Why Haven't I Been Blogging?

Many people have asked....

Well, I feel like things are happening too fast out here and there's just not enough time (or the most stable internet connection) to keep up the running, rambling commentary. There's so much to digress on-- I should document things better. Hah. Or maybe the novelty of being the historian of my own life in the trenches has worn off.

Anyway, I think this blog has reached some kind pictorial critical mass as a travel picturebook (which I'm not too thrilled about), so I hope to spark things up a bit once I get certain life decisions in order and on to a newer, snarkier one. Wait for it!

MIA

Yeah, I know. I've gone dark for about 2 months now. My usual updates to the blog have dwindled in the last couple of months anyway, until I've only been posting pictures with limp, terse captions-- and none of the ramblings that this blog was supposed to house. I'll be trying in the next couple of weeks to stretch my chatter muscles again. In the meantime, my apologies for the quiet static.

Healthy

As a pledge to be healthy this summer, we started cooking more at home instead of buying takeout at the outdoor eateries or restaurants. I also recently started frequenting the Thirsty stand in the local Gaisano for their carrot juice. They throw in about 10 or so carrots into a juicer and out comes my juice, a brilliant orange, yummy but loaded with the good stuff. It's not terribly cheap at around 90 pesos for a large so I go just 2 or 3 times a week. I'm now adding Yoga classes to the mix. 2 hour sessions at the Ananda Marga Wellness Center in Cebu for 2 months for 1000 pesos. I've signed up for the beginning course and also reserved spots for Kith and Grace (branch bookkeeper). I already try to do some pilates and yoga in the morning before work but it would be nice to have more structured sessions.

Boating around Guimaras

Early Sunday morning, I asked one of the local fishermen for the use of his fishing outrigger. A small boat, which rocked in the waves, it took us around the perimeter of Nueva Valencia, which was beautifully adorned with caves and rock formations that reminded me of the remnants of ancient sea creatures. The island seems to rest on ancient coral gardens. Later in the morning, we reached a fisheries research center and I got to see bangus and giant lapu-lapu breeding areas and other aquaculture projects.

For more info, check out the province's web page-- offers list of options on where to stay/what to see from island resorts (Isla Naburot, where I had planned to stay is highlighted, but it's relatively pricey at 5000 php per person per night).

Early morning breakfast -- mango and ibos (sticky rice concoction). Mangoes were only 50 pesos per kilo and they really do live up to their reputation!

We headed out at around 7 am.

Guimaras: Beaches and Mango

Despite stormy clouds and a big downpour on Friday in Iloilo, I decided I had to push through with my weekend trip to Guimaras. Undaunted, I kept my eye on the prize: beaches and the sweetest mangoes on earth. The 15 minute pump boat ride from the Iloilo port made it easy.

I ended up staying at Clearwater Beach Resort, a tiny, family-owned place situated in Nueva Valencia in Barangay Dolores near the Guisi Lighthouse, about 1 hour south from the Jordan wharf. The resort only has 5 nipa-cottage type rooms and the bathroom is shared. You can take a multicab (Fare was steep, around 600php, but Guimaras has very little public transportation heading to Dolores, so you have little options. If you have your own motorcycle, you can transport it from the city on the pumpboat). Knowing how remote the resort was, I made sure to stop by the public market and pick up some fresh seafood. I asked the caretakers to cook the fish and crabs -- all I paid was the a small cooking fee and voila! Freshest seafood that doesn't break the bank.

Microfinance Refresher Course for Field Officers

The expansion phase of the group vs. individual liability lending project has encountered problems along the way. After Bohol, Carcar and Leyte, we decided to extend the project westward, finding ourselves in Bacolod and Roxas branches around the time I took over the reins last year.

But in general we've been having difficulties getting to all the barangays, or villages, in the center assignment list. And now center generation has slowed from a trickle to a complete stop. Recently management decided to freeze all new loan releases at branch level and to give it 1-2 months to build up their loan reserves. Current clients can avail of re-loans but no new clients. Bacolod and Roxas aside, we are just about to enter Toledo on the other side of Cebu, but right now operations will be pushed back. The bank is also worried about the proportion of secured loans to unsecured. It's quite lopsided and puts the bank at enormous risk. The ripples from the economic downturn are making everyone edgy, even at the rural banks.

