(told you I’d show you the sunrise!)

Man, this is what I get for procrastinating; so many thoughts running around without a home.  

Living alone has been pretty good; my summer in Mirrilees honed my stirfry skills well, so I get my share of veggies during the week.  Every day is full of little victories, like buying groceries with my Tagalog at the San Andres market or managing a trip back home at midnight via jeepney.  Although it does get a little lonely at times, it’s also an opportunity to learn new songs and travel around Metro Manila with the other Fulbrighters.

(Lapu-Lapu!  btw, he probably didn’t kill Magellan.  look it up!)

Speaking of which, the fellow Fulbrighters are really great and friendly peoples.  I’ve been really blessed by their willingness to take me around and introduce me to their friends.  Surprisingly, there’s quite the Fulbright network here in the Philippines, with many former Fulbright scholars who are still around pursuing further research as well as locals that have known several generations of Fulbright scholars.  Instead of an drawn-out orientation, each successive year of scholars inherits the network and discovers the people for themselves.  I’ve met scholars researching indigenous epics, Filipino cuisine, the role of media in the EDSA revolution…everyone has such diverse interests and perspectives on the Philippines, and it’s been really insightful hearing them all.

(church-shopping.)

As for my research, it’s picking up…I’ve been easing into my role as a research assistant at the National Institutes of Health in the University of the Philippines - Manila.  I had to make a few changes to my proposal, due to concerns with outside funding.  Instead of assessing the effectiveness of deworming programs, I will be involved with assessing whether or not adolescent females and pregnant women would benefit from deworming programs as well.  Currently, we’re talking with the in-house ethics review board, so hopefully fieldwork will be cleared in the next month or so.  

In the meantime, I’m getting a taste of the life of an RA; when not looking through articles for a lit review, I’m in team meetings with my colleagues or editing manuscripts for publication.  Communication is its own fun challenge; everyone here speaks in Tagalog, so it forces me to really concentrate and practice my sentence-forming.  It helps that my colleagues have been friendly and accommodating, which bodes well for the next 8 months.  

(where i eat lunch every day. mmmmmm)

(waiting for the LRT train.)

And yes, I’m finally learning Tagalog!  My goal is to be a fluent conversationalist by the end of the Fulbright; I even started one-on-one tutoring lessons with Ate Becca, who’s been a tutor for Fulbright and Peace Corps volunteers for 10+ years.  I’m not that great at picking up languages, but I’m finally starting to get the feel for Tagalog grammar; there are no helper verbs to worry about, but conjugation is tricky, and there are modifiers galore; “na” for “now,” “pa” for “already,” and “ba” for “else.” The list goes on.  Lately I’ve been practicing with my cousins, which has been extremely amusing for them.

(yes, this place is for real.)

Music has sadly been at a standstill.  I haven’t recorded anything since I got here, but the ideas are arriving.  I had some writer’s block for the first two weeks, but maybe that was just the shock from settling in.  

I sat in my studio for one afternoon to hash out a new artist statement for myself, and I came up with this:

Haunting, [Asia-inspired] folk music filled with internal turmoil and spiritual overtones.

The [Asia-inspired] part is a work-in-progress; my hope is that living here in the Philippines will shed some light on that.  I’ve always wanted to incorporate my experiences as a Filipino-American struggling with Filipino identity into my music, but I haven’t yet found a way to do it in a satisfying manner.  In the meantime, I’ve been forcing myself to expand my songwriting vocabulary by learning new songs.  “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys is 1st up; selections from Neil Young and Stevie Wonder will follow.  I’m still working on getting shows booked, but I’m handing out demos whenever I can.  

(kids being awesome.)

And as for the ongoing question:  what does it mean to be Filipino?  I don’t know.  Of course I don’t know at this point.  But as I talk more to relatives and locals, cultural tics that I’ve seen throughout my life, in family visits to the Philippines…they start to make more sense.  Little things like taking flyers from the condominium reps at the mall; my Palo Alto mindset said not to take the flyer, since I had no use for it, and I had no idea where I would have recycled it.  But my cousin explained to me that not taking it, that would be a personal offense; it allowed them to complete their job.  And I remembered the concept of “saving face,” avoiding offense and conflict in societal situations; it really permeates all aspects of Filipino life.  Even a flyer.  

So it can be pretty revelatory at times to be a Filipino-American here, to have those two sides talk over each other all the time.  It gets even trickier when I walk out into the thicket of Manila — I blend in.  But I’m outed as soon as I opened my mouth to speak.  Locals are super-attuned to the native accents here, especially the taxi drivers; I’ve had to argue already with one who tried to get P30 extra from me (he didn’t get it).  It’s great though — I feel like I’m finally getting to sort out that part of my life, my Filipino life, and I get to do it every day.  

(cool accidental blur shot of a pedicab)

(me and my friend, about to enjoy my world-famous-but-not-at-all scrambled stirfry)

More to follow…