Aftermath of the typhoon

Jet-lagged, concerned for our friends, and grateful to be home—we've been fortunate beyond all belief. Until today, we had no idea how really bad the flooding in parts of Manila has been. The neighborhood we were staying in managed the torrential rains fairly well and the streets were passable by Sunday morning when we headed to the airport. What a scene. It had been totally down the day before and was stiflingly hot, packed with weary stranded passengers who were oddly calm and patient. Despite only partial emergency power and no computers, Japan Air Lines' posse of impeccably dressed young women, clicking through the dim airport in high heels, shifted us to a flight that would make our Tokyo connection and didn't even lose our baggage.

Unfortunately, our Adamson friends have not had it that easy. Charles has managed to contact President Banaga. Here's an excerpt from his e-mail response:

"I was on my way to a meeting and did not reach the venue. My new car was totally submerged
in water and swept away by the flood. We were able to leave it just intime and went up to the third floor of a building with 50 other people. We slept there that night and walked home the following day. Very frightening experience! But we are safe. Fr. Kiko [VP for Academic Affairs] got stuck on the road too and he slept in his car that night. Good the flood waters did not enter his car. The next day he came home.

Adamson suffered much. The gym floor was the worst hit. It is made of imported wood and it got submerged in water. If I am not mistaken that cost us something like 3 million pesos around 7 years ago. Many servers and computers on the ground floor too. The art gallery was half way deep in water as well as all the computer labs and offices under the theater. All the buildings had water except the building where my office is.

The creek [that runs through campus] overflowed. In the morning they found a driver dead along the street in front of my office. He suffered a heart attack as he was stuck in his car in the flood waters. They found him in the morning.

400 students and professors were inside the campus on Saturday and stayed there during the night. They were lucky. If they went home they would have been swept away. They discovered that some of their houses were under water when they returned. We have no news about many of our students and faculty yet as many phones do not work and people are still stranded and unreachable. . . . They said that the rain that fell in 6 hours is equivalent to one month! Until now there is no electricity in many areas and some streets are still under water. There is another storm on the way I heard! . . . . Fr. Nonong and the VCSR staff have started relief operations in coordination with Caritas Manila. Adamson has become a relief center. Classes have been canceled for a week but we told the students and employees to come and clean up the university and volunteer at the relief center. . . . We are still lucky despite the damage suffered by Adamson."

As soon as bank accounts can get set up, dePaul people will be mounting a relief effort for our partners. We'll keep you posted.

Saturday update

Here's a view from the steps of our building. A typhoon's moving through. Now I understand why the standard casual dress code is calf-length pants and flip flops. I had to roll up my pants and wade in driving rain to the cafe to send some emails. It's unsure whether we'll be able to fly out tomorrow, but everyone here seems to be taking it in stride.

This week has been a little crazy wrapping everything up, so I'm way behind in my posts. Soon to come: Playing tourist on a picture-perfect island, a day at a convent in the countryside, hope for children in an even poorer neighborhood, more museums of course, and now a serious rain.

Lost in Translation #3

After a lovely dinner to thank the two Adamson administrators we worked most with, they dragged us across town to a wildly colorful KTV place--you get a private room and drinks and microphones and a TV with song lyrics and sing your tensions away!!! Guess what the K stands for?

By popular request—more on food

Buffet on the beach, with fellow tourists

We dined well in Palawan, with the settings as lovely as the food. The islands seemed to have arrangements with the tour groups—a row of thatched gazebos along the beach for resting and dining, plus a number of people living there to provide basic facilities. Both lunches were barbecue buffets of what was becoming our standard fare: pork, chicken and fish in savory sauces with the occasional stewed vegetable. And rice. Lots of rice.

Our evening restaurant in town was an upscale variation of that. A lush, partially open-air construct of local materials with a water garden and handicrafted art. Fish again. And panakbet, a popular veggie mix of squash, string beans, eggplant, tomato, okra, onion, garlic, ginger and shrip paste. It was pouring rain on the second night so we stayed at our hotel (a set of cabana-type cottages). Its restaurant was a set of gazebos also, and the servers delivered the signature chicken barbecue in pairs, one holding an umbrella over the other as they ran from kitchen to table.

A couple of things we forgot to mention earlier: Rice is an essentiall part of every meal. Plain rice, garlic rice, all different kinds of rice. The words for dining in Tagalog mean "with rice." . . .There are commonly five meals here. Morning and afternoon snacks are called merienda. Some restaurants offer neat little small plates in the afternoon only. During meetings, Adamson often served a twinkie-like cake in the morning and a bowl of pasta in the afternoon, with juice boxes. . . .Desserts tend to be Asian style, lots of sweet sticky rice. Green and red Jello cubes are often mixed in with coconut milk concoctions. . . . There's one major beer here, San Miguel. It comes in various brews and, according to our connoisseur, isn't bad.

