Second Week in The Philippines

Sunday, June 16, 2019:

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Sunday was more of our lazy day. We slept in and spent some time washing our clothes from the week prior. Unfortunately, there are only two washers and two dryer so washing our clothes took much of the day with a large group of six people each trying to wash their clothes. The most exciting event was an event we had been waiting the past few days to attend. The IWU group at IRRI had been invited to Tito Mon’s house for a merienda at 2:30 pm. Tito Mon picked us outside our dorm in IRRI and drove us over to his beautiful house in a gated community only about fifteen minutes from IRRI’s campus. We had the opportunity to meet Tito Mon’s family which included his son, daughter, mother-in-law, and grandson. The priest arrived a few minutes after we did, which originally surprised me because I did not know that I would be participating in a ‘house blessing’. A house blessing is very customary ceremony in the Philippines. In the Philippines, it is customary to have a priest bless your house after just buying or renovating your home to rid the place of any bad spirits. For the ‘house blessing,’ we all moved outside the home and were given lighted candles. We prayed together with the priest before the priest moved to bless all of us with the holy water. He, then, proceeded to bless the entire house, room by room, with holy water as we followed him about. The last of the holy water was placed inside a bowl containing coins. After the priest had left, the final step in completing the house blessing, as Tito Mon explained to us, was to throw the coins throughout the house and allow the children to collect them. The coins mostly consisted of 1 peso with a few 5 pesos sprinkled throughout. I was able to collect a few pesos before all the pesos had been retrieved. With the completion of the house blessing, we sat down to eat. The amount of food present was much more like a meal than a merienda. There was pizza, barbecued pork, buko pie, cake, and much more. I wish I had not eaten lunch in the cafeteria prior because the food present at Tito Mon’s house was much better. After eating, we spent much of our time sitting outside in the front yard talking with each other and Tito Mon’s mother-in-law. I ate more cake as we sat outside. Finally, Tito Mon drove us back to the IRRI campus while answering some questions about where to find a bank because, a few days prior, the ATM at IRRI had taken $200 out of one of the girl’s bank account without dispensing any money. Back at IRRI, we spent the rest of the day relaxing and catching up on readings.

Monday, June 17, 2019:

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The first full day of work began on Monday. I arrived at work at 8:15 excited to start conducting research. First step in the lab was getting acquainted with where everything was located. I put my bag down on my desk before I was given a tour of the lab and the chemical stockroom. I was shown where my material would go if I needed to store it in the fridge and shown where my lab bench and drawer were located. Next, I received orientation for the C4 lab below the Genetic Transformation Laboratory (GTL). The C4 lab is the controlled greenhouse for the GTL and is where all testing of seed growth takes place. Returning to the lab, I was told of the paperwork I needed to complete in order to receive key card access into both laboratories. I, additionally, met my lab partner who would be working on the same project I was and helping me to become acquainted with the lab fully. If you don’t already know, they are very fond of nicknames in the Philippines. My lab partner went by the name of Dace- a shortened version of Candace. It was nice getting to talk to her and have her catch me up on some of the specifics for the laboratory work we would be completing. I was so excited to write my name on my own lab coat and hang it up next to all the other lab coats in the wardrobe. Everything was brand new from the pens laying on my desk for me to my lab notebook and highlighter. I told them I needed to request a desktop because I had not brought my laptop as a few other of my friends had. The desktop had not been waiting in my office area as I had hoped, but the work was very minimal to get one. During lunch, we headed into town to find the bank for Dilly. I, unfortunately, had to back in lab at 1:00 pm to begin the experimentation and had thought that I had enough time to head into town for the bank and a short lunch. Ayana and I headed back early to work on a tricycle, while Zoe and Dilly stayed in town for lunch. I ended up not having lunch that day due to my unfortunate inability to judge how long activities take. I returned to the lab and began a small experiment with the help of my lab partner. We began by creating dilutions and testing out a new primer kit the lab had received in order to see the effectiveness of the primers with the specific rice DNAs we were testing. During my time at work, Dilly headed over to a booth for AFSTRI (a group on the IRRI campus that schedules short trips to places around the Philippines as bonding trips for the scholars that work at IRRI) and payed for all of us who had been at work during their 3:00 pm time of collection. They had told us during our orientation that AFSTRI was headed to Cagbalete Island the following week and of course, we all wanted to go. It took little thought for all of us to sign up on this trip to the beach. I ended my work day by returning back to the IT office to officially create my IRRI email account that includes the 2-step authentication process stressed as a key component in internet security. I met up with the internship group to discuss our first full days in the office since we are each completing our internship in separate labs and under different supervisors.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019:

