Letters from Mindanao

Becca's readjustment

2011-03-30T05:33:00.000-07:00

This is a comment I posted on Becca's blog about her readjustment back after serving in the Peace Corps in Albania:

I don't know if you ever get used to it. There are still lots of things that bother me about the USA and I see my life as before Peace Corps and after Peace Corps. Sometime that almost 5 years that we were gone seems like a "time-warp" but then I go to the Filipino club and find people that I can talk to. I like meeting with the RPCV group because, even tho we served in different countries and even different decades, there is something that we share under the skin.
I am glad you are home.
I'm sorry if you may have been bored by some of my stories over the years but anytime you want to tell me your's, I will be all ears!
Love, MOM

Peace Corps at 50

2010-11-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

"Peace Corps" on Facebook recently posted this link of a YouTube clip of an interview ea

Peace Corps will be 50 on my birthday next year! We just came home from visiting the Philippines 40 years after we first arrived there as green PCV's! With us on our trip was our daughter Becca who has just finished her time as a PCV in Albania. Our Philippine "family" welcomed her as a "granddaughter, niece, cousin". It was very special.

Rice

2010-07-07T07:20:00.000-07:00

I remember once when I was a kid and didn't want to eat rice for dinner, my dad made me stay at the table until I finished it. It took 4 hours! How he laughed when I was selected to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines! (rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice for dinner - even the word for eat is rice!)

We learned a song in training called "Inday balay ta" sung to the tune of of a WWII song.

Inday balay ta. Girl, let's dance

Di ko kay kapoy I don't want to because I'm tired

Among panahaw balanghoy Our breakfast was rice

Among paniudto balanghoy na puto Our lunch was rice cakes

Among panihapon balanghoy gihapon! Our dinner was rice also

Inday balay ta Girl, let's dance

Di ko kay kapoy Not me, I'm tired

Among panahaw balanghoy. Our breakfast was rice!

Fourth of July

2010-07-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

The National Peace Corps Association on FaceBook asked this question: Happy Independence Day weekend everyone! What are your memories of celebrating the 4th as a Peace Corps volunteer far from home?

I don't remember celebrating many 4ths when we were in the Peace Corps but our 2nd one was memorable.

We tried to climb Mt. Apo on Mindanao but got rained out by rains near a typhoon. When we returned to town we went to the 4th of July picnic thrown by the USIS officer there.

My story in support of 10,000 volunteers

2010-06-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

I received an appeal from a lobbying organization called Push for Peace Corps. They are raising awareness with the members of the House committee who are debating legislation to increase the Peace Corps budget to $65 million. This is the story I sent to them:

Forty years ago, I became a Peace Corps Volunteer. My husband and I spent 3 1/2 years in two different cities of the Philippines. Now, all these years later, we are active members of the Filipino community here and have continued as volunteers in many other organizations. Our daughter has just finished her own term of service as a PCV in Albania. A few years ago when a group came to Denver from Cebu I met the superintendent of the Mandaue schools. She asked if I was the Arlene Lipman who had been the Peace Corps Volunteer in Bohol. I found a photo of the seminar she had attended as a young teacher with me as the PCV in the front row and her among all the teachers. I asked her if it had been useful. She said it had been good. It was nice getting validation over 30 years later! We feel that the Peace Corps was one of the most important times of our lives. The international experiences and connections we made affect every aspect of our lives. The investment that the US Government has made in the Peace Corps over the years is the best example of people-to-people diplomacy. Arlene Lipman PCV - Davao and Bohol, Philippines 1970-1974

Earthquakes

2010-03-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

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"

2010-03-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

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?

The trip home - Venice

2010-01-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

My daughter Becca just had a short vacation in Italy When we were in Venice (and still on a PCV budget on our way home) we were camping for a week just outside the city at Mestre. We wandered the streets during the day buying our lunch from the pizza shops or other street vendors. I don't think that we sat down in a restaurant for a meal the whole time we were there. I do remember the day that we came upon a shop that had fresh chickens hanging in the window. We decided to have fried chicken for dinner. The other campers thought that we were truly crazy when we brought it back to the campground. There we sat in front of our tent making dinner one dish at a time. We only had one small pot and were cooking on a one-burner camp stove. First we heated up some tea, then made some vegetables the we started to fry that chicken. We breaded it with some semolina we had gotten in a grocery and fried it in some oil that we had gotten also. We could only cook 2 or 3 pieces at a time in the little 6 inch pot. It took hours to cook the whole thing! We had it for breakfast and lunch the next day too, because traveling like we were, we didn't have any cooler either. I think that was one of the most unusual meals that we made while we were on our own at the European end of our trip.

The trip home - Afganistan

2010-01-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

This is a comment I posted on the blog of a friend, David Searles, who was our country director during part of our PCV stay in the Philippines.

My husband David and I COS’ed (Close of Service) from the Philippines in January of 1974. We did the “long trip home” for most of the year in 1974. We picked up an English tour bus in Kathmandu called “Swagman Overland Tours”. Needless to say, it was full of Ausies taking their “Walk-abouts”! It was definitely a “budget tourist” way to go. We camped most places, sometimes with the tents that were carried on top of the bus, but often just on our ground pads and sleeping bags out in the open. We went overland from there through India, into Pakistan and into Afganistan. We must have gotten our Afghan visas in India or Pakistan because we didn’t have any problems at the border. Our small problem was at the gate to the pass. We arrived too late in the day to cross all the way to Kabul before dark so were turned back to start again the next day. The border guards said that they couldn’t “protect your women”! We found a hi-way construction camp on the road back to Rawilpindi and the workers allowed us to camp there. We drove through the pass the next day, stopping at a town in the middle for tea. We could have bought all sorts of smuggled goods there from “pen” guns (holding one bullet in a fountain pen) to coke (and not cola). We arrived safely in Kabul in the late afternoon and stayed in a budget hotel there. We celebrated the 4th of July in Bandiamir, camped near the beautiful lake there.

Clean Water

2009-07-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

One of my Facebook friends shared this link with me:

Thanks Ronda!
It reminded me of my days in the Peace Corps in the Philippines. We had water off of our roof for 2 years in Davao. Every time it rained the gutters would funnel rainwater into the two tanks we had. One tank was behind the house and connected to the tap in the bathroom as well as one behind the house that Patring used for doing the laundry (by hand of course). We had a flush toilet but the water wasn't hooked up to it. We would fill up the bucket and pour it into the tank or directly into the stool to flush the toilet. (A modern flush toilet is just a water-seal with a tank.) During one dry season we had to go to our neighbors to pump water by hand. In Bohol, we had city water but the pressure wasn't any good except during the night so we had to fill up a tank in the middle of the night.