There's also the PAR (portfolio at risk) issue. Double-digit PAR has been plaguing the branches in Western Visayas, which makes everyone edgy about the project, particularly the individual liability product we're trying to evaluate. It just happens that our centers that have individual liability also happen to have Development Officers who bucked training and policies. In one area, one DO was conducting credit and background checks over the phone, without ever visiting client businesses, center meetings were being disregarded. It's our bad luck that this DO was mis-managing individual liability centers, which makes the microfinance supervisors and branch managers resentful of the new product.

At the training, I presented to BMs, DOs in our project areas, and supervisors the details about the project and the concept of random control trials so they could see why sticking to policies is critical. At times it felt like I was facing a firing squad or witch hunting court in Salem. Even with the head of MFU at my side, many attacked, decrying the product as the reason why centers failed. I countered that much of the project implementation in problem areas was non-existent so in fact it made no sense to attribute the failures of centers to the product. In the end, I'm not sure their anxieties were mollified much. Many can stomach that repayment rates may be no different between the two products but in reality they think that mispayment hits individual liability centers harder because it puts the onus on the DO to make collections (before they could rely on the joint liability structure and ask center members to cover a mispayment). We'll need to look at the data again, maybe run some activity based costing record keeping before we can safely draw conclusions.

Fun and tense 2 days:

Planning the next getaway: Guimaras

After our refresher training for micro credit officers next weekend in Iloilo city, I'm planning on visiting Guimaras, an island 20 minutes from the city and home of the best-tasting mangoes in the world (the carabao mango)! I've been checking out a few places on the web, and an interesting blog caught my eye. I'm not sure I'm ready for a REAL rustic experience, especially in the middle of the summer (that means, NO AC!), but I'm tempted. Here's an excerpt from the blog:

I had heard about Isla Naburot many times in the past. It’s different, they’d say. No electricity, not even a pesky sounding generator. Just kerosene lamps at night. The cottages recycled from old wooden floors. Really not much to do there. But the food, ah the food, is great, they’d all say.

Read more...

A visitor's picture of the place

Check out more pictures on this blog here.

Cooking More...

Kith and I finally buckled down and made more time to cook dinners at home. To get us motivated, we invited people over and these get-togethers did the trick. We wanted to impress people with our culinary feats. In this dinner, we roasted scallops and doused them with butter and cheese. I made a vegetable couscous dish with Greek feta. A side of avocado salad completed it.

New Haircut

For the longest time, it seemed I was sporting doll hair. Long, wavy tresses that felt, when sticking to my neck and scalp in the heat, like a weighty head scarf around my head. As a pony tail, it looked depressed-- or looked unnervingly bouncy as if i were some ridiculous high school cheerleader. I didn't mean to let it grow as long as it I did, but I was lazy and stayed away from hair salons for what seemed months. So now it's all gone. I had it cut off. The stylist was strangely stoic as I described my plight in the black high chair. He just nodded gravely, said, yes, it would be flattering. Fine. Snip snip later, I'm sporting a (chic) shiny bob that, in salon parlance, 'reflects light'. I like it. It feels severe and focused. Like I can kick some ass.

Choice Rationalization or Just Plain Odds?

An interesting NYTimes article talks about the methodological flaw uncovered by Yale's Keith Chen, an economist who wrote a paper on rationalization and choice and challenges the basis for many psychological experiments. Here's an excerpt:

The Monty Hall Problem has struck again, and this time it’s not merely embarrassing mathematicians. If the calculations of a Yale economist are correct, there’s a sneaky logical fallacy in some of the most famous experiments in psychology.

He says researchers have fallen for a version of what mathematicians call the Monty Hall Problem, in honor of the host of the old television show, “Let’s Make a Deal.” Here’s how Monty’s deal works, in the math problem, anyway. (On the real show it was a bit messier.) He shows you three closed doors, with a car behind one and a goat behind each of the others. If you open the one with the car, you win it. You start by picking a door, but before it’s opened Monty will always open another door to reveal a goat. Then he’ll let you open either remaining door.

Suppose you start by picking Door 1, and Monty opens Door 3 to reveal a goat. Now what should you do? Stick with Door 1 or switch to Door 2?