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I woke up early for work since I was just starting to get on a regular sleeping schedule in the Philippines. I sat down for breakfast with Zoe, Dilly, Ayana, Priscilla, and Jenny as we were getting ready to start our day at the lab. I’m not one for breakfast and did not get anything so I was questioned several times why I wasn’t eating. The main answer I gave was that I don’t usually enjoy breakfast food, so I felt it wasn’t worth it to get breakfast. It was nice to sit down in the morning and relax with the group anyway. We had lunch together at the cafeteria after the morning portion of our lab work. At the lab, I repeated the same experiment as the day prior with a few adjustments to the methods as well as I used different primers to test for better results. After work, Angela, Ivan, Jenny, Zoe, and Priscilla headed into to town for dinner. Ayana and Jeshua weren’t present because their research group at work decided to have a team building activity at a hot springs nearby. Ironically, I was told our trip into to town was to find ramen to have for dinner, but, instead, we ended up at a Korean restaurant with only two out of the seven of us even ordering ramen. The food I got was very delicious pasta that had some kick to it. Although, typically food in the Philippines is not spicy- even the hot sauce is tame in comparison to the spicy food back home. I, additionally, order a milkshake since the restaurant had an extensive menu of coffees, milkshakes, teas, and other drinks.The drink was delicious and I had almost finished the entire jar far before getting my meal. We headed to the store right after finishing our meal to buy some snacks for the night. The group of us were super excited to spend the rest of the night relaxing since we did not have to wake up early the following day. We spent the rest of the night relaxing and talking in the dorm rooms with Jaymar joining us back at the dorms as well as Ayana and Jeshua returning from their fun night of team bonding.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019:

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Wednesday was a revered saint’s birthday, which means, for the very Catholic northern portion of the Philippines, it was a national holiday. For us, this meant that we did not have work this day and could spend it exploring the town like we wanted to. We were given the opportunity to sleep in and eat lunch at the cafeteria before taking the shuttle out to UP (University of the Philippines) Gate and heading into LB square (also commonly called the grove because of how many shops and restaurants rest on the single street). Our plan for the day was to head toward this nice beauty salon in town to get a massage like the group before us had hyped so much. When we arrived in our large group of Jaymar, Ivan, Angela, Ayana, Zoe, Dilly, Jenny, Priscilla and me, we were immediately told that the group would have to separate because they did not have enough people to complete those massages at the same time. We split up into a group of five and a group of four. I happened to be in the first group of five that included Zoe, Dilly, Jaymar, Priscilla, and myself. I was excited because this was going to be my first ever full body massage. The massage was also fairly cheap in terms of prices back home. My massage was only going to cost 35o pesos which (with the exchange rate of $1 being equal to about 50 pesos) is only about $7 for an hour long whole body massage. While the rest of the group walked around town, we headed upstairs into our rooms. My room included four massage tables for Jenny, Priscilla, Dilly, and myself. We all changed into our robes and layed down on the table for the massage. I would highly recommend getting a massage because of how relaxing it was for my muscles to no longer be as tight. The only part I didn’t like that much was when she got to my shoulders. I forgot to mention that I have had shoulder issues in the past so digging right into areas in my right shoulder where I have small fissures in the muscle was quite painful, but not unbearable. After the massage was done, I was ready to go to bed. I was so relaxed and tired. Unfortunately, we had to wait for the other group to complete their massages before we could head back to the dorms. In the meantime, the massage place offered us a complementary cup of ginger tea, which we each drank happily. For the hour of time we had to wait, Dilly, Jenny, Priscilla, and I went down a few shop stores to a delicious restaurant for dinner. I had chicken adobo. The chicken adobo is a traditional filipino dish and, in my opinion, is one of the best alongside pansit. The service was a little slow, which we attributed to the holiday, and the food was great. I tried to order a slice of ube cake at the end of the meal, but they did not have any made, so I was unable to try any. Ube is a purple yam that is grown in the Philippines and is something I had never tried so I was interested how it would taste in a cake. It was disappointing I did not get to try ube at that time. Our meal was finished at the perfect time as Dilly received a text from Ayana asking where we were right as we were getting ready to pay for our meal. We met up with everyone and then headed back to the Korean Restaurant in order for Jaymar to get food for Jeshua who was not feeling well and had not joined us on our trip to the massage place. While we were walking, we found one of the walls had been painted with a map of the Philippines. Ayana, Priscilla, and I decided to take pictures with the street art while everyone else was waiting for the food to be cooked. In the end, we headed back to the dorms to get ready for work the following day.