I had dysentery during my time there, probably due to water at places other than our home where we had to boil everything we drank. You had to remember that ice is made with whatever water is at hand.

The water supply in the cities of the Philippines, especially where we lived has improved over the years, but many communities there still don't have reliable, clean water.

Here in Colorado, water is one of our most important assets - too much growth and not enough water will be the problem in the future. The water rights issues between the front range and the western slope often end up in court. Did you know that California has the right for some of the water that flows out of our snow melt into the Colorado River system? If we pollute the Platte river here in the metro area, what does that do to the communities down river? It all reminds me of one of my favorite singers, Tom Lehrer from 1965 and his song "Pollution":

Facebooking friends from the Philippines

2009-04-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

One of my first friends when I got on Facebook was one of my "little sisters" from our time in Toril. I didn't see Nening when we visited Davao in 2003 because her husband was working in Saudi Arabia, but we did talk to her on the phone. Her sister Joyce has just joined up and I discovered that one of their nephews? has formed a group called the Agton Family. So I joined it - after all Nang Tita (our "Mama") calls us her "American son and daughter".

I also have a good friend in New Mexico on Facebook who was a PCV with us in our other assignment in Bohol. We reconnected with her when she was acting in a play our friend Chuck was directing up in Cheyenne. Over the years we have seen Linda from time to time including our visit to the Balloon fiesta in Albuquerque and when she comes to Denver for a dental conference.
Looking forward to finding more old friends!

Our first trip home 1972

2008-12-17T06:38:00.000-08:00

I never had to come home for medical care but I did experience a number of treatments for amoeba and was once hospitalized in Cebu for same. That one turned out to be lucky since David came down with Dengue fever on the first day I was there and ended up being put in the room next door for over a week! We did emergency leave about a month later to see his father who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. My worst culture shock was on that trip, August 1972:
   First: finding out that he was dying and ending up leaving with only a day's notice (it was decided to go home when he was still alive on a conference call from the PC office in Cebu, Manila, D.C. and Mom in Minnesota at the hospital)
   Second: leaving Tagbilaran on a DC3 and connecting with a Filipinas Orient Airways (now defunct) flight to Manila from Cebu, it was a dinner flight; there were no tray tables, just drink holders; the dinner was a hot dog and a glass of pineapple juice.
   Third: the flight back to the states on PAL (Philippine Air Lines) because NW (Northwest Orient Airways) was on strike; having SanMiguel (beer), pancit (noodles), chicken adobo (garlic chicken), and rice for the meal on the plane; landing in Hawaii to go thru customs at 2am, then landing in San Francisco.
  David, "Look at all the white people!"
  Arlene, "and all the black people!"
  D, "none of the girls are wearing bras!!!"
  A, "and all the tall people!"
Then walking along the concourse came a group of very tall black men in high heels and tall hats, I concluded that they were either a basketball team or a group of pimps. After overnighting in a motel near the airport we went back to catch our next flight. In the waiting area I saw a family(??) of people who looked like they had stepped off the pages of a 1950's "Archie" comic book. We boarded our flight to Denver on "Western Airlines, the only way to fly!" [do you remember their commercials with the bird on the tail drinking champagne?] Once we were airborne the stewardess asked us if we wanted a Bloody Mary or a Screwdriver before breakfast! which consisted of real eggs etc. and champagne over the Rockies!!
   Fourth: Jeanne, David's sister met us a the plane in Denver with her ex-husband. (We had only found out a few months earlier about her divorce.) Then we got on the Western Airlines puddle jumper to Sheridan.
   Take-off Denver; champagne;
   land Cheyenne take-off; champagne;
   land Casper take-off; champagne;
   land in Sheridan where we staggered off the plane to be met by David's dad, Harry. At that point, weighing in at 119 lbs. after the dengue, suffering from jet-lag and Western Airlines' champagne flights, David looked worse than his dad!
   Fifth: my next shock came when I went into a store to buy my favorite Peppermint Lifesavers (I had been addicted to them in college). The price had gone from 5 cents to 25 cents in the two years we had been gone!
   Sixth: We spent Labor-Day weekend up in the mountains with Jeannie, her ex, David's mom and dad and his aunt Leia. Another evening we went to a local bar with David's friend and someone played "Knock Three Times on the Ceiling if You Want Me" on the jukebox. It had been much overplayed on every cariendaria juke box in Davao and Bohol the previous year.
   Seventh: I flew by myself to Minnesota to see my new-born niece. Birth and Death was a very strange concept. It was great seeing my mother, sister, brother-in-law and other niece.
   Eighth: Then Harry flew back with us to Seattle to see his other sister for the last time.
   Ninth: just one week after our return we were in Cebu with a new Bohol PCV when we were stranded for several days with the beginning of Marcos' martial law
when he over-threw his own government. All-in-all, the whole incident was bizarre. I didn't have as much culture shock when we got to the RP or even when we went home two years later, after the end of our extension of 1 1/2 years and our trip around the rest of the world which took most of 1974.
   We traveled overland across Asia and into Europe, gradually returning to the industrialized West. After being there, where even tiny pieces of broken glass were sold for a few centavos to be sent back to the factory to be made into new glass, and math homework papers may end up being wrapped around the evening's fish for dinner, I saw lots of waste here and find it hard to not recycle or reuse things.
   Sometimes it seems that the 3 1/2 years spent in the Philippines was not part of this life but a dream. Then we went "home" to Davao and discovered our "family" and friends there and it seemed impossible that 29 years had passed since we were there the last time.

I am a PCVP and RPCV

2008-11-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

I am so proud. I am now no longer a PCTP (Peace Corps Trainee Parent) I am a PCVP (Peace Corps Volunteer Parent)! I am also an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer). Daughter Becca has started her PCV experience in Peskopi, Albania. She was sworn in June at a ceremony in Elbasan.
Her Dad and I were volunteers BK (before Kids) back when Peace Corps was still in it's first decade in the lovely country of the Philippines.
Becca is truly a 21st century volunteer.
We had a small portable typewriter and used carbon paper to send letters to our families back in the states. She took her laptop computer with her and is connected by dial-up to the internet. We get email letters from her and are able to read her blog. This morning I saw her latest update just minutes after she posted it.
We had to take a jeepney into town (half-hour ride) in Davao to make an international phone call from the phone company office (or the phone booth at the Apo View Hotel) and we really needed to make an appointment to do it. To make a call from our second site in Bohol, we had to take a 5 hour boat ride to Cebu City to make that call. Becca was given a cell phone by Peace Corps for security purposes. She can call us (an vice-versa) from that (of course international rates apply) I can send her a text message for only 15cents! I just got off the phone with her calling from her computer using Skype. That only costs her 2cents/minute to call our phone and will be free computer to computer when we get our Skype account!
I sent my film home to process and didn't even see some of my slides for 2 years. Now she has a cute little digital camera that she can upload photos from directly to her blog and her online photo album so we can see them almost immediately. Her camera even takes short video clips!