Travelling the Pacific

Countryside, with rice fields and (waay back) the Sulu sea

Shuttling to the underground river site

Entrance to the river, with Di in the much welcomed shade

The "Crocodile Farm"

Charles on the beach

Our hosts arranged for us to play tourist on a three-day holiday weekend. The islands of Palawan are the southwestern part of the country—a relatively untouched paradise where development vs. conservation is a big issue. The island claims the most diverse ecosystem in the country, much of it threatened.

I'm not sure where our modest excursion fits into that spectrum, but it was a delight to get out of the city and into the green. And what green! Dense rain forest, mangrove swamps, palm-fringed beaches, and ripening rice fields. Guides escorted us around by van and outrigger boat with an affable group of yuppies from Manila to see the sights.

First day: the town of Puerto Princessa and the countryside around it. By area it's the largest Philippine municipality and includes islands, ocean and rural areas. We passed small rice farms with traditional thatched houses, cows, and working water buffalo. First stop was the wildlife conservation center devoted to preserving an endangered crocodile species. Then off to a weaving workshop, tourist shops, and (Lost in Translation #4) a model prison farm.

Day two: West across the island to Sabang and the subterranean river. It flows through a vast limestone cave filled with birds, bats, and dramatic rock formations. We were shuttled there by motorized outrigger, waded onto a beach, got to see forest and monkeys up close, then donned helmets and life vests and headed upriver in a small boat with large flashlights. Even the guide's corny spiel couldn't undermine the drama and wierdness of the place.

Day three: Island hopping around Honda Bay. By outrigger again, this time out to a raft for snorkeling in your live vest above a coral reef (Was the guide's "don't touch" enough to protect it?). Charles had a great time and so did I, once this water-resistant gal convinced the guide that "vegging out" was a legitimate way to have fun. Then on to another island for swimming and lunch, then to another for more swimming as fishermen waded in with nets and pulled out gallons of tiny silvery fish. (Museum alert: these beaches are exact replicas of those in Travelling the Pacific.)

Food

The spiky red thing is Rambutan—looks like a hard boiled egg when opened, tastes like a chewy, super-sweet pear. There are ripe mangoes every day, and and a host of new (to us) tropical fruits.

Veggies not that much. The best of Filipino cuisine is pork and barbecue based. While we’ve chosen to skip that, there’s plenty of seafood and, of course, cousins of those chickens down the road. We’ve sampled several delicious Filipino buffets I can’t describe since we’re not quite sure what we’ve eaten—the menu is in Tagalog.

Dining as a working resident is a bit different from eating like a tourist. Most nights we’re tired and just want something simple. Early on we found a supermarket and stocked up on clones of western comfort food: cereal, milk, peanut butter and bread. But even this was a new experience. On the surface the market in Robinson’s mall is a familiar scene: huge, clean, brightly lit, aisles stuffed with every product imaginable. But fish—lots of fish—and meat are in self-serve bins, the rice section is as large as our apartment, and there’s a huge array of fruit to choose from. Vegetables are tightly wrapped in plastic. Young clerks stand in the aisles promoting special items. After work, people line up at the cooked food counters.

Much on the shelves is processed food in one form or another, and it comes from all over. Milk from New Zealand, cereal from Canada and Florida, much from Australia—to say nothing of all the Chinese and Japanese products. The fruit has stickers on each piece. Coke and Nestle are big names. The Philippines have been a center of SE Asian trade since pre-history, but this is mind-boggling.

Every other shop in our neighborhood is a small restaurant featuring different Asian cuisines with staff on the sidewalk handing out leaflets to bring you in. The malls are a major food scene, unfortunately with loud music blaring out from every establishment. Robinson’s is fast-food heaven, primarily Asian, with countless themed chains a la (and including) TGI Friday’s. You’re never far from pizza, burgers, Filipino adobo, and—surprise—every decent place offers pesto pasta with grilled chicken. In Makati, higher end restaurants line the ground level with outdoor tables and elegant indoor ambience.

Fr. Bananga took us to dinner in the Mall of Asia (Second largest in the world, huge and glitzy beyond all imagining) that featured shabu-shabu, the Japanese-style “hot pot.” We simmered a wonderful selection of seafood and vegetables in broth heated in pots built into the table. I thought it included a starter soup, and took a big sip of what turned out to be a bowl of soy sauce! Otherwise it was a marvelous time and Father a gracious host.

