Happy Independence Day, Philippines!

Happy Birthday, Philippines! Today is independence day here in the Philippines and it's certainly not quite taking shape as I thought it might. Despite my best efforts not to let my American identity dictate my expectations here, I did expect something a little celebratory, but in the provinces, it's just another normal day, a work day for many.

This morning I met my counterpart, Sir Erwin, and a group of students outside my house at 9:00 am to bring the books my grandma sent to the school. We lacked transport, which we sufficiently made up for in manpower. Each student carried an armload of books from my house to the school, about a 12 minute walk away. While we waited outside my house for more students to arrive, Sir Erwin asked one of the students how old the Philippines is today.

"111 years old, sir," he responded.

What!? What about the American and later Japanese occupations? I mean, the Philippines officially was a colony of the United States until July 4, 1946. And why would June 12th be independence day when the Philippines became independent on the 4th of July, a symbolic move on the part of the U.S.?

This takes some explaining. One hundred and eleven years ago today, Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence from the Spanish on June 12th, 1898. Filipinos regard this event as the first and only declaration of independence and view the American presence here as a usually amicable occupation, of which the Philippines had remained independent throughout the duration (this is an inference on my part).

After the United States abdicated sovereignty to the Philippines, the newly-founded Philippines government decided to move the holiday to their self-proclaimed day of independence; but Filipinos are forever gracious and declared July 4th Filipino-American Friendship Day.

I sent out a blanket text to the Filipinos near and dear to me and I did get some interesting responses. I wanted to be sure to share two of them. The two responses come from two highly educated women who continue to inspire me with their wisdom and lovingly critical opinions of their country. The first, "Thank you. I am sad about the situation in my country today. I hope it will get better after the election next year." Text the second, "Thank you Sean, but I still wonder whether we are really independent yet." I do not include these to provoke heated political debate but rather to exemplify the fact that while it's fun and easy to get drunk with your buddies, have a BBQ and blow things up with illegal fireworks from Wisconsin, Missouri or North Carolina like we do in the states, there are people in other countries who spend their independence days contemplating the nature of their democracies and the welfare of their country and it's people. This realization, I must say, was truly moving.

Miss IT Beauty Contest and Valentines Day at Padre Burgos

Greetings again friends! Your faithful blogger just sat down at his laptop to pound out the happenings of the past few days when ants started to spew forth from every nook and crevice of his laptop! Oh, but readers, I was ferocious in my handling of them; with my mighty index finger of my left hand and a lighter in my right, I knocked off the intruders and torched them into oblivion! What a sight, I must assure you dear readers, for as the first wave ran out into their impending inferno, hundreds more followed in their fated path. It was a blood bath, the likes of which neither Bilbo Baggins nor Saint George could ever imagine. I have won the battle, oh yes, and am poised, ever ready, for the oncoming war. Unfortunately, my laptop, infested while I was gone, was at the head of my bed. My bed now has issues. Bummer.
Aside from my ant problem, I spent the last two evenings contemplating the Peace Corps motto, "The toughest job you'll ever love." Damn straight.
Friday night, I was invited by the local provincial college, SLSU, to judge "Miss I.T. 2009," a beauty pageant with contests who are also students of the I.T. college. So of course I accepted. Here I just want to mention that beauty pageants are something of a cultural phenomenon here in the Philippines, a time-honored tradition celebrated for any and every reason and category, as will become obvious. Interestingly enough, my first impressions when I first entered the auditorium was that the judging tables each had a computer. Yes, Miss I.T. was going to be judged using information technology. How deliciously geeky! Unfortunately, the computer program the students has made, "Pageant Scores Version 1.0" or something like that, crashed after the first round. Back to paper and, I suppose, back to the drawing board. I'm certain I will get to test-drive version 2.0 next year. Creating that program, which actually looked very nice, was a very brave and courageous first attempt at a very creative way of judging beauty pageants. A+ for innovation and effort.
But this was not a software pageant, it was a BEAUTY pageant! This picture was our first introduction to the "beauties" (interpret quotes as you wish). For some reason, the introduction was superhero themed and all the contestants were dressed as seemingly exhibitionist superheros. If anyone has been to Madison Halloween, it was like that, for real.
There were a number of different competitions including the superhero costume motif, swimsuit, casual wear, formal gown and interview. To be polite, I will skip many of the details, but I laughed, I cried, in short, I judged. The easiest part of it all, for me, was that I did not know any of the contestants, so singling out a winner was kind of well, more or less easy. Here is a picture of me, Melissa, the Australian volunteer (who also judged), the other judges and the top-three winners (I'm the super-tall white dude with the pointy nose).
Even as I write this, I am still fighting off ants, which are crawling up my legs from when I knocked many of them to the floor. They really should cut it out, though it is a smart strategy as I absolutely refuse to torch my own legs.
As I was saying, after the pageant, there was a Valentine's Day disco (they call all dances here discos), held the Friday night before. Melissa and I stayed for that; in Namibia I was laughed at when I danced, here, I am imitated :)
Saturday morning, I left with Melissa to Padre Burgos to meet up with some other Australian volunteers at a resort. They are all SCUBA certified and I was BEER certified, so it all worked out, they swam with sea turtles, I stayed on shore with a beer, reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a gift from my brother (Colin, it makes more sense when read under such circumstances). This is a picture of the beach when the sun shown for about 30minutes. The darker spots in the water is live coral. Cool, huh?
I seriously need to upgrade to napalm for these ants! This is insane!
Below are some more beauty shots from Padre. It really is this constantly beautiful here. Padre is not a whole lot unlike my own site, it's just secluded and I can feel like I'm on vacation (even for one night) when I go there.

Please view the rest of my Burgos photos on my Picasa page. Otherwise, the food was good, the company was good and the time spent usik-usik mga sa oras, or "killing time" was excellent. At the resort, there were 5 Aussies I was with, plus a Norwegian, a Spaniard and a few others. I was the only American.
Sitting on the veranda today, talking with the Spaniard, who has been a student in Beijing for the last two and one half years and was just on vaca, I had an epiphany.
FRIGGING ANTS!
It occurred to me that, there on the veranda sat two citizens of the two countries that colonized, exploited or otherwise utilized the resources of the Philippines from the mid 1500's to the end of WWII. I don't know what it means but it felt significant somehow, in a way that I cannot really find an appropriate word to express the feeling. Something having to do with irony, shock, a little horror and being grateful for witnessing such a perspective. She and I did not discuss it, it was but a quiet realization.
My last Friday and Saturday nights were hilarious, relaxing and just what the doctor ordered. It is truly a privilege to be where I am, doing what I am doing, and even while on vacation, I never cease to be thankful for the opportunities to meet such fine people just "travelling through."

"The toughest job you'll ever love," yeah, it totally is.