More fun in the Philippines

After precisely 240 days in the Philippines, we left (whop). Happy to have made some great discoveries during this page of our life and to have achieved most, if not all, of what we planned from the distant city of London. We are now on our way to the Japanese megalopolis and a few weeks of well-deserved holidays before the coming New Year. Before turning to the next page I would like to share a few feelings about my short-term adopted country and our time there.

First, there was the initial reason to come to the country, the Hunter-Gatherers Resilience Project. I so glad to have been a part of it. As it was spoken of in length on this blog, I won’t go into more details now and simply write how thankful I am to Dr A. Migliano, head of the project, to have trusted and welcomed me into the team.

So to the Philippines itself: I must say that the tropical weather has its good and bad. Good in that there’s no need to have such a place as inside as the temperature means one wear a T-shirt all year round. But the rains are here the strongest I ever witnessed and far outdo anything in Europe. Rivers can spring to life in a matter of hours and the winds break trees. Despite those little inconveniences, I now understand why half of the animals of the planet live in such conditions.

The people of the Philippines are of a kindness I never saw before. Not only is everyone jovial, helpful and relaxed, but also ready to go out of their way to transform a bad situation into a better one.  In the remote town of Palanan, this is even truer. Of course, at first everyone stared blankly at us when we arrived, but after the novelty passed we are still always greeted. Usually, when I get hailed in the street, it is to try and sell me something, a reproach or threat. Here, when I get called at it is because people just want to chat. From the kids who always ask my name and proudly practice their English skills, to the shoppers who are always curious about our plans and work with the Agta, I had many impromptu discussions. The only time I saw something similar was the smallest village in the centre of France. Having lived here for years, my grandmother knew everyone and everyone knew her.  It looked like a little bit of paradise when I first went there. I wonder and hope to be able to live in such a place in the future. 

Yet while people are like super nice here, the culture just doesn’t feel the same. I am unsure if this is because of the Americanisation of the country, but sometimes I have the feeling I fell into the movie “Idiocracy”. Many things from TV shows or ads are sometimes beyond words, like mocking some Americanism which was already a joke itself. Good example is the cultural slogan seen everywhere in the country: It is more fun in the Philippines.  Fast-food, big corporations, super shopping malls rule here. It’s all about customer service, except when you have five sale assistants stalking you trying to pre-empt everything, then it’s just, overwhelming.   But well, at least these titbits are unexpected and always make us laugh.

Motto

Welcome to the Hotel Sofia

Speaking of a chocolate-filled bun

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The food…. Well Filipinos love their food. It plays a very important role in their culture (actually I am sure this is the case in all cultures). If you walk pass anyone eating you’re told “let’s eat” as sharing food with anyone without is really fundamental here. However, the food itself… I think the best way to explain the Filipino palate is, deadly sweet. Sugar reigns supreme here, often in savoury foods. Having a sweet sausage was a first for us.  Sadly, with the rapid development of the country I won’t be surprised if the next major health crisis will be obesity and diabetes. The love of processed foods here is astounding. But after 8 months I must admit that Abbey eats rice like a Filipina, which means lots of it, all the time.  Even through almost every hector of land here is devoted to rice the country still has to import it. Seriously, that much rice.

As many wondered, I guess the thing I miss the most here, despite you know, people, is the outlook for the coming times. Since my earliest memories I have always been looking forward to the future, the invention of new technologies, the developments of art and to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world. All of this had very little place during my stay, except for the short periods of time where I was able to access a decent speed Internet, which means nearly never.

Speaking of what comes next, we will continue writing here about our travels, all the way home. After this, and as I enjoyed the experience very much this year, I plan to carry on blogging about technologies, music, photography and product/business ideas I come up with. Abbey has plans to start a cooking blog with a tasty meal per week (not to fulfil gender stereotypes or anything).

 Stay tuned and do not hesitate to ask us anything.

Love to all,

Wasabi.