Getting Published

2008-10-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

I was honored to be asked to write about being a Peace Corps Volunteer for a book written by my friends Nora and Nestor Mercaco and Alok Sarwal. The book, "Voices from Colorado - Perspectives of Asian Pacific Americans" has the stories of many Asian Americans here. There were four RPCV's who served in the Philippines who were included in the book. My story "My Life in the Peace Corps - a Summary" was condensed for the book.
The release party was like year-book day at high school. People whose stories were in the book were collecting autographs from the others who were there.

Starting our jobs - Nov. 22, 1970

2008-08-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

November 22, 1970
Toril, Davao City, Philippines

Dear Folks,
We got a letter yesterday from you dated Oct. 20. the stamp in manila says it was received there Nov. 4. So it took 2 weeks to get to us from Peace Corps, Manila. It may have been in Davao at this other volunteer’s apt. for as much as a week though. We haven’t received any mail here yet through the post office. hopefully it will be faster than the Peace Corps Pouch system.l We got our ballots in yesterday’s batch too. We already know who won in Wyoming & mostly we would've voted that way. Part of the problem is that pouches go out from Manila to Regional offices only once or twice a week. Then from the regional office once a week - then here in Davao they are delivered to Sonya’s and we have to pick them up. And we didn’t even know where she lives until yesterday. She didn’t let us know that things were there. Our communication seems to be very poor here in Davao. We finally got part of our books - David’s package of 15 lbs. arrived but mine didn’t yet.
My job is in question for me - my principal has been transferred into another school & as far as I could tell there wasn’t even a job description for me with her. In other words - she requested volunteers but I don’t think she knew what she wanted them for. And now with a new man ---. There’s work to do - but I’m mad at Peace Corps - Sonya said that they told Manila not to send new Peace Corps to Davao City - there are six of us new. I think we’re all in marginal jobs - because not enough of us in our group dropped out from training. Only two of us have left from country as far as I know. Steve Wolf - the tall blond Cebuano from W. Virginia and Roy Schuab - one of the Tagalogs.
There was another typhoon in Luzon this week - one of the worst to hit Manila. New record for wind speed - 220 km/hr. the old record was 190 km/hr in the 1890’s. the Pope is coming this week. We get Friday off because he’ll be in manila. Thursday is Thanksgiving there - no holiday here but we’re having dinner Friday with some of the other volunteers nearby. Do you remember Judy Regan and Linda Mako - Tagalogs. Judy sang “Dahil Sayo” at the barrio fiesta. they were assigned in Davao. Also new in Davao is the Drinnen family. Dave & Helen have two children - 3 yrs & 1 yr. He is in math & she is in family planning. The girls have an apartment with a British volunteer, Maggie. There is another British volunteer in Davao and near here at Mt. Apo Science Foundation are two Americans in Volunteers in Asia, One British & two Japanese volunteers. They came down to a party last week.
Actually its not bad at all here - in Davao is a grocery store where we can buy Pillsbury Pancake Mix, Quaker Oatmeal, Jolly Time popcorn, Cream of Wheat. Patring buys and cooks vegetables and meat - cow & pork. For lunch & dinner we eat rice. For breakfast we usually have toast - David coffee & me cocoa. the only thing I really miss is milk - fresh milk. I mix evaporated & cocoa & sugar & pour in hot water. Not bad. We bought Raid & every week we kill several large cockroaches. We killed two last night. We have been adopted by a kitten but Patring says she sees a mouse under the stairs sometimes. We also have living with us more than a dozen Tikis, house lizards. They live on the ceiling eating bugs. Their feet have suction cups on the toes. The neighbors have chickens which roam through our yard - The rooster starts to crow - 4:30 - 5:00 - it’s usually cool then & we put the blankets on & go back to sleep. We usually get up around 6:00 - my school starts 6:45 but my 1st class isn’t till 7:30. David’s is at 7:50. Patring starts working at 5:30. Other neighbors keep goats & pigs - there is usually several tied up in the path. There are several dogs who hang around here too. Then there are the children. We are probably the only childless couple around this neighborhood & there are quite a few on the way, More later.
Love, Arlene & Dave

P.S. The name of the place for the material is Recreational Equipment Company, Seattle, Washington - Mrs. Lipman has our catalog in our room for the address - or phone book? They didn’t weigh our bags at Kennedy! A

Our House in Toril Nov. 9, 1970

2008-07-08T05:20:00.000-07:00

November 9, 1970
Toril, Davao City, Philippines
letter 2

Dear Folks,
We’re wondering how long it takes mail to get to you from Toril. Our jobs officially start Thursday - we’ve had a vacation before we’ve even started. I decided to keep a copy of most letters I write - to know what I’ve told each person. The last letter I wrote you - I copied mostly for the Lipmans, Delena & Jeanne - I used carbon for the girls - I’m just making one copy of this one - for me. Then if you don’t get a letter. I’ll know what you missed too.
We’ve been lazy - last Tuesday our helper arrived. She is a 16 year old farm girl - the cousin of the helper next door. Patring is going to spoil us. She markets, washes clothes & dishes, irons and cleans the house - she also cooks. Our house is a bungalow - which except for the windows - could be found in almost any suburb in the states. We have 2 small bedrooms, a living room & kitchen. There is no partition between the living room & kitchen but the stairs from the bedrooms separates them. The living room has a “sala” set consisting of 4 chairs & couch which is 3 chairs together, an a coffee table. The set is wooden. The owners left it and a dining table - 6 chairs & a wooden table with blue formica top. The kitchen has a sink-counter space & a cubby-hole for our stove which has 2 burners & a small broiler under one burner. We bought it with 2 full tanks of gas for P300 ( about $50) The kitchen will have running water as soon as the tank is put in. There are shelves & cabinets in the kitchen.
We bought a large ice chest (styrofoam) & we buy ice for P1 every day and a half. We might buy a refrig. for P700 - it would be almost new - repossessed. The new ones cost no less that P1700 for the smallest (4 cu. ft.)
The bedrooms: Ours now has a brand new double bed - we had built out of rattan & bamboo - much better than wood without mattress that we were using before it was finished. We use mats on it with sheets I had made. The owner also left an aparidor (wardrobe) and a single bed. There is a closet rod too. the aparidor has a mirror on the door & inside a place for some hanging clothes - & some shelves & 1 drawer that locks - The whole thing locks. The other bedroom only has the single bed, some boxes, & our ironing board. I bought a G.E. dry iron for P70 - 220 V. The rate this week is $1 = P6.75 - The only problem in that room is no electrical outlet. We have lights: 1 flor. tube each in liv. rm., kit & our bedroom. In the hall, bath & other bedroom there is 1 bulb each. We also have a porch with a flor.. tube & another light outside. there is an outlet on the porch, in the living room, kit & one in the bedroom. We can’t change any of the bulbs though because the ceiling is very high. The bathroom has a toilet, a faucet & a shower & barely enough room to turn in. [drawing] shower very small. The toilet flushes if you put one full bucket of water into the tank. The shower only works if it has just rained because the water is in a large rain tank outside. - More in next letter.
Love Arlene & Dave