Thursday, June 20, 2019:

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Thursday was very relaxed. It was focused on finishing up experiments at work and eating a casual lunch at the cafe. At the end of the work day, the large group of us that became friends during orientation took the 5:15 pm shuttle into Los Banos to have dinner at this new place called Spice Jar. Spice Jar was a Mexican restaurant, but the food there was not distinctly Mexican at all. It was fun experience to talk with everyone. The skull mural, which was reminiscent of the sugar skulls during Day of the Dead celebrations, was a gorgeous painting that took up an entire wall. The place had several birthdays during the time that we went so we got to listen to a group of the staff sing happy birthday three or four times. The crunchy chicken burrito was delicious despite the lack of it being true Mexican food or having any spice. At the end, several of us shook the macarenas by the door (they had it there to shake to signify good service, but we did it cause they had this whole yelling routine that followed someone shaking the macarena). Our filipino friends then showed us this amazing bakery in town where we could find a wide variety of desserts that all looked so mouth-watering. Having already had a cheesecake during lunch, I decided against buying a dessert there for now. I had plans to return to get a dessert of some sort during my stay because of how much my friends have raved about the desserts there. We, then, took the shuttle back to the dorms, where I was able to chill and talk more with everyone. We attempted to figure out our plans for the weekend. After we had everything figured out, I headed to bed for the night.

Friday, June 21, 2019:

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I spent the day at work helping to analyze the results of our experiments and discussing our next step in experimentation of the DNA. After work, I decided I was going to check out what had been listed as boxercise on the weekly activities list at the gym. It had been the option for workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. No one else in the group decided they wanted to try the workout, so I went alone to the gym to see what boxercise really was. I discussed the opportunity to try boxercise with the trainer and started immediately on stretching, running, and preparing for the workout. The first item on the list was to learn the basic stance in boxing as well as the footwork. The footwork mirrored a little the same footwork I used in pitching when moving forward and backwards, but I struggled more with the left and right movements to begin with. I absolutely loved the boxing aspect of the workout and realized how depleted my endurance was since I had not done any cardio in a while. I was drenched in sweat well before the ending workout portion that consisted mostly of an abdominal workout. It was so cool to have my hands wrapped and the boxing gloves on. The first day I had the opportunity to test out my newly learned footwork and punching skills with the trainer and the punching pads. I practiced moving my hips in time with the punch on the punching bags and even got to try the speedbag again after all this time. After I finished the workout, one of the trainers took me through a stretching regiment and massaged out some of my muscles. This was probably just as, if not more, fun than the boxing was. In the end, one of the trainers explained the prices of the boxing classes. It was 1500 pesos which had me worried because of how expensive it seemed for five lessons throughout the month. I wasn’t sure I was going to return for a second lesson, but I texted my friend to see how much it would typically cost back home in order to see if this was a good deal. She immediately was surprised by the price and told me that back home the prices for a lesson can range from $30-$50. I discussed the opportunity with my family and the group at IRRI before deciding I would return because I enjoyed the workout a lot! At the end of the day, I order a regular pizza to be delivered due to the time constraints of the cafeteria closing at 7:30 pm and my workout ending (after a total of three hours) at 8:00 pm. Zoe, additionally, ordered one on the same delivery. When the pizza arrived, I was surprised to see that a regular pizza was the size of an individual pizza back home. It was still very delicious because I was starving after my workout, but I was disappointed in the size of the pizza. I, additionally, found that hot sauce in the Philippines is not super hot. I don’t even like to eat much hot sauce back home, but here I could drink from the small hot sauce packets fairly easily. In the end, I made a small bag and found my bathing suit hidden in my luggage for our travels the following day. I was dreading waking up that early, but excited for our first travels in the Philippines.

