i was in nato last Friday and Saturday with my bosses. our group was conducting a focus group discussion (fgd) on gender and development with mothers and teachers in the barangay. we were suppose to head to Atulayan island the next day for another fgd but because of bad weather we had to cancel.
this fgd was probably the root of that outburst yesterday... hmmm....
it's depressing work... i know you're not suppose to take it home but it's hard to not to think about it. you learn things that now that you know about it, you'd rather not have known. now i know why there are many cynics here in research.
nato is a coastal/fishing barangay in the municipality of Sagñay. it has great beaches. like any other fishing community, it is plagued by one problem on top of the another. poverty, hunger, malnutrition... the usual group. but life goes on and the people make do with what they can.
the most depressed area according to the residents is la purisima. some settlers in this area came from parts of albay like misibis, tiwi, etc. we never made it to la purisima but the older residents refer to it as the squatter's area of the barangay. shanties right next after the other. problems with teenage pregnancies, couples as young as 13 or 14 already living together having kids more than they can afford to feed (most have more than 5 kids). infant mortality is alarming. one mom lost 4 babies aged between 2-8 months.
some of the teachers we interviewed said that the barangay doesn't lack educational facilities. although some of their students' desks are.... well never mind. it's not their fault.
their barangay has a daycare center, elementary, high school and a community college. but there are parents who cannot afford to send their children to school. kids as young as grade 2 and 3 help their parents earn money. those who are too young to fish, go around the village selling fish. teachers said that absenteeism is rampant especially during lean months when there is little fish caught. kaldero's (pots) with cooked rice disappear never to be seen again.
kids going to school on an empty stomach is common. no dinner the night before and no breakfast to be had before going to school the next day. so the teachers said they solicited funds to feed about 20 students from poor families so that these kids can continue going to school. if they go to school they get to eat.
there is a story that after a severe storm, the governor once gave the residents roofs (made of galvanized iron sheets) for their houses. since fishing is seasonal, there are times when there is very little fish caught to feed the entire family. when hard times came, queues of people were seen carrying those same sheets to the centro to sell their roofs. after all, what good is a roof if one is about to pass out from hunger?
the stories are told in such a funny humorous way, that at the same time i laugh while i cringe inside. these people are caught in such a vicious cycle. that whatver that happened to the father and the mother may well be the very fate of their sons and daughters. it's sad to always end up where you've begun.
After all is said and done, a lot more will be said than done. - Unknown
after an interrupted ym conversation with jade, i realized that may mga hassle nga naman ang New Testament. sana hindi ako tamaan ng kidlat dito pero...
dapat may mga moments na pwede namang i justify ang an "eye for an eye and an ipin for an ipin" no? pag binato ka ng hollow block, babatuhin mo ba ng tinapay?? i guess it depends on several factors (ceteris paribus, lalo na ang factornadi ka sana napuruhan dun sa binatong hollow block):
a.) malapit ka ba sa panaderia b.) masarap ba yung tinapay? (sayang eh... a tasty tinapay is hard to come by lalo na paglibre) c.) singtigas ba ng bato ang tinapay (if yes, kebs na, proceed with the throwing...) d.) mabilis ka bang umilag at tumakbo (importante to, mahal ang mag pa ospital).
hindi ko alam kung bakit ganito ako mag isip. hindi naman ako pinalaki ng ganito ng mama ko. hay... bakit ang hirap magpakabait sa panahon na'to.
tulad ng... bakit hindi ko makumbinsi ang sarili ko na magsimba. ang lagi kong binibigay na rason sa aking tita ay ang panget magsermon ng mga pari dito sa naga. hahaha! turuan ba magsermon ang pari. pero hindi ako matamaan. o kung matamaan man hindi ito sapat para ako ay tumakbo at magbalik sa simbahan. sabihin na natin na para pa rin akong naglalakad sa buwan. hindi naman sa tinalikuran ko na at hindi ako naniniwala sa Dios, may lq lang kami. disillusioned lang ako - parang magdalo. pero hindi naman ako mag aalsa o magku coup d'etat. i'm just thinking out loud.
on the upside, kung matatawag man itong as such, buti na rin lang siguro at ito ang kinalakihan ko na relihiyon. dahil kung ako ay napunta sa iba, baka matagal na akong itinumba. kahit papano nagpapasalamat pa rin ako at nagkaroon ng Vatican II. hindi ko mawari kung kelan nagsimula... at kung sinong ahas ang nagbigay sakin ng mansanas na nagmulat sakin sa mga tunay na realidad. the death of innocence heralds the birth of a cynic. siguro ganun talaga. hindi rin ganun kataas ang pagtingin ko sa mga pari (pulis at kung sinu sino pang nakaluklok diyan sa taas). para na rin kasing mga politico kung umasta. halos wala na akong makitang pagkakaiba.