Going to our assignment Oct. 25, 1970

2008-05-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

October 25, 1970
Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao, Philippines

Tomorrow to Davao - This is the house of our regional representative. We are going to be in the Santa Anna district of Davao City. Davao is the largest city in the world ( in area) but the central part is where we’ll be. First we were supposed to go to Leyte but at our school there in Pastrana there were 2 principals - one acting and one on leave. When the one on leave was supposed to return - the acting principal didn’t want to leave. There was another school but he is diabetic and needed to be near his wife’s cooking - so anyway - they got into a fight and one kicked the other while he was down - now it’s going to court and the supervisor said that it wasn’t a good idea to have new volunteers there.
Dumaguete was a beautiful place. We stayed in a guest house on the campus of Siliman University. We taught at least one class in the mornings and maybe observed one. In the afternoons we had informant work for 3 hours ( at P1.5/hr.) then lesson plans etc. Nan and I got identical sore throats but she got hers 2 days earlier. Anyway I missed teaching 3 days (one day would have been observing a seminar) I still don’t feel up to par. We’ve had 2 typhoons. The 1st did extensive damage in Luzon (Bikol region - E. Luzon) the 2nd formed in Davao Bay and crossed Mindanao. Both hit Dumaguete with good rain storms (like when the hurricane was in Louisiana) so it was pretty cool. The lights went out in Dumaguete for the 2nd. That was last Monday - I went to the seminar but it was canceled because of the flooding and no lights. We went to dinner the night before at the home of David’s informant. While we were there the rain came and their path flooded so we waited till the rain stopped and decided to wade out to the street. That was when the electricity was out so we had candles. It was really funny especially when one of the sons took a picture. Mr. Limpyado is a freelance photographer so we have prints from the occasion. My school was Looc elementary - 6th grade section 1. Looc is a barrio near the wharf - the slums - most people are squatters because the land belongs to the government because it used to be swamp. The children are beautiful - The last day we had a school wide U.N. day program 1 1/2 hours - then recess (mirienda for teachers) then my class had a 1 hour program for me. Some of the girls had safety pins holding their dresses together but they bought me a present - a purse fro Bohol. My teacher bought me a 4 meter piece of material - imitation Batik - black on orange - enough for a pants suit. The teachers haven’t been paid for a month because of a PAL (Philippine Air Lines) strike but she bought me a piece of material!
We bought a guitar in Cebu yesterday for P 58 (the current rate is P6.50/$1. It’s really pretty. We didn’t get the lens in Tokyo so we have $100 in the safe in Manila for a trip to Hong Kong. We did buy a short wave radio - 4 tracks.
October 29 No longer St. Anna district in Davao. We are now in our little house in Toril to be described in the next letter. It’s still part of Davao. We are fine except for my cold. You can write us in Toril, Davao City, Philippines.
Love, Arlene and Dave

In Service Training Oct. 7, 1970

2008-05-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

October 7, 1970
Tanjay, Negros Oriental, Philippines

Dear Folks,
We’re in Tanjay, Negros Oriental - above Dumaguete city - This is what is called a pre-assignment visit. Our hosts are a married couple who have just extended for another year. Jerry and Donna met here and have been married a year. They and a third volunteer, whom we haven’t met, live in a pair of Nipa huts - they don’t know of any others who live in them. They are built on stilts of bamboo with split bamboo floors and walls of nipa palm, the house is sewn together with rattan. The furniture is rattan except for a desk. The roof looks like thatching but the walls are like mats. The bed is split bamboo, the kitchen has a gas stove and an oven that is set on top of the stove for baking. The kitchen has a place for washing dishes and a rack for storing or drying. this is like a platform out the window but with bamboo bars. The other windows have sliding shutters like the walls. There is a small porch in front and in back there is a lean-to with a water seal toilet. A bath is taken there by pouring water over oneself.

Baking without an oven

2008-05-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

We had a two-burner propane stove in our houses when we were volunteers. Our stove was cool in that one of the burners turned to the side making the space below it work as a toaster or broiler. We put it on the counter top that was covered with a layer of dirt so that you could build a small charcoal fire there to cook with. They called this a "dirty kitchen". Some people also had a dirty kitchen outside. Our neighbor had a modern oven and I think that this is where we made the cookies one Christmas when we were give some "Care" flour. We made 7 batches of sugar cookies and threw a party for all the neighborhood kids with them.
We bought a box oven. It was a tin box with a door (glass in the door even). You set the box on top of the burner and it functioned as an oven. We baked bread and roasted a chicken in it. We just put the chicken into a bread pan to roast. There was a thermometer on the door. It worked really well for making bread.
Nang Tita (our Filipino mama) made bibingka (sticky rice cake) in her outside dirty kitchen. She spread the sweet rice cake into a cake pan. Then she put a piece of metal on top of the pan and put some charcoal on that, creating a sort of "Dutch oven". It worked pretty well.
Most of the time we just made meals that we cooked on top of the stove.

Learning Cebuano Second Lesson

2008-03-31T03:39:00.001-07:00

The second lesson was also a conversation between the two index fingers:

"Unsa kana?"

"Unsa, kini?"

"Oo."

"Pancit kini."

"Lami ba?"

"Oo, lami kaayo!"

So we learned how to ask, "What's that?" "What, this?" "Yes." and answer, "This is pancit (Filipino noodles)." "Does it taste good?" "Yes, it tastes very good!"

After that we knew the golden words, "What is that?" and our vocabulary lesson expanded as we asked our teacher about everything in the room.

Lessons continued with basic things like: man, woman, mother, father, child, grandmother, grandfather, under, over, to the side.

