Green Christmas Reality

A few weeks back (Sept 1^st to be exact) a Filipina friend received a text message that made her laugh because it ended with “Merry Christmas”. When she showed me the text and explained that Christmas starts early in the Philippines my jaw may have unhinged.

For a bit of background: I am one of those people who celebrate Festivus as a joke, I do not listen to the radio from Thanksgiving to New Years, and (consequentially) I give the worst presents. In short I do not like Christmas; in fact I think my room 101 would consist of Christmas songs on loop, Three Laws incompatible robotic snowmen, and only okra to eat.

Back to the story: I thought she was joking. I even dismissed the fact that everyone started talking about the SunPower Christmas party: where it would be held, what they would wear, and who they would be bringing. It should have tipped me off that no one discussed if they were going to show up. Now there is nothing I can do to avoid the inevitable; this morning I heard the first Christmas song on the radio. The absurdity of it all is that I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas and Jingle Bells (which is about a sleighing accident) enjoy a fair share of the rotation. And it isn’t the standard “one song an hour” rotation most radio stations throw into their program you hear back state side. Here they go for the full blown 100% Christmas songs on select radio stations. Granted it’s only a few but the disease will spread until my only respite will be blasting my iPod ‘til my eardrums bleed.

My hell is here. Bring on the snowmen and the okra!

A Drug Story

Buying drugs here in the Philippines makes for yet another interesting experience. Sorry kids, I’m only talking about the over-the-counter variety. To start off, “over-the-counter” has a connotation that implies simplicity and quick turnaround that must be ignored in this country. Everything for sale in a typical drug store is available only by asking a pharmacist: including some shampoos, skin care products, and anything with a medical warning label (which is basically everything in the states). That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for a few other small facts.

Pharmacists here know nothing about their own trade. I seem to know more about drugs that they do just because I have an aspiring pharmacist as a friend. The Filipina pharmacist I spoke to couldn’t tell me if a certain pain medication contained caffeine, what the side effects are, or even how to take it. Wikipedia would have been helpful had I had a laptop, wireless connection, and half an hour to kill reading about the history of Tylenol, the Tylenol Crisis of 1982, and the copycat murder phenomenon.

There are no brand names. None: and that tends to make things difficult. You only get blank stares when you ask for Advil, Tylenol, Sudafed, Dramamine, or any other name brand that has managed to replace the drug’s name in conversational English. Suddenly, a trip to the drug store becomes a puzzle: what is name of the main ingredient in the drug I need?

Nothing can be sold in bulk. I’m not sure if it’s a legal problem or a cultural difference. But if you ask for a box of medicine all you get is the deer-in-the-headlights look. That looks basically means you’ve asked for something impossible but they can’t refuse. So what do the respond with? “Yes, sir.” The Philippines is the only country in the world where “yes, sir” means “there is a problem”.

Lessons learned in Puerto Galera

It seems as if I can’t go anywhere in the Philippines without learning something new. As stated before, each trip has a theme and the only one that fits my last weekend would have to be “exotic nightlife”. Of course that will tie into a few of the lessons learned:

- Are you craving a certain ethnic food? Filipino imitations are never quite the same but all you have to do is find the dive resort owned by an ex-pat from that region. Last weekend was spent at the German dive resort.

- German resorts do not cater well to vegetarians.

- Turtles sleep on the bottom of the ocean. This falls under the category of things you read about but never fully comprehend until seen. How do they manage? I know while conscious one breath of air gives them about an hour or so bottom time. Using conservative estimates that might give them 3 hour cat naps… can that be right? Basically boils down to the fact that you can never hit the snooze button.

- Cuttlefish are one of the most amazing invertebrates I’ve ever seen. Octopus seem ungainly next to the smooth flowing cuttlefish underway. In addition they can change both their color and surface texture! (That last point made my material science spidey-sence go insane.) Ever seen an animal swim over various colored sands below all-the-while mimicking the dynamic dappling effect of sunlight striking the water surface above? I have; I was astounded. Move aside octopocalypse, here comes the cuttlypse!

- One can empty an entire bottle of air just watching a sleeping turtle and a pair of cuttlefish.

- Never get lost on your way back to your hotel.

- If you do get lost, do not walk back and forth past the same group of sex workers looking for the hotel; they will take it as a sign of interest, inhibition, or indecision. Worse, they may understand it to mean all three.

