easy to identify as they are very scratched up.  It's the older males that are the most marked- some looking almost white due to their scarring.  Here is a look at the animals we saw, maybe we will see more tomorrow!

  

Mini-vacation to Bais

On our way back to Bohol from Cebu earlier this week, Valeria and I decided to take a small side trip to the town of Bais on the island of Negros.  What were we doing there?  Going on a dolphin watching trip.  Now before you roll your eyes and ponder why we would spend a fair bit of money to watch dolphins when we do it for free all the time, let me tell you there was a purpose to our dolphin watching.  Valeria's research interest is animal behaviour, more specifically, the impact of dolphin/whale watching on the behaviour of local populations.  She is contemplating doing her PhD  field work in the Philippines and wanted to check out the industry in Bais compared to the industry here in Bohol.  (Just as an aside 'it's-a-small-world' moment, Valeria just completed here Masters using data from Rob Williams' collected at Eagle Eye in Johnstone Strait.  Another reminder that the marine mammal world is creepy small.)

Getting to Bais was half the fun- a jeepney, a trike, a ferry, and then a rollercoaster-esque  bus ride complete with very bumpy road and break-neck speed.  During the bus ride, Valeria and I held on tight to our seats and glanced at each other periodically with looks of mixed glee and terror.  The scenery on Negros was quite different from Bohol, as instead of rice, the fields were filled with sugar cane.  Upon arriving in Bais, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice hotel (with a nice, comfy bed).  The luxury!!!!!!!!!!

So excited about a real bed

The next morning we woke at our typical 5:30 (it is weird that this is starting to feel like a normal wake up time), and grabbed a trike to the wharf to catch our arranged dolphin boat.  It was somewhat hilarious as the two of us had an enormous, 40-person capacity banca to ourselves.  Unfortunately, the actual dolphin watching was less than thrilling, but then again, I am incredibly spoiled when it comes to whale watching, as it's hard to beat the multi-species days off Northern Vancouver Island or even here in the Bohol Sea.  We did find a small-ish group of spinner dolphins, but they were evasive most of the time and the aggressive tactics of the captain were a bit hard to take.  There also wasn't much in the way of interpretation, most of my questions were answered shortly and incompletely. None the less, it was fantastic to be on the water just enjoying the scenery.  The weather was overcast, lending to dramatic light for much of the morning.

Part two of the boat trip was a stop at a nearby sand bar.  Due to the tides, the bar remained submerged, but only under approximately 60 cm of water.  The dolphin watching boats stop there, letting you swim in the lovely warm water while the boat staff grill up any food you brought.  Four cabins on stilts are located on the sand bar, which apparently you can rent.  How cool would it be to stay in a house that is marooned in the middle of a bay?

Our mini-vacation was short lived though as later that day we needed to head back to Bohol.  Another roller-coaster bus ride and then a ferry and we were back.  It was great to have a little break and feel like I was 'travelling', though as our van pulled into Jagna after a long day,  it was also really sweet to feel 'home'.

Mundane routines for my mother...(and some whale shark pics!)

I wrote this post two days ago, but haven't had reliable internet connection for a few days.  Here it is, slightly delayed:

Left Oslob today with a bit of a heavy heart, but an excited back and stomach.  I had a great time there over the last 10 days, working with two fun women, swimming with the sharks, and collecting data that I think will be really useful to the community and hopefully better protect these amazing creatures (I am rather attached now!).  However, after 10 days of sleeping on a camp cot and eating nothing but plain fish and sticky rice every night, I was positively dreaming of a veggie burger and a real mattress.  I won’t get the veggie burger, but the real mattress is already confirmed for tonight and I am STOKED. 

My week and half in Oslob had a set routine, something that has been missing from much of time here.  My mother commented the other day that I wasn’t telling her much about the ‘mundane’, so here is a very long winded explanation of this routine (you asked for it, IC!).  We’d wake up at 5:30 (which apparently is not an ungodly hour, as church services are held here at this time and all business are open by about 6am), grab our fins, masks, underwater slates and cameras, and head to the jeepney stand at the market.  Before hopping aboard our ride, we’d pick up some bananas and bread for the day’s snacks.  Bakeries are EVERYWHERE here, but unfortunately, while their cases are chock full of delicious looking breads and pasteries, they are all sadly disappointing, tasting like over processed flour, sweetener, preservatives and usually slightly stale.  

Don't be fooled, none of these are delicious.

We’d then hop on a jeepney, which is a curious vehicle (see pic below) that packs a lot of people on two parallel benches in the back.  Translink operators would lose their mind in a jeepney as NOBODY moves back.  In fact, everyone sits as close to the door as possible and piles all their stuff (including enormous sacks of rice and boxes of fruit) right in front of the only entrance/exit, so when you get on you have to crawl and claw your way over people and stuff to get a seat.  The jeepney ride was about 20 minutes to Tan-Awan and we’d all zone out, watching the scenery go by.  To get off the jeepney, you either make kissy noises or bang a coin against the metal post as loudly as you can. 

