January
2007
I didn't think I'd have much to write about for January. I
had no field trips this month, hence no Plants & Field Trips
page. However, I managed to fill my days, especially with the
help of the laptop David brought for me.
January was the halfway point of my grant, and therefore I was required
to fill out a midterm report for the Institute of International
Education. The report wasn't too much work, though it
required
some careful preparations. As a fellow Fulbrighter found out,
the
report can only be completed using Internet Explorer. Luckily
I
had brought the paperwork with my grant number to the Philippines,
because the number was needed to start the form. The report
mostly included questions about application procedures, arriving in the
country, finances, and cultural adjustments. The finance
section
was a bit of a pain - while I have kept track of almost every peso I've
spent, I didn't have my spending arranged by month into the categories
listed in the report. It took me a whole day to enter
everything
into an Excel spreadsheet and tally the numbers. The other
pain
was that the webpage with the report automatically closed after 20
minutes, without giving a warning or saving data. I had to
redo a
whole page of responses, even though I'm not convinced I had been
typing for 20 minutes - I had checked my watch when I started.
I attended one Fulbright end-of-grant presentation during January.
The presenter had been studying children of OFWs (overseas
Filipino workers). In the city where she studied, 10% of the
population was overseas, with 70% of those being women. It's
easier for women to get work, as domestic helpers or as nurses, than it
is for men to find work abroad. A sad but true statement is
that
the Philippines' number one export is its people, and many of them who
leave never come back on a permanent basis. Middle-class
people
are the most likely to leave, because they can afford the fees involved
in applying for visas, paying for airfare, and supporting themselves
for up to 2 months without a job in a new country. Once they
have
jobs, much of their income may be sent back to family in the
Philippines, making it difficult for them to save money for their own
return. Others leave because it's hard for them to find jobs
here. Many skilled professionals can make a much better
living
abroad. Some of my family members are considering moving to
New
Zealand - it costs too much to apply to Canada or the US.
The other Fulbright activities of January included finally getting
fingerprinted for my Alien Certificate of Registration, or ACR, which
will serve as my exit clearance for the country. If I were
leaving before my grant ended, to visit another country, I'd have to
apply for a Special Return Certificate. I'm not sure why an
SRC
is required - all Fulbrighters have multiple entry visas - but the SRC
costs about P550 and expires a month after the application is
submitted. I wonder if business travelers apply for a new SRC
every month, or if they have some other option. I also had a
meeting with the Director of the Philippine-American Education
Foundation, to go over my grant progress and what my plans
were
for the remainder of my time here. I have quite a few
collecting
trips planned for the spring - it will be interesting to see how many
of them actually happen.
I bought a number of books in January. While David was
visiting
in December, we tried to go to the Libros Filipinos bookstore at the
Filipino Heritage Library, but the library was closed. When I
revisited, it was open. The bookstore section is right behind
the
front desk. Eventually I found the environment section, but
many
of the books I wanted to buy weren't on the shelf even though the
bookstore's on-line catalog said they were in stock. I bought
a
book on tropical fruits of the Philippines, though it really seemed
like the title should be tropical fruits of Malaysia and Thailand, and
a handbook of mangroves of Panay. Everything else I wanted
was
sold out, and the man behind the desk implied that they were
permanently out of stock. He suggested that I try Bookmark,
the
publisher of some of the titles.
I had to save the trip to Bookmark for another day. Finding
it
was an adventure. I like maps, and I have a map of Manila.
I also bought a city atlas at National Bookstore, but I
didn't
have either one with me when I set off on foot to find Ocampo Drive.
I knew that it more or less paralleled Buendia, but as I
walked
more and more blocks north of Buendia, I decided that I'd have to take
a taxi to find the street. The driver nodded when I told him
where I wanted to go, but I had to show him the address again and
again, and we drove around for 20 minutes before finding the right
stretch of Ocampo. Ocampo is also called Vito Cruz, and the
bookstore is actually on the extension part of the street, in Makati
City. The street is one way, which made it a bit tricky to
find
the right block. Eventually we found it and I headed into the
store. I was able to buy most of the titles that I wanted and
that they published, but one, a field guide to mangroves, seagrasses,
and algae, was no longer printed and they had sold the last copy just
two days before. I was very disappointed, but it's just as
well
because I had barely enough cash to pay for the books I could buy.
A very long walk later, I found myself back on Buendia. I had
reasoned that if I headed south, I'd reach the street, but I hadn't
counted on roads that formed closed neighbor hoods and that changed
direction. Once I found Filmore Street, though, I knew it
would
intersect Buendia. On Buendia, I took my first jeepney ride
in
Manila because there were no buses in sight. Jeepneys can be
tricky because you have to know where to get off, but I've been to the
LRT station on Buendia enough times to recognize it. I took
the
LRT to United Nations station and arrived at the National Museum, which
houses the Philippine National Herbarium (PNH), in the middle of lunch.