(Sorry, no pictures this trip; all the worthwhile pictures were underwater and I’m still in the process of building a water tight housing for my camera.)

Edit: I lied, one picture was taken:

You can't quite see it but behind me, my co-worker Albert, the lovely curtains, and the boat's outriggers is the South China Sea. On a side note, I think I need those curtains for my new apartment.

The signs

Road signs in the Philippines are always helpful to add humor to yet another day at the office, especially when you drive past them twice daily. Sadly I have no pictures of a majority of these so no screaming “screen cap or it didn’t happen”. For the record these all exist and are official road signs (no cardboard cutouts). Enjoy!

Strictly No
Drag Racing

You are now entering
a traffic discipline zone.
Obey all traffic regulations

Avoid Accident
Drive Defensively

Driving on the Shoulder
Fine: 500P ($10)

Now entering the Skyway
Strictly No Pedestrians, Trikes,
Bicycles, Animal-drawn Vehicles,
Push-carts, Tanks,
and Dilapidated Vehicles.

Men at Working

Exit Alabang Only This Lane
No Swerving

Death to Drug Dealers

Boracay

Weekend trips here are usually given a two or three word theme, such as “Local experience”, “malaria epidemic”, or “Do we have to leave?”. Last weekend was our tropical paradise vacation on a southern island called Boracay.

From the hotel balcony.

It all started with a 5am drive to the airport, a short flight south, a trike ride (think of a motorcycle with a sidecar), a quick bamboo ferry ride, and one final trike ride to the hotel. All told the trip took about 4 hours and we were there for breakfast. The island of Boracay is basically two long parallel beaches joined at the ends by short volcanic cliffs. Each beach has a row of shops, restaurants and hotels, which at high tide are about twenty feet from the waves. Vendors selling watches, sunglasses, shells, tattoos, and massages, wander back and forth along the one dimensional town politely offering their wares.

Two hotels on the beach

I went on two dives off the coast over small coral gardens; nothing too challenging but stunningly beautiful none-the-less. If I name every fish we saw I’ll be here all day so I’ll keep it to the highlights. Clownfish in their anemones, it turns out, are just as cute as Pixar depicted. Clownfish also make for great entertainment underwater; fiercely protective of their anemones, they will charge anything that comes near regardless of size. The anemones themselves are velvety soft and a hand placed in the center receives a pleasant massage by the hundreds of tentacles. At one point, I came across a cave of lionfish which reminded me very much of a pride of lions watching over their territory in an underwater savannah.

Lionfish over a reef (picture credit to AMPFD)

My dive guide had a metal baton that he used to signal and to point out interesting sights. At one point he coxed a mantis shrimp to attack the baton; the attack was so fast you could only hear the loud clang and see the dent left in the metal.

Clearly, I have to go again!

Third trip begins

Well it’s been awhile since the last posting. This is where your typical blogger would insert a decent excuse but I have none nor am I a blogger by any metric.

I’m back in Manila for my third (and hopefully last) stint of the year. The planned stay this time will be about a month, plus or minus a week. Realistically there is a much more complicated description of the length of my stay. It may look something like this.

But enough complaining, back to blogging! Speaking of which, I think it will definitely be hard to come up with daily or even weekly updates. When I landed during my first trip, everything was new and strange; everything was ink worthy. During the second trip I noticed what I had previously missed and wrote about that. Now the strange has become expected and the bizarre has become normal. What does one write about under these circumstances? Work? Gossip? The latest and greatest Filipino movies? I’ll spare you from all three. Instead I plan to escape on the weekends: head for the hills, flee the country, etc. We’ll see what happens.

Obligatory weather report: Apparently there is a typhoon passing through. I haven’t been able to pinpoint where exactly this typhoon is passing, but from the amount of rain fall and wind speed I’ve seen it seems to be passing through in the vicinity of India.

Security Theater

I know people complain about it in the States (I know because I'm one of them) . TSA confiscating explosive liquids over a certain volume. HS arbitrarily raising the terror alert. There are an increasing number of examples. But here, security theater is an art form.
There are two things you must understand:
1) In the Philippines security guards have fancy uniforms and badges that read "Philippine National Guard". I'm not sure but I think it's a company that named themselves that (or at least something similar enough to the real thing). Shear marketing genius!
2) The security guards most important tool is the log book. It doesn't matter what happens as long as it has been logged, timestamped, and signed.