He and Charles lunch together most days. Careful about diet, they share a home-cooked tupperware lunch of rice and vegetables—best meal in town C says. (while I’m home with the PB and J.)

We’ve settled on several comfortable spots in the neighborhood. In one, we can sit at a second floor window checking out the street life below, and the waiter has a way of subtly raising one eyebrow when we order things that don’t go together and suggests an alternative—with great results. Another favorite offers dishes from Pampanga province accompanied by a wonderful singer and guitar. Once we passed on ox tripe and rice field crickets, we ate well! Maybe too well, in fact. Despite regular workouts at Slimmers World, even Charles may be coming back a little pudgy.

Lost in Translation #2:
We dined with Fr. B and six other college presidents at a mall restaurant called Holy Cow. Indian food? Nope—the servers wore cowboy gear and a Clint Eastwood movie played on the TV.

The sun came out!

Solar clothes dryer

City view

And what a lovely sun it is. On the roof of our building there's a uniquely tropical amenity, cage areas where you can dry your laundry.(see photo) I went up to check it out and look what I found--a whole panorama of the city! (Open the image to see the detail) You can get an idea of the size of Manila by finding the skyscrapers far back on the left.

Seeing the sites

Greenbelt mall with Ayala Museum cafe hiding in the greenery

St. Augustin church/Museum cafe

Yes, there really is a dramatic sunset on Manila Bay, at least on the days the sun comes out. A typhoon up north has brought rain most days—and what rain! Not drops, but huge sheets whipping down the streets. The breeze cools things off a bit, as well as collapsing umbrellas.

The streetscapes in all their wild diversity is the most exciting aspect of Manila: the mix of shacks and sleek commercial towers, stained concrete blocks surrounded by lush foliage, Spanish-style buildings barely visible behind their gates. Still, we’re doing our share of hitting the tourist spots, but keep forgetting the camera so the visuals aren't the most revealing. Roxas Blvd is where you catch the sunset. It’s a Lake Shore Drive-type of parkway along the Bay, lit at night by multi-colored plinths.

The old city, Intramuros, holds some of the Spanish-era churches and fortifications. (closely related historically—Spain and Church controlled for 400 years). St.Augustin, the oldest church in Manila, has an extensive museum of 17th and 18th century religious art, and a botanical garden in its courtyard. Flanking Intramuros is the expansive, formal Rizal Park (Daniel Burnham had a hand in the Manila city plan). We haven’t explored too far into it yet, but stumbled across its Orchardiarium, a lush garden of tropical plants. We haven’t made it to his monument that dominates the park, but Jose Rizal appears everywhere —scientist, poet, novelist, scholar and hero of the independence movement, executed at 35.

The other end of the earth: Makati City is the commercial district and high-end tourist area. We visited the Ayala Museum there (more on museums in a separate post). Around that area is a series of upscale shopping malls in a lush park-like setting, and we wandered around the Bulgari and Prada. A little of that goes a long way, and we were glad to retreat to a sidewalk café and tea under a rain-dappled awning.

COMING SOON for museum colleagues—Travelling the Pacific 2.0

Getting around town

Street art: the jeepney

Filipinos claim their traffic is the worst in the world, but there don’t appear to be more vehicles in the road than some Chicago streets at rush hour. It’s just more Darwinian. The way to get where you want to go is to surge into the flow and weave madly in, out, and around the other cars, busses, jeepneys, taxis, trucks, pedicabs and people, while steering carefully with the horn. Same rules for the 14 lane highway and the narrow city lanes. The result is frequently dead gridlock at intersections, where right of way is determined by sheer nerve. Yet you see few dents on the vehicles and few visible crashes. Somehow drivers move through traffic successfully keeping centimeters apart. Must be a special kinesthetic sense born of necessity.

To the end of the earth and back

I’m writing from a posh coffeeshop with internet, trying to find words to describe the experience we had Friday. Two social workers from Adamson took us to visit Payatas, a community on the edge of Manila. The hour and a half drive across the city was a lesson of its own as we fought dense traffic past business high-rises, crowded storefront shops, elegant public buildings, and rough shacks—a panorama of a city of 11 million people.

Our van joined a parade of garbage trucks up and down muddy hills: Payatas itself is a seemingly endless landfill where the city’s garbage goes. Woven throughout the dump site are settlements of tin shacks. Grim as it looks, the area has a bustling informal economy with row upon row of small stores selling everything from rice to flipflops in tiny packets. The whole settlement reminds Charles of the worst poverty that he has seen in Chiapas and Nogales, but the scope dwarfs anything either of us have experienced. Garbage is everywhere, ground into the soil.