Interestingly enough: Writing extensively on behavioral economics, Chen has done studies using monkeys and monitoring their behavior when it comes to risk-taking and aversion. A few of these articles have appeared in the Economist. I vaguely remembered reading them years ago and was fascinated that there this whole world of behavioral economics. Catch the articles here if you want some cool reads...

Funny stuff

A "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Brilliant: http://xkcd.com/ Here's a few:

Poring Hot Springs, Mt Kinabalu

[stories and captions to come...]

Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, Sepilok

[stories and captions to come...]

Sepilok Jungle Lodge

[stories and captions to come...]

Off to Malaysia; Sipadan Island off of Seporna

OK, the tale of what happened on the Malaysia trip. Malaysia was overall an awesome experience. But it wasn't all smooth sailing.

The night before the adventure began, I flew to from Cebu to Manila. I arrived on the last flight that night and had to fight to get a taxi (I ended up sharing a cab with a guy-- we were kindly brought downstream away from the airport by another taxi service and from there flagged down a cab. I paid 150- a little bit more than i would have paid with just the meter but I didn't put up a fight). T stayed over at the condo in Pasay City, where watched we passed the time watching unbelievably unrealistic reality shows.

The next morning, we were out the door by 9:30 am on our way to Megamall where were would catch the Philtranco bus to Clark Air Base. Satoko met up with us at Pancake House where we took our breakfast, loading up on full-on rice meals plus pancakes-- for dessert! (we planned on skipping lunch). By 12:30 pm we were on our way. The bus ride was quick. 2 hours and we were out in the middle of Pampanga flatlands. Bright and sunny. Nothing for miles. It used to be U.S. military base and the surrounding areas were mostly giant entertainment complexes (KTV, bars, restaurant buffet courts). Our flight wasn't for about 2-3 hours so we pined away at the meager waiting area. Frustratingly, Air Asia gave us a hard time with our luggage. We hadn't planned on checking anything in since we were scheduled to catch a flight as soon as we landed in Kota Kinabalu. At the check-in counter, we asked about certain carry-on items and the agent gave us the OK. Once we got to through security, we got a different story. Our bags got flagged-- we were carrying dangerous and highly explosive contact cleaning solution! It so happens that we all visually challenged and wear lenses so you can imagine the uproar we caused trying to make a pass with our gear. The rule is no containers with more than 100ml of liquid. Containers! So you could have half empty bottles, with barely any liquid left, but it won't pass. For the most part, airport security in the Philippines hadn't been so anal about this rule-- mainly because it's ridiculous. But Clark apparently didn't get the memo. We were harassed and scolded for flouting airport security. Strangely, they made no case against our water bottles. So ridiculous!

Finally on our way to KK...The 2 hour flight brought us down into a stormy and rain soaked Malaysia! The skies looked bruised and resentful, and we dodged rain puddles on the way to the terminal. We escaped immigration (I got cross-examined; was it my U.S. passport? My sour look?) and hopped inside a taxi and headed over to the domestic terminal for our flight to Tawau in the south. Arriving in Tawau, we almost missed our flight but were saved by a delay. An hour later we were in Tawau, searching for our driver-- who never arrived! We scrambled but finally made a personal arrangement with some random hotel/resort driver who agreed to make a separate stop at our budget pension house before dropping off his load of resort-bound travelers. We paid about 80 MYR for the three of us. The drive took another 2 hours or so through the pouring rain.

When we arrived in sleepy Seporna we discovered that everything was closed! It felt like a ghost town. We eyed the KFC- the only open resto on the dark streets. After checking-in and dumping our bags, we headed back out only to discover that KFC had closed already!! We were desperate and we pounded on the sealed doors. Maybe they took pity on us, wet and starving as we were. The fastfood manager opened the doors and all we could we do was mouth and sign, 'food' and 'hungry' in gestures that could have won us awards in games of Charades. She directed us to back alley areas where she said there would be small eateries. We found niche establishments still open so we headed there and found places with small kitchens, smoky with spices and flavors making our mouths water. The locals were sympathetic. We were shown a plastic table set inside a small wooden building with dirt floors . No menu existed and we had to describe what we could eat. We ended up up with a stirfried, breaded chicken and noodle dish, as well as cucumber salad. A feast nonetheless. We hadn't eaten since breakfast. We paid 15 MYR for dinner. Satiated, we bought water to go from a lady who was half Filipino and spoke Tagalog (yay!) and headed back to our rooms. The clock blinked 1am. Overflowing with food i didn't actually get to sleep until 2am or so. At this point, I was already feeling the cold and congestion in my chest start to take over....