Back in September, during my first few days in the country, I had
visited the museum briefly, but I hadn't met the director, Dr. Madulid.
He was expecting me this time, though, and once the office
opened
after lunch, I had a short meeting with him before going to see the
collections on the third floor. The herbarium has been
temporarily housed in the museum for a number of years. The
main
collection is in wooden cases in a large room that was designed as an
art gallery. The floor is polished parquet, one wall is a
bank of
windows with tables and chairs pushed up against it, and the lighting
includes strong spotlights that are meant to highlight works of art.
The room has air conditioning, which only the museum
technicians
know how to operate, and the smell of mothballs is overpowering.
I am sure that working in the herbarium is bad for my health.
Besides the napthalene, I am exposed to the mercury that was
used
to poison all the older specimens and to the soot that comes in the
cracks by the windows from the highway that runs right by the museum.
My fingers turned black from handling the specimens - years
of
exhaust particles have settled on each sheet. Despite the
various
chemicals, the herbarium has insect problems. To some extent,
every herbarium has insect problems, but they tend to be worse in
tropical areas where money may not be available to build tight
buildings, buy cases that seal, or run a control program that might
include freezing specimens. I've found some specimens where
all
that remains is the veins of the leaves and a crumbly pile of insect
droppings.
Despite its problems, I find the herbarium a nice place to work.
The lighting is good, I can plug in my computer right near
the
cabinet that has the Gomphandra
specimens, and I am usually the only person in the room, which means I
can play music as I work. The curatorial staff are
short-handed,
and though some of my references extensively cite specimens from PNH,
none of the specimens I've seen had been annotated. Many were
still filed under old names, and it was clear that no one had gone
through them after volume 7 of Flora Malesiana was published.
I
got in the habit of visiting the herbarium twice a week, which makes
for two very long days, and I started by just looking to see what was
in the collections. When I first visited the herbarium, I
couldn't find any Gomphandra
folders - they were reportedly in a work room, being repaired.
I've seen no evidence of any repair work, but I found that
almost
none of the Gomphandra
specimens had been identified as species of Gomphandra.
Many of them were filed under Medusanthera or Urandra.
PNH has a few type specimens of Gomphandra,
mostly not Philippine or repatriated from other herbaria.
During
World War II, the Japanese burned the herbarium, and all the Philippine
Gomphandra
specimens which
probably represented holotypes, or should have been designated
lectotypes, were destroyed. I know that at least 24 specimens
of Gomphandra
were destroyed; the actual number was probably much higher. I
looked at type specimens first, then moved on to photograph all of the
Philippine specimens. The herbarium also has quite a
collection
of Gomphandra
and Stemonurus
specimens from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, but I'll wait
to deal with those. During my next visit, I worked on
annotating
specimens according to Sleumer's 1969 determinations so that I could
sort all the Stemonuraceae specimens into appropriate folders.
By
the end of the month, I had begun to collect data from the Philippine
specimens.
I have established an herbarium visiting routine. If I catch
a
bus at 7 a.m., I can get to the herbarium around 9:30. The
third
floor herbarium room is always locked, so I head to the fourth floor
and stop in to see Dr. Madulid. We have coffee (I normally do
not
drink coffee) and discuss taxonomy issues, then one of the curatorial
assistants unlocks the herbarium and I work until 4 p.m. If I
leave at 5 p.m., it takes at least three hours to get home, instead of
two. I've purchased a stored value LRT card, which speeds up
the
trip a bit, but rush hour is truly awful in Manila.
The best thing about January involved my herbarium visits.
During
my second visit, several women came into the collection room while I
was working there. Two of them had come up from UP Los
Baños. I already knew Mary Ann Cajano, who works
in the
University's CAHUP herbarium, and I had just met Dr. Siar, who works on
Hoya, in
Dr. Madulid's office.
The other woman, Julie Barcelona, is in charge of the fern
collection at PNH. She introduced herself and invited me to
join
them for lunch. I found out that Julie went to Miami
University,
in Ohio, and that her husband was there. That was the start
of
our friendship, and I have the feeling that it will be a long one.
She also introduced me to Leonard Co the following week.
I
had come across Leonard's name before, so I was delighted to meet him.
When I started visiting PNH to study specimens, I didn't
expect
to make such valuable connections with other botanists and perhaps have
the opportunity to join them on collecting trips. Julie lets
me
use her dissection scope and also gives me coffee, thus ensuring that I
don't fall asleep on the bus ride home and miss my stop.
Last updated: February 4, 2007