Elsa and the other Cebuano teacher wouldn't speak any English to us during classes. They would have us repeating sentences and we soon learned, "Usab." "Again."

By the time we finished and arrived in Dumaguete for in-country training, we could actually ask for directions and even teach a short lesson in our subjects. It is very empowering to be able to get around without speaking English!

Learning Cebuano

2008-03-30T04:29:00.001-07:00

I remember the first lesson we had in Cebuano. Our teacher, Elsa Yap, stood at the front of the classroom and using her two index fingers, proceeded to have a conversation between them.

First finger, "Maayong buntag." Second finger replies, "Maayong buntag sub." First, "Kumusta Ka?" Second, "Maayo, ug Ikaw?" First, "Maayo pud."

We then broke into pairs and repeated the conversation between ourselves until we could say it in our sleep. (and lo, these many years later!) She never talked in English to us, and never told us what she was saying. We had to absorb the words and guess the meanings. Later that lesson she drew a clock face on the board and pointed to 8am and said, "buntag". Pointing to 12 o'clock, she said, "udto." 2 o'clock was "hapoon." 6 o'clock brought, "gabii." We then knew how to say, "good morning, good noon or lunchtime, good afternoon and good evening!" The rest of the conversation was "How are you?" "Good, and you?" "Good also."

Our Life in the Peace Corps - a summary

2008-03-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

When I heard about Peace Corps, I was a high school student. I remember seeing the Life magazine articles about the rigors that the volunteers went through in their training. I read the book “Ugly American” and thought that it was just wrong the way some people acted when they were overseas. I really didn’t think about joining the Peace Corps until I met and married David Lipman. He wanted to apply, so after much discussion, we applied. We finally heard that we had been accepted in February 1970. I was on top of a mountain studying snow flakes when I learned we would be going to the Philippines. Where is the Philippines? I discovered that this Asian country is made up of over 7000 islands. I found out that one of my friends a the University of Wyoming was actually from the Philippines. She told me about her country.

TRAINING
We packed up our apartment, visited our families and left for training in Saxons River, Vermont! This small New England village was very different from the Philippines in climate but similar to a barrio or town in the Philippines in make-up. After spending over 300 hours learning Cebuano, the language of the central islands, and almost as much learning how use modern teaching methods and cross-cultural studies, we were declared ready to leave the chilly East coast and go to the warm tropical Far East. We got on a 747 in New York in September and after traveling 36 hours (an overnight stop over in Japan) we got off the plane in Manila. It was like walking into a wet sponge. The air seemed very heavy and damp. A few days in Manila then back on a plane to go to Dumagette for some in-country training. More language training, some classroom training and a visit to some volunteers living in a nipa hut further prepared us for our assignments.

TORIL, DAVAO CITY
We were assigned to Toril, Davao City. There are two school districts in Toril. David would be working with science teachers in Dalao district and I was working with math teachers in Piedad district. We were introduced to a family that had a small house to rent and we settled in to life in Toril. Toril is like a suburb to the main city of Davao, but still part of the city. It is 18 kilometers south of the center of the city. (how many miles is that? I never really think about the conversions - I just know it was 30 minutes by jeepney). Toril had a daily market with fresh meat, fish and chicken as well as fruits, vegetables and rice. 20,000 people were considered residents of the district of Toril. The various barrios (now they are called barangays) ranged from sea front villages to villages up near the top of Mt. Apo which is the tallest mountain in the country and a dormant volcano (not dead, just hasn’t erupted in 800 years). Our school districts went from the central schools to small primary schools on the mountain. We soon became close to our “family” of Juanito, a banker his wife Christita (we called her Nang-Tita, a Cebuano title for an honored woman) a school teacher and their 7 sons and daughters. Nang-Tita called us her “American son and daughter”! Juanito's extended family included a total of 15 siblings and their families. We were included in social activities by them and many other new friends from our schools. We soon added a helper to our household, a high school girl who did laundry, marketing and house cleaning. Patring ended up living with us the whole time we were in the country. A couple of dogs and cats completed our house.

The first Christmas we stayed in Toril. All of the teachers from my school received a bag of flour from the US charity, CARE. We felt a little guilty about receiving one of the bags so we made cookies. On of our neighbors brought over a record player and a case of soft drinks and we had a Christmas party for all the kids in the neighborhood!

The second December we had a science conference in Manila, then we went north to Baguio City and on to Bontoc. We then journeyed up to Tuguegarao for the wedding of another Peace Corps volunteer and one of the language instructors. We joked that while other PCV’s were having a circle trip of SouthEast Asia, we had a circle tour of Northern Luzon. We also visited the famed Banaue rice terraces and had several exciting rides on the local buses.

TAGBILARAN CITY, BOHOL
After our first two years, we extended our Peace Corps tour by accepting a new assignment in the province of Bohol. We moved to Tagbilaran City with Patring, as well as our dog and one of our cats. We made quite a picture traveling deck class on a boat that rounded Eastern Mindanao and landed in Cebu. Then another boat ride took us to Tagbilaran. We made many new friends there and were accepted into several local families. There we worked with the math-science supervisor for the school division that made up the entire island. We ended up doing a training project that gave every one of the elementary school teachers (5000 of them) a week long seminar in methods of teaching modern math and another one in process approach science. During this year and a half process we traveled to most of the towns on the island. (Bohol is 12 hours in circumference by provincial bus!) Several of the towns involved traveling by “pump-boat”. Cebu city was just a 5 hour boat ride away, so many weekends we took the Friday night boat, arriving there early in the morning. We would visit the Peace Corps regional office, run errands which might include making stencils for running off materials on the Gestenter printer we had back in Bohol. We would usually see some of the other volunteers there or go to a movie before taking the Saturday evening or Sunday morning boat back. We were on one of these jaunts to Cebu when President Marcos overthrew his own government and declared martial law. We stayed at the home of the US Consul for several days before being able to return to Bohol. Martial law did not change our lives very much. Our friend the Philippine Constabulary commander offered us curfew passes but really, what was there to do in Tagbilaran between midnight and 4 AM anyway?