Today I was carrying a $13,000 power supply out of the facility to do an outdoor test. I was stopped by a security guard
- "Excuse me sir, what is that?"
- "A power supply."
-"Okay, can you sign sir?"
And I swear the log book had dutifully markde and timestamped the following with a space following for my signiature:
7/11 14:38 Matthieu Reich leaves with power supply
Never mind that the power supply costs a fortune. Never mind that I could have gone anywhere with that power supply. Never mind that the power supply could just be the casing and inside are 14 karat gold bars I'm stealing (and yes, we do have some in stock as any good solar company should).

The interesting part is that this is not the story of just one security guard, there is an entire industry here built around providing in-security!

Mall security is a blast! You walk through a metal detector in a tin foil hat without a peep.
7/07 12:04 Unknown white guy walked into mall. I did not search his bag because he was white. My metal detecting baton didn't beep as I swiped it up and down as he walked past. Not sure if the batteries are working because he was carrying 3-4 coins, a large metal Leatherman, and a bag with several metal buckles.

Each time we leave the facility, the security guards at the gate open the trunk of the car, look in, close the trunk, and wave us through. You can bet that it was logged each time.
7/09 17:42 Matthieu Reich leaves the facility. In the trunk of the car was one bag (contents unknown because it's not my job to open bags). In the passenger seat was a laptop bag (again contents unknown). I hope there was nothing in either bag that he is stealing for industrial espionage, to sell on the black market, or to decorate his apartment.

Each time we get to the staff house a security guard opens the gate and waves us through. But I'm sure if we got robbed, the thief would get equal treatment: logged, timestamped and signed.
7/13 23:52 Unknown man in black jumpsuit and ski mask slips into downstairs window. Same man leaves 2 minutes later with TV in hand.

The crazy thing is that the lack of proper security guards doesn't make me feel unsafe in this country.* Quite the opposite!** It's as if the criminals are given no challenge so there is no incentive to pull of daring heists culminating in heart pounding freeway chases.

* How's that for a triple negative?
** Sweet! A quadruple negative!

Just when this place couldn't get any stranger

1) They have neon pink dragonflies. They look like suspended drops of Hawaiian Punch soda flying around. I tried to get photographic evidence of the encounter but the dragonfly decided to make a game of flying into focus, pausing long enough for the camera auto focus to grind into place, then zip out of view. What this means is that I won't be sharing my dozen pictures of grass or twigs with you.

2) Everyone wants to be whiter! They sell soap that bleaches your skin whiter, a drink that makes you grow 3 inches, clothes that only white people wear, and houses that turn their occupants magically into wealthy, white folk. How many morality tales revolve around the theme "Be careful what you wish for"? Being white in the Philippines is terrible: everyone stares at you, you get sunburned walking to the car, you're sent to the 5XL rack to look for clothes to fit, and your house falls down because it was built on reclaimed land.

3) It rains twice daily like clockwork. You'd think the rain would keep the temperature down, but that would be too normal. The friction and impact of rain striking the pavement seems to warm up the atmosphere. It's that or the 20 cars idling in the parking lot with the AC blasting.

4) Believe it or not, my glasses fog up every time I get out of a car or leave a building.

At least this place keeps me on my toes!

I made this shirt nearly 1000 days ago and today is its day!


Sadly no one is here to see it,
Happy 777 Day!

Landed

Well it's been forever since my last (and first) post here. That shouldn't actually surprise anyone, me least of all. A shift in the intension of the blog may increase my posting regularity, so I'll change this to a travel log / work log.

Here's my itinerary for the next months:
July 5th - July 19th: Manila, Philippines for work
July 20th - July 28th: Tortola, British Virgin Ilses for vacation
Aug 2nd - Aug 31st: Manila, Philippines for work


When we landed this morning the captain said over the PA:
"This is your captain speaking: you have just witnessed another perfect landing! The local time in Manila is 4am and the temperature is 31C with 88% humidity"
Between this and the last trip I managed to forget what effect that heat has, especially once you take that first step out of the airport.
Here is one in a long string of pictures that doesn't quite do the reality justice:
The afternoon storm just broke somewhere over our heads and the immense sound of the rain drowns out everything. Just rain mind you, not thunder... yet. I'm beginning to imagine a 747 hovering over the house because nothing else compares.

Hopefully I'll keep the updates coming. My main worry is the fact that I'll be working quite a bit and will have little time to do anything worth posting.