More random pictures

Esra visited me and now she is famous in Kidapawan...

On a visit to Prado, a antroposophic organisation in Luzon. Me, Raimon and Matthias.

Beach...

Water

One hundred Island park with its 123 islands

100 Island ParkJeepney

Ifugao

Flower

Batad waterfall

Batad with its famous rice terraces

A Fern

Rice terraces, UNESCO protected

Back in Mindanao

Hello everybody,

its again been a while I posted something here...

I am back in Mindanao for a couple of weeks and back to work. I am finishing at the moment my anti-television campaign, which I will present to the staff, to teachers and parents. It is a seminar, aimed especially towards the negative effects of television for children. Did you know that the average hours spent daily in front of television in USA, Canada, Australia and EU are 4H a day... That means that, once you reached the age of 75, you will have spent more than 12 years of 24 hours non stop watching television... GRAVE!!!
Another of my new assignments is to investigate the possibilities to use ORMES in organic agriculture. ORMES is a very strange and interesting product, it has a lot to do with alchemy, the light of live, manna etc. I am just started to do research, I hope to be able to make it myself and to see the effects on plants...
And then also, I am busy with decorating our new house and making a herb garden in front of it and planting some ornamental plants to upgrade the place. Yes, we moved house... I live now in a house, specially for foreign volunteers. It has four rooms, but now only two are occupied. I live together with Felix, a new German volunteer. It is very nice in our house, we cook our meals now, and most important of all, I have my own room.

I still enjoy myself a lot here, there are so many things I learned here, and still so many things to learn. I am here already 7 months, over half of my period, that means that time will pass very quickly now, and before I realize it, I will be back in Belgium. What I am going to do once I am back is even for me a mystery... My plans change with the days, but I hope to find a payed job somewhere Africa... But that is only one of the many options.

Next time when I am somewhere with a fast internet connection, I will upload some more photos from my trip and the new volunteer house.

I wish everybody a wonderful and blessed day, hope to see you all soon again.

Ah, also, here in Mindanao we are fine, we are not affected by any heavy super typhoon, only maybe a bit more rain and daily brown outs...

Blessings and love!!

In Kaingan, Ifugao

Hier in de bergen in Ifugao in het Noorden van de Filippijnen, tussen de wereldbroemde rijstterassen ben ik de kerk en de school van mijn over-over-over-groot nonkel (of zoeits) gaan bezoeken. Monseignieur Jerome Moerman was missionaris in de Kaingan, Ifugao van 1908 tot 1958. Hij bouwde er op een stuk land een kerk met school en boerderij.
De eerste dag dat we in Ifugao aankwamen, in Banaue, namen we een trycicle om enkele rijstterassen te gaan bezichtigen en onze driver wist al wie Moerman was. In ons hotel vertelde de bazin dat ze in de lagere school zat toen Padre Jeronimo actief was in Kaingan. Ze herinnnerde hem als een vrijgevige man die hen schrifen en schrijfgerief gaf als ze bij hem langkwamen. In het school-kerk complex heeft de directrice ons rondgeleid en uitleg gegeven. De origenele gebouwen die Moerman bouwde zijn in slechte staat en er is gevaar op instorten, daardoor zijn slechts twee van de vier klassen in gebruik. Er is enkel middelbaar onderwijs, maar ze zijn van plan om opnieuw een lagere school afdeleling te bouwen en de oude gebouwen te renoveren. Met de bouw van het nieuwe gebouw zijn ze al gestart maar dat hebben ze moeten stoppen omdat de kost voor bouwmaterieel te duur geworden zijn in de laatste tijden. Momenteel zijn er 500+ leerlingen. De directrice herrinnerde zich Moerman ook, hij plaagde haar wat toen ze klein was en gaf snoepjes en eten.
Onder de kerk ligt Moerman begraven en er is zelfs een Moerman museum met veel fotos, zijn schommelstoel, pijp, scheermesjes, zijn priester gewaden, een singer naaimachine, een broodsnijder en zijn schoenen en nog wat meer.
Het was goed om dat dorpje te gaan bezoeken, waar normaal niet veel toeristen komen en om vriendelijk ontvangen te worden door het personeel daar.
Blijkbaar zit er nog een missionaris, een familielid van Moerman ergens in de Filippijnen... Zijn naam ontglipt me nu.


Tot gauw...

Sun, sea and white beaches...

Sunset in Bohol

What you see on a beach when you open your eyes...

Eddy Tarsier

Real Tarsier, not bigger than a hand

View in Camiguin

Cold spring in Camiguin

Palms

Volcano Hibok-Hibok

Tuasan Falls, Camiguin

On the boat to an Island in the sun...

My new assignment

Dear brothers and sisters,

My next assignment here in my NGO is to go and travel around in the Philippines and look for indigenous rice seeds. It is a project they always wanted to do, but have no budget to do that. So my task, with the help of Broederlijk Delen, I will visit farmers in the mountains and collect teaspoons of non-hybrid rice varieties. At the moment I am busy making my business card and preparing for the task. It is also a nice opportunity for me to explore the country a bit more, an opportunity in a life-time.
So my next posts (as far as I manage to keep up this blog), will be from different regions in the Philippines.

On an island in the sun

In July I visited the beautiful island Camiguin. It is a small island in the north of Mindanao, just beneath Cebu and Bohol. The coastline is 70km, with some white beaches, 3 volcanoes, hot springs and more. They have a very charming original style of architecture. Wooden houses with ornamental carvings are situated all over the Island. In the Island there are hot springs with water coming from mountain Hibok-Hibok, an active volcano, soda springs, cold springs, waterfalls and many quite good snorkeling and dive areas. There is one small island in the north of Camiguin, called the White Island, there is nothing more on that island than white sand and tropical blue water. On the other side is the island Mantike, where a walk around the island takes less then 15min. There are white beaches, trees in the middle, some houses in the north, and lots of corals and fishes just in front. I also visited a giant clam farm. There the protect and cultivate giant clams, most extraordinary sea creatures, who can grow up to 2m and become 100years old. The once we saw were around 50cm or more. Clams, are neither male nor female when born, but after a while they are 2years male, then 6years female and after that have both sexes. One of the best things to do there is to hire a bike and circle the Island, go as far up as you can on mount Hibok-Hibok (until the stony earth roads really become to rough). Also, I heard because it is more (but still acceptable) touristic than the South of Mindanao, they did not said “Hey Joe!” to me, but greeted me with “Hey friend!”, which I liked much more, because Joe really starts to become very boring...

enkele fotos van in juli...

coming out of the sand

Jasmine by the Sea

Long busride...

Sunset in Camiguin

In the tricycle

Paradise Island, Samal

Hot Springs in Batasan, Makilala

Mantike Island, Camiguin

Frithjof and accupuncture

Scuba diving!