Most people in Payatas make their living by scavenging. Plastics and other recyclables are gathered, bundled and sold to recycling companies. We were there on a rainy day but people were hard at work, trudging through the mud. Toward the end of the afternoon people flocked to the streets that had food stalls. Human life in all of its urgent struggle to survive and flourish has rooted itself in the vast dump.

Blooming in the midst of all this is a catholic parish led by the young (maybe Daniel’s age) and enthusiatic Vincentian, Fr. Rowen Carlos. It serves 400,000 people (not a typo) by building small groups on the Christian base community model. There are 13 satelite chapels, and they’ve organized a food coop, an elder-care center and a day care center, where the children sang us three songs and broke our hearts. A new church is under construction—a spacious steel beam and concrete floor and roof, open right now on the sides but planned with a beautiful painted dome. The temporary altar is a folding table with plastic cloth, and the area is bustling with children and young people in some activity. I can’t begin to process all this—Charles is writing a piece that puts it in context for his DePaul colleagues and you’re welcome to a copy. All I can offer here is my experience of expecting overwhelming despair, and finding an inspiring expression of what's best in the human spirit.

The people here project the project's energy: Brother Cesar, Fr. Rowen, Sheila Rebecca, and the overwhelmed DVs. The structure just barely visible on the far left is one of the satellite
chapels.

Learning history missed in school

Memorial beside the ruins

Mural of the nonviolent revolution of 1986

Sunday we took a day trip, in alternating drizzle, downpour and sun, to Corregidor, the island guarding Manila Bay, scene of important battles in World War II. It was an emotional experience, especially after the memorial for Uncle Toddy. While he was half a continent away it was in a similar environment and easy to see why his plane was never found in the tropical forest. This island, once bombed bare, is dense with new growth rapidly overtaking the ruins.

The island is now managed by a foundation and offers a fine interpretive program—which we welcomed. Somehow they never got to World War II in my history classes. After an hour’s boat ride across Manila Bay, you board busses for a guided tour of the ruins, multiple memorial sites, and a museum—including lunch at a pleasant resort. The mix of history and holiday is a bit disconcerting. The tour guide was knowledgeable but full of corny jokes, young Asians scrambled over the big guns taking pictures, and the island is being developed as a beach and trekking site. And, we were told, there are Japanese and English-language tours that tell different stories.

The names are familiar, especially Bataan, across the water to the north. Corregidor was a garrison during the 400 years of Spanish occupation, and a luxurious military base of some 11,000 people during the US years. In the early 1900s they constructed an incredible 20-mile underground network of tunnels. MUSEUM PEOPLE ALERT: Part of the tour is a trip in the dark through the main tunnel, with side dioramas and AV-programs telling the story of the war and five-month battle. For a time, the Philippine president and his family took refuge there, along with about 6,000 US and Philippine soldiers and nurses, and, later, the Japanese.

We were hit hard by what we learned about the scale and the viciousness of the war in the Pacific. Corregidor surrendered and was later retaken. Even more disturbing, it seems that the whole conflict there was more symbolic than tactical. The base was designed to defend against attack by sea—and Manila had already been overtaken by troops on land.

The memorials—US, Philippine, Japanese, all the War in the Pacific, and Gen MacArthur—were moving and educational. The Philippine one featured fourteen ceramic murals depicting Philippine resistance from 1571 through the people’s revolution of 1986. And it goes on and on.

DVs also don't wallk

Actually, it’s hard for anybody to walk in Manila, at least in this area. The sidewalks are individually styled in front of each establishment, not level or linked. They clearly belong to small businesses, parked cars, motorcycles, potted plants and posts. Pedestrians crossing a street are totally invisible to vehicles. Don’t try it.

So, desperate for exercise, C and I joined a health club—you can look into its aerobics room from our window. “Slimmers World” is a spa and workout gym with the vibes of a disco. Should I try the Botox?

On campus (but not hanging out)

One courtyard

Main entrance

The "creek"

Adamson has a good feel. The 15,000 students are young—they start after tenth grade—and fill the quadrangles with energy. They wear uniforms designed for each program. Many , we’re told, live with relatives since their parents work in other countries.
The campus is a hodgepodge of buildings: the modern, drab concrete ones found in tropical countries mixed in with Spanish-style courtyards and dense green plantings. (Most of Manila, had been destroyed in WW2.) A river runs through it. Actually, a lovely but polluted creek that university folks are working to clean up.


The educational system is really demanding. Students take 8-10 different courses a semester and faculty teach some 30 hours a week. We can’t figure out how they handle it all—especially with extremely long commutes on rickety transit. Most instruction is in English, but everyone speaks Tagalog. There’s a lot of switching back and forth.