GOING HOME ON EMERGENCY LEAVE
While living in Bohol we learned that David’s father had terminal cancer. So, after a conference call between David at the regional office in Cebu; the Peace Corps office in Manila; the Peace Corps Philippines desk in Washington, D.C.; and David’s mother who was called at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where Pop was being treated; it was decided that we would go home on “emergency leave” while he was still alive rather than waiting to go to the funeral. We left less than a week later. Looking back on it, I don’t feel like I had “culture shock” when I went to the Philippines, but I had it coming back to the States on that trip. We had both been sick the month before and David had lost a lot of weight after his bout with Dengue fever. He had been in the hospital in Cebu for a week. I had had an attack of Amoebic dysentery at the same time, so we were both a little rocky. We flew over to Cebu on the DC-3 that went on the Tagbilaran to Cebu trip. Then we the dinner flight to Manila had a hot dog and a glass of pineapple juice for the meal. We were put on a Philippine Airlines flight from there. Of course the food was Filipino and the plane was full of brown, shorter Filipinos. Going thru customs in Honolulu at 2 AM was a trip. We landed in San Francisco towards evening. I remember David saying, "None of the women are wearing bras." and then he said, “Look at all the white people!” And I added, “and all the black people.” We then saw a group of very tall black men wearing heeled boots with large hair and hats. I remember thinking that they were either a group of pimps or a basketball team! (remember that this was in 1972) After overnighting in a motel near the airport, we got onto a Western Airlines plane to Denver. Before taking off the flight attendant asked us if we wanted a Bloody Mary or Screwdriver before breakfast! Then they served real eggs. After breakfast they served champagne while flying over the Rockies (their slogan on their champagne flights was “the only way to fly”). We landed in Denver where we were met by David’s sister, Jeanne. She had gotten a divorce the year before. Accompanying her was her ex-husband. It was very strange. Then we took off for Sheridan, also on Western airlines. We went Denver - champagne - Cheyenne; Cheyenne - champagne -Casper; Casper - champagne - Sheridan! Meeting us as we staggered off the plane in Sheridan was David’s dad who looked better than David did by that time. I discovered that the price of my favorite LifeSavers had gone from 5¢ to 25¢ during the two years we had been gone! I saw the waste that every family produced here in America. In the Philippines we had seen some extreme recycling. One day our fish was wrapped in our neighbors child’s math test! Children in our neighborhood would pick up shards of glass and sell them by the kilo to the glass recycler who sent barrels over to the glass plant to be made into new bottles. It was very strange to interact with my sick father-in-law and then to go to Minneapolis to meet my new baby niece. It reminded me of the start of the “Ben Casey” TV show - “birth - death - male - female - eternity”. David and his Dad decided that we would return to the Philippines and finish our project. He also told us to “take the trip” that we were planning, to see more of the world on our way home when we left the Peace Corps.

HOME LEAVE
We returned to Bohol and our seminars. That Christmas we went home again for our “home leave” that had been planned when we extended our Peace Corps service. We got stuck in a blizzard in New York while seeing my parents. We stopped off to see my sister and family and then went back to Wyoming for New Year’s eve with David’s family. Luckily his Dad was still around so we had a nice last visit with him. We had hoped to ski while home but the weather was unseasonably cold - below zero the whole time we were there. Then back to Bohol to continue with the training. Each week we would each travel to 4 or 5 of the towns in the province where the seminars were being led by our “core teachers” that we had trained.

MORE BOHOL
That year in Bohol we attended two more weddings with PCV females and their Filipino husbands. We had a group of health volunteers and another education volunteer assigned to Bohol then so we were able to visit some of them when we went around the island. One month there were some US Army rangers who were doing a training exercise in Bohol. We organized a volleyball game between some of the soldiers and PCV’s. We called it “War and Peace”! David’s father did die that May and we did not go home then. David’s Aunt came to visit us that fall so we used some of our vacation time and took a circle tour of South East Asia with her. After one last Christmas in the Philippines we packed up our household things that we wanted to take home. We shipped two large crates back to Wyoming and checked out of the Peace Corps in Manila. After a final visit “home” to Toril we flew to Hong Kong to start our trip the rest of the way around the world with our back packs and our cameras.

FILIPINOS IN DENVER
Looking back on the 3 1/2 years we lived in the Philippines, I know that it has shaped the rest of my life. I feel like Toril and Tagbilaran are as much my “home towns” as Laramie, Bountiful and Hickman Mills are, where I lived when I was younger. I have Filipino things decorating my house. During the job that I found when we first arrived in Denver, I met a man who had brown skin and talked with a “Filipino-English” accent. I said something to him in Cebuano and he answered me! So I found Ralph Acosta and he introduced us to the Filipino American Community of Colorado. FACC has become our Filipino family here in Denver. I love going to club meetings where I can still talk Cebuano and eat some of my favorite foods like lumpia and pancit. The ladies gave me my baby shower before my daughter Rachael was born and both my girls have grown up in the community. Rach thought that she was a Filipina when she was little and Becca is proud of her connections to the group. Some of our friends joke that we are reverse coconuts, white on the outside and brown on the inside. I sing in the FACC- Mano Po choir and have learned to play the banduria to be part of the Rondalla. I am proud that David and I are now Life Members of the FACC.

VISITING AFTER MANY YEARS
Sometimes it seems like Peace Corps was another wholelife. We live life in stages and that was one, a very important one, but a 5 year interlude between my college life and my married life with children. I look back on my time in-country as a mostly wonderful time. There were some difficulties but for most of them I can look back and laugh. In 2002 we joined the Uplift Internationale medical mission and returned to the Philippines after 28 years. We were able to go “home” to Bohol on that trip and found some of our friends there. It was bittersweet to see a close friend dying of kidney failure and to see other friends celebrating their 50th anniversary. The next year we went on the mission a second time and this time visited our Toril home. Taking a jeepney from the city out to Toril I asked a tricycle driver if he knew our Nang-Tita. He dropped us off in front of the alley that goes back to her house. Some women were coming out of a store next to it so I asked (in my best Cebuano) where the her house was. One of the women said, “Arlene is that you?!” It was one of our little sisters, Joyce, all grown up. She had been a teenager when we left. We then all piled into a tricycle to go to her sister’s house where we found Nang-Tita sitting in the front yard. Joyce went thru the gate and said, “Ma, we got company.” Nang-Tita dropped her crochet and gave us both a huge hug. After she finally let go, she said to the children and men who were playing mahjong under a tree in the yard, “Kids, come and say hello to your Uncle David and Aunt Arlene!” (I know they were thinking, “Who are these people?”) We also were able to reconnect with several other friends in Toril including Patring who had lived with us. She had become a midwife after we left. I sometimes wondered if we really had made any difference.

Last year when a group came to Denver from Cebu I met the superintendent of the Mandaue schools. She asked if I was the Arlene Lipman who had been the Peace Corps Volunteer in Bohol. I found a photo of the seminar she had attended as a young teacher with me as the PCV in the front row and her among all the teachers. I asked her if it had been useful. She said it had been good. It was nice getting validation 30 years later!

