This last week we’ve been blessed with a low pressure system
in the central Philippines which has brought nearly continuous rainfall and
very mild temperatures. We’re expecting thundershowers and winds for at least
the next 3 days. Some people decided it would be fun to hype up a typhoon coming
this week and people in Leyte and Bohol got very scared. Rumors and gossip
spread like wildfire (which it always does) and the government had to officially
announce that there is no typhoon on the way, just rain. Tropical monsoon rain
which floods the streets and makes puddles into lakes – which pose a new
obstacle to Filipino driving – but no devastating winds or flooding to report.
We’ve been here nearly 2 months and the last 2 weeks have gone
by the fastest for me. Rhonda, the full-time IDEA volunteer who I was
assisting, decided to go home for a few weeks just after Christmas to support
her family and their newest addition born around New Years. Over the holidays,
things really slowed to a crawl in terms of disaster support, both for our
organization and the various gov’t and non-gov’t organizations on Bohol. But
January 2nd we all walked into the office and 2014 lit a fire under
our collective spirits. With Rhonda gone, that left me to become the housing
liaison. Add to that the projects I’ve been trying to move along for the past 6
weeks and I’m a busy girl all of a sudden! It was a quick shift from doing very
little to very busy days and long to do lists, often more than I can accomplish
in a day. My rajasic, workaholic nature is greatly pleased with this, and with
feeling like I can really contribute to the houses and home repairs that IDEA
is offering the long list of families in need. My more balanced, enjoy-life
nature reminds me that I can only do so much and that life is not actually
measured by how many things you do in a day. As many years as I’ve worked to
re-route that samskāra (pattern), I’m
still working on that. I still find myself becoming quickly overwhelmed,
playing the martyr card (“Oh, I have so much to do!”) and even experiencing an
inflated sense of ego and “my accomplishments.” Fortunately, I also get a
regular dose, via personal or outside reminders, that I am not the doer of any
of this. My morning meditations include a prayer of recognizing my emptiness,
not being personally attached to outcome, and offering any “success” or
“accomplishment” back to the source from which it came.
It’d be great to write a blog all about my yogic successes
and how well I am doing at the Universal values (yamas and niyamas), but I
think there is more value – for myself and my readers – in laying out the
mistakes and continuous lessons learned. And remembering that, like the
successes, I also have to let go of the fruits of my embarrassments and
failures and not grasp at or claim personal attachment in them.
Working in the IDEA office has become more enjoyable as I
develop a personal relationship with many of the Filipino employees. For the
first month, I felt very alienated as I really didn’t understand how to work
with Filipino women. I started to read a book called
Culture Shock Philippines that our housemate, Josh, has, but Circus
picked it up and really digesting the poignant information on adjusting to the
personal and professional idiosyncrasies of this dculture. He wrote a great
blog on it a few weeks
ago. One important thing we’ve learned is that direct communication between
people is not tolerated here. I mean, really not tolerated. If someone needs to
receive feedback, either positive or negative, it is NEVER delivered directly
from the one giving the feedback. Instead, it’s spread like a gossip wheel,
with person A telling person B, person B telling person C and person C
eventually passing on the information to the right beneficiary.
I experienced this yesterday morning from the teachers at
the deaf high school where we live. I was assisting Scotti, the American
volunteer teacher, with a new Saturday program and was also asked to share a
few tips on creating Project-Based and Out-of-the-Box lessons. I had a short
meeting with the principle at 8am where I was told that I was not really being asked to teach the
teachers. An hour and a half later, while I was leading an activity to the deaf
high school students, I was told by someone who told someone who told someone
else that I was being asked to teach
the teachers and could I please come, now.
I was in the middle of teaching the students, however, so the students had to
wait. No hard feelings, no problem, just a misunderstanding. Later in the
afternoon I was informed by that same 3rd party “go-between,” as
they are called, that the principle had misunderstood me (she is partially deaf
and had misinterpreted a gesture I made) as saying that I was not going to teach the teachers. So, in
Filipino style, all was worked out, no one was offended and the information
eventually made it to the right person.