Jeeney travels

Upon arriving in Tan-Awan (and clambouring over the people and stuff to get out again, usually accidentally clocking someone with fins), we’d sign in with the whale shark registration desk ladies, who were always very happy to see us.  Everyone always calls you ma’am here, which is pronounced more like ‘Mom’. Then it was off to set up at Marilyn’s, one of about 5 ‘resorts’ that the tour boats run out of. We’d grab a table, spread out our stuff, and feel inadequate because every other table was occupied by a large Philippino family that had brought enough food to feed an entire army.  Seriously, entire pigs and 3 gallon buckets of rice for a day at the seaside! 

Data collection usually went from about 7-12:00, with all of us rotating through the different tasks during our three ‘shifts’: in-water behaviour/compliance data, photo-id, on-land boat surveys.  We’d get suited up on land and then make our way into the water, swimming out to the interaction zone. In the water, the boatmen would usually greet us with a smile and wave, sometimes excited if a new shark was in, sometimes annoyed if we were in their way (oops!).  Between shifts we would eat brekkie, catch our breath, and growl about our frustration with those that refused to follow the rules or those who flagrantly broke them to annoy us. 

When work was done around 1, we’d head down to the barangay office (local government) to get the number of registered tourists for the day.  During holy week, nearly 2000 people came through to see the sharks, but this week it was only about 400 a day.  

On-land data collection

In the water data collection (and my butt!):

Whale shark photo ID

Can you spot the whale shark behind the feeding boat?

We’d then catch a bus or jeepney back to Oslob, grab some fruit or veggies at the market, and then head back to our place to shower off the saltwater, enter our data, eat some lunch and (for me) crash for an hour in the hammock.

Pineapple for lunch

Outside of the market

The fact that a group of foreigners were staying in a house in Oslob was a bit of a local curiousity (most people only come to see the sharks and then leave the same day, so there isn’t a lot of overnight tourism), so I woke up a few times from my nap with a bit of an audience.  Sometimes I’d do my data entry outside on the porch, which would also draw an audience who would very quietly watch me type numbers into an excel document.  Not exactly what I would consider riveting, but the local kids (and some adults) seemed rather enthralled. 

Our house in Oslob.

By 6 it’s dark and we’d usually head out slightly thereafter for dinner.  There isn't a lot of choice in Oslob and we’d been warned that the ;eateries' were less than stellar, so we ate most nights at the BBQ stands outside the market.  For meat eaters, there is a plethora of choice- including chicken feet, intestines on a stick and very odd coloured hot dogs, should you desire. For the non-meat eaters, it’s a bit lacking.  I’d head into the market with one of my co-workers usually and buy some fish (a type of mackerel) and the BBQ stand would grill it for you.  Of course, there was the mandatory sticky rice, which at the stands comes neatly packaged in woven palm leaf packets.  You dip it in a concoction of soy sauce, vinegar (?), and chile.  Watch the chiles, they are small but potent and I nearly burned my lips off one night! At the BBQ stands, we had a reputation among local stray dogs of giving out scraps, so we always had motley company. After dinner, we got in the habit of perking up our bland meals with a little ice cream bar, which was my saving grace as I was going insane with the repetition of plain food.  By 9pm, we were usually all tuckered out on our uncomfortable camp cots, fan blowing at max speed to try and keep us cool. 

Scenes from the market at night:

The one exception to this routine was the night we were invited to a party of one of the local boatmen.  It had all the hallmarks of an awesome Philippino party: karaoke, home-brewed coconut liquor, and a whole roast pig.  To all the meat-eaters in my life, you will be happy to know that I ate the pig.  It’s sort of the BIG dish of the Philippines, so I figured for a cultural experience I should try it (that and the fact that there was nothing else to eat and I didn’t want to be rude by refusing).  It’s called lechon and is essentially a whole young pig, roasted on a spit.  My next confession: it was freakin’ delicious.  Now don’t get too excited (especially you, carnivorous father), I am not becoming a pork eater- especially since this was so good according to my meat-eating coworkers that I am sure I would be disappointed by anything else. But yes, I enjoyed it.  The skin gets all crispy and salty, which was particularly tasty and likely heart-attack inducing.  Here is proof (please note the picture was staged, I don’t normally make this face when eating…at least I hope not). 

So there you have it: a mundane post about routine and some pics of everyday life (and a few of sharks, how can you resist?).  

Pictuesque Oslob....

I am rather sleepy from our routine wake-up hour of 5:30am and the fact that I am sleeping on the most uncomfortable bed in the world right now.  As a result, I have no great seeds of insight or humerous stories tonight.  I just wanted to share some pics of Oslob, the town I am staying while studying the whale shark interactions described in my last post.  Oslob is about a two and a half hour bus ride from Cebu City, which next to Manila, is the other major metropolitan city in the Philippines.  It is on the island of Cebu to the west of Bohol.  Oslob really wasn't on the tourist map until the last few months (due to the boom in whale shark interaction tours).  You won't find it in the guidebooks yet, but it's still really picturesque. There are ruins of a watchtower and barracks that the spanish built in the late 1700s out of coral bricks, a pretty promenade, a great big church, lots of turquoise water, bright flowers and sunrises in the front yard. Apparently there are lovely waterfalls too, which may be tomorrow afternoon's adventure...for now, here is a look at where I am.