DAUGHTERS
Another indication that we have done something right is the fact that both our daughters studied International Relations in college after completing High School in the Center for International Studies magnet program. Rachael met her husband during her sophomore year studies in Jerusalem and Rebecca received her Master's Degree from DU. Rebecca is leaving in 2 weeks for her own service as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I summary: We spent 3 1/2 years in the Philippines as a Peace Corps Volunteer. When we came to live here in Denver, we found and became members of a wonderful Filipino community. This is my life.

Of girls and dogs and cats

2008-03-04T13:22:00.000-08:00

Toril and Patring
We then departed for Mindanao and Davao City. We were to live in Toril, the southern unit of the city. Toril is more like a town of it’s own, a suburb 18 kilometers south of the city proper, but still in the city limits. (we learned that Davao is the world’s largest city by area, including the peak of Mt. Apo - tallest mountain. in the country - within the city limits) Host country folks had found us a little bungalow to rent - three rooms. I thought we would be in a nipa hut! Our house had two bedrooms, a closet bath and a “great room” of living room with kitchen area at one end. We even had electricity! We bought a bed made from fishing line strung in a web on a bamboo frame. We hung a yellow mosquito net from the poles on the corners. For a mattress we had a woven banig mat. I tucked a sheet over the banig and then we tucked in the net under the mat. The bath consisted of a room the width of a toilet seat with room to swing the door open before it hit the toilet. The shower and the faucet below it were connected to a roof fed water tank in the back. There was only enough pressure to really shower if the tank was full after a rain, then the water was cold! We heated water to pour into the bucket, then took can showers from that.
After only a few days there, we told a neighbor (our landlord’s sister) that we were thinking about getting a labenderra (someone to wash the clothes). The next morning she told us that she had found us a “helper” but she couldn’t start till the 2nd, two days away! What to do? We had been told that we should have “SIP” smooth interpersonal relationships and not rock the boat - how did we say that we hadn’t decided yet? So we decided to give it a try. Patring arrived, she would be staying next door where her cousin was going to be the maid, and would work for us. She was 16 and attending high school in the evenings in Toril. She lived in a barrio up the mountain (Toril was actually near the base of Mt. Apo) so going home after school was sometimes a problem as the last jeepney (a local method of transportation) sometimes went earlier than she could go. She did the laundry in a tub behind the house using water from the tank then hung the clothes up to dry on a line in the back yard. Patring also cleaned the house and did marketing and some of the cooking. For this we paid her 30 Pesos per month (about $5). This was a little more than average for a “helper”. She paid her tuition out of that. I was happy to let her do the marketing, I really don’t like looking dinner in the face and have a hard time buying fish that are looking at me, or beef cut from a haunch hanging from a hook. After a month her cousin was no longer working next door so Patring asked if she could move into the other bedroom. During the 2 years we lived there the next door neighbor went thru probably 18 maids but Patring stayed with us the whole time.

Pochontis
One day Patring was very upset. She kept saying, “Ang polo ni sir!” (David’s shirt) Someone had climbed over the fence in the back and taken two shirts from the clothes line. She was certain that she would get fired for allowing that to happen. We just asked the landlord to move a clothes line to the front where it could be watched more easily from the front room. That weekend Patring went home to the barrio and came back the next day with a “watch dog”. We decided to name her Pocahontis, since she would be the “American’s dog”. We called her Pokie for short. Pokie turned out to be an unfortunate name which caused snickers among our friends. When asked to explain, Nang Tita said something about flowers and boxes. A list of “green words” that was distributed to agricultural PVC’s later explained the problem. Pokie was a slang term for a part of the female anatomy! A cowrie shell is also called “pokie” for it’s resemblance to the same part. By the time we found out the real meaning, it was too late, Pokie knew her name, and Patring said that we said it with the accent on a different syllable. So Pokie she stayed.
Pokie had been the runt of the litter and could be held in two hands. She soon grew up to a fine looking dog, about the size of a terrier. People thought she was an “American” dog because she was so healthy looking. Philippine dogs were usually watch dogs, not pets.

Alcindor
One evening we decided to go to the movies in town but on the way to the highway to catch a jeepney, there was a lot of yelling by our neighbor’s house. A neighborhood boy had been throwing rocks at on of Juanito’s dogs. (they were named Chamberlain and Alcindor for the American basketball stars) Alcindor didn’t like being tormented so he bit the boy. Philippine dogs aren’t usually vaccinated against rabies so that was a concern. We helped by catching the dog and tying him up with Pokie’s leash. Then in my best Cebuano, I told the kids of the family that we needed to keep him tied up to watch for rabies. David got our Peace Corps first aid kit and cleaned the boys bites and treated them with merthaolite and bandaids. I then told the boy’s mother that he should get a shot for tetanus so he wouldn’t get lockjaw. I was quite proud of myself for all the talk in Cebuano. We slept late the next morning since it was Saturday. When we ventured out we discovered the “rest of the story”, the mother had gotten the boy a shot from our neighbor, a doctor, then taken him to a “mananambal”, a local herbal doctor who chastised her for letting us clean the bite. He then proceeded to slap a poultice of mud and who knows what else on it. Juanito hadn’t heard what I had said about watching Alcindor for signs of rabies so he gave the doomed dog to his cousin who proceeded to make a stew out of him. I lost my cool! Juanito was educated, the brother of two doctors, and the dog was cooked! They tried to reassure me that Alcindor had also bitten his litter mate (a pregnant bitch the doctor owned) but that day I did not have any “smooth interpersonal relationships” like the Peace Corps training preached.

Makililimos
Pokie wasn’t our only dog in Toril. “Maki” showed up at the back door, begging for food. He was licking up water from the kitchen run-off . Patring felt sorry for the puppy so she started feeding him some of the leftover rice and fish we had. Each evening he would stay outside when we closed the doors. One night he looked at me with big brown eyes as if to say, “Can I stay in?” I told him, “Okay, but if you want to go out and wake me up, that will be it.” He stayed the night and from then on we had two dogs. We named him Makililimos which means beggar in Cebuano. We called him Maki for short. Poor Maki was clearly besotted with Pokie. She wouldn’t have anything to do with any of the dogs in the neighborhood, including Maki. Maki grew healthy with Patring’s “dog food”. He thought he was a lap dog even when he outgrew my lap. He would hop on the settee with me and drape himself over my lap. Again, a Friday evening in town to see the American movies at one of the five nicer theaters in the city. Coming home only Pokie was there on the porch to greet us. We called for Maki but he didn’t come. The next morning, he still wasn’t home so I started to walk around the neighborhood asking people if they had seen them. Most said, “Geihaw segurio!” to the question. “Probably eaten!” Now, I don’t have anything to say about people eating dog. It is a Filipino custom in certain areas and tribes. And Filipino’s have a different outlook about dogs. But this was my dog they were nervously chuckling about. And it looked like someone might have taken him. Only one person said she was sorry about the lost dog. I hoped that Maki bit the guy who took him! Months later Patring told us her brother had heard some young men had indeed taken him. He didn’t want to tell us because he was afraid that David would do something rash, but then the guy was killed in a knife fight in a local bar so then wanted us to know.