Saturday, June 22, 2019:

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Waking up at 4:00 am for a 5:00 am bus was rough. I am not much of a morning person and this was difficult to get ready for. Dilly and Ayana showed up in our room early in the morning to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the trip. Apparently, they had went to the supermarket and gotten the food during my three hour boxercise workout on Friday. We boarded the bus with the rest of our orientation group who we had become great friends with. The bus had a few more stops for pickup since we were the first before beginning our trip to Cagbalete Island. The road was winding through the mountains and gave me bad car sickness with the twist and turns. Half way through our two and a half hour drive. The people who had planned the trip handed out brown bags for breakfast that included a small sandwich, an apple, and a water bottle. The point of us making the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches was not nonexistent. When we arrived at the port, I was ready to jump off the bus because of how nauseous it had made me. We waited for a while as the president of AFSTRI discussed the payments with the people who had the boats. Finally, we headed off the bus and threw out our garbage before stepping foot on the skinny boat. It was amazing to see how clear the water was. The boat traveled through the waters as the colored of the water changed from a greenish-blue into a deeper and deeper blue before returning to the beautiful greenish-blue color at the shoreline. It was amazing to see the development. After walking this small plank onto the shoreline, we walked on the sandy beach of Cagbalete. We waited for the organizers to get everything set up and began taking pictures almost immediately. Afterwards, we put on sunscreen in the shade as we continued to wait. Although, part way through of putting on sunscreen, everyone else began moving toward our reserved area. I finished up putting on the sunscreen before moving toward the area where I stuff would be held. I put my stuff inside the room and took off my cover up in order to head to the beach. The water, unlike the Atlantic, was warm. Dilly, Zoe, and I traveled far away from the shore to swim. Dilly and Zoe went much farther than I had though because they had gotten a headstart on me. The short swim was interrupted by an opportunity to go snorkeling nearby. Of course, we all decided to head out on another boat to go snorkeling. When we got out to the snorkeling spot, I realized that they had very little equipment to actually go snorkeling (as in they really only had goggles for us to use). Despite the lack of equipment, I had the opportunity to see coral, several varieties of fish, and a ton of zebra fish. It was, as you would expect, still a beautiful sight to see. We spent a long time following the fish, swimming around, and taking pictures to keep as memories. Toward the end, we were diving off the front of the boat and I even did a flip. The photos don’t capture all the beauty of the location, but it does help to capture some of the fun we had out snorkeling. I had forgotten that the boat ride included a trip to a sandbar, so I had been confused when we board the boat and it landed in a different location than we had started. The sandbar was a great spot for photos and there was a small hut that had food there. We explored the mangroves a little before I looked down at my arm to see how red I was turning. I panicked slightly and headed back to the boat to reapply sunscreen for the third time that day. In the end, it didn’t do much because when I got back to the dorm my back, shoulders, and sides were burnt. After the reapplying though, I headed back to the mangroves where everyone was at and stared at this animal that looked a lot like a snake sitting on one side of the mangroves. I headed to the restaurant after a few photos to try and get out of the sun a little. At the restaurant, we tried fresh small sea crabs that could be seen outside of the window of the hut crawling around. It was good, but, due to the small size, there was not a lot of meat on the crab to eat. We, then, returned to the boat to head back to the island of Cagbalete. The boat, unfortunately, dropped us off on the other side of the island, which means we had to walk through part of town and take a bus in order to return to where I stuff awaited us. We finally returned to our original location around three and ate lunch that had been ordered for us. I highly recommend the pansit in general, but the resort had very good fried fish to eat. After our late lunch, we washed off and changed out of our swimsuits to get ready for a long ride back to IRRI. Some of us bought souvenirs from people walking around the beach before we returned to the location where we had originally boarded the bus after the snorkeling. We walked back through town and boarded the boat to head back to the mainland. The two and a half hour trip back to IRRI was less nauseating as the morning trip because I had food in my stomach. We returned to IRRI around 8:00 pm where we met up with Priscilla and Jenny who had been traveling for work. They told us they decided against going to Mount Taal the next day, which was saddening. The guys who live out in Manila arrived about an hour later to spend the night in order for us to head out early for Mount Taal. They overtook Dilly and Ayana’s room which meant Dilly and Ayana stayed in our room for the night. It was pretty crowded for the night, but I was fine with it. I made sure to put on Aloe Vera all over my back and sides before heading to sleep. I didn’t like knowing that it would be another day of waking up early on the weekend, but I was hyped about climbing Mount Taal and seeing all the beauty the volcano had to offer.