September
2006
I arrived in Manila after a long flight from Detroit (via Nagoya,
Japan). Immigration and Customs were no problem, and all my
bags
made it, though I had to wait quite a while for the last piece.
The baggage carousel was filled with huge cardboard boxes
with
people's names and addresses written on the outside. They
were
"Balikbayan" boxes - gifts brought by Filipinos that have been living
abroad and are returning for a visit or to stay.
I changed $5 at the counter just past Customs so that I'd have money to
tip the taxi driver. The Nissan taxi stand was outside and to
the
left of the terminal and in a little office that said "Rental Cars."
Traffic wasn't too bad and even though it was 11:30 pm, there
was
someone at the desk of BSA Suites in Makati City. I had to
tell
the driver which street I wanted - apparently there are quite a few BSA
Suites around. I found out later that the ride from the
airport
was P700, so I should have tipped the driver more - 10% is considered
appropriate.
The suite was nice, though the air conditioner was right by the bed and
came on every 10 minutes or so during the night, so I didn't sleep well
my first two nights. There's a 12 hour time difference
between
EDT and the local time. I woke up at 5 am, and construction
started on the building right outside my balcony at 7.
Shortly
after 8 am, the PAEF driver, Fred, picked me up and took me to the
Fulbright office. The office opens at 8, so if you're a
Fulbrighter who's just arrived in Manila, ask to have your breakfast at
7:30. I had smoked milky fish (bangus) which came with rice,
egg,
and a bit of tomato and cucumber salad. I had asked for a
wake-up
call, but it came the first day at 7 pm and not at all after that.
I'd recommend a travel alarm clock instead, which I failed to
bring. However, so far I've been awake by 6 am every day, so
it
hasn't been a problem, and now I have a cell phone that has an alarm.
One of the things I quickly learned is that security guards are very
common in Makati City (and elsewhere). The area is full of
banks,
embassies, and government buildings, and now I'm used to opening my bag
for inspection each time I enter a building. The Fulbright
office
is on the 10th floor of the Ayala Life building, which is on Ayala Ave.
near General Puyat (Buendia) Ave. It's easy to locate -
there's
an unfinished skyscraper right opposite. The staff gave me an
orientation and then took me to set up a bank account. We
went to
one bank first to cash my first stipend check. I waited in
line
for about an hour - it was payday and the bank was short on tellers, so
even though there weren't too many people in front of me, the line was
considerable by the time I was done. Some people in line were
impatient, but mostly people just waited quiety. Then we went
to
another bank to set up a checking account for me, one where they don't
require a large deposit and a month-long savings account as
prerequisites. We took a break for lunch after that (iced tea
here is very sweet!) before heading to the Smart store just down the
street so I could buy a cell phone. The most basic model they
sold was a bit more than $20, plus a few dollars for the SIM card.
I bought a few prepaid calling cards as well, which are sold
at
P300. Sending text messages doesn't cost very much, but calls
to
the US are P20 a minute (40 cents), which is a lot more than calling
the
Philippines from the US can be.
The next day I got a ride up to Rizal Park, where the Philippine
National Museum and National Herbarium are. One of the PAEF
staff
had to file paperwork for me at the Department of Justice, which is not
too far from the National Museum, so I got a ride with her.
The
herbarium is in the old National Museum building, which is being
renovated and seemed to be mostly empty. They don't have a
very
large collection of Gomphandra,
but I met the curator and was shown where the specimens are kept.
On Wednesday I picked up my ATM card at the bank, subscribed to
voicemail for my phone (it won't ring for international calls unless
it's on), and checked out of my hotel. I needed to take the
bus
to Los Baños, where my contact, Dr. Fernando, would pick me
up.
Unfortunately, I went to the wrong bus station first.
The
Landmark terminal is very close to BSA Suites (P40 taxi ride), but it
only has buses to Santa Cruz in the morning and evening. I
was
able to text message Dr. Fernando and get to the LRT terminal on Taft
Ave., where buses leave about every 15 minutes. The taxis at
the
Landmark terminal were unmetered, and the driver asked for P200, but
when I said I wanted a metered taxi, he dropped the price to P100.
Given the traffic congestion and the maze of one-way streets
in
metro Manila, I believe I got the better end of the deal because it
probably would have cost me more in a metered taxi. As soon
as
the taxi pulled up, two men grabbed my bags and loaded them onto the
next bus to Santa Cruz. I asked for them to be put on the bus
instead of underneath - even the taxi driver had cautioned me to watch
my bags. The men said it cost P87 for the ticket to Los
Baños, so I gave them that amount, which turned out to be a
mistake because they weren't associated with the busline.
They
deserved a tip, but later the conductor came up the aisle and punched
out paper tickets for passengers. I had to pay P87 again for
my
ticket, and P80 for the seat that my bags were occupying. It
took
about an hour and a half to get to Los Baños, where I was
met by
Dr. Fernando. He would have picked me up in Makati City, but
he
couldn't take his car into the city on Wednesdays because of his
license plate number (an effort to reduce congestion). He
gave me
a tour of the campus, showed me his office and the table he had there
for me to work at, and then took me along to an undergraduate seminar
on a student's plot surveys of a proposed mining site in Mindanao.
Dr. Fernando and one of his colleagues, Dr. Marilyn Quimado, took me
out to dinner in Los Baños. He ordered, and the
food was
delicious - small breaded and fried crabs (eat the whole thing),
steamed vegetables (beans, okra, bitter gourd), fish (bangus) cooked
with tomato and onion, and rice. There was vinegar for
dipping
the crabs, soy sauce (with small limes to squeeze into it), and anchovy
sauce for putting on the vegetables. We were outside in a
little
hut, and geckos clustered around the light to catch unwary insects.
I spent the night in a guesthouse on campus. The
next
morning they picked me up and first took me to Marilyn's house, which
is where I'm living now. Her youngest brother (Tita Greg)
moved
out recently so I got his room. We then went back to campus
where
I discussed my research plans with Dr. Fernando and attended another
seminar, this one given by two graduate students (high-temperature
drying of lumber and phytoremediation).
Since then I've settled into a routine. If I'm not going into
Manila for a Fulbright presentation, I go to work with Marilyn in the
mornings after waking up at 6 am and getting ready to go.
Some
days I visit the herbaria (LBC and CAHUP) or the library. I
work
on my list of collecting locations and review my specimen checklist and
compare it to the literature citations I have access to here.
I've recently been copying original species publications from
the
Leaflets of Philippine Botany to try to learn what the different
species are supposed to look like. Last weekend Dr. Fernando
went
to Bohol and collected a few specimens there from a tree that was not
too far past flowering. The specimens don't have mature
fruit,
but the leaves and the tree looked similar to the local species that
I've seen in the field, so at least some of the species are readily
recognizable. I hope to go Bohol later to collect mature
fruit
from the same trees. I spent some time preparing the
specimens
for drying and soon they will be ready to take out of the drying oven.
On days when Dr. Fernando isn't away, he drives Marilyn and me to South
Supermarket, where they shop almost every day, and then he drives us
home. He stays for a while, sometimes for dinner, and then
goes
to the house that he rents on campus. Eventually he'll build
a
house on a lot down the street from the Quimados, but he's quite
clearly part of the family. He's my official sponsor and
collaborator, but he and Marilyn work as a team so she's just as
important to my stay and my research as he is. When Dr.
Fernando
isn't around, Marilyn and I go home via a combination of walking,
jeepney, and tricycle, depending on the weather and how much we're
carrying. We frequently stop along the street to buy fresh
fruit
to take home - rambutan have been in season and the lansones are just
approaching their peak ripeness.
Last
updated: September 28, 2006