****

SIPADAN! T signed up for diving and S and I stuck to snorkeling. We arranged the boat and service with the outfit, Scuba Junkie, run mostly by Aussies.

Overall, the service was OK. I wasn't that impressed with the service, but it's cheap and efficient I suppose, especially if you are diving. Snorkelers get the raw deal. Luckily, S didn't dive and I wasn't left drifting alone on the surface in open waters. Later that day, I got into a little snarl with one of the dive masters....it wasn't a brawl but I didn't mince words....[to be continued]

Next Week's Easter Vacation: Sabah, Malaysia

The plan:
Next week, we catch Air Asia on Wednesday evening from Clark Air Base north of Manila and fly into Kota Kinabalu in Eastern Malaysia. From there, we fly Malaysian Airlines to Tawau in Sabah. The following morning we we head to Sipadan-- a
marine sanctuary and protected area where we had to get permits in advance to visit. We'll be spending a day there snorkeling. We've made arrangements through http://www.scuba-junkie.com/ for our accommodations and permits. For more pics, check out: http://flickr.com/search/?q=sipadan

?? After that, our travel itinerary is up in the air. We could go to a orangutan sanctuary or head to Sibuan for more diving. We head back to Clark from Kota Kinabalu on Sunday evening. Happy Easter! Who needs the Easter bunny when you have turtles and barracudas!?! I can't wait.

Maasin, Leyte

Kith and I visited some of the tourist sites in his hometown.

The steps leading to the Virgin Mary shrine that overlooks the city.

Almost there. Stopping to catch my breath and take in the view.

Maasin sits right at the tip of Southern Leyte and hugs the coastline.

The pier where I'll be taking the overnight ship back to Cebu.

Mama Mary! The torturous ascent ends.

The gardens surrounding the shrine.

Back at sea level, a less celestial mama warms up her brood of chicks. At first I thought it was chicken with 10 legs!

Kith and I take a break for some halo-halo at Superchow resto.

Maasin capital building.

Random pineapple plant!

The town church

My tireless tour guide! We rode around on his motorcycle.

Tangka-an Beach, Padre Burgos

Beach picnic. The weather was stormy and winds and rains were chilly but the dark clouds against the rocky cliffs produced a nice melancholy atmosphere perfect for a picnic of a different sort. We ate our food sheltered by the cliffs and sat looking out at the water. In the distance you could see Limasawa Island, best known as the historic spot where Ferdinand Magellan landed in 1521 in his circumnavigation of the globe. I didn't do any diving, but Padre Burgos is best known as a jumping off point for some of the most amazing dives in the Philippines-- areas including Limasawa, Sogod Bay, Liloan, and Tagbak Marine Park.

Kith and the Kitties

My housemate, Kith, is from Maasin. While I was there, he introduced me to his cats...all 5+ of them! And I thought I had too many!

Disco in Maasin

After the week long tour of Leyte branches in which I monitored for our PhilHealth insurance project with Green Bank, I decided to stay the past weekend in Maasin, the provincial capital of Southern Leyte. I earned a nasty cold from all the traveling and long bus and van rides down the island. The damp, cold weather didn't help either; I didn't see sunshine for 6 days straight (the sun broke slightly on Saturday but the downpours came soon after) and endured treks, ankle deep through flooded streets.

On Friday night, the Branch Manager in Maasin invited me to experience all the night life your typical provincial cities have to offer. We went to a place called 'The Tavern' I think-- a disco/bar on the 3rd floor, with views of the mountains. Here are the crazy antics. I was tired but the goofy staff really brightened my mood. Not to mention the hearty Red Horse brew.

Donald (BM) in white and his staff.

These guys are so polite and quiet at the branch, but as soon as the music started, their inner dance demons were unleashed. Red Horse helped, I suppose.

Small world. The tall guy in the hat is the BM of Hilongos. We also ran into him at the bar.