The school is definitely Catholic and Vincentian. Most events begin with a prayer, and there’s much talk of serving the poorer communities. St. Vincent seems an active presence, with a host of events honoring his 350th anniversary. One we attended yesterday was an exhibit of Fr. Banaga’s photographs of sites in France related to Vincent’s life.

Learning to be A Distinguished Visitor

There’s a veneer of familiar international commerce here that staves off the worst culture shock. The 7-ll on the corner is oddly comforting. But it’s hard to relax, struggling with the role we’ve been assigned: The Distinguished Visitor. Every door is opened for us, every bag is carried, people offer to plan our every move.
There’s a complicated social structure we haven’t quite figured out, nor our place in it.

Note that Charles and I stand out like a freak of nature. He’s taller than everyone. I’m wider. Plus no one else in the entire city has white hair.

Second, we yankees (especially politically correct, I’m-against-this-oppressive imperial-system-yankees) are not comfortable being waited on. Phyllis’s daughters do not impose on others. On the other hand, we are guests and our hosts are genuinely gracious and welcoming. It’s just exhausting trying to figure out how to behave with equal grace.

Charles is somewhat more comfortable. After all, he’s a genuine eminence gris, and has a well-defined, invited mission and a fairly clear professional role. I had hoped I could hang out in the university library and write while he worked. Ha! I had to be introduced to the director of the library (charming woman). The head tech guy (equally fine) set me up on the internet in a special carel right in front of the air-con. I was escorted back and forth to the loo and handed my own roll of TP. And, when I took a break, hoping to go outside and warm up, I found that an administrator had been waiting there just to take me back when I was ready.

This should settle with time. C and I feel a great deal of respect—and growing affection—for our colleagues here, and only hope what we bring will be worth so much effort on their part.

Lost in Translation #1: When a woman from the Mayor’s office offers her card and says “Let me know where you want to go and I’ll arrange it,” is the proper response A) “Here’s my list!” or B) an air kiss on each cheek?

First impressions

About the flight across the Pacific, the less said the better. In both planes they kept the windowshades down and the lights off the entire nineteen hours. No doubt this gave passengers a clear view of the entertainment screens in each seat, but I felt I was enclosed in a suspended animation pod like in sci-fi movies.

We emerged from the pod to find Manila itself all light. Huge colored pillars and globes lighting the main road, garish signage, an intense sun occasionally escaping an overcast sky. The air is heavy with humidity, pollution, and unknown smells—it wraps around you the second you step from an air-conditioned space. We’re settling in to a pleasant little apartment in Ermita, a tourist area near Adamson. One window overlooks a Chinese Budhist temple, high rises, low rise shacks, and the gargantuan Robinson mall. (more on malls later) The other looks directly into the exercise room of the posh Pan Pacifica hotel, above a street jammed with cars, taxis, wildly decorated jeepneys (that’s one in the top photo), plus the local pedicabs made of a small bicycle with a passenger sidecar. At night we’re entertained by a nearby Karaoke club and in the morning by the neighborhood roosters. (Urban chickens are definitely in vogue here.)

The Philippines is the fourth largest English-speaking country, so they say. Conversation among Philippinos moves back and forth from English to Tagalog in the same lilting accent, but they’re kind enough to us visitors to slow down and repeat words when needed.

Moving through all this are crowds of people, almost all young and without exception cheery. Except for the youngest, the small, thin children begging for handouts. The most vivid contrast here is between affluence and grinding poverty. We try to respond thoughtfully, but are feeling conflicted and way out of our moral comfort zone.

Greetings from the Philippines

So many friends and family have asked us to keep you posted on our trip that I decided to try setting up this blog. Consider it a fresh version of a postcard you can pick up at the general delivery post office window.

What are we up to? Charles has a Fullbright Senior Specialist grant to spend four weeks working with Adamson University here. Adamson is a Vincentian institution with a similar mission as DePaul, and he’ll be consulting on various administrative issues related to management, academic quality and its commitment to social justice. The school offers the traditional liberal arts and many technical programs including engineering, architecture, and nursing. One huge agenda.

Adamson seems spartan by our standards, much like DePaul was in the 50s. And youthful—the administrators I’ve met seem younger than most DePaul students and the students themselves enter after 10th grade. What’s special is the commitment of its President, Fr. Banaga, and the energy and enthusiasm of its staff. We’ve been welcomed with the most incredible graciousness. I’m told that warmth and a positive spirit are the main characteristics of Philippine culture, and it’s certainly the case here. More to come.