Tabian and Aswan
We had another pet in Toril, a cat we named Tabian, meaning talkative. She seemed to own our house, she just let us live there. She kept it free from mice and when she had kittens, they were distributed to neighbors who needed mousers also. We kept one of the kittens that we named Aswan, meaning witch. They would play hockey on the kitchen floor with the giant cockroaches we would get. Nothing would kill the cockroaches, not even a direct spray with “Raid” ! The other animals in the house weren’t pets but a source of entertainment since we didn’t have TV. They were the little suction-footed “tiki” lizards that lived on the ceiling. We liked them because they ate mosquitos. The tiki were called that because of the sound they made “tiki, tiki”. About 4 inches long, they were territorial, and would get into standoffs over prime ceiling space, the best being near the light which would attract other bugs - “yum-dinner”. Sometimes we would bet on them like a prize fight. David was convinced that one of them liked him because it would position itself on the ceiling when he was reading on the settee and then drop down upon his head. It would sit there for a little while then scamper from his shoulder to the wall and back to the ceiling.

Moving
After two years in Toril, we heard that there weren’t enough volunteers for the requests they had in the new education group. So we asked Peace Corps if we could extend into one of the new spots. The regional rep told us about several that wanted two volunteers in math and science so we decided to check out the assignment in Bohol, a Cebuano speaking island to the north of Mindanao. After talking to the math-science supervisor we decided to extend our stay as Peace Corps volunteers. We told Patring’s father that if she wanted to come with us we would like to have her. He left it up to her. He was originally from Bohol, so she had and uncle and cousins there. We had to consult the vet in Davao about taking Pokie with us. We moved on a boat, packing up our stuff into a shipping crate that was made for us. We had Patring, Pokie, and Aswan with us. Tabian, after all, owned the house so she stayed with it. The boat was 18 hours to the next port of call. Pokie wouldn’t use the newspaper we had put on the deck for her, so we were the first down the gang plank when it went down. We had to stay in a hotel for several days in Cebu city before going to Bohol so we found some canned dog food in a grocery store. She wouldn’t eat it. We had to bring back “doggie bags” from eating out for her. We took another boat across to Bohol with everyone and settled into our new home, the second floor of a wooden house near the pier. We even got the landlord to put up a fence around our small yard so that we could leave the doors open for Pokie while Patring was home.
Pokie liked to show people that she was the “watch dog”. She would bark at visitors and nip at their feet until we told her to stop. One day we had several PCV friends who came calling. Pokie started her routine but Bryan stomped at her and she fled into the kitchen. After a while she ventured back into the living room when a second PCV arrived. He was of Filipino heritage so didn’t look white to her (I don’t know if that made a difference anyway) so she started her routine again and Mike stomped at her too! She ran thru the kitchen and down the back stairs. She didn’t come back in for quite a while.

The Rat and the Tom cat
One day I went into the kitchen where I found a large rat on the sink. It was eating the cat’s food that we put up there so that Pokie wouldn’t eat it all. I went back into the living room where I picked up the sleeping cat and put her into the kitchen. I said, “see the rat, cat!” She looked at me and meowed, “That rat is bigger than me, sorry!” and ran back into the living room. So then I grabbed Pokie by the collor and pushed her into the kitchen. She growled but said to me, “I don’t do rats!” and went back into the living room. I then woke up David who was napping on the couch. He looked into the kitchen and said, “What do you want me to do?” and threw a tsinella (flip-flop) at it. The rat just looked at us and laughed! We got the landlord to put up a screen around the sink area (it was open to the roof of the stairs with just slats around it) but the rat would come in under the door. Remember this is the tropics so houses aren’t built to keep out the cold. There was a gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. We then saw that Aswan had a Tom Cat calling on her. David encouraged him with bits of chicken he would leave on the step. One afternoon, soon after, the rat was in the kitchen, the Tom was creeping up the stairs, we heard a yowl and a scuffle. No more rat. Yeah, Tom Cat!!

Leaving
We stayed in Bohol for 18 months till our project was done. We had given one-week seminars to all of the elementary teachers in the province. Patring would stay at home with Pokie while we would go to visit each of the towns where the seminars were being given. When we got ready to go home, Patring told us that she wanted to take Pokie home to her barrio in Davao but “Is there birth control for dogs?” she asked. She knew that barrio dogs would have litter after litter and would end up skinny with dragging tits, not a pretty picture. She knew that we were using birth control because people would ask us why we didn’t have kids yet and that is the answer we would give. We took Pokie on a boat back to Cebu to a vet who could spay her. It cost us 100 pesos but was worth it. Going home to Davao, Patring and Pokie flew. The cat stayed in Bohol. Patring had become not just a helper but a friend, almost like a younger sister.
Patring finished her high school and took a course in tailoring. She decided that that wasn’t what she wanted so she went to a two year college in agriculture. Then she decided to study some more and became a midwife. Pokie lived out her life in the barrio with Patring’s family. Visiting Toril after 28 years, we took a tricycle to the barrio and found Patring living with her husband and child, a shingle hanging out in front, “Laying In - Patricia Igono - Midwife” A photo of the three of us was in her front room! She said, “Mam Arlene, you didn’t forget me” as we hugged.

Joining the Peace Corps in 1970

2008-03-04T12:16:00.001-08:00

When we found out that we were going to the Philippines, I didn’t know what to think. Where was the Philippines? So we went off to training in Saxon’s River, Vermont, actually closer to being similar to a Filipino barrio than you think. We spent two months there learning Cebuano, a language of the central Philippines; our subject areas, math and science; and “cross-cultural” training. We had one more month in Lake Spofford, New Hampshire to do some practice teaching and then flew from New York to Manilla. September in New England is not warm. September in Manilla is not cool! Coming off the plane in Manilla, a wave of superheated, moist air hit us, I could barely breathe. We went to Dumagette on Negros to Silliman University for more training. A few day’s stay in a nipa hut with some volunteers was nice. A “baguio” (typhoon) was wet.