Looking Ahead in 2008

Passing the 1 year mark in the Philippines and having spent the last 6 months managing the expansion of the group vs. lending project to 3 new areas in central and western Visayas, I'm excited that I'll have the opportunity to work on the launch of a new project. It's quite a different story altogether to be involved in a project from its inception-- the rush of designing the experiment-- the round of 'selling' the project to the partner institution through proposals and planning-- and the entry into new areas in the Philippines.

This new venture has us partnered with Green Bank, Inc. again and will be aimed at evaluating the impact of financial training on microcredit clients. Having done grad work in the school of education, it echoes the classic debate topic that has hovered in the backdrop of our economics readings: How do human and financial capital interact? Which has the greatest impact from economic development perspective (what's best for recipients)? Market perspective (what's best for the MFI)? Also when we consider financial education/literacy- is it the actual business and money know-how learned that has the greatest effect or is it 'business values' being inculcated during training? Can business acumen be learned or is it more an in-born sensibility that can only be refined (hopeless business failures cannot be taught to be successful entrepreneurs)? All interesting questions to think about on this project.

At first, Tomoko and I thought it would be as straightforward evaluation as what we did in Peru. Looking at just bank clients and offering compulsory and voluntary training and keeping a control group that received no training offer.

But it looks like the new project has a twist because we will also be looking at non-bank clients, and working with a savings deposit component. While the details are still being ironed out, in general we'll be looking at impact of credit + training vs. credit alone among GB clients, as well as the impact on non-clients. We'll be reworking our project proposal in the next couple of weeks and presenting to the bank owner. In terms of analysis, we'll still be looking at impact on business practices/household outcomes, as well as savings. I'm not sure yet how we'll interact savings and training in this new context though-- whether we will be randomly offering the savings treatments to just training treatment group or to all.

Well, the pressure is on...watching what my colleagues in other projects have gone through, and also the difficulties we faced in Manila when I was still working on the financial diaries , I feel especially sensitive to making sure we come up with the right compliance policies and incentives from the start to make sure the field officers follow the treatments.

***

Project Associate wanted! We're seeking qualified applicants for the position of Project Associate to help implement and monitor the evaluation of microfinance programs and other development initiatives in the Visayas region. The Project Associate will be based in the Cebu area and reports to the regional Project Coordinator in Cebu (me, right now), and Country Director, based in the Butuan, Mindanao. Interested applicants can email me for the complete Terms of Reference.

CamSur Wakeboarding

Wakeboarding is the next big thing in Camarines Sur, Bicol. We dropped by the CamSur Sports Complex on the way to Naga.

Bicol Tour: Albay, Naga

The next day after our whale sharp expedition we headed on a road trip through Albay and Naga. Marlon, Green Bank BM in Naga branch generously gave us the tour. We also met up with former IPA'er, Girlie, who's now doing research in the Bicol region (microfinance in disaster areas). It was a dreary, stormy day, and we braved muddy roads and walks in the cold rain. Bicol is known as a typhoon-prone region, jutting out as it does into the Pacific.

Breakfast at a bulalo resto. We ate Bicol specialties- laing and pinangat (all have taro leaves as the main ingredient, along with a spread of crabmeat, coconut milk and chillies). Closed the comfortingly heavy meal with some fresh mango we picked up in Legazpi the day before.

Our first tour stop: Cagsawa Ruins.

"A church and convent used to rise at Cagsawa but with the major eruption of Mayon in 1814, the church was buried beneath the hot lava. The local people of Cagsawa took refuge at the church but they later perished when the church was engulfed by lava—many lives were lost but their memory lives on. Photos of the eruption are sold at the ruins.

To date, only the church bell tower was left which now becomes a popular foreground in many Mayon pictures. Tourists now flock at the ruins to personally view the majestic Mayon and Cagsawa. Large rocks are also scattered at Cagsawa. They are evidence of the fury that Mayon once displayed. The National Museum there preserves the life of people before the Mayon eruption in the 19th century."

Strange what tourists will do despite the historic import of a place. Here's T.

My turn.

Marlon does Hercules at Cagsawa.

The ruins are eerie with Mt. Mayon looming in the distance. Mayon looks sleepy now under the clouds but she's wrecked some devastation over the centuries. Mayon's most recent eruption happened in 2000. Read more here.