habang tumatagal ako dito sa mundo, mas lumalawak ang pagkadismaya ko.
bakit ang simpleng maniwala sa milagro nung bata pa ako? sana nanatili na lamang akong bata at hindi na lang ako lumaki, para hindi na nasira ang tiwala ko sa tao. lalo na sa mga taong akala ko ay kakampi ko. ang hirap makakuha ng kakampi dito sa mundo. kahit kapamilya mo pwedeng magbago. pano pa kaya ang ibang tao na hindi mo kaano ano? hindi ka pa nga nakatalikod ng todo, inuulan na ng saksak ang likod mo.
mahirap magpakabait... dahil ang daming nang aabuso. at bakit din halos lahat ng mababait ang mga unang kinukuha ni Lord no? unfair! kaya siguro di ko makuhang magpakabait. medyo over the top ang incentive. ang dami tuloy nagliliparang masamang damo kasi high na lahat ng kabayo... Eto pa, kaninang tanghali habang sinasabayan kong lumamon ang pinsan ko, naisip ko rin na...
It's easier to gain weight than gain money. Pero... it's easier to lose money than to lose weight! Takte namang buhay to.........
after my semi-retirement from all things stressful, i devoured tv shows like i would devour chocolates and pastas. my studio type apartment has a television but it doesn't work. the picture tube or whatever they call it does not spout pictures until it's warm enough which can take as long as 20 to 30 minutes (sometimes longer depending on the strength of the gravitational pull of moon). i got tired of just watching static and listening to disembodied voices so i stopped using it after watching, excuse me listening to 30 minutes or so of kris aquino's movie fengshui. well let me tell you it's a helluva way of scaring yourself to death. so for nearly five years, i watched tv shows and movies through other people's television. i saved a lot on electiricity too.
when one of my college friends (who is another tintin so let's call her by her other nickname, puds, to distingished her from the 5 other tintin's in my life) came home briefly to naga, we traded stories about tv shows we watched when we're not busy looking for a job (we were both unemployed during that time). puds is a huge movie buff and i'm not. i was embarassed to admit that the last movie i watched was the Ring; and it was not until jade dragged me and my brother to edsa shangri-la to watch one of the movies showing in the 2007 japanese film festival that i managed to step inside a movie theater again. i was feeling low at that time because my mom just passed away from breast cancer just a few months ago. but by some twisted fate the movie that we watched (inochi) was about a guy who died of lung cancer. after that i never entered another movie theater again until my brother and i got dragged by my cheatmates at the PHP & MYSQL class i attended in UP diliman to watching Kung Fu Panda. it was hilarious. it was the only time i've gone into a movie theater in 2008. oh wait, that's not true, my sister dragged me (yeah i got dragged a lot) into watching madagascar 2 which was not as funny as the first. i wished we watched daniel craig instead in james bond's quantum of solace. he's hot.
during my two months of unencumbered tv bliss, i watched a lot of geeky shows from discovery channel and national geographic. (geeky shows abound!) i didn't think i'd enjoy animal planet but i did so i watched that too and several other channels about food. so maybe that's where all my excess weight came from.
there are so many shows to choose from but i had a lot of time on my hands then. first off let's start with one of my all time favorite, Don't Tell My Mother. it's hosted by diego buñuel. he's very witty, funny, persistent and his sarcasm will make you grin. i think at one episode i heard him say he was french.
he's been to some hostile countries like afghanistan, congo and the holy land. the most menorable episode for me is the don't tell my mother i'm in North Korea. after watching this episode i remember thinking that if that's how communism is, i hope to god this country i live in never end up in the hands of the reds. i know my country has some flaws like any other place in the world but after watching this show, it made me feel better i live here. duh... who would've ever thought i'd still feel that way considering the fertilizer scam etc.
from tour guides to the ordinary people who were interviewed they sometimes sound like robots with their ready answers. it's obvious they have memorised and rehearsed them a lot of times. it's unbelievable, i thought this things are only the stuff of movies. one memorable scene was the visit to the ostrich farm where he asked his guides about gays and aids in korea. the first one isn't legal and the second is non existent in that country. one of his guides on the farm had a very funny expression on his face when diego was describing what a gay or a bisexual man or woman is. in the end you can hear him say, who would have thought you could earn so much by just feeding ostrich?