Here’s the rub: I have been working for nearly a decade to
embody direct communication. Every fiber of my being wants to be given direct feedback
and to equally communicate with others. I’ve experienced that direct
communication is really the best way to work through hurt feelings,
vulnerabilities, share a work environment and personal relationship, and to not
let things fester or turn into complaining, politics or drama. If you are a
westerner, and especially a person for whom awareness and consciousness are
values, you probably appreciate direct communication just as much as me. So I’ve
found myself wondering how to fit in so as to be able to contribute the best I
can to the local environment but also not play in to office politics and
gossip. Here is where not speaking Bisayan, the local language, is actually a
plus because I don’t have to hear the gossip that others talk about most of the
day. And they are free to say whatever they want about me without me understanding
or having the chance to be embarrassed or take it personally. Even seemingly little things like whether or
not to accept food you are offered and to make small talk before diving into a
work issue can really upset people if you don’t follow social protocol. And if
you do many a mistake, which I do every day, no one will tell. The same is
true, btw, for locals or foreigners. They’ll just talk amongst themselves and
deny there is every a problem. Sigh. Perhaps the hardest part is watching my
own judgments about how detrimental that is to a society and not just being
able to say, “that’s just the way it is.” I think there can be a happy medium
of not playing into what I perceive as destructive behavior, even if it is the
cultural norm, while trying to stay away from judgments or thinking my way is
better. To exaggerate the point, even if everyone around me were burning people
at the stake, I wouldn’t do it just to fit in. I hope. Certainly, walking the
self-seeking path has taught me that fitting in is not really important, but
respecting people’s choices and values and supporting wherever people are on
their own path/culture/personal expectations/faith/etc is important. It’s harder
to change the world if you’ve alienated yourself beyond redemption and no one
wants to support you.
And now an uplifting story: A few weeks ago Circus mentioned
wanting to play Monopoly. We live in a little cottage with Josh, an American
volunteer, and Scotti his girlfriend who lives in the school spends but most of
her daylight hours at the cottage. So the four of us hang out in the mornings
and evenings with not much to distract us. And sometimes distractions are nice.
Circus started looking around online and found a downloadable & printable
Monopoly game. He printed the game board and Chance/Community Chest cards,
downloaded the property values, and we borrowed dice from Dennis, IDEA’s
founder and our “boss.” We all found something around the house for a game
piece. Circus used a Davey Crocket keychain that the Mother Superior of
Bellefonte Parish gave him. I used a small Buddha figurine. Josh used a Centavo
coin, and Scotti used the cap to a perfume bottle. We hand-wrote the real
estate cards as we bought them and kept a running bank statement instead of
printing paper money. And it was down home, American fun! This morning we
played for the 3rd time and it has given us about 12 hours of
enjoyment. We appreciate it more as we had to make it ourselves. Nothing comes
easy here, which perhaps makes it easier to laugh together.
I’m really trying to separate work from home, but that is
difficult when everyone you live with you also work with. Circus and I find ourselves talking about
work every evening, even when we try to create a boundary. We share about our
day, which inevitably leads to a discussion about the events and people, which
leads to conversations about other work events and people, which leads to talk
about building shelter, meetings, progress at work, the great need and how
slowly it’s being met, colleagues, politics, etc, etc. Creating those firm
boundaries is important for me, and that is on my new list of goals, especially
as I decided to stay here for another month. The organizational team for IDEA’s
disaster relief shelter building is quite small, 6 people including us, and I
personally feel like my contribution is beneficial and in line with my personal
mission and that of IDEA. Josh and Scotti were really sweet in encouraging us
to stay, and Dennis and Brian let us know last week that we would be
appreciated if we wanted to stay, but that we were of course free to move on to
our next destination. I can’t begin to go into detail about the challenges,
trials, learning curve, moments of connection, frustration, appreciation,
laughter and tears that I’ve experienced on Bohol, but I’ll just say that I’m
in for at least another few weeks. It’s been an emotional roller coaster and,
as I was reflecting during my morning practice today, as long as I can return
to my center regularly, I can handle what life throws my way. Even in those
moments when I say to myself, as I’m sure you do, “I cannot handle this,”
there’s that little voice that whispers, “Yes, you can.”