***
In the afternoon, the weather wasn't breaking so instead of doing a hike to some waterfalls in the area, we headed to a zoo of sorts and did the cheesy tour. It was interesting to see the motley collection of animals. I felt a bit sorry for most of them-- the enclosures weren't so cheerful or spacious. I wondered how much support the local government gives to the upkeep and care.

A potbellied pig. He was not happy with me disturbing his peace.

Donsol: Swimming with the Whale Shark

It was quite an experience to visit Donsol, a sleepy coastal town in Sorsogon area of Bicol province. This is where the world's largest fish-- the whale shark (locally called 'Butanding') spend their migratory swim, gulping down the rich water in the bay. The sea near Donsol is basically a big parking lot for these creatures. They mill around and scoop the waters for plankton and 'balaw" (tiny shrimps).

Tomoko and I took a bus out to Legazpi, Bicol, a 12 hour ride from Cubao last Friday night. We arrived early Saturday morning and rushed to meet Mike and Dana, fellow IPA'ers who are based in Manila. They graciously invited us along with their family (Mike's parents were visiting from the States) and we hopped their van and drove out to Donsol from Legazpi. Donsol takes the prize of being the premiere eco-tourist spot for whale interaction activities (declared a 'sanctuary' by the government), though the butanding also ply the channels in other villages.

The boats we board are guided by a crew of navigators and spotters, as well as a BIO (Butanding Interaction Officer), a whale expert guide who gets in the water with us and guides us in front of the path of the swimming whale sharks.

How scary was it? The first time being in the water with them was a shock. They are ponderous and large and while are essentially gentle giants with no interest in humans as food, they are still SHARKS with the silhouette and glide of a shark. They make a sleek and sly presence in the water, despite their size. I didn't even know I was floating right on top of one until I looked down in the water with my snorkel gear. And there I saw the the gunmetal gray body and its tell-tale white spots. It was, well, awesome. I nicked one accidentally with my flipper and it felt like i had grazed a tank. Its tail and body are pretty muscular but they whip with such intensity that you're propelled or repelled in the water depending on where you are in the line of its swim.

Boats ply the waters in search of the sharks but 'dock' a good distance away from them in the water. The BIO then tells us to jump (groups are immersed in staggered fashion), and then coordinates and sends us in the direction the butanding's swimming path. I stayed close to my BIO, holding his hand the entire time in the water. The strong swimmers (Mike and his Dad) tried to keep up and even swam the full circumference underneath the shark and over but even they tired after the 5th jump. The whale sharks aren't racers but they get away in quick twists and arches and disappear as mysteriously as they are sighted.

After the 2nd dip in the water to swim with them, I was less scared and had a better opportunity to observe the depths below. The water was opaque- we had the misfortune of stormy skies and little to no sun-- so you couldn't see much except at the surface. But I did notice in more detail the whale sharks-- their bodies and coloring are striking but what's funny is that they have no razor sharp teeth as you would expect from a shark. They are filter eaters just taking in water into their mouths, sieves that net the small krill and plankton.

If it wasn't for the rumble in my belly (we skipped breakfast) and the cold weather, we could have stayed longer. Amazing.

Some facts:

"Whale sharks can grow up to 50 feet in length. It has a rather wide mouth with hundreds of pointed teeth. It usually comes in grey or greenish brown color with white or yellow spots all over its body.

It earned the label gentle giant of the sea because of its harmless nature, considering it is of the shark family. It has nothing in common with whales except for its size, thus the name. Divers can swim and interact with them and are only known to sink deeper into the ocean when it gets upset. There has been no known attack on humans of whale sharks.

Scientists are still baffled with the large migration of whale sharks in Donsol. These fishes are known to prefer the cold waters, not the tropical seas that we have. One explanation would be the flourishing of planktons in the area. Planktons are organisms that fill the diet of the whale sharks. It is also hard to record the number of whale sharks that now thrive in Donsol. But early studies show that whale sharks can travel 14,000 miles in 40 months and is capable of breeding in different sea environments."

Lunar New Year in Bacolod

My last field visit to the Green Bank branch in Bacolod was timed right for Lunar New Year. During my down time at the main branch, we were lucky enough to watch the dragon dance organized by the local Chinese community in Bacolod. The pictures below catch the view from the bank.