i've seen other shows featuring the north and you would find most journalists mention that the north is trying to cover up a lot of stuff. you would find buildings with beautifully painted facades but if you go inside them or look at them from you hotel room window, the insides are very different.
this week is shark week on discovery channel. most of the shows will feature lots and lots of sharks. sometimes i can't help but think the guys on these shows must be lunatics to tempt sharks like that. better them than me i guess. i hope they have good insurance policies.
so in deference to shark week mythbusters is also all about shark this week. wait till the part when you see grant screaming in the water when a shark brushed by his legs. poor guy.
memorable episode for me was when corey was water skiing and being towed by a cruise ship. but most of the dangerous stunts are performed by their dummy, buster. one more thing they like to do in this show is blow things up from water heater to real explosives. the results from the experiments and tests they made on the show are documented at mythbusters results.
and another show on my geek list is national geographic's i didn't know that. this is hosted by two funny english blokes rich and jonny.they've got great humor and you can't help but laugh with them as they go through their experiments.
there are shows you never get tired of watching and this is one of them. they discover how the ordinary and usual things we use are made of and how. they like to blow things up too and jonny is known to even take them apart just to find out what the inside looks like.
and then there's dirty jobs with mike rowe. this show is even more Hilarious than the others. as the title says it features all the dirty jobs there are. watch the promotional video below to find out for yourself.
all you got to do is get yourself a dirty job.
one of the shows on my non geek list is bondi rescue from the natgeo adventure channel. it's shown on thursdays. although lately i've been watching the re runs a lot. but i heard the new season's episode started this week.
it's like watching baywatch but only better. after all this is the real thing. real lifeguards. real rescues and real drowning people. i don't really have to say that some of the lifeguards are hot. drowning is no fun but i wouldn't mind being rescued by one of these guys. they've also got some real amusing names. hmm... if i start matching the names to the faces, i have to stop. it's too much.
if i enumerate all my favorite shows, this will even be longer. there is a cool new show hosted by emmauel belliveau, world's greenest homes. i hate bugs but after watching the episode about butterflies in bugging with ruud i became a convert of that show (but i still hate bugs). i also watch jeff corwin's show because it can be fun expecially when he's being chased by the very animals he's filming (and then you'd hear him say, the thing's i'd do for you guys). then there's extreme engineering with danny forster; monster moves which always amazes me and a bunch of other features like stephen hawking's theory of everything which made my nose bleed -but very cool anyway. then there was that feature on norway's fjords. it was amazing to know what can be found down there.
to cap this off, i'm posting my favorite promotional video ever. (i love the whole world and all it's craziness boom tiyaya boom tiyaya). i even downloaded it on my phone and it plays every time my sister calls me =_) it's so cool. i wish she would call all the time. i even have the lyrics down to a phat.
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us. - Kurt Vonnegut
it was lunch time. i was hungry and unfortunately... stuck in the office.
i was browsing through don and edel's website... and i felt even hungrier. i grabbed some photos instead. despite gaining more weight than i could lose (i'm too lazy to exercise) ever since i arrived in naga, i still want to eat that patatas from chocolate kiss. after getting a brain work out (which sometimes felt more like an electric shock to the brain) at our PHP & MYSQL class, we sit back, wonder what the heck the entire lesson was all about (thank goodness for having nice cheatmates - zai, don, gwen and popin - since without them i don't think i could have caught up, i'm not even sure i 'caught' up now that i think about it) and then gorge ourselves at this restaurant in UP known as chocolate kiss. the baked potato is bliss.
edel and jacques' birthday party at the rowdy house last September 2008 was one of the last parties i've attended before i went back. two memories stand out: car's awesome cocktails (we were drinking it like shipwrecked survivors who have never seen water or juice for a very long long time - and it's not even water or juice) and then there's mau getting wasted...
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have no virtues. - Abraham Lincoln
i was in nato last Friday and Saturday with my bosses. our group was conducting a focus group discussion (fgd) on gender and development with mothers and teachers in the barangay. we were suppose to head to Atulayan island the next day for another fgd but because of bad weather we had to cancel.
i know you're not suppose to take it home but it's hard to not to think about it. you learn things that now that you know about it, you'd rather not have known. now i know why there are many cynics here in research.
s we interviewed said that the barangay doesn't lack educational facilities. although some of their students' desks are.... well never mind. it's not their fault.
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