Earthquakes

There have been a lot of earthquakes in the news lately. This year seems particularly bad with the devastating quakes in Haiti and Chili and even one reported in the Philippines. When we lived in Davao on the southern island of Mindanao, we experienced an earthquake. We had just gone to bed when our dog, Pochahontas started scratching at the door to the bedroom. We told her to go lie down and closed our eyes again. Then David said, "listen." I said that I didn't hear anything. He said, "that's the point, I don't hear anything." It was true, there were none of the usual night sounds of bugs, frogs or birds, just silence and Pokey (the dog) whining. Then the bed started sliding across the floor (and no we weren't doing it!) Realizing that it was an earthquake, we jumped out of bed and quickly ran outside. We looked towards the top of the mountain. We lived at the base of Mt. Apo, the tallest mountain in the country at over 9,600 ft., which is a dormant volcano. We also lived within a couple of kilometers from the shore of Davao gulf. Off shore to the east is the Mindanao deep, the second deepest place in the world. So we stood there wondering whether we should run to the shore to get away from the volcano's eruption or to run to the mountain to get away from a tsunami wave because of an off shore quake funneling water up the gulf. So we did neither, just staying there in the yard with the neighbors until we heard the sound of traffic on the street. The next day we heard that the epicenter of the quake was hundreds of miles to the south near the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and several miles deep. That quake didn't cause any damage, just shook us up.
Our second earthquake took place on a visit to Cebu, the second largest city in the country. Since we were just visiting for a day we decided to go eat lunch in a revolving restaurant on the top of a 14 story building in downtown Cebu. We wanted to get photos from the top and also have a treat of a meal in a nice restaurant. As the waiter came to our table and was pouring glasses of water for us, we heard a pounding sound. The waiter started to cross himself (remember this is a Catholic nation). The water in the glasses was on a definite tilt. We realized the pounding was from the disc of the restaurant hitting the center post of the building as it was shaken. We wondered if the motor was breaking down or what. It stopped after a few minutes and we continued with our meal. Later we read that it had been a 3.something quake and hadn't even been felt by the man on the street. It was only because we were up there on top of 14 stories that we felt it at all. Pretty benign, but memorable anyway.

Close of Service

This is in reply to my daughter Becca's post on her blog last week.

How ironic that the medical officer was absent because of a medical condition and that the safety officer was absent because of food poisoning!
I look back on my PCV years with amazement and a little time shift strangeness. Sometimes it seems like I went directly from Laramie to Denver and that those (almost) 5 years (3 1/2 years as a volunteer and 1 more year in travel) in between were just a dream.
You are lucky in this internet age to be able to keep in touch with the members of your group so easily. Since we got home we only have seen 2 others from our group and one of them lives here.
As for plans for the future - I still don't have them!

Fans and Umbrellas

This is a comment that I posted on the blog of a current PCV, Kate, who is serving near Manila in the Philippines.

I was a PCV in the Visayas in the 70's and I always carried a paipai (folding fan) and payon (umbrella). The umbrella was because it was either raining or very sunny and hot! During training (which we had in Vermont) we laughed at our Filipino language teachers who walked around with their umbrellas but I was glad I had my little folding one when I got to my site in Toril, Davao City. I was glad that our house had electricity because my electric fan was one of my most treasured belongings. Good luck with the election thing. We were volunteers when Marcos overthrew his own government. I still say that if you have 3 Filipinos together, you will have 4 political parties.

Language confusion

I just read a current PCV blog "Eleven Degrees North" by Philippines volunteer Ryan Murphy who is living near where I was stationed there. This is a comment that I wrote in response to his post yesterday:

In training (RP-Group 39) I was in the Cebuano language group. Ron was another volunteer in our group. Then he was assigned to a town near SanCarlos in Negros. Now, San Carlos was on the edge of the Cebuano/Ilonggo divide. They are related languages so it usually didn't cause any problems but one day he was ordering lunch or something and when he was asked when he wanted his meal he said, "karon". So the waitress was Ilonggo and didn't bring it. So he then said, "karon dayon". (dayon just emphasized the "now" that Ron was saying.) She still didn't bring the meal. Eventually, the misunderstanding was cleared up and Ron did get his meal. I wonder how these two related languages came up with such opposite meanings for the same word?

"Take the Trip"

On of Becca's friends is trying to decide on extending her Peace Corps service by going to another country or to go home. This is what I told her.

My Father-in-law gave us this advice when he was dying of cancer (while we had just started on our second assignment) and David had to choose whether to return to our assignment in Bohol and then our planned trip home or go home to help him out and take over the store: He said, "go back to Peace Corps and take the trip".

I know that it is not the same situation but my advice is, "do what you want to do"!

I have given this advice to a number of young friends over the years. I can still remember several times that we didn't take the advice: Once in Zamboanga, we were invited to go over to Basilan to a Yakan wedding. We chose to return home to Davao. I'm sure we had things to do but I don't remember now. Basilan is now off-limits to tourists because of the AboSayaf (Filipino branch of AlQueda) I wonder how the Yakan are faring with the militants hiding out there on their island?